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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Infelice, by Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Infelice
+
+
+Author: Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
+
+
+
+Release Date: February 8, 2006  [eBook #17718]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INFELICE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Roy Brown
+
+
+
+INFELICE
+
+by
+
+AUGUSTA J. EVANS WILSON
+
+Author of "At the Mercy of Tiberius", "St. Elmo" Etc.
+
+1902
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                   "The grace of God forbid
+           We should be overbold to lay rough hands
+           On any man's opinion. For opinions
+           Are, certes, venerable properties,
+           And those which show the most decrepitude
+           Should have the gentlest handling."
+                                              VANINI
+
+
+
+
+London
+James Nisbet & Co. Limited
+21 Berners Street
+
+
+
+
+INFELICE
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Did you tell her that Dr. Hargrove is absent?"
+
+"I did, ma'am; but she says she will wait."
+
+"But, Hannah, it is very uncertain when he will return, and the night
+is so stormy he may remain in town until to-morrow. Advise her to
+call again in the morning."
+
+"I said as much at the door, but she gave me to understand she came a
+long way, and should not leave here without seeing the Doctor. She
+told the driver of the carriage to call for her in about two hours,
+as she did not wish to miss the railroad train."
+
+"Where did you leave her? Not in that cold, dark parlour, I hope?"
+
+"She sat down on one of the hall chairs, and I left her there."
+
+"A hospitable parsonage reception! Do you wish her to freeze? Go and
+ask her into the library, to the fire."
+
+As Hannah left the room, Mrs. Lindsay rose and added two sticks of
+oak wood to the mass of coals that glowed between the shining brass
+andirons; then carefully removed farther from the flame on the hearth
+a silver teapot and covered dish, which contained the pastor's
+supper.
+
+"Walk in, madam. I promise you nobody shall interfere with you. Miss
+Elise, she says she wishes to see no one but the Doctor."
+
+Hannah ushered the visitor in, and stood at the door, beckoning to
+her mistress, who paused irresolute, gazing curiously at the muffled
+form and veiled face of the stranger.
+
+"Do not allow me to cause you any inconvenience, madam. My business
+is solely with Dr. Hargrove, and I do not fear the cold."
+
+The voice of the visitor was very sweet though tremulous, and she
+would have retreated, but Mrs. Lindsay put her hand on the bolt of
+the door, partly closing it.
+
+"Pray be seated. This room is at your disposal. Hannah, bring the tea
+things into the dining-room, and then you need not wait longer; I
+will lock the doors after my brother comes in."
+
+With an ugly furrow of discontent between her heavy brows, Hannah
+obeyed, and as she renewed the fire smouldering in the dining-room,
+she slowly shook her grizzled head: "Many a time I have heard my
+father say, 'Mystery breeds misery,' and take my word for it, there
+is always something wrong when a woman shuns women-folks, and hunts
+sympathy and advice from men."
+
+"Hush, Hannah! Charity,--charity; don't forget that you live in a
+parsonage, where 'sounding brass or tinkling cymbals' are not
+tolerated. All kinds of sorrow come here to be cured, and I fear that
+lady is in distress. Did you notice how her voice trembled?"
+
+"Well, I only hope no silver will be missing to-morrow. I must make
+up my buckwheat, and set it to rise. Good-night, Miss Elise."
+
+It was a tempestuous night in the latter part of January, and
+although the rain, which had fallen steadily all day, ceased at dark,
+the keen blast from the north shook the branches of the ancient trees
+encircling the parsonage, and dashed the drops in showers against the
+windows. Not a star was visible, and as the night wore on the wind
+increased in violence, roaring through leafless elm limbs, and
+whistling drearily around the corners of the old brick house, whose
+ivy-mantled chimneys had battled with the storms of seventy years.
+
+The hands of the china clock on the dining-room mantlepiece pointed
+to nine, and Mrs. Lindsay expected to hear the clear sweet strokes of
+the pendulum, when other sounds startled her; the sharp, shrill bark
+of a dog, and impatient scratching of paws on the hall door. As she
+hurried forward and withdrew the inside bolt, a middle-aged man
+entered, followed by a bluish-grey Skye terrier.
+
+"Peyton, what kept you so late?"
+
+"I was called to Beechgrove to baptize Susan Moffat's only daughter.
+The girl died at eight o'clock, and I sat awhile with the stricken
+mother, trying to comfort her. Poor Susan! it is a heavy blow, for
+she idolized the child. Be quiet, Biörn."
+
+Mr. Hargrove was leisurely divesting himself of his heavy overcoat,
+and the terrier ran up and down the hall, holding his nose high in
+the air, and barking furiously.
+
+"Biörn's instincts rarely deceive him. A stranger is waiting in the
+library to see you. Before you go in, let me give you your supper,
+for you must be tired and hungry."
+
+"Thank you, Elise, but first I must see this visitor, whose errand
+may be urgent."
+
+He opened the door of the library, and entered so quietly that the
+occupant seemed unaware of his presence.
+
+A figure draped in black sat before the table which was drawn close
+to the hearth, and the arms were crossed wearily, and the head bowed
+upon them. The dog barked and bounded toward her, and then she
+quickly rose, throwing back her veil, and eagerly advancing.
+
+"You are the Rev. Peyton Hargrove?"
+
+"I am. What can I do for you, madam? Pray take this rocking chair."
+
+She motioned it away, and exclaimed:
+
+"Can you too have forgotten me?"
+
+A puzzled expression crossed his countenance as he gazed searchingly
+at her, then shook his head.
+
+The glare of the fire, and the mellow glow of the student's lamp fell
+full on the pale features, whose exceeding delicacy is rarely found
+outside of the carved gems of the Stosch or Albani Cabinets. On camei
+and marble dwell the dainty moulding of the oval cheek, the airy
+arched tracery of the brows, the straight, slender nose, and clearly
+defined cleft of the rounded chin, and nature only now and then
+models them as a whole, in flesh. It was the lovely face of a young
+girl, fair as one of the Frate's heavenly visions, but blanched by
+some flood of sorrow that had robbed the full tender lips of bloom,
+and bereft the large soft brown eyes of the gilding glory of hope.
+
+"If I ever knew, I certainly have forgotten you."
+
+"Oh--do not say so! You must recollect me; you are the only person
+who can identify me. Four years ago I stood here, in this room. Try
+to recall me."
+
+She came close to him, and he heard her quick and laboured breathing,
+and saw the convulsive quivering of her compressed lips.
+
+"What peculiar circumstances marked my former acquaintance with you?
+Your voice is quite familiar, but----"
+
+He paused, passed his hand across his eyes, and before he could
+complete the sentence, she exclaimed:
+
+"Am I then so entirely changed? Did you not one May morning marry in
+this room Minnie Merle to Cuthbert Laurance?"
+
+"I remember that occasion very vividly, for in opposition to my
+judgment I performed the ceremony; but Minnie Merle was a
+low-statured, dark-haired child----" again he paused, and keenly
+scanned the tall, slender, elegant figure, and the crimped waves of
+shining hair that lay like a tangled mass of gold net on the low,
+full, white brow.
+
+"I was Minnie Merle. Your words of benediction made me Minnie
+Laurance. God--and the angels know it is my name, my lawful name,--
+but man denies it."
+
+Something like a sob impeded her utterance, and the minister took her
+hand.
+
+"Where is your husband? Are you widowed so early?"
+
+"Husband--my husband? One to cherish and protect, to watch over, and
+love, and defend me;--if such be the duties and the tests of a
+husband,--oh! then indeed I have never had one! Widowed did you say?
+That means something holy,--sanctified by the shadow of death, and
+the yearning sympathy and pity of the world; a widow has the right to
+hug a coffin and a grave all the weary days of her lonely life, and
+people look tenderly on her sacred weeds. To me, widowhood would be
+indeed a blessing, Sir, I thought I had learned composure,
+self-control, but the sight of this room,--of your countenance,--even
+the strong breath of the violets and heliotrope there on the mantle,
+in the same blood-coloured Bohemian vase where they bloomed that
+day,--that May day,--all these bring back so overpoweringly the time
+that is for ever dead to me,--that I feel as if I should suffocate."
+
+She walked to the nearest window, threw up the sash, and while she
+stood with the damp chill wind blowing full upon her the pastor heard
+a moan, such as comes from meek, dumb creatures, wrung by the throes
+of dissolution.
+
+When she turned once more to the light, he saw an unnatural sparkle
+in the dry, lustrous, brown eyes.
+
+"Dr. Hargrove, give me the license that was handed to you by Cuthbert
+Laurance."
+
+"What value can it possess now?"
+
+"Just now it is worth more to me than everything else in life,--more
+to me than my hopes of heaven."
+
+"Mrs. Laurance, you must remember that I refused to perform the
+marriage ceremony, because I believed you were both entirely too
+young. Your grandmother who came with you assured me she was your
+sole guardian, and desired the marriage, and your husband, who seemed
+to me a mere boy, quieted my objections by producing the license,
+which he said exonerated me from censure, and relieved me of all
+responsibility. With that morning's work I have never felt fully
+satisfied, and though I know that any magistrate would probably have
+performed the ceremony, I have sometimes thought I acted rashly, and
+have carefully kept that license as my defence and apology."
+
+"Thank God, that it has been preserved. Give it to me."
+
+"Pardon me if I say frankly, I prefer to retain it. All licenses are
+recorded by the officer who issued them, and by applying to him you
+can easily procure a copy."
+
+"Treachery baffles me there. A most opportune fire broke out eighteen
+months ago in the room where those records were kept, and although
+the court house was saved, the book containing my marriage license
+was of course destroyed."
+
+"But the clerk should be able to furnish a certificate of the facts."
+
+"Not when he has been bribed to forget them. Please give me the paper
+in your possession."
+
+She wrung her slender fingers, and her whole frame trembled like a
+weed on some bleak hillside, where wintry winds sweep unimpeded.
+
+A troubled look crossed the grave, placid countenance of the pastor,
+and he clasped his hands firmly behind him, as if girding himself to
+deny the eloquent pleading of the lovely dark eyes.
+
+"Sit down, madam, and listen to----"
+
+"I cannot! A restless fever is consuming me, and nothing but the
+possession of that license can quiet me. You have no right to
+withhold it,--you cannot be so cruel, so wicked,--unless you also
+have been corrupted, bought off!"
+
+"Be patient enough to hear me. I have always feared there was
+something wrong about that strange wedding, and your manner confirms
+my suspicions. Now I must be made acquainted with all the facts, must
+know your reason for claiming the paper in my possession, before I
+surrender it. As a minister of the Gospel, it is incumbent upon me to
+act cautiously, lest I innocently become auxiliary to deception,
+--possibly to crime."
+
+A vivid scarlet flamed up in the girl's marble cheeks.
+
+"Of what do you suspect, or accuse me?"
+
+"I accuse you of nothing. I demand your reasons for the request you
+have made."
+
+"I want that paper because it is the only proof of my marriage. There
+were two witnesses: my grandmother, who died three years ago on a
+steamship bound for California, where her only son is living, and
+Gerbert Audré, a college student, who is supposed to have been lost
+last summer in a fishing smack off the coast of Labrador or
+Greenland."
+
+"I am a witness accessible at any time, should my testimony be
+required."
+
+"Will you live for ever? Nay,--just when I need your evidence, my ill
+luck will seal your lips, and drive the screws down in your coffin
+lid."
+
+"What use do you intend to make of the license? Deal candidly with
+me."
+
+"I want to hold it, as the most precious thing left in life; to keep
+it concealed securely, until the time comes when it will serve me,
+save me, avenge me."
+
+"Why is it necessary to prove your marriage? Who disputes it?"
+
+"Cuthbert Laurance and his father."
+
+"Is it possible! Upon what plea?"
+
+"That he was a minor, was only twenty, irresponsible, and that the
+license was fraudulent."
+
+"Where is your husband?"
+
+"I tell you, I have no husband! It were sacrilege to couple that
+sacred title with the name of the man who has wronged, deserted,
+repudiated me; and who intends if possible to add to the robbery of
+my peace and happiness, that of my fair, stainless name. Less than
+one month after the day when right here, where I now stand, you
+pronounced me his wife in the sight of God and man, he was summoned
+home by a telegram from his father. I have never seen him since.
+General Laurance took his son immediately to Europe, and, sir, you
+will find it difficult to believe me, when I tell you that infamous
+father has actually forced the son by threats of disinheritance to
+many again,--to----"
+
+The words seemed to strangle her, and she hastily broke away the
+ribbons which held her bonnet and were tied beneath her chin.
+
+Mr. Hargrove poured some water into a goblet, and as he held it to
+her lips, murmured compassionately:
+
+"Poor child! God help you."
+
+Perhaps the genuine pity in the tone brought back sweet memories of
+the bygone, and for a moment softened the girl's heart, for tears
+gathered in the large eyes, giving them a strange quivering radiance.
+As if ashamed of the weakness she threw her head back defiantly, and
+continued:
+
+"I was the poor little orphan, whose grandmother did washing and
+mending for the college boys--only little unknown Minnie Merle, with
+none to aid in asserting her rights;--and she--the new wife--was a
+banker's daughter, an heiress, a fashionable belle,--and so Minnie
+Merle must be trampled out, and the new Mrs. Cuthbert Laurance dashes
+in her splendid equipage through the Bois de Bologne. Sir, give me my
+license!"
+
+Mr. Hargrove opened a secret drawer in the tall writing-desk that
+stood in one corner of the room, and, unlocking a square tin box,
+took from it a folded slip of paper. After some deliberation he
+seated himself, and began to write.
+
+Impatiently his visitor paced the floor, followed by Biörn, who now
+and then growled suspiciously.
+
+At length, when the pastor laid down his pen, his guest came to his
+side, and held out her hand.
+
+"Madam, the statements you have made are so extraordinary, that you
+must pardon me if I am unusually cautious in my course. While I have
+no right to doubt your assertions, they seem almost incredible, and
+the use you might make of the license----"
+
+"What! you find it so difficult to credit the villainy of a man--and
+yet so easy to suspect, to believe all possible deceit and wickedness
+in a poor helpless woman? Oh, man of God! is your mantle of charity
+cut to cover only your own sex? Can the wail of down-trodden
+orphanage wake no pity in your heart,--or is it locked against me by
+the cowardly dread of incurring the hate of the house of Laurance?"
+
+For an instant a dark flush bathed the tranquil brow of the minister,
+but his kind tone was unchanged when he answered slowly:
+
+"Four years ago I was in doubt concerning my duty, but just now there
+is clearly but one course for me to pursue. Unless you wish to make
+an improper use of it, this paper which I very willingly hand to you
+will serve your purpose. It is an exact copy of the license, and to
+it I have appended my certificate, as the officiating clergyman who
+performed the marriage ceremony. Examine it carefully, and you will
+find the date, and indeed every syllable rigidly accurate. From the
+original I shall never part, unless to see it replaced in the court
+house records."
+
+Bending down close to the lamp, she eagerly read and reread the paper
+which shook like an aspen in her nervous grasp; then she looked long
+and searchingly into the grave face beside her, and a sudden light
+broke over her own.
+
+"Oh, thank you! After all, the original is safer in your hands than
+in mine. I might be murdered, but they would never dare to molest
+you,--and if I should die, you would not allow them to rob my baby of
+her name?"
+
+"Your baby!"
+
+He looked at the young girlish figure and face, and it seemed
+impossible that the creature before him could be a mother. A
+melancholy smile curved her lips.
+
+"Oh! that is the sting that sometimes goads me almost to desperation.
+My own wrongs are sufficiently hard to bear, but when I think of my
+innocent baby denied the sight of her father's face, and robbed of
+the protection of her father's name, then--I forget that I am only a
+woman, I forget that God reigns in heaven to right the wrongs on
+earth, and----"
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+"How old is your child?"
+
+"Three years."
+
+"And you? A mere child now."
+
+"I am only nineteen."
+
+"Poor thing! I pity you from the depths of my soul."
+
+The clock struck ten, and the woman started from the table against
+which she leaned.
+
+"I must not miss the train; I promised to return promptly."
+
+She put on the grey cloak she had thrown aside, buttoned it about her
+throat, and tied her bonnet strings.
+
+"Before you go, explain one thing. Was not your hair very dark when
+you were married?"
+
+"Yes, a dark chestnut brown, but when my child was born I was ill a
+long time, and my head was shaved and blistered. When the hair grew
+out, it was just as you see it now. Ah! if we had only died then,
+baby and I, we might have had a quiet sleep under the violets and
+daisies. I see, sir, you doubt whether I am really little Minnie
+Merle. Do you not recollect that when you asked for the wedding ring
+none had been provided, and Cuthbert took one from his own hand,
+which was placed on my finger? Ah! there was a grim fitness in the
+selection! A death's head peeping out of a cinerary urn. You will
+readily recognize the dainty bridal token."
+
+She drew from her bosom a slender gold chain on which was suspended a
+quaint antique cameo ring of black agate, with a grinning white skull
+in the centre, and around the oval border of heavily chased gold
+glittered a row of large and very brilliant diamonds.
+
+"I distinctly remember the circumstance."
+
+As the minister restored the ring to its owner, she returned it and
+the chain to its hiding-place.
+
+"I do not wear it, I am biding my time. When General Laurance sent
+his agent first to attempt to buy me off, and, finding that
+impossible, to browbeat and terrify me into silence, one of his
+insolent demands was the restoration of this ring, which he said was
+an heirloom of untold value in his family, and must belong to none
+but a Laurance. He offered five hundred dollars for the delivery of
+it into his possession. I would sooner part with my right arm! Were
+it iron or lead, its value to me would be the same, for it is the
+only symbol of my lawful marriage,--is my child's title deed to a
+legitimate name."
+
+She turned toward the door, and Dr. Hargrove asked:
+
+"Where is your home?"
+
+"I have none. I am a waif drifting from city to city, on the
+uncertain waves of chance."
+
+"Have you no relatives?"
+
+"Only an uncle, somewhere in the gold mines of California."
+
+"Does General Laurance provide for your maintenance?"
+
+"Three years ago his agent offered me a passage to San Francisco, and
+five thousand dollars, on condition that I withdrew all claim to my
+husband and to his name, and pledged myself to 'give the Laurances no
+further trouble.' Had I been a man, I would have strangled him. Since
+then no communication of any kind has passed between us, except that
+all my letters to Cuthbert pleading for his child have been returned
+without comment."
+
+"How, then are you and the babe supported?"
+
+"That, sir, is my secret."
+
+She drew herself haughtily to her full height, and would have passed
+him, but he placed himself between her and the door.
+
+"Mrs. Laurance, do not be offended by my friendly frankness. You are
+so young and so beautiful, and the circumstances of your life render
+you so peculiarly liable to dangerous associations and influences,
+that I fear you may----"
+
+"Fear nothing for me. Can I forget my helpless baby, whose sole dower
+just now promises to be her mother's spotless name? Blushing for her
+father's perfidy, she shall never need a purer, whiter shield than
+her mother's stainless record--so help me, God!"
+
+"Will you do me the favour to put aside for future contingencies this
+small tribute to your child? The amount is not so large that you
+should hesitate to receive it; and feeling a deep interest in your
+poor little babe, it will give me sincere pleasure to know that you
+accept it for her sake, as a memento of one who will always be glad
+to hear from you, and to aid you if possible."
+
+With evident embarrassment he tendered an old-fashioned purse of
+knitted silk, through whose meshes gleamed the sheen of gold pieces.
+To his astonishment she covered her face with her hands and burst
+into a fit of passionate weeping. For some seconds she sobbed aloud,
+leaving him in painful uncertainty concerning the nature of her
+emotion.
+
+"Oh, sir!--it has been so long since words of sympathy and real
+kindness were spoken to me, that now they unnerve me. I am strong
+against calumny and injustice,--but kindness breaks me down. I thank
+you in my baby's name, but we cannot take your money. Ministers are
+never oppressed with riches, and baby and I can live without charity.
+But since you are so good, I should like to say something in strict
+confidence to you. I am suspicious now of everybody, but it seems to
+me I might surely trust you. I do not yet see my way clearly, and if
+anything should happen to me the child would be thrown helpless upon
+the world. You have neither wife nor children, and if the time ever
+comes when I shall be obliged to leave my little girl for any long
+period, may I send her here for safety, until I can claim her? She
+shall cost you nothing but care and watchfulness. I could work so
+much better, if my mind were only easy about her; if I knew she was
+safely housed in this sanctuary of peace."
+
+Ah! how irresistible was the pathetic pleading of the tearful eyes;
+but Mr. Hargrove did not immediately respond to the appeal.
+
+"I understand your  silence--you think me presumptuous in my request,
+and I daresay I am, but----"
+
+"No, madam, not at all presumptuous. I hesitate habitually before
+assuming grave responsibility, and I only regret that I did not
+hesitate longer--four years ago. A man's first instincts of
+propriety, of right and wrong, should never be smothered by
+persuasion, nor wrestled down and overcome by subtle and selfish
+reasoning. I blame myself for much that has occurred, and I am
+willing to do all that I can toward repairing my error. If your child
+should ever really need a guardian, bring or send her to me, and I
+will shield her to the full extent of my ability." Ere he was aware
+of her intention, she caught his hand, and as she carried it to her
+lips he felt her tears falling fast.
+
+"God bless you for your goodness! I have one thing more to ask;
+promise me that you will divulge to no one what I have told you. Let
+it rest between God and you and me."
+
+"I promise."
+
+"In the great city where I labour I bear an assumed name, and none
+must know, at least for the present, whom I am. Realizing fully the
+unscrupulous character of the men with whom I have to deal, my only
+hope of redress is in preserving the secret for some years, and not
+even my baby can know her real parentage until I see fit to tell her.
+You will not betray me, even to my child?"
+
+"You may trust me."
+
+"Thank you, more than mere words could ever express."
+
+"May God help you, Mrs. Laurance, to walk circumspectly--to lead a
+blameless life."
+
+He took his hat from the stand in the hall, and silently they walked
+down to the parsonage gate. The driver dismounted and opened the
+carriage door, but the draped figure lingered, with her hand upon the
+latch.
+
+"If I should die before we meet again, you will not allow them to
+trample upon my child?"
+
+"I will do my duty faithfully."
+
+"Remember that none must know I am Minnie Laurance until I give you
+permission; for snares have been set all along my path, and calumny
+is ambushed at every turn. Good-bye, sir. The God of orphans will one
+day requite you."
+
+The light from the carriage lamp shone down on her as she turned
+toward it, and in subsequent years the pastor was haunted by the
+marvellous beauty of the spirituelle features, the mournful splendour
+of the large misty eyes, and the golden glint of the rippling hair
+that had fallen low upon her temples.
+
+"If it were not so late, I would accompany you to the railway
+station. You will have a lonely ride. Good-bye, Mrs. Laurance."
+
+"Lonely, sir? Aye--lonely for ever."
+
+She laughed bitterly, and entered the carriage.
+
+     "Laughed, and the echoes huddling in affright,
+     Like Odin's hounds fled baying down the night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+With the night passed the storm which had rendered it so gloomy, and
+the fair cold day shone upon a world shrouded in icy cerements; a
+hushed, windless world, as full of glittering rime-runes as the
+frozen fields of Jotunheim. Each tree and shrub seemed a springing
+fountain, suddenly crystallized in mid-air, and not all the mediæval
+marvels of Murano equalled the fairy fragile tracery of fine spun,
+glassy web, and film, and fringe that stretched along fences, hung
+from eaves, and belaced the ivy leaves that lay helpless on the
+walls. A blanched waning moon, a mere silver crescent, shivered upon
+the edge of the western horizon, fleeing before the scarlet and
+orange lances that already bristled along the eastern sky-line, the
+advance guard of the conqueror, who would ere many moments smite all
+that weird icy realm with consuming flames. The very air seemed
+frozen, and refused to vibrate in trills and roulades through the
+throaty organs of matutinal birds, that hopped and blinked, plumed
+their diamonded breasts, and scattered brilliants enough to set a
+tiara; and profound silence brooded over the scene, until rudely
+broken by a cry of dismay which rang out startlingly from the
+parsonage. The alarm might very readily have been ascribed to
+diligent Hannah, who, contemptuous of barometric or thermal
+vicissitudes, invariably adhered to the aphorism of Solomon, and,
+arising "while it is yet night, looketh well to the ways of her
+household."
+
+With a broom in one hand, and feather dusting-brush in the other, she
+ran down the front steps, her white cap strings flying like distress
+signals,--bent down to the ground as a blood-hound might in scenting
+a trail,--then dashed back into the quiet old house, and uttered a
+wolfish cry:
+
+"Robbers! Burglars! Thieves!"
+
+Oppressed with compassionate reflections concerning the fate of his
+visitor, the minister had found himself unable to sleep as soundly as
+usual, and from the troubled slumber into which he sank after
+daylight he was aroused by the unwonted excitement that reigned in
+the hall, upon which his apartment opened. While hastily dressing,
+his toilette labours were expedited by an impatient rap which only
+Hannah's heavy hand could have delivered. Wrapped in his
+dressing-gown he opened the door, saying benignly:
+
+"Is there an earthquake or a cyclone? You thunder as if my room were
+Mount Celion. Is any one dead?"
+
+"Some one ought to be! The house was broken open last night, and the
+silver urn is missing. Shameless wretch! This comes of mysteries and
+veiled women, who are too modest to, look an honest female in the
+face, but----!"
+
+"Oh, Hannah I that tongue of thine is more murderous than Cyrus'
+scythed chariots! Here is your urn! I put it away last night, because
+I saw from the newspapers that a quantity of plate had recently been
+stolen. Poor Hannah! don't scowl so ferociously because I have
+spoiled your little tragedy. I believe you are really sorry to see
+the dear old thing safe in defiance of your prophecy."
+
+Mrs. Lindsay came downstairs laughing heartily, and menacing irate
+Hannah with the old-fashioned urn, which had supplied three
+generations with tea.
+
+"Is that the sole cause of the disturbance?" asked the master,
+stooping to pat Biörn, who was dancing a tarantella on the good man's
+velvet slippers.
+
+Somewhat crestfallen the woman seized the urn, began to polish it
+with her apron, and finally said sulkily:
+
+"I beg pardon for raising a false alarm, but indeed it looked
+suspicious and smelled of foul play, when I found the library window
+wide open, two chairs upside down on the carpet,--mud on the
+window-sill, the inkstand upset,--and no urn on the sideboard. But as
+usual I am only an old fool, and you, sir, and Miss Elise know best I
+am very sorry I roused you so early with my racket."
+
+"Did you say the library window wide open? Impossible; I distinctly
+recollect closing the blinds, and putting down the sash before I went
+to bed. Elise, were you not with me at the time?"
+
+"Yes, I am sure you secured it, just before bidding me goodnight."
+
+"Well--no matter, facts are ugly, stubborn things. Now you two just
+see for yourselves, what I found this morning."
+
+Hannah hurried them into the library, where a fire had already been
+kindled, and her statement was confirmed by the disarranged
+furniture, and traces of mud on the window-sill and carpet. The
+inkstand had rolled almost to the hearth, scattering its contents
+_en route_, and as he glanced at his desk the minister turned pale.
+
+The secret drawer which opened with a spring had been pulled out to
+its utmost extent, and he saw that the tin box he had so carefully
+locked the previous night was missing. Some _MSS_ were scattered
+loosely in the drawer, and the purse filled with gold coins, a
+handsomely set miniature, and heavy watch chain with seal attached,
+all lay untouched, though conspicuously alluring to the cupidity of
+burglars. Bending over his rifled sanctuary, Mr. Hargrove sighed,
+and a grieved look settled on his countenance.
+
+"Peyton, do you miss anything?"
+
+"Only a box of papers."
+
+"Were they valuable?"
+
+"Pecuniarily no;--at least not convertible into money. In other
+respects, very important."
+
+"Not your beautiful sermons, I hope," cried his sister, throwing one
+arm around his neck, and leaning down to examine the remaining
+contents of the drawer.
+
+"They were more valuable, Elise, than many sermons, and some cannot
+be replaced."
+
+"But how could the burglars have overlooked the money and jewellery?"
+
+Again the minister sighed heavily, and, closing the drawer, said:
+
+"Perhaps we may discover some trace in the garden."
+
+"Aye, sir,--I searched before I raised an uproar, and here is a
+handkerchief that I found under that window, on the violet bed. It
+was frozen fast to the leaves."
+
+Hannah held it up between the tips of her fingers, as if fearful of
+contamination, and eyed it with an expression of loathing. Mr.
+Hargrove took it to the light and examined it, while an unwonted
+frown wrinkled his usually placid brow. It was a dainty square of
+finest cambric, bordered with a wreath of embroidered lilies, and in
+one corner exceedingly embellished "O O" stared like wide wondering
+eyes, at the strange hands that profaned it.
+
+"Do you notice what a curious, outlandish smell it has? It struck my
+nostrils sharper than hartshorn when I picked it up. No rum-drinking,
+tobacco-smoking burglar in breeches dropped that lace rag."
+
+Hannah set her stout arms akimbo, and looked "unutterable things" at
+the delicate fabric, that as if to deprecate its captors was all the
+while breathing out deliciously sweet but vague hints,--now of
+eglantine, and now of that subtle spiciness that dwells in daphnes,
+and anon plays hide-and-seek in nutmeg geranium blooms.
+
+Reluctance to admission of the suspicion of unworthiness in others is
+the invariable concomitant of true nobility of soul in all pure and
+exalted natures,--and with that genuine chivalry, which now, alas! is
+welnigh as rare as the _aumônière_ of pilgrims, the pastor bravely
+cast around the absent woman the broad, soft ermine of his tender
+charity.
+
+"Hannah, if your insinuations point to the lady who called here last
+night, I can easily explain the suspicious fact of the handkerchief,
+which certainly belongs to her; for the room was close, and my
+visitor, having raised that window and leaned out for fresh air,
+doubtless dropped her handkerchief without observing the loss."
+
+"Do the initials '_O O_' represent her name?" asked Mrs. Lindsay,
+whose adroitly propounded interrogatories the previous evening had
+elicited no satisfactory information.
+
+"Do not ladies generally stamp their own monograms when marking
+articles that compose their wardrobes?" He put the unlucky piece of
+cambric in his pocket, and pertinacious Hannah suddenly stooped and
+dealt Biörn a blow, which astonished the spectators even more than
+the yelping recipient, who dropped something at her feet and crawled
+behind his master.
+
+"You horrid, greedy pest! Are you in league with the thieves, that
+you must needs try to devour the signs and tell-tales they dropped in
+the track of their dirty work? It is only a glove this time, sir, and
+it was all crumpled, just so,--where I first saw it, when I ran out
+to hunt for footprints. It was hanging on the end of a rose bush,
+yonder near the snowball, and you see it was rather too far from the
+window here to have fallen down with the handkerchief. Look, Miss
+Elise, your hands are small, but this would pinch even your fingers."
+
+She triumphantly lifted a lady's kid glove, brown in colour and
+garnished with three small oval silver buttons, the exact mate of one
+which Mr. Hargrove had noticed the previous evening, when the visitor
+held up the ring for his inspection. Exulting in the unanswerable
+logic of this latest fact, Hannah quite unintentionally gave the
+glove a scornful toss, which caused it to fall into the fireplace,
+and down between two oak logs, where it shrivelled instantaneously.
+Unfortunately science is not chivalric, and divulges the unamiable
+and ungraceful truth, that perverted female natures from even the
+lower beastly types are more implacably vindictive, more subtly
+malicious, more ingeniously cruel than the stronger sex; and when a
+woman essays to track, to capture, or to punish--_vae victis_.
+
+"Now, Biörn! improve your opportunity and heap coals of fire on
+slanderous Hannah's head, by assuring her you feel convinced she did
+not premeditatedly destroy traces, and connive at the escape of the
+burglars, by burning that most important glove, which might have
+aided us in identifying them."
+
+As Mr. Hargrove caressed his dog, he smiled, evidently relieved by
+the opportune accident; but Mrs. Lindsay looked grave, and an
+indignant flush purpled the harsh, pitiless face of the servant,
+who sullenly turned away, and busied herself in putting the
+furniture in order.
+
+"Peyton, were the stolen papers of a character to benefit that
+person,--or indeed any one but yourself, or your family?"
+
+He knew the soft blue eyes of his sister were watching him keenly,
+saw too that the old servant stood still, and turned her head to
+listen, and he answered without hesitation:
+
+"The box contained the deed to a disputed piece of property, those
+iron and lead mines in Missouri,--and I relied upon it to establish
+my claim."
+
+"Was the lady who visited you last night in any manner interested in
+that suit, or its result?"
+
+"Not in the remotest degree. She cannot even be aware of its
+existence. In addition to the deed, I have lost the policy of
+insurance on this house, which has always been entrusted to me and I
+must immediately notify the company of the fact and obtain a
+duplicate policy. Elise, will you and Hannah please give me my
+breakfast as soon as possible, that I may go into town at once?"
+
+Walking to the window, he stood for some moments, with his hands
+folded behind him, and as he noted the splendour of the spectacle
+presented by the risen sun shining upon temples and palaces of ice,
+prism-tinting domes and minarets, and burnishing after the similitude
+of silver stalactites and arcades which had built themselves into
+crystal campaniles, more glorious than Giotto's,--the pastor said:
+"The physical world, just as God left it,--how pure, how lovely, how
+entirely good;--how sacred from His hallowing touch! Oh that the
+world of men and women were half as unchangingly true, stainless, and
+holy!"
+
+An hour later he bent his steps,--not to the lawyer's, nor yet to the
+insurance office, but to the depot of the only railroad which passed
+through the quiet, old-fashioned, and comparatively unimportant town
+of V----.
+
+The station agent was asleep upon a sofa in the reception-room, but
+when aroused informed Dr. Hargrove that the down train bound south
+had been accidentally detained four hours, and instead of being "on
+time," due at eleven p.m., did not pass through V---- until after
+three a.m. A lady, corresponding in all respects with the minister's
+description, had arrived about seven on the up train, left a small
+valise, or rather traveller's satchel, for safe keeping in the
+baggage-room; had inquired at what time she could catch the down
+train, signifying her intention to return upon it, and had hired one
+of the carriages always waiting for passengers, and disappeared.
+About eleven o'clock she came back, paid the coachman, and dismissed
+the carriage; seemed very cold, and the agent built a good fire,
+telling her she could take a nap as the train was behind time, and he
+would call her when he heard the whistle. He then went home, several
+squares distant, to see one of his children who was quite ill, and
+when he returned to the station and peeped into the reception-room to
+see if it kept warm and comfortable not a soul was visible. He
+wondered where the lady could have gone at that hour, and upon such a
+freezing night, but sat down by the grate in the freight-room, and
+when the down train blew for V---- he took his lantern and went out,
+and the first person he saw was the missing lady. She asked for her
+satchel, which he gave her, and he handed her up to the platform, and
+saw her go into the ladies' car.
+
+"Had she a package or box, when she returned and asked for her
+satchel?"
+
+"I did not see any, but she wore a waterproof of grey cloth that came
+down to her feet. There was so much confusion when the train came in
+that I scarcely noticed her, but remember she shivered a good deal,
+as if almost frozen."
+
+"Did she buy a return ticket?"
+
+"No, I asked if I should go to the ticket office for her, but she
+thanked me very politely, and said she would not require anything."
+
+"Can you tell me to what place she was going?"
+
+"I do not know where she came from, nor where she went. She was most
+uncommonly beautiful."
+
+"Are the telegraph wires working south?"
+
+"Why bless you, sir! they are down in several places, from the weight
+of the ice, so I heard the station operator say, just before you came
+in."
+
+As Dr. Hargrove walked away, an expression of stern indignation
+replaced the benign look that usually reigned over his noble
+features, and he now resolutely closed all the avenues of compassion,
+along which divers fallacious excuses and charitable conjectures had
+marched into his heart, and stifled for a time the rigorous verdict
+of reason.
+
+He had known from the moment he learned the tin box was missing, that
+only the frail, fair fingers of Minnie Merle could have abstracted
+it, but justice demanded that he should have indisputable proof of
+her presence in V---- after twelve o'clock, for he had not left the
+library until that hour, and knew that the train passed through at
+eleven.
+
+Conviction is the pitiless work of unbiased reason, but faith is the
+acceptance thereof, by will, and he would not wholly believe, until
+there was no alternative. _Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus_, and
+quite naturally Dr. Hargrove began to discredit the entire narrative
+of wrongs, which had attained colossal proportions from her
+delineation, and to censure himself most harshly for having suffered
+this dazzling Delilah to extort from him a solemn promise of secrecy;
+for, unworthy of sympathy as he now deemed her, his rigid rectitude
+would not permit him to regard that unworthiness as sufficient
+justification for abrogating his plighted word. Suspicious facts
+which twelve hours before had been hushed by the soft spell of her
+rich plaintive voice, now started up clamorous and accusing, and the
+pastor could not avoid beholding the discrepancy between her pleas of
+poverty and friendlessness, and the costly appearance of her
+apparel,--coupled with her refusal to acquaint him with her means of
+maintenance.
+
+If, as she had averred, the stolen license was--with the exception of
+his verbal testimony--the sole proof of her marriage, why was she not
+satisfied with the copy given to her unless for some unrighteous
+motive she desired to possess in order to destroy all evidence?
+
+Surmise, with crooked and uncertain finger, had pointed to New
+York--whose broad deep bosom shelters so many helpless human
+waifs--as her probable place of destination, and had the
+telegraph-wires been in successful operation he would have hazarded
+the experiment of requesting her arrest at the terminus of the
+railway; but this was impracticable, and each succeeding hour aided
+in obliterating the only clue in his possession.
+
+The universal observation of man, ages ago, simmered down and
+crystallized into the adage, "Misfortunes never come singly;" and it
+is here respectfully submitted--that startling episodes, unexpected
+incidents quite as rarely travel alone. Do surprises gravitate into
+groups, or are certain facts binary?
+
+Sometimes for a quarter of a century the sluggish stream of life
+oozes by, bearing no hint of deeds, or faces,--that perchance shed
+glory, or perhaps lent gloom to the far past,--a past well-nigh
+forgotten and inurned in the gathering grey of time,--and suddenly
+without premonition, the slow monotonous current ripples and swells
+into waves that bear to our feet fateful countenances, unwelcome as
+grave-ghouls,--and the world grows garrulous of incidents that once
+more galvanize the shrouded Bygone. For four years the minister had
+received no tidings of those whom he had so reluctantly joined in the
+bonds of wedlock, and not even a reminiscence of that singular bridal
+party had floated into his quiet parsonage study; but within
+twenty-four hours he seemed destined to garner a plentiful harvest of
+disagreeable data for future speculation. He had not yet reached his
+lawyer's office, when, hearing his name pronounced vociferously, Dr.
+Hargrove looked around and saw the postmaster standing in his door
+and calling on him to enter.
+
+"Pardon me, my dear sir, for shouting after you so unceremoniously;
+but I saw you were not coming in, and knew it would promote your
+interest to pay me a visit. Fine day at last, after all the rain and
+murky weather. This crisp, frosty air sharpens one's wits,--a sort of
+atmospheric pumice, don't you see, and tempts me to drive a good
+bargain. How much will you give for a letter that has travelled half
+around the world, and had as many adventures as Robinson Crusoe, or
+Madame Pfeiffer?"
+
+He took from a drawer a dingy and much-defaced envelope, whose
+address was rather indistinct from having encountered a oath on its
+journey.
+
+"Are you sure that it is for me?" asked the minister, trying to
+decipher the uncertain characters.
+
+"Are there two of your name? This is intended for Reverend Peyton
+Hargrove of St. ---- Church -- V----, United States of America. It
+was enclosed to me by the Postmaster-General, who says that it
+arrived last week in the long-lost mail of the steamship _Algol_,
+which you doubtless recollect was lost some time ago,--plying
+between New York and Havre; It now appears that a Dutch  sailing
+vessel bound for Tasmania--wherever that may be; somewhere among the
+cannibals, I presume--boarded her after she had been deserted by the
+crew, and secured the mail bags, intending to put in along the
+Spanish coast and land them, but stress of weather drove them so far
+out to sea, that they sailed on to some point in Africa, and as the
+postmasters in that progressive and enlightened region did not serve
+their apprenticeship in the United States Postal Bureau, you perceive
+that your document has not had 'despatch.' If salt water is ever a
+preservative, your news ought not to be stale."
+
+"Thank you. I hope the contents will prove worthy of the care and
+labour of its transmission. I see it is dated Paris--one year ago,
+nearly. I am much obliged by your kind courtesy. Good-day."
+
+Dr. Hargrove walked on, and, somewhat disappointed in not receiving
+a moiety of information by way of recompense, the postmaster added:
+
+"If you find it is not your letter bring it back, and I will start it
+on another voyage of discovery, for it certainly deserves to get
+home."
+
+"There is no doubt whatever about it. It was intended for me."
+
+Unfolding the letter, he had glanced at the signature, and now
+hurrying homeward, read as follows:
+
+                                       "PARIS, _February 1st_,
+
+    "REV. PEYTON HARGROVE,--Hoping that, while entirely ignorant of
+    the facts and circumstances, you unintentionally inflicted upon
+    me an incalculable injury, I reluctantly address you with
+    reference to a subject fraught with inexpressible pain and
+    humiliation. Through your agency the happiness and welfare of my
+    only child, and the proud and unblemished name of a noble family,
+    have been wellnigh wrecked; but my profound reverence for your
+    holy office, persuades me to believe that you were unconsciously
+    the dupe of unprincipled and designing parties. When my son
+    Cuthbert entered ---- University, he was all that my fond heart
+    desired, all that his sainted mother could have hoped, and no
+    young gentleman on the wide Continent gave fairer promise of
+    future usefulness and distinction; but one year of demoralizing
+    association with dissipated and reckless youths undermined the
+    fair moral and intellectual structure I had so laboriously
+    raised, and in an unlucky hour he fell a victim to alluring
+    vices. Intemperance gradually gained such supremacy that he was
+    threatened with expulsion, and to crown all other errors he was,
+    while intoxicated, inveigled into a so-called marriage with a
+    young but notorious girl, whose only claim was her pretty face,
+    while her situation was hopelessly degraded. This creature,
+    Minnie Merle, had an infirm grandmother, who, in order to save
+    the reputation of the unfortunate girl, appealed so adroitly to
+    Cuthbert's high sense of honour, that her arguments, emphasized
+    by the girl's beauty and helplessness, prevailed over reason,
+    and--I may add--decency and one day when almost mad with brandy
+    and morphine he consented to call her his wife. Neither was of
+    age, and my son was not only a minor (lacking two months of being
+    twenty), but on that occasion was utterly irrational and
+    irresponsible, as I am prepared to prove. They intended to
+    conceal the whole shameful affair from me, but the old
+    grandmother--fearing that some untoward circumstance might mar
+    the scheme of possessing the ample fortune she well knew my boy
+    expected  to control--wrote me all the disgraceful facts,
+    imploring my clemency, and urging me to remove Cuthbert from
+    associates outside of his classmates, who were dragging him to
+    ruin. If you, my dear sir, are a father (and I hope you are),
+    paternal sympathy will enable you to realize approximately the
+    grief, indignation, almost despairing rage into which I was
+    plunged. Having informed myself through a special agent sent to
+    the University of the utter unworthiness and disreputable
+    character of the connection forced upon me, I telegraphed for
+    Cuthbert, alleging some extraneous cause for requiring his
+    presence. Three days after his arrival at home, I extorted a full
+    confession from him, and we were soon upon the Atlantic. For a
+    time I feared that inebriation had seriously impaired his
+    intellect, but, thank God! temperate habits and a good
+    constitution finally prevailed, and when a year after we left
+    America Cuthbert realized all that he had hazarded during his
+    temporary insanity, he was so overwhelmed with mortification and
+    horror that he threatened to destroy himself. Satisfied that he
+    was more 'sinned against, than sinning,' I yet endeavoured to
+    deal justly with the unprincipled authors of the stain upon my
+    family, and employed a discreet agent to negotiate with them, and
+    to try to effect some compromise. The old woman went out to
+    California; the young one refused all overtures, and for a time
+    disappeared, but, as I am reliably informed, is now living in New
+    York, supported no one knows exactly by whom. Recently she has
+    made an imperious demand for the recognition of a child, who she
+    declares shall one day inherit the Laurance estate; but I have
+    certain facts in my possession which invalidate this claim, and
+    if necessary can produce a certificate to prove that the birth of
+    the child occurred only seven months after the date of the
+    ceremony, which she contends made her Cuthbert's wife. She
+    rejects the abundant pecuniary provision which has been
+    repeatedly offered, and in her last impertinent and insanely
+    abusive communication, threatens a suit to force the
+    acknowledgment of the marriage, and of the child, stating that
+    you, sir, hold the certificate or rather the license warranting
+    the marriage, and that you will espouse and aid in prosecuting
+    her iniquitous claims. My son is now a reformed and comparatively
+    happy man, but should this degrading and bitterly repented
+    episode of his collage life be thrust before the public, and
+    allowed to blacken the fair escutcheon we are so jealously
+    anxious to protect, I dread the consequences. Only horror of a
+    notorious scandal prevented me long ago from applying for a
+    divorce, which could very easily have been obtained, but we
+    shrink from the publicity, and moreover the case does not seem to
+    demand compliance with even the ordinary forms of law. Believing
+    that you, my dear sir, would not avow yourself _particeps
+    criminis_ in so unjust and vile a crusade against the peace and
+    honour of my family were you acquainted with the facts, I have
+    taken the liberty of writing you this brief and incomplete
+    _résumé_ of the outrages perpetrated upon me and mine, and must
+    refer you for disgraceful details to my agent, Mr. Peleg Peterson
+    of Whitefield, ---- Co., ----. Hoping that you will not add to
+    the injury you have already inflicted, by further complicity in
+    this audacious scheme of fraud and blackmail,
+
+                                "I am, dear sir, respectfully
+                                      An afflicted father,
+                                           RENÉ LAURANCE.
+
+    "P.S.--Should you desire to communicate with me, my address for
+    several months will be, Care of the American Legation, Paris."
+
+How many men or women, with lives of average length and incident,
+have failed to recognize, nay to cower before the fact, that all
+along the highways and byways of the earthly pilgrimage they have
+been hounded by a dismal _cortége_ of retarded messages,--lost
+opportunities,--miscarried warnings,--procrastinated prayers,--dilatory
+deeds,--and laggard faces,--that howl for ever in their shuddering
+ears--"Too late." Had Dr. Hargrove received this letter only
+twenty-four hours earlier, the result of the interview on the
+previous night would probably have been very different; but
+unfortunately, while the army of belated facts--the fatal Grouchy
+corps--never accomplish their intended mission, they avenge they
+failure by a pertinacious presence ever after that is sometimes
+almost maddening.
+
+An uncomfortable consciousness of having been completely overreached
+did not soften the minister's feelings toward the new custodian of
+his tin box, and an utter revulsion of sentiment ensued, wherein
+sympathy for General René Laurance reigned supreme. Oh instability of
+human compassion! To-day at the tumultuous flood, we weep for Cæsar
+slain; To-morrow in the ebb, we vote a monument to Brutus.
+
+Ere the sun had gone down behind the sombre frozen firs that fringed
+the hills of V---- Dr. Hargrove had written to Mr. Peleg Peterson,
+desiring to be furnished with some clue by which he could trace
+Minnie Merle, and Hannah had been despatched to the post office, to
+expedite the departure of the letter.
+
+Weeks and months passed, tearful April wept itself away in the
+flowery lap of blue-eyed May, and golden June roses died in the fiery
+embrace of July, but no answer came; no additional information
+drifted upon the waves of chance, and the slow stream of life at the
+parsonage once more crept silently and monotonously on.
+
+     "Some griefs gnaw deep. Some woes are hard to bear.
+     Who knows the Past? and who can judge us right?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+The sweet-tongued convent bell had rung the Angelas, and all within
+the cloistered courts was hushed, save the low monologue of the
+fountain whose minor murmuring made solemn accord with the sacred
+harmonious repose of its surroundings. The sun shone hot and blinding
+upon the towering mass of brick and slate, which, originally designed
+in the form of a parallelogram, had from numerous modern additions
+projected here, and curved into a new chapel yonder, until the
+acquisitive building had become eminently composite in its present
+style of architecture. The belfry, once in the centre, had been left
+behind in the onward march of the walls, but it lifted unconquerably
+in mid-air its tall gilt cross, untarnished by time, though ambitious
+ivy had steadily mounted the buttresses, and partially draped the
+Gothic arches, where blue sky once shone freely through.
+
+The court upon which the ancient monastery opened was laid out in the
+stiff geometric style, which universally prevailed when its trim
+hedges of box were first planted, and giant rosebushes, stately
+lilacs, and snowballs attested the careful training and attention
+which many years had bestowed. In the centre of this court, and
+surrounded by a wide border of luxuriant lilies, was a triangular
+pedestal of granite, now green with moss, and spotted with silver
+grey lichen groups, upon which stood a statue of St. Francis, bearing
+the stigmata, and wearing the hood drawn over his head, while the
+tunic was opened to display the wound in his side, and the skull and
+the crucifix lay at his feet. Close to the base of the pedestal
+crouched a marble lamb, around whose neck crept a slender chain of
+bind-weed, and above whom the rank green lances of leaves shot up to
+guard the numerous silver-dusted lilies that swung like snowy bells
+in the soft breeze, dispensing perfume instead of chimes.
+
+Quite distinct from the spacious new chapel--with its gilded shrine,
+picture-tapestried walls, and gorgeous stained windows, where the
+outside-world believers were allowed to worship--stood a low
+cruciform oratory, situated within the stricter confines of the
+monastery, and sacred to the exclusive use of the nuns. This chapel
+was immediately opposite the St.  Francis, and to-day, as the
+old-fashioned doors of elaborately carved oak were thrown wide, the
+lovely mass of nodding lillies seemed bowing in adoration before the
+image of the Virgin and Child, who crowned the altar within, while
+the dazzling sheen of noon flashing athwart the tessellated floor
+kindles an almost unearthly halo around
+
+     "Virgin and Babe, and Saint, who
+     With the same cold, calm, beautiful regard,"
+
+had watched for many weary years the kneeling devotees beneath their
+marble feet.
+
+On the steps of the altar were a number of china pots containing rose
+and apple geraniums in full bloom, and one luxuriant Grand Duke
+jasmine, all starred with creamy flowers, so flooded the place with
+fragrance that it seemed as if the vast laboratory of floral aromas
+had been suddenly unsealed.
+
+Upon the stone pavement, immediately in front of the altar, sat a
+little figure so motionless, that a casual glance would probably have
+included it among the consecrated and permanent images of the silent
+sanctuary;--the figure of a child, whose age could not have been
+accurately computed from the inspection of the countenance, which
+indexed a degree of grave mature wisdom wholly incompatible with the
+height of the body and the size of the limbs.
+
+If devotional promptings had brought her to the Nuns' Chapel, her
+orisons had been concluded, for she had turned her back upon the
+altar, and sat gazing sorrowfully down at her lap, where lay in
+pathetic _pose_ a white rabbit and a snowy pigeon,--both dead, quite
+stark and cold,--laid out in state upon the spotless linen apron,
+around which a fluted ruffle ran crisp and smooth. One tiny waxen
+hand held a broken lily, and the other was vainly pressed upon the
+lids of the rabbit's eyes, trying to close lovingly the pink orbs
+that now stared so distressingly through glazing film. The first
+passionate burst of grief had spent its force in the tears that left
+the velvety cheeks and chin as dewy as rain-washed rose leaves, while
+not a trace of moisture dimmed the large eyes that wore a proud,
+defiant, and much injured look, as though resentment were strangling
+sorrow.
+
+Unto whom or what shall I liken this fair, tender, childish face,
+which had in the narrow space of ten years gathered such perfection
+of outline, such unearthly purity of colour, such winsome grace, such
+complex expressions? Probably amid the fig and olive groves of
+Tuscany, Fra Bartolomeo found just such an incarnation of the angelic
+ideal, which he afterward placed for the admiration of succeeding
+generations in the winged heads that glorify the _Madonna della
+Misericordia_. The stipple of time dots so lightly, so slowly, that
+at the age of ten a human countenance should present a mere fleshy
+_tabula rasa_, but now and then we are startled by meeting a child as
+unlike the round, rosy, pulpy, dimpling, unwritten faces of ordinary
+life, as the churubs of Raphael to the rigid forms of Byzantine
+mosaics, or the stone portraiture of Copan.
+
+As she sat there, in the golden radiance of the summer noon, she
+presented an almost faultless specimen of a type of beauty that is
+rarely found nowaday, that has always been peculiar, and bids fair to
+become extinct. A complexion of dazzling whiteness and transparency,
+rendered more intensely pure by contrast with luxuriant silky hair of
+the deepest black,--and large superbly shaped eyes of clear, dark
+steel blue, almost violet in hue,--with delicately arched brows and
+very long lashes of that purplish black tint which only the trite and
+oft-borrowed plumes of ravens adequately illustrate. The forehead was
+not remarkable for height, but was peculiarly broad and full with
+unusual width between the eyes, and if Strato were correct in his
+speculations with reference to Psyche's throne, then verily my little
+girl did not cramp her soul in its fleshy palace. Daintily moulded in
+figure and face, every feature instinct with a certain delicate
+patricianism, that testified to genuine "blue blood," there was
+withal a melting tenderness about the parted lips that softened the
+regal contour of one who, amid the universal catalogue of feminine
+names, could never have been appropriately called other than Regina.
+
+Over in the new chapel across the court, where the sacristan had
+opened two of the crimson and green windows that now lighted the gilt
+altar as with sacrificial fire, and now drenched it with cool beryl
+tints that extinguished the flames, a low murmur became audible,
+swelling and rising upon the air, until the thunder-throated organ
+filled all the cloistered recesses with responsive echoes of Rossini.
+Some masterly hand played the "Recitative" of _Eia Mater_, bringing
+out the bass with powerful emphasis, and concluding with the full
+strains of the chorus; then the organ-tones sank into solemn minor
+chords indescribably plaintive, and after a while a quartette of
+choir voices sang the
+
+                "Sancta Mater! istud agas,
+                Crucifixi fige plagas,"
+
+ending with the most impassioned strain of the _Stabat Mater_,--
+
+                "Virgo virginum prædara,
+                Mihi jam non sis amara,
+                Fac me tecum plangere."
+
+Two nuns came out of an arched doorway leading to the
+reception-room of the modern building, and looked up and down the
+garden walks, talking the while in eager undertones; then paused near
+the lily bank, and one called:
+
+"Regina! Regina!"
+
+"She must be somewhere in the Academy playground, I will hunt for her
+there; or perhaps you might find her over in the church, listening to
+the choir practising, you know she is strangely fond of that organ."
+
+The speaker turned away and disappeared in the cool dim arch, and the
+remaining nun moved across the paved walk with the quick, noiseless,
+religious tread peculiar to those sacred conventual retreats where
+the clatter of heels is an abomination unknown.
+
+Pausing in front of the chapel door to bend low before the marble
+Mother on the shrine, she beheld the object of her search and glided
+down the aisle as stealthily as a moonbeam.
+
+"Regina, didn't you hear Sister Gonzaga calling you just now?"
+
+"Yes, Sister."
+
+"Did you answer her?"
+
+"No, Sister."
+
+"Are you naughty to-day, and in penance?"
+
+"I suppose I am always naughty, Sister Perpetua says so; but I am not
+in penance."
+
+"Who gave you permission to come into our chapel? You know it is
+contrary to the rules. Did you ask Mother?"
+
+"I knew she would say no, so I did not ask, because I was determined
+to come."
+
+"Why? what is the matter? you have been crying."
+
+"Oh, Sister Angela! don't you see?"
+
+She lifted the corners of her apron where the dead pets lay, and her
+chin trembled.
+
+"Another rabbit gone! How many have you left?"
+
+"None. And this is my last white dove; the other two have coloured
+rings around their necks."
+
+"I am very sorry for you, dear, you seem so fond of them. But, my
+child, why did you come here?"
+
+"My Bunnie was not dead when I started, and I thought if I could only
+get to St. Francis and show it to him he would cure it, and send life
+back to my pigeon too. You know, Sister, that Father told us last
+week at instruction we must find out all about St. Francis, and next
+day Armantine was Refectory Reader, and she read us about St. Francis
+preaching to the birds at Bevagno, and how they opened their beaks
+and listened, and even let him touch them, and never stirred till he
+blessed them and made the sign of the Cross, and then they all flew
+away. She read all about the doves at the convent of Ravacciano, and
+the nest of larks, and the bad, greedy little lark that St. Francis
+ordered to die, and said nothing should eat it, and sure enough, even
+the hungry cats ran away from it. Don't you remember that when St.
+Francis went walking about the fields, the rabbits jumped into his
+bosom, because he loved them so very much? You see, I thought it was
+really all true, and that St. Francis could save mine too, and I
+carried 'Bunnie' and 'Snowball' to him--out yonder, and laid them on
+his feet, and prayed and prayed ever so long, and while I was praying
+my 'Bunnie' died right there. Then I knew he could do no good, and I
+thought I would try our Blessed Lady over here, because the Nuns'
+Chapel seems holier than ours,--but it is no use. I will never pray
+to her again, nor to St. Francis either."
+
+"Hush! you wicked child!"
+
+Regina rose slowly from the pavement, gathered up her apron very
+tenderly, and, looking steadily into the sweet serene face of the
+nun, said with much emphasis:
+
+"What have I done? Sister Angela, I am not wicked."
+
+"Yes, dear, you are. We are all born full of sin, and desperately
+wicked; but if you will only pray and try to be good, I have no doubt
+St. Francis will send you some rabbits and doves so lovely, that they
+will comfort you for those you have lost."
+
+"I know just as well as you do that he has no idea of doing anything
+of the kind, and you need not tell me pretty tales that you don't
+believe yourself. Sister, it is all humbug; 'Bunnie' is dead, and I
+sha'n't waste another prayer on St. Francis! If ever I get another
+rabbit, it will be when I buy one, as I mean to do just as soon as I
+move to some nice place where owls and hawks never come."
+
+Here the clang of a bell startled Sister Angela, who seized the
+child's hand.
+
+"Five strokes!--that is my bell. Come, Regina, we have been hunting
+you for some time, and Mother will be out of patience."
+
+"Won't you please let me bury Bunnie and Snowball before I go
+upstairs to penance? I can dig a grave in the corner of my little
+garden and plant verbena and cypress vine over it."
+
+She shivered as if the thought had chilled her heart, and her voice
+trembled, while she pressed the stiffened forms to her, breast.
+
+"Come along as fast as you can, dear, you are wanted in the parlour.
+I believe you are going away."
+
+"Oh! has my mother come?"
+
+"I don't know, but I am afraid you will leave us."
+
+"Will you be sorry, Sister Angela?"
+
+"Very sorry, dear child, for we love our little girl too well to give
+her up willingly."
+
+Regina paused and pressed her lips to the cold white fingers that
+clasped hers, but Sister Angela hurried her on till she reached a
+door opening into the Mother's reception-room. Catching the child to
+her heart, she kissed her twice, lifted the dead darlings from her
+apron, and, pushing her gently into the small parlour, closed the
+door.
+
+It was a cool, lofty, dimly lighted room, where the glare of sunshine
+never entered, and several seconds elapsed before Regina could
+distinguish any object. At one end a wooden lattice work enclosed a
+space about ten feet square, and here Mother Aloysius held audience
+with visitors whom friendship or business brought to the convent.
+Regina's eager survey showed her only a gentleman, sitting close to
+the grating, and an expression of keen disappointment swept over her
+countenance, which had been a moment before eloquent with expectation
+of meeting her mother.
+
+"Come here, Regina, and speak to Mr. Palma," said the soft, velvet
+voice behind the lattice.
+
+The visitor turned around, rose, and watched the slowly advancing
+figure.
+
+She was dressed in blue muslin, the front of which was concealed by
+her white bib-apron, and her abundant glossy hair was brushed
+straight back from her brow, confined at the top of her head by a
+blue ribbon, and thence fell in shining waves below her waist. One
+hand hung listlessly at her side, the other clasped the drooping lily
+and held it against her heart.
+
+The slightly curious expression of the stranger gave place to
+astonishment and involuntary admiration as he critically inspected
+the face and form; and, fixing her clear, earnest eyes on him, Regina
+saw a tall, commanding man of certainly not less than thirty years,
+with a noble massive head, calm pale features almost stern when in
+repose, and remarkably brilliant piercing black eyes, that were
+doubtless somewhat magnified by the delicate steel-rimmed spectacles
+he habitually wore. His closely cut hair clustered in short thick
+waves about his prominent forehead, which in pallid smoothness
+resembled a slab of marble, and where a slight depression usually
+marks the temples his swelled boldly out, rounding the entire outline
+of the splendidly developed brow. He wore neither moustache nor
+beard, and every line of his handsome mouth and finely modelled chin
+indicated the unbending tenacity of purpose and imperial pride which
+had made him a ruler even in his cradle, and almost a dictator in
+later years.
+
+In a certain diminished degree children share the instinct whereby
+brutes discern almost infallibly the nature of those who in full
+fruition of expanded reason tower above and control them; and, awed
+by something which she read in this dominative new face, Regina stood
+irresolute in front of him, unwilling to accept the shapely white
+hand held out to her.
+
+He advanced a step, and took her fingers into his soft warm palm.
+
+"I hope, Miss Regina, that you are glad to see me."
+
+Her eyes fell from his countenance to the broad seal ring on his
+little finger, then, gazing steadily up into his, she said:
+
+"I think I never saw you before, and why should I be glad? Why did
+you come and ask for me?"
+
+"Because your mother sent me to look after you."
+
+"Then I suppose, sir, you are very good; but I would rather see my
+mother. Is she well?"
+
+"Almost well now, though she has been quite ill. If you promise to be
+very good and obedient, I may find a letter for you, somewhere in my
+pockets. I have just been telling Mother Aloysius, to whom I brought
+a letter, that I have come to remove you from her kind sheltering
+care, as your mother wishes you for a while at least to be placed in
+a different position, and I have promised to carry out her
+instructions. Here is her letter. Shall I read it to you, or are you
+sufficiently advanced to be able to spell it out without my
+assistance?"
+
+He held up the letter, and she looked at him proudly, with a faint
+curl in her dainty lip, and a sudden lifting of her lovely arched
+eyebrows, which, without the aid of verbal protest, he fully
+comprehended. A smile hovered about his mouth, and disclosed a set of
+glittering perfect teeth, but he silently resumed his seat. As Regina
+broke the seal, Mother said:
+
+"Wait, dear, and read it later. Mr. Palmer has already been detained
+some time, and says he is anxious to catch the train. Run up to the
+wardrobe, and Sister Helena will change your dress. She is packing
+your clothes."
+
+When the door closed behind her a heavy sigh floated through the
+grating, and the sweet seraphic face of the nun clouded.
+
+"I wish we could keep her always; it is a sadly solemn thing to cast
+such a child as she is into the world's whirlpool of sin and sorrow.
+To-day she is as spotless in soul as one of our consecrated
+annunciation lilies; but the dust of vanity and selfishness will
+tarnish, and the shock of adversity will bruise, and the heat of the
+battle of life that rages so fiercely in the glare of the outside
+world will wither and deface the sweet blossom we have nurtured so
+carefully."
+
+"In view of the peculiar circumstances that surround her, her removal
+impresses me as singularly injudicious, and I have advised against
+it, but her mother is inflexible."
+
+"We have never been able to unravel the mystery that seems to hang
+about the child, although the Bishop assured us we were quite right
+in consenting to assume the charge of her."
+
+From beneath her heavy black hood, Mother's meek shy eyes searched
+the non-committal countenance before her, and found it about as
+satisfactorily responsive as some stone sphinx half-sepulchred in
+Egyptic sand.
+
+"May I ask, sir, if you are at all related to Regina?"
+
+"Not even remotely; am merely her mother's legal counsellor, and the
+agent appointed by her to transfer the child to different
+guardianship. I repeat, I deem the change inexpedient, but
+discretionary powers have not been conferred on me. She seems rather
+a mature bit of royalty for ten years of age. Is the intellectual
+machinery at all in consonance with the refined perfection of the
+external physique?"
+
+"She has a fine active brain, clear and quick, and is very well
+advanced in her studies, for she is fond of her books. Better than
+all, her heart is noble, and generous, and she is a conscientious
+little thing, never told a story in her life; but at times we have
+had great difficulty in controlling her will, which certainly is the
+most obstinate I have ever encountered."
+
+"She evidently does not suggest wax, save in the texture of her fine
+skin, and one rarely finds in a child's face so much of steel as is
+ambushed in the creases of the rose leaves that serve her as lips. If
+her will matches her mother's, this little one certainly was not
+afflicted with a misnomer at her baptism." He rose, looked at his
+watch, and walked across the room as if to inspect a _Pieta_ that
+hung upon the wall. Unwilling to conclude an interview which had
+yielded her no information, Mother Aloysius patiently awaited the
+result of the examination, but he finally went to the window, and a
+certain unmistakable expression of countenance which can be compared
+only to a locking of mouth and eyes, warned her that he was alert and
+inflexible. With a smothered sigh she left her seat.
+
+"As you seem impatient, Mr. Palma, I will endeavour to hasten the
+preparations for your departure."
+
+"If you please, Mother; I shall feel indebted to your kind
+consideration."
+
+Nearly an hour elapsed ere she returned leading Regina, and as the
+latter stood between Mother and Sister Angela, with a cluster of
+fresh fragrant lilies in her hand, and her tender face blanched and
+tearful, it seemed to the lawyer as if indeed the pet ewe lamb were
+being led away from peaceful flowery pastures, from the sweet
+sanctity of the cloistral fold, out through thorny devious paths
+where Temptations prowl wolf-fanged, or into fierce conflicts that
+end in the social shambles, those bloodless abattoirs where malice
+mangles humanity. How many verdure-veiled, rose-garlanded pitfalls
+yawned in that treacherous future now stretching before her like
+summer air, here all gold and blue, yonder with purple glory crowning
+the dim far away? Intuitively she recognized the fact that she was
+confronting the first cross roads in her hitherto monotonous life,
+and a vague dread flitted like ill-omened birds before her, darkening
+her vision.
+
+In the gladiatorial arena of the court-room, Mr. Palma was regarded
+as a large-brained, nimble-witted, marble-hearted man, of vast
+ambition and tireless energy in the acquisition of his aims; but his
+colleagues and clients would as soon have sought chivalric tenderness
+in a bronze statue, or a polished obelisk of porphyry. To-day as he
+curiously watched the quivering yet proud little girlish face, her
+brave struggles to meet the emergency touched some chord far down in
+his reticent stern nature, and he suddenly stooped, and took her
+hand, folding it up securely in his.
+
+"Are you not quite willing to trust yourself with me?"
+
+She hesitated a moment, then said with a slight wavering in her low
+tone:
+
+"I have been very happy here, and I love the Sisters dearly; but you
+are my mother's friend, and whatever she wishes me to do of course
+must be right."
+
+Oh beautiful instinctive faith in maternal love and maternal wisdom!
+Wot ye the moulding power ye wield, ye mothers of America?
+
+Pressing her fingers gently as if to reassure her, he said:
+
+"I dislike to hurry you away from these kind Sisters, but if your
+baggage is ready we have no time to spare."
+
+The nuns wept silently as she embraced them for the last time, kissed
+them on both cheeks, then turned and suffered Mr. Palma to lead her
+to the carriage, whither her trunk had already been sent.
+
+Leaning out, she watched the receding outlines of the convent until a
+bend of the road concealed even the belfry, and then she stooped and
+kissed the drooping lilies in her lap.
+
+Her companion expected a burst of tears, but she sat erect and quiet,
+and not a word was uttered until they reached the railway station and
+entered the cars. Securing a double seat he placed her at the window,
+and sat down opposite. It was her introduction to railway travel, and
+when the train moved off, and the locomotive sounded its prolonged
+shriek of departure, Regina started up, but, as if ashamed of her
+timidity, coloured and bit her lip. Observing that she appeared
+interested in watching the country through which they sped, Mr. Palma
+drew a book from his valise, and soon became so absorbed in the
+contents that he forgot tie silent figure on the seat before him.
+
+The afternoon wore away, the sun went down, and when the lamps were
+lighted the lawyer suddenly remembered his charge.
+
+"Well, Regina, how do you like travelling on the cars?"
+
+"Not at all; it makes my head ache."
+
+"Take off your hat, and I will try to make you more comfortable."
+
+He untied a shawl secured to the outside of his valise, placed it on
+the arm of the seat, and made her lay her head upon it.
+
+Keeping his finger as a mark amid the leaves of his book, he said:
+
+"We shall not reach our journey's end until to-morrow morning, and I
+advise you to sleep as much as possible. Whenever you feel hungry you
+will find some sandwiches, cake, and fruit in the basket at your
+feet."
+
+She looked at him intently, and interpreting the expression he added:
+
+"You wish to ask me something? Am I so very frightful that you dare
+not question me?"
+
+"Will you tell me the truth, if I ask you?"
+
+"Most assuredly."
+
+"Mr. Palma, when shall I see my mother?"
+
+His eyes went down helplessly before the girl's steady gaze, and he
+hesitated a moment.
+
+"Really, I cannot tell exactly,--but I hope----"
+
+She put up her small hand quickly, with a gesture that silenced him.
+
+"Don't say any more, please. I never want to know half of anything,
+and you can't tell me all. Good-night, Mr. Palma."
+
+She shut her eyes.
+
+This man of bronze who could terrify witnesses, torture and overwhelm
+the opposition, and thunder so successfully from the legal rostrum,
+sat there abashed by the child's tone and manner, and as he watched
+her he could not avoid smiling at her imperious mandate. Although
+silent, it was one o'clock before she fell into a deep, sound
+slumber, and then the lawyer leaned forward and studied the dreamer.
+
+The light from the lamp shone upon her, and the long silky black
+lashes lay heavily on her white cheeks. Now and then a sigh passed
+her lips, and once a dry sob shook her frame, as if she were again
+passing through the painful ordeal of parting; but gradually the
+traces of emotion disappeared, and that marvellous peace which we
+find only in children's countenances, or on the faces of the
+dead,--and which is nowhere more perfect than in old Greek
+statuary,--settled like a benediction over her features. Her frail
+hands clasped over her breast still held the faded lilies, and to
+Erle Palma she seemed too tender and fair for rude contact with the
+selfish world, in which he was so indefatigably carving out fame and
+fortune. He wondered how long a time would be requisite to transform
+this pure, spotless, ingenuous young thing into one of the fine
+fashionable miniature women with frizzed hair and huge _paniers_,
+whom he often met in the city, with school-books in their hands, and
+bold, full-blown coquetry in their eyes?
+
+Certainly he was as devoid of all romantic weakness as the
+propositions of Euclid, or the pages of Blackstone, but something in
+the beauty and helpless innocence of the sleeper appealed with
+unwonted power to his dormant sympathy, and, suspecting that lurking
+spectres crouched in her future, he mutely entered into a compact
+with his own soul, not to lose sight of, but to befriend her
+faithfully, whenever circumstances demanded succour.
+
+"Upon my word, she looks like a piece of Greek sculpture, and be her
+father whom he may, there is no better blood than beats there at her
+little dimpled wrists. The pencilling of the eyebrows is simply
+perfect."
+
+He spoke inaudibly, and just then she stirred and turned. As she
+moved, something white fluttered from one of the ruffled pockets of
+her apron, and fell to the floor. He picked it up and saw it was the
+letter he had given her some hours before. The sheet was folded
+loosely, and glancing at it, as it opened in his hand, he saw in
+delicate characters: "Oh, my baby,--my darling! Be patient and trust
+your mother." An irresistible impulse made him look up, and the
+beautiful solemn eyes of the girl were fixed upon him, but instantly
+her black lashes covered them.
+
+For the first time in years he felt the flush of shame mount into his
+cold haughty face, yet even then he noted the refined delicacy which
+made her feign sleep.
+
+"Regina."
+
+She made no movement.
+
+"Child, I know you are awake. Do you suppose I would stoop to read
+your letter clandestinely? It dropped from your pocket, and I have
+seen only one line."
+
+She put out her slender hand, took the letter, and answered:
+
+"My mother writes me that you are her best friend, and I intend to
+believe that all you say is true."
+
+"Do you think I read your letter?"
+
+"I shall think no more about it."
+
+                "I will paint her as I see her,
+                 Ten times have the lilies blown
+                 Since she looked upon the sun,
+                 Face and figure of a child,--
+                 Though top calm, you think, and tender,
+                 For the childhood you would lend her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+"Indeed, Peyton, you distress me. What can be the matter? I heard you
+walking the floor of your room long after midnight, and feared you
+were ill."
+
+"Not ill, Elise, but sorely perplexed. If I felt at liberty to
+communicate all the circumstances to you, doubtless you would readily
+comprehend and sympathize with the peculiar difficulties that
+surround me; but unfortunately I am bound by a promise which prevents
+me from placing all the facts in your possession. Occasionally
+ministers involuntarily become the custodians of family secrets that
+oppress their hearts and burden them with unwelcome responsibility,
+and just now I am suffering from the consequences of a rash promise
+which compassion extorted from me years ago. While I heartily regret
+it, my conscience will not permit me to fail in its fulfilment."
+
+An expression of pain and wounded pride overshadowed Mrs. Lindsay's
+usually bright, happy face.
+
+"Peyton, surely you do not share the unjust opinion so fashionable
+nowaday, that women are unworthy of being entrusted with a secret?
+What has so suddenly imbued you with distrust of the sister who has
+always shared your cares, and endeavoured to divide your sorrows? Do
+you believe me capable of betraying your confidence?
+
+"No, dear. In all that concerns myself, you must know I trust you
+implicitly,--trust not only your affection, but your womanly
+discretion, your subtle, critical judgment; but I have no right to
+commit even to your careful guardianship some facts which were
+expressly confided solely to my own."
+
+He laid his hand on his sister's shoulder, and looked fondly, almost
+pleadingly, into her clouded countenance, but the flush deepened on
+her fair cheek.
+
+"The conditions of secrecy, the envelope of mystery, strongly implies
+something socially disgraceful, or radically wicked, and ministers of
+the Gospel should not constitute themselves the locked reservoirs of
+such turbid streams."
+
+"Granting that you actually believe in your own supposition, why are
+you so anxious to pollute your ears with the recital of circumstances
+that you assume to be degrading, or sinful?"
+
+"I only fear your misplaced sympathy may induce you to compromise
+your ministerial dignity and consistency, for it is quite
+evident to me that your judgment does not now acquit you in this
+matter--whatever it may be."
+
+"God forbid that, in obeying the dictates of my conscience, I should
+transgress even conventional propriety, or incur the charge of
+indiscretion. None can realize more keenly than I that a minister's
+character is of the same delicate magnolia-leaf texture as a woman's
+name,--a thing so easily stained that it must be ever elevated beyond
+the cleaving dust of suspicion, and the scorching breath of gossiping
+conjecture. The time has passed (did it ever really exist?) when the
+prestige of pastoral office hedged it around with impervious
+infallibility, and to-day, instead of partial and extenuating
+leniency, pure and uncontaminated society justly denies all
+ministerial immunities as regards the rigid mandates of social
+decorum and propriety,--and the world demands that, instead of
+drawing heavily upon an indefinite fund of charitable confidence and
+trust in the clergy, pulpit-people should so live and move that the
+microscope of public scrutiny can reveal no flaws. Do you imagine I
+share the dangerous heresy that the sanctity of the office entitles
+the incumbent to make a football of the restrictions of prudence and
+discretion? Elise, I hold that pastors should be as circumspect, as
+guarded as Roman vestals; and untainted society, guided by even the
+average standard of propriety, tolerates no latitudinarians among its
+Levites. I grieve that it is necessary for me to add, that I honour
+and bow in obedience to its exactions."
+
+The chilling severity of his tone smote like a flail the loving
+heart, which had rebelled only against the apparent lack of faith in
+its owner, and springing forward Mrs. Lindsay threw her arms around
+her brother's neck.
+
+"Oh, Peyton! don't look at me so sternly, as if I were a sort of
+domestic Caiaphas set to catechise and condemn you; or as if I were
+unjustly impugning your motives. It is all your fault,--of course it
+is,--for you have spoiled me by unreserved confidence heretofore, and
+you ought not to blame me in the least for feeling hurt when at this
+late day you indulge in mysteries. Now kiss me, and forget my ugly
+temper, and set it all down to that Pandora legacy of sleepless
+curiosity, which dear mother Eve received in her impudent tête-à-tête
+with the serpent, and which she spitefully saw fit to bequeath to
+every daughter who has succeeded her. So--we are at peace once more?
+Now keep your horrid secrets to yourself, and welcome!"
+
+"You persist in believing that they must inevitably be horrid?" said
+he, softly stroking her rosy cheek with his open palm.
+
+"I persist in begging that you will not expect me to adopt the
+acrobatic style, or require me to instantly attain sanctification
+_per saltum!_ You must be satisfied with the assurance that you are
+indeed my 'Royal Highness,' and that in my creed it is written the
+king can do no wrong. There, dear, I am not at all addicted to humble
+pie, and I have already disposed of a large and unpalatable slice."
+
+She made a grimace, whereat he smiled, kissed her again, and answered
+very gently:
+
+"Will you permit me to put an appendix to your creed? 'Charity
+suffereth long, and is kind; is not easily provoked, thinketh no
+evil.' My sister, I want you to help me. In some things I find myself
+as powerless without your co-operation as a pair of scissors with the
+rivet lost; I cannot cut through obstacles unless you are in your
+proper place."
+
+"For shame, you spiteful Pequod! to rivet your treacherous appeal
+with so sharply pointed an illustration! Scissors, indeed! I will be
+revenged by cutting all your work after a biased fashion. How would
+it suit you, reverend sir, to take the rivet out of my tongue, and
+repair your clerical scissors?"
+
+"How narrowly you escaped being a genius! That is precisely what I
+was about proposing to do, and now, dear, be sure you bid adieu to
+all bias. Elise, I received a letter two days since, which annoyed me
+beyond expression."
+
+"I inferred as much, from the vindictive energy with which you thrust
+it into the fire, and bored it with the end of the poker. Was it
+infected with small-pox or leprosy?"
+
+She opened her work basket, and began to crochet vigorously, keeping
+her eyes upon her needle.
+
+"Neither. I destroyed it simply and solely because it was the earnest
+request of the writer, that I should commit it to the flames."
+
+"_Par parenthèse!_ from the beginning of time have not discord,
+mischief, trouble--been personified by females? Has there been a
+serious _imbroglio_ since the days of Troy without some vexatious
+Helen? Now don't scold me, if in this case I conjecture,--He? She?
+It?"
+
+"The letter was from a mother, pleading for her child, whom I several
+years ago promised to protect and to befriend. Subsequent events
+induced me to hope that she would never exact a fulfilment of the
+pledge, and I was unpleasantly surprised when the appeal reached me."
+
+"Let me understand fully the little that you wish to tell me. Do you
+mean that you were unprepared for the demand, because the mother had
+forfeited the conditions under which you gave the promise?"
+
+"You unduly intensify the interpretation. My promise was
+unconditional, but I certainly have never expected to be called upon
+to verify it."
+
+"What does it involve?"
+
+"The temporary guardianship of a child ten years old, whom I have
+never seen."
+
+"He? She? It?"
+
+"A girl, who will in all probability arrive before noon to-day."
+
+"Peyton!"
+
+The rose-coloured crochet web fell into her lap, and deep
+dissatisfaction spread its sombre leaden banners over her telltale
+face.
+
+"I regret it more keenly than you possibly can; and, Elise, if I
+could have seen the mother before it was too late, I should have
+declined this painful responsibility."
+
+"Too late? Is the woman dead?"
+
+"No, but she has sailed for Europe, and notifies me that she leaves
+the little girl under my protection."
+
+"What a heartless creature she must be to abandon her child."
+
+"On the contrary, she seems devotedly attached to her, and uses these
+words: 'If it were not to promote her interest, do you suppose I
+could consent to put the Atlantic between my baby and me?' The
+circumstances are so unusual that I daresay you fail to understand my
+exact position."
+
+"I neither desire nor intend to force your confidence; but if you can
+willingly answer, tell me whether the mother is in every respect
+worthy of your sympathy."
+
+"I frankly admit that upon some points I have been dissatisfied, and
+her letter sorely perplexes me."
+
+"What claim had she on you, when the promise was extorted?"
+
+"She had none, save such as human misery always has on human
+sympathy. I performed the marriage ceremony for her when she was a
+mere child, and felt profound compassion for the wretchedness that
+soon overtook her as a wife and mother."
+
+"Then, my dear brother, there is no alternative, and you must do your
+duty; and I shall not fail to help you to the fullest extent of my
+feeble ability. Since it cannot be averted, let us try to put our
+hearts as well as hands into the work of receiving the waif. Where
+has the child been living?"
+
+"For nearly seven years in a convent."
+
+"_Tant mieux!_ We may at least safely infer she has been shielded
+from vicious and objectionable companionship. How is her education to
+be conducted in future?"
+
+"Her mother has arranged for the semi-annual payment of a sum quite
+sufficient to defray all necessary expenses, including tuition at
+school; but she urges me, if compatible with my clerical duties, to
+retain the school fees, and teach the child at home, as she dreads
+outside contaminating associations, and wishes the little one reared
+with rigid ideas of rectitude and propriety. Will you receive her
+among your music pupils?"
+
+"Have I a heart of steel, and a soul of flint? And since when did you
+successfully trace my pedigree to its amiable source in--
+
+           'Gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire'?
+
+"What is her name?"
+
+Mr. Hargrove hesitated a moment, and, detecting the faint colour that
+tinged his olive cheek, his sister smilingly relieved him.
+
+"Never mind, dear. What immense latitude we are allowed! If she prove
+a meek, sweet cherub, a very saint in bib-aprons,--with velvety eyes
+brown as a hazel nut, and silky chestnut ringlets,--I shall gather
+her into my heart and coo over her as--Columba, or Umilta, or
+Umbeline, or Una; but should we find her spoiled, and thoroughly
+leavened with iniquity,--a blonde, yellow-haired tornado,--then a
+proper regard for the 'unities will suggest that I vigorously
+enter a Christian protest, and lecture her grimly as Jezebel,
+Tomyris,--Fulvia or Clytemnestra.'"
+
+"She shall be called Regina Orme, and if it will not too heavily tax
+your kindness, I should like to give her the small room next your
+own, and ask Douglass to move across the hall and take the front
+chamber opening on the verandah. The little girl may be timid, and it
+would comfort her to feel that you are within call should she be sick
+or become frightened. I am sure Douglass will not object to the
+change."
+
+"Certainly not. Blessings on his royal heart! He would not be my own
+noble boy if he failed to obey any wish of yours."
+
+I will at once superintend the transfer of his books and clothes, for
+if the child comes to-day you have left me little time for
+preparation.
+
+She put away the crochet basket and, looking affectionately at the
+grave face that watched her movements, said soberly:
+
+"Do not look so lugubrious; remember Abraham's example of
+hospitality, and let us do all we can for this motherless lamb, or
+kid,--whichever she may prove. One thing more, and here-after I shall
+hold my peace. You need not live in chronic dread, lest the Guy
+Fawkes of female curiosity pry into, and explode your mystery; for I
+assure you, Peyton, I shall never directly or indirectly question the
+child, and until you voluntarily broach the subject I shall never
+mention it to you. Are you satisfied?"
+
+"Fully satisfied with my sister, and inexpressibly grateful for her
+unquestioning faith in me."
+
+She swept him an exaggerated courtesy, and, despite the grey threads
+that began to glint in her auburn hair, ran up the stairway as
+lightly as a girl of fifteen.
+
+For some time he stood with his hands behind him, gazing abstractedly
+through the open window, and now and then he heard the busy patter of
+hurrying feet in the room over head, while snatches of Easter
+anthems, and the swelling "Amen" of a "Gloria" rolled down the steps,
+assuring him that all doubt and suspicion had been ejected from the
+faithful, fond, sisterly heart.
+
+Taking his broad-brimmed gardening hat from the table, the pastor
+went down among his flower-beds, followed by Biörn, to whose innate
+asperity of temper was added the snarling fretfulness of old age.
+
+A fine young brood of white Brahma chickens, having surreptitiously
+effected an entrance into the sacred precincts of the flower-garden,
+were now diligently prosecuting their experiments in entomotomy right
+in the heart of a border of choice carnations. When Biörn had chased
+the marauders to the confines of the poultry yard, and watched the
+last awkward fledgling scramble through the palings, his master began
+to repair the damage, and soon became absorbed in the favourite task
+of tying up the spicy tufts of bloom that deluged the air with
+perfume as he lifted and bent the slender stems. His straw hat shut
+out the sight of surrounding objects, and he only turned his head
+when Mrs. Lindsay put her hand on his shoulder, and exclaimed:
+
+"Peyton, 'the Philistines _be_ upon thee'!"
+
+"Do you mean that she has come?"
+
+"I think so; there is a carriage at the gate, and I noticed a trunk
+beside the driver."
+
+He rose hastily, and stood irresolute, visibly embarrassed.
+
+"Why, Peyton! Recollect your text last Sunday: 'No man having put his
+hand to the plough,' etc., etc., etc. It certainly is rather hard to
+be pelted with, one's own sermons, but it would never do to turn your
+back upon this benevolent furrow. Come, pluck up courage, and front
+the inevitable."
+
+"Elise, how can you jest? I am sorely burdened with gloomy
+forebodings of coming ill. You cannot imagine how I shrink from this
+responsibility."
+
+"It is rather too late, dear, to climb upon the stool of repentance.
+Take this beast of Bashan by the horns, and have done with it. There
+is the bell! Shall I accompany you?"
+
+"Oh, certainly."
+
+Hannah met them, and held up a card.
+
+                  ERLE PALMA,
+                        _New York City_.
+
+As the minister entered his parlour, Mr. Palma advanced to meet him,
+holding out his hand.
+
+"I hope Dr. Hargrove has been prepared for my visit, and understands
+its object?"
+
+"I am glad to know you, sir, and had reason to expect you. Allow me
+to present Mr. Palma to my sister, Mrs. Lindsay. I am exceedingly----"
+
+The sentence was never completed, and he stood with his eyes fastened
+on the child who leaned against the window watching him with an eager
+breathless interest as some caged creature eyes a new keeper,
+wondering, mutely questioning, whether cruelty or kindness will
+predominate in the strange custodian.
+
+For a moment, oblivious of all else, each gazed into the eyes of the
+other, and a subtle magnetic current flashed from soul to soul,
+revealing certain arcana, which years of ordinary acquaintance
+sometimes fail to unveil. From the pastor's countenance melted every
+trace of doubt and apprehension; from that of the girl all shadow of
+distrust.
+
+Studying the tableau, Mr. Palma saw the clergyman smile, and as if
+involuntarily open his arms; and he was astonished when the shy,
+reticent child who had repulsed all his efforts to become acquainted,
+suddenly glided forward and into the outstretched arms of her new
+guardian. Weary from the long journey and rigid restraint imposed
+upon her feelings, the closely pent emotion broke all barriers, and,
+clinging to the minister Regina found relief in a flood of tears. Mr.
+Hargrove sat down, and, keeping his arm around her, said tenderly:
+
+"Are you so unwilling to come and live under my care? Would you
+prefer to remain with Mr. Palma?" She put her hands up, and, clasping
+them at the back of his head, answered brokenly:
+
+"No--no I it is not that. Your face shows me you are good--so good!
+But I can't help crying,--I have tried so hard to keep from it, ever
+since I kissed the Sisters good-bye,--and everything is so
+strange--and my throat aches, and aches--oh, don't scold me! Please
+let me cry!"
+
+"As much as you please. We know your poor little heart is almost
+breaking, and a good cry will help you."
+
+He gathered her close to his bosom, and the lawyer was amazed at the
+confiding manner in which she nestled her head against the stranger's
+shoulder. Mrs. Lindsay untied and removed the hat and veil, and,
+placing a glass of water to the parched trembling lips, softly kissed
+her tearful cheek, and whispered:
+
+"Now, dear, try to compose yourself. Come with me and bathe your
+face, and then you will feel better."
+
+"Don't take me away. I have stopped crying. It rests me so, to feel
+somebody's arms around me."
+
+"Well--suppose you try my arms awhile? I assure you they are quite
+ready to take you in, and hug you close. Just let me show you how I
+put my arms around my own child, though he is a man. Come, dear."
+
+Mrs. Lindsay gently disengaged the clasped hands resting on her
+brother's neck, and drew Regina into her arms, while, won by her
+sweet voice and soft touch, the latter allowed herself to be led
+into another room.
+
+They had scarcely disappeared when Mr. Palma said:
+
+"I find I was mistaken in supposing that you and your ward were
+strangers."
+
+"We are strangers, at least I never saw her until to-day."
+
+"Did you mesmerize her?"
+
+"Not that I am aware of. What suggests such an idea?"
+
+"She receives your friendly overtures so graciously, and rejected
+mine with such chill politeness. I presume you are aware of the fact
+that we have a joint guardianship over this child?"
+
+"If you will walk into the library, where we can escape intrusion, I
+should like to have some confidential conversation with you."
+
+When he had placed his visitor in his own easy chair, and locked the
+door of the library, Mr. Hargrove sat down beside the oval table,
+and, folding his hands before him, leaned forward scrutinizing the
+handsome non-committal face of the stranger, and conjecturing how far
+he would be warranted in unburdening his own oppressed heart.
+
+Coolly impassive, and without a vestige of curious interest, the
+lawyer quietly met his incisive gaze.
+
+"Mr. Palma, may I ask whether Regina's mother has unreservedly
+communicated her history to you?"
+
+"She has acquainted me with only a few facts, concerning which she
+desired legal advice."
+
+"Has she given you her real name?"
+
+"I know her only as Madame Odille Orphia Orme, an actress of very
+remarkable beauty and great talent."
+
+"Do you understand the peculiar circumstances that attended her
+marriage?"
+
+"I merely possess her assurance that she was married by you."
+
+"Have you been informed who is Regina's father?"
+
+"The name has always been carefully suppressed, but she told me
+that Orme was merely an _alias_."
+
+"Have you ever suspected the truth?"
+
+"Really, that is a question I cannot answer. I have at times
+conjectured, but only in a random unauthorized way. I should very
+much like to know, but my client declined giving me all the facts, at
+least at present; and while her extreme reticence certainly hampers
+me, it prevents me from asking you for the information, which she
+promises ere long to give me."
+
+Mr. Hargrove bowed and leaned back more easily in his chair, fully
+satisfied concerning the nature of the man with whom he had to deal.
+
+"You doubtless think it singular that Mrs. Orme should commit her
+daughter to my care, while keeping me in ignorance of her parentage.
+A few days since she signed in the presence of witnesses a cautiously
+worded instrument, in which she designated you and me as joint
+guardians of Regina Orme, and specified that should death or other
+causes prevent you from fulfilling the trust, I should assume
+exclusive control of her daughter until she attained her majority,
+or was otherwise disposed of. To this arrangement I at length very
+reluctantly assented, because it is a charge for which I have no
+leisure, and even less inclination; but as she seems to anticipate
+the time when a lawsuit may be inevitable, and wishes my services,
+she finally overruled my repugnance to the office forced upon me."
+
+"I must ask you one question, which subsequent statements will
+explain. Do you regard her in all respects as a worthy, true, good
+woman?"
+
+"The mystery of an assumed name always casts a shadow, implying the
+existence of facts or of reports inimical to the party thus ambushed;
+and concealment presupposes either indiscretion, shame, or crime.
+This circumstance excited unfavourable suspicions in my mind, but she
+assured me she had a certificate of her marriage, and that you would
+verify this statement. Can you do so? Was she legally married when
+very young?"
+
+"She was legally married in this room eleven years ago."
+
+"I am glad it is susceptible of proof. This point established, I can
+easily answer your question in the affirmative. As far as I am
+acquainted with her record, Mrs. Orme is a worthy woman, and I may
+add, a remarkably cautious circumspect person for one so
+comparatively unaccustomed to the admiration which is now lavished
+upon her. I believe it is conceded that she is the most beautiful
+woman in New York, but she shelters herself so securely in the
+constant presence of a plain but most respectable old couple, with
+whom she resides, and who accompany her when travelling, that it is
+difficult to see her, except upon the stage. Even in her business
+visits to my office she has always been attended by old Mrs. Waul."
+
+"Can you explain to me how one so uneducated and inexperienced as she
+certainly was has so suddenly attained, not only celebrity (which is
+often cheaply earned), but eminence in a profession, involving the
+amount of culture requisite for dramatic success?"
+
+A slight smile showed the glittering line of the lawyer's teeth.
+
+"When did you see her last?"
+
+"Seven years ago."
+
+"Then I venture the assertion that you would not recognize her should
+you see her in one of her favourite and famous _rôles_. When, where,
+or by whom she was trained I know not, but some acquaintance with the
+most popular ornaments of her profession justifies my opinion that no
+more cultivated or artistic actress now walks the stage than Madame
+Odille Orme. She is no mere _amateur_ or novice, but told me she had
+laboriously and studiously struggled up from the comparatively menial
+position of seamstress. Even in Paris I have never heard a purer,
+finer rendition of a passage in _Phèdre_ than one day burst from her
+lips in a moment of deep feeling, yet I cannot tell you how or where
+she learned French. She made her _début_ in tragedy, somewhere in the
+West, and when she reappeared in New York her success was brilliant.
+I have never known a woman whose will was so patiently rigid, so
+colossal, whose energy was so tireless in the pursuit of one special
+aim. She has the vigilance and tenacity of a Spanish bloodhound."
+
+"In the advancement of her scheme, do you believe her capable of
+committing a theft?"
+
+"What do you denominate a theft?"
+
+The piercing black eyes of the lawyer were fixed with increased
+interest upon the clergyman.
+
+"Precisely what every honest man means by the term. If Mrs. Orme
+resolved to possess a certain paper to which she had been denied
+access, do you think she would hesitate to break into a house, open a
+secret drawer, and steal the contents?"
+
+"Not unless she had a legal right to the document, which was unjustly
+withheld from her, and even then my knowledge of the lady's character
+inclines me to believe that she would hesitate, and resort to other
+means."
+
+"You consider her strictly honest and truthful?"
+
+"I am possessed of no facts that lead me to indulge a contrary
+opinion. Suppose you state the case?"
+
+Briefly Mr. Hargrove narrated the circumstances attending his last
+interview with Regina's mother, and the loss of the tin box, dwelling
+in conclusion upon the perplexing fact that in the recent letter
+received from her relative to her daughter's removal to the
+parsonage, Mrs. Orme had implored him to carefully preserve the
+license he had retained as the marriage certificate in her possession
+might not be considered convincing proof, should litigation ensue. He
+could not understand the policy of this appeal, nor reconcile its
+necessity with his conviction that she had stolen the license.
+
+Joining his scholarly white hands with the tips of his fingers
+forming a cone, Mr. Palma leaned back in his chair and listened,
+while no hint of surprise or incredulity found expression in his
+cold, imperturbable face. When the recital was ended, he merely
+inclined his head.
+
+"Do you not regard this as strong evidence against her? Be frank, Mr.
+Palma."
+
+"It is merely circumstantial. Write to Mr. Orme, inform her of the
+loss of the license, and I think you will find that she is as
+innocent of the theft as you or I. I know she went to Europe
+believing that the final proof of her marriage was in your keeping;
+for in the event of her death, while abroad, she has empowered me to
+demand that paper from you, and to present it with certain others in
+a court of justice."
+
+"I wish I could see it as you do. I hope it will some day be
+satisfactorily cleared up, but meanwhile I must indulge a doubt. On
+one point at least my mind is at rest; this little girl is
+unquestionably the child of the man who married her mother, for I
+have never seen so remarkable a likeness as she bears to him."
+
+He sighed heavily, and patted the shaggy head which Biörn had some
+time before laid unheeded on his knee.
+
+During the brief silence that ensued the lawyer gazed out of the
+window, through which floated the spicy messages of carnations, and
+the fainter whispers of pale cream-hearted Noisette roses; then he
+rose and put both hands in his pockets.
+
+"Dr. Hargrove, you and I have been--with, I believe, equal
+reluctance--forced into the same boat, and since _bongré malgré_ we
+must voyage for a time together, in the interest of this unfortunate
+child, candour becomes us both. Men of my profession sometimes resort
+to agencies that the members of yours usually shrink from. I too was
+once very sceptical concerning the truth of Mrs. Orme's fragmentary
+story, for it was the merest _disjecta membra_ which she entrusted to
+me, and my credulity declined to honour her heavy drafts. To satisfy
+myself, I employed a shrewd female detective to 'shadow' the pretty
+actress for nearly a year, and her reports convinced me that my
+client, whilst struggling with Napoleonic ambition and pertinacity to
+attain the zenith of success in her profession, was as little
+addicted to coquetry as the statue of Washington in Union Square, or
+the steeple of Trinity Church; and that in the midst of flattery and
+adulation she was the same proud, cold, suffering, almost
+broken-hearted wife she had always appeared in her conferences with
+me. Induging this belief, I have accepted the joint guardianship of
+her daughter, on condition that whenever it becomes necessary to
+receive her under my immediate protection, I shall be made
+acquainted with her real name."
+
+"Thank you, my dear sir, for your frankness, which I would most
+joyfully reciprocate, were I not bound by a promise to make no
+revelations until she gives me permission, or her death unseals my
+lips. I hope you fully comprehend my awkward position. There is a
+conspiracy to defraud her and her child of their social and legal
+rights, and I fear both will be victimized; but she insists that
+secrecy will deliver her from the snares of her enemies. I suppose
+you are aware that General----"
+
+He paused, and bit his lip, and again the lawyer's handsome mouth
+disclosed his perfect teeth.
+
+"There is no mischief in your dropped stitch; I shall not pick it up.
+I know that Mrs. Orme's husband is in Europe, and I was assured that
+motives of a personal character induced her to make certain
+professional engagements in England and upon the Continent. I am not
+enthusiastic, and rarely venture prophecies, but I shall be much
+disappointed if her Richelieu tactics do not finally triumph."
+
+"Can you tell me why she does not openly bring suit against her
+husband for bigamy?"
+
+"Simply because she has been informed that the policy of the defence
+would be to at once attack her reputation, which she seems to guard
+with almost morbid sensitiveness on account of her daughter. She has
+been warned of the dangerous consequences of a suit, but if forced to
+extremities will hazard it; hence I bide my time."
+
+He threw back his lordly head, and his brilliant eyes seemed to
+dilate, as though the suggestion of the suit stirred his pulse, as
+the breath of carnage and the din of distant battle that of the
+war-horse, panting for the onward dash.
+
+A species of human petrel,--a juridic _Procellaria Pelagica_
+whose _habitat_ was the court-house,--Erle Palma lived amid the
+ceaseless surges of litigation, watching the signs of rising tempests
+in human hearts, plunging in defiant exultation where the billows
+rode highest, never so elated as when borne triumphantly upon the
+towering crest of some conquering wave of legal _finesse_, or
+impassioned invective, and rarely saddened in the flush of victory by
+the pale spectres of strangled hope, fortune, or reputation which
+float in the _débris_ of the wrecks that almost every day drift
+mournfully away from the precincts of courts of justice.
+
+The striking of the clock caused him to draw out his watch and
+compare the time.
+
+"I believe the regular train does not leave V---- until night, but
+the conductor told me I might catch an excursion train bound south,
+and due here about half-past one o'clock. It is necessary for me to
+return with as little delay as possible, and after I have spoken to
+Regina I must hasten to the depot You will find my address pencilled
+on the card, and I presume Mrs. Orme has given you hers. Should you
+desire to confer with me at any time relative to the child, I shall
+promptly respond to your letters, but have no leisure to spend in
+looking after her. The semiannual remittance shall not be neglected,
+and Regina has a package for you containing money for contingent
+expenses."
+
+They entered the hall, and found the little stranger sitting alone on
+the lowest step of the stairway, where Mrs. Lindsay had left her,
+while she went to prepare luncheon for the travellers. She was very
+quiet, bore no visible traces of tears, but the tender lips wore a
+piteously sad expression of heroically repressed grief, and the
+purlish shadows under her solemn blue eyes rendered them more than
+ever--pleadingly beautiful.
+
+As the two gentlemen stood before her she rose, and caught her
+breath, pressing one little palm over her heart, while the other
+grasped the balustrade.
+
+"Don't you think, dear, that you ought to be well cared for, when you
+have two guardians--two adopted fathers, Mr. Palma and I--to watch
+over you? We both intend that you shall be the happiest little girl
+in the State. Will you help us?"
+
+"I will try to be good."
+
+Her voice was very low, but steady, as if she realized she was making
+a compact.
+
+"Then I know we shall all succeed."
+
+Mr. Hargrove walked to the front door, and the lawyer put on his hat
+and came back to the steps.
+
+"Regina, I have explained to you that I brought you here because your
+mother so directed me, and I believe Dr. Hargrove will be a kind,
+good friend. Little one, I do not like to leave you so soon among
+strangers, but it cannot be helped. Will you be contented and happy?"
+
+There was singular emphasis in her reply.
+
+"I shall never complain to you, Mr. Palma."
+
+"Because you think I would not 'Sympathize with you? I am not a man
+given to soft words, nor am I accustomed to deal with children, but
+indeed I should be annoyed if I thought you were unhappy here."
+
+"Then you must not be annoyed at all."
+
+His quick nervous laugh seemed to startle her unpleasantly, for she
+shrank closer to the balustrade.
+
+"How partial you are, preferring Dr. Hargrove already, and flying
+into his arms at sight! Do you wish to make me jealous?"
+
+His eyes gleamed mischievously, and he saw the blood rising in her
+white cheeks.
+
+"Dr. Hargrove opened his arms to me, because he saw how miserable I
+was."
+
+"If I should chance to open mine, do you think that by any accident
+you would rush into them?"
+
+"You know you would never have dreamed of doing such a thing. Are you
+going away now?"
+
+"In a moment. If you get into trouble, or need anything, will you
+write to me? Remember, I am your mother's friend."
+
+"Is not Mr. Hargrove also?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+He took her hands, and bending down looked kindly into the delicate
+lovely face.
+
+"Good-bye, Regina."
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Palma."
+
+"I hope, little girl, that we shall always be friends."
+
+"You are very good to wish it. Thank you for taking care of me.
+Because you are my mother's best friend, I shall pray for you every
+night."
+
+His sternly moulded lips twitched with some strange passing
+reminiscence of earlier years, but the emotion vanished, and,
+pressing her hands gently, he turned and went down the walk leading
+to the gate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+"Please let me come in, and help you."
+
+Regina knocked timidly at the door of the parsonage guest's chamber,
+and Mrs. Lindsay answered from within:
+
+"Come in? Of course you may, but what help do you imagine you can
+render, you useless piece of prettiness? Shall I set you on the
+mantlepiece between the china kittens, and the glass lambs, right
+under the sharp nose of my grandmother's portrait, where her great
+solemn eyes will keep you in order? Whence do all those delectable
+odours come? Are you a walking _sachet?_"
+
+She was kneeling before an open drawer of the bureau, methodically
+arranging sundry garments, and, pausing in the task, looked over her
+shoulder at the girl who stood near, holding her hands behind her.
+
+"I am sure I could help you, if I were only allowed to try. I am
+quite a large girl now, more than a year older than when I came here,
+and Hannah has taught me to do ever so many things. She says I will
+be a famous cook some day. You didn't know that I made up the Sally
+Lunn for tea?"
+
+"What an ambitious bit of majesty you are! You wish to reign in the
+kitchen, rule in the poultry yard, and now presume to invade my
+province--my special kingdom of making things ready for the Bishop?
+Have you been anointing yourself with a whole vial of Lubin's extract
+of--Ah!--delicious--what is it?"
+
+"Whatever it may be, will you let me fix it to suit myself on the
+Bishop's bureau?"
+
+"No, you impertinent, wily Delilah in short clothes! I never promise
+in the dark; show it to me first, and then perhaps I may negotiate
+with you. You know as well as I do that the Bishop dearly loves
+perfumes, and if I should generously concede you the privilege of
+presenting 'sweet-smelling savours' unto him you might some day
+depose me--and I wish you distinctly to understand that I intend to
+reign over him as long as I live; not an inch of territory shall you
+filch."
+
+Regina held up her hands, displaying in one several feathery sprays
+of Belgian honeysuckle, with half of its petals pearl, half of the
+palest pink; in the other a bunch of double violets of the rarest
+shade of delicate lilac, so unusual in the floral kingdom.
+
+"You should be called 'Mab,' and ride about the world on a butterfly,
+or a streak of moonshine. How did you coax or conjure that
+honeysuckle into blooming before its appointed time?"
+
+"Here are three pieces, two for the Bishop, and one for you. May I
+fasten it in your hair?"
+
+"You recite a lesson in history every day, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Have you come to the Salem-witches yet?"
+
+"Not yet. What has my history to do with this honeysuckle?"
+
+"When you study metaphysics and begin the chase after that
+psychological fox--the-law-of-association-of-ideas, you will
+understand. Meanwhile, thank your stars, dear, that you did not live
+in Massachusetts some years ago, or you would certainly nave gone to
+heaven in the shape of smoke. How you stare, you white owl! As if you
+thought St. Vitus had rented my tongue for a dancing-saloon. It is
+all because the Bishop is coming. My blessed Bishop! Yes, put the
+handsomest spray in my hair, and then, if you make me look young and
+very pretty, you may do as you like with the others."
+
+Still kneeling, she inclined her head, while Regina twisted the
+wreath around the coil of neatly braided hair. Then, kissing the girl
+lightly on her cheek, Mrs. Lindsay closed the drawer and rose.
+Drawing a silver cup from her pocket, Regina filled it with water,
+placed it close to the mirror, and proceeded to arrange the violets
+and honeysuckle. Stepping back to inspect the effect, she folded her
+hands and smiled.
+
+"Mrs. Lindsay, tell him I gathered them for him, because he was kind
+to me when I came here a stranger, and I wish to thank him. When he
+is at home it seems always summer-time, don't you think so?"
+
+The mother's eyes filled, and, laying a hand on the girl's head, she
+answered:
+
+"Yes, dear, he is my sunshine, and my summer-time."
+
+"How long will he stay with us?"
+
+"He could not say positively when his last letter was written, but I
+hope to keep him several months. You know it is possible he may be
+forced to go to England, in order to complete some of his studies
+before--oh, Regina! could we bear to have two oceans swelling between
+our Bishop and us?"
+
+"Why, then, will you let him go?"
+
+"Can I help it?"
+
+"You are his mother, and he would never disobey you."
+
+"But he is a man, and I cannot tie him to my apron strings as I do my
+bunch of keys. I must not stand in the way, and prevent him from
+doing his duty."
+
+"I suppose I don't yet know everything about such matters, but I
+should think it was his duty first to please you. How devoted he is
+to 'duty'? It must be horrible to leave all one loves, and go out to
+India among the heathens."
+
+"Pray, what do you know about the heathens?" said a manly voice, and
+instantly two strong arms gathered the pair in a cordial embrace.
+
+"My son! You stole a march upon me! Oh, Douglass, I never was half so
+glad to see you as now!"
+
+"If you do not stop crying, I shall feel tempted to doubt you. Tears
+are so unusual in your eyes that I shall be disposed to regard your
+welcome as equivocal."
+
+He kissed her on cheek and lips, and added:
+
+"Regina, can't you contrive to say you are a little glad to see me?"
+
+There was no reply, and, turning to look for her, he found she had
+vanished.
+
+"Queer little thing, she has gone without a word, though she insisted
+on dressing her silver cup with those flowers, which she thought
+would suggest to you her gratitude for your numerous little acts of
+kindness. Have you seen your uncle?"
+
+"Yes, mother, I stopped a few moments at the church, where he is
+engaged with one of the committee. Uncle Peyton is not looking well.
+Has he been sick?"
+
+"He has suffered a good deal with his throat since you left us, and
+now and then I notice he coughs. He is overworked, and now that you
+can fill his pulpit he will have an opportunity to rest. Oh, my son!
+in every respect your visit is a blessing."
+
+Leaning her head on his breast, she looked up with proud and almost
+adoring tenderness, and, drawing his face down to hers, held it
+close, kissing him with that intense clinging fervour which only
+mother-love kindles.
+
+"Does my little mother know that she is spoiling her boy by inches;
+making a nursery darling, instead of a hardy soldier of him? You are
+weaving silken bonds to fasten me more securely here, when you ought
+rather to aid me in snapping the fetters of affection, habit, and
+association. Come, be so good as to brush the dust out of my hair,
+while you tell me everything about everybody, which you have failed
+to write during these long months of absence."
+
+For some time they talked of family matters, of occurrences in V----,
+of some invidious and unkind remarks, some caustic personal
+criticisms upon the pastor's household affairs, which had emanated
+from Mrs. Prudence Potter, a widowed member of the congregation, who
+had once rashly dreamed of presiding over the clerical hearth as Mrs.
+Peyton Hargrove, and having failed to possess her kingdom had become
+a merciless spy upon all that happened in the forbidden realm.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Prue! what a warfare exists between her name and her
+character. She should petition the legislature to allow her to be
+called--Mrs. Echidna! My son, I think modern civilization will remain
+incomplete, will not perform its mission, until it relieves society
+from the depredations of these scorpions, by colonizing them where
+they will expend their poison without dangerous results. If sting
+they must, let it be among themselves. If I were lunatic enough to
+desire to vote, I should spend my franchise in favour of a 'Gossip
+Reservation'--somewhere close to the Great Western Desert, to which
+the disappointed widows, spiteful old maids, and snarling dyspeptic
+bachelors of this much-suffering generation should be relegated for
+domiciliation and reform. Freedom serves America much as Æsop's stork
+did the frogs: we are appallingly free to be devoured by envy,
+stabbed by calumny, strangled by slander. I believe if I were a
+painter, and desired to portray Cleopatra's death, I would assuredly
+give to the asp the baleful features and sneering smirk of Mrs.
+Prudence. Every Sunday when she twists those two curls on her
+forehead till they lift themselves like horns, puts up her
+eye-glasses and pays her respects to our pew, I catch myself
+whispering '_Cerastes!_' and wishing that I were only the _camera_
+of a photographer."
+
+"Take care, mother! would you accept a homestead in your contemplated
+'Reservation'?"
+
+She pinched his ear.
+
+"Don't presume, sir, to preach to me. Really, I often wonder how
+Peyton can force himself to smile and parry the vinegar cruets that
+woman throws at him in the shape of observations upon the 'rapid
+decline of evangelical piety,' and the 'sadly backslidden nature' of
+the clergy."
+
+"Because he is the very best man in the world, and faithfully
+practises what he preaches--Christian charity. What is Mrs. Pru's
+latest grievance?"
+
+"That Peyton does not admit her to his confidence, and supply her
+with all the particulars of Regina's history and family, which he
+withholds even from you and me, and about which we should never dream
+of catechizing him. In a better cause, her bold effrontery would be
+sublime. Fortunately she was absent in Vermont for some months after
+the child came, and curiosity had subsided into indifference until
+she returned,--when lo! a geyser of righteous anxiety and suspicion
+boiled up in the congregation, and wellnigh scalded us. What do you
+suppose she blandly asked me one day, in the child's presence? 'Were
+not Mr. Hargrove's friends mistaken in believing he had never
+married?' Now I contend that the law of the land should indict for
+just such cruel and wicked innuendoes, because these social crimes
+that the statutes do not reach work almost as much mischief and
+misery as those offences against public peace which the laws declare
+penal. I confess Mrs. Potter is my _bête-noire_, and I feel as no
+doubt Paul did when he wrote to Timothy: 'Alexander the coppersmith
+did me much evil; the Lord reward him according to his works.'"
+
+"Mother, what reply did you make to her? I can imagine you towering
+like Mrs. Siddons."
+
+"You may be sure I unmasked a battery. I looked straight into her
+little faded grey eyes, which straggle away from each other as if
+ashamed of their mutual ferret experiences,--for you know one looks
+out so, and one turns always up,--and I answered, that my brother had
+been exceedingly fortunate, as, notwithstanding the numerous
+matrimonial nets adroitly spread for him, he had escaped, like the
+Psalmist, 'as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers,' and fled for
+safety unto the mountain of celibacy. Bishop, if the new school of
+science lack the link that binds us to the ophidian type, I can
+furnish a thoroughly 'developed' specimen of an 'evolved' Melusina;
+for Mrs. Pru's ancestors must have been not very remotely,
+cobra-capellos. Such a chronic blister as she is keeps up more
+inflammation in a church than all the theology at Andover can cool.
+As for general society here in V----, she damages it more than all
+the three hundred foxes of Samson did the corn-fields, vineyards,
+and olives of the Philistines. What are you laughing at?"
+
+"The ludicrous dismay that will seize you when the constablery of
+your progressive civilization notify you that you must emigrate to
+the Gossip and Slander Reservation. Poor Mrs. Prudence Potter! from
+my earliest recollection she has been practising archery upon the
+target of her neighbours' characters, and she seeks social martyrdom
+as diligently as Sir Galahad hunted the Sangreal. In the form of
+ostracism, I think she is certainly reaping her reward. Mother, let
+her rest."
+
+"With all my heart! ''tis a consummation devoutly to be wished;' but
+that is just the last thing she proposes, until the muscles of her
+tongue and eyes are paralyzed. Rest indeed! Did you ever see a hyena
+caged in a menagerie? Did you ever know it to rest for an instant
+from its snarling, snapping, grinning round? My son, I would not for
+my right hand malign or injure her, but how can I sincerely indulge
+charitable reflections concerning a person who has so persistently
+persecuted your uncle?"
+
+"Then, dear little mother, do not think of her at all. Be assured her
+ill-natured shafts will fall as blunt and harmless upon the noble
+well-tried armour of my uncle's Christian character, as a bombardment
+of cambric needles against the fortress of Cronstadt. How rapidly
+Regina has grown, since she came among us? Her complexion is perfect.
+Is she the same straightforward, guileless child I left her?"
+
+"Unchanged except in the rapid expansion of her mind, which develops
+surprisingly. She is the most mature child I have ever met, and I
+presume it is attributable to the fact that she has never been thrown
+with children, and having always associated with older persons, has
+insensibly imbibed their staid thoughts, and adopted their quiet
+ways. I should not be more astonished to see my prim puritanical
+grandmother yonder step down from the frame, and turn a somersault on
+the carpet, or indulge in leap-frog, than to find Regina guilty of
+any boisterous hoidenish behaviour, or unrefined, undignified
+language. If she had been born on the _Mayflower_, raised on Plymouth
+Rock, and fed three times a day on the 'Blue Laws' of Connecticut,
+she could not possibly have proved a more eminently 'proper' child.
+Even Hannah, who you may recollect was so surly, harsh, and
+suspicious when she first came here, and who really has as little
+cordiality or enthusiasm in her nature as a gridiron or a
+rolling-pin, seems now to be completely devoted to her; as nearly
+infatuated as one of her flinty temperament can be,--and who conquers
+old Hannah's heart--you will admit--must be wellnigh perfect."
+
+"Does my uncle continue to teach her?"
+
+"Yes, and I think it is one of his greatest pleasures. She is
+ambitious and studious, and Peyton is never too weary to explain
+whatever puzzles her. She is exceedingly fond of him, and he said
+last week that she was his 'Jabez;' he had received her so
+reluctantly, and she proved such a comfort and blessing?"
+
+"I presume her mother writes to her occasionally?"
+
+"Regularly every fortnight she receives a letter. Sometimes for days
+after Regina looks perplexed and sorrowful, but she never divulges
+the contents. Once, about two months ago, I found her lying on the
+rug in her own room, with her face in her hands, and her mother's
+last letter beside her. I asked if she had received any bad news, for
+I knew she was crying in her quiet way, and she looked up, and said
+in a tone that was really piteous: 'There is nothing new. It is
+always the same old thing!--she does not know yet when she can come,
+and I must be good and patient. Oh, Mrs. Lindsay! I am so hungry to
+see my mother! When I look at her picture, I feel as if I would be
+willing to die if I could only kiss her, and hear her say once more,
+"My baby! My darling!" Last night I dreamed she took me in her arms
+and hugged me tight, and looked at me as she used to do when she came
+to the convent, and said, "Papa's own baby! Papa's poor stray lamb!"
+Mrs. Lindsay, when I waked I had the pillow in my arms, and was
+kissing it.' Now, Douglass, it is a great mystery how a mother could
+voluntarily separate herself from such a child as Regina. I asked her
+to show me the picture, and she cried a good deal, and said: 'I have
+often wished to show it to you, but she says I must let no one see
+it. Oh! she is so beautiful! Lovelier than the Madonnas in the
+Chapels; only she always has tears in her eyes. I never saw her when
+she did not weep. Mrs. Lindsay, help me to be good, teach me to be
+smart in everything, that I may be some comfort to my mother.' The
+saddest feature in the whole affair is, that Regina begins to suspect
+there is some discreditable mystery about her mother and herself; but
+Peyton says it is marvellous how delicately she treats the subject.
+She came home one day from Sunday school and told him that Mrs.
+Prudence asked her in the presence, of her class how her mother could
+afford to dress her in such costly clothes; and whether she had ever
+seen her father? Peyton wished to know what reply she made, and she
+said her answer was: 'Mrs. Potter, if I were you and you were Regina
+Orme, I think I would have my tongue cut out, before it should ask
+you such questions.' Then Peyton told me she looked at him as if she
+were reading his secret soul, and added; 'It is hard not to
+understand everything, but I will be patient, for mother writes that
+some day I shall know all; and no matter what people say--no matter
+how strange things may seem--I will believe in my mother, as I
+believe in God!' Most girls of her age would be curious to discover
+what is concealed from her, but although your uncle thinks she is
+uncertain whether her father be living or dead, she carefully shuns
+all reference to the subject. There is the doorbell! Hannah will let
+somebody in before I can fly down and tell her to excuse me. How
+stupid of people not to know that my Bishop has come! Oh dear! it is
+Mrs. Cartney, and she has come for the aprons I promised to make for
+the Asylum children, and they have not been touched! Yes, Hannah, I
+am coming. Why didn't you say I was engaged with my son?"
+
+She disappeared, and after awhile Douglass Lindsay went down to the
+library, and thence through the door opening upon two steps that led
+into the garden.
+
+It was one of those rare golden-aired days that sometimes break over
+the bleak brows of brawling March in sunny prophecy of yet distant
+summer; windless days, when rime and haze are equally unknown, and
+tender fingers of the timid spring, lifting the shrouding sod,
+advance tendril and leaf and bud as heralds of the annual
+resurrection. Double daffodils stood erect and conspicuous like
+commissioned officers along the line of yellow jonquils that bordered
+the walks, and snowy narcissus and purple and rose hyacinths made a
+fragrant mosaic over which the brown bees swung, and hummed their
+ceaseless hymn--_laborare est orare_. Following the winding path that
+led to the palings which shut out the poultry realm, the young
+minister leaned against the gate, overshadowed by a tall lilac, and
+looked across at the feathered folk, of which from boyhood he had
+been particularly fond.
+
+In the centre of the enclosure was a handsome pigeon-house, circular
+in form, and easily accessible by a flight of steps, while upon the
+top of a cupola that sprung from the roof was built a small but
+prettily painted martin's home, in the quaint shape of the ark as we
+find it in Scriptural illustrations. Throughout the length and
+breadth of the Continent, probably no other mere _amateur_ fowl
+fancier possessed such a collection as Mr. Hargrove had patiently and
+gradually gathered from various sources. The peculiarity consisted in
+the whiteness of the fowls;--turkeys, guineas, geese, ducks, English
+Pile, Leghorn, Brahma chickens all spotlessly pure, while the pigeons
+resembling drifting snow-flakes,--and the pheasants gleamed like
+silver.
+
+Upon one of the steps of the columbary sat Regina, with a basket of
+mixed grain by her side, and in her lap a pair of white rabbits which
+she was feeding with celery and cabbage leaves. At her feet stood two
+beautiful Chinese geese, whose golden bills now and then approached
+the edge of the basket, or encroached upon the rabbits' evening meal.
+The girl was bareheaded, and the fading sunshine lingered lovingly
+upon the glossy hair and delicate lovely face which had lost naught
+of the purity that characterized it eighteen months before, while
+during that time she had grown much taller, and gave promise of
+attaining unusual height and symmetry.
+
+The dress of Marie-Louise blue merino was relieved at the throat by a
+neatly crimped ruffle, and, as in days of yore, she wore the white
+apron with pretty pockets, and ruffled bands passing over her
+shoulders and down to the belt behind, where broad strings of linen
+were looped into a bow. Her abundant hair was plaited in two long
+thick braids, and passed twice around her head, forming a jet
+coronal, and imparting a peculiarly classic contour.
+
+There was in this quiet fowlyard scene something so innocent, so
+peaceful, that it was inexpressibly soothing and attractive to the
+man who stood beneath the lilac boughs, jaded with unremitting study,
+and laden with wearying schemes of future labour. Douglass Lindsay
+was only twenty-five, but the education and habits of a theological
+student had stamped a degree of gravity on his handsome face, which
+was doubtless enhanced by a slight yet undeniable baldness.
+
+Closely resembling his mother, except in the brownness of his fine
+eyes, his countenance lacked the magnetic warmth and merry shifting
+lights that rendered hers so pleasant, yet none who looked earnestly
+upon it could doubt for an instant that he would prove a stanch,
+faithful, worthy ensign of that Banner of Peace, which Jesus unfurled
+among the olive-girdled hills of holy Judea.
+
+With no leprous taint of bigotry to sully his soul, blur his vision,
+or cramp his sphere of action, the broad stream of Christian charity
+flowed from his noble, generous heart, sweeping away obstacles that
+would have impeded the usefulness of a minister less catholic in
+sympathy, more hampered by creed ligaments and denominational
+fetters. To an almost womanly tenderness and susceptibility regarding
+the sufferings of his fellow-creatures, he united an inflexible
+adherence to the dictates of justice and the rigorous promptings of
+conscience; and while devoutly yielding allegiance solely to the
+Triune God, to whose service he had reverently dedicated his young
+life, there were times when in almost ascetic self-abnegation he
+unconsciously bowed down to that stem-lipped, stony Teraph who,
+under the name of "Duty," sat a cowled and shrouded idol in the
+secret oratory of his unselfish heart. Are there not seasons when
+even the most orthodox wonder whether the _Dii Involuti_ passed away
+for ever, with the _pateræ_ and _fibulæ_ that once rendered service
+in the classic shades of Chusium and Monte-pulciana?
+
+Scholarly in tastes, neither Mr. Lindsay's habits nor inclination led
+him often into the flowery mazes of fashionable society, but,
+standing upon the verge of Vanity Fair, he had looked curiously down
+at the feverish whirl, the gilded shams, the maddening, murderous
+conflict for place,--the empty mocking pageantry of the victorious,
+the sickening despair and savage irony of the legions of the
+defeated; and after the roar and shout and moan of the social
+maelstrom, as presented in the great city where his studies had been
+pursued, it was pleasant this afternoon to watch the fluttering white
+creatures that surrounded that calm beautiful child, and to listen to
+the soft cooing of the innocent lovers in the dovecote above her.
+
+Opening the latticed gate he walked toward the group, and lifting the
+basket, sat down on the steps.
+
+"Why did you not wait, and invite me to come out and inspect your
+pretty pets?"
+
+"I thought your mother could not spare you this first afternoon, she
+had so much to say to you; but I am very glad you have not quite
+forgotten us. Do you see how tall the China geese have grown? When
+the gander stretches his neck he can touch my shoulder with his bill.
+Isn't he beautiful?"
+
+"Decidedly the handsomest gander of my acquaintance. When I went away
+you were trying to find a name for him. Did you succeed?"
+
+"Yes, I call him Alcibiades."
+
+"Why? Do you wish to insult the memory of the great Athenian?"
+
+"I wish to compliment him, because he was so graceful and beautiful,
+and was so fond of birds he carried them about in his bosom. My
+Alcibiades is so good-natured he never fights or hisses at my
+pigeons, and just now one of them lighted on his back, and picked up
+the barley that had fallen on his feathers. Mr. Hargrove promises me
+that just as soon as I can make money enough to pay the brickmason,
+he will have a large cemented basin built near the pump, where the
+geese and ducks can swim about every day."
+
+"How do you propose to make money?" asked Douglass, lifting one of
+the rabbits into his lap, and offering it a crisp morsel of celery.
+
+"Don't you know that I sell the eggs? Those of the white guineas
+bring three dollars a dozen, and I could sell more of the white
+turkeys, at the same price, than we can spare. Our new pigeon palace
+was paid for entirely out of the poultry money."
+
+"Who keeps the poultry book?   Have you at last learned to multiply
+fractions?"
+
+She looked up, smiling into his laughing eyes.
+
+"Mr. Lindsay, I am not so stupid as when you tried so hard to explain
+that sum to me. I keep the account, and your uncle examines it once a
+week. He says it will teach me to be accurate in my figures."
+
+"What did you pay for your rabbits? I have a pair of Angolas for you,
+but the man from whom I bought them advised me not to remove them
+until all danger of cold weather had passed, as they are quite
+young."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Lindsay. You are very kind to remember that I wished
+for them last year. I did not buy these----"
+
+She raised the rabbit from her apron, and rubbed her cheek against
+its soft fur, then added in a lower and touching tone:
+
+"My mother sent them to me. I can't tell how she found out that of
+all things I wished most to have them, but you know, sir, that
+mothers seem inspired, they always understand what is in their
+children's hearts and minds, and need no telling. So I love these
+more than all my pets; they are the latest message from my mother."
+
+She held out her hand, and interpreting the expression in her superb
+eyes, he placed the other rabbit in her arms, and for a moment she
+pressed them close.
+
+"I must shut them up until to-morrow, or the owls might make a supper
+of them, as happened to some the Sisters kept at the convent."
+
+She opened the door of a wired apartment beneath the pigeon-house,
+where in an adjoining division the pheasants were settling upon their
+perch, and carefully deposited the bouncing furry creatures on a bed
+of wheat straw.
+
+"Mr. Lindsay, the fowls are all going to roost, and you must wait
+till morning to see the squabs, and broods of Brahmas and Leghorns.
+They look like snowballs rolling about after their food."
+
+As she locked up the grain, and balanced the key on her fingers, her
+companion said:
+
+"I must persuade Uncle Peyton to get some black Spanish, and a few
+Poland chickens."
+
+"Oh no! We don't want any black things; if they laid a dozen eggs a
+day they could not come here. We never raise a fowl that has coloured
+feathers; all our beauties must be like snow."
+
+"I see you have converted my uncle to your pet doctrine, and before
+long I suppose you will persuade him to sell his pretty bay, and buy
+a white pony?"
+
+"No, sir, I like 'Sultan' too well to care much about his colour, and
+beside, Mr. Hargrove is attached to him. There is one thing we both
+want very much indeed, and that is a white Ava cow. Your uncle read
+me a description of those cattle last week, and said when you went to
+the East he would ask you to try and send him one."
+
+As he looked down at her perfect face, then at one of the doves that
+had perched on her shoulder, and thought of treacherous swart Sepoys,
+of Bengal tigers, of all the tangled work that lay before him in
+Hindoostan jungles, a shadow fell over the young man's brow, and a
+dull pain seemed to tighten the valves of his heart. Just then his
+appointed lot in the Master's vineyard did not smile as alluringly as
+the sunny slopes of Eschol; but he put aside the contrast.
+
+"Regina, I saw Mr. Palma in New York."
+
+"I hope he is well."
+
+"He certainly looked so. Among other things, he asked if the art of
+writing had been altogether omitted in your education. I told him I
+was unacquainted with your accomplishments in that line, as I had
+written you two letters which remained unanswered."
+
+"But your mother thanked you for them in my name."
+
+"Which was very sweet and good in my dear mother, but questionably
+courteous in you. Mr. Palma sent you a present."
+
+"He is very kind indeed, but if I am expected to write and thank him,
+I would much rather not receive it."
+
+"Do you dislike him?"
+
+"How could I dislike my mother's best friend? I daresay he has a good
+heart--of course he must have; but whenever I think of him I feel a
+queer chill creep to my very finger-tips, as if the north wind blew
+hard upon me, or an iceberg sailed by."
+
+"Guess what he sent you."
+
+"A copybook, pen, and ink?"
+
+"He is too polished a gentleman to punish you so severely. Come and
+let me show you his gift."
+
+He led the way to the gallery at the rear of the house, and here they
+found Mr. Hargrove and Mrs. Lindsay admiring a young Newfoundland
+dog, which was chained to the balusters.
+
+"Look, Regina! it is a waddling snow-bank! So round, so soft and
+white! Did he come from Nova Zembla, or Hammerfest, or directly from
+'Greenland's icy mountains'?"
+
+"Mr. Palma looked all over New York and Brooklyn before he found a
+pure white dog to suit him. It seems he knew Regina's fondness for
+snowy pets, and this is the only Newfoundland I have ever seen who
+had not even a dark hair. Mr. Palma put this handsome collar and
+chain upon him, and asked me to bring him to Regina. He will be very
+large when grown; now he is only a few months old."
+
+Regina softly patted the woolly head, and her eyes glistened with
+delight.
+
+"How did Mr. Palma guess that I wanted a dog?"
+
+"He requested me to suggest something that would please you, and I
+told him that all at the parsonage were grieving over the death of
+poor old Biörn. He immediately decided to send you a dog, and this is
+a noble sagacious creature."
+
+"What is his name?"
+
+"That is left entirely to your taste; but I hope you will not go all
+the way to Greece to find a title, as you did for your classic
+gander."
+
+"Then I will call him whatever Mr. Hargrove likes best."
+
+As she spoke Regina nestled her fingers into the pastor's hand, and
+he smiled down into her radiant face.
+
+"My dear child, exercise your own preference. Have you no choice?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Suppose you name him 'Erl-King' in compliment to Mr. Palma?"
+
+"I should never dare to call him that; it would seem impertinent. He
+is such a splendid dog, I should like a fine, uncommon, grand name
+out of some of Mr. Hargrove's learned books."
+
+"Oh don't, Regina! It will be positively cruel to turn Peyton loose
+among his folios, and invite him to afflict that innocent orphaned
+brute with some dreadful seven-syllabled abomination, which he will
+convince you is Arabic, or Sanscrit, classic or mediæval, Gaelic,
+Finnish or Norse, but which I warn you will serve your jaws (more
+elegant form--'maxillary bones') very much as an attack of mumps
+would, and will torture the victim into hydrophobia. Be pitiful, and
+say Teazer, Tiger, Towser, but don't throw the sublime nomenclature
+of the classics literally to the dogs!"
+
+"Now, mother, I protest against your infringement of Uncle Peyton's
+accorded rights. Be quiet, please, and let him give Regina a few
+historic names, from which she can select one."
+
+Douglass passed his arm over Mrs. Lindsay's shoulder, and both
+watched the eager intent face which the girl lifted to the pastor.
+
+He took off his glasses, wiped them with the end of his coat, and,
+readjusting them on his nose, addressed himself to his ward.
+
+"There is an East Indian tradition that a divinely appointed
+greyhound guards the golden herds of stars and sunbeams for the Lord
+of Heaven, and collects the nourishing rain-clouds as the celestial
+cows to the milking-place. That greyhound was called _Saramá_. Will
+that suit you?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"The Greeks tell us of a dog which was kept in the temple of
+Æsculapius at Athens, and on one occasion when a robber entered and
+stole the gold and silver treasures from the altar, the dog followed
+him for several days and nights, until the thief, who could neither
+beat him away nor persuade him to eat meat, was captured and carried
+back to Athens. Now, dear, this was a very shrewd and courageous
+animal, and his name was Capparus."
+
+"Why did not his owner change it for something handsome, after he
+performed such service?"
+
+Regina spoke dubiously, and looked down at the new pet, who wagged
+his plumy tail as if to deprecate the punishment of such a title.
+
+"When Pyrrhus died, his favourite and devoted dog refused to stir
+from the body, but when it was carried out of the house he leaped
+upon the bier, and finally sprang into the funeral pile, and was
+burned alive with his master's remains. This exceedingly faithful
+creature was Astus."
+
+"Mr. Hargrove, are all the classic names so ugly?"
+
+"I am afraid the little girl's ear is not sufficiently cultivated to
+appreciate them. I will try once more. The Welsh Prince Llewellyn had
+a noble deerhound, whom he trusted to watch the cradle of his baby
+boy while he himself was absent. One day returning home, he found the
+cradle upset and empty, the clothes and the dog's mouth dripping with
+blood. Concluding that the hound had devoured the child, the father
+drew his sword and slew the dog, but a moment after the cry of the
+babe from behind the cradle showed him his boy was alive. Looking
+around, the prince discovered the body of a huge wolf, which had
+entered the house to attack and devour the child, but which had been
+kept off and killed by this brave dog, who was named Gillert."
+
+Fearing from the expression of the girl's eloquent face, that Wales
+would win the game, Mrs. Lindsay exclaimed with an emphasis that made
+the dog prick up his ears:
+
+"_Gwrâch y Rhibyn_--be merciful! The poor wretch looks as if he were
+ready to howl at the bare mention of such a heathen, fabulous name.
+Anything would be an improvement on the Welsh--Cambyses,
+Sardanapalus, are euphonic in comparison.
+
+"Mr. Hargrove, I am much obliged to you for your goodness in telling
+me so much about celebrated dogs, and if the queer names sound any
+sweeter to me after I am well educated, and grow learned, I will take
+one of them; but just now I believe would rather call my dog Hero."
+
+"Regina Orme! you benighted innocent! Don't make Peyton's hair rise
+with horror at your slaughter of the 'unities.' Why, my dear, Hero
+was a young lady who lived in Sestos a few thousand years ago, and
+was not considered a model of prudent behaviour, even then."
+
+"Are not brave noble men called heroes? Did not Mr. Hargrove say last
+week that Philo Smith was a hero, when he jumped into the mill-pond
+and saved Lemuel Martin from drowning? Does not my history call
+Leonidas a hero? I don't know exactly who the 'unities' are, but
+until I learn more I intend to call my dog Hero. To me it seems to
+mean everything I wish him to be--good, faithful, brave, grand, and I
+shall call him Hero. Come along, Hero, and get some supper."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+"Mrs. Orme, now that you are comfortable in your wrapper and
+slippers, let me take down your hair, and then I will bring you a cup
+of tea; not the vile lukewarm stuff they give us here, but good
+genuine tea made out of my own caddy, that has some strength, and
+will build you up. Rehearsals don't often serve you so badly."
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. Waul, but the tea would only make me more nervous,
+and that is a risk I cannot afford to incur. Please raise both
+windows, fresh air, even Parisian air, is better for me than anything
+else."
+
+"You have not seemed quite yourself since we came here, and I don't
+understand at all why two nights in Paris serve you worse than a
+week's acting elsewhere."
+
+"Have I not told you that I dread above every other ordeal the
+critical Parisian audience?"
+
+"But you passed so successfully through it!   Last night the
+galleries absolutely thundered, and people seemed half wild with
+delight. William says the papers are full of praise."
+
+Mrs. Waul crossed the room to lay upon the bureau the steel pins she
+had taken from her mistress's hair, and the latter muttered audibly:
+
+"For me the 'ides of March' are  come indeed, but not passed."
+
+"Did you speak to me?"
+
+"There comes your husband. I hear his slow, heavy step upon the
+stairs. Open the door."
+
+As an elderly white-haired man entered, Mrs. Orme put put her hand.
+
+"Letters from home, Mr. Waul?"
+
+"One from America, two from London, and a note from the American
+minister."
+
+"You saw the minister then? Did he give you the papers we shall
+require?"
+
+"He has been sick, I believe, but said he would be at the theatre
+to-night, and would call and see you to-morrow."
+
+"Hear this sentence, good people, from his note: 'Only indisposition
+prevented my attendance at the theatre last night to witness the
+brilliant triumph of my countrywomen. Since the palmy days of Rachel
+I have not heard such extravagant eulogies, and as an American I
+proudly and cordially congratulate you----'"
+
+"Are you going to faint! Stand back, William, and let me bathe her
+face with cologne. What is the matter, Mrs. Orme? You shake as if you
+had an ague."
+
+But her mistress sat with eyes fixed upon a line visible only to
+herself: "Your countrymen here are very much elated, and to-night I
+shall be accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Cuthbert Laurance, son of
+General René Laurance, whose wealth and social eminence must have at
+least rendered his name familiar to all Americans travelling in
+Europe."
+
+"Be quick, Phoebe, and get her a glass of wine. She has no more
+colour in her lips than there is in my white beard."
+
+"No--give me nothing. I only want rest--quiet."
+
+She crushed the delicate satin paper in her hand, and rallied her
+composure. After a moment she added:
+
+"A slight faintness, that is all. Mr. Waul, before the curtain rises
+to-night, I wish you to ascertain in what portion of the house the
+American minister's box is located; write it on a slip of paper and
+send it to the dressing-room by your wife. Just now I believe I have
+no other commissions. If I do not ring my little bell, do not disturb
+me until five o'clock, then bring me a cup of strong coffee. And,
+Mrs. Waul, please baste a double row of swan's-down around the neck
+and sleeves of the white silk I shall wear to-night. Let no one
+disturb me; not even the manager."
+
+As the husband and wife withdrew, she followed them to the door,
+locked it on the inside, and returned to the easy chair. With a
+whitening, hardening face she reread the note, and thrust it into one
+of the silk pockets of her robe.
+
+Although nine years had elapsed since we saw her first, in the mellow
+lamplight of Mr. Hargrove's library, time had touched her so
+daintily, so lovingly, that only two lines were discernible about the
+mouth, where habitual compression has set its print; and it would
+have been difficult to realize that she was twenty-eight, had not the
+treacherous eyes betrayed the gloom, the bitterness, the ceaseless
+heartache that filled them with shadows, which prematurely aged the
+whole countenance.
+
+The added years seemed only to have ripened and perfected her
+exquisite beauty, but with the rounded smoothness, and the fresh,
+pure colouring of youth was mingled a weird indescribable expression
+of stern hopelessness, of solemn repose, as if she had deliberately
+shaken hands for ever with all that makes life bright and precious,
+and were fronting with calm smile and quiet pulses a grim and
+desperate conflict, which she well knew could have an end only in
+the peace of the pall, that long truce, whose signal is the knell and
+the requiem.
+
+Had she been reared amid the fatalistic influences of Arabia, she
+could not have more completely adopted and exemplified the marble
+motto: "Despair is a free man; Hope is a slave." For her the rosy
+mist that usually hovers over futurity had been swept rudely aside,
+the softening glow of the To-Come had been precipitated into a dull,
+pitiless leaden ever present, at which she never raved nor railed,
+but inflexibly fought on, expecting neither sunshine nor succour,
+unappalled and patient as some stony figure of Fate, which chiselled
+when the race was young, feels the shrouding sands of centuries
+drifting around and over it, but makes no moan over the buried youth,
+and watches the approaching night with the same calm, steadfast gaze
+that looked upon the starry dawn, and the golden glory of the noon.
+
+The cautious repression which necessity had long ago rendered
+habitual had crystallized into a mask, which even when alone she
+rarely laid aside for an instant. In actual life, and among strong
+positive natures, the deepest feelings find no vent in the
+effervescence of passionate verbal outbreaks, and outside the charmed
+precincts of the tragic stage, the world would not tolerate the
+raving Hamlets and Othellos, the Macbeths and Medeas, that scowl and
+storm and anathematize so successfully in the magic glow of the
+footlights.
+
+To-day, as Madame Odille Orme leaned back in her luxuriously
+cushioned chair, she seemed quite as a statue, save the restless
+movements of her slender fingers, which twined and intertwined
+continually; while the concentrated gaze of the imperial eyes never
+stirred from the open window, whence she saw--not Parisian monuments
+of civic glory and martial splendour--only her own past, her haunting
+skull and cross-bones of the Bygone. Her violet-coloured
+dressing-gown was unbuttoned at the throat, exposing the graceful
+turn of the neck, and the proud poise of the perfectly modelled head,
+from which the shining hair fell like Danæ's shower, framing the face
+and figure on a back ground as golden as that of some carefully
+preserved Byzantine picture.
+
+At last the heavily fringed lids quivered, drooped, the magnificent
+eyes closed as if to shut out some vision too torturing even for
+their brave penetrating gaze, and in her rigid whiteness she seemed
+some unearthly creature, who had done for ever with feverish life and
+the frail toys of time.
+
+Raising her arms above her head, she rested her clasped hands upon
+her brow, and in a low, strangely quiet tone her words dropped like
+icicles.
+
+"It was a groundless fear, that when the long-sought opportunity came
+my weak womanish nature would betray me, and I should fail, break
+down utterly under the crushing weight of tender memories, sacred
+associations. What are they?
+
+"Three dreamy weeks of delirious wifehood, balanced by thirteen years
+of toil, aspersion, hatred, persecution; goaded by want, pursued
+ceaselessly by the scorpion scourge whose slanderous lash coiled ever
+after my name, my reputation. Three weeks a bride,--unrecognized
+as such even then,--twelve years an outcast,--repudiated,
+insulted,--mother and child, denied, derided,--cast off as a
+serpent's skin!--Ah, memory! thou hast no charm to stir the blackened
+ashes in a heart extinguished by the steady sleet of a husband's
+repudiation. When love is dead, and regret is decently buried, and
+the song of hope is hushed for ever, then revenge mounts the chariot
+and gathers the reins in her hands of steel; and beyond the writhing
+hearts whose blood dyes her rushing wheels sees only the goal. Some
+wise anatomists of that frail yet invincible sphinx--woman's nature,
+babble of one weighty fact, one conquering  law,--that only the
+mother-joy, the  mother-love, fully unseals the slumbering sweetness
+and latent tenderness of her being; for me, maternity opened the
+sluices of a sea of hate and gall. Had I never felt the velvet touch
+of tiny fingers on my cheek, a husband's base desertion might in time
+have been forgiven, possibly at least, forgotten; but the first wail
+from my baby's lips awoke the wolf in me. My wrongs might slumber
+till that last assize, when the pitying eyes of Christ sum up the
+record, but hers--have made a hungry panther of my soul. Come,
+memory, unlock your treasure house, uncoil your spells, chant all
+your witching strains, and let us see whether the towers of _Notre
+Dame_ will not tremble and dissolve as soon as I?"
+
+Bending to a trunk near her chair, she unlocked it, and taking out a
+_papier-maché_ box, opened it with a small key that hung from her
+watch chain, and placed it on the table before her, where she had
+thrown the unread letters. Leaning forward, she crossed her arms upon
+the marble, and looked down on the contents of the box,--her child's
+letters,--her own unanswered appeals in behalf of her babe,--a
+photograph of the latter,--and most prominent of all, a large square
+ambrotype of a handsome boyish face, with a short curl of black hair
+lying inside the case.
+
+"Idolatrous? Yes all women are, embryo pagans, and the only comfort
+is, that when the idol crumbles into clay, mocking our prayers and
+offerings, we still worship at the same old shrine, having dusted and
+garnished and set thereon--maybe the Furies, which bid fair to
+survive the wreck of gods, of creeds, and of time. Like Oenone, we
+are all betrayed sooner or later by our rose-lipped Paris,--
+
+            'Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,'
+
+and after the inevitable foolish tears of vain regret we dry our
+eyes, and hunt Cassandra, to listen to the muttering of the thunder
+that is gathering to avenge us--in Troy. Bride and bridegroom, face
+to face-- Cuthbert! So you looked, when we parted, when you strained
+me to your heart, and swore that before a fortnight passed you would
+hold 'darling Minnie in your arms once more!' Did you mean it even
+then? No, no, already the hounds of slander were snuffing in my path,
+and the toils were spread for my unwary feet. Here, look back at me,
+my husband, with those fond peerless eyes, as on that day when I saw
+you last--all mine! To-night--across the gulf of separation, and of
+shameful wrong--we shall look into each other's faces once more,
+while another woman wears my name, fills my place at your side. Fair
+treacherous face of my first and only love,--handsome as a
+god!--false as Apollyon!"
+
+She had lifted the ambrotype and held it close to her eyes, then her
+hand sank until the picture dropped back into its place, and the
+lonely desolate woman buried her face in her palms. The pretty guilt
+clock on the mantle ticked monotonously, and the hum of life, and the
+busy roll of vehicles in the vast city, was borne in through the
+window, like the faint roar of yet distant Niagara; and after awhile
+when the sharp stroke of the clock announced four the bowed figure
+raised herself.
+
+Sweeping back the blinding veil of hair, her brilliant brown eyes
+shone calm and dry, dimmed by no tears of fond womanly regret, and as
+they fell upon the photograph of Regina, a smile of indescribable
+bitterness curled the lovely lips that might have served as model for
+Psyche's.
+
+"'The trail of the serpent is over all.' Can there be pardon for the
+man who makes me shrink shudderingly at times from her whose little
+veins were fed from mine, whose pulses are but a throb from my heart,
+my baby! My own baby, who, when I snatch her in my arms, smiles at me
+with his wonderful eyes of blue; and wellnigh maddens me with the
+very echo of a voice whose wily sweetness won my love, to make an
+hour's pastime, a cheap toy, soon worn out, worthless and trodden
+under foot after three weeks' sport! Stooping over my baby, when she
+stretched her little hands and coaxed me to lift her on my lap, I
+have started back from the sight of her innocent face, as if a hooded
+viper fawned upon me; for the curse of her father's image has smitten
+my only darling, my beautiful, proud child! O God! that we had both
+died in that dim damp ward of the Hospital, where she first opened
+her eyes, unwelcomed by the father, whose features she bears!"
+
+But beneath this Marah tide that was surging so fiercely over her
+long-suffering heart, bubbled the pure, sweet, incorruptible fount of
+mother-love, and while she studied the fair childish face her own
+softened, as that of some snow image whose features gradually melt as
+the sunlight creeps across it. It was a picture taken after Regina's
+removal to the parsonage, and represented her with the white rabbits
+nestling in her arms.
+
+"My proud little Regina! my pure sensitive darling! How much longer
+must we be separated? Will the time ever come when the only earthly
+rest that remains for me can be taken in her soft clinging arms?
+Patience--patience. If it were not for her--for my baby--I might
+falter even now,--but she must, she shall be righted--at any
+sacrifice, at every cost; and may the widow's and the orphan's God be
+pitiful--be pitiful--at last."
+
+She raised her child's picture in her clasped hands, as if appealing
+indeed to the justice of Him who "never slumbers, nor sleeps," and
+the tremor of her lips and voice told how passionate was the
+affection for her daughter, how powerful the motives that sustained
+her in the prolonged and torturing ordeal.
+
+Restoring the portraits to their hiding-place, she locked the trunk,
+and as she resumed her seat seemed suddenly to recollect the letters
+lying on the table.
+
+One was a brief note, from the manager of the London theatre where
+she had recently been engaged; the second from a celebrated
+money-lender, which bore only the signature, "Simon," and was as
+follows:
+
+  "DEAR MADAME,--Since our last conversation relative to the
+  purchase of a certain mortgage, I have ascertained that you can
+  secure it, by adding one hundred pounds to the amount specified by
+  the holder. Should you still desire me to effect the transfer,
+  delay might thwart your negotiation, and I respectfully solicit
+  prompt instructions."
+
+Twice she read these lines, then slowly tore the paper into strips,
+shredded and threw them toward the grate, while a stony expression
+settled once more upon her features. The remaining letter was
+post-marked New York, and addressed, in a bold, round, mercantile
+hand, but when the envelope had been removed, the formal angular
+chirography of a schoolgirl displayed itself, and as the sheet was
+opened there issued thence a delicate perfume that gushed like a
+breath of spring over the heart of the lonely mother.
+
+Several leaves of lemon-verbena and a few violets fell from the folds
+of the paper, and, picking them up, Mrs. Orme spread them on her
+palm. Only a few withered leaves and faded petals that had crossed
+the Atlantic to whisper fragrant messages of love, from the trusting
+brave young soul whose inexperienced hand had stiffly traced at the
+top of the page--"My darling mother."
+
+Ah! what a yearning tenderness glorified the woman's frozen face, as
+the flowers in her hand babbled of the blue eyes that had looked last
+upon them, of the childish fingers that brushed the dew from their
+purple velvet, of the dainty, almost infantile, lips that had fondly
+pressed them, of the holy prayer breathed over them, that ere the
+time of violets came again mother and child might be reunited.
+
+Just now she dared not read the letter, dared not surrender to the
+softening influences that might melt the rigid purpose of her soul,
+and, kissing the flowers reverently, the mother laid them aside until
+a more convenient season, and began to walk slowly to and fro....
+
+The play that night was "Kenilworth," and had been cast to admit some
+alterations made in the dramatization by Madame Orme, who frequently
+introduced startling innovations in her rendering of her parts, and
+in almost all her favourite _rôles_ refused rigid adherence to the
+written text. The reputation of her beauty and former triumphs, the
+success achieved on the previous nights, and certain tart criticisms
+upon the freedom of her interpretation of Scott's lovely
+heroine--Leicester's wife--combined to draw a crowded house; and ere
+the curtain rose every box was occupied save one on the second tier
+near the stage.
+
+As the crash of the orchestra died away, and the play opened with the
+interview between Lambourn and Foster, followed by Tressilian, and
+the encounter with Varney, the door of the box opened, and the
+American minister entered, accompanied by a lady and gentleman, who,
+after seating themselves and gathering back the folds of the box
+curtains, proceeded to scan the audience.
+
+As they disposed themselves comfortably a white-haired man, watching
+through a crevice in the side scene, scribbled on a piece of paper
+which was handed into the dressing-room: "Second box, second tier,
+right-hand side. Two gentlemen, and a lady wearing a scarlet cloak."
+
+Sitting between the minister and her husband, Mrs. Laurance with her
+brilliant wrappings was the most prominent of the group, and in the
+blaze of the gaslight looked at least thirty-five; a woman of large
+proportions compactly built, with broad shoulders that sustained a
+rather short thick neck, now exposed in extreme _décolleté_ style, as
+if to aid the unsuccessful elongation of nature. Her sallow
+complexion was dark, almost bistre, and the strongly marked irregular
+features were only redeemed from positive plainness by the large
+fiery black eyes, whose beauty was somewhat marred by the intrusive
+boldness of their expression. Bowing to some one opposite, her very
+full lips parted smilingly over a set of sound strong teeth, rather
+uneven in outline, and of the yellowish cast often observed in
+persons of humble birth and arduous life. Her dusky hair, belonging
+to the family of neutral-brown, was elaborately puffed and frizzed,
+and in her ears hung large solitaire diamonds that glowed like globes
+of fire, and scattered rays that were reflected in the circlet around
+her throat.
+
+Beside her sat her husband, leaning back with negligent grace, and
+carelessly stroking his silky black moustache with one gloved hand,
+while the other toyed with a jewelled opera glass. Although only two
+years her junior, she bore the appearance of much greater seniority,
+and the proud patrician cast of his handsome face contrasted as
+vividly with the coarser lower type of hers, as though in ancient
+Roman era he had veritably worn the _clavus_ and the _bulla_, while
+she trudged in lowly guise among the hard-handed heroines of the
+_proletarii_.
+
+Over his dreamy violet eyes arched the peculiarly fine jet brows that
+Mr. Palma had found so distinctive in Regina's face, and his glossy
+hair and beard possessed that purplish black tint so rarely combined
+with the transparent white complexion, which now gleamed
+conspicuously in his broad, full, untanned forehead.
+
+The indolent _insouciance_ of his bearing was quite in accord with
+his social record, as a proud high-born man of cultivated elegant
+tastes, and unmistakably dissipated tendencies, which doubtless would
+long ago have fructified in thoroughly demoralized habits had not his
+wife vigorously exerted her exigeant guardianship.
+
+"Have you heard the last joke at Count T----'s expense?" said Mrs.
+Laurance, tapping the arm of the minister with her gilded fan.
+
+"Do you refer to the _contretemps_ of the masks at the Grand Ball?"
+
+"No, something connected with Madame Orme. It seems the Count saw her
+in London, became infatuated, as men always are about pretty
+actresses, and the first night she played here he was almost frantic;
+wrote a note between the acts, and sent it to her twisted in that
+costly antique scarf-ring he is so fond of telling people once
+belonged to the Duke of Orleans. Before the play ended it was
+returned, with the note torn into several strips and bound around it.
+Fancy his chagrin! Colonel Thorpe was in the box with him, and told
+it next day, when we met at dinner. When I asked T---- his opinion of
+Madame, he answered:
+
+"She is perfectly divine! But alas! only an inspired icicle. She
+should be called '_Sulitelma_,' which I believe means--Cuthbert, what
+did you tell me it meant?"
+
+"Queen of Snows. Abbie, do lower your voice a trifle." He answered
+without even glancing at her, and she continued:
+
+"I wanted to see her last night in 'Medea,' but Cuthbert had an opera
+engagement, and beside, little Maud had the croup----"
+
+A storm of applause cut short the nursery budget, and all turned to
+the stage where Amy Robsart entered, followed by Janet and by Varney.
+Advancing with queenly grace and dignity to a pile of cushions in the
+centre of the drawing-room at Cumnor Place, she stood a moment with
+downcast eyes, till the acclamation ceased, and Varney renewed his
+appeal.
+
+Her satin dress was of that exquisite tint which in felicitous French
+phraseology is termed _de couleur de fleur de pécher_, and swept down
+from her slender figure in statuesque folds that ended in a long
+court train, particularly becoming in the pose she had selected. The
+Elizabethan ruff, with an edge of filmy lace, softened the effect of
+the bodice cut squares across the breast, and revealed the string of
+pearls--Leicester's last gift--that shone so fair upon his countess's
+snowy neck. From the mass of hair heaped high upon her head soft
+tendrils clustered to the edge of her brow, and here and there a long
+curl strayed over her shoulder, and glittered like burnished gold in
+the glare of the quivering footlights. The lovely arms and hands were
+unburdened by jewels, and save the pearls around her throat and the
+aigrette of brilliants in the upper bandeau of her hair, she wore no
+ornaments. The perfect impersonation of a beautiful, innocent, happy
+bride, impatiently expectant of her husband's entrance, she stood
+listening to his messenger, a tender smile parting her rosy lips.
+
+The chair of state chanced to be placed in the direction of the
+minister's box, and only a few feet distant, and when Varney
+attempted to place her upon it, she waved him back, and, raising her
+right hand toward it, said in that calm, deep, pure voice which had
+such thrilling emphasis in its lowest cadences:
+
+"No good, Master Richard Varney, I take not my place _there_, until
+my lord himself conducts me. I am for the present a disguised
+countess, and will not take dignity upon me, until authorized by him,
+from whom I derived it."
+
+In that brief sentence she knew her opportunity and seized it, for
+her glance followed her uplifted hand, mounted into the box, and,
+sweeping across the minister, dwelt for some seconds on the dark
+womanly countenance beside him, and then fastened upon the face of
+Mr. Laurance.
+
+Some whose seats were on that side of the house, and who chanced to
+have their lorgnettes levelled at her just then, saw a long shiver
+creep over her, as if a blast of cold air had blown down through the
+side scene, and a sudden spark blazed up in the dilating eyes, as a
+mirror flashes when a candle flame smites its cold dark surface; but
+not a muscle quivered in the fair proud face, and only the Varney at
+her side noticed that when the slight hand fell back it sought its
+mate with a quick groping motion, and the delicate fingers clutched
+each other till the nails grew purple.
+
+For fully a moment that burning gaze rested on the features that
+seemed to possess some subtle fascination for her, and wandering back
+to the wife, a shadowy smile hovered around the lips that were soon
+turned, away to answer Varney. As she moved in the direction of a
+window, to listen for the clatter of horse's hoofs, Mrs. Laurance
+whispered:
+
+"Is not she the loveliest creature you ever beheld? I never saw such
+superb eyes, they absolutely seemed to lighten just now. Cuthbert,
+did you only notice how she looked right at me? I daresay my
+solitaires attracted her attention--and no wonder, they are the
+largest in the house, and these actresses always have an eye to the
+very best jewellery. Of course it must have been my diamonds."
+
+From the moment when Amy Robsart entered, Cuthbert Laurance felt a
+strange magnetic thrill dart through every fibre of his frame; his
+sluggish pulse stirred, and as her mesmeric brown eyes, luminous,
+overmastering, met his, he drew his breath in quick gasps, and his
+heart in its rapid throbbing seemed to pour liquid fire into the
+bounding arteries. Some vague bewildering reminiscence danced through
+the clouded chambers of his brain, pointing like a mocking fiend now
+this way, then in an opposite direction; one instant assuring him
+that they had somewhere met before, the next torturing him with the
+triumphant taunt that he had hitherto never known any one half so
+lovely. Was it merely some lucky accident that had so unexpectedly
+brought them during that long flattering gaze thoroughly _en
+rapport?_
+
+He no more heard his wife's hoarse whisper, than if a cyclone had
+whirled between them, and, leaning forward to catch the measured
+melody that floated from the countess's lips, a crimson glow fired
+his cheek as he caught the lofty words.
+
+"I know a cure for jealousy. It is to speak truth to my lord at all
+times; to hold up my mind, my thoughts, before him as pure as that
+polished mirror, so that when he looks into my heart he shall see
+only his own features reflected there.[*] _Can he who took my little
+hands and made them wifely, laying therein the precious burden of his
+honour, afford to doubt the palms are clean?_"
+
+[Footnote: * Mrs. Orme's interpolations are all italicized.]
+
+No wonder Varney stared, and the prompter anathematized the sudden
+flicker of the gas jet that caused him to lose his place; there was
+no such written sentence as the last, and the rehearsal proved no
+sure index of all the countess uttered that night, but the play
+rolled on, and when the folding doors flew open and Amy sprang to
+meet her noble husband, the house began to warm into an earnest
+sympathy.
+
+In the scene that followed she sat with childlike simplicity and
+grace on the footstool at Leicester's feet, while he exhibited the
+jewelled decorations of his princely garb, and explained the
+significance of the various orders; and in the face upturned to him
+who filled the chair of state there was a wealth of loving tenderness
+that might have moved colder natures than that which now kindled in
+the deep violent eyes that watched her from the minister's box.
+
+Gradually the curious, timid, admiring bride is merged in the wife,
+with ambition budding in her heart, and exacting pride pleading for
+recognition and wifely dignities, and in this transformation the
+power of the woman asserted itself.
+
+Bending toward Leicester, until from the low seat she sank
+unintentionally upon her knees, she prayed with passionate fervour:
+
+"But shall not your wife, my love, one day soon be surrounded with
+the honour which arises neither from the toils of the mechanic who
+decks her apartment, nor from the silks and jewels with which your
+generosity adorns her, but which is attached to her place among the
+matronage, as the avowed wife of England's noblest earl? _'Tis not
+the dazzling splendour of your title that I covet, but the richer,
+nobler, dearer coronet of your beloved name, the precious privilege
+of fronting the world as your acknowledged wife_."
+
+Again, in answer to his flattering evasive sophistries, she asked in
+a voice whose marvellous modulations in the midst of intense feeling
+seemed to penetrate every nook of that vast building:
+
+"But why can it not be? Why can it not immediately take place, this
+more perfect uninterrupted union, for which you say you wish, and
+which the laws of God and man alike command? _Think you my unshod
+feet would shrink from glowing ploughshares, if crossing them I found
+the sacred shelter of my husband's name? Ah, husband! dost blanch
+before the storm of condemnation, which has no terrors for a wife's
+brave heart? It would seem but scant and tardy justice to own thy
+wedded wife!_"
+
+The earl had led her behind the scenes, and the minister had twice
+addressed him ere Mr. Laurance recovered himself sufficiently to
+perceive that his companions were smiling at his complete absorption.
+
+"Why--Cuthbert--wake up. You look like some one walking open-eyed in
+sleep. Has Madame's beauty dazed you as utterly as poor Count T----?"
+
+His wife pinched his arm, but without heeding her he looked quite
+past her into the laughing eyes of the minister, and asked:
+
+"Do you know her? Is her husband living?"
+
+"I shall call by appointment to-morrow, but this is the first time I
+have seen her. Of her history I know nothing, but rumour pronounces
+her a widow."
+
+"Which generally means that these pretty actresses have drunken,
+worthless husbands, paid comfortable salaries to shut their eyes and
+keep out of the way," added Mrs. Laurance, lengthening the range of
+her opera glass, and levelling it at a group where the shimmer of
+jewels attracted her attention.
+
+How the words grated on her husband's ear, grown strangely sensitive
+within an hour?
+
+Carelessly glancing over the sea of faces beneath and around him, the
+minister continued:
+
+"English critics contend that Madame Orme's 'Amy Robsart' is so far
+from being Scott's ideal creation, that he would fail to recognize it
+were he alive; still where she alters the text, and intensifies the
+type, they admit that the dramatic effect is heightened. She appears
+to have concentrated all her talent upon the passionate impersonation
+of one peculiar phrase of feminine suffering and endurance--that of
+the outraged and neglected wife; and her favourite _rôles_ are
+'Katherine' from Henry VIII., 'Hermione,' and 'Medea,' though she is
+said to excel in 'Deborah.' My brother who saw her last night as
+'Medea' pronounced her fully equal to Rachel, and said that in that
+scene where she attempted to remove her children from the side of the
+new wife, the despairing fury of her eyes literally raised the few
+thin hairs that still faithfully cling to the top of his head.
+Ah--the parting with Leicester--how marvellously beautiful is she!"
+
+Leaning against a dressing-table loaded with toilet trifles and
+_bijouterie_, Amy stood, arrayed in the costume which displayed to
+greatest advantage the perfect symmetry of form and the dazzling
+purity of her complexion.
+
+The cymar of white silk bordered with swan's-down exposed the
+gleaming dimpled shoulders, and from beneath the pretty lace coif the
+unbound glory of her long hair swept around her like a cataract of
+gold, touching the hem of her silken gown, where, to complete the
+witchery, one slippered foot was visible. When her husband entered to
+bid her adieu, and the final petition for public acknowledgment was
+once more sternly denied, the long-pent agony in the woman's heart
+burst all barriers, overflowed every dictate of wounded pride, and
+with an utter _abandon_ of genuine poignant grief, she gave way to a
+storm that shook her frame with convulsive sobs, and deluged her
+cheeks with tears. Despite her desperate efforts to maintain her
+self-control, the sight of her husband's magnetic handsome face,
+after thirteen weary years of waiting, unnerved, overwhelmed her.
+There in the temple of Art, where critical eyes were bent searchingly
+upon her, Nature triumphantly asserted itself, and she who wept
+passionately from the bitter realisation of her own accumulated
+wrongs, was wildly applauded as the queen of actresses, who so
+successfully simulated imaginary woes.
+
+By what infallible criterion shall criticdom decide the boundaries of
+the Actual and the Ideal? Who shall compute the expenditure of
+literal heartache that builds up the popularly successful Desdemonas,
+Camilles, and Marie Stuarts; the scalding tears that gradually
+crystallize into the classic repose essential to the severe
+simplicity of the old Greek tragedies?
+
+The curtain fell upon a bowed and sobbing woman, and the tempest of
+applause that shook the building was prolonged until after a time Amy
+Robsart, with tears still glistening on her cheeks, came forward to
+acknowledge the tribute, and her silken garments were pelted with
+bouquets. Among the number that embroidered the stage lay a pyramid
+of violets edged with rose geranium leaves, and raising it she bent
+her lovely head to the audience and kissed the violets, in memory (?)
+of her far-off child--whose withered floral tribute was more precious
+to the woman's heart than all the laudatry chaplets of the great
+city, which did homage to her genuine tears.
+
+Some time elapsed while the play shifted to the court, recounting the
+feuds of Leicester and Sussex, and when Amy Robsart appeared again it
+was in the stormy interview where Varney endeavours to enforce the
+earl's command that she shall journey to Kenilworth as Varney's wife.
+The trembling submissiveness of earlier scenes was thrown away for
+ever, and, as if metamorphosed into a Fury, she rose, towered above
+him, every feature quivering with hatred, scorn, and defiance.
+
+"Look at him, Janet! that I should go with him to Kenilworth, and
+before the Queen and nobles, and in presence of my own wedded lord,
+that I should acknowledge him,--him there, that very cloak-brushing,
+shoe-cleaning fellow,--him there, my lord's lackey, for my liege
+lord and husband! I would I were a man but for five minutes!--but go!
+begone!"
+
+She paused panting, then threw back her haughty head, rose on tiptoe,
+and, shaking her hand in prophetic wrath and deathless defiance,
+almost hissed into the box beneath which Varney stood:
+
+"Go, tell thy master that when I, like him, can forget my plighted
+troth, _turn craven, bury honour, and forswear my marriage vows,
+then, oh then! I promise him, I will give him a rival, something
+worthy of the name!_"
+
+Was the avenging lash of conscience uncoiled at last in Cuthbert
+Laurance's hardened soul that the blood so suddenly ebbed from his
+lips, and he drew his breath like one overshadowed by a vampire?
+Only once had he caught the full gleam of her indignant eyes, but
+that long look had awakened torture's that would never entirely
+slumber again, until the solemn hush of the shroud and the cemetery
+was his portion. No suspicion of the truth crossed his mind, even
+for an instant,--for what resemblance could be traced between that
+regal woman, and the shy, awkward, dark-haired little rustic, who
+thirteen years before had frolicked like a spaniel about him,--loving
+but lowly?
+
+In vain he sought to arrest her attention; the actress had only once
+looked at the group, and it was not until the close that he succeeded
+in catching her glance.
+
+After her escape from Varney, Amy Robsart reached in disguise the
+confines of Kenilworth, and standing there, travel-worn, weary,
+dejected, in sight of the princely castle, with its stately towers
+and battlements, she first saw the home whose shelter was denied her,
+the palatial home where Leicester bowed in homage before Elizabeth.
+As a neglected, repudiated wife, creeping stealthily to the hearth
+where it was her right to reign, Amy turned her wan, woeful face to
+the audience, and, fixing her gaze with strange mournful intentness
+upon the eyes that watched her from the box, she seemed to throw her
+whole soul into the finest passage of the play.
+
+"I have given him all that woman has to give. Name and fame, heart
+and hand, have I given the lord of all this magnificence--at the
+altar, and England's Queen could give him no more. He is my husband;
+I am his wife. I will be bold in claiming my right; even the bolder,
+that I come thus unexpected and forlorn. Whom God hath joined, man
+cannot sunder."
+
+The irresistible pathos of look and tone electrified that wide
+assemblage, and in the midst of such plaudits as only Paris bestows
+she allowed her eyes to wander almost dreamily over the surging sea
+of human heads, and as if she were in truth some hunted, hopeless,
+homeless waif appealing for sympathy, she shrouded her pallid face in
+the blue folds of her travelling cloak, and disappeared.
+
+"She must certainly recognize her countrymen, for that splendid
+passage seemed almost thrown to us, as a tribute to our nationality.
+What a wonderful voice! And yet--she is so tender, so fragile," said
+the minister.
+
+"Did you observe how pale she grew toward the last, and so
+hollow-eyed, as if utterly worn out in the passionate struggle?"
+asked Mrs. Laurance.
+
+"The passion of the remaining parts belongs rather to Leicester and
+the Queen. By the way, this is quite a handsome earl, and the whole
+cast is decidedly strong and successful. Look, Laurance! were you an
+artist, would you desire a finer model for an Egeria? If Madame had
+been reared in Canova's studio she could not possibly have
+accomplished a more elegant felicitous pose. I should like her
+photograph at this moment."
+
+In the grotto scene, Amy was attired in pale sea-green silk, and her
+streaming hair braided it with yellow light, as she shrank back from
+the haughty visage of the Queen.
+
+Rapidly the end approached, courtiers and maids of honour crowded
+upon the stage, and thither Elizabeth dragged the unhappy wife, into
+the presence of the earl, crying in thunder tones: "My Lord of
+Leicester! knowest thou this woman?"
+
+The craven silence of the husband, the desperate rally of the
+suffering wife to shield him from the impending wrath, until at last
+she was borne away insensible in Hunsdon's strong arms, all followed
+in quick succession, and Amy's ill-starred career approached its
+close, in the last interview with her husband.
+
+When Cuthbert Laurance was a grey-haired man, trembling upon the
+brink of eternity, there came a vision in the solemn hours of night,
+and the form of Amy, wan as some marble statue, breathed again in his
+ear the last words she uttered that night.
+
+"Take your ill-fated wife by the hand, lead her to the footstool of
+Elizabeth's throne; say that 'in a moment of infatuation moved by
+supposed beauty, of which none perhaps can now trace even the
+remains, I gave my hand to this poor Amy Robsart.' You will then have
+done justice to me, and to your own honour; and should law or power
+require you to part from me, I will offer no opposition, since I may
+then with honour hide a grieved and broken heart in those shades,
+from which your love withdrew me. Then--have but a little
+patience--and Amy's life will not long darken your brighter
+prospects."
+
+The fatal hour arrived; the gorgeous pomp and ceremonial of the
+court-pageant had passed away, and in a dim light the treacherous
+balcony at Cumnor Place was visible. In the hush that pervaded the
+theatre, the minister heard the ticking of his watch, and Mrs.
+Laurance the laboured breathing of her husband.
+
+Upon the profound silence broke the tramp of a horse's hoofs in the
+neighbouring courtyard, then Varney's whistle in imitation of the
+earl's signal when visiting the countess.
+
+Instantly the door of her chamber swung open, and, standing a moment
+upon the threshold, Amy in her fleecy-white drapery wavered like a
+drifting cloud, then moved forward upon the balcony; the trapdoor
+fell, and the lovely marble face with its lustrous brown eyes sank
+into the darkness of death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+To men and women of intensely emotional nature, it sometimes happens
+that a day of keen and torturing suspense, or a night's vigil of
+great anguish, mars and darkens a countenance more indelibly than the
+lapse of several ordinary monotonous years; and as Madame Orme sat in
+her reception-room at one o'clock on the following afternoon,
+awaiting the visit of the minister, the blanched face was far sterner
+and prouder than when yesterday's sun rippled across it, and bluish
+shadows beneath the large eyes that had not closed for twenty-four
+hours lent them a deeper and more fateful glow.
+
+The soft creamy folds of her Cashmere robe were relieved at the
+throat by a knot of lilac ribbon, and amid its loops were secured
+clusters of violets, that matched in hue the long spike of hyacinth
+which was fastened in one side of the coiled hair, twined just behind
+the ear, and drooped low on the snowy neck. Before her on a gilded
+stand was the purple pyramid of flowers she had brought from the
+theatre, and beside them lay several perfumed envelopes with
+elaborate monograms. These notes contained tributes of praise from
+strangers who had been fascinated by her "Amy Robsart," and begged
+the honour of an interview, or the favour of a "photograph taken in
+the silken cymar which so advantageously displayed the symmetry of
+her figure."
+
+Among the latter she had recognized the handwriting of Mr. Laurance,
+though the signature was "Jules Duval," and her fingers had shrunk
+from the folds of rose paper, as though scorched by flame. Lying
+there on the top of the _billets-doux_, the elegant, graceful
+chirography of the "Madame Odille Orme" drew her gaze, like the
+loathsome fascination of a basilisk, and taking a package of notes
+from her pocket, she held them for a moment close to the satin
+envelope. Upon one the name of the popular actress; on the others--in
+the same peculiar beautiful characters--"Minnie Merle." She put away
+the latter, and a flash of scorn momentarily lighted her rigid face.
+
+"Craven as of old! Too cowardly to boldly ask the thing his fickle
+fancy favours; he begs under borrowed names. Doubtless his courage
+wilts before his swarthy, bold-eyed Xantippe, who allows him scant
+latitude for flirtations with pretty actresses. To be thrown
+aside--trampled down--for such a creature as Abbie Ames! his
+coarse-featured, diamond-dowered bride! Ah! my veins run lava; when I
+think of her thick heavy lips, pressing that haughty perfect mouth,
+where mine once clung so fondly! Last night the two countenances
+seemed like 'as Hyperion to a Satyr!' How completely he sold his
+treacherous beauty to the banker's daughter, whom to-day he would
+willingly betray for a fairer, fresher face. Craven traitor!"
+
+She passed her handkerchief across her lips, as if to efface some
+imaginary stain, and they slowly settled back into their customary
+stern curves.
+
+Just then a timid tap upon the door of the reception-room was
+followed almost simultaneously by the entrance of Mrs. Waul, who
+held a card in her hand.
+
+"The waiter has just brought this up. What answer shall he take
+back?"
+
+Mrs. Orme glanced at it, sprang to her feet, and a vivid scarlet
+bathed her face and neck.
+
+"Tell him--No! no--no! Madame Orme begs to decline the honour."
+
+Then the crimson tide as suddenly ebbed, she grew ghastly in her
+colourlessness, and her bloodless lips writhed, as she called after
+the retreating figure:
+
+"Stop! Come back,--let me think."
+
+She walked to the window, and stood for several moments as still as
+the bronze Mercury on the mantel. When she turned around, her
+features were as fixed as if they belonged to some sculptured slab
+from Persepolis.
+
+"Pray don't think me weak and fickle, but indeed, Mrs. Waul, some of
+my laurels gash like a crown of thorns. Tell the waiter to show this
+visitor up, after five minutes, and then I wish you to come back and
+sit with your knitting yonder, at the end of the room. And please
+drop the curtain there, the pink silk will make me look a trifle less
+ghostly after last night's work. You see I am disappointed, I
+expected the American minister on business, and he sends this Paris
+beau to make his apologies; that is all."
+
+As the old lady disappeared, Mrs. Orme shuddered, and muttered with
+clenched teeth:
+
+"All have a Gethsemane sooner or later, and mine has overtaken me
+before I am quite ready. God grant me some strengthening angel!"
+
+She sank back into the arm chair, and drew the oval gilt table before
+her as a barrier, while some inexplicable, intuitive impulse prompted
+her to draw from her bosom a locket containing Regina's miniature.
+Touching a spring, she looked at the childish features so singularly
+like those she had seen the previous evening, and when Mrs. Waul
+returned and seated herself at the end of the room, the spring
+snapped, the locket lay in one hand, the minister's card in the
+other.
+
+Mrs. Orme heard the sound on the stairs and along the hall--the
+well-remembered step. Amid the tramp of a hundred she could have
+singled it out, so often in bygone years had she crouched under the
+lilacs that overhung the gate, listening for its rapid approach,
+waiting to throw herself into the arms that would clasp her so
+fondly; to-day that unaltered step smote her ears like an echo from
+the tomb, and for an instant her heart stood still, and she shut her
+eyes; but the door swung back, and Mr. Laurance stood upon the
+threshold. As he advanced, she rose, and when he stood before her
+with outstretched hand, she ignored it, merely rested her palm on the
+table between them; and glancing at the card in her fingers said:
+
+"Mr. Laurance, I believe, introduced by the American minister. A
+countryman of mine, he writes. As such I am pleased to see you, sir,
+for when abroad the mere name of American is an _open sesame_ to
+American sympathy and hospitality. Pray be seated, Mr. Laurance.
+Pardon me, not that stiff-backed ancient contrivance of torture,
+which must have been invented by Eymeric. You will find that green
+velvet Voltaire, like its namesake, far more easy, affording ample
+latitude."
+
+The sweet voice rung its silver chimes as clearly as when she trod
+the stage, and no shadow of the past cast its dusky wing over her
+proud, pale face, while she gracefully waved him to a seat, and
+resumed her own.
+
+"If Madame Orme, so recently from home, yields readily to the
+talismanic spell of 'American' she can perhaps imagine the
+fascination it exerts over one who for many years has roamed far
+from his roof-tree and his hearthstone; but who never more proudly
+exulted in his nationality than last night, when as Queen of Tragedy,
+Madame lent new lustre to the land that claims the honour of being
+her birthplace."
+
+"Thanks. Then I may infer you paid me the tribute of your presence
+last evening?"
+
+They looked across the table, into each other's eyes,--hers radiant
+with a dangerous steely glitter, his eloquent with the intense
+admiration which kindled on the previous evening, now glowed more
+fervently from the contemplation of a beauty that to-day appeared
+tea-fold more irresistible. The question slightly disconcerted him.
+
+"I had the honour of accompanying our minister, and sharing his box."
+
+"Indeed! I have never had the pleasure of meeting him, and hoped to
+have seen him to-day, as he fixed this hour for the arrangement of
+some business details, concerning which I was advised to consult him.
+One really cannot duly appreciate American liberty until one has been
+trammelled by foreign formalities and Continental police quibbles."
+
+An incredulous smile, ambushed in his silky moustache, was reflected
+in his fine eyes, as he recalled the flattering emphasis with which
+she had certainly singled out his face in that vast auditory, and,
+thoroughly appreciating his munificent inheritance of good looks, he
+now imagined he fully interpreted her motive in desiring to ignore
+the former meeting.
+
+"Doubtless hundreds who shared with me the delight you conferred by
+your performance last night would be equally charmed to possess my
+precious privilege of expressing my unbounded admiration of your
+genius; but unfortunately the impression prevails that my charming
+countrywoman sternly interdicts all gentleman visitors, denies access
+even to the most ardent of her worshippers, and I deem myself the
+most supremely favoured of men in having triumphantly crossed into
+the enchanted realm of your presence. Of this flattering distinction
+I confess I am very proud."
+
+It was a bold challenge, and sincerely he rued his rashness, when,
+raising herself haughtily, she answered in a tone that made his
+cheeks tingle:
+
+"Unfortunately your countrywoman has not studied human nature so
+superficially as to fail to comprehend the snares and pitfalls which
+men's egregious vanity sometimes spring prematurely; and rumour
+quotes me aright, in proclaiming me a recluse when the curtain falls
+and the lights are extinguished. To-day I deviated from my usual
+custom in compliment to the representative of my country, who sends
+you--so his card reads--'charged with an explanation of his
+unavoidable absence.' As minister-extraordinary, may I venture to
+remind Mr. Laurance of his errand?"
+
+Abashed by the scornful gleam in her keen wide eyes, he replied
+hastily:
+
+"A telegram from Pau summoned him this morning to the bedside of a
+member of his family suddenly attacked with dangerous illness, and he
+desired me to assure you that so soon as he returned he would seize
+the earliest opportunity of congratulating you upon your brilliant
+triumph. In the interim he places at your disposal certain printed
+regulations, which will supply the information you desire, and which
+you will find in this envelope. May I hope, Madame, that the value of
+the contents will successfully plead the pardon of the audacious, yet
+sufficiently rebuked messenger?" He rose, and with a princely bow
+offered the packet.
+
+Suffering her eyes to follow the motion of his elegantly formed
+aristocratic hand, now ungloved, one swift glance showed her that
+instead of the unpretending slender gold circlet she had placed on
+the little finger of his left hand the day of their marriage--a ring
+endeared to her, because it had been her mother's bridal pledge--he
+now wore a flashing diamond, in a broad and costly setting. Almost
+unconsciously her own left hand glided to the violets on her breast,
+beneath which, securely fastened by a strong gold chain, she wore
+the antique cameo ring, with its grinning death's head resting upon
+her heart.
+
+Slightly inclining her head, she signed to him to place the papers on
+the table, and when he had resumed his sect, she asked:
+
+"How long, Mr. Laurance, since you left America?"
+
+"Thirteen or fourteen years ago; yet the memories of my home are
+fresh and fragrant as though I quitted it only yesterday."
+
+"Then happy indeed must have been that hearthstone, whose
+rose-coloured reminiscences linger so tenderly around your heart, and
+survive the attrition of a long residence in Paris. Your _repertoire_
+of charming memories tempts me almost to the verge of covetousness.
+In what portion of the United States did you reside?"
+
+"My boyhood was spent in one of the middle States, where my estate is
+located, but my collegiate life removed me to the north, whence I
+came immediately abroad. My residence in Europe confirms the belief
+that crossed the Atlantic with me, that in beauty, grace, and all the
+nameless charms that constitute the perfect, peerless, fascinating
+woman, my own country I pre-eminently bears the palm. Broad as is her
+domain, and noble her civil institutions, the crowning glory of
+America dwells in her lovely and gifted women."
+
+He had never looked handsomer than at that moment, as, slightly
+bending his head in homage, his dangerously beautiful eyes rested
+with an unmistakable expression upon the faultless features before
+him; and watching him, a cold smile broke up the icy outline of his
+companion's delicate lips:
+
+"American beauty might question the sincerity of a champion whose
+worship is offered only at foreign shrines, and the precious oblation
+of whose heart is laid on distant and strange altars."
+
+"Ah, Madame,--neither at foreign shrines nor strange altars, but ever
+unwaveringly at the feet of my divine countrywomen. Is it needful
+that I recross the ocean to bow before the reigning muse? Is it not
+conceded that the brightest, loveliest planet in Parisian skies,
+brought all her splendour from my western home?"
+
+"How you barb with keen regret the mortifying reflection that I,
+alas! cannot as an American lay claim to a moiety of your chivalric
+allegiance! Ill-fated Odille Orme!"
+
+The stinging sarcasm in the liquid voice perplexed him, and the
+strange lambent light that seemed now and then to ray out of the
+brilliant eyes that had never wandered from his, sent an
+uncomfortable thrill over him.
+
+"Surely the world cannot have erred in according to my own country
+the honour of your nationality?"
+
+"I was born upon a French ship, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean."
+
+"Ah, dearest Madame! then it is no marvel that, as you have inherited
+the cestus of Aphrodite, your votaries bow as blindly, as helplessly,
+as those over whom your ancient Greek mother ruled so despotically.
+By divine right of birth you should reign as Odille Anadyomene."
+
+"Madame Odille Orme has abjured the pagan æsthetics that seem to
+trench rather closely upon Mr. Laurance's ethics, and shed far too
+rosy an Orientalism over his mind and heart; and hopes he will not
+forget her proud boast that by divine right she wears a dearer,
+nobler, holier title--Odille Orme, wife and mother."
+
+Bolder libertinism than found shelter in Mr. Laurance's perverted
+nature, would have cowered before the pure face that now leaned far
+forward, with dilated, scornful eyes which seemed to run like
+electric rays up and down the secret chambers of his heart.
+
+Involuntarily he shrank back into the depths of his chair, and mutely
+questioned as on the previous night, "Where have I heard that voice
+before?"
+
+With some difficulty he recovered himself, and said hastily:
+
+"Will you forgive me if I tell you frankly, that ever since I saw you
+last night I have been tantalized by a vague yet very precious
+consciousness that somewhere you and I have met before? When or
+where, I cannot conjecture, but of one thing I am painfully certain,
+we can never be strangers henceforth. Some charm in your voice, in
+the expression of your eyes when as 'Amy Robsart' the loving woman
+you looked so fondly into your 'Leicester's' face, awoke dim memories
+that will never sleep again. Happy--enviable indeed--that Leicester
+who really rules the empire of your love."
+
+Tightening the clasp of her palms which enclosed the little gold
+locket containing the image of their child, a wintry smile broke over
+her white face, lending it that mournful glimmer which fading
+moonlight sheds on some silent cenotaph in a cemetery.
+
+"If my stage tricks of glance or tone, my carefully studied and
+practised attitudes and modulations, recall some neglected memories
+of your sunny past, let me hope that Mr. Laurance links me with the
+holy associations that cluster about a mother's or a sister's sacred
+features; reviving the earlier years, when he offered at the shrine
+of friendship, of honour, and of genius, tributes too sincere to
+admit the glozing varnish of fulsome, fashionable adulation, which
+degrades alike the lips that utter and the ears that listen. If at
+some period in the mysterious future, you, whom--because my
+countryman--I reluctantly consented to receive, should really
+discover a noble lovely woman before whose worth and beauty that
+fickle heart you call your own utterly surrenders, and whom winning
+as wife, and cherishing as only husbands can the darlings they
+worship, you were finally torn away from--by inexorable death--the
+only power that can part husbands and wives, then think you, Mr.
+Laurance, that the universe holds a grave deep enough to keep you
+quiet in your coffin--if vain heartless men profaned her sacred
+widowhood by such utterances as you presume to offer me? The stage is
+the arena, where in gladiatorial combat I wage my battle with the
+beasts of Poverty and Want: there I receive the swelling acclamations
+of triumph, or the pelting hisses of defeat; there before the
+footlights where I toil for my bread, I am a legitimate defenceless
+target for artistic criticism; but outside the precincts of the
+theatre, I hold myself as sacred from the world as if I stood in
+stone upon an altar behind some convent's bars, and as a lonely,
+sorrow-stricken mother widowed of the father of my child, bereft of a
+husband's tenderly jealous guardianship, I have a right to claim the
+profound respect, the chivalric courtesy, which every high-toned,
+honourable gentleman accords to worthy stainless women. Because as an
+actress I barter my smiles and tears for food and raiment for my
+fatherless child, it were not quite safe to imagine that I share the
+pagan tendencies which appear to have smitten some of my countrymen
+with moral leprosy."
+
+The words seemed to burst forth like a mountain cataract long locked
+in snow, which, melting suddenly under some unseasonable fiery
+influence, falls in an impetuous icy torrent, bearing the startling
+chill of winter into flowery meadows, where tender verdure sown thick
+with primroses and daisies smiles peacefully in summer sunshine.
+
+Twice the visitor half rose and essayed to speak, but that deep
+steady voice bore down all interruption, and as he watched her, Mr.
+Laurance just then would have given the fortune of the Rothschilds
+for the privilege of folding in his own the perfect hands that lay
+clasped on the marble slab.
+
+While her extraordinary beauty moved his heart as no other woman had
+yet done, the stern bitterness of her rebuke appealed to the latent
+chivalry and slumbering nobility of his worldly soul. Looking upon
+his flushed handsome face, interpreting its eloquent varying
+expressions by the aid of glancing lights which memory snatched from
+long-gone years, she saw the struggle in his dual nature, and hurried
+on, warned by the powerful magnetism of his almost invincible eyes
+that the melting spell of the Past was twining its relaxing fingers
+about the barred gateway of her own throbbing heart.
+
+"Trained in the easy school of latitudinarianism so fashionable
+nowaday on both sides of the Atlantic, doubtless Mr. Laurance deems
+his adopted countrywoman a nervous puritanical prude; and upon my
+primitive and wellnigh obsolete ideal of social decorum and
+propriety, upon my lofty standard of womanly delicacy and manly
+honour, I can patiently tolerate none of the encroachments with which
+I have recently been threatened. Just here, sir, permit a pertinent
+illustration of the impertinence that sometimes annoys me."
+
+Lifting between the tips of her fingers the pretty peach-bloom-tinted
+note, whose accusing characters betrayed the hand that penned it, she
+continued, with an outbreak of intense and overwhelming contempt:
+
+"Listen, if you please, to the turbid libation which some rose-lipped
+Paris, some silk-locked Sybarite poured out last night, after leaving
+the theatre. Under the pretence of adding a leaf to the chaplets, won
+by what he is pleased to tern 'diving dramatic genius,' this 'Jules
+Duval'--let me see, I would not libel an honourable name; yes, so it
+is signed--this Jules Duval, this brainless, heartless, soulless
+Narcissus, with no larger sense of honour than could find ample
+waltzing room on the point of a cambric needle, insolently avows his
+real sentiments in language that your _valet_ might address to his
+favourite _grisette_; and closes like some ardent accepted lover,
+with an audacious demand for my photograph, 'to wear for ever over
+his fond and loyal heart!' That is fashionable homage to my
+genius--it is? I call it an insult to my womanhood! Nay--I am
+ashamed to read it! 'Twould stain my cheeks, soil my lips, dishonour
+your gentlemanly ears. Mr. Laurance, if ever you should become a
+husband, and truly love the woman you make your wife, you will
+perhaps comprehend my feelings, when some gay unprincipled gallant
+profanes the sanctity of her retirement with such unpardonable, such
+unmerited insolence."
+
+She held it up between thumb and forefinger, shaking out the pink
+folds till the signature in violet ink flaunted before the violet
+eyes of its owner, then, crushing it as if it were a cobweb, she
+tossed it toward the window.
+
+Turning her head, she said in an altered and elevated tone:
+
+"Mrs. Waul, may I disturb you for a moment?"
+
+The quiet figure, clad in sober grey, and wearing a muslin cap whose
+crimped ruffle enclosed in a snowy frame the benevolent wrinkled
+countenance, came forward, knitting in hand, spectacles on her nose,
+and for the first time the visitor became aware of her presence.
+
+"Please lower the curtain yonder beside the étagère, the sun shines
+hot upon Mr. Laurance's brow. Then touch the bell, and order the
+carriage to be ready in twenty minutes."
+
+Humiliated as he had never been before, Mr. Laurance resolved upon
+one desperate attempt to regain the position his vanity had rashly
+forfeited. Waiting until the Quaker-like _duenna_ had retreated to
+her former seat, he rose and leaned across the small table, and under
+his rich low voice and passionately pleading eyes the actress held
+her breath and clutched the locket till its sharp edge sunk into her
+quivering flesh.
+
+"You dismiss me as unworthy of your presence, and, acknowledging the
+justice of your decree, I sincerely deplore the fatuity that prompted
+the offence. Your rebuke was warranted by my foolish presumption,
+and, confessing the error into which I was betrayed by your
+condescending notice last night, I humbly and sorrowfully solicit
+your generous forgiveness. Fervid flattering phrases sorely belie my
+real character if, sinking me almost beneath your contempt, you deem
+me devoid of a high sense of honour, or of chivalric devotion to
+noble womanly delicacy. Madame Orme, if your unparalleled beauty,
+grace, and talent bewitched me into a passing folly and vain
+impertinence, for which indeed I blush, your stern reproof recalls me
+to my senses, to my better nature; and I beg that upon the unsullied
+word of an American gentleman, you will accept with my apology the
+earnest assurance that in quitting this room I honour and revere my
+matchless countrywoman far more than when I entered her noble
+presence. Fashionable freedom may have demoralized my tongue, but by
+the God above us, I swear it has not blackened my heart, nor deadened
+my perception and appreciation of all that constitutes true feminine
+refinement and purity. You have severely punished my presumptuous
+vanity, and now will you not mercifully pardon a man who, finding in
+you the perfect fulfilment of his prophetic dreams of lofty as well
+as lovely womanhood, humbly but most earnestly craves permission to
+reinstate himself in your regard; to attempt to win your esteem and
+friendship, which he will value far more highly than the adoration of
+any--yes, of all other women?"
+
+He was so near her that she saw the regular quick flutter of the blue
+vein on his fair temples, and as the musical mastering voice so well
+remembered and once so fondly loved stole tenderly through the dark,
+lonely, dreary recesses of her desolate, aching heart, it waked for
+one instant a wild, maddening temptation, an intense longing to lift
+her arms, clasp them around his neck, lean forward upon his bosom,
+and be at rest.
+
+In the weary years that followed, how bitterly she denounced and
+deplored the fever of implacable revenge that held her back on that
+memorable day! Verily for each of us a "Nemean Lion lies in wait
+somewhere," and a lost opportunity might have cost even Hercules that
+tawny skin he wore as trophy.
+
+Mr. Laurance saw a slow dumb motion of the pale lips that breathed no
+sound to fill the verbal frame they mutely fashioned--"my husband;"
+and then with a gradual drooping of the heavily lashed lids, the eyes
+closed. Only until one might have leisurely counted five was he
+permitted to scan the wan face in its rare beautiful repose, then
+again her eyes pitiless as fate met his--so eager, so wistful--and
+she too rose, confronting him with a cold proud smile.
+
+"I fear Mr. Laurance unduly bemoans and magnifies a mistake, which,
+whatever its baleful intent, has suffered in my rude inhospitable
+hands an 'untimely nipping in the bud,' and most ingloriously failed
+of consummation. After to-day the luckless incident of our
+acquaintance must vanish like some farthing rushlight set upon a
+breezy down to mark a hidden quicksand; for in my future panorama I
+shall keep no niche for mortifying painful days like this--and you,
+sir, amid the rush and glow and glitter of this bewildering French
+capital, will have little leisure and less inclination to recall the
+unflattering failure of an attempted flirtation with a pretty but
+most utterly heartless actress, who wrung her hands, and did high
+tragedy, and stormed and wept for gold! Not for perfumed pink
+_billets-doux_, nor yet for adulation and vows of deathless devotion
+from high-born gentlemen handsome and heartless enough to serve in _Le
+Musée du Louvre_ as statues of Apollo, but for gold, Mr. Laurance,
+only for gold!"
+
+"Do not inexorably exile me--do not refuse my prayer for the
+privilege of sometimes seeing you. Permit me to come here and teach
+you to believe in my----"
+
+"_Le jeu n'en vaut pas la chandelle!_" she exclaimed, with a quick
+nervous laugh that grated grievously upon his ear.
+
+"Madame, I implore you not to deny me the delight of an occasional
+interview."
+
+A sudden pallor crept across his eager face, and he attempted to
+touch the fair dimpled hand which, still grasping the locket, rested
+upon the table.
+
+Aware of his purpose, she haughtily shrank back, drew herself up, and
+folding her arms so tightly over her breast that the cameo ring
+pressed close upon her bounding heart, she looked down on him as from
+some distant height, with an intensity of quiet scorn that no
+language could adequately render, that bruised his heart like
+hail-stones.
+
+"I deny you henceforth all opportunity of sinking yourself still
+deeper in my estimation, of annoying me by any future demonstrations
+of a style of admiration I neither desire, appreciate, nor intend to
+permit. If accident should ever thrust you again across my path, you
+will do well to forget that our minister committed the blunder of
+sending you here to-day. Mr. Laurance will please accept my thanks
+for this package of papers, which shall be returned to-morrow to the
+office of the American embassy. Resolved to forget the unpleasant
+incidents of to-day, Madame Orme is compelled to bid you good-bye."
+
+Angry but undaunted, his eloquent eyes boldly bore up under hers, as
+if in mortal challenge; and he bowed, with a degree of graceful
+_hauteur_, fully equal to her own best efforts.
+
+"Madame's commands shall be rigidly and literally obeyed, for
+Cuthbert Laurance is far too proud to obtrude his presence or his
+homage on any woman; but Mrs. Orme's interdict does not include that
+public realm, where she has repeatedly assured me that gold always
+secures admission to her smiles, and from which no earthly power can
+debar me. Watching you from the same spot, where last night you
+floated like an angelic dream of my boyhood, like a glorious
+revelation upon my vision and my heart, I shall defy the world to mar
+the happiness in store for me, so long as you remain in Paris. A
+distant but devoted worshipper, cherishing the memory of those
+thrilling glances with which 'Amy Robsart' favoured me, permit me to
+wish Madame Orme a pleasant ride, and good afternoon."
+
+He bent his handsome head low before her, and left the room less like
+an exile than a conqueror, buoyed by an abiding fatalism, a fond
+faith in that magnetic influence and fascination he had hitherto
+successfully exerted over all, whom his wayward, fickle, fastidious
+fancy had chosen to enslave.
+
+When the sound of his retreating footsteps was no longer audible, the
+slender white-robed figure moved unsteadily across the floor, entered
+the adjoining dressing-room, and locked the door.
+
+The play was over at last, the long tensions of nerve, the iron
+strain on brain and heart, the steel manacles on memory, all snapped
+simultaneously; the actress was trampled out of sight, the weak,
+suffering, long-tortured woman bowed down in helpless and hopeless
+agony before her desecrated mouldering altar, was alone with the dust
+of her overturned and crumbling idol.
+
+"My husband! O God! Thou knowest--not hers--not that woman's--but
+mine! all mine! My baby's father!--my Cuthbert--my own husband!"
+
+           "Oh past! past the sweet times that I remember well!
+           Alas that such a tale my heart can tell!
+           Ah, how I trusted him! what love was mine!
+           How sweet to feel his arms about me twine,
+           And my heart beat with his! What wealth of bliss
+           To hear his praises; all to come to this,--
+           That now I durst not look upon his face,
+           Lest in my heart that other thing have place--
+           That which men call hate!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+"Nonsense, Elise! She is but a child, and I beg you will not
+prematurely magnify her into a woman. There are so few unaffected,
+natural children in this generation, that it is as refreshing to
+contemplate our little girl's guileless purity and ingenuous
+simplicity, as to gaze upon cool green meadows on a sultry, parching
+August day. Keep her a child, let her alone."
+
+Mr. Hargrove wiped his spectacles with his handkerchief, and replaced
+them on his Roman nose with the injured air of a man who, having been
+interrupted in some favourite study to take cognizance of an
+unexpected, unwelcome, and altogether unpleasant fact, majestically
+refuses to inspect, and dogmatically waves it aside, as if to ignore
+were to annihilate.
+
+"Now, Peyton, for a sensible man (to say nothing of the astute
+philosopher and the erudite theologian), you certainly do indulge in
+the most remarkable spasms of wilful, obstinate, premeditated
+blindness. You need not stare so desperately at that page, for I
+intend to talk to you, and it is useless to try to snub either me or
+my facts. Regina is young, I know, not quite fourteen, but she is
+more precocious, more mature, than many girls are at sixteen; and you
+seem to forget that, having always associated with grown people, she
+has imbibed their ideas and caught their expressions, instead of the
+more juvenile forms of thought and speech usual in children who live
+among children. She has as far outgrown jumping-ropes as you have
+tops and kites, and has no more relish for fairy tales than your
+reverence has for base-ball, or my Bishop here for marbles. Suppose
+last October I had sprinkled a paper of lettuce-seed in the open
+border of the garden, and on the same day you had sown a lot of
+lettuce in the hot-beds against the brick wall, where all the
+sunshine falls: would you refuse your crisp, tempting, forced salad,
+because it had reached perfection so rapidity?"
+
+"Mother, do you intend us to understand that Regina is very tender,
+and very verdant?" asked Mr. Lindsay, looking up from a grammar that
+lay open before him.
+
+"I intend you, sir, to study your Hindustanee, and your Tamil, while
+I experiment upon the value of analogical reasoning in my discussions
+with your uncle. Now, Peyton, you see that child's mind has been for
+nearly four years in an intellectual hotbed,--sunned in the light of
+religion, moistened with the dew of philosophy, cultivated
+systematically with the prongs and hoes of regular study, of example,
+and precept; and, being a vigorous sprout when she was transplanted,
+she has made good use of her opportunities, and, behold! early mental
+salad, and very fine! You men theorize, ratiocinate, declaim,
+dogmatize about abstract propositions, and finally get your feet
+tangled and stumble over facts right under your noses, that women
+would never fail to pick up and put aside. The soul of Thales
+possesses you all, whereas we who sit at the cradle, and guide the
+little tottering feet, study the ground and sweep away the
+stumbling-blocks. Day after day you and Douglass discuss all kinds of
+scientific theories, and quote pagan authorities and infidel systems
+in the presence of Regina, who sits in her low chair over there in
+the corner of the fireplace as quiet as a white mouse, listening to
+every word, though 'Hans Christian Andersen' lies open on her lap,
+and scarcely winking those blue eyes of hers, that are as solemn as
+if they belonged to the Judges of Israel. If a child is raised in a
+carpenter's shop, with all manner of sharp, dangerous often two-edged
+tools scattered around in every direction, who wonders that the
+little fingers are prematurely gashed and scarred? You and Douglass
+imagine she is dreaming about the number of elves that dance on the
+greensward on moonlight nights, or the spangles on their lace wings;
+or that she is studying the latitude and longitude of the capital of
+the last territory which Congress elevated to the uncertain and
+tormenting dignity of nominal self-government, that once (_vide_
+'obsolete civil hallucinations') inhered in an American State; or
+perhaps you believe the child is longing for a pot of sugar candy?
+Then rub your eyes, you ecclesiastical bats, and let me show you the
+'outcome' of all this wise and learned chat, with which you edify one
+another. You know she beguiled me into giving her lessons on the
+organ, as well as the piano, and yesterday when I went over to the
+church at instruction hour, I was astonished at a prelude, which she
+had evidently improvised. Screened from her view, I listened till she
+finished playing. Of course I praised her (for really she has
+remarkable talent), and asked her when she began to compose, to
+improvise. Now what do you suppose she answered? A brigade of
+Philadelphia lawyers could never guess. She looked at me very
+steadily, and said as nearly as I can quote her words: 'I really
+don't know exactly when I began, but I suppose a long time ago, when
+I wore brown feathers, and went to sleep with my head under my wing,
+as all nightingales do.' Said I: 'What upon earth do you mean?' She
+replied: 'Why of course I mean when I was a nightingale, before I
+grew to be a human being. Didn't you hear Mr. Hargrove last week
+reading from that curious book, in which so many queer things were
+told about transmigration, and how the soul of a musical child came
+from the nightingale, the sweetest of singers? And don't you
+recollect Mr. Lindsay said that Plato believed it; and that Plotinus
+taught that people who lead pure lives and yet love music to excess,
+go into the bodies of melodious birds when they die? Just now when I
+played, I was wondering how a nightingale felt, swinging in a plum
+tree all white with fragrant bloom, and watching the cattle cropping
+buttercups and dandelions in the field. Mrs. Lindsay, if my soul is
+not perfectly fresh and brand new, I hope it never went into a human
+body before mine, because I would much lather it came straight to me
+from a sweet innocent bird."
+
+"Surely, Elise, you are as usual, jesting?" exclaimed her brother.
+
+"On the contrary, I assure you I neither magnify nor embellish. I am
+merely stating unvarnished facts, that you may thoroughly understand
+into what fertile soil your scattered grains of learning fall. I
+promise you, with moderate cultivation it will yield an
+hundred-fold."
+
+"Mother, what did you say to her, by way of a dose of orthodoxy to
+antidote the metempsychosis poison?" asked Mr. Lindsay, who could not
+forbear laughing, at the astonished expression of his uncle's
+countenance.
+
+"At first I was positively dumb, and stared at the child, very much
+as I daresay Mahamaia did, when her boy Arddha-Chiddi stood upon his
+feet and spoke five minutes after his entrance into this world of
+woe, or when at five months of age he sat unsupported in the air.
+Then I shook her, and asked if she had gone to sleep and dreamed she
+was a bulbul feeding on rose leaves; whereupon she looked gravely
+dignified, and when I proceeded to reason with her concerning the
+absurdity of the utterly worn-out doctrine of transmigration, how do
+you suppose she met me? With the information that far from being a
+worn-out doctrine, learned and scientific men now living were
+reviving it as the truth; and that whereas Christianity was only
+eighteen hundred years old, that metempsychosis had been believed for
+twenty-nine centuries, and at this day numbers more followers, by
+millions, than any other religion in the world. I inquired how she
+learned all this foolish fustian, and with an indescribable mixture
+of pride, pity, and triumph, as if she realized that she was throwing
+Mont Blanc at my head, she mentioned you two eminently evangelical
+guides, from whose infallible lips she had gleaned her knowledge. As
+for you, Douglass, I suggest you abandon Oriental studies, forego the
+dim hope of martyrdom in India, and begin your missionary labours at
+home. My dear, the Buddhist is at your own door. Now, Peyton, how do
+you relish the flavour of your philosophical salad?"
+
+"I am afraid I have been culpably thoughtless in introducing to her
+mind various doctrines and theories which I never imagined she could
+comprehend, or would even ponder for a moment. Since my sight has
+become so impaired and feeble, I have several times called on her to
+read some articles which certainly are not healthful pabulum for a
+child, and my conversations with Douglass, relative to scientific
+theories, have been carried on unreservedly in her presence. I am
+very glad you warned me."
+
+"And I am exceedingly sorry, if the effect of my mother's words
+should be to hamper and cramp the exercise of Regina's faculties.
+Free discussion should be dreaded only by hypocrites and fanatics,
+and after all, it is the best crucible for eliminating the false from
+the true. Does the contemplation of physical monstrosities engender a
+predilection or affection for deformity? Does it not rather by
+contrast with symmetry and perfect proportion heighten the power and
+charm of the latter? The beauty of truth is never so invincible as
+when confronted with sophistry or falsehood; just as youth and health
+seem doubly fair and precious, in the presence of trembling
+decrepitude and revolting disease."
+
+"Really, Bishop! I thought you had passed the sophomoric stage, and
+it is a shameful waste of dialectic ammunition to throw your
+antithesis at me. According to your doctrine, America ought to buy up
+and import all the deformed unfortunates who are annually exposed in
+China, in order that our people should properly appreciate the
+superiority of sound limbs, and the value of the five senses; and
+healthy young people should throng the lazarettos and alms-houses to
+learn the nature of their own disadvantages. It is equally desirable
+that wise men like you and Peyton should accustom yourselves to the
+society of--well--I use polite diction, of imbeciles, of 'innocents,'
+in order to set a true value on learning and your own astute logic?"
+
+"My dear little mother, you chop your logic so furiously with a broad
+axe, that you darken the air with a hurricane of chips and splinters.
+Like all ladies who attempt to argue, you rush into the _reductio ad
+absurdum_, and find it impossible to discriminate between----"
+
+"Wisdom and conceit? Bless you, Bishop, observation has taught me all
+the shades and delicate gradations of that difference. We women no
+more mistake the latter for the former, than the gods who declined to
+turn cannibal when they went to dine with Tantalus, and were offered
+a fricassee of Pelops. Now I----
+
+"Ceres did eat of it!" exclaimed her son, adroitly avoiding a tweak
+of the ear, by throwing his head back, beyond the touch of her
+fingers.
+
+"A wretched pagan fable, sir, with which orthodox bishops should hold
+no communion. Tell me, you beardless Gamaliel, where you accumulated
+your knowledge relative to the education of girls? Present us a chart
+of your experience. You talk of hampering and cramping Regina's
+faculties, as if I had put her brains in a pair of stays, and daily
+tightened the lacers."
+
+"I am inclined to think the usual forms of female education have
+precisely that effect. The fact is, mother, it appears that women in
+this country are expected to come the reserve magazines of piety, of
+religious fervour, on the certainly powerful principle that
+'ignorance is the mother of devotion.' True knowledge, which springs
+from fearless investigation, is a far nobler and more reliable
+conservator of pure vital Christianity."
+
+"_Exempli gratia_, Miss Martineau and Madame Dudevant, who are
+crowned heads among the _cognoscenti?_ Or perhaps you would prefer a
+second 'La Pelouse,' governed by Miss Weber, who certainly agrees
+with you, 'that girls are trained too delicately to allow the mind to
+expand.' Illuminated and expanded by 'philosophy' and 'social
+progress' she and Madame Dudevant long ago literally abjured stays,
+and glory in the usurpation of vests, pantaloons, coats, and short
+hair. Be pleased to fancy my Regina, my blue-eyed snowbird, shorn of
+that
+
+             'Gloriole of ebon locks on calmed brows'!
+
+I would rather see her in her coffin, shrouded in a ruffled
+pinafore."
+
+"Much as I love her, so would I; but, Elise, we will anticipate no
+such dreadful destiny. She has a clear fine mind, is studious and
+ambitious, but certainly not a genius, unless it be in music; and she
+can be trained into a cultivated refined woman, sufficiently
+conversant with the sciences to comprehend their contemporaneous
+development, without threatening us with pedantry, or adopting a
+style suitable to the groves of Crotona in the days of Damo, or the
+abstruse mystical diction that doomed Hypatia to the mercy of the
+monks. After all, why scare up a blue-stockinged ogre, which may have
+no intention of depredating upon our peace; for to be really learned
+is no holiday amusement in this cumulative age, and offers little
+temptation to a young girl. Not long since, I found a sentence
+bearing upon this subject, which impressed itself upon my mind, as
+both strong and healthy: 'And by this you may recognize true
+education from false. False education is a delightful thing, and
+warms you, and makes you every day think more of yourself; and true
+education is a deadly cold thing, with a gorgon's head on her shield,
+and makes you every day think worse of yourself. Worse in two ways
+also, more is the pity: it is perpetually increasing the personal
+sense of ignorance, and the personal sense of fault.'"
+
+"In that event, may I venture to wonder where and how you and
+Douglass stand in your own estimation? If quotations are _en règle_,
+I can match your reverence, though unfortunately my feminine memory
+is not like yours, a tireless beast of burden, and I must be allowed
+to read. Here is the book close at hand, in my stocking basket. Now,
+wise and gentle sirs, this is my ideal of proper, healthful, feminine
+education, as contrasted with pur new-fangled method of making girls
+either lay-figures for millinery, jewellery, and frizzled false hair,
+or else--far more horrible still--social hermaphrodites, who storm
+the posts that have been assigned to men ever since that venerable
+and sacred time when 'Adam delved and Eve span,' and who, forsaking
+holy home haunts, wage war against nature on account of the mistake
+made in their sex, and clamour for the 'hallowed inalienable right'
+to jostle and be jostled at the polls; to brawl in the market place,
+and to rant on the rostrum, like a bevy of bedlamities. Now when I
+begin to read, listen, and tell me frankly, whether when you both
+make up your minds to present me, one a sister, the other a daughter,
+you will select your wives from among quaint Evelyn's almost obsolete
+type, or whether you will commit your name, affections, wardrobe,
+larder, pantry and poultry to a strong-minded female 'scientist,' who
+will neglect your socks and buttons, to ascertain exactly how many
+_Vibriones_ and _Bacteria_ float in a drop of fluid, and when you
+come home tired and very hungry, will comfort you, and nobly atone
+for the injury of an ill-cooked and worse-served dinner, by regaling
+your weary ears with her own ingenious and brilliant interpretation
+and translation of _Ælia Lælia Crispis!_ Here is my old-fashioned
+English damsel, meek as a violet, fresh as a dewy daisy, and sweet as
+a bed of thyme and marjoram. 'The style and method of life are quite
+changed, as well as the language, since the days of our ancestors,
+simple and plain as they were, courting their wives for their
+modesty, frugality, keeping at home, good housewifery, and other
+economical virtues then in reputation. And when the young damsels
+were taught all these at home in the country at their parents'
+houses; the portion they brought being more in virtue than money, she
+being a richer match than any one who could bring a million, and
+nothing else to commend her. The virgins and young ladies of that
+golden age put their hands to the spindle, nor disdained the needle;
+were obsequious and helpful to their parents, instructed in the
+management of the family, and gave presage of making excellent wives.
+Their retirements were devout and religious books, their recreations
+in the distillery and knowledge of plants and their virtues for the
+comfort of their poor neighbours, and use of the family, which
+wholesome diet and kitchen physic preserved in health. Then things
+were natural, plain, and wholesome; nothing was superfluous, nothing
+necessary wanted. The poor were relieved bountifully, and charity was
+as warm as the kitchen, where the fire was perpetual.' Now, if Regina
+were only my child, I should with some modifications train her after
+this mellow old style."
+
+"Then I am truly thankful she is not my sister! Fancy her pretty
+pearly fingers encrusted with gingerbread-dough; or her entrance into
+the library heralded by the perfume of moly, or of basil and sage,
+tolerable only as the familiars of a dish of sausage meat! Don't soil
+my dainty white dove with the dust and soot and rank odours that
+belong to the culinary realm."
+
+"Your white dove? Do you propose to adopt her? A month hence when you
+are on your way to India, what difference can it possibly make to
+you, whether she is as brown as a quail or black as a crow? Before
+you come back, she will have been conscripted into the staid army of
+matrons, and transmogrified into stout Mrs. Ptolemy Thomson, or lean
+and careworn Mrs. Simon Smith, or worse than all, erudite Mrs.
+Professor Belshazzar Brown, spelling Hercules after the learned
+style, with the loss of the u, and the substitution of a k; or making
+the ghost of Ulysses tear his hair, by writing the name of his
+enchantress 'Kirké'!"
+
+As Mrs. Lindsay spoke the smile vanished from her lips, and looking
+keenly at her son's countenance she detected the change that crossed
+it, the sudden glow that mounted to the edge of his hair.
+
+Avoiding her eyes, he answered hastily: "Suppose those distinguished
+gentlemen you mention chance to be scholars, _savans_, and disposed
+to follow the advice of Joubert in making their matrimonial
+selection: 'We should choose for a wife only the woman we should
+choose for a friend, were she a man.' Think you mere habits of
+domesticity, or skill in herbalism, would arrest and fix their
+fancy?"
+
+"But, Bishop, they might consider the Talmud more venerable authority
+than Joubert, and the Talmud says, so I am told: 'Descend a step in
+choosing a wife; mount a step in choosing a friend.'"
+
+"Thank heaven! there is indeed no Salique Law in the realm of
+learning. Mother, I believe one of the happiest auguries of the
+future consists in the broadening views of education that are now
+held by some of our ablest thinkers. If in the morning of our
+religious system, St. Peter deemed it obligatory on us to be able and
+'ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason
+of the hope that is in you,' how doubly imperative is that duty in
+this controversial age, when the popular formula has been adopted,
+'to doubt, to inquire, to discover;' when the hammer of the geologist
+pounds into dust the idols of tradition, and the lenses of astronomy
+pierce the blue wastes of space, which in our childhood we fondly
+believed were the _habitat_ of cherubim and seraphim. Now, mother, if
+you will only insure my ears against those pink tweezers, of which
+they bear stinging recollections, I should like to explain myself."
+
+Mrs. Lindsay plunged her hands into the depths of her stocking
+basket, and said sententiously:
+
+"The temple of Janus is closed."
+
+"What is the origin of the doctrine that erudition is the sole
+prerogative of men, and that it proves as dangerous in a woman's
+hands, as phosphorus or gunpowder in those of a baby----"
+
+"Why Eve's experience, of course. A ton of gunpowder would not have
+blown up the garden of Eden more effectually, than did her light
+touch upon an outside branch of the tree of knowledge. I should say
+Genesis was acceptable authority to a young minister of the Gospel."
+
+"That is a violation of the truce, Elise. You are skirmishing with
+his picket line. Go on, Douglass."
+
+"It is evidently a remnant of despotic barbarism, a fungoid growth
+from Oriental bondage----"
+
+"Bishop, may I be allowed to ask if you are referring to Genesis?"
+
+"Dear little mother, I refer to the popular fallacy, that in the same
+ratio that you thoroughly educate women, you unfit them for the holy
+duties of daughter, wife, and mother. Is there an inherent antagonism
+between learning and womanliness?"
+
+"Indeed, dear, how can I tell? I am not a 'Della-Cruscan.' I only
+'strain' milk into my dairy pans."
+
+"Elise, do be quiet. You break the thread of his argument."
+
+"Then it is entirely too brittle to hold the ponderous propositions
+he intends to string upon it. Proceed, my son."
+
+"Are we to accept the unjust and humiliating dogma that the more
+highly we cultivate feminine intellect, the more un-feminine,
+unlovely, unamiable the individual certainly becomes? Is a woman
+sweeter, more gentle, more useful to her family and friends, because
+she is unlearned? Does knowledge exert an acidulating influence upon
+female temper, or produce an ossifying effect on female hearts? Is
+ignorance an inevitable concomitant of refinement and delicacy?
+Does the knowledge of Greek and Latin cast a blight over the
+flower-garden, or a mildew in the pantry and linen closet; or
+do the classics possess the power of curdling all the milk of
+human-kindness, all the streams of tender sympathy in a woman's
+nature, as rennet coagulates a bowl of sweet milk? Can an
+acquaintance with literature, art, and science so paralyze a lady's
+energies, that she is rendered utterly averse to and incapable of
+performing those domestic offices, those household duties, so
+pre-eminently suited to her slender, dexterous busy little fingers?
+Why, my own wise precious little mother is a living refutation
+of so grossly absurd and monstrous a dogma! Have not you boxed my
+ears, because, when stumbling through the 'Anabasis,' my Greek
+pronunciation tortured your fastidious and correct taste? Did not you
+tell me that you read nearly the whole of Sallust by spreading the
+book open on the dairy shelf while you churned, thus saving time? And
+did not that same sweet golden butter, made under the shadow of a
+Latin dictionary, win you the State Fair Premium, of that very silver
+cup, from which I drank my milk, as long as I wore knee-pants and
+round jackets? Was it not my father's fond boast that his wife's
+proficiency in music was equalled only by her wonderful skill in
+making muffins, pastry, and _omelette soujflée?_"
+
+With genuine chivalric tenderness in look and tone he inclined his
+head; but though a tear certainly glistened in Mrs. Lindsay's bright
+eyes, she answered gayly:
+
+"Am I Cerberus, to be coaxed and cheated by a well-buttered sop of
+flattery? Return to your mutton, reverend sir, and know that I am
+incorruptible, and disdain to betray my cause for your thirty pieces
+of potent praise."
+
+"I think," said Mr. Hargrove, taking a bunch of cherries from the
+fruit-stand on the library table,--"I think the whole matter may be
+resolved into this; the ambitious clamours and Amazonian excesses of
+this epoch, are the inevitable consequence of the rigid tyranny of
+former ages; which sternly banished women to the numbing darkness of
+an intellectual night, denying them the legitimate and natural right
+of developing their faculties by untrammelled exercise. This belief
+in feminine inferiority is still expressed in Mohammedan lands, by
+the custom of placing a slate or tablet of marble on a woman's grave,
+while on that of men a pen or penholder is laid, to indicate that
+female hearts are mere tablets, on which man writes whatever pleases
+him best. In sociology, as well as physics and dynamics,--the angle
+of reflection is always equal to the angle of incidence,--the
+psychologic rebound is ever in proportion to the mental pressure; one
+extreme invariably impinges upon the opposite,--and when the pendulum
+has reached one end of the arc, it must of necessity swing back to
+the other. In all social revolutions the moderate and reasonable
+concessions which might have appeased the discontent in its
+incipiency are gladly tendered much too late in the contest, when the
+insurgents stung by injustice and conscious of their grievances,
+refuse all temperate compromise, and run riot. This woman's-rights
+and woman's-suffrage abomination is no suddenly concocted social
+bottle of yeast: it has been fermenting for ages, and, having finally
+blown out the cork, is rapidly leavening the mass of female
+malcontents."
+
+"But, Uncle Peyton, you surely discriminate between a few noisy
+ambitious sciolists who mistake lyceum notoriety for renown, and the
+noble band of delicate, refined women whose brilliant attainments in
+the republic of letters are surpassed only by their beautiful
+devotion to God, family, and home? Fancy Mrs. Somerville demanding a
+seat in Parliament, or Miss Herschel elbowing her way to the
+hustings! Whose domestic record is more lovely in its pure
+womanliness than Hannah More's, or Miss Mitford's, or Mrs.
+Browning's? who wears deathless laurels more modestly than Rosa
+Bonheur? It seems to me, sir, that it is not so much the amount as
+the quality of the learning that just now ought to engage attention.
+I see that one of the ablest and strongest thinkers of the day has
+handled this matter in a masterly way, and with your permission I
+should like to read a passage: 'In these times the educational tree
+seems to me to have its roots in the air, its leaves and flowers in
+the ground; and I confess I should very much like to turn it upside
+down, so that its roots might be solidly embedded among the facts of
+Nature, and draw thence a sound nutriment for the foliage and fruit
+of literature and of art. No educational system can have a claim to
+permanence, unless it recognizes the truth that education has two
+great ends, to which everything else must be subordinated. One of
+these is to increase knowledge; the other is to develop the love of
+right and the hatred of wrong. At present, education is almost
+entirely devoted to the cultivation of the power of expression, and
+of the sense of literary beauty. The matter of having anything to say
+beyond a hash of other people's opinions, or of possessing any
+criterion of beauty, so that we may distinguish between the God-like
+and the devilish, is left aside as of no moment. I think I do not err
+in saying that if science were made the foundation of education,
+instead of being at most stuck on as cornice to the edifice, this
+state of things could not exist.' Such is the system I should like to
+see established in our own country."
+
+"Provided you could reply upon the moderation of the teachers; for
+unless wisely and temperately inculcated, this system would soon make
+utter shipwreck of the noblest interests of humanity. For many years
+I have watched attentively the doublings of this fox, and while I
+yield to no man in solemn fidelity to truth, I want to be sure that
+what I accept as such, is not merely old error under new garbs, only
+a change of disguising terms. Science has its fetich, as well has
+superstition, and abstruse terminology does not always conceal its
+stolid gross proportions. The complete overthrow and annihilation of
+the belief in a personal, governing, prayer-answering God, is the end
+and aim of the gathering cohorts of science, and the sooner masking
+technicalities are thrown aside the better for all parties.
+Scientific research and analysis, nobly brave, patient, tireless, and
+worthy of all honour and gratitude, have manipulated, decomposed, and
+then integrated the universal clay, but despite microscope and
+telescope, chemical analysis, and vivisection, they can go no further
+than the whirring of the Potter's wheel, and the Potter is nowhere
+revealed. The moulding Creative hand and the plastic clay are still
+as distinct, as when the gauntlet was first flung down by proud
+ambitious constructive science. Animal and vegetable organisms have
+been analyzed, and 'the idea of adaptation developed into the
+conception that life itself, "is the definite combination of
+heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive in
+correspondence with external co-existence and sequences."' Now to the
+masses who are pardonably curious concerning this problem of
+existence, is this result perfectly satisfactory? The 'Physical basis
+of life' has been driven into a corner, hunted down, seized at last,
+and over the heads of an eager, panting, chasing generation, is
+triumphantly dangled this 'Scientific Fox' brush, 'Nucleated
+Protoplasm, the structural unit!' But how or whence sprang the laws
+of 'Protein'? Hatred of certain phrases is more bitter than of the
+principles they express, and because theologians cling to the words
+God,' Creative Acts, Divine Wisdom, Providential Adaptation,
+scientists declare them the _dicta_ of ignorance, superstition, and
+tradition, and demand that we shall bow before their superior wisdom,
+and substitute such terms as 'Biogenesis,' 'Abiogenesis,' and
+'Xenogenesis.' But where is the economy of credulity? The problems
+are only crowded by a subtle veil of learned or scientific verbiage,
+and their solution does not induce the expenditure of faith. The
+change of names is not worth the strife, for the Clay and the Potter
+are still distinct, and He who created cosmic laws cannot reasonably
+or satisfactorily be confounded with, or merged in His own statutes.
+Creeds, theories, systems are not valuable because they are religious
+and traditional, or because they are scientific or philosophical, but
+solely on account of their truth. So, Douglass, I am not sure that
+your essentially scientific method will teach Regina any more real
+wisdom in ethics, or in  Ætiolgy, than her great-grandmother
+possessed."
+
+"You forget, Uncle Peyton, that in this rapidly advancing age only
+improved educational systems will enable men and women to appreciate
+the importance of its discoveries."
+
+"My dear boy, are sudden and violent changes always synonymous with
+advancement? Is transition inevitably improvement? Was the social
+status of Paris after the revolution of 1790 an appreciable progress
+from the morals, religious or political, that existed in the days of
+Fenelon? In mechanical, agricultural, and chemical departments the
+march is indeed nobly on and upward, the discoveries and improvements
+are vast and wonderful, and for these physical material blessings we
+are entirely indebted to Science, toiling, heroic, and truly
+beneficent Science. In morals, public or private--religion, national
+or individual--or in civil polity, have we advanced? Has liberty of
+action kept pace with liberty of opinion? Are Americans as truly free
+to-day as they certainly were fifty years ago? In æsthetics do we
+surpass Phidias and Praxiteles, Raphael and Michael Angelo? Is our
+music more perfect than Pergolesi's or Mozart's? Can we exhibit any
+marvels of architecture that excel the glory of Philæ, Athens,
+Pæstum, and Agra? Are wars less bloody, or is crime less rampant? Our
+arrogant assumption of superiority is sometimes mournfully rebuked.
+For instance, one of the most eminent and popular scientists of
+England emphasised his views on the necessity of 'improving natural
+knowledge,' by ascribing the great plague of 1664, and the great fire
+of 1666--which in point of population and of houses, nearly swept
+London from the face of the globe--to ignorance and neglect of
+sanitary laws, and to the failure to provide suitable organizations
+for the suppression of conflagrations. He proudly asserted that the
+recurrence of such catastrophes is now prohibited by scientific
+arrangements 'that never allow even a street to burn down,' and that
+'it is the improvement of our own natural knowledge which keeps back
+the plague.' I think I am warranted in the assumption that our
+American Fire Departments, Insurance Companies, and Boards of Health
+are quite as advanced, progressive, and scientific as similar
+associations in Great Britain; yet the week after I read his
+argument, an immense city lay almost in ruins; and ere many months
+passed, several towns and districts of our land were scourged,
+desolated by pestilence so fatal, so unconquerable, that the horrors
+of the plague were revived, and the living were scarcely able to
+sepulchre the dead. Now and then we have solemn admonitions of the
+Sisyphian tendency of the attempt so oft defeated, so persistently
+renewed to banish a Personal and Ruling God, and substitute the
+scientific fetich, 'Force and Matter,' 'Natural Law,' 'Evolution,' or
+'Development.' While I desire that the basis of Regina's education
+shall be sufficiently broad, liberal, and comprehensive, I intend to
+be careful what doctrines are propounded; for unfortunately all who
+sympathize with the atheism of Comte, have not his noble frankness,
+and fail to print as he did on his title-page:
+
+                  '_Réorganiser sans Dieu ni roi,
+                  Par le culte systematique
+                  de l'Humanité_.'"
+
+"Oh, Peyton! what fearfully,  selfishly  long sentences you and
+Douglass inflict upon each other, and upon me! The colons and
+semicolons gather along the lines of conversation like an army of
+martyrs, and to my stupidly weary ears that last, that final period,
+was a most 'sweet boon'--a crowning blessing. If Regina's nightingale
+soul is to be vexed by such disquisitions as those from which you
+have been quoting, I must say it made a sorry bargain in exchanging
+brown feathers for pink flesh, and would have had a better time
+trilling madrigals in some hawthorn thicket or myrtle grove. I see
+plainly I might as well carry my dear old Evelyn--fragrant with
+mint and marjoram--back upstairs, and wrap it up in ancient
+camphor-scented linen, and put it away tenderly to sleep its last
+sleep in the venerable cedar chest, where my grandfather's huge
+knee-buckles, and my great-grandmother's yellow brocaded silk-dress,
+with its waist the length of my little finger, and the sleeves as
+wide as a balloon. Gentlemen, permit me one parting paragraph,
+before I write 'finis' on this matter of education, and 'hereafter
+for ever hold my peace.' Be it distinctly understood, 'by these
+presents,' that if that child Regina grows up a blue-stocking, or a
+metempsychosist, a scientist or a freedom-shrieker, a professor of
+physics or a practitioner of physic, judge of a court or mayor of a
+city, biologist, sociologist, heathen or heretic, it will be no work
+or wish of mine; for to each and all of these threatened, progressive
+abominations, I, Elise Lindsay, do hold up clean hands, and cry,
+Avaunt!"
+
+"I thought my sister had long since learned that borrowing trouble
+necessitated the payment of usurious interest? Just now our little
+girl carries no gorgon's head; let her alone. The most imperatively
+demanded change in our system of female training, is the addition of
+a few years in which to work. American girls are turned out upon
+society when they should be beginning their apprenticeship under
+their mothers' eyes in all household arts and sciences; and they are
+wives and mothers before they are able physically, mentally, or
+morally to appreciate the sacred, solemn responsibilities that inhere
+in such positions. If our girls pursued methodically all the branches
+of a liberal and classical education, including domestic economy,
+until they were at least twenty, how much misery would be averted!
+how many more really elegant interesting women would be added to the
+charm of society, usefulness to country, happiness and sanctity of
+home! Had I means to bestow in such enterprises, I should
+like to endow some institution, and stipulate for a chair of
+household-arts-and-sciences-and-home-duties; and Regina should not go
+into general society until she had graduated therein."
+
+"Not another word of conspiracy against my little maid's peace! Lean
+forward a little, Peyton, and look at her yonder, coming along the
+rose-walk. See how the pigeons follow her. She has been gathering
+raspberries, and I promised she should make all she could pick into
+jelly for poor old Tobitha Meggs. How pure and fair she looks in her
+white dress! Dear little thing! Sometimes I am wicked enough to wish
+she had no mother, for then she would be wholly ours, and we could
+keep her always. Listen, she is singing Schubert's '_Ave Maria_'."
+
+After a moment's silence Mrs. Lindsay rose, and, passing her arm
+around her son's neck, leaned her cheek against his head, as he sat
+near his uncle, and looking through the open door at the slowly
+approaching figure.
+
+"Bishop, if I were an artist, I would paint her as a priestess at
+Ephesus, chanting a hymn to Diana; and instead of Hero and the
+pigeons, place brown deer and spotted fawns on mossy banks in the
+background."
+
+"Pooh! What a hopeless pagan you are, Elise? If I were a sculptor I
+would chisel a statue of purity, and give it her countenance."
+
+And Mr. Lindsay smiled in his mother's face, and said only for her
+ear:
+
+"Do not her eyes entitle her to be called Glaukopis?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+The long sultry August day was drawing to a close, and those who had
+found the intense heat almost unendurable watched with delight the
+slow hands of the clock, whose lagging fingers finally pointed to
+five. The sky seemed brass, the atmosphere a blast from Tophet; and
+the sun, still standing at some distance above the horizon, glared
+mercilessly down over the panting parched: earth, as if a recent and
+unusually copious shower of "meteoric cosmical matter" had fallen
+into the solar furnace, and prompted it by increased incandescence to
+hotly deny the truth of Helmholtz's assertion: "The inexorable laws
+of mechanics show that the store of heat in the sun must be finally
+exhausted." Certainly to those who had fanned themselves through the
+tedious torture long remembered as the "hot Sunday," the
+science-predicted period of returning glaciers and polar snows where
+palms and lemons now hold sway, seemed even more distant than the
+epoch suggested by the speculative. In proportion to the elevation of
+the mercurial vein which mounted to and poisoned itself at 100
+degrees, the religious, the devotional, pulse sank lower, almost to
+zero; consequently, although circumstances of unusual interest
+attracted the congregation to the church, where Mr. Lindsay intended
+to preach his farewell sermon, only a limited number had braved the
+heat to shake hands with the young minister, who ere another sunrise
+would have started on his long journey to the pagan East.
+
+At the parsonage it had been a sad day, sad despite the grave
+serenity of Mr. Hargrove, the quiet fortitude of Mr. Lindsay, and the
+desperate attempts of the mother to drive back tears, compose
+fluttering lips, and steady the tones of her usually cheerful voice.
+For several days previous, Mr. Hargrove had been quite indisposed,
+and as his nephew would leave home at eleven p.m., the customary
+Sunday night service had been omitted.
+
+As the afternoon wore away, the family trio assembled on the shaded
+end of the north verandah, and with intuitive delicacy, Regina shrank
+from intruding on the final interview which appeared so sacred.
+
+Followed by Hero, she went through the shrubbery, and down a walk
+bordered with ancient cedars, which led to a small gate that opened
+into the adjoining churchyard.
+
+In accordance with a custom long since fallen hopelessly into
+desuetude, but prevailing when the venerable church was erected, it
+had been placed in the centre of a spacious square, every yard of
+which had subsequently become hallowed as the last resting-place of
+families who had passed away, since the lofty spire rose like a huge
+golden finger pointing heavenward. An avenue of noble elms led from
+the iron gate to the broad stone steps; and on either side and
+behind the church swelled the lines of mounds, some white with
+marble, some green with turf, now and then a heap of mossy
+shells--not a few gay with flowers--all scrupulously free from weeds,
+and those most melancholy symptoms of neglect, which even in public
+cemeteries too often impress the beholder with gloomy premonitions of
+his own inevitable future, and recall the solemn admonition of the
+Talmud: "Life is a passing shadow. Is it the shadow of a tower, or of
+a tree? A shadow that prevails for a while? No, it is the shadow of a
+bird in his flight,--away flies the bird, and there remains neither
+bird nor shadow."
+
+Has the profoundly religious sentiment of reverence for the domains
+of death lost or gained by the modern practice of municipal monopoly
+of the right of sepulture? Who, amid the pomp and splendour of
+Greedwood or Mount Auburn, where human vanity builds its own proud
+monument in the mausoleums of the dead,--who, in hurrying along the
+broad and beautiful avenues thronged with noisy groups of chattering
+pedestrians, and with gay equipages that render the name "City of
+silence" a misnomer, converting it into a _quasi_ Festa ground, a
+scene for subdued Sunday _Fête Champêtre_,--who, passing from these
+magnificent city cemeteries, into some primitive old-fashioned
+churchyard, such as that of V----, has not suddenly been almost
+overpowered by the contrast presented: the deep brooding solemnity,
+the holy hush, the pervading indwelling atmosphere of true sanctity
+that distinguishes the latter?
+
+Could any other than the simple ancient churchyard of bygone days
+have suggested that sweetest, purest, noblest elegy in our mother
+tongue? Do not our hearts yearn with an intense and tender longing
+toward that church, at whose font we were baptized, at whose
+communion-table we reverently bowed, before whose altar we breathed
+the marriage vows, from whose silent chancel we shall one day be
+softly and slowly borne away to our last, long sleep? Why not lay us
+down to rest, where the organ that pealed at our wedding and sobbed
+its requiem over our senseless clay may still breathe its loving
+dirges across our graves in winter's leaden storms, or in fragrant
+amber-aired summer days? Would worldly vampires, such as political or
+financial schemes, track a man's footsteps down the aisle, and flap
+their fatal numbing pinions over his soul so securely even in the
+Sanctuary of the Lord, if from his family pew his eyes wandered now
+and then to the marble slab that lay like a benediction over the
+silver head of an honoured father or mother, or the silent form of a
+beloved wife, sister, or brother?
+
+Is there a woman so callous, so steeped in folly, that the tinsel of
+Vanity Fair, the paraphernalia of fashion, or all the thousand small
+fiends that beleaguer the female soul, could successfully lure her
+imagination from holy themes, when sitting in front of the pulpit,
+she yet sees through the open windows where butterflies like happy
+souls flutter in and out the motionless chiselled cenotaph that rests
+like a sentinel above the pulseless heart that once enshrined her
+image, called her wife, and beat in changeless devotion against her
+own; or the little grassy billow sown thick with violets that speak
+to her of the blue eyes beneath them, where in dreamless slumber that
+needs no mother's cradling arms, no maternal lullaby, reposes the
+waxen form, the darling golden head of her long-lost baby? What spot
+so peculiarly suited for "God's acre" as that surrounding God's
+temple?
+
+A residence of dearly four years' duration at the parsonage had
+rendered this quiet churchyard a favourite retreat with Regina, and,
+divesting the graves of all superstitious terrors, had awakened in
+her nature only a most profound and loving reverence for the
+precincts of the dead.
+
+To-day, longing for some secluded spot in which to indulge the
+melancholy feelings that oppressed her, she instinctively sought the
+church, yielding unconscious homage to its hallowed and soothing
+influence. Passing slowly and carefully among the head-stones, she
+went into the church, to which she had access at all times by a key,
+which enabled her to enter at will and practise on the small organ
+that was generally used in Sabbath-school music.
+
+Fancying that it might be cooler in the gallery, she ascended to the
+organ loft, and while Hero stretched himself at her feet, she sat
+down on one of the benches close to the open window that looked
+toward the mass of trees which so completely embowered the parsonage,
+that only one ivy-crowned chimney was visible. Low in the sky, and
+just opposite the tall arched window behind the pulpit, the sun
+burned like a baleful Cyclopean eye, striking through a mass of ruby
+tinted glass that had been designed to represent a lion, and other
+symbols of the Redeemer, who soared away above them.
+
+Are there certain subtle electrical currents sheathed in human flesh
+that link us sometimes with the agitated reservoirs of electricity
+trembling in the bosom of yet distant clouds? Do not our own highly
+charged nervous batteries occasionally give the first premonition of
+coming thunderstorms? Long before the low angry growl that came
+suddenly from some lightning lair in the far south, below the
+sky-line, Regina anticipated the approaching war of elements, and
+settled herself to wait for it.
+
+Not until to-day had she realized how much of the pleasure of her
+life at the parsonage was derived from the sunny presence and
+sympathizing companionship which she was now about to lose,
+certainly for many years, probably for ever.
+
+Although Mr. Lindsay's age doubled her own, he had entered so fully
+into her fancies, humoured so patiently her girlish caprices, with
+such tireless interest aided her in her studies, that she seemed to
+forget his seniority, and treated him with the quiet affectionate
+freedom which she would have indulged toward a young brother. Next to
+the memory of her mother, she probably gave him the warmest place in
+her heart, but she was a remarkably reserved, composed, and
+undemonstrative child, by no means addicted to caresses, and only in
+moments of deep feeling betrayed into an impulsive passionate
+gesture, or a burst of emotion.
+
+Sincerely attached to the entire household, who had won not merely
+her earnest gratitude, but profound respect and admiration, she was
+conscious of a peculiar clinging tenderness for Mr. Lindsay, which
+rendered the prospect of his departure the keenest trial that had
+hitherto overtaken her; and when she thought of the immense distance
+that must soon divide them, the laborious nature of the engagement
+that would detain him perhaps a lifetime in the far East, her own dim
+uncertain future looked dark and dreary. The blazing sun went down at
+last, the fiery radiance of the pulpit window faded, and the birds
+that frequented the quiet sheltered enclosure sought their perches in
+the thickest foliage where they were wont to sleep. But there was no
+abatement of the heat. The air was sulphurous, and its inspiration
+was about as refreshing as a draught from Phlegethon; while the
+distant occasional growl had grown into a frequent thunderous
+muttering that deepened with every repetition, and already began to
+shake the windows in its reverberations. Two ladies in deep mourning,
+who had been hovering like black spectres around a granite
+sarcophagus, where they deposited and arranged the customary Sabbath
+arkja of white flowers, concluded their loving tribute to the
+sleeper, and left the churchyard; and save the continual challenge
+of the thunder drawing nearer, the perfect stillness ominous and
+dread, which always precedes a violent storm, seemed brooding in
+fearful augury above the home of the dead.
+
+With one foot resting on Hero's neck, Regina sat leaning against the
+window facing, very pale, but bravely fighting this her first great
+battle with sorrow. Her face was eloquent with mute suffering, and
+her eyes were full of shadows that left no room for tears.
+
+"Going away to India, perhaps for ever!" was the burden of this woe
+that blanched even her lovely coral lips until their curves were lost
+in the pallor of her rounded cheek and dimpled chin. "Going away to
+India;" like some fateful rune presaging dire disaster, it seemed
+traced in characters of flame across the glowing sky, and over the
+stony monuments that studded the necropolis.
+
+Suddenly Hero lifted his head, sniffed the air, and rose, and almost
+simultaneously Regina heard the sound of footsteps on the gravel
+outside, and the low utterances of a voice which she recognized as
+Hannah's.
+
+"I never told you before, because I was afraid that in the end you
+would cheat me out of my share of the profit. But I have watched and
+waited, and bided my time as long as I intend to, and I am too old to
+work as I have done."
+
+"It seems to me a queer thing you have hid it so long, so many years,
+when you might have turned it into gold. The old General ought to pay
+well for the paper. Let's see it."
+
+The response was in a man's voice, harsh and discordant, and, leaning
+slightly forward, Regina saw the old servant from the parsonage
+standing immediately beneath the window, fanning herself with her
+white apron, and earnestly conversing in subdued tones with a
+middle-aged man, whose flushed and rather bloated face still retained
+traces of having once been, though in a coarse style, handsome. In
+length of limb, and compact muscular development he appeared an
+athlete, a very son of Anak; but habitual dissipation had set its
+brutalizing stamp upon his countenance, and the expression of the
+inflamed eyes and sensuous mouth was sinister and forbidding, as if a
+career of vice had left the stain of irremediable ruin on his swarthy
+face.
+
+As he concluded his remark and stretched out his hand, Hannah laughed
+scornfully.
+
+"Do you take me for a fool? Who else would travel around with a match
+and a loaded fuse in the same pocket? I haven't it with me; it is too
+valuable to be carried about. The care of that scrap of paper has
+tormented me all these years, worse than the tomb devils did the
+swine that ran down into the sea to cool off; and if I have changed
+its hiding-place once, I have twenty times. If the old General
+doesn't pay well for it, I shall gnaw off my fingers, on account of
+the sin it has cost me. I was an honest woman and could have faced
+the world until that night--so many years ago; and since then I have
+carried a load on my soul that makes me--even Hannah Hinton, who
+never flinched before man or woman or beast--a coward, a quaking
+coward! Sin stabs courage, lets it ooze out, as a knife does blood.
+Don't bully me, Peleg! I won't bear it. Jeer me if you dare."
+
+"Never fear, Aunt Hannah. I have no mind to do theatre on a small
+scale, and show you Satan reproving sin. After all, what is your bit
+of _petit larceny_, your thin slice of theft, in comparison with my
+black work? But really I don't in the least begrudge my sins, if only
+I might have my revenge,--if I could only get Minnie in my power."
+
+"Bah! don't sicken me with any more of the Minnie dose! I hate the
+name as I do small-pox or cholera. A pretty life you have led,
+dancing after her, as an outright fool might after the pewter-bells
+on a baby's rattle!"
+
+"You women can't understand how a man feels when his love changes to
+hate; and yet you ought to know all about it, for when you do turn
+upon one another you never let go. Aunt Hannah, I loved her better
+than everything else upon the broad earth; I would have kissed the
+dust where she walked; I always loved her, and she was fond of me,
+until that college dandy came between us, and made a fool of her, a
+villain of me. When she forsook me, and followed him off, I swore I
+would be revenged. There is tiger blood in me, and when I am
+thoroughly stirred up I never cool. It is a long, long time since I
+lost her trail--soon after the child was born, and eight years ago I
+almost gave up and went to Cuba; but if I can only find the track, I
+will follow it till I hunt her down. I never received your letters,
+or I would have hurried back. Where is Minnie now?"
+
+"That is more than I know, but I think somewhere in Europe. The
+letters are always sent to a lawyer in New York, who directs them to
+her. I have tried in every way to find out, but they are all too
+smart for me."
+
+"Why don't you pump the child?"
+
+"Haven't I? And gained about as much as if I had put a handle on the
+side of a lump of cast iron, and pumped. She is closer than sealing
+wax, and shrewder than a serpent. If you pumped her till the stars
+fell, you would not get an air-bubble, She can neither be scared nor
+coaxed."
+
+"Where is the paper?"
+
+"Safely buried here, among the dead."
+
+"What folly! Don't you know the dampness will destroy it? Pshaw! you
+have ruined everything."
+
+"See here, Peleg, all the brains of the family did not lodge in your
+skull; and I guess I was wiser at your age than you will be at mine.
+The paper was safe and sound when I looked at it a month ago, and it
+is wrapped up in oil-silk, then in cotton, and kept in a thick tin
+box."
+
+"When can I see it? Suppose you get it now?"
+
+"In daylight? You may depend on my steering clear of detection, no
+matter what comes. I would take it up to-night, but there is going to
+be an awful storm. Do you hear how the thunder keeps bellowing down
+yonder, under that dark line crossing the south? There will be wild
+work pretty soon; it has been simmering all day, and when it begins
+it won't be child's play. Even the marble slabs on the graves are
+hot, and the ground scorched my feet, as if Satan and his fires had
+burnt through all but a thin crust. I never was afraid of the devil
+until my sin brought me close to him. I want to finish this business,
+and before day to-morrow I will come over here and dig up my box.
+There will be dim moonlight by three o'clock, and if it should be
+cloudy, I can shut my eyes and find the place. I tell you, Peleg, I
+am sick and tired of this dirty work; and sometimes I think I am no
+better than a hyena prowling among dead men's bones. Come around to
+the cowshed in the morning, about seven o'clock, when the family will
+be in the library holding prayers; and when I go to milk, I will
+bring you the paper. Only to look at, to read over, mind you! It
+doesn't leave my hands, until the old General's gold jingles in my
+pocket. Then he is welcome to it, and Minnie may suffer the
+consequences; and you and I will divide the profits. I want to go
+away and rest with my sister Penelope the remainder of my life, and
+though the family here beg me to stay, I have already given notice
+that I intend to stop work next month."
+
+"Very well, don't fail me; I am as anxious to close up the job as you
+possibly can be. I should like to see the child, Minnie's child; but
+I might spoil everything if she looks like her mother. Good-bye till
+to-morrow."
+
+The two walked away, one passing down the avenue of elms out into the
+street. The other sauntered in the direction of the parsonage, but
+ere she reached the small gate, Hannah turned aside to a low iron
+railing that enclosed two monuments; a marble angel with expanded
+wings standing above a child's grave, and a broken column wreathed
+with sculptured ivy, placed on a mound covered with grass. Just
+behind the former and close to the railing, rose a noble Lombardy
+poplar that towered even above the elms, and at its base a mass of
+periwinkle and ground ivy ran hither and thither in luxuriant
+confusion, clasping a few ambitious tendrils even about the ancient
+trunk.
+
+Over the railing leaned Hannah, peering down for several moments, at
+the lush green creepers, then she walked on to the parsonage gate,
+and disappeared.
+
+Watching her movements, Regina readily surmised that somewhere near
+that tree the paper was secreted; and she was painfully puzzled to
+unravel the thread that evidently linked her with the mystery.
+
+"I am the child she spoke of, and she has tried again and again to
+'pump' me, as she called it. 'Minnie' must mean my mother; but that
+is not her name. Odilie Orphia Orme never could be twisted into
+'Minnie;' and that coarse, common, low, wicked man never could have
+dared to love my own dear beautiful proud mother! There must be some
+dreadful mistake. Somebody is wrong; but not mother,--no, no--never
+my mother! Once she wrote that she was forced to keep some things
+secret, because she had bitter enemies; and this man must be one of
+them, for he said he would hunt her down. But he shall not! Was it
+Providence that brought them here to talk over their wicked schemes
+where I could hear them? Oh if I only knew all! Mother--mother! you
+might trust your child! I can't believe that I am ignorant even of my
+mother's name. Surely she never was that red-faced man's 'Minnie'!"
+
+Covering her face with her hands, she shuddered at the familiar
+mention by profane lips of one so hallowed in her estimation, and
+this vague threatening of danger to her mother sufficed for a time to
+divert her thoughts from the sorrow that for some days past had
+engrossed her mind.
+
+Knowing the affection and confidence with which Hannah had always
+been treated by the members of the family, and the great length of
+time she had so faithfully served in the parsonage household, Regina
+was shocked at the discovery of her complicity in a scheme which she
+admitted had made her dishonest. Only two days before she had heard
+Mrs. Lindsay lamenting that misfortunes never came single, for as if
+Douglass's departure were not disaster enough for one year, Hannah
+must even imagine that she felt symptoms of dropsy and desired to go
+away somewhere in Iowa or Minnesota, where she could rest, and be
+nursed by her relatives.
+
+This announcement heightened the gloom that already impended, and
+various attempts had been made by Mr. Hargrove and his sister to
+induce Hannah to reconsider her resolution. But she obstinately
+maintained that she was "a worn-out old horse, who ought to be turned
+out to pasture in peace the rest of her days;" yet, notwithstanding
+her persistency, she evinced much distress at her approaching
+separation from the family, and never alluded to it without a flood
+of tears.
+
+What would the members of the household think when they discovered
+how mistaken all had been in her real character? But had she a right
+to betray Hannah to her employer? Perhaps the paper had no connection
+with the parsonage, and no matter whom else she might have wronged,
+Hannah had faithfully served the pastor, and repaid his kindness by
+devotion to his domestic interests. Regina's nature was generous as
+well as just, and she felt grateful to Hannah for many small favours
+bestowed on herself, for a uniform willingness to oblige or assist
+her, as only servants have it in their power to do.
+
+Sweetening reminiscences of caramels and crullers, of parenthetic
+patty-pancakes not ordered or expected on the parsonage bill of fare,
+pleaded pathetically for Hannah, and were ably supported by
+recollections of torn dresses deftly darned, of unseasonably and
+unreasonably soiled white aprons, which the same skilful hands had
+surreptitiously washed and fluted before the regular day for
+commencing the laundry work, all of which now made clamorous and
+desperate demands on the girl's gratitude and leniency. So complete
+had been her trust in Hannah that her reticence concerning her mother
+sprang solely from Mr. Hargrove's earnest injunction that she would
+permit no one to question her upon the subject; consequently she had
+very tenderly intimated to the old woman that she was not at liberty
+to discuss that matter with any one.
+
+"She is going away very soon, bearing a good character. Would it be
+right for me to disgrace her in her old age, by telling Mr. Hargrove
+what I accidentally overheard? If I only knew 'Minnie' meant mother,
+I could be sure this paper did not refer to Mr. Hargrove, and then I
+should see my way clearly; for they both said 'old General,' and no
+one calls Mr. or Dr. Hargrove 'General.' I only want to do what is
+right."
+
+As she lifted her face from her hands she was surprised at the sudden
+gloom that since she last looked out had settled like a pall over the
+sky, darkening the church, rendering even the monuments indistinct.
+
+Hero began to whine and bark, and, starting from her seat, Regina
+hurried toward the steps leading down from the organ-loft. Ere she
+reached them a fearful sound like the roaring of a vast flood broke
+the prophetic silence, then a blinding lurid flash seemed to wrap
+everything in flame; there was simultaneously an awful detonating
+crash, as if the pillars of the universe had given way, and the
+initial note ushered in the thunder-fugue of the tempest, that raged
+as if the Destroying Angel rode upon its blast.
+
+In the height of its fury it bowed the ancient elms as if they were
+mere reeds, and shook the stone church to its foundations as a giant
+shakes a child's toy.
+
+Frightened by the trembling of the building, Regina began to descend
+the stairs, guided by the incessant flashes of lightning, but when
+about half-way down a terrific peal of thunder so startled her that
+she missed a step, grasped at the balustrade but failed to find it,
+and rolled helplessly to the floor of the vestibule. Stunned and mute
+with terror, she attempted to rise, but her left foot, crushed under
+her in the fall, refused to serve her, and with a desperate instinct
+of faith she crawled through the inside door and down the aisle,
+seeking refuge at the altar of God. Dragging the useless member, she
+reached the chancel at last, and as the lightning showed her the
+railing, she laid herself down, and clasped the mahogany balusters in
+both hands.
+
+In the ghastly electric light she saw the wild eyes of the lion in
+the pulpit window glaring at her,--but over all the holy smile of
+Christ, as, looking down in benediction, He soared away heavenward;
+and above the howling of the hurricane rose her cry to Him who
+stilleth tempests, and saith to wind and sea, "Peace, be still!": "O
+Jesus! save me, that I may see my mother once more!"
+
+She imagined there was a lull, certainly the shrieking of the gale
+seemed to subside, but only for half a moment, and in the doubly
+fierce renewal of elemental strife, amid deafening peals if thunder
+and the unearthly glare that preceded each reverberation, there came
+other sounds more appalling, and as the church rocked and quivered
+some portion of the ancient edifice fell, adding its crash to the
+diapason of the storm.
+
+Believing that the roof was falling upon her, Regina shut her eyes,
+and in after years she recalled vividly two sensations that seemed
+her last on earth: one, the warm touch of Hero's tongue on her
+clenched fingers; the other, a supernatural wail that came down from
+the gallery, and that even then she knew was born in the organ. Was
+it the weird fingering of the sacrilegious cyclone that concentrated
+its rage upon the venerable sanctuary? After a little while the fury
+of the wind spent itself, but the rain began to fall heavily, and the
+electricity drama continued with unabated vigour and fierceness.
+
+Although  unusually brave for so young  a person, Regina had been
+completely terrified, and she lay dumb and motionless, still clinging
+to the altar railing. At last, when the wind left the war to the
+thunder and the rain, Hero, who had been quite until now, began to
+bark violently, left her side, and ran to and fro, now and then
+uttering a peculiar sound, which with him always indicated delight.
+His subtle instinct was stronger than her hope, and as she raised
+herself into a sitting posture she saw that he had sprung upon the
+top of one of the side aisle pews, and thence into the window, which
+had been left open by the sexton. Here he lingered as if irresolute,
+and in an agony of dread at the thought of being deserted, she cried
+out:
+
+"Here, Hero! Come back! Hero, don't leave me to die alone."
+
+He whined in answer, and barked furiously as if to reassure her; then
+the whole church was illumined with a lurid glory that seemed to
+scorch the eyeballs with its intolerable radiance, and in it she saw
+the white figure of the dog plunge into the blackness beyond.
+
+She knew the worst was over, unless the lightning killed her, for the
+wind had ceased, and the walls were still standing; but the
+atmosphere was thick with dust, and redolent of lime, and she
+conjectured that the plastering in the gallery had fallen, though the
+tremendous crash portended something more serious. She tried to stand
+up by steadying herself against the balustrade, but the foot refused
+to sustain her weight, and she sank back into her former crouching
+posture, feeling very desolate, but tearless and quiet as one of the
+apostolic figures that looked pityingly upon her whenever the
+lightning smote through them.
+
+She turned her head, so that at every flash she could gaze upon the
+placid face of the beatified Christ floating above the pulpit; and in
+the intense intervening darkness tried to possess her soul in
+patience, thinking of the mercy of God and the love of her mother.
+
+She knew not how long Hero had left her, for pain and terror are not
+accurate chronometers, but after what appeared a weary season of
+waiting, she started when his loud bark sounded under the window,
+through which he had effected his exit. She tried to call him, but
+her throat was dry and parched, and her foot throbbed and ached so
+painfully, that she dreaded making any movement. Then a voice always
+pleasant to her ears, but sweeter now than an archangel's, shouted
+above the steady roar of the rain:
+
+"Regina! Regina!"
+
+She rose to her knees, and with a desperate exertion of lungs and
+throat, answered:
+
+"I am here! Mr. Lindsay, I am here!"
+
+Remembering that words ending in o were more readily distinguished at
+a distance, she added:
+
+"Hero! Oh, Hero!"
+
+His frantic barking told her that she had been heard, and then
+through the window came once more the music of the loved voice.
+
+"Be patient. I am coming."
+
+She could not understand why he did not come through the door instead
+of standing beneath the window, and it seemed stranger still, that
+after a little while all grew silent again. But her confidence never
+wavered, and in the darkness she knelt there patiently, knowing that
+he would not forsake her.
+
+It seemed a very long time before Hero's bark greeted her once more,
+and, turning toward the window, a lingering zigzag flash of lightning
+showed her Douglass Lindsay's face, as he climbed in, followed by the
+dog.
+
+"Regina! where are you?"
+
+"Oh, here I am!"
+
+He stood on one of the seats, swinging a lantern in his hand, and as
+she spoke he sprang toward her.
+
+Still clutching the altar railing with one hand, she knelt, with her
+white suffering face upturned piteously to him, and stooping he threw
+his arms around her and clasped her to his heart.
+
+"My darling, God has been merciful to you and me!"
+
+She stole one arm up about his neck, and clung to him, while for the
+first time he kissed her cheek and brow.
+
+"Does my darling know what an awful risk she ran? The steeple has
+fallen, and the whole front of the church is blocked up, a mass of
+ruins. I could not get in, and feared you were crushed, until I heard
+Hero bark from the inside and followed the sound, which brought me to
+the window, whence he jumped out to meet me. At last when you
+answered my call, I was obliged to go back for a ladder. Here,
+darling, at God's altar, let us thank Him for your preservation."
+
+He bowed his face upon her head, and she heard the whispered
+thanksgiving that ascended to the throne of grace, but no words
+were audible. Rising he attempted to lift her, but she winced and
+moaned, involuntarily sinking back.
+
+"What is the matter? After all, were you hurt?"
+
+"When I came down from the gallery it turned so dark I was
+frightened, and I stumbled and fell down the steps. I must have
+broken something, for when I stand up my ankle gives way, and I can't
+walk at all."
+
+"Then how did you get here? The steps are at the front of the
+church."
+
+"I thought the altar was the safest place, and I crawled here on my
+hands and knees."
+
+He pressed her head against his shoulder, and his deep manly voice
+trembled.
+
+"Thank God, for the thought. It was your salvation, for the stairs
+and the spot where you must have fallen are a heap of stone, brick,
+and mortar. If you had remained there, you would certainly have been
+killed."
+
+"Yes, it was just after I got here and caught hold of the railing
+that the crash came. Oh! is it not awful!"
+
+"It was an almost miraculous escape, for which you ought to thank and
+serve your God all the days of the life He has mercifully spared to
+you. Stand up a minute, even if it pains you, and let me find out
+what ails your foot. I know something of surgery, for once it was my
+intention to study medicine instead of divinity."
+
+He unbuttoned and removed her shoe, and as he firmly pressed the foot
+and ankle, she flinched and sighed.
+
+"I think there are no bones broken, but probably you have wrenched
+and sprained the ankle, for it is much swollen already. Now, little
+girl, I must go back for some assistance. You will have to be taken
+out through the window, and I am afraid to attempt carrying you down
+the ladder unaided and in the darkness. I might break your neck,
+instead of your ankle."
+
+"Oh, please don't leave me here!"
+
+She stretched out her arms pleadingly, and tears sprang to his eyes
+as he noted the pallor of her beautiful face and the nervous
+fluttering of her white lips.
+
+"I shall leave Hero and the lantern with you, and you may be sure I
+shall be gone the shortest possible time. The danger is over now,
+even the lightning is comparatively distant, and you who have been so
+brave all the while certainly will not prove a coward at the last
+moment."
+
+He took her up as easily as if she had been an infant, and laid her
+tenderly down on one of the pew cushions; then placed the lantern on
+the pulpit desk, and came back.
+
+"Slip your hand under Hero's collar, to prevent him from following me
+if he should try to do so, and keep up your courage. Put yourself in
+God's hands, and wait here patiently for Douglass. Don't you know
+that I would not leave you here an instant, if it could be avoided?
+God bless you, my white dove."
+
+He stooped and kissed her forehead, then hurried away, and after a
+moment Regina knew that she and her dog were once more alone in the
+ancient church, with none nearer than the dead, who slept so soundly,
+while the soft summer rain fell ceaselessly above their coffins.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+The town clock was striking nine when the renewal of welcome sounds
+beneath the window announced to Regina that her weary dark vigil was
+ended. Soon after Mr. Lindsay's departure, the lantern above the
+altar grew dim, then went out, leaving the church in total darkness,
+relieved only by an occasional glimmer from the electric batteries
+that had wheeled far away to the north-east. Erect and alert Hero sat
+beside his mistress, now and then rubbing his head against her
+shoulder, or placing his paw on her arm, as if to encourage her by
+mute assurances of faithful guardianship; and even when the voices
+outside cheered him into one quick bark of recognition, he made no
+effort to leave the prostrate form.
+
+"All in the dark? Where is your lantern?" asked Mr. Lindsay, as he
+climbed through the window.
+
+"It went out very soon after you left. Can you find me? or shall I
+try to come to you?"
+
+"Keep still, Regina. Come up the ladder, Esau, and hold your torch so
+that I can see. It is black as Egypt inside."
+
+In a few moments the ruddy glare streamed in, and showed the anxious
+face of the sexton, and the figure of Mr. Lindsay groping from pew to
+pew. Before that cheerful red light how swiftly the trooping spectres
+and grim phantoms that had peopled the gloom fled away for ever! What
+a blessed, comforting atmosphere of love and protection seemed to
+encompass her, when, after handing one of the pew cushions to the
+sexton, Mr. Lindsay came to the spot where she lay.
+
+"How are your wounds?"
+
+"My foot is very stiff and sore, but if you will let me hold your
+arm, I can hop along."
+
+"Can you, my crippled snow-bird? Suppose I have a different use for
+my strong arms?"
+
+He lifted her very gently, but apparently without effort, and
+carried her to the window.
+
+"Go down, Esau, set the torch in the ground, and hold the
+ladder,--press it hard against the wall. I am coming down
+backward,--and if I should miss a round, you must be ready to help
+me. Come, Hero, jump out first and clear the way. Steady now, Esau."
+
+Placing his charge on the broad sill, Mr. Lindsay stepped out,
+established himself securely on the ladder, and, drawing the girl to
+the ledge, took her firmly in his arms, balancing himself with some
+difficulty as he did so.
+
+"Now say your prayers. Clasp your hands tight around my neck, and
+shut your eyes."
+
+His chin rested upon her forehead, as she clung closely about his
+neck, and they commenced the perilous descent.
+
+Once he wavered, almost tottered, but recovered himself, and from the
+fierce beating of his heart and the laboured sound of his deep
+breathing she knew that it cost him great physical exertion; but at
+last his close strain relaxed, he reached the ground safely and stood
+resting a moment, while a sigh of relief escaped him.
+
+"Esau, put the end of the torch sideways in Hero's mouth,--mind, so
+that it will not burn him; and lay the cushion on the plank.
+No!--that is wrong. Turn the torch the other way, so that as he
+walks, the wind will blow the flame in the opposite direction, away
+from his face. Take it, Hero! That's a noble fellow! Now home, Hero."
+
+When the cushion had been adjusted on the broad plank brought for the
+purpose, Mr. Lindsay laid Regina upon it, threw a blanket over her,
+and, bidding the sexton take one end of the plank, he lifted the
+other, and they began the march.
+
+"Not that way, Hero, although it is the nearest. Truly the 'longest
+way round is the shortest way' home this time; for we could not twist
+about among the graves, and must go down the avenue, though it is
+somewhat obstructed by fallen boughs. Come here, Hero, and walk ahead
+of us. Now, Regina, you can shut your eyes and imagine you are riding
+in a palankeen, as the Hindustanee ladies do when they go out for
+fresh air. The motion is exactly the same, as you will find some day
+when you come to Rohilcund or Oude, to see Padre Sahib--Lindsay. You
+shall then have a new dooley all curtained close with rose-coloured
+silk; but I can't promise that the riding will prove any more easy
+than this cushioned plank."
+
+What a stab seemed each word, bringing back all the bitter suffering
+his departure would cause,--the reviving the grief, from which the
+storm had temporarily diverted her thoughts.
+
+"You are not going to-night? You will not try to start, after this
+dreadful storm?" she said, in an unsteady voice.
+
+"Yes, I am obliged to go, in order to keep an appointment for
+to-morrow night in New York; otherwise, I would wait a day to learn
+the extent of the damage, for I am afraid the hurricane has made sad
+havoc. Esau tells me the roof and a portion of the market house was
+carried away, and it was the most violent gale I have ever known."
+
+They had reached the street and were approaching the gate of the
+parsonage, where Hero turned back, dropped the torch at Mr. Lindsay's
+feet, and shook his head vigorously, rubbing his nose with his paw.
+
+"Poor fellow! can't you stand it any longer? It must nave scorched
+him, as it burnt low. Brave fellow!"
+
+"Oh, Douglass! is that you?" cried an eager voice at some distance.
+
+"Yes, mother."
+
+Mrs. Lindsay ran to meet them.
+
+"Did you find her?"
+
+"Yes, I am bringing her home."
+
+"Bringing her--oh, my God! Is she dead?"
+
+"No, she is safe."
+
+"My son, don't try to deceive me. What is the matter? You are
+carrying something on a litter."
+
+"Why do you not speak, Regina, and assure her of your safety?"
+
+Mrs. Lindsay had groped her way to the side of her son, and put her
+hand on the figure stretched upon the cushion.
+
+"I only sprained my foot badly, and Mr. Lindsay was so good as to
+bring me home this way."
+
+"Have they got her?" shouted Hannah, who accompanied by Mr. Hargrove
+had found it impossible to keep pace with Mrs. Lindsay.
+
+"Oh, it is a corpse you are fetching home!" she added, with a genuine
+wail, as in the gloom she dimly saw the outline of several persons.
+
+"Nobody is dead, but we need a light. Run back and get a candle."
+
+Thankful that life had been spared, no more questions were asked
+until they reached the house, and deposited their burden on the
+lounge in the dining-room.
+
+Then Mr. Lindsay briefly explained what had occurred, and
+superintended the anointing and binding up of the bruised ankle, now
+much swollen.
+
+As Hannah knelt, holding the foot in her broad palm, to enable Mrs.
+Lindsay to wrap it in a linen cloth saturated with arnica, the former
+bent her grey head and tenderly kissed the wounded member. She had
+been absent for a few minutes during the recital of the accident, and
+now asked:
+
+"Where were you, that you could not get home before the storm? Heaven
+knows that cloud grumbled and gave warning long enough."
+
+"Hannah, she was in the church, and when she tried to get out, it was
+too late."
+
+"In the church! Why I was in the yard, trying to get a breath of air,
+not twenty minutes before the cloud rolled up like a mountain of ink,
+and I saw nobody."
+
+Regina understood her nervous start, and the eager questioning of her
+eyes.
+
+"I was in the organ gallery, and, falling down the steps, I hurt
+myself."
+
+"Honey, did you see me?"
+
+Her fingers closed so spasmodically over the girl's foot, that she
+winced from the pressure.
+
+"I saw you walking about the churchyard, and would have come home
+with you, if I had thought the storm was so near. Please, Hannah,
+bring me some cool water."
+
+She pitied the old woman's evident confusion and anxiety, and
+rejoiced when Mr. Hargrove changed the topic.
+
+"I am very sorry, Douglass, that I cannot accompany you as far as New
+York. When I promised this afternoon to do so, of course I did not
+anticipate this storm. There may have been lives lost, as well as
+steeples blown down, and it is my duty not to leave my people at such
+a juncture. If it were not for the sailing of the steamer, I would
+insist on your waiting a day or so, in order that I might go with you
+and have a personal interview with Dr. Pitcairns. I ought to have
+thought of and attended to that matter before this."
+
+"Pray do not feel annoyed, uncle; it can be easily arranged by
+letter. Moreover, as my mother goes with me to Boston, it would not
+be right to leave Regina here alone in her present helpless
+condition."
+
+"Do not think of me a moment, Mr. Hargrove. Go with him and stay with
+him as long as you can; I would if I could. Hannah will take care of
+me."
+
+"My dear, I think of my duty, and that keeps me at home. Douglass, I
+will write a short note to Pitcairns, and you must explain matters to
+him. Elise, it is ten o'clock, and you have not much time."
+
+He went into the library, and Mrs. Lindsay hurried upstairs to put on
+her bonnet, calling Hannah to follow and receive, some parting
+injunctions. Kneeling by the lounge, Mr. Lindsay took one of the
+girl's hands.
+
+"Regina, I desired and intended to have a long talk with you this
+afternoon, but could not find you; and now I have no time, except to
+say good-bye. You will never know how hard it is for me to leave my
+dear little friend; I did not realize it myself until to-night."
+
+"Then why will you go away? Can't you stay, and serve God as well by
+being a minister in this country? Can't you change your mind?"
+
+She raised herself on her elbow, and tears gushed over her cheeks,
+as, twining her fingers around his, she looked all the intense loving
+appeal that words could never have expressed.
+
+Just then his stony Teraph--Duty--smiled very benignantly at the
+aching heart he laid upon her dreary cold altar.
+
+"Don't tempt me to look back after putting my hand to the plough. I
+must do my duty, though at bitter cost. Will you promise never to
+forget your friend Douglass?"
+
+"How could I ever forget you? Oh, if I could only go with you!"
+
+His fine eyes sparkled, and, drawing her hand across his cheek, he
+said eagerly:
+
+"Do you really wish it? Think of me, write to me, and love me, and
+some day, if it please God to let me come home, you may have an
+opportunity of going back with me to my work in India. Would you be
+willing to leave all, and help me among the heathens?"
+
+"All but mother. You come next to my mother. Oh, it is hard that I
+must be separated from the two I love best!"
+
+For a moment she sobbed aloud.
+
+"You are only a young girl now, but some day you will be a woman, and
+I hope and believe a very noble woman. Until then we shall be
+separated, but when you are grown I shall see you again, if God
+spares my life. Peculiar and unfortunate circumstances surround you;
+there are trials ahead of you, my darling, and I wish I could shield
+you from them, but it seems impossible, and I can only leave you in
+God's hands praying continually for you. You say you love me nest to
+your mother. All I ask is, that you will allow no one else, no new
+friend, to take my place. When I see you again, years hence, I shall
+hope to hear you repeat those words, 'next to my mother.' Far away in
+the midst of Hindustan my thoughts and hopes will travel back and
+centre in my white dove. Oh, child! my heart is bound to you for
+ever."
+
+He drew her head to his shoulder, and held her close, and as in the
+church when kneeling before the altar she heard whispers which only
+God interpreted.
+
+Mrs. Lindsay came back equipped for her journey, and Mr. Hargrove
+entered at the same moment, but neither spoke. At length, fully aware
+of their presence, the young missionary raised his head, and, placing
+his hand under Regina's chin, looked long at the spirituelle
+beautiful face, as if he wished to photograph every feature on his
+memory. Without removing his eyes, he said:
+
+"Uncle, take care of her always. She is very dear to me. Keep her
+just as she is, in soul 'unspotted from the world.'"
+
+Then his lips quivered, and in a tremulous voice he added:
+
+"God bless you, my darling! My pure lovely dove."
+
+He kissed her, rose instantly, and left the room.
+
+Mrs. Lindsay came to the lounge, and while the tears rolled over her
+cheeks she said tenderly:
+
+"My dear child, it seems unkind to desert you in your crippled
+condition, but I feel assured Peyton and Hannah will nurse you
+faithfully; and every moment that I can be with Douglass seems doubly
+precious now."
+
+"Do you think I would keep you even if I could from him? Oh! don't
+you wish we were going with him to India?"
+
+"Indeed I do, from the depths of my soul. What shall we do without
+our Bishop?"
+
+Bending over the girl the mother wept unrestrainedly, but Mr.
+Hargrove called from the threshold:
+
+"Come, Elise."
+
+As Mrs. Lindsay turned to leave the room, she beckoned to Hannah.
+
+"Carry her upstairs and undress her; and if she suffers much pain,
+don't fail to send for the doctor."
+
+A white image of hopeless misery, Regina lay listening till the sound
+of departing steps became inaudible, and when Hannah left the room
+the girl groaned aloud in the excess of her grief:
+
+"I did not even say good-bye. I did not once thank him for all he did
+for me in the storm! And now I know, I feel I shall never see him
+again! Oh, Douglass!"
+
+The glass door leading into the flower-garden stood open, and Mr.
+Lindsay who had been watching her from the cover of the clustering
+honeysuckle, stepped back into the room.
+
+With a cry of delight, she held out her arms.
+
+"Dear Mr. Lindsay, I shall thank you, and pray for you, and love you
+as long as I live!"
+
+He put a small packet in her hand, and whispered:
+
+"Here is something I wish you to keep until you are eighteen. Do not
+open it before that time, unless I give you permission, or unless you
+know that I am dead."
+
+He drew her tenderly to his heart, and his lips pressed her cheek.
+Then he said brokenly:
+
+"O God! be merciful in all things, to my darling!"
+
+A moment after she heard his rapid footsteps on the gravelled walk,
+followed by the clang of the gate; then a great loneliness as of
+death fell upon her.
+
+There are indeed sorrows "that bruise the heart like hammers," and
+age it suddenly, prematurely. In subsequent years Regina looked back
+to the incidents of this eventful Sabbath, and marked it with a black
+stone in the calendar of memory as the day on which she "put away
+childish things," and began to see life and the world through new,
+strange disenchanting lenses, that dispelled all the gilding glamour
+of childhood, and unexpectedly let in a grey dull light that chilled
+and awed her.
+
+With tearless but indescribably mournful eyes, she looked vacantly at
+the door through which her friend had vanished, as it then seemed,
+for ever, and, finding that her own remarks were entirely unheard,
+unheeded, Hannah touched her shoulder.
+
+"Poor thing! Are you ready to let me carry you upstairs?"
+
+"Thank you, but I am not going upstairs to-night. I want to stay
+here, because I am too heavy to be carried up and down, and I can get
+about better from here. Bring a pillow and some bedclothes. I can
+sleep on this lounge."
+
+"I shall be scolded if you don't go to bed."
+
+"Let me alone, Hannah. I intend to stay where I am. Bring the things
+I need. Nobody shall scold you if you will only do as I ask."
+
+"Then I shall have to make a pallet on the floor, for Miss Elise gave
+positive orders that I should sleep in your room until she came back.
+Don't you mean to undress yourself?"
+
+"No. Please unfasten my clothes and then leave them as they are. You
+must not sleep on the floor. Roll in the hall sofa, and it will make
+a nice bed."
+
+There was no alternative, and when Mr. Hargrove returned at midnight,
+he deemed it useless to reprimand or expostulate, as Regina declared
+herself very comfortable, and pleaded for permission to remain until
+morning.
+
+Looking very sad and careworn, the pastor stood for some minutes
+leaning on his gold-headed cane. As he bade her goodnight and turned
+from the lounge, she put her hand on the cane.
+
+"Please, sir, lend me this until morning. Hannah sleeps soundly, and
+if I am forced to wake her, I can easily do so by tapping on the
+floor with your cane."
+
+"Certainly, dear; keep it as long as you choose. But I am afraid none
+of us will sleep much to-night. It is a heavy trial to give up
+Douglass. He is my younger, better self."
+
+He walked slowly away, and she thought he looked more aged and infirm
+than she had ever seen him, his usually erect head drooping, as if
+bowed by deep sorrow.
+
+For an hour after his departure his footsteps resounded in the room
+overhead, as he paced to and fro, but when the distant indistinct
+echo of the town clock told two all grew quiet upstairs.
+
+In the dining-room the shaded lamp burned dimly, and Regina could see
+the outline of Hannah's form on the sofa, and knew from the continual
+turning first on one side, then on the other, that the old woman was
+awake, though no sound escaped her.
+
+Engrossed by a profound yet silent grief that rendered sleep
+impossible, Regina lay with her hands folded over the small packet,
+wondering what it contained, regretting that the conditions of the
+gift prohibited her opening it for so many long years, and striving
+to divest herself of a haunting foreboding that she had looked for
+the last time on the bright benignant countenance of the donor, who
+was indissolubly linked with the happiest memories of her lonely
+life.
+
+Imagination magnified the perils of the tedious voyage that included
+two oceans, and as if to intensify and blacken the horrors of the
+future all the fiendish tragedies of Delhi, Meerut, and Cawnpore were
+vividly revived among the missionaries to whom Mr. Lindsay was
+hastening. Deeply interested in the condition of a people whose
+welfare was so dear to his heart, she had eagerly read all the
+mission reports, and thus imbibed a keen aversion to the Sepoys, who
+had become synonymous with treachery and ingenious atrocity.
+
+Is there an inherent affinity between brooding shadows of heart and
+soul, and that veil of physical darkness that wraps the world during
+the silent reign of night? Why do sad thoughts like corporeal
+suffering and disease grow more intense, more tormenting, with the
+approach of evening's gloom? Who has not realized that trials,
+sorrows, bereavements which in daylight we partly conquer and put
+aside, rally and triumph, overwhelming us by the aid of night? Why
+are the sick always encouraged, and the grief-laden rendered more
+cheerful by the coming of dawn? Is there some physical or chemical
+foundation for Figuier's wild dream of reviving sun-worship, by
+referring all life to the vivifying rays of the King Star? Does the
+mind emit gloomy sombre thoughts at night, as plants exhale carbonic
+acid? What subtle connection exists between a cheerful spirit, and
+the amount of oxygen we inhale in golden daylight? Is hope, radiant
+warm sunny hope, only one of those "beings woven of air by light,"
+whereof Moleschott wrote?
+
+To Regina the sad vigil seemed interminable, and soon after the clock
+struck four she hailed with inexpressible delight the peculiarly
+shrill crowing of her favourite white Leghorn cock, which she knew
+heralded the advent of day. The China geese responded from their
+corner of the fowlyard, and amid the _reveille_ of the poultry Hannah
+rose, crept stealthily to the table and extinguished the lamp.
+Intently listening to every movement, Regina felt assured she was
+dressing rapidly, and in a few moments the tremulous motion of the
+floor, and the carefully guarded sound of the bolt turned slowly,
+told her that the old woman had started to fulfil her promise.
+
+Having fully determined her own course, the girl lost no time in
+reflection, but hastily fastening her clothes took her shoes in one
+hand, the cane in the other, and limping to the glass door softly
+unlocked it, loosened the outside Venetian blinds, and sat down on
+the steps leading to the garden. Taking off the bandage, she slipped
+her shoe on the sprained foot, and wrapping a light white shawl
+around her, made her way slowly down the walk that wound toward the
+church.
+
+
+Unaccustomed to the cane, she used it with great difficulty, and the
+instant her wounded foot touched the ground, sharp twinges renewed
+the remonstrance that had been silent until she attempted to walk.
+
+A waning moon hung above the tree tops on the western boundary of the
+enclosure, and its wan spectral lustre lit up the churchyard, showing
+Regina the tall form of Hannah, who carried a spade or short shovel
+on her shoulder, and had just passed through the gate, leaving it
+open. Following as rapidly as she dared, in the direction of the iron
+railing, the child was only a few yards in the rear, when the old
+woman stopped suddenly, then ran forward, and a cry like that of some
+baffled wild beast broke the crystal calm of the morning air.
+
+"The curse of God is upon it! The poplar is gone!"
+
+Gliding along, Regina reached the outer edge of the railing, and,
+creeping behind the broken granite shaft which shielded her from
+observation, she peered cautiously around the corner, and saw that
+the noble towering tree had been struck by lightning and fired.
+Whether shivered by electricity, or subsequently blown down by the
+fury of the gale, none ever knew; but it appeared to have been
+twisted off about two feet above the ground, and in its fall smote
+and shattered the marble angel, which a few hours before had hovered
+with expanded wings over a child's grave. A wreath of blue smoke
+curled and floated from the heart of the stump, showing that the
+roots were burning, and the ivy and periwinkle so luxuriant on the
+previous day were now a mass of ashes and cinders.
+
+On her knees sank Hannah, raking the hot embers into a heap, and at
+last she bent her grey head almost to the ground. Lifting something
+on the end of the spade, she uttered a low wail of despair:
+
+"Melted--burnt up! I thought it was tin: it must have been lead!
+Either the curse of God, or the work of the devil!"
+
+She fell back like one smitten with a stunning blow, and sobs shook
+her powerful frame.
+
+Very near the ground the tree had contained a hollow, hidden by the
+rank lush creepers, and in this cavity she had deposited a small can,
+cylindrical in form, and similar in appearance to those generally
+used for hermetically sealed mushrooms. Upon it several spadefuls of
+earth had been thrown, to secure it from detection, should prying
+eyes discover the existence of the hollow.
+
+All that remained was a shapeless lump of molten metal.
+
+Along the east a broad band of yellow was rapidly mounting into the
+sky, and in the blended light of moon and day the churchyard
+presented a melancholy scene of devastation.
+
+The spire and belfry had fallen upon and in front of the church, and
+the long building stood like a dismasted vessel among the billowy
+graves, that swelled as a restless sea around its grey weather-beaten
+sides. Here and there ancient headstones had been blown down on the
+mounds they guarded; and one venerable willow in the centre of a
+cluster of graves had been torn from the earth, and its network of
+roots lifted until they rested against a stone cross.
+
+Awed by the solemn influence of the time and place, and painfully
+reminded of her own peril on the previous night, Regina stepped down
+from the base of the monument, and approached the figure crouching
+over the blasted smoking roots. There was no rustle of grass or leaf
+as she limped across the dewy turf, but warned by that mysterious
+magnetic instinct which so often announces some noiseless, invisible
+human presence, Hannah lifted and turned her head. With a scream of
+superstitious terror she sprang to her feet.
+
+Very ghostly the girl certainly appeared, in her snowy mull muslin
+dress and white shawl, as she leaned forward on the cane, and looked
+steadily at the old woman. Her long black hair, loosened and
+disordered by tossing about all night, hung over her shoulders and
+gave a weird, almost supernatural, aspect to the blanched and
+sorrowful young face, which in that strange chill light seemed
+wellnigh as rigid and pallid as a corpse.
+
+"Hannah Hinton!"
+
+"God have mercy! Who are you?"
+
+Hannah seized the spade and brandished it, with hands that shook from
+terror.
+
+"You wicked woman, do you want to kill me? Put down that spade."
+
+Regina advanced, but the old woman retreated, still waving the spade.
+
+"Hannah, are you afraid of me?"
+
+"Good Lord! Is it you, Regina?"
+
+"Your sin makes you a coward. Did you really think me a ghost?"
+
+"It is true, I am afraid of everything now, even of my own shadow,
+and once I was so brave. But what are you doing here? I thought you
+were crippled? What are you tracking me for?"
+
+She threw down the spade, ran forward, and seized the girl's
+shoulder, while a scowl of mingled fear and rage darkened her
+countenance.
+
+"You are watching, trailing me like a bloodhound! Is it any of your
+business where I go? Suppose I do choose to come here and say my
+prayers among the dead, while other folks are sound asleep in their
+beds, who has the right to hinder me?"
+
+"Don't tell stories, Hannah. If you really said your prayers, you
+would never have come here to sell your soul to Satan."
+
+Tightening her clutch, the old woman shook her, as if she had been
+a slender weed, and an ashen hue settled upon her wrinkled features,
+as she cried in an unnaturally shrill quavering tone:
+
+"Aha! you were eavesdropping yesterday in the church. How I wish to
+God it had all blown down on you! And you watched me,--you mean to
+disgrace me,--to ruin me,--to arrest me! You do! But you shall not! I
+will strangle you first!"
+
+"Take your hands off my shoulders, Hannah. Do you think you can scare
+me with such wild desperate threats? In the first place, I am not
+afraid to die, and in the second you know very well you dare not kill
+me. Let go my shoulder, you hurt me."
+
+Very white but fearless, the young face was lifted to hers, and
+before those wrathful glittering eyes that flashed like blue steel,
+Hannah quailed.
+
+"Will you promise not to betray me?"
+
+"I will promise nothing while you threaten me. Sit down, you are
+shaking all over as if you had an ague. When I came here I had no
+intention of betraying you; I only wanted to prevent you from
+committing a sin. Are you going to have a spasm? Do sit down."
+
+Hannah's teeth were chattering violently, and her trembling limbs
+seemed indeed unable to support her. When she sank down on the stone
+base of the shaft, Regina stood before her, leaning more heavily upon
+the cane.
+
+"I heard all that you said yesterday, yet I was not 'eavesdropping.'
+You came and stood under the window where I sat, and if you had
+looked up would have seen me. When I learned you were engaged in a
+wicked plot, I determined to try to stop you before it was too late.
+I followed you here, hoping that you would give that paper to me,
+instead of to that bold, bad man; for though you did very wrong, I
+can't believe that you have a wicked cruel heart."
+
+She paused, but the only response was a deep groan, and; Hannah
+shrouded her face in her arms.
+
+"Hannah, did my mother ever injure you, ever harm you, in any way?"
+
+"Yes, she caused me to steal, and I shall hate her as long as I live.
+I was as honest as an angel until she came that freezing night so
+many years ago, and showed me by her efforts, her anxiety to get the
+paper, how valuable it was. Beside, it was on her account that my
+nephew went to destruction; and I was sure all the blame and
+suspicion would fall on her: it seemed so clear that she stole the
+paper. I knew Mr. Hargrove gave her a copy of it, and I only wanted
+to sell the paper itself to the old General in Europe because I was
+poor, and had not money enough to stop work. I have not had a happy
+day since; my conscience has tormented me. I have carried a mountain
+of lead upon my soul, day and night, and at last when Peleg came, and
+I was about to get my gold, the Lord interfered and took it out of my
+hands. Oh! it is an awful thing to shut your eyes and stop your ears,
+and run down a steep place to meet the devil who is waiting at the
+bottom for you, and to feel yourself suddenly jerked back by
+something which you know Almighty God has sent to stop you! He sent
+that lightning to burn up the paper, and I feel that His curse will
+follow me to my grave."
+
+"Not if you earnestly repent, and pray for His forgiveness." Hannah
+raised her grey head, and gazed incredulously at the pale delicate
+face, into the violet eyes that watched her with almost tender
+compassion.
+
+"Oh, child! when our hands are tied, and we are so helpless we can't
+do any more mischief, who believes in our repentance?"
+
+"I do, Hannah; and how much more merciful is God?"
+
+"You don't mean that you would ever trust me, ever believe in me
+again?"
+
+Her hand caught the white muslin dress, and her haggard wrinkled face
+was full of eager, breathless supplication.
+
+"Yes, Hannah, I would. I do not believe you will ever steal again.
+Suppose the lightning had struck you as well as the tree where you
+hid the stolen paper, what do you think would have become of your
+poor wicked soul? You intended to sell that paper to a person who
+hates my mother, and who would have used it to injure her; but she is
+in God's hands, and you ought to be glad that this sin at least was
+prevented. In a few days you are going away, far out to the west, you
+say, where we shall probably never see or hear from you again, unless
+you choose to write us. Until you are gone, I shall keep all this
+secret. Mrs. Lindsay never shall know anything about it; but if Mr.
+Hargrove believes my mother took that paper, it is my duty to her to
+tell him the truth; and this I must do after you leave us. I promise
+he shall suspect nothing while you remain here. Can you ask me to do
+more than this for you?"
+
+Hannah was crying passionately, and attempted no answer, save by
+drawing the girl closer to her, as if she wanted to take the slender
+figure in her brawny arms.
+
+"I am sorry for you, Hannah; sorry for my dear mother; sorry for
+myself. The storm came and put an end to all the mischief you meant
+to do, so let us be thankful. You say my mother has a copy; and it
+would have injured her, if the original paper had been sold. Then you
+have harmed only yourself. Don't cry, and don't say anything more.
+Let it all rest; I shall never speak to you again on the subject.
+Hannah, will you please help me back to the house? My foot pains me
+dreadfully, and I begin to feel sick and faint."
+
+In the mellow orange light that had climbed the sky, and was flooding
+the world with a mild glory, wherein the wan moon waned ghostly, the
+old woman led the white figure toward the parsonage. When they
+reached the little gate, Regina grasped the supporting arm, and a
+deadly pallor overspread her features.
+
+"Where are you, Hannah? I cannot see----"
+
+The blue eyes closed, she tottered, and as Hannah caught and bore her
+up, a swift heavy step on the gravel caused her to glance over her
+shoulder.
+
+"What is the matter, Aunt Hannah? You look ill and frightened. Is
+that Minnie's child?"
+
+"Hush! our game is all up. For God's sake go away until seven
+o'clock, then I will explain. Don't make a noise, Peleg. I must get
+her in the house without waking any one. If Mr. Hargrove should see
+us, we are ruined."
+
+As Hannah strode swiftly toward the glass door, bearing the slight
+form in her stout arms, the stranger pressed forward, eagerly
+scrutinizing the girl's face; but at this juncture Hero, barking
+violently, sprang down the walk, and the intruder hastily retreated
+to the churchyard, securing the gate after he passed through.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+The steamer sailed promptly on the Thursday subsequent to Mrs.
+Lindsay's departure from the parsonage, but she had been absent ten
+days, detained by the illness of a friend in Boston.
+
+Impatiently her return was anticipated by every member of the
+household, and when a telegram announced that she might be expected
+on the following morning, general rejoicing succeeded the gloom which
+had hung chill and lowering over the diminished family circle. Under
+Hannah's faithful, cautious treatment Regina had sufficiently
+recovered from the effects of the sprain to walk once more without
+much pain, though she still limped perceptibly; but a nameless,
+formless foreboding of some impending evil--some baleful
+influence--some grievous calamity hovering near--rendered her
+particularly anxious for Mrs. Lindsay's comforting presence.
+
+The condition of the church, which was undergoing a complete
+renovation, as well as repairing of the steeple, prevented the usual
+services, and this compulsory rest and leisure seemed singularly
+opportune for Mr. Hargrove, who had been quite indisposed and feeble
+for some days. The physician ascribed his condition to the lassitude
+induced by the excessive heat, and Regina attributed his pale weary
+aspect and evident prostration to grief for the loss of his nephew
+and adopted son; but Hannah looked deeper, shook her grizzled head,
+and "wished Miss Elise would come home."
+
+The pastor's eyes which had long resented the exaggerated taxation
+imposed upon them by years of study, had recently rebelled outright,
+and he spoke of the necessity of visiting New York to consult an
+eminent oculist, who, Mrs. Lindsay wrote, had gone to Canada, but
+would return in September, when he hoped to examine and undertake the
+treatment of her brother's eyes.
+
+During Thursday morning the minister lay upon his library sofa, while
+Regina read aloud for several hours, but in the afternoon, receiving
+a summons to attend a sick man belonging to his church, he persisted
+in walking to a distant part of the town, to discharge what he
+considered a clerical obligation.
+
+In vain Regina protested, assuring him that the heat and fatigue
+would completely prostrate him. He only smiled, patted her head, and
+said cheerfully as he put on his hat:
+
+"Is the little girl wiser than her guardian? And has she not yet
+learned that a pastor's duty knows neither heat nor cold, neither
+fatigue nor bodily weaknesses?"
+
+"I am so glad Mrs. Lindsay will come to-morrow. She can keep you at
+home, and make you take care of yourself."
+
+Holding his sleeve, she followed him to the front door, and detained
+him a moment, to fasten in the button-hole of his coat a tuberose and
+sprig of heliotrope, his favourite flowers.
+
+"Thank you, my dear. You have learned all of Elise's pretty petting
+tricks, and some day you will be, I hope, just such a noble,
+tender-hearted woman. While I am gone, look after the young guineas;
+I have not seen them since yesterday. I shall not stay very long."
+
+He walked away, and she went out among the various pets in the
+poultry yard.
+
+It was late in August, but the afternoon was unusually close and
+warm, and argosies of frail creamy clouds with saffron shadows seemed
+becalmed in the still upper air, which was of that peculiar blue that
+betokens turbid ether, and hints at showers.
+
+About sunset Regina rolled the large easy chair out on the verandah
+at the west of the library, and, placing a table in front of it,
+busied herself in arranging the pastor's evening meal. It consisted
+of white home-made lightbread, a pineapple of golden butter, deftly
+shaped and printed by her own slender hands, a glass bowl filled
+with honey from the home hives--honey that resembled melted amber in
+cells of snow, a tiny pyramid of baked apples, and a goblet of iced
+milk.
+
+Upon a spotless square of damask daintily fringed she placed the
+supper, and in the centre a crystal vase filled with beautiful Cloth
+of Gold and Prince Albert roses, among which royal crimson and white
+carnations held up their stately heads and exhaled marvellous
+fragrance. Upon the snowy napkin beside the solitary plate, she left
+a Grand Duke jasmine lying on the heart of a rose-geranium leaf.
+
+"Has he come?" asked Hannah, throwing wide the Venetian blinds.
+
+"Not yet; but he must be here very soon."
+
+"Well, I am going to milk. Dapple has been lowing these ten minutes
+to let me know I am behind time. I waited to see if a cup of tea
+would be wanted, but it is getting late. If he should ask for it, the
+kettle is boiling, and I guess you can make it in a minute. I have
+lighted the lamp and turned it down low."
+
+She went toward the cattle-shed, swinging her copper milk-pail, which
+was burnished to a degree of ruddy glory beautiful to contemplate,
+and which, alas! is rarely seen in this age of new fashions and
+new-fashioned utensils.
+
+"Come, Hero, let us go and meet the master."
+
+But Regina had not left the verandah before Mr. Hargrove came slowly
+towards the easy chair, walking wearily, she thought, as if spent
+with fatigue.
+
+"How tired you are! Give me your hat and cane."
+
+"Yes, dear--very tired. I had something like vertigo, accompanied by
+severe palpitation as I came home, and was obliged to sit on the
+roadside till it passed."
+
+"Let me send for Dr. Melville."
+
+"You silly soft-souled young pigeon! These attacks are not dangerous,
+merely annoying while they last."
+
+"Perhaps a cup of tea will strengthen you?"
+
+"Thank you, dear; but I believe I prefer some cool water."
+
+She brought a tumbler of iced water, and a stool which she placed
+beneath his feet.
+
+"How delicious! worth all the tea in China; all the wine in Spain."
+
+He handed back the empty glass, and sank down in his comfortable
+chair.
+
+"How did you find Mr. Needham?"
+
+"Much worse than when I saw him last. He had another hemorrhage
+to-day, and is evidently sinking. I should not so surprised if I were
+recalled before to-morrow, for his poor wife is almost frantic and
+wished me to remain all night; but I knew you were lonely here."
+
+The exertion of speaking wearied him, and he laid his head back, and
+closed his eyes.
+
+"Won't you eat your supper? It will help you; and your milk is
+already iced."
+
+"I will try after a while, when I have rested a little. My child, you
+are very good to anticipate my wants. I noticed all you have done for
+me, and the flowers are lovely; so deliciously sweet too."
+
+He opened his eyes, took the Grand Duke, smelled it, smiled and
+stroked her hand which rested on the arm of his chair.
+
+Scarlet plumes and dashes of cirrus cloud that glowed like
+sacrificial fires upon the altar of the west, paled, flickered, died
+out in ashen grey; and a moon more gold than silver hung in
+shimmering splendour among the cloud ships, lending a dazzling fringe
+to their edges, and making quaint arabesque patterns of gilt
+embroidery on the verandah floor, where the soft light fell through
+interlacing vines of woodbine and honeysuckle. With the night came
+silence, broken only by the subdued plaint of the pigeons in the
+neighbouring yard, and the cooing or a pair of pet ring-doves that
+slept in the honeysuckle, and were kept awake by the moonshine which
+invaded their nest, and tempted them to gossip. After awhile a
+whipporwill which haunted the churchyard elms drew gradually nearer,
+finally settling upon a deodar cedar in the flower garden, whence it
+poured forth its lonely _miserere_ wail.
+
+Mr. Hargrove sat so still, that Regina hoped he had fallen asleep,
+but very soon he said:
+
+"My dear, you need not fan me."
+
+"I hoped you were sleeping, and that a nap would refresh you."
+
+He took her hand, pressed it gently, and said with the grave
+tenderness peculiar to him:
+
+"What a thoughtful good little nurse you are! Almost as watchful and
+patient as Elise. Have you had your supper?"
+
+"All that I want, some bread and milk. Hero and I ate our supper
+before you came. Shall I bring your slippers?"
+
+"Thank you, I believe not. Before long I will go to sleep. Regina,
+open the organ, and play something soft and holy, with the Tremulant.
+Sing me that dear old 'Protect us through the coming eight,' which my
+Douglass loves so well."
+
+"I wish I could, but you know, sir, it is a quartette; and beside, I
+should never get through my part: it reminds me so painfully of the
+last time we all sang it."
+
+"Well then, my little girl, something else. 'Oh that I had wings like
+a dove!' To-night I am almost like a weary child, and only need a
+lullaby to hush me to sleep. Go, dear, and sing me to rest."
+
+Reluctantly she obeyed, brightened the library lamp, and sat down
+before the cabinet organ which had been brought over to the parsonage
+for safe keeping while the church was being repaired. As she
+pulled out the stops, Hannah touched her.
+
+"Has he finished his supper? Can I move the dishes and table?"
+
+"Not yet. He is too tired just now to eat."
+
+"Then I will wait here. To tell you the truth, I have a queer feeling
+that scares me, makes my flesh creep. While I was straining the milk
+just now, a screech-owl flew on the top of the dairy, and its awful
+death-warning almost froze the blood in my veins. How I do wish Miss
+Elise was here! I hope it is not a sign of a railroad accident to
+her, or that the vessel is lost that carried her boy!"
+
+"Hush, you superstitious old Hannah! I often hear that screech-owl,
+and it is only hunting for mice. Mrs. Lindsay will come to-morrow."
+
+Her fingers wandered over the keys, and in a sweet, pure, and
+remarkably clear voice she sang "Oh that I had wings." With great
+earnestness and pathos she rendered the final "to be at rest,"
+lingering long on the "Amen."
+
+Then she began one of Mozart's symphonies, and from it glided away
+into favourite selections from Rossini's "Moïse."
+
+Once afloat upon the mighty tide of sacred music she drifted on and
+on, now into a requiem, now a "Gloria," and at last the grand
+triumphant strains of the pastor's favourite "Jubilate" rolled
+through the silent house, out upon the calm lustrous summer night.
+
+Of the flight of time she had taken no cognizance, and as she closed
+the organ and rose she heard the clock striking nine, and saw that
+Hannah was nodding in a corner of the sofa.
+
+Surprised at the lateness of the hour, she stepped out on the
+verandah, and approached the arm chair.
+
+The moon had sunk so low that its light had been diminished, but the
+reflection from the library lamp prevented total darkness. Mr.
+Hargrove had not moved from the posture in which she left him, and
+she said very softly:
+
+"Are you asleep?"
+
+He made no answer, and, unwilling to arouse him, she sat down on the
+step to wait until he finished his nap.
+
+As the moon went down a light breeze sprang from some blue depths of
+the far west, and began to skim the frail foamy clouds that drifted
+imperceptibly across the star-lit sky; and to the crystal fingers of
+the dew the numerous flowers in the garden below yielded a generous
+tribute of perfume that blended into a wave of varied aromas, and
+rolled to and fro in the cool night air. Calm, sweet and holy, the
+night seemed a very benison, dispensing peace.
+
+Watching the white fire of constellations burning in the vault above
+her, Regina wondered whether it were a fair night far out at sea, if
+the same glittering stellar clusters swung above the deck of the
+noble vessel that had been for many days upon the ocean, or if the
+storm fiend held cyclone carnival upon the distant Atlantic.
+
+Her thoughts wandered toward the future, that _terra incognita_ which
+Mr. Lindsay's vague words--"There are trials ahead of you"--had
+peopled with dread yet intangible phantoms, whose spectral shadows
+solemnly presageful, hovered over even the present. Why was her own
+history a sealed volume--her father a mystery--her mother a wanderer
+in foreign lands?
+
+From this most unprofitable train of reflection she was gradually
+recalled by the restless singular behaviour of her dog. He had been
+lying near the table, with his head on his paws, but rose, whined,
+came close to his mistress and caught her sleeve between his
+teeth--his usual mode of attracting her attention.
+
+"What is it, Hero? Are you hungry?"
+
+He barked, ran to the easy chair, rubbed his nose against the
+pastor's hand, came back whining to Regina, and finally returning to
+the chair, sat down, bent his head to the pastor's feet and uttered a
+prolonged and dismal howl.
+
+An undefinable horror made the girl spring toward the chair.
+
+The sleeper had not moved, and stooping over she put her hand on his
+forehead. The cold damp touch terrified her, and with a cry of
+"Hannah! Oh, Hannah!" she darted into the library, and seized the
+lamp. By its light held close to the quiet figure, she saw that the
+eyes were closed as in slumber, and the lips half parted, as though
+in dreaming he had smiled; but the features were rigid, the hands
+stiff and cold, and she could feel no flutter in the wrists or
+temples.
+
+"Oh, my God! he is dead!" screamed Hannah, wringing her hands, and
+uttering a succession of shrieks, while like a statue of despair the
+girl stood staring almost vacantly at the white placid face of the
+dead. At last, shuddering from head to foot, she exclaimed:
+
+"Run for Dr. Melville! Run, Hannah! you can go faster now than I
+could."
+
+"What is the use? He is dead! stone dead!"
+
+"Perhaps not--he may revive. Oh, Hannah! why don't you go?"
+
+"Leave you alone in the house--with a corpse?"
+
+"Run--run! Tell the doctor to hurry. He may do something."
+
+As the old servant disappeared, Regina fell on her knees, and seizing
+the right hand, carried it to her lips; then began to chafe it
+violently between her own trembling palms.
+
+"O Lord, spare him a little while! Spare him till his sister comes?"
+
+She rushed into the library, procured some brandy which was kept in
+the medicine chest, and with the aid of a spoon tried to force some
+down his throat, but the muscles refused to relax, and, pouring the
+brandy on her handkerchief, she rubbed his face and the hand she had
+already chafed. In the left he tightly held the jasmine, as when he
+spoke to her last, and she shrank from touching those fingers.
+
+Finding no change in the fixed white face she took off his shoes and
+rubbed his feet with mustard, but no effect encouraged her, and
+finally she sat, praying silently, holding the feet tenderly against
+her heart.
+
+How long lasted that lonely vigil with the dead, she never knew. Hope
+deserted her, and by degrees she realized the awful truth that the
+arrival of the physician so impatiently expected would bring no
+succour. How bitterly she upbraided herself for leaving him a moment,
+even though in obedience to his wishes. Perhaps he had called and the
+organ had drowned his voice.
+
+Had he died while she sang, and was his spirit already with God when
+she repeated the words "Far away in the regions of the blest"? When
+she came on tiptoe, and asked, "Are you asleep?" was he indeed verily
+"Asleep in Jesus"? While she waited, fearful of disturbing his
+slumber, was his released and rejoicing soul nearing the pearly
+battlements of the City of Rest, lead by God's most pitying and
+tender angel, loving yet silent Death?
+
+When will humanity reject and disown the hideous, ruthless monster
+its own disordered fancy fashioned, and accept instead the beautiful
+Oriental Azrael, the most ancient "Help of God," who is sent in
+infinite mercy to guide the weary soul into the blessed realm of
+Peace?
+
+          "O Land! O Land!
+            For all the broken-hearted,
+          The mildest herald by our fate allotted--
+            Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand,
+          To lead us with a gentle hand
+            Into the Land of the great departed,--
+          Into the Silent Land."
+
+When the solemn silence that hung like a pall over the parsonage was
+broken by the hurried tread of many feet and the confused sound of
+strange voices, Regina seemed to be aroused from some horrible
+lethargy, and gazed despairingly at the doctor.
+
+"It is too late. You can't do anything for him now," she said,
+clinging to his feet, as an attempt was made to lift them from her
+lap.
+
+"He must have been dead several hours," answered Dr. Melville.
+
+"None but God and the angels know when he died. I thought he had gone
+to sleep; and so indeed he had."
+
+Hannah had spread the alarm, while searching for the doctor, and very
+soon Mr. Hargrove's personal friends and some of the members of the
+congregation thronged the library, into which the body of the
+minister had been removed.
+
+An hour afterward Dr. Melville, having searched for the girl all over
+the house, found her crouched on the steps leading down to the flower
+garden. She sat with her arm around Hero's neck, and her head bowed
+against him. Seating himself beside her, the physician said:
+
+"Poor child, this is an awful ordeal for you, and in Dr. Hargrove's
+death you have lost a friend whom the whole world cannot replace. He
+was the noblest man, the purest Christian, I ever knew, and if the
+church has a hundred pastors in future, none will ever equal him. He
+married me, he baptized my children, and when I buried my wife, his
+voice brought me the most comfort, the----"
+
+His tone faltered, and a brief silence ensued.
+
+"Regina, I wish you would tell me as nearly as you can how he seemed
+to-day, and how it all happened. I could get nothing satisfactory put
+of old Hannah."
+
+She described the occurrences of the morning, his debility and entire
+lack of appetite, and the long walk in the afternoon, followed by the
+attack of vertigo and palpitation, to which he alluded after his
+return. When she concluded her recital of the last terrible scene in
+the melancholy drama, Dr. Melville sighed, and said:
+
+"It has ended just as I feared, and predicted. His heart has been
+affected for some time, and not a month ago I urged him to give up
+his pulpit work for a while at least, and try rest and change of air.
+But he answered that he considered his work imperative, and when he
+died it would be with the harness on. He would not permit me to
+allude to the subject in the presence of his family, because he told
+me he did not wish to alarm his sister, who is so devoted to him, or
+render the parting with his nephew more painful, by adding
+apprehensions concerning his health. I fear his grief at the loss of
+Douglass has hastened the end."
+
+"When Mrs. Lindsay comes to-morrow it will kill her," groaned Regina,
+whose soul seemed to grow sick, as she thought of the devoted fond
+sister, and the anguish that awaited her already bruised and aching
+heart.
+
+"No, sorrow does not kill people, else the race would become
+extinct."
+
+"It has killed Mr. Hargrove."
+
+"Not sorrow, but the disease, which sorrow may have aggravated."
+
+"Mrs. Lindsay would not go to India with her son, because she said
+she could not leave her brother whose sight was failing, and who
+needed her most. Now she has lost both. Oh, I wish I could run away
+to-morrow, somewhere, anywhere, out of sight of her misery!"
+
+"Some one must meet her at the train, and prepare her for the sad
+news. My dear child, you would be the best person for that melancholy
+task."
+
+"I? Never! I would cut off my tongue before it should stab her heart
+with such awful news! Are people ever prepared for trouble like
+this?"
+
+"Well, somebody must do it; but, like you, I am not brave enough to
+meet her with the tidings. When it is necessary, I can amputate
+limbs, and do a great many apparently cruel things, but when it
+conies to breaking such bad news as this I am a nervous coward. Mr.
+Campbell is a kind, tenderhearted friend of the family, and I will
+request him to take a carriage and meet her to-morrow. Poor thing!
+what a welcome home!"
+
+Soon after he left her she heard the whistle of the night express,
+which arrived simultaneously with the departure of the outward train
+bound south, and she knew that it was eleven o'clock.
+
+Hannah was in the kitchen talking with Esau the sexton, and when
+several gentlemen who offered to remain until morning came out on the
+verandah, leaving the blinds of the library windows wide open, Regina
+rose and stole away to escape their observation.
+
+Although walking swiftly she caught sight of the table in the middle
+of the room and of a mass of white drapery, on which the lamp-light
+fell with ghostly lustre. Twelve hours before she had sat there,
+reading to the faithful kind friend whose affectionate gaze rested
+all the while upon her; now stiff and icy he was sleeping his last
+sleep in the same spot, and his soul? Safely resting, after the
+feverish toil and strife of Time, amid the palms of Eternal Peace.
+Not the peace of Nirwana; neither the absolute absorption of one
+school of philosophy, nor the total extinction inculcated by a yet
+grosser system. Not the vague insensate peace of Pantheism, but the
+spiritual rest of a heaven of reunion and of recognition promised by
+Jesus Christ our Lord, who, conquering death in that lonely rock-hewn
+Judæan tomb, won immortal identity for human souls. Not the
+succession of progressive changes that constitute the hereafter of--
+
+       "This age that blots out life with question-marks,
+       This nineteenth century with its knife and glass
+       That make thought physical, and thrust far off
+       The heaven, so neighbourly with man of old,
+       To voids sparse-sown with alienated stars."
+
+Among the multitudinous philosophic, psychologic, biologic systems
+that have waxed and waned, dazzled and deluded, from the first
+utterances of Gotama, to the very latest of the advanced
+Evolutionists, is there any other than the Christian solution of the
+triple-headed riddle--Whence? Wherefore? Whither?--that will deliver
+us from the devouring Sphinx Despair, or yield us even shadowy
+consolation when the pinions of gentle yet inexorable death poise
+over our household darling, and we stand beside the cold silent clay,
+which natural affection and life-long companionship render so
+inexpressibly precious?
+
+When we lower the coffin of our beloved is there soothing comfort in
+the satisfactory reflection that perhaps at some distant epoch, by
+the harmonious operation of "Natural Selection" and by virtue of the
+"Conservation of Force," the "Survival of the fittest" will certainly
+ensure the "Differentiation" the "Evolution" of our buried treasure
+into some new, strange, superior type of creature, to us for ever
+unknown and utterly unrecognizable? Tormented by aspirations which
+neither time nor space, force nor matter, will realize or satisfy,
+consumed by spiritual hunger fiercer than Ugolino's, we are invited
+to seize upon the Barmecide's banquet of "The Law which formulates
+organic development as a transformation of the homogeneous into the
+heterogeneous;" and that "this universal transformation is a change
+from indefinite homogeneity to definite heterogeneity; and that only
+when the increasing multiformity is joined with increasing
+definiteness, does it constitute Evolution, as distinguished from
+other changes that are like it, in respect of increasing
+heterogeneity."
+
+Does this wise and simple pabulum cure spiritual starvation?
+
+"God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And the
+Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
+nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
+Nay--thunders Science--put away such childish superstition, smite
+such traditionary idols; man was first made after the similitude of a
+marine ascidian, and once swam as a tadpole in primeval seas.
+
+In all the wide universe of modern speculation there remains no
+unexplored nook or cranny, where an immortal human soul can find
+refuge or haven. Having hunted it down, trampled and buried it as one
+of the little "inspired legendary" foxes that nibble and bruise the
+promising sprouts of the Science Vineyard, what are we requested to
+accept in lieu of the doctrine of spiritual immortality? "Natural
+Evolution."
+
+One who has long been regarded as an esoteric in the Eleusis of
+Science, and who ranks as a crowned head among its hierophants,
+frankly tells us: "What are the core and essence of this hypothesis
+Natural Evolution? Strip it naked, and you stand face to face with
+the notion that not alone the more ignoble forms of animalcular or
+animal life, not alone the nobler forma of the horse and lion, not
+alone the exquisite and wonderful mechanism of the human body, but
+that the human mind itself--emotion, intellect, will, and all their
+phenomena--were once latent in a fiery cloud. Many who hold it would
+probably assent to the position that at the present moment all our
+philosophy, all our poetry, all our science, all our art--Plato,
+Shakespeare, Newton, and Raphael--are potential in the fires of the
+sun."... A different pedigree from that offered us by Moses and the
+Prophets, Christ and the Apostles; but does it light up the
+Hereafter?
+
+We are instructed that our instincts and consciousness dwell in the
+"sensory ganglia," that "an idea is a contradiction, a motion, a
+configuration of the intermediate organ of sense," that "memory is
+the organic registration of their effects of impressions," and that
+the "cerebrum" is the seat of ideas, the home of thought and reason.
+But when "grey-matter" that composes this thinking mechanism becomes
+diseased, and the cold touch of death stills the action of fibre and
+vesicle, what light can our teachers pour upon the future of that
+coagulated substance where once reigned hope, ambition, love, or
+hate? Those grey granules that were memory, become oblivion.
+Certainly physiology has grown to giant stature since the days of St.
+Paul, but does it bring to weeping mourners any more comfort than the
+doctrine he taught the Corinthians?
+
+Does the steel Law Mill of Progressive Development grind us either
+tonic or balm for the fatal hours of sorest human trial? We have
+learned that "the heart of man is constructed upon the recognized
+rules of hydraulics, and with its great tubes is furnished with
+common mechanical contrivances, valves."
+
+But when the valvular action is at rest under the stern finger of
+death, can all the marvellous appliances of this intensely and
+wonderfully mechanical age force one ruddy drop through those great
+tubes, or coax one solitary throb, where God has said "Be still"?
+
+To the stricken mother, bowed over the waxen image of her darling, is
+there any system, theory, or creed that promises aught of the Great
+Beyond comparable to the Christian's sublime hope that the pet lamb
+is safely and tenderly folded by the Shepherd Jesus?
+
+To the aching heart and lonely soul of sorrowing Regina these vexing
+riddles that sit open-mouthed at our religious and scientific
+cross-roads, brought no additional gloom; for with the pure holy
+faith of unquestioning childhood she seemed to see beside the rigid
+form of her pastor and friend the angel who on sea-girt Patmos bade
+St. John write, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, from
+henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their
+labours; and their works do follow them."
+
+Anxious to avoid those who sat within keeping sad watch, the unhappy
+girl went around to the front entrance, and sank down on the lowest
+step, burying her face in her hands.
+
+The library was merely a continuation of the hall that ran east and
+west through the centre of the house, and though comparatively remote
+from the front door was immediately opposite, and from the sight of
+that room Regina shrank instinctively.
+
+Too much shocked and stunned to weep, she became so absorbed by
+thoughts of to-morrow's mournful mission, that she failed to notice
+the roll of wheels along the street, or the quick rattle of the
+gate-latch. The sound of rapid footsteps and the rustle of drapery on
+the pebbled walk, finally arrested her attention, and rising she
+would have moved aside, but a hand seized her arm.
+
+"What is the matter? How is my brother?"
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Lindsay!"
+
+"Something must have happened. I had such a presentiment of trouble
+at home that I could not wait till to-morrow. I came on the night
+express. Why is the house all lighted up? Is Peyton ill?"
+
+Trembling from head to foot, she waited an instant, but Regina only
+crouched and groaned, and Mrs. Lindsay sprang up the steps. As she
+reached the door, the light in the library revealed the shrouded
+table,--the rigid figure resting thereon,--and a piercing wail broke
+the silence of death.
+
+"Merciful God!--not my Peyton?"
+
+Thrusting her fingers into her ears, Regina fled down the walk out of
+the yard, anywhere to escape the sound and sight of that
+broken-hearted woman, whose cry was indeed _de profundis_.
+
+"Console if you will, I can bear it; 'Tis a well-meant alms of
+breath; But not all the preaching since Adam Has made Death other
+than Death."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+A dreary sunless December day had drawn to a close, prematurely
+darkened by a slow drizzling rain, that brought the gloom of early
+night, where sunset splendours should have lingered, and deepened the
+sombre desolation that mantled the parsonage. In anticipation of the
+arrival of the new minister, who was expected the ensuing week, the
+furniture had been removed and sold, the books carefully packed and
+temporarily stored at the warehouse of a friend, and even the trunks
+containing the wearing apparel of the occupants had been despatched
+to the railway depot, and checked for transmission by the night
+express.
+
+The melancholy preparations for departure were completed, friends had
+paid their final visits, and only Esau the sexton waited with his
+lantern, to lock up the deserted house, and take charge of the keys.
+
+The last mournful tribute had been offered at the grave in the
+churchyard, where the beloved pastor slept serenely; and the cold
+leaden rain fell upon a mass of beautiful flowers, which quite
+covered the mound, that marked his dreamless couch.
+
+Since that farewell visit to her brother's tomb, Mrs. Lindsay seemed
+to have lost her wonted fortitude and composure, and was pacing the
+empty library, weeping bitterly, giving vent to the long-pent anguish
+which daily duties and business details had compelled her to
+restrain.
+
+Impotent to comfort, Regina stood by the mantlepiece, gazing vacantly
+at the wood fire on the hearth, which supplied only a dim fitful and
+uncertain light in the bare chill room, once the most cosy and
+attractive in the whole cheerful house.
+
+How utterly desolate everything appeared now, with only the dreary
+monotone of the wintry rain on the roof, and the occasional sob that
+fell from the black-robed figure walking to and fro.
+
+It had been such a happy, peaceful, blessed home, where piety,
+charity, love, taste, refinement, and education all loaned their
+charms to the store of witchery, which made it doubly sad to realize
+that henceforth other feet would tread its floors, other voices echo
+in its garden and verandahs.
+
+To the girl who had really never known any other home (save the quiet
+convent courts) this parsonage was the dearest spot she had yet
+learned to love; and with profound sorrow she now prepared to bid
+adieu for ever to the haven where her happiest years had passed like
+a rosy dream.
+
+The dreary deserted aspect of the house recalled to her mind--
+
+        "How some they have died, and some they have left me,
+        And some are taken from me; all are departed"--
+
+of Charles Lamb's quaint tender "Old familiar faces," as full of
+melancholy pathos as human eyes brimming with unshed tears; and from
+it her thoughts gradually drifted to another poem, which she had
+first heard from Mr. Lindsay during the week of his departure, and
+later from the sacred lips that were now placidly smiling beneath the
+floral cross and crown in the neighbouring churchyard.
+
+To-night the words recurred with the mournful iteration of some
+dolorous refrain; and yielding to the spell she leaned her forehead
+against the chimney-piece, and repeated them sadly and slowly:
+
+             "'We sat and talked until the night
+                 Descending, filled the little room;
+               Our faces faded from the sight--
+                 Our voices only broke the gloom.
+               We spake of many a vanished scene,
+                 Of what we once had thought and said,
+               Of what had been, and might have been,
+                 And who was changed, and who was dead;
+               And all that fills the hearts of friends,
+                 When first they feel with secret pain,
+               Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
+                 And never can be one again.
+               The very tones in which we spake
+                 Had something strange, I could but mark;
+               The leaves of memory seemed to make
+                 A mournful rustling in the dark.'"
+
+Attracted by the rhythm, which softly beat upon the air like some
+muffled prelude striking only minor chords, Mrs. Lindsay came to the
+hearth, and with her arm resting on the girl's shoulder, stood
+listening.
+
+"How dearly my Douglass loved those lines."
+
+"And on the night before he died, Mr. Hargrove repeated them, asking
+me afterward to select some sweet solemn sacred tune with an organ
+accompaniment, and sing them for him. But what music is there that
+would suit a poem, which henceforth will seem as holy as a psalm to
+me?"
+
+"Perhaps after a while you and I may be able to quiet the pain, and
+set it to some sweet old chant. Just now our hearts are too sore."
+
+"After a while? What hope has after a while? It cannot bring back the
+lost; and does memory ever die? After a while has not given me my
+mother; after a while has not taught me to forget her, or made me
+more patient in my waiting. After a while I know death will come to
+us all, and then there will be no more heartache; but I can't see
+that there is any comfort in after a while, except beyond the grave.
+Mrs. Lindsay, I do not wish to be wicked or rebellious, but it seems
+very hard that I must leave this dear quiet home, and be separated
+from you and Mr. Lindsay whom I dearly love, and go and live in a
+city, with that cold, hard, harsh, stern man, of whom I am so much
+afraid. He may mean well, but he has such unkind ways of showing it.
+You have no idea how dreadful the future looks to me."
+
+She spoke drearily, and in the fitful flashes of the firelight the
+young face looked unnaturally stern.
+
+"My dear child, you must not despond; at your age one must try to see
+only the bright side. If I expected to remain in America, I would not
+give you up without a struggle; would beg your mother's permission to
+keep you until she claimed you. But I shall only wait to learn that
+Douglass has arranged for my arrival. As you know, my sister and
+brother-in-law are in Egypt, and if I were with them in Cairo, I
+could hear more regularly and frequently from my dear boy. I wish I
+could keep you, for you have grown deep into my heart, but my own
+future is too uncertain to allow me to involve any one else in my
+plans."
+
+"I understand the circumstances, but if mother only knew everything,
+I believe she would not doom me to the care of that man of stone. Oh,
+if you could only take me across the ocean, and let me go to Venice
+to mother."
+
+Mrs. Lindsay tightened her arm around the erect slender figure, and
+gently stroked back the hair from her temples.
+
+"My dear, you paint your future guardian too grimly. Mr. Palma
+is very reserved, rather haughty, and probably stern, but
+notwithstanding has a noble character, I am told, and certainly
+appears much interested in and kindly disposed toward you. Dear
+Peyton liked him exceedingly, and his two letters to me were full of
+generosity and kind sympathy. As I believe I told you, his stepmother
+resides with him, and her daughter Miss Neville, though a young lady,
+will be more of a companion for you than the older members of the
+household. Mr. Palma is one of the most eminent and popular lawyers
+in New York, is very ambitious, I have heard, and at his house you
+will meet the best society of that great city; by which I mean the
+most cultivated, high-toned, and aristocratic people. I am sorry that
+he has no religious views, habits, or associations, as I inferred
+from the remarks of the lady whom I met in Boston, and who seemed
+well acquainted with the Palma household. She told me 'none of that
+family had any religion, though of course they kept a pew in the
+fashionable church.' But, my dear little girl, I hope your principles
+and rules of life are sufficiently established to preserve you from
+all free-thinking tendencies. Constant attendance at church does not
+constitute religion, any more than the _bonâ  fide_ pulpit means the
+spiritual Gospel; but I have noticed that where genuine piety exists,
+it is generally united with a recognition of church duties and
+obligations. The case of books I packed and sent with your trunks
+contains some very admirable though old-fashioned works, written by
+such women as Hannah More, Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Opie, and others, to
+mould the character of girls, and instruct them in all that is
+requisite to make them noble, refined, intelligent, useful Christian
+women. Hannah More's 'Lucilla Stanley' is one of the loveliest
+portraitures of female excellence in the whole domain of literature,
+and you will find some of the passages marked to arrest your
+attention. In this age of rapid deviation from the standard rules
+that governed feminine deportment and education when I was a
+girl, many of the precepts and admonitions penned by the authors
+I have mentioned are derided and repudiated as 'puritanical,'
+'old-fashioned,' 'strait-laced,' 'stupid and prudish'; but if these
+indeed be faults, certainly in the light of modern innovations they
+appear 'to lean to virtue's side.' In fashionable society, such as
+you are destined to meet at Mr. Palma's, you will find many things
+that no doubt will impress you as strange, possibly wrong; but in all
+these matters consult the books I have selected for you, read your
+Bible, pray regularly, and under all circumstances hold fast to your
+principles. Question and listen to your conscience, and no matter how
+keen the ridicule, or severe the condemnation to which your views may
+subject you, stand firm. Moral cowardice is the inclined plane that
+leads to the first step in sin. Be sure you are right, and then
+suffer no persuasion or invective to influence you in questions
+involving conscientious scruples. You are young and peculiarly
+isolated, therefore I have given you a letter to my valued old friend
+Mrs. Mason, who will always advise you judiciously, if you will only
+consult her. I hope you will devote as much time as possible to
+music, for to one gifted with your rare talent it will serve as a
+sieve straining out every ignoble discordant suggestion, and will
+help to keep your thoughts pure and holy."
+
+"I suppose there are wicked ways and wicked people everywhere, and it
+is not the fashion or the sinfulness that I am afraid of in New York,
+but the loneliness I anticipate. I dread being shut up between brick
+walls: no flowers, no grass, no cows, no birds, no chickens, none of
+the things I care for most."
+
+"But, my dear child, you forget that you have entered your fifteenth
+year, and as you grow older you will gradually lose your inordinate
+fondness for pets. Your childish tastes will change as you approach
+womanhood."
+
+"I hope not. Why should they? When I am an old woman with white hair,
+spectacles, wrinkled cheeks, and a ruffled muslin cap like poor
+Hannah's, I expect to love pigeons and rabbits, and all pretty white
+things, just as dearly as I do now. Speaking of Hannah, how I shall
+miss her? Since she went away, I shun the kitchen as much as
+possible,--everything is so changed, so sad. Oh! the dear, dear
+old-dead-and-gone-days will never, never come back to me."
+
+For some time neither spoke. Mrs. Lindsay wept, the girl only groaned
+in spirit; and at length she said suddenly, like one nerved for some
+painful task:
+
+"When we separate at the depot, you to take one train and I another,
+we may never meet again in this world, and I must say something to
+you, which I could mention to no one else. There is a cloud hanging
+over me. I have always lived in its cold shadow, even here where
+there is, or was, so much to make me happy, and this mystery renders
+me unwilling to go into the world of curious, harsh people, who will
+wonder and question. I know that Orme is not my real name, but am
+forbidden to ask for information until I am grown. I have full faith
+in my mother: I must believe that all she has done is right, no
+matter how strange things seem; but on one point I must be satisfied.
+Is my mother's name Minnie?"
+
+"I cannot tell you, for it was the only secret dear Peyton ever kept
+from me. In speaking of her, he always called her Mrs. Orme."
+
+"Do you know anything about the loss of a valuable paper, once in Mr.
+Hargrove's possession?"
+
+"A great many years ago, before you came to live with us, some one
+entered this room, opened the secret drawer of Peyton's writing desk,
+and carried off a tin box containing some important papers."
+
+"And suspicion rested on my mother?"
+
+"My darling girl, who could have been so cruel as to distress you
+with such matters? No one----"
+
+Regina interrupted her, with an imperative motion of her hand:
+
+"Please answer my question. Truth is better than kindness, is more to
+me than sympathy. Did not you and Mr. Hargrove believe that mother
+took--stole that box?"
+
+"Peyton never admitted to me that he suspected her, though some
+circumstances seemed to connect the disappearance of the papers with
+her visit here the night they were carried off. He accused no one."
+
+Regina was deeply moved, and her whole face quivered as she answered:
+
+"Oh! how good, how truly charitable he was! I wonder if in all the
+wide borders of America there are any more like him? If I could only
+have told him the facts, and satisfied him that my mother was
+innocent! But I waited until Hannah could get away in peace, and
+before she was ready to start God called him home. In heaven of
+course he knows it all now. I promised Hannah to tell no one but him,
+and to defer the explanation until she was safe, entirely beyond the
+reach of his displeasure; but since you suspected my mother, it is
+right that I should justify her in your estimation."
+
+Very succinctly she narrated what had occurred on the evening of the
+storm, and the incidents of the ensuing morning, when she followed
+Hannah into the churchyard. As she concluded, an expression of relief
+and pleasure succeeded that of astonishment which had rested on Mrs.
+Lindsay's worn and faded face.
+
+"I am heartily glad that at last the truth has been discovered, and
+that it fully exonerated your mother from all connection with the
+theft; for I confess the circumstances prejudiced me against her. Let
+us be encouraged, my dear little girl, to believe that in due time
+all the other mysteries will be quite as satisfactorily cleared up."
+
+"I can't afford to doubt it; if I did, I should not be able to----"
+
+She paused, while an increasing pallor overspread her features.
+
+"That is right, dear, believe in her. We should drink and live upon
+faith in our mothers, as we did their milk that nourished us. When
+children lose faith in their mothers, God pity both! Did you learn
+from Hannah the character of the paper?"
+
+"How could I question a servant concerning my mother's secrets? I
+only learned that Mr. Hargrove had given to my mother a copy of that
+which was burned by the lightning."
+
+"In writing to her, did you mention the facts?"
+
+"I have not as yet. I doubted whether I ought to allude to the
+subject, lest she should think I was intruding upon her confidence."
+
+"Dismiss that fear, and in your next letter acquaint her fully with
+all you learned from poor Hannah; it may materially involve her
+interest or welfare. Now, Regina, I am about to say something which
+you must not misinterpret, for my purpose is to comfort you, to
+strengthen your confidence in your mother. I do not know her real
+name, I never heard your father's mentioned, but this I do
+know,--dear Peyton told me that in this room he performed the
+marriage ceremony that made them husband and wife. Why such profound
+secrecy was necessary your poor mother will some day explain to you.
+Until then, be patient."
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. Lindsay. It does comfort me to know that Mr.
+Hargrove was the minister who married them. Of course it is no secret
+to you that my mother is an actress? I discovered it accidentally,
+for you know the papers were never left in my way, and in all her
+letters she alluded to her 'work being successful,' but never
+mentioned what it was; and I always imagined she was a musician
+giving concerts. But one day last June, at the Sabbath-school
+Festival, Mrs. Potter gave me a Boston paper, containing an article
+marked with ink, which she said she wished me to read, because it
+would edify a Sunday-school pupil. It was a letter from Italy,
+describing one of the theatres there, where Madame Odille Orme was
+playing 'Medea.' I cut out the letter, gave it to Mr. Hargrove, and
+asked him if it meant my mother. He told me it did, and advised me to
+enclose it to her when I wrote. But I could not, I burned it. People
+look down on actresses as if they were wicked or degraded, and for
+awhile it distressed me very much indeed, but I know there must be
+good as well as bad people in all professions. Since then I have been
+more anxious to become a perfect musician, so that before long I can
+relieve mother from the necessity of working on the stage."
+
+"It was wickedly malicious in Mrs. Prudence to wound you; and we were
+all so anxious to shield you from every misgiving on your mother's
+account. Some actresses have brought opprobrium upon the profession,
+which certainly is rather dangerous, and subjects women to suspicion
+and detraction; but let me assure you, Regina, that there have been
+very noble, lovely, good ladies who made their bread exactly as your
+mother makes hers. There is no more brilliant, enviable, or stainless
+record among gifted women than that of Mrs. Siddons'; or to come down
+to the present day, the world honours, respects, and admires none
+more than Madame Ristori, or Miss Cushman. Personal characteristics
+must decide a woman's reputation, irrespective of the fact that she
+lives upon the stage; and it is unjust that the faults of some should
+reflect discreditably upon all in any profession. Individually I must
+confess I am opposed to theatres and actresses, for I am the widow of
+a minister, and have an inherited and a carefully educated prejudice
+against all such things; but while I acknowledge this fact, I dare
+not assert that some who pass their lives before the footlights may
+not be quite as conscientious and upright as I certainly try to be. I
+should grieve to see you on the stage, yet should circumstances
+induce you to select it as a profession, in the sight of God who
+alone can judge human hearts, your and your mother's chances of final
+acceptance and rest with Christ might be as good, perhaps better,
+than mine Let us 'judge not, lest we be judged.'"
+
+"The world has not your charity, but let it do its worst. Come what
+may, my mother is still my own mother, and God will hold the scales
+and see that justice is done. Perhaps some day we may follow you to
+India, and spend the remainder of our lives in some cool quiet
+valley, under the shadow of the rhododendrons on the Himalayan hills.
+Who knows what the end may be? But no matter how far we wander,
+or where we rest, we shall never find a home so sweet, so peaceful,
+so full of holy and happy associations, as this dear parsonage has
+been to me."
+
+The fire burned low, and in its dull flicker the shadows thickened;
+while the rising wind sobbed and wailed mournful as a coranach
+around the desolate old house, whence so many generations had glided
+into the sheltering bosom of the adjoining necropolis.
+
+Across the solemn gloomy stillness ran the sharp shivering sound of
+the door-bell, and when the jarring had ceased Esau entered with his
+lantern in his hand.
+
+"The carriage is at the gate. The schedule was changed last week, and
+the driver says it is nearly train time. Give me the satchels and
+basket."
+
+Slowly the two figures followed the lantern-bearer down the dim bare
+hall, and the sound of their departing footsteps echoed strangely,
+dismally through the empty, forsaken house. At the front door both
+paused and looked back into the darkness that seemed like a vast
+tomb, swallowing everything, engulfing all the happy hallowed past.
+
+But Regina imagined that in the dusky library, by the wan flicker of
+the dying fire, she could trace the spectral outline of a white
+draped table, and of a tall prostrate form bearing a Grand Duke
+jasmine in its icy hand. Shuddering violently, she wrapped her shawl
+around her and sprang down the steps into the drizzling rain, while
+Mrs. Lindsay slowly followed, weeping silently.
+
+            "Were it mine I would close the shutters,
+             Like lids when the life is fled,
+             And the funeral fire should wind it,
+             This corpse of a home that is dead."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+The snow was falling fast nest morning, when with a long hoarse
+shriek the locomotive dashed into New York, and drew up to the
+platform, where a crowd of human beings and equipages of every
+description had assembled to greet the arrival of the train.
+
+The din of voices, ringing of bells, whistle of engines, and all the
+varied notes of that Babel diapason that so utterly bewilders the
+stranger stranded on the bustling streets of busy Gotham, fell upon
+Regina's ears with the startling force of novelty. She wondered if
+there were thunder mixed with swiftly falling snow--that low, dull,
+ceaseless roar--that endless monologue of the paved streets--where
+iron and steel ground down the stone highways, along which the
+Juggernaut of Traffic rolled ponderously, day in and day out.
+
+Gazing curiously down from her window at the sea of faces wherein
+cabmen, omnibus drivers, porters, vociferated and gesticulated, each
+striving to tower above his neighbour, like the tame vipers in the
+Egyptian pitcher, whereof Teufelsdröckh discourses in Sator Resartus,
+Regina made no attempt to leave her seat, until the courteous
+conductor to whose care Mrs. Lindsay had consigned her touched her
+arm to arrest her attention.
+
+"You are Miss Orme, I believe, and here is the gentleman who came to
+meet you."
+
+Turning quickly, with the expectation of seeing Mr. Palma, she found
+herself in the presence of an elegantly dressed young gentleman, not
+more than twenty-two or three years old, who wore ample hay-coloured
+whiskers brushed in English style, after the similitude of the fins
+of a fish, or the wings of a bat. A long moustache of the same colour
+drooped over a mouth feminine in mould, and as he lifted his brown
+fur cap and bowed she saw that his light hair was parted in the
+middle of his head.
+
+He handed her a card on which was printed, "Elliott Roscoe."
+
+"Regina Orme, I presume. My cousin Mr. Palma desired me to meet you
+at the train, and see you safely to his house, as he is not in the
+city. I guess you had a tiresome trip; you look worn out. Have you
+the checks for your baggage?"
+
+She handed them to him, took her satchel, and followed him out of the
+car, through the dense throng, to a _coupé_.
+
+The driver, whose handsome blue coat with its glittering gilt buttons
+was abundantly embroidered with snow-flakes, opened the door, and as
+Mr. Roscoe assisted the stranger to enter, he said:
+
+"Wait, Farley, until I look after the baggage."
+
+"Yonder is O'Brien with his express waggon. Give him the checks, and
+he will have the trunks at home almost as soon as we get there.
+Michael O'Brien!"
+
+As the ruddy, beaming pleasant countenance of the express man
+approached, and he received the checks, Mr. Roscoe sprang into the
+carriage, but Regina summoned courage to speak.
+
+"If you please, I want my dog."
+
+"Your dog! Did you leave it in the car? Is it a poodle?"
+
+"Poodle! He is a Newfoundland, and the express agent has him."
+
+"Then O'Brien will bring him with the trunks," said Mr. Roscoe,
+preparing to close the door.
+
+"I would not like to leave him behind."
+
+"You certainly do not expect to carry him in the carriage?" answered
+the gentleman, staring at her, as if she had been a refugee from some
+insane asylum.
+
+"Why not? There seems plenty of room. I am so much afraid something
+might happen to him among all these people. But perhaps you would not
+like him shut up in the carriage."
+
+For an instant she seemed sorely embarrassed, then leaning forward,
+addressed the coachman.
+
+"Would you mind taking my dog up there with you? thank you very much
+if you will please be so kind."
+
+Before the wistful pleading of the violet eyes, and the sweet tones
+of the hesitating voice, the surly expression vanished from Farley's
+countenance, and, touching his hat, he replied cheerfully:
+
+"Aye, miss; if he is not venomous, I will take him along."
+
+"Thank you. Mr. Roscoe, if you will be so good as to go with me to
+the express car, I can get my dog."
+
+"That is not necessary. Besides it is snowing hard, and your wraps
+are not very heavy. Give me the receipt, and I will bring him out."
+
+There was some delay, but after a little while Mr. Roscoe came back
+leading Hero by a chain attached to his collar. The dog looked sulky
+and followed reluctantly, but at sight of his mistress, sprang
+forward, barking joyfully.
+
+"Poor Hero! poor fellow! Here I am."
+
+When he had been prevailed upon to jump up beside the driver, and the
+carriage rolled homeward, Mr. Roscoe said:
+
+"That is a superb creature. The only pure white Newfoundland I ever
+saw. Where did you get him?"
+
+"He was bought in Brooklyn several years ago, and sent to me."
+
+"What is his name?"
+
+"Hero."
+
+"How very odd. Bruno, or Nero, or Ponto, or even Fido, would be so
+much more suitable."
+
+"Hero suits him, and suits me."
+
+Mr. Roscoe looked curiously into the face beside him, and laughed.
+
+"I presume you are a very romantic young miss, and have been dreaming
+about some rustic Leander in round jacket."
+
+"My dog was not called after the priestess at Sestos. It means hero
+the common noun, not Hero the proper name. Holding torches to guide
+people across the Hellespont was not heroism."
+
+If she had addressed him in Aramaic he would not have been more
+surprised; and for a moment he stared.
+
+"I am afraid your Hero will not prove a thoroughly welcome addition
+to my cousin's household. He has no fondness whatever for dogs, or
+indeed for pets of any kind, and Mrs. Palma, who has a chronic terror
+of hydrophobia, will not permit a dog to come near her."
+
+He saw something like a smile flicker across the girl's mouth, but
+she did not look up, and merely asked:
+
+"Where is Mr. Palma?"
+
+"He was unexpectedly called to Philadelphia two days ago, on urgent
+business. Do you know him?"
+
+"I have not seen him for several years."
+
+She turned away, fixing her attention upon the various objects of
+interest that flitted by, as they rolled rapidly along one of the
+principal streets. The young gentleman who in no respect resembled
+Mr. Palma, found it exceedingly pleasant to study the fair delicate
+face beside him, and not a detail of her dress, from the shape of
+her hat to the fit of her kid gloves, escaped his critical
+inspection.
+
+Almost faultily fastidious in his Broadway trained tastes, he arrived
+at the conclusion that she possessed more absolute beauty than any
+one in his wide circle of acquaintance; but her travelling suit was
+not cut in the approved reigning style, and the bow of ribbon at her
+throat did not exactly harmonize with the shade of the feather in her
+hat, all of which jarred disagreeably.
+
+As the carriage entered Fifth Avenue, and drew up before one of the
+handsome brown-stone front mansions that stretch like palatial walls
+for miles along that most regal and magnificent of American streets,
+Mr. Roscoe handed his companion out, and rang the bell.
+
+Hero leaped to the sidewalk, and, patting his head, Regina said:
+
+"Driver, I am very much obliged to you for taking care of him for
+me."
+
+"You are quite welcome, miss. He is an uncommon fine brute, and I
+will attend to him for you if you wish it."
+
+The door opened, and Regina was ushered in, and conducted by Mr.
+Roscoe into the sitting-room, where a blazing coal fire lent pleasant
+warmth and a ruddy glow to the elegantly furnished apartment.
+
+"Terry, tell the ladies we have come."
+
+The servant disappeared, and, holding his hands over the fire, Mr.
+Roscoe said:
+
+"I believe you are a stranger to all but my cousin; yet you are
+probably aware that his stepmother and her daughter reside with him."
+
+Before she could reply the door suddenly opened wide, as if moved by
+an impatient hand, and a middle-aged lady, dressed in black silk that
+rustled proudly at every step, advanced toward Regina. Involuntarily
+the girl shivered, as if an icy east wind had blown upon her.
+
+"Mrs. Palma, I have brought this young lady safely, and transfer her
+to your care. This is Regina Orme."
+
+"Miss Orme has arrived on a cold day, and looks as if she realized
+it."
+
+She put out her hand, barely touched the fingers of the stranger, and
+her keen, probing, inquisitorial eyes of palest grey wandered
+searchingly over the face and figure; while her haughty tone was
+chill--as the damp breath of a vault.
+
+Catching sight of Hero she started back, and exclaimed with
+undisguised displeasure:
+
+"What! A dog in my sitting-room! Who brought that animal here?"
+
+Regina laid a protecting hand on the head of her favourite, and said
+timidly, in a voice that faltered from embarrassment:
+
+"It is my dog. Please, madam, allow me to keep him; he will disturb
+no one; shall give no trouble."
+
+"Impossible! Dogs are my pet aversion. I would not even allow my
+daughter to accept a lovely Italian greyhound which Count Fagdalini
+sent her on her last birthday. That huge brute there would give me
+hysterics before dinner-time."
+
+"Then you shall not see him. I will keep him always out of eight; he
+shall never annoy you."
+
+"Very feasible in a Fifth Avenue house! Do you propose to lock him up
+always in your own chamber? How absurd!"
+
+She touched the bell, and added:
+
+"It always saves trouble to start exactly as we expect or intend to
+continue. I cannot endure dogs--never could, and yours must be
+disposed of at once."
+
+Pitying the distress so eloquently printed on the face of the girl,
+Mr. Roscoe interposed:
+
+"Strike, but hear me! Don't banish the poor fellow so summarily. He
+can't go mad before May or June, if then; and at least let her keep
+him a few days. She feels strange and lonely, and it will comfort her
+to have him for a while."
+
+"Nonsense, Elliott! Terry, tell Farley I shall want the carriage in
+half an hour, and meantime ask him to come here and help you take out
+this dog. We have no room for any such pests. Send Hattie to show
+this young lady to her own room."
+
+Mr. Roscoe shrugged his shoulder, and closely inspected his seal
+ring.
+
+There was an awkward silence. Mrs. Palma stirred the coals with the
+poker, and at last asked abruptly:
+
+"Miss Orme, I presume you have breakfasted?"
+
+"I do not wish any, thank you."
+
+Something in her quiet tone attracted attention, and as the lady and
+gentleman turned to look at her, both noticed a brilliant flush on
+her cheek, a peculiar sparkle dancing in her eyes.
+
+Passing her arm through the handle of her satchel, she put both her
+hands upon Hero's silver collar.
+
+"Hattie will show you up to your room, Miss Orme; and if you need
+anything call upon her for it. Farley, take that dog away, and do not
+let me see him here again."
+
+The blunt but kind-hearted coachman looked irresolute, glancing first
+at his mistress, and then pityingly at the girl. As he advanced to
+obey, Regina said in a quiet but clear and decisive tone:
+
+"Don't you touch him. He is mine, and no one shall take him from me.
+I am sorry, Mrs. Palma, that I have annoyed you so much, and I have
+no right to force unpleasant things upon you, even if I had the
+power. Come, Hero! we will find a place somewhere; New York is large
+enough to hold us both. Good-bye, Mr. Roscoe. Good-day, Mrs. Palma."
+
+She walked toward the door, leading Hero, who rubbed his head
+caressingly against her.
+
+"Where are you going?" cried Mr. Roscoe following, and catching her
+arm.
+
+"Anywhere--away from this house," she answered very quietly.
+
+"But Mr. Palma is your guardian! He will be dreadfully displeased."
+
+"He has no right to be displeased with me. Beside, I would not for
+forty guardians give up my Hero. Please stand aside, and let me
+pass."
+
+"Tell me first, what you intend to do."
+
+"First to get out, where the air is free. Then to find the house of
+a lady, to whom I have a letter of introduction from Mrs. Lindsay."
+
+Mrs. Palma was sorely perplexed, and though she trembled with excess
+of anger and chagrin, a politic regard for her own future welfare,
+which was contingent upon the maintenance of peaceful relations with
+her stepson, impelled her to concede what otherwise she would never
+have yielded. Stepping forward she said with undisguised scorn:
+
+"If this is a sample of his ward's temper, I fear Erle has resumed
+guardianship of Tartary. As Miss Orme is a total stranger in New
+York, it is sheer madness to talk of leaving here. This is Erle
+Palma's house, not mine, else I should not hesitate a moment; but
+under the circumstances I shall insist upon this girl remaining here
+at least until his return, which must be very soon. Then the dog
+question will be speedily decided by the master of the establishment."
+
+"Let us try and compromise. Suppose you trust your pet to me for a
+few days, until matters can be settled? I like dogs, and promise to
+take good care of yours, and feed him on game and chicken soup."
+
+He attempted to put his hand on the collar, but Hero, who seemed to
+comprehend that he was a _casus belli_, growled and showed his teeth.
+
+"Thank you, sir, but we have only each other now. Mrs. Palma, I do
+not wish to disturb or annoy you in any way, and as I love my dog
+very much, and you have no room for him, I would much rather go away
+now and leave you in peace. Please, Mr. Roscoe, let me pass."
+
+"I can fix things to suit all around, if madam will permit," said the
+coachman.
+
+"Well, Farley, what is your proposition?"
+
+His mistress was biting her lip from mortification and ill-concealed
+rage.
+
+"I will make a kennel in the corner of the carriage-house, where he
+can be chained up, and yet have room to stretch himself; and the
+young miss can feed him, and see him as often as she likes, till
+matters are better settled."
+
+"Very well. Attend to it at once. I hope Miss Orme is satisfied?"
+
+"No, I do not wish to give so much trouble to you all."
+
+"Oh, miss I it is no trouble worth speaking of; and if you will only
+trust me, I will see that no harm happens to him."
+
+For a moment Regina looked up at the honest, open, though somewhat
+harsh Hibernian face, then advanced and laid the chain in his hand.
+
+"Thank you very much. I will trust you. Be kind to him, and let me
+come and see him after awhile. I don't wish him ever to come into the
+house again."
+
+"The baggage-man has brought the trunks," said Terry.
+
+"Have them taken upstairs. Would you like to go to your room, Miss
+Orme?"
+
+"If you please, madam."
+
+"Then I must bid you good-bye," said Mr. Roscoe, holding out his
+hand.
+
+"Do you not live here?"
+
+"Oh no! I am only a student in my cousin's law-office, but come here
+very often. I hope the dog-war is amicably settled, but if
+hostilities are reopened, and you ever make up your mind to give Hero
+away, please remember that I am first candidate for his ownership."
+
+"I would almost as soon think of giving away my head. Good-bye, sir."
+
+As she turned to follow the servant out of the room, she ran against
+a young lady who hastily entered, singing a bar from "Traviata."
+
+"Bless me! I beg your pardon. This is----"
+
+"Miss Orme; Erle's ward."
+
+"Miss Orme does not appear supremely happy at the prospect of
+sojourning with us, beneath this hospitable roof. Mamma, I understand
+you have had a regular Austerlitz battle over that magnificent dog I
+met in the hall,--and alas! victory perched upon the standard of the
+invading enemy! Cheer up, mamma! there is a patent medicine just
+advertised in the _Herald_ that hunts down, worries, shakes, and
+strangles hydrophobia, as Gustave Billon's Skye terrier does rats.
+Good-morning, Mr. Elliott Roscoe! Poor Miss Orme looks strikingly
+like a half-famished and wholly hopeless statue of Patience that I
+saw on a monument at the last funeral I attended in Greenwood.
+Hattie, do take her to her room, and give her some hot chocolate, or
+coffee, or whatever she drinks."
+
+She had taken both the stranger's hands, shook them rather roughly,
+and in conclusion pushed her toward the door.
+
+Olga Neville was twenty-two, tall, finely formed, rather handsome;
+with unusually bright reddish-hazel eyes, and a profusion of tawny
+hair, which nine persons in ten would unhesitatingly have pronounced
+red, but which she persistently asserted was of exactly the classic
+shade of ruddy gold, that the Borgia gave to Bembo. Her features were
+large, and somewhat irregular in contour, but her complexion was
+brilliant, her carriage very graceful, and though one might safely
+predict that at some distant day she would prove "fair, fat, and
+forty," her full figure had not yet transgressed the laws of
+symmetry.
+
+As the door of the sitting-room closed, she put her large white hands
+on her mother's shoulders, shook her a little, and kissed her on the
+cheek.
+
+"Do, mamma, let us have fair play, or I shall desert to the enemy. It
+was not right to open your batteries on that little thing before she
+got well into position, and established her line. If I am any judge
+of human nature, I rather guess from the set of her lips, and the
+stars that danced up and down in her eyes, that she is not quite as
+easily flanked as a pawn on a chessboard."
+
+"I wish, Olga, that you were a better judge of common sense, and of
+the courtesy due to my opinions. I can tell you we are likely to see
+trouble enough with this high-tempered girl added to the family
+circle."
+
+"Why, she has not Lucretia-coloured tresses like my own lovely-spun
+gold? I thought her hair looked very black."
+
+"I will warrant it is not half as black as her disposition. She
+looked absolutely diabolical when she pretended to march out into the
+world, playing the _rôle_ of injured, persecuted innocence."
+
+"Now, mamma! She is decidedly the prettiest piece of diabolism I ever
+saw. Elliott, what do you think of her?"
+
+"That some day she will be a most astonishing beauty. Can you
+recollect that lovely green and white cameo pin set with diamonds
+that Tiffany had last spring? Ned Bartlett bought it for his wife the
+day they started to Saratoga. Well, this girl is exactly like that
+exquisite white cameo head; I noticed the likeness as soon as I saw
+her. But she needs polish, city training, society marks, and her
+clothes are at least two seasons old in style. I think too your
+mother is quite right in believing she has a will of her own. She was
+really in earnest, and would have walked out, if Farley had not come
+to the rescue. Olga, what are you laughing at?"
+
+"I am anticipating the sport in store for me when her will and Erle
+Palma's come in conflict. Won't the sparks fly! We shall have a
+domestic shower of meteors to enliven our daily dull routine! You
+know the stately and august head of this establishment savours of
+Fitz-James, and in all matters of controversy acts fully out what
+Scott only dreamed:
+
+        'Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
+         From its firm base, as soon as I!'
+
+I daresay it is his terrapin habit that helps Erle Palma to his great
+success as a lawyer; when he once takes hold, he never lets go. Now,
+mamma, if you do not hoist a white flag as far as that poor girl is
+concerned, I shall certainly ask your wary stepson to give her a
+sprig of phryxa from Mount Brixaba. Do you understand, Elliott?"
+
+"Of course not I rarely do understand you when you begin your
+spiteful challenges. Now, Olga, I always preserve an unarmed
+neutrality, so do let me alone."
+
+
+He made a deprecating gesture, and put on his hat.
+
+"Free schools and universal education is one of my spavined hobbies,
+and a brief canter for your improvement in classic lore would be
+charitable, so I proceed: Agatho the Samian says that in the Scythian
+Brixaba grows the herb phryxa (hating the wicked), which especially
+protects step children; and whenever they are in danger from a
+stepmother (observe the antiquity of Stepmotherly characteristics!)
+the phryxa gives them warning by emitting a bright flame. You see
+Erle Palma remembers his classics, and early in life turned his
+attention to the cultivation of phryxa, which flourishes----"
+
+"Olga, you vex me beyond endurance. Put on your furs at once; it is
+time to go to the Studio. Elliott, will you ride down with us, and
+look at the portrait?"
+
+"Thanks! I wish I could, but promised to write out some legal
+references before my cousin returns, and must keep my word; for you
+very well know he has scant mercy on delinquents."
+
+"I only hope he will bring his usual iron rule to bear upon this new
+element in the household, else her impertinent self-assertion will be
+unendurable. Will you be at Mrs. Delafield's reception to-night?"
+
+"I promised to attend. Suppose I call for you and Olga about nine?"
+
+"Quite agreeable to all parties. I shall expect you. Good-morning."
+
+When Regina left the sitting-room she followed the housemaid up two
+flights of steps, and into a small but beautifully furnished
+apartment, where a fire was not really necessary, as the house was
+heated by a furnace, still the absence of the cheerful red light she
+had left below made this room seem chill and uninviting.
+
+The trunks had been  brought up, and after lowering the curtain of
+the window that looked down on the beautiful Avenue, Hattie said:
+
+"Will you have tea, coffee, or chocolate?"
+
+"Neither, I thank you."
+
+"Have you had any breakfast?"
+
+"I do not want any."
+
+"It is no trouble, miss, to get what you like."
+
+Regina only shook her head, and proceeded to take off her hat and
+wrappings.
+
+"Are you an orphan?" queried Hattie, her heart warming toward a
+stranger who avoided giving trouble.
+
+"No; but my mother is in----is too far for me to go to her."
+
+"Then you aren't here on charity?"
+
+"Charity! No, indeed! Mr. Palma is my guardian until I go to my
+mother."
+
+"Well, miss, try to be contented. Miss Olga has a kinder heart than
+her mother, and though she has a bitter tongue and rough ways she
+will befriend you. Don't fret about your dog, we folks belowstairs
+will see that he does not suffer. We will help you take care of him."
+
+"Thank you, Hattie. I shall be grateful to all who are kind to him.
+Please give him some water and a piece of bread when you go down."
+
+It was a great relief to find herself once more alone, and, sinking
+down wearily into a rocking chair, she hid her face in her hands.
+
+Her heart was heavy, her head ached; her soul rose in rebellion
+against the cold selfishness and discourtesy that had characterized
+her reception by the inmates of her guardian's house.
+
+Everything around her betokened wealth, taste, elegance; the carpets
+and various articles of furniture were of the most costly materials,
+but at the thought of living here she shuddered. Fine and fashionable
+in all its appointments, but chilly, empty, surface gilded, she felt
+that she would stifle in this mansion.
+
+By comparison, how dear and sacred seemed the old life at the
+parsonage I how desolate and dreary the present! how inexpressibly
+lonely and hopeless the future!
+
+From the thought of Mr. Palma's return, she could borrow no pleasant
+auguries, rather additional gloom and apprehension; and his absence
+had really been the sole redeeming circumstance that marked her
+arrival in New York. With an unconquerable dread which arose from
+early childish prejudice and which she never attempted to analyze,
+she shrank from meeting him.
+
+There came a quick low rap on the door, but she neither heard nor
+heeded it, and started when a warm hand removed those that covered
+her face.
+
+"Just as I expected, you are having a good cry all to yourself. No,
+your eyes are dry and bright as stars. I daresay you have set us all
+down as a family of brutes; as more cruel than the Piutes or Modocs;
+as stony hearted as Solomon, when he ordered the poor little baby to
+be cut in half and distributed among its several mothers. But there
+is so little justice left in the world, that I imagine each
+individual would do well to contribute a moiety to the awfully
+slender public stock. Suppose you pay tithes to the extent of
+counting me out of this nest of persecutors? Thank Heaven! I am not a
+Palma! My soul does not work like the piston of a steam-engine,--is
+not regulated by a gauge-cock and safety-valve to prevent all
+explosions, to keep the even, steady, decorous, profitable tenor of
+its sternly politic way. I am a Neville. The blood in my veins is not
+'blue' like the Palma's, but red,--and hot enough to keep my heart
+from freezing, as the Palma's do, and to melt the ice they
+manufacture, wherever they breathe. I am no Don Quixote to redress
+your grievances, or storm windmills; for verily neither mamma nor
+Erle Palma belongs to that class of harmless innocuous bugaboos, as
+those will find to their cost who run against them. I am simply Olga
+Neville, almost twenty-three, and quite willing to help you if
+possible. Shall we enter into an alliance--offensive and defensive?"
+
+She stood by the mantlepiece, slowly buttoning her glove, and looked
+quite handsome, and very elegant in her rich wine-coloured silk and
+costly furs.
+
+Looking up into her face, Regina wondered how far she might trust
+that apparently frank open countenance, and Olga smiled, and added:
+
+"You are a cunning fledgling, not to be caught with chaff. Have they
+sent you anything to eat?"
+
+"I declined having anything. My head aches."
+
+"Then do as I tell you, and you will soon feel relieved. There is a
+bath-room on this floor. Ring for Hattie, and tell her you want a
+good hot bath. When you have taken it, lie down and go to sleep. One
+word before I go. Do try not to be hard on mamma. Poor mamma! She
+married among these Palmas, and very soon from force of habit and
+association she too grew politic, cautious; finally she also froze,
+and has never quite thawed again. She is not unkind,--you must not
+think so for an instant; she only keeps her blood down to the safe,
+wise prudent temperature of sherbet. Poor mamma! She does not like
+dogs; once she was dreadfully bitten, almost torn to pieces by one,
+and very naturally she has developed no remarkable 'affinity' for
+them since that episode. Hattie will get you anything you need. Take
+your bath and go to sleep, and dream good-natured things about
+mamma."
+
+She nodded, smiled pleasantly, and glided away as noiselessly as she
+came, leaving Regina perplexed, and nowise encouraged with reference
+to the stern cold character of her guardian.
+
+She had eaten nothing since the previous day, had been unable to
+close her eyes after bidding Mrs. Lindsay farewell; and now, quite
+overcome with the reaction from the painful excitement of yesterday's
+incidents, she threw herself across the foot of the bed, and clasped
+her hands over her throbbing temples. No sound disturbed tier, save
+the occasional roll of wheels on the street below, and very soon the
+long lashes drooped, and she slept the heavy deep sleep of mental and
+physical exhaustion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+Led by poppy-wreathed wands, through those fabled ivory gates that
+open into the enchanted realm of dreams, the weary girl forgot her
+woes, and found blessed reunion with the absent dear ones, whose loss
+had so beclouded the morning of her life.
+
+Under the burning sun of India, through the tangled jungles of Oude,
+she wandered in quest of the young missionary and his mother, now
+springing away from the crouching tigers that glared at her as she
+passed; now darting into some Himalayan cavern to escape the wild
+ferocious eyes of Nana Sahib, who offered her that wonderful lost
+ruby that he carried off in his flight, and when she seized it,
+hoping its sale would build a church for mission worship, it
+dissolved into blood that stained her fingers. With a fiendish laugh
+Nana Sahib told her it was a part of the heart of a beautiful woman
+butchered in the "House of Massacre" at Cawnpore. On and on she
+pressed, footsore and weary but undaunted, through those awful
+mountain solitudes, and finally hearing in the distance the bark of
+Hero, she followed the sound, reached the banks of Jumna, and there
+amid the ripple of fountains, and the sighing of the cypress, in the
+cool shadow cast by the marble minarets and domes of Shah Jehan's
+Moomtaj mausoleum, Mr. and Mrs. Lindsay joyfully welcomed her; while
+upon the fragrant air floated divine melodies that Douglass told her
+were chanted by angels in her mother's grave, beneath the clustering
+white columns.
+
+When after many hours she awoke, it was night. A faint light trembled
+in one of the globes of the gas chandelier, and a blanket had been
+laid over her. Starting up she saw a figure sitting at the window,
+apparently watching what passed in the street below.
+
+"I hope you feel refreshed. I can testify you have slept as soundly
+as the youths whom Decius put to bed some time since near Ephesus."
+
+Olga rose, turned on the gas that flamed up instantly, and showed her
+elaborately dressed in evening toilette. Her shoulders and arms,
+round and pearly white, were bare save the shining tracery of jewels
+in necklace and bracelets; and in the long train of blue silk that
+flowed over the carpet, she looked even taller than in the morning
+walking suit. Her ruddy hair, heaped nigh on her head, was surmounted
+by a jewelled comb, whence fell a cataract of curls of various
+lengths and sizes, that touched the filmy lace which bordered her
+shoulders like a line of foam where blue silk broke on dimpled flesh.
+
+As Regina gazed admiringly at her, Olga came closer, and stood under
+the gas-light.
+
+"A penny for your thoughts! Am I handsome? Somebody says only 'fools
+and children tell the truth.' You are not exactly the latter;
+certainly not the former; nevertheless, being a rustic, all unversed
+in the fashionable accomplishment of 'fibbing,' you may dispense with
+the varnish pot and brush. Tell me, Regina, don't you feel inclined
+to fall at my feet and worship me?"
+
+"Not in the least. But I do think you very handsome, and your dress
+is quite lovely. Are you going to a party or a ball?"
+
+"To a 'Reception,' where the people will be crowded like sardines,
+where my puffs will be mashed as flat as buckwheat cakes, and my
+train will go home with various gentlemen, clinging in scraps to
+their boot-heels! Were you ever at the seashore? If you have ever
+chanced to walk into a settlement of fiddlers, and seen them
+squirming, wriggling, backward, forward, sideways, you may
+understand that I am going into a similar promiscuous scramble.
+Human ingenuity is vastly fertile in the production of fashionable
+tortures; and when that outraged and indignant poet savagely
+asserted, that 'Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands
+mourn,' I have an abiding conviction that he had just been victimized
+at a 'Reception,' or 'German,' or 'Kettle-drum,' or 'Masque
+Ball,'--or some such fine occasion, where people are amused by
+treading on each other's toes, and gnawing (metaphorically) their
+nearest neighbour's vertebræ."
+
+"Do you not enjoy going into society?"
+
+"_Cela dépend!_ You are an unsophisticated little package of innocent
+rusticity, and have yet to learn
+
+           'Society is now one polished horde,
+              Formed of two mighty tribes,
+            The Bores and Bored!'
+
+I speak advisedly, for lo these four years I have energetically
+preyed, and been preyed upon. When I was your age, I was impatient to
+break away from my governess, and soar into the flowery pastures of
+fashionable gaiety, with the crowd of other butterflies that seemed
+so happy, so lovely; but now that I have bruised my pretty wings, and
+tarnished the gilding, and rubbed off the fresh enamelling, I would
+if I could crawl back into a safe brown cocoon, or hide in some quiet
+and forgotten chrysalis. Did you ever hear of Moloch?"
+
+"Yes, of course; I know it was a brazen image, heated red hot, in
+whose arms children were placed by idolatrous heathen parents."
+
+"No such thing! that is a foolish, obsolete Rabbinical myth. You must
+not talk such old-fashioned folly. Hearken to the solemn truth that
+underlies that fable; Moloch reigns here, in far more pomp and
+splendour than the Ammonites ever dreamed of. Crowned and sceptred,
+he is now called 'Wealth and Fashion,' holds daily festivals and
+mighty orgies where salads, boned turkeys, charlotte russe,
+_fistachio soufflés, creams, ices, champagne-julep, champagne
+frappé_, and persicot call the multitude to worship; and there while
+the stirring notes of Strauss ring above the sighs and groans of the
+heroic victims, fathers and mothers bring their sons and daughters
+bravely decked in broadcloth and satin, white kid and diamonds, and
+offer them in sacrifice; and Moloch clasps, scorches, blackens all!
+Wide wonderful blue eyes, how shocked you look!"
+
+Olga laughed lightly, shook out the fringed ends of her broad white
+silk sash, and glanced in the mirror of the bureau, to see the
+effect.
+
+"Regina, don't begin city life by a system of starvation that would
+do infinite credit to a Thebaid anchorite. Eat abundantly. Take
+generous care of your body, for spiritual famine is inevitably ahead
+of you. Yonder on the table, carefully covered, is your dinner. Of
+course it is cold, stone-cold as this world's charity; but people who
+sleep until eight o'clock, ought not to expect smoking hot viands. A
+good meal gives one far more real philosophy and fortitude, than all
+the volumes Aristotle and Plato ever wrote. Do you hear that bell? It
+is a signal to attend the festival of Milcom. Oh, Mammon I behold I
+come."
+
+She moved towards the door, and said from the threshold:
+
+"I say unto you--eat. Then come downstairs and amuse yourself looking
+about the house. There are some interesting things in the parlours,
+and if you are musical, you will find a piano that cost one thousand
+dollars. When I am away, there are no skeletons in this house, so you
+need not fear sleeping here alone. My room is on the same floor.
+Good-night."
+
+Refreshed by her sound sleep, Regina bathed her face, rearranged her
+hair, and ate the dinner, which although cold, was very temptingly
+prepared. When Hattie came to carry down the silver tray containing
+the delicate green and gold china dishes, she complimented the
+stranger upon the improvement in her appearance, adding:
+
+"Miss Olga directed me to show you the house, and anything you might
+like to look at, so I lighted the palours and reception-room; and the
+library always has a fire, and the gas burning. That is next to Mr.
+Palma's bedroom, and is his special place. He comes and goes so
+irregularly that we never can tell when he is in it. Once last year
+he got home at nine o'clock unexpectedly, and sat up all night
+writing there in the cold. Next morning he gave orders for fire and
+light in that room, whether he was at home or not. Miss, if you don't
+mind looking about yourself, I should like to run around to Eighth
+Avenue for a few minutes, to see my sick aunt. Terry has gone out,
+and Mary promised to answer the bell, if any one called. Farley says
+be easy about your dog; he had a hearty dinner of soup and meat, and
+is on a softer bed than some poor souls lie on to-night. Can I go?"
+
+"Certainly, I am not afraid; and when I get sleepy I will come up and
+go to bed. When will Mrs. Palma and Miss Neville come home?"
+
+"Not before midnight, if then."
+
+She explained to Regina how to elevate and extinguish the gas, and
+the two went down to the sitting-room, whence Hattie soon
+disappeared. Raising the silk curtain that divided this apartment
+from the parlours, Regina walked slowly up and down upon the velvet
+carpet in which her feet seemed to sink, as on a bed of moss; and her
+eyes wandered admiringly over the gilded stands, gleaming bronzes,
+marble statuettes, papier maché, ormolu, silk, lace, brocatel,
+moquette, satin and silver which attracted her gaze.
+
+Beautiful pictures adorned the tinted walls, and the ceiling was
+brilliantly frescoed, while one of the wide bay-windows contained a
+stand filled with a superb array of wax flowers. Regina opened the
+elegant grand piano, but forbore to touch the keys, and at last when
+she had feasted her eyes sufficiently upon some lovely landscapes by
+Gifford and Bierstadt, she quitted the richly decorated parlours, and
+slowly went up the stairs that led to the room which Hattie had
+pointed out as Mr. Palma's library.
+
+Leaving the door partly open, she entered a long lofty apartment, the
+floor of which was of marquetry, polished almost as glass, with
+furred robes laid here and there before tables, and deep luxurious
+easy chairs.
+
+Four spacious lines of book shelves with glass doors bearing silver
+handles, girded the sides of the room, and the walls were painted in
+imitation of the Pompeian style; while the corners of the ceiling
+held lovely frescoes of the season, and in the centre was a zodiac.
+Bronze and marble busts shone here and there, and where the panels of
+the wall were divided by representations of columns, metal brackets
+and wooden consoles sustained delicate figures and groups of
+sculpture.
+
+Filled with wonder and delight the girl glided across the shining
+mosaic floor, gazing now at the glowing garlands, and winged figures
+on the wall, and now at the elegantly bound books Whose gilded titles
+gleamed through the plate glass.
+
+She had read of such rooms in "St. Martin's Summer," a volume Mrs.
+Lindsay never tired of quoting; but this exquisite reality
+transcended all her previous flights of imagination, and, approaching
+the bright coal fire, she basked in the genial glow, in the
+atmosphere of taste, culture, and rare luxury. A quaint clock inlaid
+with designs in malachite, ticked drowsily upon the low black marble
+mantle, which represented winged lions bearing up the slab, and near
+the hearth was an ebony and gold escritoire which stood open,
+revealing a bronze inkstand and velvet penwiper. Before it sat the
+revolving chair, with a bright-coloured embroidered cushion for the
+feet to rest upon; and in a recess behind the desk, and partly
+screened by the sweep of damask Curtains, hung a man's pearl-grey
+dressing-gown, lined with silk; while under it rested a pair of black
+velvet slippers encrusted with vine leaves and bunches of grapes in
+gold bullion.
+
+Wishing to see the effect, Regina took a taper from the Murrhine cup
+on the mantle, and standing on a chair lighted the cluster of burners
+shaped like Pompeian lamps, in the chandelier nearest the grate; then
+went back to the rug before the fire, and enjoyed the spectacle
+presented.
+
+What treasures of knowledge were contained in this beautiful, quiet,
+brilliant room!
+
+Would she be permitted to explore the contents of those book shelves,
+where hundreds of volumes invited her eager investigation? Could she
+ever be as happy here as in the humble yet hallowed library at the
+dear old parsonage?
+
+An oval table immediately under the gas-globes held a china stand
+filled with cigars, and seeing several books lying near it, she took
+up one.
+
+It was Gustave Doré's "Wandering Jew," and, throwing herself down on
+the rug, she propped her head with one hand, while the other slowly
+turned the leaves, and she examined the wonderful illustrations. She
+was vaguely conscious that the clock struck ten, but paid little
+attention to the flight of time, and after awhile she closed the
+book, drew the cushion before the desk to the rug in front of the
+fire, laid her head on it, and soothed by the warmth and perfect
+repose of the room fell asleep.
+
+Soon after the door opened wider, and Mr. Palma entered, and walked
+half way down the room ere he perceived the recumbent figure. He
+paused, then advanced on tiptoe and stood by the hearth, warming his
+white scholarly hands and looking down on the sleeper.
+
+With the careless grace of a child, innocent of the art of
+attitudinizing, she had made herself thoroughly comfortable; and as
+the light streamed full upon her, all the marvellous beauty of the
+delicate face and the perfect modelling of the small hands and feet
+were clearly revealed. The glossy raven hair clung in waving masses
+around her white full forehead, and the long silky lashes lay like
+jet fringe on her exquisitely moulded cheeks; while the remarkably
+fine pencilling of her arched brows, which had attracted her
+guardian's notice when he first saw her at the convent, was still
+more apparent in the gradual development of her features.
+
+Studying the face and form, and rigidly testing both by the
+fastidious canons that often rendered him hypercritical, Mr. Palma
+could find no flaw in contour or in colouring, save that the
+complexion was too dazzlingly white, lacking the rosy tinge which
+youth and health are wont to impart.
+
+Stretching his arm to the escritoire, he softly opened a side drawer,
+took out an oval-shaped engraving of his favourite Sappho, and
+compared the nose, chin, and ear with those of the unconscious girl.
+Satisfied with the result, he restored the picture to its
+hiding-place. Four years had materially changed the countenance he
+had seen last at the parsonage, but the almost angelic purity of
+expression which characterized her as a child, had been intensified
+by time and recent grief, and watching her in her motionless repose
+he thought that unquestionably she was the fairest image he had ever
+seen in flesh; though a certain patient sadness about her beautiful
+lips told him that the waves of sorrow were already beating hoarsely
+upon the borders of her young life.
+
+Standing upon his own hearth, a man of magnificent stature and almost
+haughty bearing, Erle Palma looked quite forty, though in reality
+younger; and the stern repression, the cautious reticence which had
+long been habitual, seemed to have hardened his regular handsome
+features. Weary with the business cares, the professional details of
+a trip that had yielded him additional laurels and distinction, and
+gratified his towering pride, he had come home to rest; and found it
+singularly refreshing to study the exquisite picture of innocence
+lying on his library rug.
+
+He wondered how the parents of such a child could entrust her to the
+guardianship of strangers; and whether it would be possible for her
+to carry her peculiar look of holy purity safely into the cloudy
+Beyond--of womanhood?
+
+While he pondered the clock struck, and Regina awoke.
+
+At sight of that tall stately figure, looming like a black statue
+between her and the glow of the grate, she sprang first into a
+sitting posture, then to her feet.
+
+He made no effort to assist her, only watched every movement, and
+when she stood beside him, he held out his hand.
+
+"Regina, I am glad to see you in my house; and am sorry I could not
+have been at home to receive you."
+
+Painfully embarrassed by the thought of the position in which he had
+found her, she covered her face with her hand; and at the sound of
+his grave deep voice the blood swiftly mounted from her throat to the
+tip of her small shell-shaped ears.
+
+He waited for her to speak, but she could not sufficiently conquer
+her agitation, and with a firm hand he drew down the shielding
+fingers, holding, them in his.
+
+"There is nothing very dreadful in your being caught fast asleep,
+like a white kitten on a velvet rug. If you are never guilty of
+anything worse, you and your guardian will not quarrel."
+
+Her face had drooped beyond the range of his vision, and when he put
+one hand under her chin and raised it, he saw that the missing light
+in the alabaster vase had been supplied, and her smooth cheeks were
+flushed to brilliant carmine.
+
+How marvellously lovely she was in that rush of colour that dyed her
+dainty lips, and made the large soft eyes seem radiant as stars, when
+they bravely struggled up to meet his, so piercing, so coolly
+critical.
+
+"Will you answer me one question, if I ask it?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Palma; at least I will try.
+
+"Are you afraid of me?"
+
+The sweet mouth quivered, but the clear lustrous eyes did not sink.
+
+"Yes, sir; I have always been afraid of you."
+
+"Do you regard me as a monster of cruelty?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Will your conscience allow you to say, 'My guardian, I am glad to
+see you'?"
+
+She was silent.
+
+"That is right, little girl. Be perfectly truthful, and some day we
+may be friends. Sit down."
+
+He handed her a chair, and, rolling forward one of the deep cushioned
+seats, made himself comfortable in its soft luxurious latitude.
+Throwing his massive head back against the purple velvet lining, he
+adjusted his steel-rimmed spectacles, joined his hands, and built a
+pyramid with his fingers; while he scrutinized her as coldly, as
+searchingly as Swammerdam or Leeuwenhoek might have inspected some
+new and as yet unclassified animalculum, or as Filippi or Pasteur
+studied the causes of "_Pébrine_."
+
+"What do you think of New York?"
+
+"It seems a vast human sea, in which I could easily lose myself, and
+be neither missed nor found."
+
+"Have you studied mythology at all? Or was your pastor-guardian
+afraid of paganizing you? Did you ever hear of Argus?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I understand you."
+
+"He was merely a dim prophecy of our police system; and when
+adventurous girls grow rebellious and essay to lose themselves a
+hundred Arguses are watching them. You seem to like my library?"
+
+"It is the most beautiful room I have ever seen."
+
+"Wait until you examine the triumph of upholstering skill and genius
+which Mrs. Palma calls her parlours."
+
+"I saw all the pretty things downstairs, but nothing will compare
+with this lovely place." She glanced around with undisguised
+admiration.
+
+"Pretty things! _Objets de luxe!_ Oh, ye gods of fashionable
+_bric-à-brac!_ verily 'out of the mouths of babes,' etc., etc. Be
+very careful to suppress your heretical and treasonable preference in
+the presence of Mrs. Palma, who avoids this pet library of mine as if
+it were a magnified Pandora's box. Regina, I have reason to apprehend
+that you and she declared war at sight."
+
+"I know she does not like me."
+
+"And you fully reciprocate the prejudice?"
+
+"Mrs. Palma of course has a right to consult her own wishes in the
+management of her home and household."
+
+"Just here permit me to correct you. My house, if you please, my
+household, over which at my request she presides. Upon your arrival
+you did not find her quite as cordial as you anticipated?"
+
+Her gaze wandered to the fire, and she was silent.
+
+"Be so good as to look at me when I speak to you. Mrs. Palma appeared
+quite harsh to you to-day?"
+
+"I have made no complaint against your mother."
+
+"Pardon me, Mrs. Palma, my father's wife, if you please. Tell me the
+particulars of your reception here."
+
+The beautiful face turned pleadingly to him.
+
+"You must excuse me, sir. I have nothing to tell you."
+
+"And if I will not excuse you?"
+
+She folded her hands together, and compressed her lips.
+
+"Then I have some things to tell you. I am acquainted with all that
+occurred to-day."
+
+"I thought you were in Philadelphia? How could you know?'
+
+"Roscoe told me everything, and I have questioned Farley, who has not
+taken your vow of silence. Mrs. Palma has some prejudices, which, as
+far as is compatible with reason, a due sense of courtesy constrains
+me to respect; and as I have invited her to officiate as mistress of
+my establishment, it is eminently proper that I should consult her
+opinions, and encourage no rebellion against her domestic
+regulations. One of her sternest mandates, inexorable as Mede and
+Persian statutes, prohibits dogs. Now what do you expect of me?"
+
+He leaned forward, eyeing her keenly.
+
+"That you will do exactly----"
+
+"As I please?" he interrupted.
+
+"No, sir, exactly right."
+
+"That amounts to the same thing, does it not?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Your impression is, that I will not please to do exactly right?"
+
+"I have not said so, sir."
+
+"Your eyes are very brave honest witnesses, and need no support from
+your lips. Suppose we enter into negotiations and compromise matters
+between Mrs. Palma and you? This troublesome dog is a pestiferous
+creature, which might possibly be tolerated in country clover fields,
+but is most woefully out of place in a Fifth Avenue house. Beside,
+you will soon be a young lady, and your beaux will leave you no
+leisure to pet him. You are fifteen?"
+
+"Not yet; and if I were fifty it would make no difference. I don't
+want any beaux, sir; but--I must have my Hero."
+
+"Of course, all misses in their teens believe that their favourite is
+a hero."
+
+"Mr. Palma, Hero is my dog's name."
+
+He could detect a quiver in her slender nostril, and understood the
+heightening arch of her lip.
+
+"Oh! is it indeed? Well, no dog that ever barked is worth a household
+hurricane. You must make up your mind to surrender him, to shed a few
+tears and say _vale_ Hero! Now I am disposed to be generous for once,
+though understand that is not my habit, and I will buy him. I will
+pay you--let me see--thirty-five, forty--well, say fifty dollars?
+That will supply you with Maillard's _bonbons_ for almost a year;
+will sweeten your bereavement."
+
+She rose instantly, with a peculiar sparkle leaping up in her
+splendid eyes.
+
+"There is not gold enough in New York to buy him."
+
+"What! I must see this surly brute, that in your estimation is beyond
+all price. Tell me truly, do you cling to him so fondly, because some
+schoolboy sweetheart, some rosy-cheeked lad in V---- gave him to you
+as a love token? Trust me; we lawyers are locked iron safes for all
+such tender secrets, and I will never betray yours."
+
+The rich glow overflowed her cheeks once more.
+
+"I have no sweetheart. I love my Hero, because he is truly noble and
+sagacious; because he loves me, and because he is mine--all mine."
+
+"Truly satisfactory and sufficient reasons. I might ask how he came
+into your possession; but probably you shrink from divulging your
+little secret, and I am unwilling to force your confidence."
+
+She looked curiously into his face, but the handsome mouth and chin
+might have been chiselled in stone for any visible alteration in
+their fixed stern expression, and his piercing black eyes seemed
+diving into hers through microscopic glasses.
+
+"At least, Regina, I venture the hope that he came properly and
+honestly into your heart and hands?"
+
+"I hope so too, because you gave him to me."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes, sir. You know perfectly well that you sent him to me."
+
+"I sent you a dog? When? Is he black, brown, striped, or spotted?"
+
+"Snow-white, and you know as well as I do that you asked Mr. Lindsay
+to bring him to me soon after you left me at V----."
+
+"Indeed! Was I guilty of so foolish a thing? Did you thank me for the
+present?"
+
+"I asked dear Mr. Hargrove to tell you when he wrote that I was
+exceedingly grateful for your kindness."
+
+"Certainly it appears so. All these years the dog was not worth even
+a simple note of thanks; now all the banks in Gotham cannot buy him."
+
+The chill irony of his tone painfully embarrassed her.
+
+"You positively refuse to sell him to me?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Because you love him?"
+
+"Because I love him more than I can ever make you comprehend."
+
+"You regard me as a dullard in comprehending canine qualities?"
+
+"I did not say so."
+
+"Do you really find yourself possessed of any sentiment of gratitude
+toward me? If so, will you do me a favour?"
+
+"Certainly, if I can."
+
+"Thank you. I shall always feel exceedingly obliged. Pray do not look
+so uneasy, and grow so white; it is a small matter. I gave you the
+dog years ago, little dreaming that I was thereby providing future
+discord for my own hearthstone. With a degree of flattering delicacy,
+which I assure you I appreciate, you decline to sell what was a
+friendly gift; and now I simply appeal to your generosity, and ask
+you please to give him back to me."
+
+She recoiled a step, and her fingers clutched each other.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Palma! Don't ask me. I cannot give up my Hero. I would give
+you anything, everything else that I own."
+
+"Rash little girl! What else have you to give? Yourself?"
+
+He was smiling now, and the unbending of his lips, and glitter of his
+remarkably fine teeth, gave a strange charm to his countenance,
+generally so grave.
+
+"You would give yourself away, sooner than that unlucky dog?"
+
+"I belong to my mother. But he belongs to me, and I never, never will
+part with him!"
+
+"_Jacta est alea!_" muttered the lawyer, still smiling.
+
+"Mr. Palma, I hope you will excuse me. It may seem very selfish and
+obstinate in me, and perhaps it really is so, but I can't help it. I
+am so lonely now, and Hero is all that I have left to comfort me.
+Still I know as well as you or any one else, that it would be very
+wrong and unkind to force him into a house where dogs are
+particularly disliked; and therefore we will annoy no one here,--we
+will go away."
+
+"Will you? Where?"
+
+He rose, and they stood side by side.
+
+Her face wore its old childish look of patient pain, reminding him of
+the time when she stood with the cluster of lilies drooping against
+her heart. He saw that tears had gathered in her eyes, tendering them
+larger, more wistful.
+
+"I do not know yet. Anywhere that you think best, until we can write
+and get mother's permission for me to go to her. Will you not please
+use your influence with her?"
+
+"To send you from the shelter of my roof? That would be eminently
+courteous and hospitable on my part. Besides your mother does not
+want you."
+
+Observing how sharply the words wounded her, he added:
+
+"I mean, that at present she prefers to keep you here, because it is
+best for your own interests; and in all that she does, I believe your
+future welfare is her chief aim. You understand me, do you not?"
+
+"I do not understand why or how it can be best for a poor girl to be
+separated from her mother, and thrown about the world, burdening
+strangers. Still, whatever my mother does must be right."
+
+"Do you think you burden me?"
+
+"I believe, sir, that you are willing for mother's sake to do all you
+can for me, and I thank you very much; but I must not bring trouble
+or annoyance into your family. Can't you place me at school? Mrs.
+Lindsay has a dear friend--the widow of a minister--living in New
+York, and perhaps she would take me to board in her house? I have a
+letter to her. Do help me to go away from here."
+
+He turned quickly, muttering something that sounded very like a
+half-smothered oath, and took her little trembling hand, folding it
+gently between his soft warm palms.
+
+"Little girl, be patient; and in time all things will be conquered.
+As long as I have a home, I intend to keep you, or until your mother
+sends for you. She trusts me fully, and you must try to do so, even
+though sometimes I may appear harsh,--possibly unjust. Of course Hero
+cannot remain here at present, but I will take him down to my office,
+and have him carefully attended to; and as often as you like you
+shall come and see him, and take him to ramble with you through the
+parks. As soon as I can arrange matters, you shall have him with you
+again."
+
+"Please, Mr. Palma! send me to a boarding school; or take me back to
+the convent."
+
+"Never!"
+
+He spoke sternly, and his face suddenly hardened, while his fingers
+tightened over hers like a glove of steel.
+
+"I shall never be contented here."
+
+"That remains to be seen."
+
+"Mrs. Palma does not wish me to reside here."
+
+"It is my house, and in future you will find no cause to doubt your
+welcome."
+
+She knew that she might as efficaciously appeal to an iron column,
+and her features settled into an expression that could never have
+been called resignation,--that plainly meant hopeless endurance. She
+attempted twice to withdraw her hand, but his clasp tightened.
+Bending his haughty head, he asked:
+
+"Will you be reasonable?"
+
+A heavy sigh broke over her compressed mouth, and she answered in a
+low, but almost defiant tone:
+
+"It seems I cannot help myself."
+
+"Then yield gracefully to the inevitable, and you will learn that
+when struggles end, peace quickly follows."
+
+She chose neither to argue, nor acquiesce, and slowly shook her head.
+
+"Regina."
+
+She merely lifted her eyes.
+
+"I want you to be happy in my house."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+"Don't speak in that sarcastic manner. It does not sound respectable
+to one's guardian."
+
+She was growing paler, and all her old aversion to him was legible in
+her countenance.
+
+"Let us be friends. Try to be a patient, cheerful girl."
+
+"Patient,--I will try. Cheerful,--no, no, not here! How can I be
+happy in this house? Am I a brute, or a stone? Oh! I wish I could
+have died with my dear, dear Mr. Hargrove, that calm night when he
+went to rest for ever while I sang!"
+
+One by one the tears stole over her long lashes, and rolled swiftly
+down her cheeks.
+
+"Will you tell me the circumstances of his death?"
+
+"Please do not ask me now. It would bring back all the sad things
+that began when Mr. Lindsay left me. Everything was so bright until
+then,--until he went away. Since then nothing but trouble, trouble."
+
+A frown clouded the lawyer's brow; then with a half smile he asked:
+
+"Of the two ministers, who did you love best? Mr. Hargrove, or the
+young missionary?"
+
+"I do not know, both were so noble, good, and kind; and both are so
+very dear to me. Mr. Palma, please let go my hand; you hurt me."
+
+"Pardon me! I forgot I held it."
+
+He opened his hands, and, looking down at the almost childish
+fingers, saw that his seal ring had pressed heavily upon, and
+reddened the soft palm.
+
+"I did not intend to bruise you so painfully, but in some respects
+you are such a tender little thing, and I am only a harsh, selfish
+strong man, and hurt you without knowing it. One word more, before I
+send you off to sleep. Olga has the most kindly ways, and really the
+most affectionate heart under this roof of mine, and she will do all
+she can for your comfort and happiness. Be respectful to Mrs. Palma,
+and she shall meet you half way. This is as you say the most
+attractive room in the house, this is exclusively and especially
+mine; but at all times, whether I am absent, or present, you must
+consider yourself thoroughly welcome, and recollect, all it contains
+in the book line is at your service. To-morrow I will talk with you
+about your studies, and examine you in some of your text-books. _A
+propos!_ I take my breakfast alone, before the other members of the
+family are up, and unless you choose to rise early and join me at the
+seven o'clock table, you need not be surprised if you do not see me
+until dinner, which is usually at half-past six. If you require
+anything that has not been supplied in your room, do not hesitate to
+ring and order it. Try to feel at home."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+She moved a few steps, and he added:
+
+"Do not imagine that Hero is suffering all the torments painted in
+Dante's 'Inferno'; but go to sleep like a good child, and accept my
+assurance that he is resting quite comfortably. When I came home, I
+took a light, went out and examined his kennel; found him liberally
+provided with food, water, bed, every accommodation that even your
+dog, which all New York can't buy, could possibly wish. Good-night,
+little one. Don't dream that I am Blue Beard or Polyphemus."
+
+"Good-night, Mr. Palma."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+"Mrs. Orme, I am afraid you will overtax your strength. You seem to
+forget the doctor's caution."
+
+"No, I am not in the least fatigued, and this soft fresh air and
+sunshine will benefit me more than all the medicine in your ugly
+vials. Mrs. Waul, recollect that I have been shut up for two months
+in a close room, and this change is really delicious."
+
+"You have no idea how pale you look."
+
+"Do I? No wonder, bleached as I have been in a dark house. I daresay
+you are tired, and I insist that you sit yonder under the trees, and
+rest yourself while I stroll a little farther. No, keep the shawl,
+throw it around your own shoulders, which seem afflicted with a
+chronic chill. Here is a New York paper; feast on American news till
+I come back."
+
+Upon a seat in the garden of the Tuileries Mrs. Orme placed her
+grey-haired Duenna attendant, and gathering her black-lace drapery
+about her turned away into one of the broad walks that divided the
+flower-bordered lawns.
+
+Thin, almost emaciated, she appeared far taller than when last she
+swept across the stage, and having thrown back her veil, a startling
+and painful alteration was visible in the face that had so completely
+captivated fastidious Paris.
+
+Pallid as Mors, the cheeks had lost their symmetrical oval, were
+hollow, and under the sunken eyes clung dusky circles that made them
+appear unnaturally large, and almost Dantesque in their mournful
+gleaming. Even the lips seemed shrunken, changed in their classic
+contour; and the ungloved hand that clasped the folds of lace across
+her bosom was wasted, wan, diaphanous.
+
+That brilliant Parisian career, which had opened so auspiciously,
+closed summarily during the second week of her engagement in darkness
+that threatened to prove the unlifting shadow of death. The severe
+tax upon her emotional nature, the continued intense strain on her
+nerves, as night after night she played to crowded houses--shunning
+as if it contained a basilisk, the sight of that memorable box--where
+she felt, rather than saw, that a pair of violet eyes steadily
+watched her, all this had conquered even her powerful will, her stern
+resolute purpose, and one fatal evening the long-tried woman was
+irretrievably vanquished.
+
+The _rôle_ was "Queen Katherine," and the first premonitory faintness
+rendered her voice uneven, as, kneeling before King Henry, the
+unhappy wife uttered her appeal:
+
+                             ..."Alas, sir,
+         In what have I offended you?  What cause
+         Hath my behaviour given to your displeasure,
+         That thus you should proceed to put me off,
+         And take your good grace from me? Heaven witness,
+         I have been to you a true and humble wife."...
+
+As the play proceeded, she was warned by increasing giddiness, and a
+tremulousness that defied her efforts to control it; and she rushed
+on toward the close, fighting desperately with physical prostration.
+
+Upon the last speech of the dying and disowned wife she had safely
+entered, and a few more minutes would end her own fierce struggle
+with numbing faintness, and bring her succour in rest. But swiftly
+the blazing footlights began to dance like witches of Walpurgis night
+on Brocken heights; now they flickered, suddenly grew blue, then
+black, an icy darkness as from some ghoul-haunted crypt seized her,
+and while she threw out her hands with a strange groping motion, like
+a bird beating the air with dying wings, her own voice sounded far
+off, a mere fading echo:
+
+"Farewell--farewell. Nay, Patience----"
+
+She could only hear a low hum, as of myriads of buzzing bees; she
+realized that she must speak louder, and thus blind, shivering,
+reeling, she made her last brave rally:
+
+                              ..."Strew me o'er
+          With maiden flowers, that all the world may know
+          I was a chaste wife to my grave; embalm
+          Then lay me forth;--although unqueened,--yet--
+          Yet--like--like----"
+
+The trembling shadowy voice ceased; the lips moved to utter the few
+remaining words, but no sound came. The wide eyes stared blankly at
+the vast audience, where people held their breath, watching the
+ghastly livid pallor that actually settled upon the face of the dying
+Queen, and in another instant the proud lovely head drooped like a
+broken lily, and she fell forward senseless.
+
+As the curtain was rung hastily down, Mr. Laurance leaned from his
+box, and hurled upon the stage a large crown of white roses, which
+struck the shoulder of the prostrate figure, and shattering,
+scattered their snowy petals over the marble face and golden hair.
+
+The enthusiastic acclaim of hundreds of voices announced the triumph
+of the magnificent acting; but after repeated calls and prolonged
+applause, during which she lay unconscious, the audience was briefly
+informed that Madame Orme was too seriously indisposed to appear
+again, and receive the tribute she had earned at such fearful cost.
+
+Recovering slowly from that long swoon, she was carefully wrapped up,
+and led away, supported by the arms of Mr. Waul and his wife. As they
+lifted her into the carriage at the rear entrance of the theatre, she
+sank heavily back upon the cushions, failing to observe a manly form
+leaning against the neighbouring lamp-post, or to recognize the
+handsome face where the gas shone full lighting up the anxious blue
+eyes that followed her.
+
+For several days she was too languid to move from her couch, where
+she persisted in reclining, supported by  pillows; still struggling
+against the prostration that hourly increased, and at last the
+disease asserted itself fever, ensued, bringing unconsciousness and
+delirium.
+
+Not the scorching violent type that rapidly consumes the vital
+forces, but a low tenacious fever that baffled all opposition, and
+steadily gained ground, creeping upon the nerve centre, and sapping
+the foundations of life.
+
+For many weeks there seemed no hope of rescue, and two physicians,
+distinguished by skill and success in their profession, finally
+admitted that they were powerless to cope with this typhoid serpent,
+whose tightening folds were gradually strangling her.
+
+At length most unexpectedly, when science laid down its weapons to
+watch the close of the struggle, and nature the Divine Doctor quietly
+took up the gage of battle, the tide of conflict turned. Slowly the
+numbed brain began to exert its force, the fluttering thready pulse
+grew calmer, and one day the dreamer awoke to the bitter
+consciousness of a renewal of all the galling burden of woes which
+the tireless law of compensation had for those long weeks mercifully
+loosed and lifted.
+
+Although guarded with tender care by the faithful pair, who had
+followed her across the Atlantic, she convalesced almost
+imperceptibly, and out of her busy life two months fruitful alone in
+bodily pain glided away to the silent grey of the past.
+
+Dimly conscious that days and weeks were creeping by unimproved, she
+retained in subsequent years only a dreamy reminiscence of the period
+dating from the moment when she essayed to utter the last words of
+Queen Katherine, words which ran zigzag, hither and thither like an
+electric thread through the leaden cloud of her delirium, to the
+hour, when with returning strength, keen goading thrusts from the
+unsheathed dagger of memory, told her that the Sleeping Furies had
+once more been aroused on the threshold of the temple of her life.
+
+Noticing some rare hothouse flowers in a vase upon the table near her
+bed, Mrs. Waul hastened to explain to the invalid that every other
+day during her illness, bouquets had been brought to their hotel by
+the servant of some American gentleman, who was anxious to receive
+constant tidings of Mrs. Orme's condition, adding that the physicians
+had forbidden her to keep the flowers in the sick-room, until all
+danger seemed passed. No card had been attached, no name given, and
+by the sufferer none was needed. Gazing at the superb heart's-ease,
+whose white velvet petals were enamelled with scarlet, purple, and
+gold, the mockery stung her keenly, and with a groan she turned away,
+hiding her face on the pillow. Hearts-ease from the man who had
+bruised, trampled, broken her heart? She instructed Mrs. Waul to
+decline receiving the bouquet when next the messenger came, and to
+request him to assure his master that Madame Orme was fully conscious
+once more and wished the floral tribute discontinued. During the
+tedious days of convalescence she contracted a cold that attacked her
+lungs, and foreboded congestion; and though yielding to medical
+treatment, it left her as _souvenir_, a. troublesome cough.
+
+Her physician informed her that her whole nervous system had received
+a shock so severe that only perfect and prolonged rest of mind and
+freedom from all excitement could restore its healthful tone.
+Interdicting sternly the thought of dramatic labour for at least a
+year, they urged her to seek a quiet retreat in Italy, or Southern
+France, as her lungs had already become somewhat involved.
+
+More than once she had been taken in a carnage through the Bois de
+Boulogne, but to-day for the first time since her recovery she
+ventured on foot, in quest of renewed vigour from outdoor air and
+exercise.
+
+Wrapped in a mental cloud of painful speculation concerning her
+future career, a cloud unblessed as yet by silver lining, and
+unfringed with gold, she wandered aimlessly along the walk, taking no
+notice of passers-by until she approached the water, where swans were
+performing their daily regatta evolutions for the amusement of those
+who generally came provided with crumbs or grain wherewith to feed
+them.
+
+The sound of a sob attracted Mrs. Orme's attention, and she paused to
+witness a scene that quickly aroused her sympathy.
+
+A child's carriage had been pushed close to the margin of the basin,
+to enable the occupant to feast the swans with morsels of cake, and
+in leaning over to scatter the food a little hat composed of lace,
+silk, and flowers, had fallen into the water. Near the carriage stood
+a boy apparently about ten years old, who with a small walking-stick
+was maliciously pushing the dainty millinery bubble as far beyond
+reach as possible.
+
+In the carriage, and partly covered by a costly and brilliant afghan,
+reclined a forlorn and truly pitiable creature, who seemed to have
+sunk down helplessly on the cushions. Although her age was seven
+years, the girl's face really appeared much older, and in its
+shrunken, sallow, pinched aspect indicated lifelong suffering.
+
+The short thin dark hair was dry and harsh, lacking the silken gloss
+that belongs to childhood, and the complexion a sickly yellowish
+pallor. Her brilliant eyes were black, large and prominent, and
+across her upper lip ran a diagonal scar, occasionally seen in those
+so afflicted as to require the merciful knife of a skilful surgeon to
+aid in shaping the mouth.
+
+The unfortunate victim of physical deformity, increased by a fall
+which prevented the possibility of her ever being able to walk,
+nature had with unusual malignity stamped her with a feebleness of
+intellect that at times bordered almost on imbecility.
+
+Temporarily deserted by her nurse, the poor little creature was
+crying bitterly over the fate of her hat. Walking up behind the boy,
+who was too much engrossed by his mischievous sport to observe her
+approach, Mrs. Orme seized his arms.
+
+"You wicked boy! How can you be so cruel as to torment that afflicted
+child?"
+
+Taking his pretty mother-of-pearl-headed cane, she tried to touch the
+hat, but it was just beyond her reach, and, resolved to rescue it,
+she fastened the cane to the handle of her parasol, using her
+handkerchief to bind them together. Thus elongated it sufficed to
+draw the hat to the margin, and, raising it, she shook out the water,
+and hung the dripping bit of finery upon one of the handles of the
+carriage.
+
+"Give me my walking-stick," said the boy, whose pronunciation
+proclaimed him thoroughly English.
+
+"No, sir. I intend to punish you for your cruelty. You tyrannized
+over that helpless little girl, because you were the strongest. I
+think I have more strength than you, and you shall feel how pleasant
+such conduct is."
+
+Untying the cane, she raised it in the air, and threw it with all the
+force she could command into the middle of the water.
+
+"Now if you want it, wade in with your best boots and Sunday clothes
+and get it; and go home and tell your parents, if you have any, that
+you are a bad, rude, ugly-behaved boy. When you need your toy, think
+of that hat."
+
+The cane had sunk instantly, and with a sullen scowl of rage at her,
+and a grimace at the occupant of the carriage, the boy walked sulkily
+away.
+
+With her handkerchief, Mrs. Orme wiped off the water that adhered to
+the hat, squeezed and shook out the ribbons and laid it upon the
+afghan, in reach of the fingers that more nearly resembled claws than
+the digits of a human hand.
+
+"Don't cry, dear. It will soon dry now."
+
+The solemn black eyes, still glistening with tears, stared up at her,
+and impelled by that peculiar pitying tenderness that hovers in the
+hearts of all mothers, Mrs. Orme bent down and gently smoothed the
+elfish locks around the sallow forehead.
+
+"Has your nurse run away and left you? Don't be afraid; nothing shall
+trouble you. I will stay with you till she comes back."
+
+"Hellene is gone to buy candy," said the dwarf, timidly,
+
+"My dear, what is your name?"
+
+"Maud Ames Laurance."
+
+The stranger had compassionately taken one of the thin hands in her
+own, but throwing it from her as if it had been a serpent, she
+recoiled, involuntarily pushing the carriage from its resting-place.
+It rolled a few steps and stopped, while she stood shuddering.
+
+Her first impulse was to hurry away; the second was more feminine in
+its promptings, and conquered. Once more she approached the
+unfortunate child, and scrutinized her, with eyes that gradually
+kindled into a blaze.
+
+She bore in no respect the faintest resemblance to her father, but
+Mrs. Orme fancied she traced the image of the large-featured
+bold-eyed mother; and as she contrasted this feeble deformed creature
+with the remembered face and figure of her own beautiful darling
+girl, a bitter but intensely triumphant laugh broke suddenly on the
+air.
+
+"Maud Ames Laurance! A proud name truly--and royally you grace it!
+Ah, Nemesis! Christianity would hunt you down as a pagan myth, but
+all honour, glory to you, incorruptible pitiless Avenger! Accept my
+homage, repay my wrongs, and then demand in sacrificial tribute what
+you will, though it were my heart's best blood! Aha! will she lend
+lustre to the family name? Shall the splendour of her high-born
+aristocratic beauty gild the crime that gave her being? Yes verily,
+it seems that after all, even for me the Mills of the Gods do not
+forget to grind. '_The time of their visitation will come, and that
+inevitably; for, it is always true, that if the fathers have eaten
+sour grapes, the children's teeth are set on edge_' Command my
+lifelong allegiance, oh Queenly Nemesis!"
+
+Sometimes grovelling in the dust of gross selfishness which clings
+more or less to all of us, we bow worshipping before the gods, into
+which we elevate the meanest qualities of our own nature,
+apotheosizing sinful lusts of hate and vengeance; and while we vow
+reckless tribute and measureless libations, lo, we are unexpectedly
+called upon for speedy payment!
+
+Looking down with exultant delight on the ugly deformity who stared
+back wonderingly at her, Mrs. Orme's wan thin face grew radiant, the
+brown eyes dilated, glowed, and the blood leaped to her hollow
+cheeks, burning in two scarlet spots; but the invocation seemed
+literally answered, when she was suddenly conscious of a strange
+bubbling sensation, and over her parted, laughing lips crept the
+crimson that fed her heart.
+
+At this moment the child's nurse, a pretty bright-eyed young
+coquette, hurried toward the group, accompanied by a companion of the
+same class; and as she approached and seized the handles of the
+carriage, Mrs. Orme turned away. The hemorrhage was not copious, but
+steady, and lowering her thick veil, she endeavoured to stanch its
+flow. Her handkerchief, already damp from contact with the wet hat,
+soon became saturated, and she was obliged to substitute the end of
+her lace mantle.
+
+Fortunately Mrs. Waul, impatiently watching for her return, caught a
+glimpse of the yet distant figure and hastened to meet her.
+
+"Are you crying? What is the matter?"
+
+"My lungs are bleeding; lend me a handkerchief. Try and find a
+carriage."
+
+"What caused it? Something must have happened?"
+
+"Don't worry me now. Only help me to get home."
+
+Screened both by veils and parasols, the two had almost gained the
+street, when they met a trio of gentlemen.
+
+One asked in unmistakable New-England English:
+
+"Laurance, where is your father?"
+
+And a voice which had once epitomized for Minnie Merle the "music of
+the spheres," answered in mellow tones:
+
+"He has been in London, but goes very soon to Italy."
+
+Mrs. Waul felt a trembling hand laid on her arm, and turned anxiously
+to her companion.
+
+"Give me time. My strength fails me. I can't walk so fast."
+
+The excitement of an hour had overthrown the slow work of weeks; and
+after many days the physicians peremptorily ordered her away from
+Paris.
+
+"Home! Let us go home. You have not been yourself since we reached
+this city. In New York you will get strong."
+
+As Mrs. Waul spoke she stroked one of the invalid's thin hands, that
+hung listlessly over the side of the sofa.
+
+"I think Phoebe is right. America would cure you," added the
+grey-haired man, whose heart was yearning for his native land.
+
+Alluring, seductive as the Siren song that floated across Sicilian
+waves, was the memory of her fair young daughter to this suffering
+weary mother; and at the thought of clasping Regina in her arms, of
+feeling her tender velvet lips once more on her cheek, the lonely
+heart of the desolate woman throbbed fiercely.
+
+Her sands of life seamed ebbing fast,--the end might not be distant;
+who could tell? Why not go back--give up the chase for the empty
+shadow of a name--gather her baby to her bosom, and die, finding
+under an humble cenotaph the peace that this world denied her?
+
+An intolerable yearning for the sight of her child, for the sound of
+her voice, broke over her like some irresistible wave bearing away
+the vehement protests of policy, the sterner barriers of vindictive
+purpose, and with a long shivering moan she clasped her hands and
+shut her eyes.
+
+Impatiently the old man and his wife watched her countenance,
+confident that the decision would not long be delayed, trusting that
+the result would be a compliance with their wishes. But hope began to
+fade as they noticed the gradual compression of her pale sorrowful
+mouth,--the slow gathering of the brows that met in a heavy
+frown,--the tightening of the clenched fingers,--the greyish shadow
+that settled down on the face where renunciation was very legibly
+written. The temptation had been fierce, but she put it aside, after
+bitter struggles to hush the wail of maternal longing; and before she
+spoke the two friends looked at each other and sighed.
+
+Lifting her marble eyelids that seemed so heavy with their sweeping
+brown lashes, the invalid raised herself on one elbow, and said
+mournfully:
+
+"Not yet,--oh! not yet. I cannot give up the fight without one more
+struggle, even if it should prove that of death to me. I must not
+return to America until I win what I came for; I will not. But, my
+friends,--for such I consider you, such you have proved,--I will not
+selfishly prolong your exile; will not exact the sacrifice of your
+dearest wishes. Go back home at once, and enjoy in peace the old age
+that deserves to be so happy. I am going to Italy, hoping to regain
+my health,--possibly to die; but still I shall go. How long I may be
+detained, I know not, but meanwhile you shall return to those you
+love."
+
+"Idle words--all idle words; not worth the waste of your breath.
+Phoebe and I are homesick,--we do not deny it, and we are sorry you
+can't see things as we do; but since that night when I stumbled over
+you in the snow, and carried you to my own hearth, you have been to
+Phoebe and me--as the child we lost; and unless you are ready to go
+home with us, we stay here. You know we never will forsake you,
+especially now. Hush,--don't speak, Phoebe. Come away, wife; she is
+crying like a tired child. I never saw her give way like that before.
+It will do her good. Every tear softens the spasms that wring her
+poor heart when she thinks of her baby. In crossing the ocean she
+said that every rolling wave seemed to her a grave, in which she was
+burying her blue-eyed baby. Let her alone to-day; keep out of her
+sight. To-morrow we will arrange to quit Paris, I hope for ever."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+"Mrs. Palma, if you are at leisure, I should like to see you for a
+moment."
+
+"Certainly, Miss Orme; come in."
+
+Mrs. Palma looked up for an instant only from the blue sash which she
+was embroidering with silver.
+
+"Is your discourse confidential? If so, I shall certainly retire, and
+leave you and mamma to tender communings, and an interchange of
+souls," said Olga, who reclined on a lounge in her mother's room, and
+slowly turned the leaves of a volume of Balzac.
+
+"Not at all confidential. Mrs. Palma, I have reason to fear that my
+practising has long annoyed you."
+
+"Upon what do you base your supposition? During the year I have not
+found fault with you, have I?"
+
+"Hattie told me that you often complained that you could no longer
+enjoy your morning nap, because the sound of the piano disturbed you;
+and I wish to change the hour. The reason why I selected that time
+was because I always rose early and practised before breakfast until
+I came here; and because later in the day company in the parlours or
+reception-room keep me out. I am anxious to do whatever is most
+agreeable to you."
+
+"It is very true that when I am out frequently until two and three
+o'clock, with Olga, it is not particularly refreshing to be aroused
+at seven by scales and exercises. People who live as continually in
+society as we do must have a little rest.
+
+"I have been trying to arrange, so as to avoid annoying you, but do
+not well see how to correct the trouble. From nine until one Mr. Van
+Kleik comes to attend to my Latin, German, French, and mathematics,
+and from four until five Professor Hurtzsel gives me my lessons. In
+the interval persons are frequently calling, and of course interrupt
+me. If you will only tell me what you wish, I will gladly consult
+your convenience.
+
+"Indeed, Miss Orme, I do not know when the tiresome practising will
+be convenient, though of course it is a necessary evil and must be
+borne. The fact is, that magnificent grand piano downstairs ought
+never to be thrummed upon for daily practising. I told Erle soon
+after you came that it was a shame to have it so abused, but men have
+no understanding of the fitness of things."
+
+"Pray, mamma, do not forget your Bible injunction: 'Render unto Cæsar
+the things that are Cæsar's,' and to music, the matters that belong
+to its own divine art. Until Regina came among us that melodious
+siren in the front parlour had a chronic lock-jaw from want of use.
+Some of the white keys stuck fast when they were touched, and the
+black ones were so stiff they almost required a hammer to make them
+sound. Do let her limber them at her own 'sweet will.' Who wants a
+piano locked up, like that hideous old china and heavy glass that
+your grandfather's fifth cousin brought over from Amsterdam?"
+
+"At what time of day did you practise when you were a young girl?"
+asked Regina, appealing to the figure now coiled up on the lounge.
+
+"At none, thank fortune! Regard me as a genuine _rara avis_, a
+fashionable young lady with no more aptitude for the 'concord of
+sweet sounds,' than for the abstractions of Hegel, or Differential
+Calculus. It is traditional, that while in my nurse's arms, I
+performed miracles of melody such as Auld Lang Syne, with one little
+finger; but such undue precocity, madly stimulated by ambitious mamma
+and nurse Nell, resulted fatally in the total destruction of my
+marvellous talent, which died of cerebro-musical excitement when
+confronted with the gamut. Except as the language in which Strauss
+appeals to my waltzing genius, I have no more use for it than for
+ancient Aztec. Thank Heaven! this is a progressive age, and girls are
+no longer tormented as formerly by piano fiends, who once persisted
+in pounding and squeezing music into their poor struggling nauseated
+souls, as relentlessly as girls' feet are still squeezed in China. My
+talent is not for the musical tones of Pythagoras."
+
+"I should be truly glad to learn in what direction it tends." said
+her mother, rather severely.
+
+Up rose the head with its tawny crown, and there was evident emphasis
+in the ringing voice and in the fiery glance that darted from her
+laughing hazel eyes.
+
+"Cruel mamma! Because Euterpe did not preside when I was lucklessly
+ushered into this dancing gilt bubble that we call the world, were
+all good gifts denied me? The fairies ordained that I should paint,
+should soar like Apelles, Angelo, and Da Vinci into the empyrean of
+pure classic art, but no sooner did I dabble in pigment, and plume my
+slender artistic pin-feathers, than the granite hands of Palma pride
+seized the ambitious ephemeron, cut off the sprouting wings, and bade
+me paint only my lips and cheeks, if dabble in paint I must. I am
+confident the soul of Zeuxis sleeps in mine, but before the _ukase_
+of the Palmas a stouter than Zeuxis would quail, lie low,--be silent.
+Hence I am a young miss who has no talent, except for appreciating
+Balzac, caramels, Diavolini, _vanille soufflé_, lobster-croquettes,
+and Strauss' waltzes; though envious people do say that I have a
+decided genius for 'malapropos historic quotations,' which you know
+are regarded as unpardonable offences by those who cannot comprehend
+them. Come here, St. John, and let me rub your fur the wrong way. The
+world will do it roughly if you survive tender kittenhood, and it is
+merciful to initiate you early, and by degrees."
+
+She took up a young black cat that was curled comfortably on the
+skirt of her dress, and stroking him softly, resumed her book.
+
+Mrs. Palma compressed her lips, knitted her heavy brows, and turned
+the silk sash to the light to observe the effect of the silver
+snowdrops she was embroidering.
+
+During her residence under the same roof, Regina had become
+accustomed to these verbal tournaments between mother and daughter,
+and having been kept in ignorance of the ground of Olga's grievance,
+she could not understand allusions that were frequently made in her
+presence, and which never failed to irritate Mrs. Palma.
+
+Desirous of diverting the conversation from a topic that threatened
+renewed tilts, she said timidly:
+
+"You do not in the least assist me, with reference to my music. Would
+you object to having a hired piano in the house? I could have it
+placed in my room, and then my practising in the middle of the day,
+or in the evening would never be interfered with, and you could have
+your morning nap."
+
+"Indeed, Miss Orme, a very good suggestion; a capital idea. I will
+speak to Erle about it to-night."
+
+Regina absolutely coloured at the shadowy compliment.
+
+"Will it be necessary to trouble Mr. Palma with the matter? He is
+always so busy, and besides you know much better than a gentleman
+what----"
+
+"I know nothing better than Erle Palma, where it concerns his
+_ménage_, or the expenses incident to its control."
+
+"But out of my allowance I will pay the rent, and he need know
+nothing of the matter."
+
+"Of course that quite alters the case; and if you propose to pay the
+rent, there is no reason why he should be consulted."
+
+"Then will you please select a piano, and order it to be sent up
+to-day or to-morrow? An upright could be most conveniently carried
+upstairs."
+
+"Certainly, if you wish it. We shall be on Broadway this afternoon,
+and I will attend to the matter."
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. Palma."
+
+"Regina Orme! what an embryo diplomatist, what an incipient
+Talleyrand, Kaunitz, Bismarck you are! Mamma is as invulnerable to
+all human weaknesses as one of the suits of armour hanging in the
+Tower of London; and during my extended and rather intimate
+acquaintance with her, I have never discovered but one foible
+incident to the flesh, love of her morning nap! You have adroitly
+struck Achilles in the heel. Sound the timbrel and sing like Miriam
+over your victory; for it were better to propitiate one of the house
+of Palma, than to strangle Pharaoh. You should apply for a position
+in some foreign legation, where your talents can be fitly trained for
+the tangles of diplomacy. Now if you were only a man, how admirably
+you would suit the Hon. Erle Palma as Deputy----"
+
+"He prefers to appoint his deputies without suggestion from others,
+and regrets he can find no vacant niche for you," answered Mr. Palma,
+from the threshold of the door where he had been standing for several
+moments, unperceived by all but the hazel eyes of the graceful figure
+on the lounge.
+
+"Ah! you steal upon one as noiselessly, yet as destructive as the
+rats that crept upon the bowstrings at Pelusium! And the music of
+your eavesdropping voice;--
+
+          'Oh it came o'er my ear like the sweet south
+          That breathes upon a bank of violets.'"
+
+She rose, made him a profound salaam, and with the black kitten in
+her arms, quitted the room.
+
+"Will you come, in, Erle? Do you wish to see me?"
+
+Mrs. Palma always looked ill at ease when Olga and her stepbrother
+exchanged words, and Regina had long observed that the entrance of
+the latter was generally the signal of departure for the former.
+
+"I came in search of Regina, but chancing to hear the piano question
+discussed, permit me to say that I prefer to take the matter in my
+own hands. I will provide whatever may be deemed requisite, so that
+this young lady's Rothschild's allowance may continue to flow
+uninterruptedly into the coffers of confectioners and flower-dealers.
+Mrs. Palma, if you can spare the carriage, I should like the use of
+it for an hour or two."
+
+"Oh, certainly! I had thought of driving to Stewart's, but to-morrow
+will suit me quite as well."
+
+"By no means. You will have ample time after my return. Regina, I
+wish to see you."
+
+She followed him into the hall.
+
+"In the box of clothing that arrived several days ago, there is a
+white cashmere suit with blue silk trimmings?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Be so good as to put it on. Then wrap up well, and when ready come
+to the library. Do not keep me waiting. Bring your hair-brush and
+comb."
+
+Her mother had sent from Europe a tasteful wardrobe, which, when
+unpacked, Mrs. Palma pronounced perfect; while Olga asserted that one
+particular sash surpassed anything of the kind she had ever seen, and
+was prevailed upon to accept and wear it.
+
+With many conjectures concerning the import of Mr. Palma's
+supervision of her toilette, Regina obeyed his instructions, and
+fearful of trespassing on his patience, hurried down to the library.
+
+With one arm behind him, and the hand of the other holding a
+half-smoked cigar, he was walking meditatively up and down the
+polished floor, that reflected his tall shadow.
+
+"Where do you suppose you are going?"
+
+"I have no idea."
+
+"Why do you not inquire?"
+
+"Because you will not tell me till you choose; and I know that
+questions always annoy you."
+
+"Come in. You linger at the door as if this were the den of a lion at
+a menagerie, instead of a room to which you have been cordially
+invited several times. I am not voracious, have had my luncheon. You
+are quite ready?"
+
+"Quite ready----"
+
+She was slowly walking down the long room, and suddenly caught sight
+of something that seemed to take away her breath.
+
+The clock on the mantle had been removed to the desk, and in its
+place was a large portrait neither square nor yet exactly kit-cat,
+but in proportion more nearly resembled the latter. In imitation of
+Da Vinci's celebrated picture in the Louvre, the background
+represented a stretch of arid rocky landscape, unrelieved by foliage,
+and against it rose in pose and general outline the counterpart of
+"_La Joconde_."
+
+The dress and drapery were of black velvet, utterly bare of ornament,
+and out of the canvas looked a face of marvellous, yet mysteriously
+mournful beauty. The countenance of a comparatively young woman,
+whose radiant brown eyes had dwelt in some penetrale of woe, until
+their light was softened, saddened; whose regular features were
+statuesque in their solemn repose, and whose gold-tinted hair simply
+parted on her white round brow, fell in glinting waves down upon her
+polished shoulders. The mystical pale face of one who seemed alike
+incapable of hope or of regret, who gazed upon past, present, future,
+as proud, as passionless and calm as Destiny; and whose perfect hands
+were folded in stern fateful rest.
+
+As Regina looked up at it she stopped, then run to the hearth, and
+stood with her eyes riveted to the canvas, her lips parted and
+quivering.
+
+Watching her, Mr. Palma came to her side, and asked:
+
+"Whom can it be?"
+
+Evidently she did not hear him. Her whole heart and soul appeared
+centred in the picture; but as she gazed, her own eloquent face grew
+whiter, she drew her breath quickly, and tears rolled over her
+cheeks, as she lifted her arms toward the painting.
+
+"Mother I my beautiful sad-eyed mother!"
+
+Sobs shook her frame, and she pressed toward the mantelpiece till the
+skirt of her dress swept dangerously close to the fire. Mr. Palma
+drew her back, and said quietly:
+
+"For an uncultivated young rustic, I must say your appreciation of
+fine painting is rather surprising. Few city girls would have paid
+such a tearful tribute of heartfelt admiration to my pretty 'Mona
+Lisa.'"
+
+Without removing her fascinated eyes she asked:
+
+"When did it come?"
+
+"I have had it several days. I presume that you know it is a copy of
+Da Vinci's celebrated picture, upon which he worked four years, and
+which now hangs in the gallery of the Louvre at Paris?"
+
+She merely shook her head.
+
+"In France it is called '_La Joconde_; but I prefer the softer 'Mona
+Lisa' for my treasure."
+
+"Is it not mine? She must have sent it to me?"
+
+"She? Are you dreaming? Mona Lisa has been dead three hundred years!"
+
+"Mr. Palma, it is my mother. No other face ever looked like that, no
+other eyes except those in the _Mater Dolorosa_ resemble these
+beautiful sad brown eyes, that rained their tears upon my head. Do
+you think a child ever mistook another for her own mother? Can the
+face I first learned to know and to love, the lovely--oh! how
+lovely--face that bent over my cradle ever--ever be forgotten? If I
+never saw her again in this world, could I fail to recognise her in
+heaven? My own mother!"
+
+"Obstinate, infatuated little ignoramus! Read--and be convinced."
+
+He opened and held before her a volume of engravings of the pictures
+and statues in the Louvre, and turning to the Leonardo Da Vinci's,
+moved his fingers slowly beneath the title.
+
+Her eyes fell upon "_La Joconde_," then wandered back to the portrait
+over the fireplace; and through her tears broke a radiant smile.
+
+"Yes, sir, I perfectly understand. Your engraving is of Da Vinci's
+painting, and of course I suppose it is very fine, though the face is
+not pretty; but up yonder! that is mother! My mother who kissed and
+cried over me, and hugged me so close to her heart. Oh! Your Da Vinci
+never even dreamed of, much less painted, anything half so heavenly
+as my darling mother's face!"
+
+Closing the book, Mr. Palma threw it on the table, and as he glanced
+from the lovely countenance of the girl to that of the woman on the
+wall, something like a sigh heaved his broad chest.
+
+Did the wan meek shadow of his own patient much-suffering young
+mother lift her melancholy image in the long silent adytum of his
+proud heart, over whose chill chambers ambition and selfishness had
+passed with ossifying touch?
+
+Years ago, at the initial steps of his professional career, he had
+set before him one glittering goal, the Chief-Justiceship. In
+preparing for the long race that stretched ahead of him, seeing only
+the Judicial crown that sparkled afar off, he had laid aside his
+tender sensibilities, his warmest impulses of affection and
+generosity as so many subtle fetters, so much unprofitable luggage,
+so much useless weight to retard and burden him.
+
+While his physical and mental development had brilliantly attested
+the efficacy of the stern regiment he systematically imposed,--his
+emotional nature long discarded, had grown so feeble and inane from
+desuetude, that its very existence had become problematical. But
+to-day, deeply impressed by the intensity of love which Regina could
+not restrain at the sight of the portrait, strange softening memories
+began to stir in their frozen sleep, and to hint of earlier, warmer,
+boyish times, even as magnolia, mahogany, and cocoa trunks stranded
+along icy European shores, babble of the far sweet sunny south, and
+the torrid seas whose restless blue pulses drove them to hyperborean
+realms.
+
+"Is it indeed so striking and unmistakable a likeness? After all, the
+instincts of nature are stronger than the canons of art. Your mother
+is an exceedingly beautiful woman; but, little girl, let me tell you,
+that you are not in the least like her."
+
+"I know that sad fact, and it often grieves me."
+
+"You must certainly resemble your father, for I never saw mother and
+child so entirely dissimilar."
+
+He saw the glow of embarrassment, of acute pain tinging her throat
+and cheeks, and wondered how much of the past had been committed to
+her keeping; how far she shared her mother's confidence. During the
+year that she had been an inmate of his house she had never referred
+to the mystery of her parentage, and despite his occasional efforts
+to become better acquainted had shrunk from his presence, and
+remained the same shy reserved stranger she appeared the week of her
+arrival.
+
+"Is not the portrait for me? Mother wrote that she intended sending
+me something which she hoped I would value more than all the pretty
+clothes, and it must be this, her own beautiful precious face."
+
+"Yes, it is yours; but I presume you will be satisfied to allow it to
+hang where it is. The light is singularly good."
+
+"No, sir, I want it."
+
+"Well you have it, where you can see it at any time."
+
+"But I wish to keep it, all to myself, in my room, where it will be
+the last thing I see at night, the first in the morning--my sunrise."
+
+"How unpardonably selfish you are. Would you deprive me of the
+pleasure of admiring a fine work of art, merely to shut it in,
+converting yourself into a pagan, and the portrait into an idol?"
+
+"But, Mr. Palma, you never loved any one or anything so very dearly,
+that it seemed holy in your eyes; much too sacred for others to look
+at."
+
+"Certainly not. I am pleased to say that is a mild stage of lunacy,
+with which I have as yet never been threatened. Idolatry is a phase
+of human weakness I have been unable to tolerate."
+
+He saw a faint smile lurking about the perfect curves of her rosy
+mouth, but her eyes remained fixed on the picture.
+
+"I should be glad to know what you find so amusing in my remark."
+
+She shook her head, but the obstinate dimples reappeared.
+
+"What are you smiling at?"
+
+"At the assertion that you cannot tolerate idolatry."
+
+"Well? Of all the men in New York, probably I am the most thoroughly
+an iconoclast."
+
+"Yes, sir, of other people's gods; nevertheless, I think you worship
+ardently."
+
+"Indeed! Have you recently joined the 'Microscopical Society'? I
+solicit the benefit of your discoveries, and shall be duly grateful
+if you will graciously point out the unknown fane wherein I secretly
+worship. Is it Beauty? Genius? Riches?"
+
+"It is not done in secret. All the world knows that Mr. Palma
+imitates the example of Marcus Marcellus, and dedicates his life to
+two divinities."
+
+Standing on either side of the gate, and each pressing a hand upon
+the slab of the mantle, the lawyer looked curiously down at the
+bright young face.
+
+"You are quite fresh in foraging from historic fields,--and since I
+quitted the classic shade of Alma Mater I have had little leisure for
+Roman lore; but college memories suggest that it was to Honour and
+Valour that Marcellus erected the splendid double temple at the
+Capene Gate. I bow to your parallel, and gratefully appreciate your
+ingeniously delicate compliment."
+
+He laughed sarcastically as he interpreted the protest very legible
+in her clear honest eyes, and waited a moment for her to disclaim the
+flattery. But she was silently smiling up at her mother's face.
+
+"Does my very observant ward approve of my homage to the Roman
+deities?"
+
+"Are your favourite divinities those before whom Marcellus bent his
+knee?"
+
+Very steadily her large eyes, blue as the border of a clematis, were
+turned to meet his, and involuntarily he took his under lip between
+his glittering teeth.
+
+"My testimony would not be admissible before the bar, at which I have
+been arraigned. Since you have explored the Holy of Holies, be so
+kind as to describe what you find."
+
+"You might consider me presumptuous, possibly impertinent."
+
+"At least I may safely promise not to express any such opinion. What
+is there, think you, that Erle Palma worships?"
+
+"A statue of Ambition that stands in the vestibule of the temple of
+Fame."
+
+"Olga told you that."
+
+"Oh no, sir! Have not I lived here a year?"
+
+His eyes sparkled, and a proud smile curled his lips.
+
+"Do I offer sacrifices?"
+
+"I think you would, if they were required."
+
+"Suppose my stone god demanded my heart?"
+
+"Ah, sir! you know you gave it to him long ago."
+
+He laughed quite genially, and his whole face softened, warmed.
+
+"At least let us hope my ambition is not sordid; is unstained with
+the dross of avarice. It is a stern god, and I shall not deny that
+'Ephraim is joined to his idols! Let him alone.'"
+
+A short silence followed, during which his thoughts wandered far from
+the precincts of that quiet room.
+
+"Mr. Palma, will you please give me my picture?"
+
+"It is yours of course, but conditionally. It must remain where it
+now hangs: first, because I wish it; secondly, because your mother
+prefers (for good reasons) that it should not be known just yet as
+her portrait; and if it should be removed to your bed-chamber, the
+members of the household would probably gossip. Remaining here, it
+will be called an imitation of 'Mona Lisa del Giocondo,' and none
+will ever suspect the truth. Pray don't straiten your lips in that
+grievously defiant fashion, as Perpetua doubtless did when she heard
+the bellowing of beasts or the clash of steel in the amphitheatre.
+Make this room your favourite retreat. Now that it contains your
+painted Penates, convert it into an _atrium_. Come when you may, you
+will never disturb me. In a long letter received this week, your
+mother directs that your portrait shall be painted in a certain
+position, and wishes you to wear the suit you have on. The carriage
+is ready, and I will take you at once to the artist. Put on your
+hat."
+
+During the drive he was abstracted, now and then consulting a paper
+of memoranda, carried in the inside breast-pocket of his coat.
+
+Once introduced into the elegant studio of Mr. Harcourt in Tenth
+Street, Regina found much to interest and charm her, while her
+guardian arranged the preliminaries, and settled the details of the
+picture. Then he removed the hat and cloak, and placed her in the
+comfortable seat already prepared.
+
+The artist went into an adjoining room, and a moment after Hero
+bounded in, expressing by a succession of barks his almost frantic
+delight at the reunion with his mistress. Since her removal to New
+York, she saw him so rarely, that the pleasure was mingled with pain,
+and now with her arms around his neck, and her face hidden in his
+thick white hair, she cried softly, unable to keep back the tears.
+
+"Come, Regina, sit up. Make Hero lie on that pile of cushions, which
+will enable you to rest one hand easily on his head. Crying! Mr.
+Harcourt paints no such weeping demoiselles. Dry your eyes, and take
+down your hair. Your mother wishes it flowing, as when she saw you
+last."
+
+While she unbraided the thick coil, and shook out the shining folds,
+trying to adjust them smoothly, the lawyer stood patiently beside
+her; and once his soft white hand rested on her forehead, as he
+stroked back a rippling tress that encroached upon her temple.
+
+The dress of pearly cashmere was cut in the style usually denominated
+"infant waist," and fully exposed the dazzling whiteness and dimpling
+roundness of the neck and shoulders; while the short puffed sleeves
+showed admirably the fine modelling of the arms.
+
+Walking away to the easel, Mr. Palma looked back, and critically
+contemplated the effect; and he acknowledged it was the fairest
+picture his fastidious eyes had ever rested on.
+
+He put one hand inside his vest, and stood regarding the girl, with
+mingled feelings of pride in "Erle Palma's ward," and an increasing
+interest in the reticent calm-eyed child, which had first dawned when
+he watched her asleep in the railroad car. It was no easy matter to
+stir his leaden sympathies, save in some selfish ramification, but
+once warmed and set in motion they proved a current difficult to
+stem.
+
+In a low voice the artist said, as he selected some brushes from a
+neighbouring stand:
+
+"How old is she? Her features have a singularly infantile delicacy
+and softness, but the eyes and lips seem to belong to a much older
+person."
+
+"Regina, have you not entered upon your sixteenth year?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I believe, Mr. Palma, it is the loveliest living face I ever saw. It
+is so peculiar, so intensely--what shall I say?--prophet-eyed."
+
+"Yes, I believe that is the right word. When she looks steadily at me
+she often reminds me of a Sibyl."
+
+"But is this her usual, every-day expression?"
+
+"Rather sadder than customary, I think."
+
+He went back to the group, and, standing in front of his ward, looked
+gravely down in her upturned face.
+
+"Could you contrive to appear a little less solemn?"
+
+She forced a smile, but he made an impatient gesture.
+
+"Oh, don't! Anything would be better than that dire conflict between
+the expression of your mouth, and that of your eyes. Have you any
+hermetically sealed pleasant thoughts hidden behind that smooth brow,
+that you could be prevailed upon to call up for a few moments, just
+long enough to cast a glimmer of sunshine over your face? I think you
+once indignantly denied ever indulging in the folly of possessing a
+sweetheart, but perhaps you have really entertained more _affaires de
+coeur_ than you choose to confide to such a grim, iron guardian as
+yours? Possibly you may cherish cheerful memories of the kind-hearted
+young missionary, whose chances of hastening to heaven, _per_ Sepoy
+passport, _viâ_ Delhi route, seem at times to distress you? Does he
+ever write you?"
+
+"His mother has written to me twice since she reached India, and once
+enclosed a note from him; but although she said he had written, and I
+hoped for a letter, none has come."
+
+He noted the quick flutter of her lip, and the shadow that crept into
+her eyes.
+
+"Then he went away with the expectation that you would correspond
+with him?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"He is quite a bold, audacious young fellow, and you are a very
+disrespectful, imprudent, disobedient young ward, to enter into such
+an arrangement without my consent and permission. Suppose I forbid
+all communication?"
+
+"I think, sir, you would scarcely be so unreasonable and unjust; and
+if you were, I should not obey you. I would appeal to my mother. Mr.
+Hargrove, dear good Mr. Hargrove, was my guardian when Mr. Lindsay
+went away, and he did not object to the promise I made concerning a
+correspondence."
+
+The starry sparkle which during the last twelve months he had learned
+meant the signal of mutiny flashed up in her eyes.
+
+"Take care! when iron gloves are recklessly thrown down, serious
+mischief sometimes ensues. My laws are rarely Draconian, until reason
+has been exhausted; but nature endowed me with a miserly share of
+patience, and I do not think it entirely politic in you to challenge
+me. Here is a document that has an intensely Hindustanee appearance,
+and is, as you see, at my mercy. Where it has been since it left
+Calcutta last June, I know not. That Padre Sahib penned it, I indulge
+no doubt. Pray sit still. So the sunshine has come to your
+countenance at last, and all the way from India! Verily, happiness is
+the best cosmetic, and hope the brightest illuminator; even more
+successful than Bengal lights."
+
+He held up a letter post-marked Calcutta, and coldly watched the glow
+that overspread her face, as her gaze eagerly followed the motion of
+his hand.
+
+"I have not touched the seal; but as your guardian, It is proper that
+I should be made acquainted with the contents. When you have devoured
+it, I presume you will yield to the promptings of respect due to my
+position and wishes. When I assume guardianship of any person or
+thing, I invariably exert all the authority, exact all the obedience,
+and claim all the privileges and perquisites to which the
+responsibility entitles me."
+
+He placed the letter on the cushion, where Hero nestled, and turning
+to the artist, added:
+
+"I leave Miss Orme in your care, Mr. Harcourt, and shall send Mr.
+Roscoe to remain during the sitting, and take her home. Paint her
+just as she is now. Good-morning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+Through the creamy lace curtains that draped the open windows, the
+afternoon sun shone into the library, making warm lanes of yellow
+light across the rich mosaic of many coloured woods that formed the
+polished floor. Upon one of the round tables was a silver salver,
+whereon stood a wine-cooler of the same material, representing
+Bacchus crushing ripe clusters into the receptacles, that now
+contained a bottle of Rüdesheim, and a crystal claret jug. In
+tempting proximity rose a Sevres _epergne_ of green and gold, whose
+weight was upborne by a lovely figure, evidently modelled in
+imitation of Titian's Lavinia; and the crowning basket was heaped
+with purple and amber grapes, crimson-cheeked luscious peaches, and
+golden pears sun-flushed into carmine flecks.
+
+Two tall glittering Venice glasses stood upon the salver, casting
+prismatic radiance over the silver, as the sunbeams smote their
+slender fluted sides, and a pair of ruby tinted finger-bowls
+completed the colour chord.
+
+On one side of the table sat Mr. Palma, who had returned an hour
+before from Washington, and was resting comfortably in his favourite
+chair, with his head thrown back, and a cigar between his lips. His
+eyes were turned to the mantlepiece, where since the day the portrait
+was first suspended, ten months ago, Regina had never failed to keep
+a fresh dainty bouquet of fragrant flowers. This afternoon, the
+little vase held only apple-geranium leaves, and a pyramidal cluster
+of tuberoses; and her guardian had observed that when white blossoms
+could be bought, coloured ones were never offered in tribute.
+
+Opposite the lawyer was his cousin _protégé_, and occupied in
+peeling a juicy peach, with one of the massive silver fruit-knives.
+
+"I have never doubted the success of the case; it was a foregone
+conclusion when you assumed charge of it. Certainly considering the
+strength of the defence, it is a brilliant triumph for you, and
+compensates for the toil you have spent upon it. I have never seen
+you labour more indefatigably."
+
+"Yes, for forty-eight hours I did not close my eyes, and of course
+the result gratifies me, for the counsel for the defence was the most
+stubbornly contestant I have dealt with for a long time. The
+Government influence was immense. Where have Mrs. Palma and Olga
+gone?"
+
+"To Manhattanville, I believe."
+
+"How long since Regina left the house?"
+
+"Only a few moments before you arrived. It seems to me singularly
+imprudent to allow her to wander about the city as she does."
+
+"Explain yourself."
+
+"I offered to accompany her as escort, but she rather curtly declined
+my attendance."
+
+"And in your estimation, that constitutes 'imprudence'?"
+
+"I certainly consider it imprudent for any young girl to stroll
+around alone in New York on Sunday afternoon; especially one so very
+attractive, so conspicuously beautiful as Regina."
+
+"During my absence has any one been kidnapped or garrotted in broad
+daylight?"
+
+"I do not study the police records."
+
+"Do you imagine that she perambulates about the sacred precincts of
+'Five Points,' or the purlieus of Chatham Street?"
+
+"I imagine nothing, sir; but I know that she frequents a distant
+portion of this city, where I should think young ladies of her social
+status would find no attraction."
+
+"You have followed her then?" Mr. Palma raised himself and struck the
+ashes from his cigar.
+
+"I have not; but others certainly have, and commented upon the fact."
+
+"Will you oblige me with the remarks, and the name of the author?"
+
+"No, Cousin Erle, certainly not the last. But I will tell you that a
+couple of young gentlemen met her on Eighth Avenue, and were so
+impressed by her face that they turned round and followed her; saw
+her finally enter one of a row of poor tenement buildings in ----
+Street. Soon after she came out and retraced her steps. They watched
+her till she entered your house, and next day one of them asked me if
+she were a sewing girl. No ward of mine should have such latitude."
+
+"Not Elliott Roscoe; but I happen to be her guardian. She visits by
+my permission the house you so vaguely designate, and the first time
+she entered it I accompanied her and pointed out the location, and
+the line of street cars that would carry her almost to the square. At
+present the house is occupied by Mrs. Mason, the widow of a minister
+who was related to Mr. Hargrove, Regina's former guardian; and the
+references furnished me by the lady give satisfactory assurance that
+the acquaintance is unobjectionable, although the widow is evidently
+in very reduced circumstances. I consented some weeks ago that my
+ward should occasionally spend Sunday afternoon with her."
+
+"I presume you are the best judge of the grave responsibility of your
+position," replied the young gentleman, stiffly.
+
+"Certainly I think so, sir; and as you may possibly have observed, I
+am not particularly grateful for volunteer suggestions relative to my
+duty. Has it ever occurred to you that the green goggles you wear at
+present may accidentally lend an unhealthy tinge to your vision?"
+
+A wave of vivid scarlet flowed to the edge of Mr. Roscoe's fair
+harvest-hued hair, as he answered angrily:
+
+"You are the only person who could with impunity make such an
+insinuation."
+
+"In insinuations I never indulge, and impunity I neither arrogate,
+nor permit in others. Keep cool, Elliott, or else change your
+profession. A man who cannot hold his temper in leash, and who flies
+emotional signals from every feature in his face, has slender chance
+of success in an avocation which demands that body and soul, heart
+and mind, abjure even secret signal service, and deal only in cipher.
+The youthful _naïveté_ with which you permit your countenance to
+reflect your sentiments, renders it quite easy for me to comprehend
+the nature of your feeling for my ward. For some weeks your interest
+has been very apparent, and while I am laying no embargo on your
+affections, I insist that jealousy must not jaundice your estimate of
+my duties, or of Regina's conduct. Moreover, Elliott, I suggest that
+you thoroughly reconnoitre the ground before beginning this campaign,
+for, my dear fellow, I tell you frankly, I believe Cupid has already
+declared himself sworn ally of a certain young minister, who entered,
+and enjoys pre-emption right over what amount of heart may have thus
+far been developed in the girl. In addition she is too young, not yet
+sixteen, and I rigidly interdict all love passages; besides her
+parentage is to some extent a secret; she has no fortune but her
+face; and you are poor in all save hope and social standing.
+_Verbum_, etc., etc."
+
+Walking to the window, where he stood with his countenance averted,
+Mr. Roscoe said hesitatingly:
+
+"I would rather my weakness had been discovered by the whole world
+than that you should know it; you, who never having indulged such
+emotions, regard them as the height of folly. I am aware that at this
+moment you think me an idiot."
+
+"Not necessarily. A known weakness thoroughly conquered sometimes
+becomes an element of additional strength in human character. As the
+exercise of muscle builds up physical vigour, so the persistent
+exertion of will develops mental and moral power. Men who have a
+paramount aim in life should never hesitate in strangling all
+irrelevant and inferior appellants for sympathy. A comparatively
+briefless attorney should trample out as he would an invading worm
+the temptation to dream rose-coloured visions, wherein bows, arrows,
+and bleeding hearts are thick and plentiful as gooseberries. Love in
+a cottage with honeysuckle on the porch, and no provisions in the
+larder, belongs to the age of fables, is as dead as feudal tenure."
+
+"That you are quite incapable of such impolitic weakness, I am well
+aware; for under the heel of your iron will your heart would not even
+struggle. But unfortunately I am an impulsive, foolish, human Roscoe,
+not a systematically organized, well-regulated, and unerring Palma."
+His cousin bowed complacently.
+
+"Be kind enough to hand me the cigars. This is defective; will not
+smoke."
+
+He leisurely lighted one, and resumed: "While on the cars to-day I
+read an article which contained a passage to this effect, and I offer
+it for your future reflection: 'That man, I think, has had a liberal
+education, who has been so trained in his youth, that his body is the
+ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the
+work that as a mechanism it is capable of; whose intellect is a
+clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength and
+in smooth working order; ready like a steam-engine to be turned to
+their kind of work.' Elliott, young gentlemen should put their hearts
+in their pockets, until they fully decide before what shrine it would
+be most remunerative to offer them. The last time we dined at Judge
+Van Zandt's, certainly not more than three months ago, you were all
+devotion to his second daughter, Clara of the ruby lips and _cèdre_
+hair."
+
+"Clara Van Zandt, no thank you! I would not give Regina's pure face
+and sweet violet eyes for all the other feminine flesh in New York!"
+
+Had his attention been fixed just then upon Mr. Palma, he might have
+detected the sudden flash in his black eyes, and the nervous
+clenching of his right hand that rested on the arm of the chair; but
+the younger man was absorbed by his own emotions, and very soon his
+cousin rose.
+
+"In future we will not discuss this folly. At present, please
+recollect that my ward's face has not yet been offered in the
+matrimonial market; consequently your bid is premature. Those papers
+I spoke of must be prepared as early as possible in the morning, and
+submitted to me for revision. Be careful in copying the record. Have
+a cigar? I shall not be back before dark."
+
+The happiest hours Regina had known during her residence in New York
+had been spent in the room where she now sat; a basement room with
+low ceiling, and faded olive-tinted walls. The furniture was limited
+to an old-fashioned square table of mahogany, rich with that colour
+which comes only from the mellowing touch of age, and polished until
+it reflected the goblet of white and crimson phlox, which Regina had
+placed in the centre; a few chairs, some swinging shelves filled with
+books, and a couch or lounge covered with pink and white chintz,
+whereon lay a pillow with a freshly ironed linen case, whose ruffled
+edges were crisply fluted.
+
+Upon the whitewashed hearth were several earthen pots, filled with
+odorous geraniums; and over the two windows that opened on a narrow
+border of ground between the house wall and the street were carefully
+trained a solanum jasminoides white with waxen stars, and an
+abutilor, whose orange bells striped and veined with scarlet, swung
+in every breath of air that fluttered the spotless white cotton
+curtains, so daintily trimmed with a calico border of rose-coloured
+convolvulus. In the morning when the sun shone hot upon the front of
+the building, this room was very bright and cheerful, but its
+afternoon aspect was dim, cool, shadowy. A gentle breeze now floated
+across a bunch of claret-hued carnations growing in a wooden box on
+the window-sill, which was on a level with the ground outside, and
+brought on its waves that subtle spiciness that dwells only in the
+deep heart of pinks.
+
+In an old-fashioned maplewood rocking chair sat Mrs. Mason, with her
+wasted and almost transparent hands resting on her open Bible. The
+faded face which in early years had boasted of unusual comeliness,
+bore traces of severe sorrows meekly borne; and the patient sweetness
+that sat on the lip, and smiled serenely in the mild grey eyes,
+invested it with that irresistible charm that occasionally renders
+ripe old age more attractive than flushing dimpled youth. Her hair,
+originally pale brown, was as snow-white as the tarlatan cap that now
+framed it in a crimped border; and her lustreless black dress was
+relieved at the neck and wrists by ruffles of the same material.
+
+On the Bible lay her spectacles, and upon the third finger of the
+left hand was a gold ring, worn so thin that it was a mere glittering
+thread.
+
+Near her sat Regina, playing with a large white and yellow cat that
+now and then sprang to catch a spray of lemon-scented geranium, which
+was swung teasingly just beyond the reach of her velvet paws.
+
+"I am glad, my dear, to hear you speak so kindly of the members of
+your guardian's family. I have never yet seen that person who had not
+some redeeming trait. Many years ago, I knew Louise Neville very
+well. She was then the handsome happy bride of a young naval officer,
+who was soon after drowned in the Bay of Biscay; before the birth of
+their only child, Olga. At first Louise seemed heart-broken by the
+loss of her husband, but not more than two years afterward she
+married Mr. Godwin Palma, who was reputed very wealthy. I have not
+seen her since Olga was a child, but have heard that her second
+husband was an exceedingly stem, exacting man; treating her with far
+less tenderness than she received from poor Leo Neville, who was
+certainly very fond of her. Mr. Godwin Palma died suddenly one day,
+while riding down in his carriage to his office on Wall Street, but
+he had made a will only a few weeks previous, in which he bequeathed
+all his fortune--except a small annuity to Louise--to his son Erle,
+whose own mother had possessed a handsome estate. Louise contested
+the will, but the court sustained it; and I have heard that Mr. Erle
+Palma has always treated her with marked kindness and respect, and
+that he provides liberally for her and Olga. Louise is a proud,
+ambitious woman, fond of pomp and splendour; but in those tastes she
+was educated, and I always liked her, valued her kindness of heart,
+and strict integrity of purpose."
+
+"You do not know my guardian?"
+
+"I never met him till the day he brought you first to see me, and I
+was surprised to find him so comparatively young a man, for he is
+rapidly building up a very enviable reputation in his profession. He
+has been quite generous in his treatment of some  relatives, who were
+at one time much reduced. His father's sister, Julia Palma, married a
+dissipated young physician named Roscoe, and your guardian has almost
+entirely educated one of the boys; sent him to college, and then took
+him into his law-office, besides assisting in the maintenance of Mrs.
+Roscoe, who died about three years ago. Regina, I had a letter from
+Elise Lindsay since you were here. She sends kindest messages of love
+to you, and says you must not allow new friends to supplant old ones.
+She mentioned also that the climate of India did not seem very
+desirable for Douglass, who has been quite sick more than once since
+his settlement in Rohilcund. I am glad that Elise has gone to
+Douglass, for his father died of consumption, and I always feared he
+might have inherited the tendency, though his constitution seems
+tolerably good. After Peyton's death, she had nothing to keep her
+from her noble boy. God grant that India may never prove as fatal to
+all her earthly hopes as it has been to mine."
+
+A spasm of pain made her gentle patient face quiver, and Regina
+remembered that Mrs. Mason's only daughter had married a gentleman
+connected with the English Board of Missions, and with her husband
+and babe perished in the Sepoy butchery.
+
+Dropping the fragrant geranium sprig that so tormented the cat, the
+girl's fingers interlaced tightly, and she asked almost under her
+breath:
+
+"Is Mr. Lindsay's health seriously impaired?"
+
+"I hope not Elise merely said he had had two severe attacks of
+pneumonia, and it rendered her anxious. No man of his age ranks
+higher in the ministry than Douglass Lindsay, and as an Oriental
+scholar I am told he has few equals in this country. His death would
+be a great loss to his church, and----"
+
+"Oh, do not speak of it! How can you? It would kill his mother,"
+cried Regina, passionately, clasping her hands across her eyes, as if
+to shut out some horrible vision.
+
+"Let us pray God to mercifully avert such a heavy blow. But, my dear,
+keep this in mind: with terrible bereavement comes the strength to
+bear it. The strength of endurance,--a strength born only in the
+darkest hours of a soul's anguish; and at last when affliction has
+done its worst, and all earthly hope is dead, patience with tender
+grace and gentle healing mutely sits down in hope's vacant place.
+To-day I found a passage in a new book that impressed me as
+beautiful, strong, and true. Would you like to hear it?"
+
+"If it will teach me patience, please let me hear it."
+
+"Give me the book lying on the lounge."
+
+She opened it, put on her spectacles, and read:
+
+"There is the peace of surrendered, as well as of fulfilled,
+hopes,--the peace, not of satisfied, but of extinguished
+longings,--the peace, not of the happy love and the secure fireside,
+but of unmurmuring and accepted loneliness,--the peace, not of the
+heart which lives in joyful serenity afar from trouble and from
+strife, but of the heart whose conflicts are over, and whose hopes
+are buried,--the peace of the passionless as well as the peace of the
+happy;--not the peace which brooded over Eden, but that which crowned
+Gethsemane.'"
+
+"My dear Regina, only religion brings this blessed calm; this is
+indeed that promised 'Peace that passeth all understanding,' and
+therefore we would all do well to heed the words of Isaiah: 'Their
+strength is to sit still.'"
+
+Looking reverently up at her pale, worn placid face, the girl thought
+it might have been considered a psalm of renunciation. Almost
+sorrowfully she answered:
+
+"I begin to see that there is far more shadow than sunshine in this
+world; the night is longer than the day."
+
+"You are too young to realize such solemn things, and should
+endeavour to catch all the dew of life that glistens within your
+reach; for the withering heat of the noon will come soon enough to
+even the most favoured. An erroneous impression has too long
+prevailed, that religious fervour, and a cheerful, hopeful, happy
+spirit are incompatible; that devoutness manifests itself in a
+lugubrious or at least solemn visage, and that a joyous mirthful
+temperament is closely allied to 'the world, the flesh, and the
+devil.' A more mischievous fallacy never found favour. Innocent
+happiness in our hearts is acceptable worship to our God, who has
+given us the language of joy, as He gave to birds the power of song.
+In the universal canticle which nature sends up to its Creator, shall
+humanity, the noblest of the marvellous mechanism, alone be silent?
+The innocent joyousness of a pure heart is better than incense swung
+in the temples of the Lord."
+
+"Mrs. Mason, I wish to consult you on a subject that has given me
+some anxiety. Would you approve of my attending the theatre and
+opera? I have never yet gone, because I think neither Mr. Hargrove
+nor Mr. Lindsay would have advised me to do so; and I am perplexed
+about the matter, for Mr. Palma says that next winter he shall insist
+on my seeing the best plays and operas. What ought I to do?"
+
+"If you were a member of any church, which expressly prohibited such
+amusements, I should say, do not infringe the rules which you
+voluntarily promised to respect and obey; but as yet you have taken
+no ecclesiastical vows. Habitual attendance upon such scenes as you
+refer to is very apt, I think, to vitiate the healthful tone of one's
+thoughts and feelings, but an occasional visit would probably injure
+none but very weak minds. Your guardian is, I daresay, a prudent
+judicious man, and would be careful in selecting plays that could
+offend neither morality nor delicacy. There are many things upon the
+stage which are sinful, vicious, and vulgar, but there are hundreds
+of books quite as bad and dangerous. As we choose only the best
+volumes to read, so be sure to select only pure plays and operas.
+'Lear' would teach you the awful results of filial disobedience;
+'Merchant of Venice,' the sin of avarice; 'Julius Cæsar' that of
+unsanctified ambition. There are threads of wisdom, patience,
+charity, and heroism which might be gathered from the dramatic
+spindle, and woven advantageously into the garment of our daily lives
+and thoughts. There is a marvellous pathos, fervour, sanctity, in the
+'Casta Diva' of 'Norma' that appeals to my soul, as scarcely any
+other piece of music ever has done; and I really should be glad to
+hear it played on the organ every Sunday morning. Why? Because I
+recognize in it the spirit of prayer from a tortured erring human
+soul invoking celestial aid, and to me it is no longer a pagan Druid
+song, trilled by the popular Prima-Donna at the Academy of Music, but
+a hymn to the Heavenly powers, as consecrated as an _Ave Maria_, or
+as Rossini's  'Inflammatus.' Are we lower than the bees, who wisely
+discriminate between pure honey and poisonous sweets? Touching these
+things, Lowell has nobly set us an example of
+
+          'Pleading for whatsoever touches life
+           With upward impulse: be He nowhere else,
+           God is in all that liberates and lifts,
+           In all that humbles, sweetens, and consoles,'
+
+I think that in the matters you mention, you may safely defer to your
+guardian's wishes, bearing always in mind this fact, that he
+professes no religious faith; and praying God's Holy Spirit to guide
+you, and keep your heart faithful and pure."
+
+Regina longed to ask something more explicit concerning the stage,
+but the thought of her mother peremptorily forbade a discussion that
+seemed to imply censure of her profession.
+
+"There is the bell for service. Are you not going to church this
+afternoon?"
+
+"No, dear, I am not very well; and besides, I promised to stay at
+home, and see a poor old friend, who has no time to visit during the
+week, and is just now in great affliction. You are not afraid to go
+alone?"
+
+"Not afraid, Mrs. Mason, still I wish you could go with me. When you
+answer dear Mrs. Lindsay's letter ask her not to forget me, and tell
+her I am trying to do right in all things, as far as I can see my
+way. Good-bye, Mrs. Mason."
+
+She bent her head, so that the faded placid lips could kiss her
+cheek, and went out into the quiet street.
+
+Instead of turning homeward, she hastened in an opposite direction,
+toward a small brick church whose bell was ringing, and whose
+afternoon service she had several times attended with Mrs. Mason.
+Walking more slowly as she approached the building, she had not yet
+reached it, when steps which she had heard behind her for several
+minutes, paused at her side.
+
+"Regina, is this the way home?"
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Palma. I am going to church."
+
+Although he had been absent a week he did not even offer his hand,
+and it never occurred to her to remind him of the omission.
+
+"Are you in the habit of coming here alone? If so, your visits to
+this neighbourhood cease."
+
+"Mrs. Mason has always accompanied me until this after noon, and as
+she could not leave home I came alone."
+
+"I prefer you should not attend strange churches without a companion,
+and now I will see you safely home."
+
+She looked up, saw a few persons ascending the broad steps, and her
+soul rose in rebellion;
+
+"What possible harm can overtake me in God's house? Don't try to
+stand between me and my duty."
+
+"Do you not consider obedience to my wishes part of your duty?"
+
+"Sometimes, sir; but not when it conflicts with my conscience."
+
+"What is conscience?"
+
+"The feeling God put into my soul when He gave it to me, to teach me
+right from wrong."
+
+"Is it? And if you were a Calmuck or a Mongol, it would teach you to
+reverence Shigemooni as the highest god; and bid you fall down and
+worship Dalai-lama, praying him to give you a pill of consecrated
+dough."
+
+"You mean that conscience is merely education? Even if it should be
+so--which is not true, I think--the Bible says 'the heathen are a law
+unto themselves,' and God knows they worship the best they can find
+until revelation shows them their error. But I do not live in Lassa,
+and my going to church here, is not akin to Lamaism. Nothing will
+happen to me, and I assure you, sir, I will come home as soon as the
+service is over."
+
+"Is your eternal salvation dependent on church going?"
+
+"I don't know, I rather think not; because if it were impossible for
+me to attend service the Lord would know it, and He only requires
+what He makes possible. But at least you must admit it cannot harm
+me; and I enjoy coming to this church more than any I have seen since
+I left our own dear old one at V----."
+
+"It is a small, very plain affair, in no respect comparable to St.
+Thomas's Church, where Mrs. Palma takes you every Sunday morning.
+Where you not there to-day?"
+
+"Yes, sir; but----"
+
+"But--what? Speak out."
+"Perhaps I ought not to say so,--and it may be partly my fault, but
+indeed there seems to me more real religion in this plain little
+chapel, at least it does me more good to come here."
+
+"For instance, it incites and helps you defy your guardian on the
+street!"
+
+Until now she had resolutely kept her face set churchward, but as he
+uttered the last words in a severer tone than he often used in
+conversation with her, she turned quite around and retraced her
+steps.
+
+Walking beside her, he could only see the long soft lashes of her
+downcast eyes, and the firm compression of her mouth.
+
+"Little girl, are you very angry?"
+
+She looked up quickly into his brilliant smiling eyes, and her cheek
+dimpled.
+
+"Mr. Palma, I wanted so very much to go, and I do feel disappointed;
+but not angry."
+
+"Then why do you not ask me to go with you?"
+
+"You go there? Is it possible that you would ever do such a thing?
+Really would you go, sir?"
+
+"Try me."
+
+"Please Mr. Palma, go with me."
+
+He raised his hat, bowed, and said:
+
+"I will."
+
+"Oh, thank you!"
+
+They turned and walked back in silence until they reached the door,
+and he asked:
+
+"Are the pews free?"
+
+"Yes, sir; but Mrs. Mason and I generally sit yonder by that column."
+
+"Very well, you must pilot me."
+
+She turned into the side aisle next the windows, and they seated
+themselves in a pew just beyond the projection of the choir gallery.
+
+The edifice was small, but the altar and pulpit were handsome, and
+though the windows were unstained, the light was mellowed by buff
+inside blinds. The seats were by no means filled, and the
+congregation was composed of people whose appearance denoted that
+many belonged to the labouring class, and none to the Brahmin caste
+of millionnaires, though all were neatly and genteely apparelled.
+
+As the silver-haired pastor entered the pulpit the organ began to
+throb in a low prelude, and four gentlemen bore shallow waiters
+through the assemblage, to receive the contribution for the
+"Destitute." Mr. Palma saw his companion take something from her
+glove, and when the waiter reached them and she put in her small
+alms, which he judged amounted to twenty-five cents, he slipped his
+fingers in his vest pocket and dropped a bill on the plate.
+
+"Is all that huge sum going to India to the missionaries?" he
+gravely whispered.
+
+"It is to feed the poor of this church."
+
+As the organ swelled fuller and louder, Mr. Palma saw Regina start,
+and listen intently; then the choir begin to sing, and she turned
+very pale and shut her eyes. He could discover nothing remarkable in
+the music,--"Oh that I had wings!" but as it progressed the girl's
+emotion increased, became almost uncontrollable, and through the
+closed lids the tears forced themselves rapidly, while she trembled
+visibly, and seemed trying to swallow her sobs.
+
+He moved closer to her, and the blue eyes opened and looked at him
+with such pleading deprecating misery in their beautiful depths, that
+he was touched, and involuntarily laid his ungloved hand on her
+little bare fingers. Instantly they closed around it, twining like
+soft tendrils about his, and unconsciously his clasp tightened.
+
+All through the singing her tears fell unchecked, sliding over her
+cheeks and upon her white dress, and when the congregation knelt in
+prayer, Mr. Palma only leaned his head on the back of the pew in
+front, and watched the figure bowed on her knees, close beside him,
+crying silently, with her face in her hands.
+
+When the prayer ended and the minister announced the hymn, she seemed
+to have recovered her composure, and finding the page, offered her
+pretty gilt hymn-book to her guardian. He accepted it mechanically,
+and during the reading of the Scriptures that soon followed he slowly
+turned over the leaves until he reached the title-page. On the
+fly-leaf that fluttered over was written: "Regina Orme. With the love
+and prayers of Douglass Lindsay."
+
+Closing the book, he laid it in his lap, leaned back and folded his
+arms over his chest.
+
+The preacher read the sixty-third Psalm, and from it selected his
+text: "My soul followeth hard after Thee."
+
+Although certainly not a modern Chrysostom, he was an earnest,
+faithful, and enlightened man, full of persuasive fervour; and to the
+brief but interesting discourse he delivered--a discourse
+occasionally sprinkled with felicitous metaphors and rounded with
+several eloquent passages--Mr. Palma appeared to listen quite
+attentively. Once a half smile moved his mouth, as he wondered what
+his associates at the "Century" would think, if they could look in
+upon him there; otherwise his deportment was most gravely decorous.
+As he heard the monotonous rise and fall of the minister's tone, the
+words soon ceased to bear any meaning to ears that gradually caught
+other cadences long hushed; the voice of memory calling him from afar
+off, back to the dewy days of his early boyhood, when walking by his
+mother's side he had gone to church, and held her book as he now held
+Regina's. Since then, how many changes time had wrought! How holy
+seemed that distant, dim, church-going season!
+
+At long intervals, and upon especially august occasions he had now
+and then attended service in the elegant church where his pew-rent
+was regularly paid; but not until to-day had he been attacked by the
+swarming reminiscences of his childhood, all eagerly babbling of the
+long-forgotten things once learned--
+
+           "At that best academe, a mother's knee."
+
+From the benignant countenance of the earnest preacher his keen cold
+eyes began to wander, and after awhile rested upon the pale tender
+face at his side.
+
+Except that the lashes were heavy with moisture that no longer
+overflowed in drops, there was no trace of the shower that had
+fallen; for hers was one of those rare countenances, no more
+disfigured by weeping, than the pictured _Mater Dolorosa_ by the tear
+on her cheek.
+
+To-day in the subdued sadness that filled her heart, while she
+pondered the depressing news from India, her face seemed
+etherealized, singularly sublimated; and as he watched the expression
+of child-like innocence, the delicate tracery of nose and brows, the
+transparent purity of the complexion, and the unfathomable purplish
+blue of the eyes uplifted to the pulpit, a strange thrill never
+experienced before stirred his cold stony heart, and quickened the
+beat of his quiet, slow steady pulse.
+
+He had smiled and bowed before lovely women of various and bewitching
+types of beauty, had his abstract speculative ideal of feminine
+perfection, and had been feted, flattered, coaxed, baited, and
+welcomed to many shrines, whereon grace, wit, and wealth had lavished
+their choicest charms; but the carefully watched and well-regulated
+valvular machine he was pleased to designate his heart, had never as
+yet experienced a warmer sensation than that of mere critical
+admiration for classic contours, symmetrical figures, or voluptuous
+Paul Veronese colouring.
+
+Once only, early in his professional career, he had coolly,
+dispassionately, sordidly, and with a hand as firm as Astræa's own,
+held the matrimonial scales, and weighed the influence and preferment
+that he could command by a politic and brilliant marriage, against
+the advantages of freedom, and the glory of unassisted success and
+advancement. For the lady herself--a bright, mirthful, pretty
+brunette, who in contrast with his frigid nature seemed a gaudy
+tropical bird fluttering around a stolid arctic auk--he had not even
+a shadow of affection; and looked quite beyond the graceful lay
+figure draped with his name to the lofty judicial eminence where her
+distinguished father held sway, and could rapidly elevate him.
+
+No softer emotion than ambition had suggested the thought, and after
+a patient balancing of the opposing weights of selfishness, he had
+utterly thrown aside the thought of entangling himself in any
+Hymeneal snares.
+
+Probably few men have attained his age without having breathed vows
+of love into some rosy ear; but his colossal professional pride and
+vanity had absolutely absorbed him--left him neither room nor time
+for other and softer sentiments.
+
+The numerous attempts to entrap his dim chilly affections had
+somewhat lowered his estimate of female delicacy; and possessing the
+flattering assurance that no fair hand was held too high for his
+grasp, should he choose to claim it, he had grown rather arrogant. Of
+coquetry he was entirely innocent; it seemed too contemptible even
+for mere sport, and he scorned the thought of feeding his vanity by
+feminine sacrifices.
+
+Too sternly proud to owe success to any but his own will and
+resolution, he had never proposed or even desired to marry any woman;
+and was generally regarded as a hopelessly icy bachelor, whom all
+welcomed with smiles, but despaired of captivating.
+
+After forty years' sole undisputed mastery of his heart, something
+suddenly and unexpectedly wakened there, groped about, would not
+"down" at his bidding; and a new sensation made itself felt.
+
+A brief sentence of Elliott Roscoe had like Moses' rod smitten the
+rock of his affections, and forthwith gushed a flood of riotous
+feelings never known before. At the thought of any man claiming
+Regina's perfect dainty lips and peerless imperial eyes a hot wave of
+indignant protest rolled over his whole being. That she should belong
+to another now seemed monstrous, sacrilegious, and all the strength
+of his own nature rose in mutiny.
+
+Never until to-day had he analyzed his sentiments toward his ward,
+never had he deemed it possible for his wisely disciplined heart to
+bow before anything of flesh; but now, as he sat looking at the sweet
+face, he saw that rebellion desperate and uncompromising had broken
+out in his rigidly governed, long downtrodden nature, and with the
+prompt vigilance habitual to him he calmly counted the cost of
+crushing the insurrection.
+
+Shading his countenance with his fingers he deliberately studied her
+features, even the modelling of the waxen hands folded together on
+her knee; and then and there, weighing all his achievements, all his
+pictured future, so dazzling with coveted ermine, he honestly
+confessed to his own soul that the universe held for him nothing so
+precious as that fair pure young girl.
+
+How superlatively presumptuous appeared Elliott Roscoe's avowed
+admiration and preference! How dared that humble impecunious divinity
+student now sojourning in the "Land of the Veda," lift his eyes
+toward this priceless treasure, which Erle Palma wanted to call his
+own!
+
+Just then Regina took her hymn-book to search for the closing verses
+designated by the minister, and as she opened the volume the
+inscription on the fly-leaf showed conspicuously. The lawyer set his
+teeth, and the fingers of his right hand opened, then closed hard and
+tight, a gesture in which he often unconsciously indulged when
+resolving on some future step.
+
+The benediction was pronounced, and the congregation dispersed.
+
+Walking silently beside her guardian, until they had proceeded some
+distance from the church, Regina wondered how she should interpret
+the grave preoccupied expression of his countenance. Had he been
+sadly bored, and did he repent the sacrifice made to gratify her
+caprice?
+
+"Mr. Palma, I am very much obliged to you for kindly consenting to
+accompany me. Of course I know this church and service must seem
+dull and plain in comparison with that to which you are accustomed,
+but I hope you liked Mr. Kelsey's sermon?"
+
+"In some respects this afternoon has been a revelation, and I am sure
+I shall never forget the occasion."
+
+"Oh! I am so glad you enjoyed going," she said, with evident relief.
+
+"I did not intend to convey that impression; you infer more than my
+words warrant. I was thinking of other and quite irrelevant matters,
+and to be frank, really did not listen to the sermon. Do you attend
+church from a conviction that penance conduces to a sanitary
+improvement of the soul?"
+
+"Penance? I do not exactly understand you, sir."
+
+"I certainly have never seen you weep so bitterly; not even when I
+ruthlessly tore you from the kind sheltering arms of Mother Aloysius
+and Sister Angela. You appeared quite heartbroken. Was it contrition
+for your manifold transgressions?"
+
+"Oh no, sir!"
+
+"You are resolved not to appoint me your confessor?"
+
+"Mr. Palma----" her voice faltered.
+
+"Well, go on."
+
+"I was very much distressed; it made my heart ache."
+
+"So I perceived. But was it the bare church, or the minister, or my
+ward's sensitive conscience?"
+
+After a moment she lifted her misty eyes to meet his, and answered
+tremulously:
+
+"It was the singing of 'Oh that I had wings!' I have not heard it
+since that dreadful time I sang it last, and you can't possibly
+understand my feelings."
+
+"Certainly not, unless you deign to explain the circumstances."
+
+"Dear Mr. Hargrove asked me to go in and play on the organ in the
+library, and sing that sacred song for him. I sang it, and played for
+awhile on the organ, and then went back to him on the verandah, and
+he had died--alone, in his chair, while I was singing 'Oh that I had
+wings!' To-day, when the choir began it, everything came back so
+vividly to me. The dear happy home at the parsonage, the supper I had
+set for my dear Mr. Hargrove, the flowers in the garden, the smell of
+the carnations, the sound of the ring-doves in the vines, the
+moonlight shining so softly on his kind face and white hair--and
+Oh!----"
+
+They walked the length of two squares before either spoke again.
+
+"I was not aware that you performed on the organ."
+
+"Mrs. Lindsay gave me lessons, and I used the cabinet organ."
+
+"Do you prefer it to the piano?"
+
+"For sacred songs, I do."
+
+"If we had one in the library, do you suppose you would ever sing for
+me?"
+
+"If you really desired it, perhaps I would try; but of course I know
+very well that you care nothing for my music; and our dear old hymns
+and chants would only tire and annoy you."
+
+"To whom does 'our' refer?"
+
+"My dear Mr. Hargrove and Mrs. Lindsay and her son. We so often sang
+quartettes at home in the long, delicious, peaceful summer evenings,
+before the awful affliction came and separated us."
+
+The lamps were lighted, and night closed in, with silvery
+constellations overhead, before Mr. Palma and his companion were near
+their destination. As they crossed a street, he said, abruptly
+breaking a long silence:
+
+"Take my arm."
+
+Never before had such a courtesy been tendered, and she looked up in
+unfeigned surprise.
+
+He was so tall, so stately, that the proposition seemed to her
+preposterous.
+
+"Can't you reach it?"
+
+He took her hand, drew it beneath, and placed the fingers on his arm.
+
+"Of late you have grown so rapidly, your head is almost on a level
+with my shoulder; and you are quite tall enough now to accept my
+escort."
+
+When they were within a square of home, Mr. Palma said very gravely:
+
+"This afternoon I indulged one of your whims: now will you
+recipricate, and gratify a caprice of your guardian?"
+
+"Have you caprices? I think not but I will oblige you if I can do
+so."
+
+"Thank you. In future you must never walk to see Mrs. Mason, always
+go in the carriage; and I am unwilling that you should be out as late
+as this, unless Mrs. Palma accompanies you, or I am with you. You
+need not ask my reasons; it is sufficient that I wish it, and it is
+my caprice to be obeyed without questions. One thing more: I do not
+at all like your name--never did. Latinity is not one of my
+predilections, and _Regina, Reginae, Reginam_, wearily remind me of
+the classic-slough of declensions and conjugations of my Livy,
+Sallust, Tacitus. In my mind you have always been associated with the
+white lilies that you held at the convent the first time I saw you,
+that you held to your heart while asleep on the cars; and hereafter
+when only you and I are present, I intend to indulge the caprice of
+calling my ward--Lily."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+"Yonder they come! They have just left the carriage, and as usual she
+is escorted by her body-guard; those grim old fogies, who watch her
+like a pair of grey owls. Now, Doctor, you must contrive an
+introduction."
+
+General René Laurance raised his gold eyeglass, and looked curiously
+toward a group of three persons who were walking amid the ruins of
+Pozzuoli.
+
+His companion Dr. Plymley, who was examining an inscription, turned
+around and looked in the direction indicated.
+
+"Are you sure? I am quite near-sighted."
+
+"Very sure, for no other figure could be mistaken for hers. By all
+the gods ever worshipped here, she is the loveliest woman I ever saw,
+but as coy as a maid of fifteen. The fact that she secludes herself
+so rigidly only stimulates curiosity, and I have sworn a solemn oath
+to make her acquaintance; for it is something novel in my experience
+to have my overtures rejected, my courtesies ignored."
+
+"Come this way, General. This encounter must appear purely
+accidental, for Madame Orme is very peculiar, very suspicious; and if
+she imagines we planned this excursion to meet her, or left Naples
+with the intention of joining her party, the chances are that I as
+well as you would be snubbed. In her desire to avoid society and
+personal attention, one might suppose her an escaped abbess from some
+convent, instead of a popular actress. It was with much difficulty
+that I prevailed on her to receive my son and wife one afternoon; as
+she remarked that her object in coming here was to secure health, not
+acquaintances. In treating her professionally, I was called upon to
+prescribe for what in her case is more than ordinary sleeplessness,
+is veritably _pervigilium_; and when she refused opiates, I asked if
+there were not some trouble weighing upon her mind which prevented
+her from sleeping. Her reply was singular: 'Many years have passed
+since I became a widow and was forced to leave my only child in
+America, and the power of sound healthy sleep has deserted me.' Even
+in Naples her beauty attracts attention wherever she is seen."
+
+"Certainly I am not a tyro in these matters, and have probably had as
+much experience as any other man of my years and well improved
+opportunities, and you can form an estimate of my appreciation of her
+charms, when I tell you I have followed her since the night I first
+saw her on the stage at Milan. I see your wife beckoning us to join
+her."
+
+Although sixty-five years old, General Laurance carried himself as
+erectly as the son he left in Paris, and his proud bearing and
+handsome face seemed to contradict the record of years that had
+passed so lightly over him. A profusion of silver threads streaked
+the black locks that scorned all artificial colouring, and his
+moustache and beard were quite grizzled; but as he stood tracing
+triangles on the sand with the point of his light cane, and pushed
+back the hat from his heated brow, no one unacquainted with his
+history would have deemed him more than fifty: a man of distinguished
+appearance, commanding stature, with rather haughty, martial mien,
+healthful ruddy complexion, and sparkling blue eyes keen and
+incisive.
+
+From boyhood self had been his openly and devoutly worshipped god,
+and upon its altars conscience had long ago been securely bound and
+silenced. Pride of family, love of pomp, power, and luxury, and an
+inordinate personal vanity were the predominating characteristics of
+a man, who indulged his inclinations, no matter how devious the paths
+into which they strayed, nor how mercilessly obstacles must be
+tramped down, in order to facilitate the accomplishment of his
+purposes. Naturally neither cruel nor vindictive, he had gradually
+grown pitiless in all that conduced to self-aggrandizement or
+self-indulgence; incapable of a generosity that involved even slight
+sacrifice, a polished handsome epicurean, an experienced man of the
+world, putting aside all scruples in the attainment of his selfish
+aims.
+
+From wholly politic motives, and in order to extend his estates and
+increase his revenue, he had married early in life, and his
+affection, never bestowed upon his wife, had centred in their only
+child Cuthbert. When death removed the unloved mother, freedom was
+joyfully welcomed, and the memory of his neglected bride rarely
+visited the heart, which was not invulnerable to grace and beauty.
+
+The consummation of an alliance between his son and Abbie Ames, the
+banker's daughter, had cost him much manoeuvring and tedious
+diplomacy, for like his father, Cuthbert was fastidious in his
+tastes, and an ardent devotee to female beauty; but when finally
+accomplished, General Laurance considered his paternal obligations
+fully discharged, and henceforth roamed from city to city, sipping
+such enjoyment as money, aristocratic status, urbane manners, and a
+heritage of well-preserved good looks enabled him to taste at will.
+
+Six months before, he had first seen Madame Orme as "Deborah," in
+Mosenthal's popular drama, and, charmed by her face and figure, had
+attempted to make her acquaintance. But his floral offerings had been
+rejected, his jewels and notes returned, his presentation refused,
+his visits interdicted; and as usually occurs in natures like his,
+opposition to his wishes intensified them, cold indifference and
+denial only deepened and strengthened his determination to crush all
+barriers. His pride was wounded, his vanity sorely piqued, and to
+compel her acknowledgment of his power, her submission to his sway,
+became for the while his special aim, his paramount purpose. Hence
+he loitered at Naples, seeking occasions, lying in wait for an
+opportunity to open a campaign that promised him new triumphs.
+
+Dr. Plymley was an English physician travelling with an invalid wife
+and consumptive son, and having been consulted by Mrs. Orme on
+several occasions in Milan, had at length been prevailed upon by
+General Laurance to arrange an apparently casual introduction.
+
+It was a cloudless spring day, and leaving Mr. and Mrs. Waul to read
+a package of American papers, Mrs. Orme walked away toward the lonely
+outlines of the Serapeon.
+
+The delicious balmy atmosphere, the interest of the objects that
+lined the drive from Naples, and the exercise of wandering from point
+to point had brought a delicate glow to her cheeks, and a brighter
+carmine to her lips; and beneath the white chip hat, with its wreath
+of clustering pink convolvulus lying on her golden hair, the lovely
+face seemed almost unsurpassed in its witchery.
+
+She wore a sea-green dress of some soft fabric that floated in the
+wind as she moved, and over her shoulders was wound a white fleecy
+mantle fastened at the throat by a costly green cameo, which also
+secured a spray of lemon flowers that lavished their fragrance on the
+bright warm air. Closing her parasol, she walked down to the ruined
+Temple, and approached the wonderful cipollino columns that bear such
+mysterious attestation of the mutations of land and sea, of time and
+human religions. Since the days of Agrippina and Julia, had a fairer
+prouder face shone under the hoary marble shafts, and mirrored itself
+in the marvellous mosaic floor, than that which now looked calmly
+down on the placid water flowing so silently over the costly
+pavements, where sovereigns once reverently trod?
+
+In imagination she beheld the vast throng of worshippers, who two
+thousand years ago had filled the magnificent court, where the sun
+was now shining unimpeded; and above the low musical babble of
+wavelets breaking upon the chiselled marbles, rose the hum of the
+generations sleeping to-day in the columbaria, and the chant of the
+priests before the statue of Serapis, which sacrilegious hands had
+borne away from his ancient throne. Were the blue caverns of the
+Mediterranean not deep enough to entomb these colossal relics of that
+dim vast Past, whose feebly ebbing tide still drifts so mournfully,
+so solemnly, so mysteriously upon our listening souls? Did
+compassionate Neptune, tenderly guarding the ruins of his own
+desecrated fane, once resonant with votive pæans now echoing only
+sea-born murmurs, refuse sepulture to Serapis, and again and again
+return to the golden light of land the sculptured friezes, that could
+find permanent rest neither upon sea not shore?
+
+To-day the lonely woman, standing amid crumbling cornices and
+architraves, wondered whether the sunken pavement of the Serapeon
+were a melancholy symbol of her own blighted youth, never utterly
+lost to view, often overwhelmed by surging waves of bitterness, hate,
+and despair, but now and then lifted by memory to the light, and
+found as fresh and glowing as in the sacred bygone? To-day buried
+beneath the tide of sorrow, to-morrow shining clear and imperishable?
+
+Gazing out across the sapphire sea that mirrored a cloudless sapphire
+sky, Mrs. Orme's beautiful solemn face seemed almost a part of the
+classic surroundings, a statue of Fate shaken from its ancient niche;
+and the cameo Sappho on her breast was not more faultlessly cut and
+polished than the features that rose above it.
+
+A shadow fell aslant the glassy water through which was visible the
+glint of the submerged pavement, and turning her head, she saw the
+familiar countenance of her quondam physician.
+
+"A glorious day, Dr. Plymley?"
+
+"Glorious indeed, Madame, for a dinner at Baiæ. I hope you are
+feeling quite well, and bright as this delicious sunshine? Mrs. Orme,
+will you allow me the favour of presenting my friend General
+Laurance, who requests the honour of an introduction?"
+
+She had been unaware of the presence of his companion, who was
+concealed from view, and as he stepped forward and took off his hat,
+she drew herself up, and at last they were face to face.
+
+How her brown eyes widened, lightened, and what a sudden whiteness
+fell upon her features, as if June roses had been smitten with snow!
+Holding with both hands the frail fluted ivory handle of her parasol,
+it snapped, and the carved leopard that constituted the head fell
+with a ringing sound upon one of the marble blocks, thence into the
+sluggish water beneath; but her eyes had not moved from his,--seemed
+to hold them, as with some magnetic spell. A radiant smile parted her
+pale lips, and she said in her wonderfully sweet, rich, liquid tones
+which sank into people's ears and hearts, as some mellow old wine
+creeps through the grey cells of the brain, bringing lotos dreams:
+"Is the gentleman before me General René Laurance of America?"
+
+"I am, Madame; and supremely happy in the accident which enables me
+to make an acquaintance so long and earnestly desired. Surely the
+ruins amidst which we meet must be those, not of the Serapeon, but of
+some antique shrine of Good Fortune, and I vow a libation worthy of
+the boon received."
+
+With that unwavering gaze still upon his dark blue eyes, she drew off
+her glove and held out her fair hand, smiling the while, as Circe
+doubtless did before her.
+
+"I am sincerely glad to meet General Laurance, of whom I heard the
+American minister at Paris speak in glowing terms of commendation. I
+believe I Also met a son of General Laurance in Paris? Certainly he
+resembles you most strikingly."
+
+As he received into his own the pretty pearly hand, and bowed low
+over it, he felt agreeably surprised by the cordiality of a reception
+which appeared utterly inconsistent with her stern contemptuous
+rejection of his previous attempts to form her acquaintance; and he
+could not quite reconcile the beaming smile on her lip, and the
+sparkling radiance in her eyes, with the pallor which he saw settle
+swiftly upon her face when his name was first pronounced.
+
+"Ah! My son Cuthbert? Handsome young dog, and like his father, finds
+beauty the most powerful magnet. Where did you meet him?"
+
+"Once only, when he was introduced by our minister, who deputized him
+to deliver to me some custom-house regulations.
+
+"Did you meet Mrs. Laurance?"
+
+"Your wife, sir?"
+
+Annoyance instantaneously clouded his countenance, and Dr. Plymley
+gnawed his lower lip to hide a smile.
+
+"My son's wife. Cuthbert and I are the only survivors of my own
+immediate family."
+
+"If Madame had not so rigidly adhered to her recluse habits, she
+could scarcely have failed to learn from his brilliant campaigns in
+gay society that the General is unfettered by matrimonial bonds, and
+almost as irresistible and popular as his naughty model D'Orsay."
+
+"Madame, Plymley is a traitor, jealously stabbing my spotless
+reputation. I deny the indictment, and appeal to your heavenly
+charity, praying you to believe that I plead guilty only to the
+possession of a heart tenderly vulnerable to the shafts of grace and
+beauty."
+
+The earnestness of his tone and manner was unmistakable, and beneath
+the bold admiration of his fine eyes, the carmine came swiftly back
+to her blanched cheek.
+
+"_Beau monde_ and its fashionable foibles constitute a sealed volume
+to me. My world is apart from that in which General Laurance wins
+myrtle crowns, and wears them so royally."
+
+"When genius like Madame's monopolizes the bay, we less gifted
+mortals must even twine myrtle leaves, or else humbly bow, bare of
+chaplets. But may I ask why you so sternly taboo that social world
+which you are so pre-eminently fitted to grace and adorn? When your
+worshippers are wellnigh frenzied with delight, watching you beyond
+the footlights, you cruelly withdraw behind the impenetrable curtain
+of seclusion; and only at rare intervals allow us tantalizing glimpses
+of you, seated in mocking inaccessibility between those two most
+abominable ancient griffons, whose claws and beaks are ever
+ferociously prominent. When some desperate deluded adorer rashly
+hires a band of Neapolitan experts to stab, and bury that grim pair
+of jailers in the broad deep grave out there, toward Procida, the
+crime of murder will be upon Madame's fair head."
+
+"And if I answer that that fine world you love so well is to me but
+as a grey stone quarry wherein I daily toil, solely for food and
+raiment for my child and myself, what then?"
+
+"Then verily if that be possible, Pygmalion's cold beauty were no
+longer a fable; and I should turn sculptor. Do you not find that here
+in Parthenope you rapidly drift into the classic tide that strands
+you on Paganism?"
+
+"Has it borne you one inch away from the gods of your life-long
+worship?"
+
+As she spoke, she bent slightly forward, and searched his bright
+eyes, as if therein floated his soul.
+
+"Indeed I can answer reverently, with my band upon my heart, Italy
+has given me a new worship, a goddess I never knew before. My
+divinity----"
+
+"Belongs, sir, to the _Dïï Involuti!_ Fortunate provision of fate,
+which leaves us at least liberty to deify, you perhaps family pride,
+Venus, or even avaricious Pluto; I possibly ambition or revenge. We
+all have our veiled gods, shrouded close from curious gaze; 'the
+heart knoweth his own bitterness, and the stranger doth not
+intermeddle with his joy.'"
+
+She had interrupted him with an imperious wave of her hand, and spoke
+through closed teeth, like one tossing down a gage of battle; but the
+brilliant smile still lighted her splendid eyes, and showed the
+curves of her temptingly beautiful mouth.
+
+"Mrs. Orme, my wife and Percy are waiting for me at the amphitheatre,
+and we have an engagement to dine at Baiæ. Can I persuade you to join
+our party? I promise you a delightful visit to the old home of Rome's
+proudest patricians in her palmiest days; and a dinner eaten in
+accordance with General Laurance's suggestion on the site of the
+temple of Venus, or if you prefer, upon that of Diana. Will you not
+contribute the charm of your presence to the pleasure of our
+excursion? Remember I am your physician, and this morning prescribe
+Baiæ air."
+
+"You are very kind, Doctor, but I devote to-day to Avernus, Cumæ, and
+the infernal gods. Next week I shall bask at Baiæ. Gentlemen, I bid
+you good-day, and a pleasant hour over your Falernian."
+
+She turned once more to the mysterious solemn face of that wonderful
+legendary blue bay, and the light died out of her countenance, as in
+a room where the lamps are unexpectedly extinguished. She started
+visibly, when a voice close beside her asked:
+
+"Permit me the pleasure of seeing you to your carriage."
+
+"I am not going just yet. General Laurance should not detain the
+Doctor's party."
+
+"They have a carriage. I am on horseback, and can easily overtake
+them; but if I dared, would beg the privilege of accompanying you,
+instead of drinking sour wine, and smoking poor cigars among the
+ivy-wreathed ruins that await me at Baiæ Ah, may I hope? Be generous,
+banish me not. May I attend you to-day?
+
+"No, sir. Go pay your _devoir_ to friendship and courtesy. I have
+faithful guardians in the two coming yonder to meet me."
+
+She pointed to the heads of Mr. and Mrs. Waul just visible over the
+mass of ruins that intervened, and lifting her handkerchief, waved it
+twice.
+
+"You have established a system of signal service with those antique
+ogres, griffons? Really they resemble crouching cougars, ready to
+spring upon the unwary who dare penetrate to the sacred precincts
+that enclose you. Why do you always travel with that grim body-guard?
+Surely they are not relatives?"
+
+"They are faithful old friends who followed me across the Atlantic,
+who are invaluable, and shield me from impertinent annoyances, to
+which all women of my profession are more or less subjected. The
+world to which you belong sometimes seem disposed to forget that
+beneath and behind the paint and powder, false hair and fine tragic
+airs and costumes they pay to strangle time for them at _San Carlo_,
+or _Teatro de' Fiorentini_ there breathes a genuine human thing; a
+creature with a true, pure, womanly heart beating under the velvet,
+gauze, and tinsel, and with blood that now and then boils under
+unprovoked and dastardly insult. If I were cross-eyed, or had been
+afflicted with small-pox, or were otherwise disfigured, I should not
+require Mr. and Mrs. Waul; but Madame Orme, the lonely widow deprived
+by death of a father's or brother's watchful protection, finds her
+humble companions a valuable barrier against presumption and
+insolence. For instance, when strangers, pleased with my carefully
+practised _jeu de theâtre_, send fulsome notes and costly
+_bijouterie_ to my lodgings, praying in return a lock of my hair or
+a photograph, my griffons, as you facetiously term them, rarely even
+consult me, but generally send back the jewels by the bearer, and
+twist the _billets-doux_ into tapers to light Mr. Waul's pipe.
+Sometimes I see them; often I am saved the trouble of knowing
+anything about the impertinence."
+
+Her voice was sweet and mellow as a Phrygian flute sounding softly on
+moonlight nights through acacia and oleander groves, but the scorn
+burning in her eyes was intolerable, and before it the old man seemed
+to shrink, while a purplish flush swept across his proud face.
+
+"Mrs. Orme is an anomaly among lovely women, and especially among
+popular _tragediennes_, and as I am suffering the consequences of
+that unexpected fact, may I venture, in pleading for pardon, to
+remind her of that grand prayer: '_Be it my will that my mercy
+overpower my justice_.' Will she not nobly forgive errors committed
+in ignorance of the peculiar sensitiveness of her nature, the mimosa
+delicacy of her admirable character?"
+
+Not until this moment had the likeness between father and son shown
+itself so conspicuously, and in the handsome features and
+insinuating, beguiling velvet voice she found sickening resemblances
+that made her heart surge, until she seemed suffocating. Hastily she
+loosened the ribbons of her hat that were tied beneath her chin.
+
+"Is General Laurance pleading abstractly for forgiveness for his vain
+and presumptuous sex?"
+
+"Solely for my own audacious impertinence, which, had I known you,
+would never have been perpetrated. My rejected emeralds accuse me.
+Pardon me, and I will immediately donate them in expiatory offering
+to some Foundling Asylum, Hospital, or other public charity."
+
+"If I condone past offences, it must be upon condition that they are
+never repeated, for leniency is not one of my characteristics.
+Hitherto we have been strangers; you are from America the land of my
+adoption, and have been presented to me as a gentleman, as the friend
+of my physician. Henceforth consider that your acquaintance with me
+dates from to-day."
+
+She suffered him to take her hand, and bow low over it, breathing,
+volubly his thanks for her goodness, his protestations of profound
+repentance, and undying gratitude; and all the while she shut her
+eyes as if to hide some approaching horror,--and the blood in her
+views seemed to freeze at his touch, gathered like icicles around her
+aching heart, turning her gradually to stone.
+
+Taking his offered arm, they walked back toward the spot where she
+had desired her companions to await her return, and as he attempted
+to analyze the strange perplexing expression on her chiselled white
+face, he said:
+
+"I trust this delicious climate has fully restored your health?"
+
+"Thank you. I am as well as I hope to be, until I can go home to
+America, and be once more with my baby."
+
+"It is difficult to realize that you are a mother. How old is this
+darling, who steals so many of your thoughts?"
+
+"Oh, quite a large girl now! able to write me long delightful
+letters; still in memory and imagination she remains my baby, for I
+have not seen her for nearly seven years."
+
+"Indeed I you must have married when a mere child?"
+
+"Yes, unfortunately I did, and lost my husband, became a destitute
+widow when I was scarcely older than my own daughter now is. Mr.
+Waul, this is your countryman, General Laurance; and doubtless you
+have mutual acquaintances in the United States."
+
+They proceeded to the carriage, and as he assisted her to enter it,
+General Laurance asked:
+
+"Will you grant me the privilege of accompanying you next week to
+Baiæ?"
+
+"I cannot promise that."
+
+"Then allow me to call upon you to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow will be the day for my exercises in Italian recitation and
+declamation. I am desirous of perfecting myself in the delicate
+inflections of this sweet intoxicating language, which is as
+deliciously soft as its native skies, and golden as its Capri
+vintage. I long to electrify these fervid enthusiastic yet critical
+Neapolitans with one of their own favourite impassioned Italian
+dramas."
+
+She had taken off her hat which pressed heavily upon her throbbing
+brow, and as the sun shone full on the coil of glittering hair, with
+here and there a golden tress rippling low on her snowy neck and ear,
+her ripe loveliness seized the man's senses with irresistible
+witchery; and the thought of her reappearance as a public idol, of
+her exhibition of her wonderful beauty to the critical gaze of all
+Naples, suddenly filled him with jealous horror and genuine pain. As
+if utterly weary and indifferent, she leaned back, nestling her head
+against the cushions of the carriage; and looking eagerly, almost
+hungrily at her, General Laurance silently registered a vow, that the
+world should soon know her no more as the Queen of Tragedy, that ere
+long the only kingdom over which she reigned should be restricted to
+the confines of his own heart and life.
+
+Pale as marble she coolly met the undisguised ardent admiration in
+his gaze, and bending forward he asked pleadingly:
+
+"Not to-morrow? Then next day, Mrs. Orme?"
+
+"Perhaps so, if I chance to be at home; which is by no means certain.
+Naples is a sorceress and draws me hither and thither at will.
+General Laurance, I wish you a pleasant ride to Baiæ, and must bid
+you good-bye."
+
+She inclined her head, smiled proudly, and closed her eyes; and,
+watching her as the carriage rolled away, he wondered if mere fatigue
+had brought that ghastly pallor to the face he knew he was beginning
+to love so madly.
+
+"Shall we not return to Naples? You look weary, and unhappy," said
+Mr. Waul, who did not like the expression of the hopeless, fixed
+blanched lips.
+
+"No, no! We go to Avernus. That is the mouth of Hell, you know, and
+to Hecate and all the infernal gods I dedicate this fateful day, and
+those that will follow. It is only the storm-beaten worthless wreck
+of a life; let it drift--on--on, down! Had I ten times more to lose,
+I would not shrink back now; I would offer all--all as an oblation to
+Nemesis."
+
+"The gods have made us mighty certainly--That we can bear such
+things, and yet not die."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+"Regina, will you touch the bell for Hattie, that she may come and
+carry away all this breakfast, which I have not touched, and the bare
+sight of which surfeits me? From the amount supplied, one might
+imagine me a modern Polyphemus, or, abjuring the classics, a second
+old Mrs. Philipone, who positively drank four cups of tea at the last
+'Kettledrum.' How fervently she should pray for continued peace with
+China, and low tariff on Pekoe? I scarcely know which is the greater
+hardship, to abstain from food when very hungry, or to impose upon
+one's digestive apparatus when it piteously protests, asking for
+'rest, only rest.'"
+
+It was twelve o'clock on a bright, cold day in December, but Olga was
+still in bed; and as she raised herself, crushing the pillows under
+her shoulder for support, Regina, sewing beside her, thought she had
+never seen her look so handsome.
+
+The abundant ruddy hair tossed about in inextricable confusion,
+curled and twined, utterly regardless of established style, making a
+bright warm frame for the hazel eyes that seemed unusually keen and
+sparkling, and the smooth fair cheeks bore a rich scarlet tinge,
+rather remarkable from the fact that their owner had danced until
+three o'clock that morning.
+
+"Instead of impairing your complexion, late hours seem to increase
+its brilliancy."
+
+"Regina, never dogmatize; it is a rash and unphilosophic habit that
+leads you to ignore secondary causes. I have a fine colour to-day,
+_ergo_ the 'German' is superior to any of the patent chemical
+cosmetics? No such thing. I am tired enough in body to look just like
+what I feel, that traditional Witch of Endor; but a stroke of
+wonderful good fortune has so elated my spirits, that despite the
+fatigue of outraged muscles and persecuted nerves, my exultant pride
+and delight paint my cheeks in becoming tints. How puzzled you look!
+You pretty, sober, solemn, demure blue-eyed Annunciation lily, is
+there such a thing among flowers? If I tripped in the metaphor,
+recollect that I am no adept in floriculture, only know which
+blossoms look best on a velvet bonnet or a chip hat, and which dainty
+leaves and petals laid upon my Lucretia locks make me most resemble
+Hebe. Are you consumed by curiosity?"
+
+"Not quite; still I should like to know what good fortune has
+rendered you so happy?"
+
+"Wait until Hattie is beyond hearing. Come, take away these dishes,
+and be sure to eat every morsel of that omelette, for I would not
+willingly mortify Octave's vanity. When you have regaled yourself
+with it, show him the empty dish, tell him it was delicious, and that
+I send thanks. Hattie, say to mamma I shall not be able to go out
+to-day."
+
+"Miss Regina, I was told to tell you that you must dress for the
+rehearsal, as Mrs. Palma will take you in the carriage."
+
+"Very well. I shall be ready, if go I must."
+
+"Bravo! How gracefully you break to harness! But when these Palmas
+hold the bit, it would be idle to plunge, kick, or attempt to run.
+They are for rebellious humanity, what Rarey was for unruly
+horseflesh. Once no fiery colt of Ukraine blood more stubbornly
+refused the bridle than I did; but Erle Palma smiled and took the
+reins, and behold the metamorphosis! Did he command your attendance
+at this 'Cantata'?"
+
+"Not exactly; but he said he would be displeased if I failed to
+comply with Mrs. Brompton's request, because she was an old friend;
+and moreover that Professor Hurtsel had said they really required my
+voice for the principal solo."
+
+"Did it occur to you to threaten to break down entirely, burst into
+tears, and disgrace things generally, if forced to sing before such
+an audience? Pride is the only lever that will move him the billionth
+fraction of an inch; and he would never risk the possibility of being
+publicly mortified by his ward's failure. He dreads humiliation of
+any kind, far more than cholera or Asiatic plague, or than even the
+eternal loss of that infinitesimal microscopic bit of flint, which he
+is pleased in facetious moments to call his soul."
+
+"Of course I could not threaten him; but I told him the distressing
+truth, that I am very much afraid I shall fail if compelled to
+attempt a solo in public, for I know the audience at Mrs. Brompton's
+will be critical, and I feel extremely timid."
+
+"And he dared you--under penalty of his everlasting wrath--to break
+down? Forbade you at your peril, to allow your frightened heart to
+beat the long-roll, or the tattoo?"
+
+"No, though very positive, he was kind, and urged me to exert my
+will; reminding me that the effort was in behalf of destitute
+orphans, and that the charitable object should stimulate me."
+
+"Charity! Madame Roland incautiously blundered in her grand
+apostrophe, hastily picked up the wrong word to fling at the heads of
+her brutal tormentors. Had she lived in this year of grace, she would
+certainly have said: 'Oh, Charity! how much hypocrisy is practised in
+thy name!' How many grim and ghastly farces are enacted in thy
+honour! Oh, Charity! heavenly maid! what solemn shameful shams are
+masked beneath thy celestial garments? Of late this fashionable
+amusement called 'Charity' has risen to the dignity of a fine art;
+and old-fashioned Benevolence that did its holy work silently and
+slyly in a corner, forbidding left hand to eavesdrop, or gossip with
+right hand, would never recognize its gaudy, noisy, bustling modern
+sister. Understand, it is not peculiar to our own great city,--is a
+rank growth that flourishes all over America, possibly elsewhere. At
+certain seasons, when it is positively wicked to eat chicken salad,
+porter-house steak, and boned turkey, and when the thought of
+attending the usual round of parties gives good people nightmare, and
+sinful folks yet in the bonds of iniquity a prospective claim to the
+pleasant and enticing style of future amusements which Orcagna
+painted at Pisa, then Charity rushes to the rescue of _ennuied_
+society, and mercifully bids it give Calico Balls for a Foundling
+Hospital, or _Thé Musicale_ for the benefit of a Magdalen Home, or a
+Cantata and Refreshments to build a Sailors' Bethel, or help to
+clothe and feed the destitute. A few ladies dash around in open
+carriages and sell tickets, and somebody's daughters make ample
+capital for future investments, as Charity Angels, by riding,
+dancing, singing, and eating in becoming piquant costumes, for the
+'benefit of the afflicted poor.'"
+
+"Oh, Olga! how unjustly severe you are! How exceedingly uncharitable!
+How can you think so meanly of the people with whom you associate
+intimately?"
+
+"I assure you I am not maligning 'our set,' only refer to a universal
+tendency of this advancing age. I merely strip the outside rind, and
+look at the kernel, and therefore I 'see the better, my dear,'
+horrified little rustic Red Ridinghood! Now, you are quite in
+earnest, and you trudge along carrying your alms to this poor old
+Grandmother Charity; but before long you will have your eyes opened
+roughly, and learn as I did that the dear pitiful grandmother is
+utterly dead and gone; and the fangs and claws of the wolf will show
+you which way your cake and honey went. A most voracious wolf, this
+same Public Charity, and blessed with the digestion of an ostrich.
+But go you to the Cantata, and sing your best, and if you happen to
+fall at the feet of pretty little Cécile Brompton, you will hear in
+the distance a subdued growl; the first note of the lupine fantasia
+that inevitably awaits you. Oh! I wonder if ever this green earth
+knew a time when hypocrisy and cant did not prowl even among the
+young lambs, pasturing in innocence upon the 'thousand hills' of God?
+It seems to me that cant cropped out in the first pair that ever were
+born, and Cain has left an immense family. Cant everywhere, in
+science and religion; in churches and in courts; cant among lawyers,
+doctors, preachers; cant around the hearth; cant even around the
+hearse. It is the carnival of cant, this age of ours, and heartily as
+I despise it, I too have been duly noosed and collared, and taught
+the buttery dialect, and I am meekly willing to confess myself  'born
+thrall' of cant."
+
+Regina smiled and shook her head, and tossing her large strong white
+hands restlessly over her pillow, Olga continued:
+
+"Indeed, I am desperately in earnest, and it is a melancholy truth
+that Longfellow tells us: 'Things are not what they seem.' You appear
+disinclined to believe that I am one of those 'whited sepulchres,'
+outwardly fair and comely, but filled with unsavoury dust and ugly
+grinning skulls? Life is a huge sham, and we are all masked puppets,
+jumping grotesquely, just as the strongest hands pull the wires.
+Regina, I have gone to and fro upon the earth long enough to learn
+that the most acceptable present is never labelled advice;
+nevertheless, I would fain warn your unsophisticated young soul
+against some of the pitfalls into which I floundered, and got sadly
+bruised. Never openly defy or oppose your apparent destiny, so long
+as it is in the soft hands of that willow wand--your present
+guardian. Strategy is better than fierce assault, bloodless cunning
+than a gory pitched battle; Cambyses' cats took Pelusium more
+successfully than the entire Persian army could have done, and the
+head dresses Hannibal arranged for his oxen, delivered him from the
+clutches of Fabius and the legions. In my ignorance of polite and
+prudent tactics, I dashed into the conflict, yelled, clawed
+(metaphorically, you understand), and fought like the Austrians at
+Wagram; but of course came out always miserably beaten, with trailing
+banners and many gaping wounds. Regina, you might just as well stand
+below the Palisades, and fire at them with cartridges of boiled rice,
+as make open fight with Erle Palma. Be wise and assume the appearance
+of submission, no matter how stubbornly you are resolved not to give
+up. Don't you know that Cilician geese outwit even the eagles? In
+passing over Taurus, the geese always carry stones in their mouths,
+and thus by bridling their gabbling tongues they safely cross the
+mountain infested with eagles, without being discovered by their
+foes. I commend to you the strategy of silence."
+
+"Do not counsel me to be insincere and deceitful. I consider it
+dishonourable and contemptible."
+
+"Why will you persist in using words that have been out of style as
+long as huge hoop-skirts, coal-scuttle bonnets, and long-tailed
+frock-coats? Once, I know, ugly things and naughty ways were called
+outright by their proper, exact names; but you should not forget that
+the world is improving, and _nous avons changé tout cela!_
+
+            'We have that sort of courtesy about us,
+             We would not flatly call a fool a fool.'
+
+I daresay some benighted denizens of the remote rural districts might
+be found, who still say 'tadpole,' whereas we know only that
+embryonic batrachians exist: and it is just possible that in the
+extreme western wilds a poor girl might rashly state that being
+sleepy she intended 'going to bed,' which you must admit could be an
+everlasting stigma and disgrace here, where all refined people merely
+'retire;' leaving the curious world to conjecture whither,--into the
+cabinet of a diplomatist, the confession box of a cathedral, the cell
+of an anchorite, or to that very essential and comfortable piece of
+household furniture which at this instant I fully appreciate, and
+which the Romans kept in their _cubiculum_. Even in my childhood,
+when I was soaped and rubbed and rinsed by my nurse, the place where
+the daily ablution was performed was frankly called a bath-rub in a
+bathroom; but now _créme de la créme_ know only 'lavatory.' Just so,
+in the march of culture and reform, such vulgarly nude phrases as
+'deceitful' have been taken forcibly to a popular tailor, and when
+they are let loose on society again you never dream that you
+meet anything but becomingly dressed 'policy;' and fashionable
+'diplomacy' has hunted 'insincerity'--that other horrid remnant of
+old-fogyism--as far away from civilization as are the lava beds of
+the Modocs. If ghosts have risible faculties, how Machiavelli must
+laugh, watching us from the Elysian Fields! Sometimes silence is
+power; try it."
+
+"But is seems to me the line of conduct you advise is cowardly, and
+that, I think, I could never be."
+
+"It is purely from ignorance that you fail to appreciate the valuable
+social organon I want to teach you. Of course you have heard your
+guardian quote Emerson? He is a favourite author with some who
+frequent the classic halls of the 'Century;' but perhaps you do not
+know that he has investigated 'Courage,' and thrown new light upon
+that ancient and rare attribute of noble souls? Now, my dear, in
+dealing with Erle Palma, if you desire to trim the lion's claws, and
+crimp his mane, adopt the courage of silence."
+
+"Have you found it successful?"
+
+"Unfortunately I did not study Emerson early in life, else I night
+have been saved many conflicts, and much useless bloodshed. Now I
+begin to comprehend Tennyson's admonition, 'Knowledge comes, but
+wisdom lingers,' and I generously offer to economize your school
+fees, and give you the benefit of my dearly bought experience."
+
+"Thank you, Olga; but I would rather hear about the wonderful piece
+of good fortune, of which you promised to tell me."
+
+"Ah, I had almost forgotten. Wonderful, glorious good fortune! The
+price of Circassian skins has gone up in the matrimonial
+slave-market."
+
+Regina laid aside her sewing, opened her eyes wider, and looked
+perplexed.
+
+"You have not lived in moral Constantinople long enough to comprehend
+the terms of traffic? You look like a stupid fawn, the first time the
+baying of the hounds scares it from its quiet sleep on dewy moss and
+woodland violets! Oh you fair pretty, innocent young thing! Why does
+not some friendly hand strangle you right now, before the pack open
+on your trial? You ought to be sewed up in white silk, and laid away
+safely under marble, before the world soils and spoils you."
+
+For a moment a mist gathered in the bright eyes that rested so
+compassionately, so affectionately on the girlish countenance beside
+her, and then Olga continued in a lighter and more mocking tone:
+
+"Can you keep a secret?"
+
+"I think so. I will try."
+
+"Well, then, prepare to envy me. Until yesterday I was poor Olga
+Neville, with no heritage but my slender share of good looks, and my
+ample dower of sound pink and white, strawberry and cream flesh,
+symmetrically spread over a healthy osseous structure. Perhaps you do
+not know (yet it would be remarkable if some gossip has not told you)
+that poor mamma was sadly cheated in her second marriage; and after
+bargaining with Mammon never collected her pay, and was finally cut
+off with a limited annuity which ceases at her death. My own poor
+father left nothing of this world's goods, consequently I am
+unprovided for. We have always been generously and kindly cared for,
+well fed, and handsomely clothed by Mr. Erle Palma, who, justice
+constrains me to say, in all that pertains to our physical
+well-being, has been almost lavish to both of us. But for some years
+I have lost favour in his eyes, have lived here as it were on
+sufferance, and my bread of late has not been any sweeter than the
+ordinary batch of charity loaves. Yesterday I was a pensioner on his
+bounty, but the god of this world's riches--_i.e._, Plutus--in
+consideration no doubt of my long and faithful worship at his altars,
+has suddenly had compassion upon me, and to-day I am prospectively
+one of the richest women in New York. Now do you wonder that
+Circassia is so jubilant?"
+
+"Do you mean that some one has died, and left you a fortune?"
+
+"Oh no! you idiotic cherub! No such heavenly blessing as that. Plutus
+is even shrewder than a Wall Street broker, and has a sharp eye to
+his own profits. I mean that at last, after many vexatious and
+grievous failures, I am promised a most eligible alliance, the
+highest market price. Mr. Silas Congreve has offered me his real
+estate, his stocks of various kinds, his villa at Newport, and his
+fine yacht. Congratulate me."
+
+"He gives them to you? Adopts and makes you his heiress? How very
+good and kind of him, and I am so glad to hear it."
+
+"He offers to many me, you stupid dove!"
+
+"Not that Mr. Congreve who dined here last week, and who is so deaf?"
+
+"That same veritable Midas. You must know he is not deaf from age; oh
+no! Scarlet fever when he was teething."
+
+"You do not intend to marry him?"
+
+"Why not? Do you suppose I have gone crazy, and lost the power of
+computing rents and dividends? Are people ever so utterly mad as
+that? If I were capable of hesitating a moment, I should deserve a
+strait-jacket for the remainder of my darkened days. Why, I am
+reliably informed that his property is unencumbered, and worth at
+least two millions three hundred thousand dollars! I think even dear
+mamma, who mother-like overrates my charms, never in her rosiest
+visions dreamed I could command such a high price. The slave trade
+is looking up once more; threatens to grow brisk, in spite of
+Congressional prohibition."
+
+She sat quite erect, with her hands clasped across the back of her
+head; a crimson spot burning on each cheek, and an unnatural lustre
+in her laughing eyes.
+
+"Olga, do you love him?"
+
+"Now I am sure you are the identical white pigeon that Noah let out
+of the ark; for nothing less antediluvian could ask such obsolete,
+such utterly dead and buried questions! I love dearly and sincerely
+rich laces, old wines, fine glass, heavy silver, blooded horses fast
+and fiery, large solitaires, rare camei; and all these comfortable
+nice little things I shall truly honour, and tenaciously cling to,
+'until death us do part,' and as Mrs. Silas Congreve--hush! Here
+comes mamma."
+
+"Olga, why are you not up and dressed? You accepted the invitation to
+'lunch' with Mrs. St. Clare, and what excuse can I possibly frame?"
+
+"I have implicit faith in your ingenuity, and give you _carte
+blanche_ in the manufacture of an apology."
+
+"And my conscience, Olga?"
+
+"Oh dear! Has it waked up again? I thought you had chloroformed it,
+as you did the last spell of toothache a year ago. I hope it is not a
+severe attack this time?"
+
+She took her mother's hand, and kissed it lightly.
+
+"My daughter, are you really sick?"
+
+"Very, mamma; such fits of palpitation."
+
+"I never saw you look better. I shall tell no stories for you to Mrs.
+St. Clare."
+
+"Cruel mamma! when you know how my tender maidenly sensibilities are
+just now lacerated by the signal success of such patient manoeuvring!
+Tell Mrs. St. Clare that like the man in the Bible who could not
+attend the supper, because he had married a wife, I stayed at home to
+ponder my brilliant prospects as Madame Silas----"
+
+"Olga!" exclaimed Mrs. Palma, with a warning gesture toward Regina.
+
+"Do you think I could hide my bliss from her? She knows the honour
+proffered me, and has promised to keep the secret."
+
+"Until the gentleman had received a positive and final acceptance, I
+should imagine such confidence premature."
+
+Mrs. Palma spoke sternly, and withdrew her fingers from her
+daughter's clasp.
+
+"As if there were even a ghost of a doubt as to the final acceptance!
+As if I dared play this heavy fish an instant, with such a frail
+line? Ah, mamma! don't tease me by such tactics! I am but an
+insignificant mouse, and you and Mr. Congreve are such a grim pair of
+cats, that I should never venture the faintest squeak. Don't roll me
+under your velvet paws, and pat me playfully, trying to arouse false
+hopes of escape, when all the while you are resolved to devour me
+presently. Don't! I am a wiry mouse, proud and sensitive, and some
+mice, it is said, will not permit insult added to injury."
+
+"Regina, are you ready? I shall take you to Mrs. Brompton's, and it
+is quite time to start."
+
+Mrs. Palma looked impatiently at Regina, and as the latter rose to
+get her hat and wrappings from her own room, she saw the mother lean
+over the pillows, saw also that the white arms of the girl were
+quickly thrown up around her neck.
+
+Soon after, she heard the front door-bell ring, and when she started
+down the steps, Olga called from her room:
+
+"Come in. Mamma has to answer a note before she leaves home. When you
+go down, please ask Terry to give a half-bottle of that white wine
+with the bronze seal to Octave, and tell him to make and send up to
+me as soon as possible a wine-chocolate. Mrs. Tarrant's long-promised
+grand affair comes off to-night, and I must build myself up for the
+occasion."
+
+"Are you feverish, Olga? Your cheeks are such a brilliant scarlet?"
+
+"Only the fever of delicious excitement, which all young ladies of my
+sentimental temperament are expected to indulge, when assured that
+the perilous voyage of portionless maidenhood is blissfully ended in
+the comfortable harbour of affluent matrimony. Does that feel like
+ordinary fever?"
+
+She put out her large well-formed hand, and, clasping it between her
+own, Regina exclaimed:
+
+"How very cold! You are ill, or worse still, you are unhappy. Your
+heart is not in this marriage."
+
+"My heart? It is only an automatic contrivance for propelling the
+blood through my system, and so long as it keeps me in becoming
+colour, I have no right to complain. The theory of hearts entering
+into connubial contracts, is as effete as Stahl's Phlogiston! One of
+the wisest and wittiest of living authors, recognizing the drift of
+the age, offers to supply a great public need, by--'A new proposition
+and suited to the tendencies of modern civilization, namely, to
+establish a universal Matrimonial Agency, as well ordered as the
+Bourse of Paris, and the London Stock Exchange. What is more useful
+and justifiable than a Bourse for affairs? Is not marriage an affair?
+Is anything else considered in it but the proper proportions? Are not
+these proportions values capable of rise and fall, of valuation and
+tariff? People declaim against marriage brokers. What else, I pray
+you, are the good friends, the near relations who take tie field,
+except obliging, sometimes official brokers?' Now, Regina, 'M.
+Graindorge,' who makes this proposal to the Parisian world, has lived
+long in America, and doubtless received his inspiration in the United
+States. Hearts? We modern belles compress our hearts, as the Chinese
+do their feet, until they become numb and dwarfed; and some even
+roast theirs before the fires of Moloch until they resemble human
+_pâté de foie gras_. There are a great many valuable truths taught us
+in the ancient myths, and for rugged unvarnished wisdom commend me to
+the Scandinavian. Did you ever read the account of Iduna's captivity
+in the castle of Thiassi in Jötunheim?"
+
+"I never did, and what is more, I never will, if it teaches people to
+think as harshly of the world as you seem to do."
+
+"You sweet, simple blue-eyed dunce! How shamefully your guardian
+neglects your education! Never even heard of the Ellewomen? Why, they
+compose the most brilliant society all over the world. Iduna was a
+silly creature, with a large warm heart, and loved her husband
+devotedly; and in order to cure her of this arrant absurd folly she
+was carried away and shut up with the Ellewomen, very fair creatures
+always smiling sweetly. The more bitterly the foolish young wife wept
+and implored their pity, the more pleasantly they smiled at her; and
+when she examined them closely she found that despite their beauty
+they were quite hollow, were made with no hearts at all, and could
+compassionate no one. I have an abiding faith that they had Borgia
+hair, hazel eyes, red lips, and sloping white shoulders just like
+mine. They have peopled the world; a large colony settled in this
+country, we are nearly all Ellewomen now, and you are an ignorant,
+wretched little Iduna, _minus_ the apples, and must get rid of your
+heart at once, in order to smile constantly as we do."
+
+"Olga, don't libel yourself and society so unmercifully. Don't marry
+Mr. Congreve. Think how horrible it must be to spend all your life
+with a man whom you do not love!"
+
+"I assure you, that will form no part either of his programme, or of
+mine. I shall have my 'societies' (charitable, of course), my daily
+drives, my 'Luncheons,' and box the opera with occasional supper at
+Delmonico's; and Mr. Congreve will have his Yacht affairs, and Wall
+Street 'corners' to look after, and will of course spend the majority
+of his evenings at that fascinating 'Century,' which really is the
+only thing that your quartz-souled guardian cherishes any affection
+for."
+
+"But Mr. Palma is not married, and when you are Mr. Congreve's wife,
+of course instead of going to his club, your husband will expect to
+remain at home with you."
+
+"That might be possible in the old-fashioned parsonage where you
+imbibed so many queer outlandish doctrines; but I do assure you, we
+have quite outgrown such an intolerable orthodox system of penance.
+The less married people see of each other these days, the fewer
+scalps dangle around the hearthstone. The customs of the matrimonial
+world have changed since that distant time when sacrificing to Juno
+as the Goddess of Wedlock, the gall was so carefully extracted from
+the victim and thrown behind the altar; implying that in married life
+all anger and bitterness should be exterminated. If Tacitus could
+revisit this much-civilized world of the nineteenth century, I wonder
+if he could find a nation who would tempt him to repeat what he once
+wrote concerning the sanctity of marriage among the Germans? 'There
+vice is not laughed at, and corruption is not called the fashion.'
+Mr. Silas Congreve is much too enlightened to prefer his slippers at
+home to his place at the club. As for sitting up as a rival in the
+'Century,' female vanity never soared to so sublime a height of
+folly! and if Erle Palma were married forty times, his darling club
+would still hold the first place in his flinty affections. It must
+be a most marvellously attractive place, that bewitching 'Century,'
+to magnetize so completely the iron of his nature. I have my
+suspicion that one reason why the husbands cling so fondly to its
+beloved precincts is because it corresponds in some respects to the
+wonderful 'Peacestead' of the Æsir, whose strongest law was that 'no
+angry blow should be struck, and no spiteful word spoken within its
+limits.' Hence it is a tempting retreat from the cyclones and
+typhoons that sometimes sing among a man's Lares and Penates. In view
+of my own gilded matrimonial future, I reverently salute my ally--the
+'Century!' There! Mamma calls you. Go trill like a canary at the
+Cantata, and waste no sighs on the smiling Ellewoman you leave behind
+you. Tell Octave to hurry my wine-chocolate."
+
+She drew the girl to her, looked at her with sparkling merry eyes,
+and kissed her softly on each cheek.
+
+When Regina reached the door and looked back, she saw that Olga had
+thrown herself face downward on the bed, and the hands were clasped
+above the tanged mass of ruddy hair.
+
+During the drive, Mrs. Palma was unusually cheerful, almost
+loquacious, and her companion attributed the agreeable change in her
+generally reticent manner to maternal pride and pleasure in the
+contemplated alliance of her only child.
+
+No reference was made to the subject, and when they reached Mrs.
+Brompton's, Regina was not grieved to learn that the rehearsal had
+been postponed until he following day, in consequence of the sickness
+of Professor Hurtzsel.
+
+"Then Farley must take you home, after I get out at Mrs. St. Clare's.
+The carriage can return for me about four o'clock."
+
+"That will not be necessary. I wish to go and see Mrs. Mason, who has
+been out of town since July, and I can very easily walk. She has
+changed her lodgings."
+
+"Have you consulted Erle on the subject?"
+
+"No, ma'am; but I do not think he would object."
+
+"At least it would be best to obtain his permission, for only last
+week when you stayed so long at that floral establishment, he said he
+should forbid your going out alone. Wait till to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow I shall have no time, and all my studies are over for
+to-day. Why should he care? He allows me to go to Mrs. Mason's in the
+carriage."
+
+"It is entirely your own affair, but my advice is to consult him. At
+this hour he is probably in his office; drive down and see him, and
+if he consents, then go. Here is Mrs. St. Clare's. Farley, take Miss
+Orme to Mr. Palma's office, and be sure you are back here at
+half-past three. Don't keep me waiting."
+
+Never before had Regina gone to the law-office, and to-day she very
+reluctantly followed the unpalatable advice; but the urgency of Mrs.
+Palma's manner constrained obedience. When the carriage stopped, she
+went in, feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed, and secretly hoping
+that her guardian was absent. At a large desk near the door sat a
+young man intently copying some papers, and as the visitor entered,
+he rose and stared. "Is Mr. Palma here?"
+
+"He will be in a few moments. Take a seat."
+
+Hoping to escape before his return, she said hastily: "I have not
+time to wait. Can you give me a pencil and piece of paper? I wish to
+leave a note."
+
+There were two desks in the apartment, but glancing at their dusty
+appearance, and then at the dainty pearl-tinted gloves of the
+stranger, the young man answered hesitatingly:
+
+"You will find writing materials on the desk in the next room. The
+door is not locked."
+
+She hurried in, sat down before the desk where a number of papers
+were loosely scattered, and took up a pen lying near a handsome
+bronze inkstand.
+
+How should she commence? She had never written him a line, and felt
+perplexed. While debating whether she should say Dear Mr. Palma or My
+Dear Guardian, her eyes wandered half unconsciously about the
+apartment, until they were arrested by a large portrait hanging over
+the mantlepiece. It was a copy of the picture her mother had directed
+to be painted by Mr. Harcourt, and which had been sent to Europe.
+
+This copy differed in some respects from the original portrait; Hero
+had been entirely omitted, and in the hands of the painted girl were
+clusters of beautiful snowy lilies.
+
+Surprised and gratified that he deemed her portrait worthy of a place
+in his office, she hastily wrote on a sheet of legal cap:
+
+    "DEAR MR. PALMA,--Having no engagements until to-morrow, I wish
+    to spend the afternoon with Mrs. Mason, who has removed to No.
+    900, East ---- Street, but Mrs. Palma advised me to ask your
+    permission. Hoping that you will not object to my making the
+    visit, without having waited to see you, I am,
+
+                              "Very respectfully
+                                   Your ward,
+                                       REGINA ORME."
+
+Leaving it open on the desk, where he could not fail to see it, she
+glanced once more at the portrait, and hurried away, fearful of being
+intercepted ere she reached the carriage.
+
+"Drive to No. 900, East ---- Street."
+
+The carriage had not turned the neighbouring corner, when Mr. Palma
+leisurely approached his office door, with his thoughts intent upon
+an important will case, which was creating much interest and
+discussion among the members of the Bar, and which in an appeal form
+he had that day consented to argue before the Supreme Court. As he
+entered the front room, the clerk looked up.
+
+"Stuart, has Elliott brought back the papers?"
+
+"Not yet, sir. There was a young lady here a moment ago. Did you meet
+her?"
+
+"No. What was her business?"
+
+"She did not say. Asked for you, and would not wait."
+
+"What name?"
+
+"Did not give any. Think she left a note on your desk. She was the
+loveliest creature I ever looked at."
+
+"My desk? Hereafter in my absence allow no one to enter my private
+office. I did not consider it necessary to caution you, or inform you
+that my desk is not public property, but designed for my exclusive
+service. In future when I am out keep that door locked. Step around
+to Fitzgerald's and get that volume of Reports he borrowed last
+week." The young man coloured, picked up his hat, and disappeared;
+and the lawyer walked into his sanctum and approached his desk.
+
+Seating himself in the large revolving chair, his eyes fell instantly
+upon the long sheet, with the few lines traced in a delicate feminine
+hand.
+
+Over his cold face swept a marvellous change, strangely softening its
+outlines and expression. He examined the writing curiously, taking
+off his glasses and holding the paper close to his eyes; and he
+detected the alteration in the "Dear," which had evidently been
+commenced as "My."
+
+Laying it open before him, he took the pen, wrote "my" before the
+"dear," and drawing a line through the "Regina Orme," substituted
+above it "Lily."
+
+In her haste she had left on the desk one glove, and her small ivory
+_porte-monnaie_ which her mother had sent from Rome.
+
+He took up the little pearl-grey kid, redolent of Lubin's "violet,"
+and spread out the almost childishly small fingers on his own broad
+palm, which suddenly closed over it like a vice; then with a half
+smile of strange tenderness, in which all the stony sternness of lips
+and chin seemed steeped and melted, he drew the glove softly,
+caressingly over his bronzed cheek.
+
+Pressing the spring of the purse, it opened and showed him two small
+gold dollars, and a five dollar bill. In another compartment, wrapped
+in tissue paper, was a small bunch of pressed violets, tied with a
+bit of blue sewing silk. Upon the inside of the paper was written:
+
+"Gathered at Agra. April 8th, 18--."
+
+He knew Mr. Lindsay's handwriting, and his teeth closed firmly as he
+refolded the paper, and put the purse and glove in the inside breast
+pocket of his coat. Placing the note in an envelope, he addressed it
+to "Erle Palma," and locked it up in a private drawer.
+
+Raising his brilliant eyes to the lovely girlish face on the wall, he
+said slowly, sternly:
+
+"My Lily, and she shall be broken, and withered, and laid to rest in
+Greenwood, before any other man's hand touches hers. My Lily, housed
+sacredly in my bosom; blooming only in my heart."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Dismissing the carriage at the corner of the square, near which she
+expected to find Mrs. Mason located in more comfortable lodging,
+Regina walked on until she found the building of which she was in
+quest, and rang the bell. It was situated in a row of plain,
+unpretending but neat tenement houses, kept thoroughly repaired; and
+the general appearance of the neighbourhood indicated that the
+tenants though doubtless poor were probably genteel, and had formerly
+been in more affluent circumstances.
+
+The door was opened by a girl apparently half grown, who stated that
+Mrs. Mason had rented the basement rooms, and that her: visitors were
+admitted through the lower entrance, as a different set of lodgers
+had the next floor. She offered to show Regina the way, and knocking
+at the basement door, the girl suddenly remembered that she had seen
+Mrs. Mason visiting at the house directly opposite.
+
+"Wait, miss, and I will run across and call her."
+
+While standing at the lower door, and partly screened by the flight
+of steps leading to the rooms above, Regina saw a figure advancing
+rapidly along the sidewalk, a tall figure whose graceful carriage was
+unmistakable; and as the person ran up the steps of the next house in
+the row, and impatiently pulled the bell, Regina stepped forward and
+looked up.
+
+A gust of wind just then blew aside the thick brown veil that
+concealed the countenance, and showed for an instant only the
+strongly marked yet handsome profile of Olga Neville.
+
+The door opened; her low inaudible question was answered in the
+affirmative, and Olga was entering, when the skirt of her dress was
+held by a projecting nail, and in disengaging it, she caught a
+glimpse of the astonished countenance beneath the steps. She paused,
+leaned over the balustrade, threw up both hands with a warning
+gesture, then laid her finger on her lips, and hurried in, closing
+the door behind her.
+
+"The lady says Mrs. Mason was there, but left her about a quarter of
+an hour ago. What name shall I give when she comes home?"
+
+"Tell her Regina Orme called, and was very sorry she missed seeing
+her. Say I will try to come again on Sunday afternoon, if the weather
+is good. Who lives in the next house?"
+
+"A family named Eggleston. I hear they sculp and paint for a living.
+Good-day, miss. I won't forget to tell the old lady you called."
+
+Walking leisurely homeward, Regina felt sorely perplexed in trying to
+reconcile Olga's plea of indisposition and her lingering in bed, with
+this sudden appearance in that distant quarter of the city, and her
+evident desire to conceal her face, and to secure silence with regard
+to the casual meeting. Was Mrs. Palma acquainted with her daughter's
+movements, or was the girl's nervous excitement of the morning
+indirectly connected with some mystery, of which the mother did not
+even dream? That some adroitly hidden sorrow was the secret spring of
+Olga's bitterness toward Mr. Palma, and the unfailing source of her
+unjust and cynical railings against that society into which she
+plunged with such inconsistent recklessness, Regina had long
+suspected; and her conjecture was strengthened by the stony
+imperturbability with which her guardian received the sarcasms often
+aimed at him. Whatever the solution, delicacy forbade all attempts to
+lift the veil of concealment, and resolving to banish unfavourable
+suspicion concerning a woman to whom she had become sincerely
+attached, Regina directed her steps toward one of the numerous small
+parks that beautify the great city, and furnish breathing and
+gambolling space for the helpless young innocents, who are debarred
+all other modes of "airing," save such as are provided by the noble
+munificence of New York. The day, though cold, was very bright, the
+sky a cloudless grey-blue, the slanting beams of the sun filling the
+atmosphere with gold-dust; and in crossing the square to gain the
+street beyond Regina was attracted by a group of children romping
+along the walk, and laughing gleefully.
+
+One a toddling wee thing, with a scarlet cloak that swept the ground,
+and a hood of the same warm tint drawn over her curly yellow hair and
+dimpled round face, had fallen on the walk, unheeded by her
+boisterous companions, and becoming entangled in the long garment
+could not get up again. Pausing to lift the little creature to her
+feet, and restore the piece of cake that had escaped from the chubby
+hand, Regina stood smiling sympathetically at the sport of the larger
+children, and wondering whether all those rosy-cheeked "olive
+branches" clustered around one household altar.
+
+At that moment a heavy hand was placed on her shoulder, and turning
+she saw at her side a powerful man, thick set in stature, and whose
+clothing was worn and soiled. Beneath a battered hat drawn
+suspiciously low she discerned a swarthy, flushed, saturnine
+countenance, which had perhaps once been attractive, before the seal
+of intemperance marred and stained its lineament. Somewhere she
+certainly had seen that dark face, and a sensation of vague terror
+seized her.
+
+"Regina, it is about time you should meet and recognize me."
+
+The voice explained all; she knew the man whom Hannah bad met in the
+churchyard on the evening of the storm.
+
+She made an effort to shake off his hand, but it closed firmly upon
+her, and he asked:
+
+"Do you know who I am?"
+
+"Your name is Peleg, and you are a wicked man, an enemy of my
+mother."
+
+"The same, I do not deny it. But recollect I am also your father."
+
+She stared almost wildly at him, and her face blanched and quivered
+as she uttered a cry of horror.
+
+
+"It is false! You are not--you never could have been! You--Oh!
+never--never!"
+
+So terrible was the thought that she staggered, and sank down on an
+iron seat, covering her face with her hands.
+
+"This comes of separating father and child, and rising you above your
+proper place in the world. Your mother taught you to hate me, I knew
+she would; but I have waited as long as I can bear it, and I intend
+to assert my rights. Who do you suppose is your father? Whose child
+did she say you were?"
+
+"She never told me, but I know--O God, have mercy upon me! You cannot
+be my father! It would kill me to believe it!"
+
+She shuddered violently, and when he attempted to put his hand on
+hers, she drew back and cried out, almost fiercely:
+
+"Don't touch me! If you dare, I will scream for a policeman."
+
+"Very well, as soon as you please, and when he comes I will explain
+to him that you arc my daughter; and if necessary I will carry you
+both to the spot where you were born, and prove the fact. Do you know
+where you were born? I guess Minnie did not see fit to tell you that,
+either. Well, in was in that charity hospital on ---- Street, and I
+can tell you the year, and the day of the month. My child, you might
+at least pity, and not insult your poor unhappy father."
+
+Could it be possible after all? Her head swam; her heart seemed
+bursting; her very soul sickened, as she tried to realize all that
+his assertion implied. What could he expect to accomplish by such a
+claim, unless he intended, and felt fully prepared, to establish it
+by irrefragable facts?
+
+"My girl, your mother deserted me before you were born, and has never
+dared to let you know the truth. She is living in disguise in Europe,
+under an assumed name, and only last week I found out her
+whereabouts. She calls herself Mrs. Orme now, and has turned actress.
+She was born one; she has played a false part all her life. Do you
+think your name is Orme? My dear child, it is untrue, and I, Peleg
+Peterson, am your father."
+
+"No, no! My mother, my beautiful, refined mother never, never could
+have loved you! Oh! it is too horrible! Go away, please go away! or I
+shall go mad."
+
+She bound her hands tightly across her eyes, shutting out the
+loathsome face, and in the intensity of her agony and dread she
+groaned aloud. If it were true, could she hear it, and live? What
+would Mr. Lindsay think, if he could see that coarse brutal man
+claiming her as his daughter? What would her haughty guardian say, if
+he who so sedulously watched over her movements, and fastidiously
+chose her associates, could look upon her now?
+
+Born in a. hospital, owning that repulsive countenance there beside
+her as parent?
+
+Heavy cold drops oozed out, and glistened on her brow, and she
+shivered from head to foot, rocking herself to and fro.
+
+Almost desperate as she thought of the mysterious circumstances that
+seemed to entangle her mother as in some inextricable net, the girl
+suddenly started up, and exclaimed:
+
+"It is a fraud, a wicked fraud, or you would never have left me so
+long in peace. My father was, must have been, a gentleman; I know, I
+feel it! You are--you--Save me, O Lord in heaven, from such a curse
+as that!"
+
+He grasped her arm and hissed:
+
+"I am poor and obscure, it is true; but Peterson is better than no
+name at all, and if you are not my child, then you have no name. That
+is all; take your choice."
+
+What a pall settled on earth and sky! The sun shining so brightly in
+the west grew black, and a shadow colder and darker than death seized
+her soul. Was it the least of alternate horrors to accept this man,
+acknowledging his paternal claim, and thereby defend her mother's
+name? How the lovely sad face of that young mother rose like a star,
+gilding all this fearful blackness; and her holy abiding faith in her
+mother proved a strengthening angel in this Gethsemane.
+
+Rallying, she forced herself to look steadily at her companion.
+
+"You say that your name is Peleg Peterson; why did you never come
+openly to the parsonage and claim me? I know that my mother was
+married in that house, by Mr. Hargrove."
+
+"Because I never could find out where you were hid away, until my
+aunt, Hannah Hinton, told me the week before the great storm. Then
+she promised me the marriage license, which she had found in a desk
+at the parsonage, on condition that I would not disturb you; as she
+thought you were happy and well-cared for, and would be highly
+educated, and I was too miserably poor to give you any advantages.
+You know the license was burned by lightning, else I would show it to
+you."
+
+"Proving that you are my mother's legal husband?"
+
+"Certainly, else what use do you suppose I had for it."
+
+"Oh no! You intended to sell it. Hannah told me so."
+
+"No such thing. Minnie does not want to own me now, and I intended to
+show the license to the father of the man for whom she deserted both
+you and me. She has followed him to Europe, though she knows he is a
+married man."
+
+"It is false! How dare you! You shall not slander her dear name. My
+mother could never have done that! There is some foul conspiracy to
+injure her; not another word against her! No matter what may have
+happened, no matter how dark and strange things look, she was not to
+blame. She is right, always right; I know, I feel it! I tell you, if
+the sun and the stars, and the very archangels in heaven accused her,
+I would not listen, I would not believe--no--never! She is my mother,
+do you hear me? She is my mother, and God's own angels would go
+astray as soon as she!"
+
+She looked as white and rigid as a corpse twelve hours dead, and her
+large defiant eyes burned with a supernatural lustre.
+
+He comprehended the nature with which he had to deal, and after a
+pause, said sullenly:
+
+"Minnie does not deserve such a child, and it is hard that you, my
+own flesh and blood, refuse to recognize me. Regina, I am desperately
+poor, or I would take you now, forcibly if necessary; and if Minnie
+dared deny my claim, I would publish the facts in a court of justice.
+Even your guardian is deceived, and many things would come to light,
+utterly disgraceful to you, and to your father and mother. But at
+present I cannot take care of you, and I am in need, actual need.
+Will my child see her own father want bread and clothing, and refuse
+to assist him? Can you not contribute something toward my support,
+until I can collect some money due me? If you can help me a little
+now, I will try to be patient, and leave you where you are, in luxury
+and peace; at least till I can hear from Minnie, to whom I have
+written."
+
+"Why do you not go at once to my guardian, and demand me?"
+
+"If you wish it I will, before sunset. Come, I am ready. But when I
+do, the facts will be blazoned to the world, and you and Minnie and I
+shall all go down together in disgrace and ruin. If you are willing
+to drag all the shameful history into the papers, I am ready now."
+
+He rose, but she shrank away, and putting her hand in her pocket,
+became aware of the loss of her purse. Had she been robbed, or had
+she dropped her _porte-monnaie_ in the carriage?
+
+"I have not a cent with me. I have lost my purse since I left home."
+
+She saw the gloomy scowl that lowered on his brow. "When can you give
+me some money? Mind, it must not be known that I am literally
+begging. I am as proud, my daughter, as you are, and if people find
+out that I am getting alms from you, I shall explain that it is from
+my own child I receive aid."
+
+A feeble gleam of hope stole across her soul, and rapidly she
+reflected on the best method of escape.
+
+"I have very little money, but to-morrow I will send you through the
+post office every cent I possess. How shall I address it?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"That would not satisfy me. I want to see you again, to look at your
+sweet face. Do you think I do not love my child? Meet me here this
+time to-morrow."
+
+Each word smote like pelting hailstones, and he saw all her loathing
+printed on her face.
+
+"I have an engagement that may detain me beyond this hour; but if I
+live, I will be as punctual as circumstances permit."
+
+"If you tell Palma you have seen me, he must know everything, for
+Minnie has hired him to help her deceive you and the world, and all
+the while she has kept the truth from him. Shrewd as he is, she has
+completely duped him. If he learns you have been with me, I shall
+unmask everything; and when he washes his hands of you and your
+mother, I will take you where you shall never lay your eyes again on
+the two who have taught you to hate me--Minnie and Palma. My child,
+do you understand me?"
+
+She shuddered as he leaned toward her, and stepping back, she
+answered resolutely:
+
+"That threat will prove very effectual. I will meet you here,
+bringing the little money I have, and will keep this awful day a
+secret from all but God, who never fails to protect the right."
+
+"You promise that?"
+
+"What else is left me? My guardian shall know nothing from me until I
+can hear from my mother, to whom I shall write this night. Do not
+detain me. My absence will excite suspicion."
+
+"Good-bye, my daughter."
+
+He held out his hand.
+
+She looked at him, and her lips writhed as she tried to contemplate
+for an instant the bare possibility that after all he might be her
+parent. She forced herself to hold out her left hand which was
+gloved, but he had scarcely grasped her fingers, when she snatched
+them back, turned and darted away, while he called after her:
+
+"This time to-morrow. Don't fail."
+
+The glory of the world, and the light of her young life had suddenly
+been extinguished, and fearful spectres vague and menacing thronged
+the future. Death appeared a mere trifle in comparison with the
+lifelong humiliation, perhaps disgrace, that was in store for her;
+and bitterly she demanded of fate, why she had been reared so
+tenderly, so delicately, in an atmosphere of honour and refinement,
+if destined to fall at last into the hands of that coarse vicious
+man? The audacity of his claim almost overwhelmed her faint hope that
+some infamous imposture was being practised at her expense; and the
+severity of the shock, the intensity of her mental suffering,
+rendered her utterly oblivious of everything else.
+
+At another time she would doubtless have heard and recognized a
+familiar step that followed her from the moment she quitted the
+square; but to-day, almost stupefied, she hurried along the pavement,
+mechanically turning the corners, looking neither to right nor left.
+
+Fifth Avenue was a long way off, and it was late in the afternoon
+when she reached home, and ran up to her own room, anxious to escape
+observation.
+
+Hattie was arranging some towels on the washstand, and turning
+around, exclaimed:
+
+"Good gracious, miss! You are as white as the coverlid on the bed! I
+guess something has happened?"
+
+"I am not well. I am tired, so tired. Have they all come home?"
+
+"Yes, and there will be company to dinner. Two gentlemen, Terry said.
+Are you going to wear that dress?"
+
+"I don't want any dinner. If they ask for me, tell Mrs. Palma I feel
+very badly, and that I beg she will excuse me. Where is Olga?"
+
+"Busy trimming her overskirt with flowers. You know Mrs. Tarrant
+gives her ball to-night, and Miss Olga says she has saved herself,
+rested all day, to be fresh for it. Lou-Lou has just come to dress
+her hair. What a pity you can't go too, you look quite old enough.
+Miss Olga has such a gay, splendid time."
+
+"I do not want to go. I only wish I could lie down and sleep for
+ever. Shut the door, and ask them all please to let me alone this
+evening."
+
+How the richness of the furniture and the elegance that prevailed
+throughout this house mocked the threadbare raiment and
+poverty-stricken aspect of the man who threatened to drag her down to
+his own lower plane of life and association? Her innate pride, and
+her cultivated fondness for all beautiful objects, rebelled at the
+picture which her imagination painted in such sombre hues, and with a
+bitter cry of shame and dread she bowed her head against the marble
+mantlepiece.
+
+For many years she had known that some unfortunate cloud hung over
+her own and her mother's history, but faith in the latter, and a
+perfect trust in the wisdom and goodness of Mr. Hargrove, had
+encouraged her in every previous hour of disquiet and apprehension.
+Until to-day the positive and hideous ghoul of disgrace had never
+actually confronted her, and with the intuitive hopefulness of youth,
+she had waved aside all forebodings, believing that at the proper
+time her mother would satisfactorily explain the necessity for the
+mystery of her conduct. Was Mr. Lindsay acquainted with some terrible
+trouble that threatened her future when in bidding her farewell he
+had said he would gladly shield her, were it possible, from trials
+that he foresaw would be her portion?
+
+Did he know all, and would he love her less, if that bold bad man
+should prove his paternal claim to her? Her father! As she tried to
+face the possibility, it was with difficulty that she smothered a
+passionate cry, and throwing herself across the foot of the bed,
+buried her face in her hands.
+
+If she could only run away and go to India, where Mr. Lindsay would
+shield, pity, and love her! How gratefully she thought of him at this
+juncture,--how noble, tender, and generous he had always been! what a
+haven of safety and rest his presence would be now!
+
+As a very dear brother she had ever regarded him, for her affection,
+though intense and profound, was as entirely free from all taint of
+sentimentality, as that which she entertained for his mother; and her
+pure young heart had never indulged a feeling that could have
+coloured her cheek with confusion had the world searched its
+recesses.
+
+Were Douglass accessible, she would unhesitatingly have sprung into
+his protecting arms, as any suffering young sister might have done,
+and, fully unburdening her soul, would have sought brotherly counsel;
+but in his absence, to whom was it possible for her to turn?
+
+To her guardian? As she thought of his fastidious overweening pride,
+his haughty scorn of everything plebeian, his detestation of all that
+appertained to the ranks of the ill-bred, a keen pang of almost
+intolerable shame darted through her heart, and a burning tide surged
+over her cheeks, painting them fiery scarlet. Would he accord her the
+shelter of his roof, were he aware of all that had occurred that day?
+
+She started up, prompted by a sudden impulse to seek him and divulge
+everything; to ask how much was true, to demand that he would send
+her at once to her mother.
+
+Perhaps he could authoritatively deny that man's statements, and
+certainly he was far too prudent to assume guardianship of a girl
+whose real parentage was unknown to him.
+
+Implicit confidence in his wisdom and friendship, and earnest
+gratitude for the grave kindness of his conduct toward her since she
+became an inmate of his house, had gradually displaced the fear and
+aversion that formerly influenced her against him; and just now the
+only comfort she could extract from any quarter arose from the
+reflection that in every emergency Mr. Palma would protect her from
+harm and insult, until he could place her under her mother's care.
+
+Two years of daily association had taught her to appreciate the
+sternness and tenacity of his purpose, and his stubborn iron will, so
+often dreaded before, now became a source of consolation, a tower of
+refuge to which in extremity she could retreat.
+
+But if she were indeed the low-born girl that man had dared to
+assert, and Mr. Palma should learn that he had been deceived, how
+could she ever meet his coldly contemptuous eyes?
+
+Some one tapped at the door, but she made no response, hoping she
+might be considered asleep. Mrs. Palma came in, groping her way.
+
+"Why have you not a light?"
+
+"I did not need one. I only wanted to be quiet."
+
+"Where are the matches?"
+
+"On the mantlepiece."
+
+Mrs. Palma lighted the gas, then came to the bed.
+
+"Regina, are you ill, that you obstinately absent yourself when you
+know there is company to dinner?"
+
+"I feel very badly indeed, and I hoped you would excuse me."
+
+"Have you fever? You seemed very well when I parted from you at Mrs.
+St. Clare's door."
+
+"No fever, I think; but I felt unable to go downstairs. I shall be
+better to-morrow."
+
+"Erle desired me to say that he wishes to see you this evening, and
+you must come down to the library about nine o'clock. He has gone to
+his office, and you know he will be displeased if you fail to obey
+him."
+
+"Please, Mrs. Palma, tell him I am not able. Ask him to excuse me
+this evening. Intercede for me, will you not?"
+
+"Oh! I never interfere when Erle gives an order. Beside, I shall not
+see him again before midnight. I am going with Olga to Mrs.
+Tarrant's, and must leave home quite early because I promised to call
+for Melissa Gardner and chaperon her. Of course she will not be
+ready, young ladies never are, and we shall have to wait. It is only
+eight o'clock now, and an hour's sleep will refresh you. I will
+direct Hattie to call you, when your guardian comes in. Do you
+require any medicine? You do look very badly."
+
+"Only rest, I think. Can't you persuade Mr. Palma to go to the party,
+or ball, or whatever it may be?"
+
+"He has promised to drop in, toward the close of the evening and
+escort us home. Quite a compliment to Mrs. Tarrant, for Erle rarely
+deigns to honour such entertainments; but her husband is a prominent
+lawyer, and a college friend of Erle's. Good-night."
+
+She went out, closing the door softly, and Regina felt more desolate
+than ever. Was Mr. Palma displeased, because she had gone visiting
+without waiting for his consent? If she had been more patient, might
+not this fearful discovery have been averted? Was her sorrow part of
+the wages of her disobedient haste?
+
+What had become of her purse? How could she without exciting
+suspicion obtain the money she had so positively promised?
+
+She rang the bell, and sent Hattie to request Farley to examine the
+carriage, and see if she had not dropped her _porte-monnaie_ into
+some of its crevices. It was a long time before the servant returned,
+alleging in excuse that she had been detained to assist is dressing
+Miss Olga. Farley had searched everywhere, and could not find the
+purse.
+
+Hattie hurried away to Mrs. Palma, and Regina unlocked a small drawer
+of her bureau, and took out what remained of her semi-annual
+allowance of pocket money. She counted it carefully, but found only
+thirteen dollars.
+
+If she could have recovered her _porte-monnaie_ she would have had
+twenty dollars to offer, and even that seemed mockingly insufficient,
+as the price of silence, of temporary escape from humiliation.
+
+What could she do? She had never asked a cent from her guardian, and
+the necessity of appealing to him was inexpressibly mortifying; but
+to whom could she apply?
+
+"'But Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of
+these'--society tiger lilies."
+
+The door swung wide open, and as she spoke Olga seemed to swim into
+the room, so quick yet noiseless was her entrance.
+
+At the sound of her voice, Regina dropped the money back into the
+drawer, and turned to inspect the elegant toilette, which consisted
+of gold-coloured silk and Mechlin lace, rich yellow roses with
+sulphurous hearts, and a very complete set of topaz, which flashed
+amber rays over the neck, ears, and arms of the wearer. With her
+brilliant complexion, sparkling eyes, and hair elaborately powdered
+with gold dust, she seemed a vision of light, at whom Regina gazed
+with unfeigned admiration.
+
+"Beautiful, Olga; beautiful."
+
+"The textile fabrics, the silk and lace? Or the human framework, the
+flesh and blood machine that serves as lay figure to show off the
+statuesque folds, the creamy waves of cosily Mechlin, the Persian
+roses, and expensive pebbles?"
+
+"Both. The dress, and the wearer. I never saw you look so well."
+
+"Thanks. Behold the result of the morning's self-denial, of a day
+passed quietly in bed, with only the companionship of pillows and
+dreams. I was forced to choose between Mrs. St. Clare's 'lunch' and
+Mrs. Tarrant's 'crush,' 'not that I love Cæsar less, but that I love
+Rome more;' and the success of my strategy is brilliant. Am I not the
+complete impersonation of sunshine? How deadly white and chill you
+look! Come closer and warm yourself in my glorious rays. Do you scout
+oneiriomancy as a heathenish fable? To-day I unexpectedly became a
+convert to its sublime secrets. After you and mamma deserted me for
+Cantata and Luncheon, I fell into a heavy sleep, and dreamed that I
+was Danæ, with a mist of gold drizzling over me; and lo! when I began
+to dress this evening, my dazzled eyes beheld these superb topaz
+gems. 'Compliments of Mr. Erle Palma, who thought they would
+harmonize with the gold-coloured silk, and ordered them for the
+occasion.' So said the card lying on the velvet case! Do you wonder
+if the world is coming to its long-predicted end? Not at all; merely
+the close of Olga Neville's career; the sun of my maidenhood setting
+in unexpected splendour. Do you understand that scriptural paradox:
+'To him that hath shall be given, but from him that hath not shall be
+taken,' etc., etc? Once when I was better than I am now, and studied
+my Bible, it puzzled me; now I know it means that stiff-necked Olga
+Neville finds no favour in Mr. Palma's eyes; but the obedient, and
+amiable, prospective Mrs. Silas Congreve shall be furnished with
+gewgaws, which very soon she will possess in abundance, and to spare.
+Just now mamma gave me the delightful intelligence that, having been
+informed of my intention to trade myself off for stocks and
+brown-stone-fronts, her very distinguished and magnanimous stepson
+signified his approbation by announcing his determination to settle
+ten thousand dollars on this Lucretia Borgia head, upon the day when
+it wears a bridal veil."
+
+All this was uttered volubly, as if she feared interruption; and she
+stood surveying her brilliant image in the mirror, shaking out the
+silk skirt, looping the lace, arranging the rose leaves and turning,
+so as to catch her profile reflection.
+
+Regina readily perceived that she adopted this method of ignoring the
+casual meeting in East ---- Street, and resolved to tacitly accept
+the cue; but before she could frame a reply, Olga hurried on:
+
+"Were you really sick and unable to dine, or are you practising the
+first steps, the initial measure of that policy system, so cordially
+commended to your favourable regard? You missed an unusually good
+dinner. Octave seems to have days of culinary inspiration, and this
+has been one. The _turbot à la crême_ was fit for Lucullus, the
+noyeau-flavoured _gauffres_ as crisp as criticism, as light as one of
+Taglioni's movements, the marbled _glacés_ simply perfect. But when
+your chair remained vacant your guardian darkened like a
+thunder-cloud in an August sky, and Roscoe, poor Elliott Roscoe,
+looked precisely as I imagine a hungry wolf feels, when crouching to
+catch a tender ewe lamb he finds that the watchful shepherd has
+safely locked it in the fold. Evidently he believes that you and Erle
+Palma have conspired to starve him out, and really he is ludicrously
+irate. Don't trifle with his expanding affections; they are not quite
+fledged yet, and are easily bruised. Deal with him kindly; he is
+better than his cousin, better than any of us. What have you done to
+render him so unmanageable?
+
+"I have not seen Mr. Roscoe for a week."
+
+"Certainly he has seen you in much less time--he imagines, as
+recently as this afternoon; but appearances are desperately
+deceitful, and our fancy often manufactures likenesses. In this world
+of fleeting shadows we are often called upon to reject the evidence
+of all five of the senses, and what madness, what culpable folly, to
+credit that of mere treacherous sight! Shall I tell Elliott that he
+was dreaming, and did not see you?"
+
+"I have no message for him. That he may have seen me sometime to-day,
+walking upon the street, is quite possible, but certainly of no
+consequence. Your bracelet has become unfastened."
+
+She bent down to clasp the topaz crescent, and Olga laid her hand on
+the girl's shoulder.
+
+"Something pains you very much, and your face has not yet learned the
+great feminine art of masking misery in smiles, and burying it in
+dimples. Mind, dear, I do not ask, I do not wish to know what your
+hidden fox is, preying so ravenously upon your vitals. Sooner or
+later the punishment of the Spartan thief overtakes us all, and after
+a while you will learn to bear the gnawing as gaily as I do. I don't
+want to know your secret wound, I should only lacerate it with my
+callous policy handling, only torment you by pouring into its gaping
+mouth the vitriol of my fashionable worldly philosophy, which
+consumes what it touches. How I wish stupid society would stand aside
+and let me do you a genuine kindness; open your blue veins and let
+out gently--slowly--all the pangs and throbs. Dear, it would be a
+blessing, like that man in the East who stabbed his devoted wife at
+her request, because he loved her and wished to put her at rest; but
+something very blind indeed, and which under the cloak of Law mocks
+and outrages justice, would blindly hang me! This is the age of Law;
+even miracles are severely forbidden, and if the herd of Gadarene
+swine had miraculously perished in this generation and country, our
+Lord and His disciples would have inevitably been sued for damages.
+Don't you know that Erle Palma would have been engaged for the
+prosecution? Yes, mamma! quite ready, and coming, Go to sleep,
+snowdrop, and dream that you are like me, a topaz-bedizened
+_odalisque_ swimming in sunshine."
+
+She stooped, kissed the girl softly on both cheeks, and looked
+tenderly, pityingly at her; then suddenly gathered her close to her
+heart, holding her there an instant, as if to shelter her from some
+impending storm.
+
+"If you love your mother, and she loves you, run away now and join
+her, before the chains are tightened. Your guardian is setting
+snares; little white rabbit, flee for your life, while escape is
+possible."
+
+She floated away like some dazzling gilded cloud, and a moment later
+her peculiarly light merry laugh rang through the hall below, as she
+ran down to join her mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+Unable to throw off the load of painful apprehension that weighed so
+heavily on her heart, Regina derived some consolation from the
+reflection that she was entirely alone in the house, and could at
+least escape scrutiny and curious criticism; for she hoped that Mr.
+Palma, forgetting her, would go directly from his office to Mrs.
+Tarrant's, allowing her a reprieve until morning. During the second
+year of her residence beneath his roof, she had at his request taken
+her breakfast with him, sitting at the head of the table, where Mrs.
+Palma presided at all other times. Olga and her mother generally
+slept quite late, and consequently Regina now looked forward with
+dread to the _tête-à-tête_ awaiting her next morning.
+
+A few days subsequent to the Sunday afternoon on which her guardian
+had so unexpectedly accompanied her to church, she had been
+pleasantly surprised by finding in the library a handsome Mason &
+Hamlin parlour organ; on which lay a slip of paper, expressing Mr.
+Palma's desire that she would consider it exclusively hers, and
+sometimes play upon it for him. But an unconquerable timidity and
+repugnance to using the instrument when he was at home had prevented
+a compliance with the request, which was never repeated.
+
+To-night the thought of the organ brought dear and comforting
+memories, and feeling quite secure from intrusion she went down to
+the library. As usual the room was bright and comfortable as gas and
+anthracite could make it, and failing to observe a sudden movement of
+the curtains hanging over the recess behind the writing-desk, Regina
+entered, closed the door and walked up to the glowing grate.
+
+Beneath her mother's portrait sat the customary floral offering,
+which on this occasion consisted of double white and blue violets,
+and standing awhile on the hearth, the girl gazed up at the picture
+with mournful, longing tenderness. Could that proud lovely face ever
+have owned as husband, the coarser, meaner, and degraded clay, who
+that afternoon had dared with sacrilegious presumption to speak of
+her as "Minnie"?
+
+What was the mystery, and upon whom must rest the blame, possibly the
+lifelong shame?
+
+"Not you, dear sad-eyed mother. Let the whole world condemn, deride,
+and despise us; but only your own lips shall teach me to doubt you.
+Everything else may crumble beneath me, all may drift away; but faith
+and trust in mother shall stand fast--as Jacob's ladder, linking me
+with the angels who will surely come down its golden rounds and
+comfort me. Oh, mother I the time has come when you and I must clasp
+hands and fight the battle together; and God will be merciful to the
+right."
+
+Standing there in her blue cashmere dress, relieved by dainty collar
+and cuffs of lace, she seemed indeed no longer a young almost
+childish girl, but one who had passed the threshold and entered the
+mysterious realm of early womanhood.
+
+Rather below than above medium height, her figure was exquisitely
+moulded, and the beautiful head was poised on the shoulders with that
+indescribable proud grace one sometimes sees in perfect marble
+sculpture. But the delicate woeful Oenone face, as white and
+gleaming under its shining coil of ebon hair, as a statue carved from
+the heart of Lygdos; how shall mere words ever portray its peculiar
+loveliness, its faultless purity? Unconsciously she had paused in the
+exact position selected for that beautiful figure of "Faith" which
+Palmer has given to the world; and standing with drooping clasped
+hands and uplifted eyes gazing upon her mother's portrait, as the
+"Faith" looks to the lonely cross above her the resemblance in form
+and features was so striking, that all who have studied that
+exquisite marble can readily recall the countenance of the girl in
+the library.
+
+Turning away, she opened the organ, drew out the stops and began to
+play.
+
+As the soft yet sacredly solemn strains rolled through the long room,
+hallowed associations of the old parsonage life floated up,
+clustering like familiar faces around her. Once more she heard the
+cooing of ring-doves in the honeysuckle, and the loved voices, now
+silent in death, or far, far away among the palms of India.
+
+"Cast thy burden on the Lord" had been one of their favourite
+selections at V----, and now hoping for comfort she sang it.
+
+It was the first time she had attempted it since the evening before
+the storm, when Mr. Lindsay had sung it with her, while Mr. Hargrove
+softly hummed the base, as he walked up and down the verandah, with
+his arm on his sister's shoulder.
+
+How many holy memories rushed like a flood over her heart and soul,
+burying for a time the bitter experience of to-day!
+
+Unable to conclude the song, she leaned back in her chair, and gave
+way to the tears that rolled swiftly down her cheeks.
+
+So wan and hopeless was her face that Mr. Palma, watching her from
+the curtained alcove, came quickly forward.
+
+He was elegantly dressed in full evening toilette, and, throwing his
+white gloves on the table, approached his ward.
+
+At sight of him she started up, and hastily wiped away the tears that
+obstinately dripped despite her efforts.
+
+"Oh, sir! I hoped you would forget to come home, and would go to Mrs.
+Tarrant's. I did not know you were in the house."
+
+"I never forget my duties, and though I am going to Mrs. Tarrant's
+after a while, I attend to 'business before pleasure'; it has been my
+lifelong habit."
+
+His new suit of black, and the white vest and cravat were singularly
+becoming to him. He was aware of the fact; and even in the midst of
+her anxiety and depression, Regina thought she had never seen him
+look so handsome.
+
+"I wish to ask you a few questions. Was it actual bodily sickness,
+physical pain, that kept you in your room during dinner, at which I
+particularly desired your attendance?"
+
+"I cannot say that it was."
+
+"You had no fever, no headache, no fainting-spell?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Then why did you absent yourself?"
+
+"I felt unhappy, and shrank from seeing any one: especially strange
+guests."
+
+"Unhappy? About what?"
+
+"My heart ached, and I wished to be alone."
+
+"Heart-ache, so early? However, you are in your seventeenth year,
+quite old enough, I suppose, for the premonitory symptoms. What gave
+you heart-ache?"
+
+She was silent.
+
+"You feared my displeasure, knowing I had cause to feel offended,
+when making a pretence of deferring to my wishes, you hurried away
+from my office, just as I was returning to it? Why did you not wait?"
+
+"I was afraid you would refuse your permission, and I wanted so very
+much to go to Mrs. Mason's."
+
+Above all other virtues he reverenced and admired stern unvarnished
+truth, and this strong element of her reticent nature had powerfully
+attracted him.
+
+"Little girl, am I such a stony-hearted ogre?" A strangely genial
+smile wanned and brightened his usually grave cold face, and
+certainly at that moment Erle Palma showed one aspect of his nature
+never exhibited before to any human being.
+
+"What a fascinating person this poor old Mrs. Mason must be;
+absolutely tempting you to disobedience. Does she not correspond with
+the saints in Oude?"
+
+"If you mean Mr. Lindsay and his mother, she certainly hears from
+them occasionally."
+
+"Why not phrase it Mrs. Lindsay and her son? Was it the dreadful news
+that malarial fever is epidemic at the Missions, or that the Sepoys
+are threatening another revolt, that destroyed your appetite,
+unfitted you for the social amenities at the dinner-table, and gave
+you heart-ache?"
+
+"If there is such bad news, I did not hear it Mrs. Mason was not at
+home."
+
+"Indeed! Then whom did you see?"
+
+"When I ascertained she was absent, I had already sent the carriage
+away, and I came home, after stopping a few moments in ---- Square."
+
+She grew very white as she spoke, and he saw her lips quiver.
+
+"Regina, what is the matter?"
+
+She did not reply; and bending toward her, he said in a low, winning
+voice entirely unlike his usual tone:
+
+"Lily, trust your guardian."
+
+Looking into his brilliant eyes, she felt tempted to tell him all, to
+repose implicitly upon his wisdom and guidance, but the image of
+Peleg Peterson rose like a hideous warning spectre.
+
+Readily interpreting the varying expression of a countenance which he
+had so long and carefully studied, he continued:
+
+"You wish to tell me frankly, yet you shrink from the ordeal. Lily,
+what have you done that you blush to confess to me?"
+
+"Nothing, sir."
+
+"Why then do you hesitate?"
+
+"Because other persons are involved. Oh, Mr. Palma! I am very
+unhappy."
+
+She clasped her hands, and bowed her chin upon them, a peculiar
+position into which sorrow always drove her.
+
+"I inferred as much, from your manner while at the organ. I am very
+sorry that my house is not a happy home for my ward. Have you been
+subjected to any annoyances from the members of my household?"
+
+"None whatever. All are kind and considerate. But I can never be
+satisfied till I see my mother. I shall write tonight, imploring her
+permission to join her in Europe, and I beg that you will please use
+your influence in favour of my wishes. Oh, sir, do help me to go to
+my mother!"
+
+His smile froze, his face hardened; and he led her to a low sofa
+capable of seating only two persons, and drawn near the fire.
+
+"Madame Orme does not want her daughter just yet"
+
+"But I want my mother. Oh, I must go!"
+
+He took both her hands as they lay folded in her lap, opened the
+clenched fingers, clasping them softly in his own, so white and
+shapely, and his black eyes glittered:
+
+"Am I cruel and harsh to my Lily, that she is so anxious to run away
+from her guardian?"
+
+"No, sir, oh no! Kind and very good, consulting what you consider my
+welfare in all things. But you can't take mother's place in my
+heart."
+
+"I assure you, little girl, I do not want your mother's place."
+
+Something peculiar in his tone arrested her notice, and lifting her
+large lovely eyes she met his searching gaze.
+
+"That is right, keep your eyes so, fixed steadily on mine, while I
+discharge a rather delicate and embarrassing duty, which sometimes
+devolves upon the grim guardians of pretty young ladies. In your
+mother's absence I am supposed to occupy a _quasi_ parental position
+toward you; and am the authorized custodian of your secrets, should
+you, like most persons of your age, chance to possess any. Your
+mother, you are aware, invested me with this right as her vicegerent,
+consequently you must pardon the inquisition into the state of your
+affections, which just now I am compelled to make. Although I
+consider you entirely too young for such grave propositions, it is
+nevertheless proper that I should be the medium of their presentation
+when they become inevitable. Upon the tender and very susceptible
+heart of Mr. Elliott Roscoe it appears that either with 'malice
+prepense,' or else, let us hope, in innocent unconsciousness, you
+have been practising certain feminine wiles and sorcery, which have
+so far capsized his reason, that he is incapacitated for attending to
+his business. When I remonstrated against the lunacy into which he is
+drifting, he in very poetic and chivalric style--which it is
+unnecessary to repeat here--assured me that you were the element
+which had utterly deranged his cerebral equipoise. Elliott Roscoe is
+my cousin, is a young gentleman of good character, good mind, good
+education, good heart, and good manners, and in due time may command
+a good income from his profession; but just now, in pecuniary
+matters, he would not be considered a brilliant match. Mr. Roscoe
+informs me that he desires an interview with you to-morrow, for the
+purpose of offering you his heart and hand; and while protesting on
+the ground of your youth, I have promised to communicate his wishes
+to you, and should he be favourably received, write to your mother at
+once."
+
+Perplexed and confused, she had not fully comprehended his purpose
+until he uttered the closing sentence, and painful astonishment kept
+her silent, while as if spellbound her gaze met his.
+
+"Now it remains for you to answer one question. Should your mother
+give her consent, does Miss Regina Orme intend to become my cousin?"
+
+"Oh, never! You distress me; you ought not to talk to me of such
+things. I am so young, you know mother would not approve of it."
+
+She blushed scarlet, and attempted to withdraw her hands, but found
+it impossible.
+
+"Quite true, and if crazy young gentlemen could be prevailed upon to
+keep silent, rest assured I should never have broached a subject,
+which I regard as premature. But while I certainly applaud your good
+sense, it is rather problematical whether I should feel gratified at
+your summary rejection of an alliance with my cousin. Are you fully
+resolved that I shall never be related to you, except as your
+guardian?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I do not wish to be your cousin."
+
+Once more the smile shone out suddenly, making sunshine in his face.
+
+"Thank you. At what hour will you see Mr. Roscoe?"
+
+"At none. Please do not let him come here, or speak to me on that
+subject; it would be so extremely painful. I should never meet him
+afterward without feeling distressed, and things would be intolerably
+disagreeable. Please, Mr. Palma, shield me from it."
+
+She involuntarily drew closer to him, as if for protection, and
+noting the movement, he smiled, and tightened his clasp of her hands.
+
+"I cannot positively forbid him to address you on this terrible
+topic, but if you wish it, I will endeavour to dissuade him. Elliott
+has Palma blood in his veins, and that has certain unmistakable
+tendencies to obstinacy, though its conduct in love affairs yet
+remains to be tested; but it occurs to me that if you are in earnest
+in desiring to crush this foolish whim in the bud, you can very
+easily accomplish it by empowering me to make to my cousin a simple
+statement, which will extinguish the matter beyond all possibility of
+resurrection."
+
+"Then tell him whatever your judgment dictates."
+
+"My judgment must be instructed by facts, and the simple statement I
+propose might involve grave consequences. Do you authorize me to
+close the discussion of this matter at once and for ever, by
+informing Mr. Roscoe that you cannot entertain the thought of
+granting him an interview because his suit is hopeless from the fact
+that your affections are already engaged?"
+
+She was too much embarrassed by his piercing merciless eyes, to
+notice that he slipped one finger upon the pulse at her wrist,
+keeping her hands firmly in his warm clasp; or that he leaned lower
+as he spoke, until his noble massive head very nearly approached
+hers.
+
+"I could not ask you to tell him that. It would be untrue."
+
+"Are you sure, Lily?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Palma."
+
+"Have you forgotten Mr. Lindsay?"
+
+He thought for an instant that the pulse stood still, then beat
+regularly calmly on, and he wondered if his own tight pressure had
+baffled his object.
+
+"No, I never forget Mr. Lindsay."
+
+She did not shrink or colour, but a sad hopeless look crept into her
+splendid eyes at the mention of his name.
+
+"You are certain that the young missionary will not prove the
+obstacle to your becoming more closely related to your guardian?
+Thus far, I have found you singularly truthful in all things; be
+careful that just here you deceive neither yourself nor me. There is
+a tradition that in the river Inachus is found a peculiar stone
+resembling a beryl, which turns black in the hands of those who
+intend to bear false witness; and you can readily understand that
+lawyers find such stones invaluable in the court-room. I have placed
+you on the witness stand, and my beryl-tinted seal ring presses your
+palm at this instant. Be frank; are you not very deeply attached to
+Mr. Lindsay?"
+
+Suddenly a burning flush bathed her brow, she struggled to free her
+hands in order to hide her face from his glowing probing eyes, but
+his hold was unyielding as a band of steel; and hardly conscious
+where she found shelter, she turned and pressed her cheek against his
+shoulder, striving to avoid that inquisitorial gaze.
+
+She did not see his face grow grey and stony, or that the white teeth
+gnawed the lower lip; but when he spoke his voice was stern, and
+indescribably icy.
+
+"My ward should study her heart before she empowers her guardian to
+consider it unoccupied property. You should at least inform your
+mother that it has become a mere missionary station."
+
+With her hot cheeks still hidden against his shoulder, she exclaimed:
+
+"No, no! You do not at all understand me. I feel to him, to Douglass,
+exactly as I did when he went away."
+
+"So I infer. Your feeling is sufficiently apparent."
+
+"Not what you imagine. When he left me I promised him I would always
+love him as I did then; and I told him what was true: I loved him
+next to my mother. But not as you mean, oh no! If God had given me a
+brother, I should think of him exactly as I do of dear Douglass. I
+miss him very much, more than I can express; and I love him, and want
+to see him. But I never had any other thought, except as his adopted
+sister, until this moment when you spoke, and it shocked, it almost
+humiliated me. Indeed my feeling for him is almost holy, and your
+thought, your meaning seems to me sacrilegious. He is my noble true
+friend, my dear good brother, and you must not think such things of
+him and of me; it hurts me."
+
+For nearly a moment there was silence.
+
+Mr. Palma dropped one of her hands, and his arm passed quickly around
+her shoulder, while his open palm pressed her head closer against
+him.
+
+"Is my ward sure that if he wished to be more than a brother, she
+would never reciprocate, would never cherish a different feeling, a
+stronger affection?"
+
+"He could never wish that. He is so much older and wiser and better
+than I am; and looks on me only as a little sister."
+
+"Is superiority in years and wisdom the only obstacle you can
+imagine?"
+
+"I have never thought of it at all until you spoke, and it is
+painful to me. It seems disrespectful to connect such ideas as yours
+with the name of one whom I honour as my brother."
+
+He put his hand under her chin, turning her face to view despite her
+struggle to prevent it, and bending his head--he did not kiss her! Oh
+no! Erle Palma had never kissed any one since his childhood; but for
+one instant his dark cheek was laid close to hers, with a tender
+caressing touch, that astonished her as completely as if one of the
+bronze statuettes on the console above her head had laughed aloud,
+and clapped its metallic hands.
+
+"Henceforth the 'disrespectful idea' shall never be associated with
+the name of Mr. Douglass Lindsay, and in the future I warn you, there
+shall be none but a purely fraternal niche allowed him; moreover, it
+is not requisite that you should speak of him as 'dear Douglass' in
+order to assure me of your sisterly regard. What I shall do with my
+unfortunate young cousin is not quite so transparent; for Elliott
+will not receive his rejection by proxy."
+
+He had withdrawn his arm, and released her hand, and rising she
+exclaimed impetuously:
+
+"Tell him that Regina Orme will never permit him to broach that
+subject; and tell him, too, that I am a waif, a girl over whose
+parentage hangs a shadow dark and chill as a pall. Oh! tell him I
+want my mother, and an honourable unsullied name, and until I can
+find these I have no room in my mind or heart for a lover!"
+
+As the events of the day, temporarily banished from her thoughts by
+the unexpected character of the interview, rushed back with renewed
+force and bitterness, the transient colour died out of her face,
+leaving it strangely wan and worn in aspect; and Mr. Palma saw now
+that purple shadows lay beneath the deep eyes, rendering them more
+than ever prophetic in their solemn mournful expression.
+
+"What unusual occurrence has stimulated your interest and curiosity
+concerning your parentage?"
+
+"It never slumbers. It is the last thought at night, and the first
+when the day dawns. It is a burden that is never lifted, that galls
+continually; and sometimes, as to-night, I feel that I cannot endure
+it much longer."
+
+"You must be patient, for awhile at least----"
+
+"Yes, I have heard that for ten long years, and I have been both
+patient and silent: but the time has come when I can bear no more.
+Anything positive, definite, susceptible of proof, no matter how
+distressing, would be more tolerable than this suspense, this
+maddening conjecture. I will see my mother; I must know the truth, be
+it what it may!"
+
+The witchery of childhood had vanished for ever. Even the glimmer of
+hope seemed paling in the almost supernatural eyes, that had grown
+prematurely womanly; viewing life no more through the rainbow lenses
+of sanguine girlhood, but henceforth as an anxious woman haunting the
+penetralia of sorrow, never oblivious of the fact that over her path
+hovered the gibing spectre of disgrace.
+
+The unwonted recklessness of her tone and mien annoyed and surprised
+her guardian, and while a frown gathered on his brow he rose and
+stood beside her.
+
+"Your petulant vehemence is both unbecoming and displeasing; and in
+future you would do well to recollect that, as a child submitted to
+my guidance by your mother's desire, it is disrespectful both to her
+and to me to insist upon a course at variance with our judgment and
+wishes."
+
+"I am not a child. To-day I know, I feel, I have done for ever with
+my old--happy childhood; I am--what I wish I were not, a woman. Oh,
+Mr. Palma, be merciful, and send me to mother!"
+
+He looked down into the worn face gleaming under the gas-lamps of the
+chandelier, into the shadowy eloquent eyes, and noting the bloodless
+lips drawn sharply into curves of pain, his hand fell upon her
+shoulder.
+
+"Lily, because I am merciful I shall keep you here. I am not a
+patient man, am unaccustomed to teasing importunity, and it would
+pain me to harshly bruise the white flower I have undertaken to
+shelter from storm and dust; therefore you must be quiet, docile, and
+annoy me no more with fruitless solicitations. Your mother does not
+want you in Europe."
+
+"You will not let me go?"
+
+"I will not. Let this subject rest henceforth, until I renew it."
+
+With a faint moan, she shut her eyes and shivered; and again he took
+her little white cold hands.
+
+"Little snow-statue, why will you not trust me? Tell me what has so
+suddenly changed the soft white Lily-bud of yesterday into this
+hollow-eyed, defiant young woman?"
+
+The temptation was powerful to unburden her heart, to demand of him
+the truth, with which she suspected he was at least partly
+acquainted; but the thought of casting so fearful an imputation upon
+her mother sealed her lips. Moreover, she felt assured that her
+entreaties would never prevail upon him to disclose what he deemed it
+expedient to conceal.
+
+He watched and understood the struggle, and a cold smile moved his
+handsome mouth.
+
+"You have resolved to withhold your confidence. Very well, I shall
+never again solicit it. It is not my habit to petition for that which
+I have a right to command. You merely force me to draw the reins
+where I preferred you should at least imagine you were unbridled."
+
+He dropped her hands, looked at his watch, and took up his gloves;
+adding, in an entirely altered and indifferent voice:
+
+"What have you lost to-day?"
+
+It was with difficulty that she restrained the words:
+"My youth, my peace of mind, my hope and faith in my future."
+
+Raising her hands wearily, she rested her chin upon them, and
+answered slowly:
+
+"Many things, I fear."
+
+"Valuable articles? Faded flowers, perfumed with choice Oriental
+reminiscences?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I lost my purse, and my Agra violets."
+
+"What reward will you offer for the recovery of such precious relics
+of fraternal affection? A promise of implicit obedience to your
+guardian? Certainly, they are worth that trifle?"
+
+"They are very precious indeed. Where did you find my purse?"
+
+"On the desk at my office."
+
+He held up the ivory toy, then laid it on the table.
+
+"Thank you, sir. Mr. Palma, will you grant me a great favour?"
+
+"As I never forfeit my word, I avoid entangling myself rashly in the
+meshes of promise. Just now I am in no mood to grant your
+unreasonable petitions; still, I will be glad to hear what my ward
+desires of her guardian."
+
+Her lip quivered, and his heart smote him as he observed her wounded
+expression. She was silent, still resting her drooped head on her
+folded hands.
+
+"Regina, I am waiting to hear you."
+
+"It is useless. You would refuse me."
+
+"Probably I should; yet I prefer that you should express your wishes,
+and afford me an opportunity of judging of their propriety."
+
+She sighed and shook her head.
+
+"I shall not permit such childish trifling. Tell me at once what you
+wish me to do."
+
+"Will you be so kind as to lend me twenty-five dollars, until I
+receive my remittance?"
+
+His eyes fell beneath her timidly pleading gaze, and a deep flush of
+embarrassment passed over his face.
+
+"That depends upon the use you intend to make of it. If you desire to
+run away from me, I am afraid you must borrow of some one else. Do
+you wish to pay your passage to Europe?"
+
+"Oh no! I wish that I could. You allow me no such comforting hope."
+
+"What do you want with it?"
+
+"I cannot tell you."
+
+"Because you know that your object is improper?"
+
+"No, sir; but you would not understand my motives."
+
+"Try me."
+
+"I will not I hoped you would have sufficient confidence in me to
+grant my request without demanding my reasons."
+
+"I have confidence in the purity of your motives. I do not question
+the goodness of your heart, or the propriety of your intentions; but
+I gravely doubt the correctness of your youthful judgment. Do not
+force me to refuse you such a trivial thing. Tell me your purpose."
+
+"No, sir."
+
+A proud grieved look crossed her delicate features.
+
+He walked away, reached the door, then came back for one of his
+gloves which had fallen on the rug.
+
+"Mr. Palma."
+
+"Well, Miss Orme."
+
+"Trust me."
+
+He looked down into her beautiful sad eyes, and his heart began to
+throb fiercely.
+
+"Lily, I will."
+
+"Some day I will explain everything."
+
+"When do you want the money?"
+
+"To-morrow morning, if you please."
+
+"At breakfast you will find it in an envelope under your plate."
+
+"Thank you, sir. It is for----"
+
+"Hush! Tell me nothing till you tell me all. I prefer to trust you
+entirely, and I shall wait for the hour when no concealment exists
+between us; when your secret thoughts are as much my property as my
+own. Less than that will never content your exacting guardian, but
+that hour is very distant."
+
+She took his hand and pressed her soft lips upon it, ere he could
+snatch it away.
+
+"God grant that hour may come speedily."
+
+"Amen, Lily. You look strangely worn and ill; and your eyes are
+distressingly elfish and shadowy. Go to sleep, little girl, and
+forget that you forced me to be stem and harsh. Remember that your
+guardian, in defiance of his judgment, trusts you fully--entirely."
+
+He turned quickly and quitted the library before she could reply,
+and soon after, hearing the street door close, she knew he had gone
+to Mrs. Tarrant's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+The letter which Regina wrote that night was earnest, almost
+passionate, in its appeal that she might be permitted to join her
+mother; yet no hint of the _bête noire_ of the square darkened its
+contents, for the writer felt that only face to face, eye to eye,
+could she ask her mother that fearful question, upon which all her
+future peace depended.
+
+Having sealed and addressed the envelope, she extinguished the light,
+and tried to find in sleep that blessed oblivion which nature
+mercifully provides for aching hearts and heavily laden brains; but
+about three o'clock she heard the carriage at the front door, the
+voices of the trio ascending the stairs, and once a ringing
+triumphant laugh which was peculiarly Olga's, then all grew still in
+the house, and quiet in the street.
+
+Unable to compose herself, tossing restlessly on her bed, with hot
+throbbing temples and a sore heart Regina wearily listened for the
+low silvery strokes of the clock, and when it announced half-past
+three she began to long for daylight.
+
+Suddenly, although warned by not even the faintest sound, she became
+aware that she was not alone; that a human being was breathing the
+same atmosphere. Starting into a sitting posture she exclaimed:
+
+"Who is there?"
+
+"Hush! I am no burglar. Don't make a noise."
+
+Simultaneously she heard the stroke of a match, and a small wax taper
+was lighted and held high over Olga's head, showing her tall form
+enveloped in a cherry-coloured dressing-gown and shawl. Stepping
+cautiously across the floor, she lighted one of the gas burners,
+placed the taper on the bureau, and came to the bedside.
+
+"Make room for me. I am cold, my feet are like ice."
+
+"What is the matter? Has anything happened?"
+
+"Nothing particularly new or strange. Something happens every hour,
+you know; people are born, bartered--die and are buried; lives get
+blackened and hearts bleed and are trampled by human hoofs, until
+they are crushed beyond recognition. My dear, civilization is a huge
+cheat, and the Red Law of Savages in primeval night is worth all the
+tomes of jurisprudence, from the Pandects of Justinian to the
+Commentaries of Blackstone, and the wisdom of Coke and Story. Oh
+halcyon days of prehistoric humanity! When instead of bowing and
+smiling, and chatting gracefully with one's deadliest foe, drinking
+his Amontillado and eating his truffles, people had the sublime
+satisfaction of roasting his flesh and calcining his bones, for an
+antediluvian _dejeuner à la fourchette_,--(only, to escape
+anachronism) _sans fourchette!_ What a pity I have not the privilege
+of _la belle sauvage_, far away in some cannibalistic nook of pagan
+Polynesia."
+
+She was sitting with the bedclothes drawn closely over her, and
+Regina could scarcely recognize in the pale, almost haggard face
+beside her the radiant, laughing woman who had seemed so dazzling a
+few hours before, as she burned away in her festive robes.
+
+"Olga, you talk like a heathen."
+
+"Of course. To be sincere, unselfish, honest, and womanly is nowaday
+inevitably heathenish. I wish I had a nose as flat as a buckwheat
+cake, and lips three inches thick, with huge brass rings dangling
+from them both! And for raiment, instead of Worth's miracles, a
+mantle of featherwork, or a deerskin cut into fringe, and studded
+with blue glass beads! Civilization is a gibing impostor, and
+religion is laughing in its sacerdotal sleeves at its own
+unblushing----"
+
+"Hush, Olga! You are blasphemous. No wonder you shiver while you
+talk. New York is full of noble Christians, of generous charming
+people, and there must be some wickedness everywhere. Don't you know
+that God will ultimately overrule all, and evangelize the world?"
+
+"_Peut-être!_ But I have not even the traditional grain of mustard
+seed to sow; and I might answer you as Laplace once did: '_Je n'avais
+pas besoin de cette hypothèse_.'"
+
+"Had you a pleasant evening at Mrs. Tarrant's?" asked Regina, anxious
+to change the topic.
+
+"Wonderfully brilliant, and quite a topaz success. I sparkled,
+blazed, and people complimented profusely (criticizing _sotto voce_),
+and envied openly; and when I bowed myself out at last, I felt like
+Sir Peter Teazle on quitting Lady Sneerwell's: 'I leave my character
+behind me.' Mamma was charmed with me, and Mr. Silas Midas looked
+proud possession, as if he had in his vest pocket a bill of sale to
+every pound of my white flesh,--and Mr. Erle Palma smiled as benignly
+as some cast-iron statue of Pluto, freshly painted white, and
+glistening in the sunshine. _A propos!_ I asked him to-night if he
+would loosen his martinet rein upon you, and permit you to make your
+_début_ in society as my bridesmaid? How those maddening white teeth
+of his glittered, as he smiled approvingly at the proposition?
+Whenever they gleam out, they remind me of a tiger preparing to
+crunch the bones of a tender gazelle, or a bleating lamb. Now you
+comprehend what brings me here at this unseasonable hour? Armed with
+your noble guardian's sanction, I crave the honour of your services
+as bridesmaid at my approaching nuptials. Your dress, dear, must be
+gentian-coloured silk to match your eyes, and clouded over with
+_tulle_ of the same hue, relieved by sprays of gentians with silver
+leaves glittering with icicles, and you shall look on that occasion
+as lovely as an orthodox Hebrew angel; or, what is far more stylish,
+beautiful as ox-eyed Herè poised above Olympos, watching old Zeus
+flirt surreptitiously with Aphrodite! Will you be first bridesmaid?"
+
+"No, I will not be your bridesmaid. I could never co-operate in the
+unhallowed scheme of wedding a man whom you despise. Oh, Olga! do not
+degrade yourself by such a mercenary traffic."
+
+"My dear, uncontaminated innocent, don't you see that society, and
+mamma, and Erle Palma have all conspired to make an Isaac of me?
+Bound hand and foot, I lie on the Moriah of fashionable life; but the
+grim fact stares me in the face, that no ram will be forthcoming when
+the slaughter begins! No relenting hand will stay the uplifted knife.
+Diana will not snatch me into Tauris, and mamma cannot sail
+prosperously from the Aulis of Erle Palma's charity until I am
+sacrificed. Ah! the pitying tenderness of maternal love!"
+
+She spoke with intolerable bitterness, and Regina put one arm around
+her.
+
+"Olga, she loves you too well to doom you to lifelong misery. You
+always talk so mockingly, and say so many queer things you do not
+mean, that she does not realize your true sentiments. Show her your
+heart, your real feelings, and she will never consent to see you
+marry that man."
+
+"Do you believe that I successfully mask my heart? Not from mamma,
+not from Erle Palma. They know all its tortures, all its wild
+desperate struggles, and they are confident that after awhile I shall
+wear out my own opposition, and sullenly succumb to their wishes.
+They have taken an inventory of Silas Congreve's worldly goods, and
+in exchange would gladly brand his name as title-deed upon my brow.
+To-night I have danced, laughed, chattered like a yellow parrot, ate,
+drank champagne, flattered, flirted, and fibbed, until I am wellnigh
+mad. It seems to me that a whole legion of demons lie in wait outside
+of your door to seize my shivering desolate soul."
+
+She shuddered, and pressed her fingers over her glittering eyes.
+
+"Regina, you are a silly young thing, as ignorant of the ways of the
+world as an unfledged Java sparrow; but your heart is pure and true,
+and your affection is no adroitly set steel-trap, to spring unawares,
+and catch and cut me. From the day when you first came among us with
+your sweet childish face and holy eyes, as much out of place in this
+house as Abel's saintly countenance would be in Caïna, I have watched
+and believed in you; and my wretched worldly heart began to put out
+fibres toward you, as those hyacinths there in your bulb-glasses grow
+roots. Will it be safe for me to confide in you? Can I trust you?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Will you promise to keep secret whatever I may tell you?"
+
+"Does it concern only yourself?"
+
+"Only myself, and one other person whom you do not even know. If I
+venture to tell you anything, you must give me your solemn promise to
+betray me to no human being. I want your sympathy at least, for I
+feel desperate."
+
+Looking pityingly at her pale sorrowful face and quivering mouth,
+Regina drew closer to her.
+
+"You may trust me. I will never betray you."
+
+"Not to mamma, not to your guardian? You promise?"
+
+Her cold hand seized her companion's, and wistfully her hollow eyes
+searched the girl's face.
+
+"I promise."
+
+"Would you help me to escape from the misery of this fine marriage?
+Are you brave enough to meet your guardian's black frown and freezing
+censure?
+
+"I hope I am brave enough to do right; and you certainly would not
+expect or desire me to do anything wrong."
+
+Olga threw her arms around Regina, and leaned her head on her
+shoulder. She seemed for a time shaken by some storm of sorrow that
+threatened to bear away all her habitual restraint, and Regina
+silently stroked her glossy red hair, waiting to hear some painful
+revelation.
+
+"I think I never should have ventured to divulge my misery to you if
+you had not seen me yesterday, and abstained from all allusion to the
+matter when you saw that I boldly ignored it. Do you suspect the
+nature of my errand to East ---- Street?"
+
+"I thought it possible that you were engaged in some charitable
+mission; at least I hoped so."
+
+"Charitable! Then you considered the feigned sickness a 'pious
+fraud,' and did not condemn me? If charity carried me there, it was
+solely charity to my suffering starving heart, which cried out for
+its idol. You have heard of Dirce and Damiens dragged by wild
+beasts? Theirs was a mere afternoon airing in comparison with the
+race I am driven by the lash of your guardian, the spur of mamma, and
+the frantic wails of my famished heart. I wish I could speak without
+bitterness, and mockery, and exaggeration, but it has grown to be a
+part of my nature, as features habituated to a mask insensibly assume
+to some extent its outlines. I will try to put aside my flippant
+hollow attempts at persiflage, which constitute my worldly mannerism,
+and tell you in a few simple words. When I was about your age, I
+think my nature must have resembled yours, for many of your ideas and
+views of duty in this life remind me in a mournfully vague, tender
+way of my own early youth; and from that far distant time taunting
+reminiscences float down to me, whispers from my old self long, long
+dead. When I was seventeen, I went one June to spend some weeks with
+my Grandmother Neville, who was an invalid, and resided on the
+Hudson, near a very picturesque spot, which artists were in the habit
+of frequenting with their sketch-books. Allowed a degree of liberty
+which mamma never accorded me at home, I availed myself of the lax
+regimen of my grandmother, and roamed at will about the beautiful
+country adjacent. In one of these ill-fated excursions I encountered
+a young artist, who was spending a few days in the neighbourhood. I
+was a simple-hearted schoolgirl, untutored in worldly wisdom, and had
+always spent my vacations with grandmother, who was afflicted with no
+aristocratic whims and vagaries; who thought it not wholly
+unpardonable to be poor, and was so old-fashioned as to judge people
+from their merits, not by the amount of their income tax.
+
+"Belmont Eggleston was then about twenty-five, very handsome, very
+talented, full of chivalric enthusiasm, and as refined and tender in
+sensibility as a woman. We met accidentally at a farmhouse, where a
+sudden shower drove us for shelter, and from that hour neither could
+forget the other. It was the old, old immemorial story--two fresh
+young souls united, two hearts exchanged, two lives for ever
+entangled. We walked and rode together, he taught me drawing, came
+now and then and spent the long summer afternoons, and grandmother
+liked and welcomed him; offered no obstacle to the strong current of
+love that ran like a golden stream for those few hallowed weeks, and
+afterward found only rapids and whirlpools. How deliriously happy I
+was! What a glory seems even now to linger about every tree and rock
+that we visited together! He told me he was very poor, and was
+encumbered with the care of an infirm mother and sister, and of a
+young brother who displayed great plastic skill, and gave promise of
+becoming renowned in sculpture, while Belmont was devoted to
+painting. He frankly explained his poverty, detailed his plans,
+expatiated with beautiful poetic fervour upon the hopes that gilded
+his future, and asked my sympathy and affection. While he was obscure
+he was unwilling to claim me, his love was too unselfish to
+transplant me from a sphere of luxury and affluence to one of
+pecuniary want; and he only desired that I would patiently wait until
+his genius won recognition. One star-lit night, standing on the bank
+of the river, with the perfume of jasmines stealing over us, I put my
+hand in his, and pledged my heart, my life for his. Nearly eight
+years have passed since then, but no shadow of regret has ever
+crossed my mind for the solemn promise I gave; and, despite all I
+have suffered, were it in my power to cancel the past I would not!
+Bitter waves have broken over me, but the memory of my lover, of his
+devotion, is sweeter, oh! sweeter than my hopes of heaven! God
+forgive me if it be sinful idolatry. It is the one golden link that
+held me back, that saves me now, from selling myself to Satan. In the
+midst of that rose-crowned June and July, in the height of my
+innocent happiness, mamma fell upon us, as a hawk swoops upon a
+dovecote, dividing a cooing pair. Disguising nothing, I freely told
+her all, and Belmont nobly pleaded for permission to prove his
+worthiness. Grandmother was a powerful ally, and perhaps the result
+might have been different, and mamma would have ultimately been won
+over, had not Erle Palma's counsel been sought. That cold-blooded
+tyrant has been the one curse of my life. But for him, I should be
+to-day a happy, loving wife. Do you wonder that I hate him? How I
+have longed for the seven Apocalyptic vials of wrath! He and mamma
+conferred. An investigation concerning the Egglestons elicited the
+fatal fact that some branch of the family had once been accused of
+embezzlement, had been prosecuted by Erle Palma, and in defiance of
+his efforts to convict him had been acquitted. Mamma and your
+guardian possessed then, as now, only one criterion:
+
+         'He is .poor, and that's suspicious; he is unknown,
+          And that's defenceless!'
+
+Then and there they sternly prohibited even my acquaintance with one
+to whom I had promised all that woman can give of affection, faith,
+and deathless constancy. No more pity or regard was shown to my agony
+of heart and mind than the cattle drover manifests in driving
+innocent dumb horned creatures from quiet clover meadows where they
+browsed in peace, to the reeking public shambles. Even a parting
+interview was denied me; but clandestinely I found an opportunity to
+renew my vows, to assure Belmont that no power on earth should compel
+me to renounce him, and that if necessary I would wait twenty years
+for him to claim me. Older and wiser than I, he realized what
+stretched before me, and while repeatedly assuring me his love was
+inextinguishable, he generously attempted to dissuade me from defying
+those who had legal control of me. So we parted, pledged irrevocably
+one to the other; and whenever we have met since that summer, it has
+been by strategy. My mother, from the day when the doom of my love
+was decreed, has been as deaf to my pleadings, and my heart-breaking
+cries, as the golden calf was to the indignant denunciations of
+Moses. I was hurried prematurely into society, thrown into a
+maelstrom of gaiety that whirled me as though I were a dancing
+dervish, and left me apparently no leisure for retrospection or
+regret, or for the indulgence of the rosy dream that lay like a
+lovely morning cloud above and behind me. My clothing was costly and
+tasteful; I was exhibited at Saratoga, Long Branch, and Newport,
+those popular human expositions, where wealth and fashion flock to
+display and compare their textile fabrics and jewellery, as less
+'developed' cattle still on four feet are hurried to State fairs, to
+ascertain the value of their pearly short horns, thin tails, and
+satin-coated skins. No expense or pains were spared, and my mother's
+stepson certainly lavished his money as well as advice upon me. At
+long intervals I had stolen interviews with Belmont, then he went far
+south to study for a tropical landscape, and was absent two years.
+When he returned, beaming with hope, the cloud over our lives seemed
+silvering at the edges, and he was sanguine that his picture would
+compel recognition, and bring him fame, which in art means food.
+But Earl Palma had resolved otherwise. It was our misfortune, that in
+my haste to see the picture, I neglected my usual precautionary
+measures to elude suspicion, and  your   guardian tracked me to the
+attic, where the finishing touches were being put on. Unluckily
+Belmont was never a favourite among the artists, and he explained to
+me that it was because he was proud, reticent, and held himself aloof
+from their club life and social haunts. Taking advantage of his
+personal unpopularity, your magnanimous guardian organized a cabal
+against him. No sooner was the painting exhibited, than a tirade of
+ridicule and abuse was poured upon it, and the journal most
+influential in forming and directing artistic taste, contained an
+overwhelmingly adverse criticism, which was written by a particular
+friend and chum of Erle Palma, who, I am convinced, caused its
+preparation. Oh, Regina! it was a cruel, cruel stab, that entered my
+darling's noble tender heart, and almost maddened him. In literature,
+savage criticism defeats its own unamiable purpose, by promoting the
+sale of books it is designed to crush; but unfortunately this law
+does not often operate in the department of painting. In a fit of
+gloomy despondency, Belmont offered his lovely work for a mere
+trifle, but the picture dealers declined to touch it at any price,
+and rashly cutting it from the frame, he threw the labour of years
+into the flames. Meantime grand-mamma had died, and Belmont's mother
+became hopelessly bedridden, while his young brother had made his way
+to Europe, where he occupied a menial position in a sculptor's
+_atelier_ at Florence. A more rigid surveillance was exerted over me,
+and the dancing dervishes crowned me queen of their revels. By day
+and by night I was surrounded with influence intended to beguile me
+from the past, to narcotize memory, to make me in reality the
+heartless, soulless, scoffing creature that I certainly seem. But
+Erle Palma has found me stiff tough clay, and despite his efforts, I
+have been true to the one love of my life. What I have suffered, none
+but the listening watching God above us knows; and sometimes I
+despise and loathe myself for the miserable subterfuges I am forced
+to practise in order to elude my keepers. Poor mamma loves me, after
+a selfish worldly fashion, and there are moments when I really think
+she pities me; but from Palma influence and association wealth has
+long been her most precious fetich. Poverty, obscurity terrify her,
+and for the fleshpots of fashion she would literally sell me, as she
+once sold herself to Godwin Palma. Repeatedly I have been urged to
+accept offers of marriage that revolted every instinct of my nature,
+that seemed insulting to a woman who long ago gave away all that was
+best, in her heart's idolatrous love. To-day my Belmont is ten-fold
+dearer, than when in the dawning flush of womanhood, I plighted my
+lifelong faith to him; and reigns more royally than ever over all
+that is good and true in my perverted and cynical nature. I cling to
+him, to my faith in his noble, manly, unselfish, undying love for me,
+unworthy as I have grown, even as a drowning wretch to some
+overhanging bough, which alone saves her from the black destruction
+beneath. Unable to conquer the opposition he encountered here,
+Belmont went West, and finally strayed into the solitudes of Oregon
+and British America. At one time, for a year, I did not know whether
+he were living or dead, and what torture I silently endured! Six
+months ago he returned, buoyed by the hope of retrieving his past;
+and one of his pictures was bought by a wealthy man in Philadelphia,
+who had commissioned him to paint two more landscapes. At last we
+began to dream of an humble little home somewhere, where at least we
+should have the blessing of our mutual love and presence. The thought
+was magnetic,--it showed me there was some good left in my poor
+scoffing soul; that I possessed capacity for happiness, for
+self-sacrificing devotion to my noble Belmont,--that made our future
+seem a canticle. Oh! how delicious was the release I imagined!"
+
+She groaned aloud, and rocked herself to and fro, with a hopelessness
+that awed and grieved her pale mute listener.
+
+"The Fates are fond of Erle Palma. They will pet him to the end, for
+he is a man after their own flinty hearts; pitiless as those grim
+three, whom Michael Angelo must have seen during nightmare. When I
+think how he will gloat over the overthrow of my darling hope, I feel
+that it is scarcely safe for me to remain under his roof; I am so
+powerfully tempted to strangle him. Exposure to the rigour of two
+winters in the far North-West has seriously undermined Belmont's
+health. His physician apprehends consumption, and orders him to
+hasten to Southern Europe, or South America."
+
+For some moments Olga was silent, and her mournful eyes were fixed on
+the wall, with a half vacant stare, as her thoughts wandered to her
+unfortunate lover.
+
+Regina could scarcely realize that this pallid face so full of
+anguish was the radiant mocking countenance she had hitherto seen
+only in mask, and taking her hand she pressed it gently to recall her
+attention.
+
+"Feeling as you do, dear Olga, how can you think of marrying Mr.
+Congreve?"
+
+"Marrying him! I do not; I am not yet quite so degraded as that
+implies. I would sooner buy a pistol, or an ounce of arsenic, and end
+all this misery. While Belmont lives, I belong to him; I love him as
+I never have loved any one else; but when he is taken from me, only
+Heaven sees what will be my wretched fate. Destiny has made a
+football of the most precious hope that ever gladdened a woman's
+heart, and when the end comes, I rather think Erle Palma will not
+curl his granite lips, and taunt me. My assent to the Congreve
+purchase is but a _ruse_; in other words, honest words, a disgraceful
+subterfuge, fraud, to gain time. I can bear the life I lead no
+longer, and ere many days I shall burst my fetters, and snatch
+freedom, no matter what cost I pay hereafter."
+
+"Olga, you cannot mean that you intend----"
+
+"No matter what I intend, I shall not falter when the time comes.
+Yesterday I went to see his mother--poor patient sufferer--and to
+learn the latest tidings from my darling. You saw me when I entered,
+and no doubt puzzled your brains to reconcile the inconsistency of my
+conduct. Your delicate reticence entitles you to this explanation.
+Now you know all my sorrow, and no matter what happens you must not
+betray my movements. From this house, my letters to Belmont have been
+intercepted, and our correspondence has long been conducted under
+cover to his mother."
+
+"Where is he now?"
+
+"In Philadelphia."
+
+"How is he?"
+
+"No better. His physician says January must find him _en route_ to a
+warmer climate."
+
+"When did you see him last?"
+
+"In September. Even then his cough rendered me anxious, but he
+laughed at my apprehensions. O God! be merciful to him and to me! I
+know I am unworthy; I know I have a bitter wicked tongue, and a world
+of hate in my heart; but if God would be pitiful, if He only spares
+my darling's life, I will try to be a better woman."
+
+She leaned her head once more on Regina's shoulder, and burst into a
+flood of tears, the first her companion had ever seen her shed. After
+some minutes the sympathizing listener said:
+
+"Perhaps if you appealed frankly to Mr. Palma, and showed him the
+dreadful suffering of your heart, he would relent."
+
+"You do not know him. Does a lion relent with his paw upon his prey?"
+
+"His opposition must arise from an erroneous view of what would best
+promote your happiness. He cannot be actuated by merely vindictive
+motives, and I am sure he would sympathize with you if he realized
+the intensity of your feelings."
+
+"I would as soon expect ancient Cheops to dissolve in tears at the
+recital of my woes; or that statue of Washington in Union Place to
+dismount and wipe my eyes! An Eggleston once defied and triumphed
+over him in the court-room; and defeat Erle Palma never forgets,
+never forgives. He proposes to give me ten thousand dollars as a
+bridal present, when owning millions, I need it not; and to-day
+one-half that amount would make me the happiest woman in all America,
+would enable Belmont to travel south and re-establish his health,
+would render two wretched souls everlastingly happy and grateful! Ah
+how happy!"
+
+"Tell him so! Try him just once more, and I have an abiding faith
+that he will generously respond to your appeal."
+
+Olga looked compassionately at her companion for an instant, and the
+old bitter laugh jarred upon the girl's ears.
+
+"Poor little dove trying your wings in the upper air, flashing the
+silver in the sun; fancying you are free to circle in the heavens so
+blue above you! Your wary hawk watches patiently, only waiting for
+you to soar a little higher, venture a little farther from the
+shelter of the dovecote; then he will strike you down, fasten his
+talons in your heart. 'Be ye wise as serpents, and harmless as
+doves.' The first yon have yet to leap, and with Erle Palma as your
+preceptor, your prospective tuition fees are heavy. You are a sweet
+good earnest-hearted child, but in this house you need to be
+something quite different--a Seraph. Do you understand? Now you are
+only a cherub, which in the original means dove; but some day, if you
+live here, you will learn the wisdom of the Seraph, which means
+serpent! I know little 'Latin, less of Greek,' no Hebrew; but a
+learned seer of New England taught me this."
+
+She tossed aside the bedclothes, and sprang out upon the floor,
+wrapping herself in her cherry-coloured shawl.
+
+"Five o'clock, I daresay. Out of doors it is grey daylight, and I
+must go back to my own room unobserved. What a world of sorrowful
+sympathy shines in your wonderful eyes! What a pity you can't die
+now, just as you are, for then your pure sinless soul would float
+straight to that Fifth Heaven of the Midrash, 'Gan-Eden,' which is
+set apart exclusively for the souls of noble women, and Pharaoh's
+daughter, who is presumed to be Queen there, would certainly make you
+maid of honour! One word more, before I run away. Do you know why
+Cleopatra is coming here?''
+
+"Olga, I do not in the least understand half you are saying."
+
+Olga's large white hand smoothed back the hair that clouded the
+girl's forehead, and she asked almost incredulously:
+
+"Don't you really know that the Sorceress of the Nile drifts hither
+in her gilded barge? You have heard of Brunella Carew, the richest
+woman in the Antilles? She is the most dangerous of smooth-skinned
+witches, as fascinating as Phryne, but more wisely discreet. When you
+see her you will be at once reminded of Owen Meredith's 'Fatality':
+
+          'Live hair afloat with snakes of gold,
+           And a throat as white as snow,
+           And a stately figure and foot
+           And that faint pink smile, so sweet, so cold.'
+
+Just now this Cuban widow is the fashionable lioness; she is also a
+pet _clientèle_ of Erle Palma, and comes here to-day on a brief
+visit. Heaven grant she prove his Lamia! As she affects Oriental
+style, I call her Cleopatra, which pleases her vastly. Having been
+endowed at birth with beauty and fortune, her remaining ambition is
+to appear fastidious in literature, and _dilettante_ in art, and if
+you wish to stretch her on St. Lawrence's gridiron, you have only to
+offer a quotation or illustration which she cannot understand. Beware
+of the poison of asps. There is an object to be accomplished by
+inviting her here, and you may safely indulge the belief that her own
+campaign is well matured. Keep your solemn sinless eyes wide open,
+and don't under any circumstances quarrel with poor Elliott Roscoe.
+One drop of his blood floats more generosity and magnanimity than all
+the blue ice in his cousin's body. He was in a savage mood last
+night, at Mrs. Tarrant's, and had some angry words with your
+guardian, who of course treated him as he would a spoiled boy. Roscoe
+at least has or had a heart. There is the day staring at us! I must
+be gone. Remember--I have trusted you."
+
+She left the room, closing the door noiselessly, and Regina was lost
+in perplexing conjectures concerning the significance of her parting
+warning.
+
+It was not yet eight o'clock when she descended to the
+breakfast-room, but Mr. Palma was already there, and stood at the
+window, with an open newspaper which he appeared to scan very
+intently.
+
+In answer to her subdued "Good-morning," he merely bowed, without
+turning his head, and she rang the bell and took her place at the
+table.
+
+While she scalded and wiped the cups (one of his requirements), he
+walked to the hearth, glanced at his watch, and said:
+
+"Let me have my coffee at once. I have an early engagement. As it
+threatens snow, you must keep indoors today."
+
+"I am obliged to attend the Cantata rehearsal at Mrs. Brompton's."
+
+"Then I will order the carriage to be placed at your disposal. What
+hour?"
+
+"One o'clock."
+
+Upon her plate lay a sealed envelope, and as she put it in her
+pocket, his keen eyes searched her countenance.
+
+"Did you sleep well? I should judge you had not closed your eyes."
+
+"I wrote a long letter to mother, and afterward I could not sleep."
+
+"You look as if you had grown five years older, since you gave me my
+coffee yesterday. When the rehearsal ends, I wish you to come
+directly home and go to sleep; for there will be company here to-day,
+and it might be rather unflattering to me as guardian, to present my
+ward to strangers, and imagine their comments on your weary hollow
+eyes and face as blanched, as 'pale as Seneca's Paulina.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+Notwithstanding the snow which fell steadily at one o'clock, all who
+were to take part in the "Cantata," assembled punctually at Mrs.
+Brompton's, and as Regina hurried down to the carriage, she found
+that Mrs. Carew, her little daughter and maid, had just arrived.
+Avoiding a presentation, she proceeded at once to the "Rehearsal,"
+and dismissed the carriage, assuring Farley that it was wrong to keep
+the horses out in such inclement weather; and as she was provided
+with "waterproof," overshoes, and umbrella, would walk home.
+
+The musical exercises were unusually tedious, the choruses were
+halting and uneven, and the repetition seemed endless. The day
+darkened, and the great bronze chandeliers were lighted, and still
+Professor Hurtzsel mercilessly flourished his baton, and required new
+trials; until at length feverishly impatient, Regina having
+satisfactorily rendered her _solos_, requested and received
+permission to retire.
+
+It was almost four o'clock, the hour designated for her meeting, when
+she enveloped herself in her waterproof cloak, drew the hood over her
+hat, and almost ran for several squares from Mrs. Brompton's, toward
+a line of street cars which would convey her to the vicinity of the
+park. She succeeded in meeting an upward-bound car, entered, and
+breathed more freely.
+
+It was quite crowded, and, forced to stand up, Regina steadied
+herself by one of the leathern straps suspended from the roof. At her
+side was an elderly gentleman with very white hair, eyebrows, and
+moustache, who was muffled in a heavy overcoat, and leaned upon a
+gold-headed cane. Soon after, another passenger pressed in, elbowed
+his way forward, and, touching the old gentleman, exclaimed:
+
+"Colonel Tichnor in America! And above all in a street car! When did
+you arrive?"
+
+"Last week. These cars are too democratic for men with gouty feet;
+but I dislike to bring my horses out in such weather. Not more than a
+dozen people have stood on my toes during the last fifteen minutes.
+Ringold, how is Palma? Prosperous as ever?"
+
+"If you had been at Mrs. Tarrant's last night, you would not need to
+inquire. Positively we younger men have no showing when he deigns to
+enter the beaux list. He is striding upward in his profession, and
+you know there is no limit to his ambition. Hitherto he had
+cautiously steered clear of politics, but it is rumoured that a
+certain caucus will probably tender him the nomination for----"
+
+Here a child close to Regina cried out so sharply that she could not
+hear several sentences; and when quiet was restored, the young
+gentleman was saying:
+
+"Very true; there is no accounting for taste. It does appear queer
+that after living a bachelor so long, he should at last surrender to
+a widow. But, my dear sir, she is a perfect Circe,--and I suspect
+those immense estates in Cuba and Jamaica are quite as potential with
+Palma as her other undeniable charms. Last night, as he promenaded
+with her, it was conceded that they were the handsomest couple in the
+room; and Mrs. Grundy has patted them on the head, and bestowed the
+approved,--'Heaven bless you, my children.' Palma is the proudest man
+in----"
+
+"Here is my street. Good-day, Ringold."
+
+The elderly gentleman left the car, and after awhile the young man
+also departed; but there seemed no diminution of the crowd, and as
+the track was heavy with drifting snow the horses moved slowly. At
+last they reached a point where the line of road turned away from the
+direction in which Regina desired to go, and quitting the car, she
+walked toward East ---- Street.
+
+After the heated atmosphere she had just left, the sharp biting cold
+was refreshing, and against the glistening needles of snow she
+pressed rapidly on, until finally the trees in the square gladdened
+her eyes.
+
+Near one of the corners, stood a large close carriage whose driver
+was enveloped in a cloak, and protected by an umbrella, while the
+yellow silk inside curtains were drawn down over the windows.
+
+Agitated by contending emotions of reluctance to meeting the man
+whose presence was so painful, and of dread lest he had grown
+impatient, and might present himself to her guardian, Regina hastened
+into the square, and looked eagerly about the deserted walks.
+
+Pressed against the south side of a leafless tree whose trunk partly
+shielded him from the driving snow-laden north-east wind, Peleg
+Peterson stood watching her, and as she approached, he came forward.
+
+"Better late than never. How long did you expect me to wait here,
+with the cold eating into my vitals?"
+
+"Indeed I am very sorry, but I could not come a moment sooner."
+
+"Who is in that carriage yonder?"
+
+"I do not know. How should I?"
+
+"There is something suspicious about it. Is it waiting for you?"
+
+"Certainly not, No human being knows where I am at this moment. Here
+are forty-five dollars, every cent that I possess. You must not
+expect me to aid you in future, for I shall not be able; and moreover
+I shall be subjected to suspicion if I come here again."
+
+She handed him the money rolled up in a small package, and he
+deposited it in his pocket.
+
+"You might at least have made it a hundred."
+
+"I have no more money."
+
+"Do you still doubt that you are my child?"
+
+"When you make your claim in a court of justice, as you yesterday
+threatened, the proofs must be established. Until then, I shall not
+discuss it with you. I have an abiding faith in the instincts of
+nature, and I believe that when I stand before my father, my heart
+will unmistakably proclaim it. From you it shrinks with dread and
+horror."
+
+"Because Minnie taught you to hate me. I knew she would."
+
+"Mother never mentioned your name to me. Only to Hannah am I indebted
+for any knowledge of you. Where is Hannah now?"
+
+"I don't know. We quarrelled not long ago. Regina, I want your
+photograph. I want to wear my daughter's picture over my heart."
+
+He moved closer to her, and put out his arm, but she sprang back.
+
+"You must not touch me, at least not now; not until I can hear from
+mother. I have no photographs of myself. The only picture taken for
+years is a portrait which Mr. Palma had painted, and sent to mother.
+In any emergency that may occur, if you should be really ill, or in
+actual suffering and want, write to me, and address your letter
+according to the directions on this slip of paper. Mrs. Mason will
+always see that your note reaches me safely. You look very cold, and
+I must hasten back, or my absence might cause questions and censure.
+I shall find out everything from mother, for she will not deceive me;
+and if--if what you say is true, then I shall know what is my duty,
+and you must believe that I shall perform it. I pray to God that you
+may not be my father, and I cannot believe that you are; but if after
+all you prove your claim, I will do what is right. I will take your
+hand then, and face the world's contempt; and we will bear our
+disgrace together as best we may. When I know you are my father, I
+will pay you all that a child owes a parent. This I promise you."
+
+Her face was wellnigh as white as the snow that covered and fringed
+her hood; and out of its pallid beauty, the sad eyes looked
+steadfastly into the bloated visage before her.
+
+"I believe you! There spoke my girl! You are true steel, and worth a
+hundred of Minnie. Some day, my pretty child, you and I shall know
+one another, as father and daughter should."
+
+He once more attempted to touch her, but vigilant and agile she
+eluded his hand, and said decisively:
+
+"You have all that I can give you now--the money. Don't put your hand
+on me, for as yet I deny your parental claim. When I know I am your
+child, you shall find me obedient in all things. Now, sir, good-bye."
+
+Turning, she ran swiftly away, and glanced over her shoulder, fearful
+of pursuit, but the figure stood where she had left him; was occupied
+in counting the money, and, breathing more freely, Regina shook the
+snow from her wrappings, from her umbrella, and walked homeward.
+
+Had she purchased a sufficient reprieve to keep him quiet until she
+could hear from her mother, and receive the expected summons to join
+her? Or was this but an illusive relief, a mere momentary lull in the
+tempest of humiliation that was muttering and darkening around her?
+
+She had walked only a short distance from the square, and was turning
+a corner, when she ran against a gentleman hurrying from the opposite
+direction.
+
+"Pray pardon me, miss."
+
+She could not suppress the cry that broke from her lips.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Palma!"
+
+He turned as though he had not until now recognized her, but there
+was no surprise in his stern fixed face.
+
+"I thought Mrs. Brompton resided on West ---- Street; had not heard
+of her change of residence. From the length of your rehearsal you
+certainly should be perfect in your performance. It is now half-past
+five, and I think you told me you commenced at one? Rather
+disagreeable weather for you to be out. Wait here, under this awning,
+till I come back."
+
+He was absent not more than five minutes, and returned with a close
+carriage; but a glance sufficed to show her it was not the one she
+had seen in the neighbourhood of the square.
+
+As he opened the door and beckoned her forward, he took her umbrella,
+handed her in, and with one keen cold look into her face, said:
+
+"I trust my ward's dinner toilette will be an improvement upon her
+present appearance, as several guests have been invited. The Cantata
+must have bored you immensely."
+
+He bowed, closed the door, directed the driven to the number of his
+residence on Fifth Avenue, and disappeared.
+
+Sinking down in one corner, Regina shut her eyes, and groaned. Could
+his presence have been accidental? She had given no one a clue in her
+movements, and how could he have followed her circuitous route after
+leaving Mrs. Brompton's? He had evinced no surprise, had asked no
+explanation of her conduct, but would he abstain in future? Was his
+promise to trust her the cause of his forbearance? Or was it
+attributable to the fact that his thoughts were concentrated upon the
+lady with whose name people were associating his?
+
+The strain upon her nerves was beginning to relax; her head ached,
+her eyes smarted, and she felt sick and faint. Like one in a
+perplexing dream, she was whirled along the streets, and at last
+reached home.
+
+The house was already brilliantly lighted, for the day had closed
+prematurely, with the darkness of the increasing snow, and in the
+seclusion of her own room the girl threw herself down in a rocking
+chair.
+
+Everything seemed dancing in kaleidoscopic confusion, and amid the
+chaos only one grim fact was immovable, she must dress and go down to
+dinner. Just now, unwelcome as was the task, she dared not neglect
+it, for her absence might stimulate the investigation she so much
+dreaded, and wearily she rose and began her toilette.
+
+At half-past seven Hattie entered.
+
+"Aren't you ready, miss? Mrs. Palma says you must hurry down, for the
+company are all in the parlour, and Mr. Palma has asked for you. Stop
+a minute, miss. Your sash is all crooked. There, all right. Let me
+tell you there is more lace and velvet downstairs than you can show,
+and jewellery! No end of it! But as for born good looks, you can
+outface them all."
+
+"Don't I look very pale and jaded?"
+
+"Very white, miss; you always do, and red cheeks would be as much out
+of your style as paint on a corpse. I can tell you what you do look
+like, more than ever I saw you before; that marble figure with the
+dove on its finger, which stands in the front parlour bay-window."
+
+It was Mr. Palma's pet piece of sculpture, a statue of "Innocence,"
+originally intended for his library, but Mrs. Palma had pleaded for
+permission to exhibit it downstairs.
+
+During Regina's residence in New York scarcely a week elapsed without
+her meeting guests at the dinner-table, and the frequency of the
+occurrence had quite worn away the awkward shyness with which she had
+at first confronted strangers. Yet to-day she felt nervously timid as
+she approached the threshold of the brilliant room, and caught a
+glimpse of those within.
+
+Two gentlemen stood on the rug talking with Olga, a third sat on a
+sofa engaged in conversation with Mrs. Palma, while Mrs. St. Clare
+and her daughter entertained two strangers in the opposite corner,
+and on a _tête-â-tête_ drawn conspicuously forward under the
+chandelier were Mr. Palma and Mrs. Carew.
+
+Regina merely glanced at Olga long enough to observe how handsome she
+appeared, in her rose-hued silk, with its rich black lace garniture,
+and the spray of crushed pink roses drooping against her neck, then
+her gaze dwelt upon the woman under the chandelier.
+
+Unusually tall, and proportionately developed, her size might safely
+have been pronounced heroic, and would by comparison have dwarfed a
+man of less commanding stature than Mr. Palma; yet so symmetrical was
+the outline of face and figure that the type seemed wellnigh
+faultless, and she might have served as a large-limbed rounded model
+for those majestic women whom Buonaroti painted for the admiration of
+all humanity, upon the walls of the Sistine.
+
+The face was oval, with a remarkably low but full brow, a straight
+finely-cut nose, very wide between the eyes, which were large,
+almond-shaped, and of a singularly radiant grey, with long curling
+gold-tinted lashes. Her complexion was of that peculiar creamy
+colourlessness, which is found in the smooth petals of a magnolia,
+and the lips were outlined in bright carmine that hinted at chemical
+combinations, so ripe and luscious was the tint.
+
+Had she really stepped down from some glorious old Venetian picture,
+bringing that crown of hair, of the true "_biondina_" hue, so rare
+nowaday, and never seen in perfection save among the marbles and
+lagunes of crumbling Venice? Was it natural, that mass of very pale
+gold, so pale that it seemed a flossy heap of raw silk, or had she by
+some subtle stroke of skill discovered the secret of that beautiful
+artificial colouring, which was so successfully practised in the days
+of Giorgione?
+
+Her dress was velvet, of that light lilac tint which only perfect
+complexions dare approach, was cut very low and square in front and
+trimmed with a profusion of gossamer white lace. Diamonds flashed on
+her neck and arms, and in the centre of the puffed and crimped hair a
+large butterfly of diamonds scattered light upon the yellow mass.
+
+Mr. Palma was smiling at some low spoken sentence that rippled like
+Italian poetry over her full lips, when his eye detected the figure
+hovering near the door, and at once he advanced, and drew her in.
+
+Without taking her hand, his fingers just touched her sleeve, as
+walking beside her he said:
+
+"Mrs. Carew must allow me the pleasure of presenting my ward Miss
+Orme, who has most unpardonably detained us from our soup."
+
+The stranger smiled and offered her hand.
+
+"Ah, Miss Orme! I shall never pardon you for stealing the only heart
+whose loyalty I claim. My little Llora saw you at Mrs. Brompton's,
+heard you sing, and was enchanted with your eyes, which she assured
+me were 'blue as the sky, _ma mère_, and like violets with black lace
+quilled around them.'"
+
+Regina barely touched the ivory hand encrusted with costly jewels,
+and Mr. Palma drew her near a sofa, where sat a noble-looking elderly
+gentleman, slightly bald, and whose ample beard and long moustache
+were snow-white, although his eyebrows were black, and his fine brown
+eyes sparkled with the fire and enthusiasm of youth.
+
+"My ward, Miss Orme, has a juvenile reverence for Congressmen, whom
+knowing only historically, she fondly considers above and beyond the
+common clay of mankind, regards them as the worthy successors of the
+Roman _Patres Conscripti_, and in the Honourable Mr. Chesley she is
+doubtless destined to realize all her romantic ideas relative to
+American statesmen. Regina, Mr. Chesley represents California in the
+council of the nation, and can tell you all about those wonderful
+canons of which you were speaking last week."
+
+The guest took her fingers, shook them cordially, and looking into
+his fine face, the girl felt a sudden thrill run through her frame.
+What was there in the soft brown eyes, and shape of the brow that was
+so familiar, that made her heart beat so fiercely?
+
+Mechanically she sat down near him, failing to answer some trivial
+question from Mrs. Palma, and bowing in an absent preoccupied manner
+to the remainder of the guests.
+
+Fortunately dinner was announced immediately, and as Mrs. Palma moved
+away on Mr. Chesley's arm, while Mr. Palma gave his to Mrs. Carew,
+Regina felt a cold hand seize hers, and lead her forward.
+
+"Mr. Roscoe, where did you secrete yourself? I was not aware that you
+were in the room."
+
+"Standing near the window, watching you bow to every one else. Your
+guardian requested me to hand you in to dinner."
+
+Something in his voice and manner annoyed her, and looking up, she
+said coldly;
+
+"My guardian is very kind; but I regret that his consideration in
+providing me an escort has taxed your courtesy so severely."
+
+Before he could reply they had reached the table, and, glancing at
+the card attached to the bouquet at each plate, Regina found her
+chair had been placed next to Mr. Chesley's, while Olga was her
+_vis-à-vis_.
+
+"If I ask you it question, will you answer it truly?" said Elliott.
+
+"That depends entirely upon what it may prove. If a proper one, I
+shall answer it truly; otherwise, not at all."
+
+"Was it of your own free will, without advice or bias, that you
+refused the interview I asked you to grant me?"
+
+"It was."
+
+"My cousin influenced you adversely?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"He is purely selfish in his course toward----"
+
+"At least it is ungrateful and unbecoming in you to accuse him, and I
+will not hear you."
+
+She turned her face toward Mr. Chesley, who was carrying on an
+animated conversation with Mrs. Palma, and some moments elapsed
+before Elliott resumed:
+
+"Regina, I must see you alone, sometime this evening."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"To demand an explanation of what I have seen and heard,--otherwise I
+would not credit."
+
+"I have no explanations to offer on any subject. If you refer to a
+conversation which Mr. Palma had with me yesterday at your request,
+let me say once for all, that I cannot consent to its revival. Mr.
+Roscoe, we are good friends now, I hope; but we should be such no
+longer, if you persist in violating my wishes in this matter."
+
+"What I wish to say to you involves your own safety and happiness."
+
+"I am grateful for your kind intentions, but they result from some
+erroneous impression. My individual welfare is bound up with those
+whom you know not, and at all events I prefer not to discuss it."
+
+"You refuse me the privilege of a confidential talk with you?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Roscoe. Now be pleasant, and let us converse on some more
+agreeable topic. Did you ever meet Mrs. Carew until to-day?"
+
+He was too angry to reply immediately; but after a little while
+mastered his indignation.
+
+"I have the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Carew quite well."
+
+"She is remarkably beautiful."
+
+"Oh, unquestionably! And she knows it better than any other article
+in her creed. New York is spoiling her dreadfully."
+
+He turned and addressed some remarks to Miss St. Clare, who sat on
+his right, and Regina rejoiced in the opportunity afforded her of
+becoming a quiet observer and listener. She had never seen her
+guardian so animated, so handsome as now, while he smiled genially
+and talked with his lovely guest, and watching them, Regina
+recollected the remark concerning their appearance which had been
+made by the gentleman in the car.
+
+Was it possible that after all the lawyer's heart had been seriously
+interested? Could that satin-cheeked, grey-eyed Circe with pale
+yellow hair and lashes, hold him in silken bonds at her feet? The
+idea that he could be captivated by any woman seemed utterly
+incompatible with all that his ward knew of his life and character,
+and it had appeared an established fact that he was incapable of any
+tender emotion; but certainly at this instant the expression with
+which he was gazing down into Mrs. Carew's lotos face, was earnestly
+admiring. While Regina watched the pair, a cold sensation crept over
+her as on some mild starlit night, one suddenly and unconsciously
+drifts under the lee of some vast, slow-sailing iceberg, and knows
+not, dreams not, of danger until smitten with the fatal prophetic
+chill.
+
+Suppose the ambitious middle-aged man intended to marry this wealthy,
+petted, lovely widow, was it not in all respects a brilliant suitable
+match, which _le beau monde_ would cordially applaud? Was there a
+possibility that she would decline an alliance with that proud
+patrician, whose future seemed dazzling?
+
+In birth, fortune, and beauty could he find her superior?
+
+The flowers in the tall gold _epergne_ in the centre of the table,
+and the wreath of scarlet camellias that swung down to meet them from
+the green bronze chandelier, began to dance a saraband. Silver,
+crystal, china, even the human figures appeared whirling in a misty
+circle, across which the orange, emerald, and blue tints of the hock
+glasses shot hither and thither like witch-lights on the Brocken; and
+indistinct and spectral, yet alluring, gleamed the almond-shaped grey
+eyes with their gold fringes.
+
+With a quick unsteady motion Regina grasped and drained a goblet of
+iced-water, and after a little while the mist rolled away, and she
+heard once more the voices that had never for an instant ceased their
+utterances.
+
+The shuttlecock of conversation was well kept up from all sides of
+the table, and when Regina's thoughts crept back from their numbing
+reverie, Mr. Chesley was eloquently describing some of the most
+picturesque localities in Oregon and California.
+
+Across the table floated a liquid response.
+
+"I saw in Philadelphia a large painting of that particular spot, and
+though not remarkably well done, it enables one to form an
+approximate idea of the grandeur of the scenery."
+
+Mr. Chesley bowed to Mrs. Carew, and answered:
+ "I met the artist, while upon his sketching tour, and was deeply
+interested in his success. At one time, I hoped he would cast
+matrimonial anchor in San Francisco, and remain among us; but his
+fickle fair one deserted him for a young naval officer, and after her
+marriage, California possessed few charms for him. I pitied poor
+Eggleston most cordially."
+
+"Then permit me to assure you, that you are needlessly expending your
+sympathy, for I bear witness to the fact that his wounds have
+cicatrized. A fair Philadelphian has touched them with her fairy
+finger, and at present he bows at another shrine."
+
+Shivering with sympathy for Olga, Regina could not refrain from
+looking at her, while Mrs. Carew spoke, and marvelled at the calm
+deference, the smiling _insouciance_ with which her hazel eyes rested
+on the speaker. Then they wandered as if accidentally to the
+countenance of Mr. Palma, and a lambent flame seemed to kindle in
+their brown depths.
+
+"Mr. Eggleston has talent, and I am surprised that he has not been
+more successful," replied the Congressman.
+
+Mr. Palma was pressing Mrs. St. Clare to take more wine, and appeared
+deaf to the conversation, but Mrs. Carew's flute-like voice
+responded:
+
+"Yes, a certain order of talent for mere landscape painting; but he
+should never attempt a higher or different style. He made a wretched
+copy of the Crucifixion for a wealthy retired tailor, who boasts of
+his investments in 'virtue and bigotry;' and I fear I gave mortal
+offence by venturing to say to the owner, that it reminded me of the
+criticism of Luis de Vargas on a similar failure: 'Methinks he is
+saying, Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do.'"
+
+"_A propos!_ of pictures. Mrs. Carew, I must arrange to have you see
+a superb new painting recently hung upon the wall at the 'Century,'
+and ask your opinion of its merit----"
+
+Regina did not catch the remainder of her guardian's sentence, which
+she felt assured was intended to divert the conversation and shield
+Olga, for just then Mr. Chesley asked to fill her glass, and the talk
+drifted away to less dangerous topics.
+
+Irresistibly attracted by some subtle charm in his manner she found
+herself drawn into a pleasant dialogue with him relative to some
+startling incidents which he narrated of the early miners in the far
+West. Watching his face, she puzzled her brain with the solution of
+the singular familiarity it possessed. She had never met him until
+to-day, and yet her heart wanned toward him more and more.
+
+At length she ventured the question: "Did you leave your family in
+California?"
+
+"Unfortunately I have no family, and no relatives. My dear young
+lady, is it not melancholy to find a confirmed old bachelor, verging
+fast upon decrepitude, with no one to look after or care for him?
+When I was a good-looking young beau, and should have been hunting me
+a bonny blue-eyed bride, I was digging gold from the rocky ribs of
+mountains in Western solitudes. When I made my fortune, I discovered
+too late that I had given my youth in exchange."
+
+
+"I should think, sir, that you might still marry, and be very happy."
+
+His low pleasant laugh did not embarrass her, and he answered:
+
+"You are very kind to kindle that beacon of encouragement, but I fear
+your charitable sympathy clouds your judgment. Do you imagine any
+fair young girl could brave my grey hairs and wrinkles?"
+
+"A young girl would not suit you, sir; but there must be noble
+middle-aged ladies whom you could admire, and trust, and love?"
+
+He bent his white head, and whispered:
+
+"Such, for instance, as Mrs. Carew, who converts all places into
+Ogygia?"
+
+Without lifting her eyes, she merely shook her head, and he
+continued:
+
+"Miss Orme, all men have their roseleaf romance. Mine expanded very
+early, but fate crumpled, crushed it into a shapeless ruin, and
+leaving the wreck behind me, I went to the wilds of California. Since
+then, I have missed the humanising influence of home ties, of
+feminine association; but as I look down the hill, when the sun of my
+life is casting long shadows, I sometimes feel that it would be a
+great blessing had I a sister, cousin, niece, or even an adopted
+daughter, whom I could love and lean upon in my lonely old age. Once
+I seriously entertained the thought of selecting an orphan from some
+Asylum, and adopting her into my heart and home."
+
+"When you do, I sincerely hope she will prove all that you wish, and
+faithfully requite your goodness."
+
+She spoke so earnestly that he smiled, and added:
+
+"Can you recommend one to me? I envy Palma his guardianship, and if I
+could find a young girl like you, I should not hesitate to
+solicit----"
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Chesley, but Mr. Palma is endeavouring to attract
+your notice," said Mrs. Palma.
+
+The host held in his hand an envelope.
+
+"A telegram for you. Shall I direct the bearer to wait?"
+
+"With your permission, I will examine it."
+
+Having glanced at the lines, he turned the sheet of paper over, and
+with a pencil wrote a few words; then handed it to Terry, requesting
+him to direct the bearer to have the answer promptly telegraphed.
+
+"Nothing unpleasant, I trust?" said Mr. Palma.
+
+"Thank you, no. Only a summons which obliges me to curtail my visit,
+and return to Washington by the midnight train."
+
+Interpreting a look from her stepson, Mrs. Palma hastened the slow
+course of the dinner by a whisper to the waiter behind her chair; and
+as she asked some questions relative to mutual friends residing in
+Washington, Regina had no opportunity of renewing the conversation.
+
+Mr. Roscoe was assiduous in his attentions to Miss St. Clare, and
+Regina looked over at Olga, who was talking very learnedly to a small
+gentleman, a prominent and erudite scientist, whose knitted eyebrows
+now and then indicated dissatisfaction with her careless manner of
+handling his pet theories.
+
+Her cheeks glowed, her eyes sparkled, and a teasing smile sat upon
+her lips, as she recklessly rolled her irreverent ball among his
+technical ten pins; and repeated defiantly:
+
+          "Is old Religion but a spectre now,
+           Haunting the solitude of darkened minds,
+           Mocked out of memory by the sceptic day?
+           Is there no corner safe from peeping Doubt?"
+
+"But, Miss Neville, I must be allowed to say that you do not in the
+least grasp the vastness of this wonderful law of 'Natural
+Selection,' of the 'Survival of the Fittest,' which is omnipotent
+in its influence."
+
+"Ah, but my reverence for Civilization cries out against your savage
+enactments! Look at the bulwarks of defence which Asylums and
+Hospitals lift against the operation of your merciless decree. The
+maimed, the feeble, the demented, become the wards of religion and
+charity; the Unfittest of humanity are carefully preserved, and the
+race is retarded it its development. Civilized legislation and
+philanthropy are directly opposed to your 'Survival of the Fittest;'
+and since I am not a tattooed princess of the South Pacific, allowed
+to regale myself with _croquettes_ of human brains, or a _ragoût_ of
+baby's ears and hands, well flavoured with wine and lemon, I
+accepted civilization. I believe China is the best place for the
+successful testing of your theory, for there the unfittest have for
+centuries been destroyed; yet I have not heard that the superior, the
+'Coming Race,' has appeared among the tea farms."
+
+Elevating his voice, the small gentleman appealed to his host.
+
+"I thought Mr. Palma too zealous a disciple of Modern Science to
+permit Miss Neville to indulge such flagrant heresies. She has
+absolutely denied that the mental development of a horse, or a dog,
+or ape is strictly analogous to that of man----"
+
+"Quote me correctly, I pray you, Doctor; to that of women, if you
+please," interrupted Olga.
+
+"She believes that it is not a difference of degree (which we know to
+be the case), but of kind; not comparative, but structural--you
+understand. How can you tolerate such schism in your household?
+Moreover, she scouts the great Spencerian organon."
+
+"Olga is too astute not to discover the discrepancy between the
+theory of Scientists and the usages of civilized society, whose
+sanitary provisions thwart and neutralize your law in its operations
+upon the human race. 'Those whom it saves from dying prematurely, it
+preserves to propagate dismal and imperfect lives. In our
+complicated modern communities, a race is being run between moral and
+mental enlightenment, and the deterioration of the physical and moral
+constitution through the defeasance of the law of Natural
+Selection.'"
+
+Lifting her champagne glass, Olga sipped the amber bubbles from its
+brim, and slightly bent her head in acknowledgment.
+
+"Thanks. I disclaim any doubt of the accuracy of his pedigree from
+the monad, through the ape, up to the present erudite philosopher;
+but I humbly crave permission to assert a far different lineage for
+myself. Pray, Doctor, train your battery now upon Mr. Palma, and
+since he assails you with Greg, _minus_ quotation marks, require him
+to avow his real sentiments concerning that sentence in 'De
+Profundis': 'That purely political conception of religion which
+regards the Ten Commandments as a sort of 'cheap defence' of property
+and life, God Almighty as an ubiquitous and unpaid Policeman, and
+Hell as a self-supporting jail, a penal settlement at the
+Antipodes!'"
+
+Prudent Mrs. Palma rose at that moment, and the party left the
+dining-room.
+
+Mrs. St. Clare called Regina to her sofa, to make some inquiries
+about the Cantata, and when the latter was released, he saw that both
+Mr. Chesley and Mr. Palma were absent.
+
+A half-hour elapsed, during which Olga continued to annoy the learned
+small man with her irreverent flippancy, and Mrs. Carew seemed to
+fascinate the two gentlemen who hovered about her like eager moths
+around a lamp. Then the host and Congressman came in together, and
+Regina saw her guardian cross the room, and murmur something to his
+fair client, who smilingly assented.
+
+Mr. Chesley looked at the widow, and at Olga, and his eyes came back,
+and dwelt upon the young girl who stood leaning against Mrs. Palma's
+chair.
+
+Her dress was a pearl white alpaca, with no trimming, save tulle
+ruchings at throat and wrists, and a few violets fastened in the
+cameo Psyche that constituted her brooch.
+
+Pure, pale, almost sad, she looked in that brilliant drawing-room
+like some fragile snowdrop, astray in a bed of gorgeous peonies and
+poppies.
+
+Lifting her eyes to her host, as he leaned over the back of her sofa,
+Mrs. Carew said:
+
+"Miss Orme poses almost faultlessly; she has evidently studied all
+the rules of the art. Quite pretty too; and her hair has a peculiar
+gloss that reminds one of the pounded peach-stones with which Van
+Dyck glazed his pictures."
+
+The fingers of the hand that hung at his side clenched suddenly, but
+adjusting his glasses more firmly he said very quietly:
+
+"My ward is not quite herself this evening, and is really too unwell
+to be downstairs; but appeared at dinner in honour of your presence,
+and in deference to my wishes. Shall I ring for your wrappings? The
+carriage is waiting."
+
+"When I have kissed my cherub good-night, I shall be ready."
+
+He gave her his arm to the foot of the stairs, and returning,
+announced his regret that Mrs. Carew was pledged to show herself at a
+party, to which he had promised to escort her. Whereupon the other
+ladies remembered that they also had promised to be present.
+
+Mr. Chesley, standing at some distance, had been very attentively
+studying Regina's face, and now approaching her, took her hand with a
+certain tender courtesy that touched her strangely.
+
+"My dear Miss Orme, I think we are destined to become firm fast
+friends, and were I not compelled to hurry back to Washington to
+oppose a certain bill, I should endeavour to improve our
+acquaintance. Before long I shall see you again, and meanwhile you
+must help me to find an adopted daughter as much like yourself as
+possible, or I shall be tempted to steal you from Palma. Good-bye.
+God bless you."
+
+His earnest tone and warm pressure of her fingers thrilled her heart,
+and she thought his mild brown eyes held tears.
+
+"Good-bye, sir. I hope we shall meet again."
+
+"You may be sure we shall."
+
+He leaned down, and as he looked at her, she saw his mouth tremble.
+
+A wild conjecture flashed across her brain, and her hand clutched his
+spasmodically, while her heart seemed to stand still. Was Mr. Chesley
+her father?
+
+Before she could collect her thoughts, he turned away and left the
+room, accompanied by Mr. Palma, who during the evening bad not once
+glanced toward her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+Mrs. Carew had arrived on Tuesday morning, and announced that a
+previous engagement would limit her visit to Saturday, at which time
+she had promised to become the guest of a friend on Murray Hill.
+
+During Wednesday and Thursday the house was thronged with visitors.
+There was company to dinner and to luncheon, and every imaginable
+tribute paid to the taste and vanity of the beautiful woman, who
+accepted the incense offered as flowers the dew of heaven, and stars
+the light that constitutes their glory. Accustomed from her cradle to
+adulation and indulgence, she had a pretty, yet imperious manner of
+exacting it from all who ventured within her circle; and could not
+forgive the cool indifference which generally characterized Olga's
+behaviour.
+
+Too well-bred to be guilty of rudeness, the latter contrived in a
+very adroit way to defy every proposition advanced by the fair guest,
+and while she never transcended the bounds of courtesy, she piqued
+and harassed and puzzled not only Mrs. Carew, but Mr. Palma.
+
+At ten o'clock on Thursday night, when the guests invited to dinner
+had departed, and the family circle had collected in the sitting-room
+to await the carriage which would convey the ladies to a Wedding
+Reception, Mrs. Carew came downstairs magnificently attired in a
+delicate green satin, covered with an over dress of exquisite white
+lace, and adorned with a profusion of emeralds and pearls.
+
+Her hair was arranged in a unique style (which Olga denominated "Isis
+fashion"), and above her forehead rested a jewelled lotos, the petals
+of large pearls, the leaves of emeralds.
+
+As she stood before the grate, with the white lace shawl slipping
+from her shoulders, and exposing the bare gleaming bust, Olga
+exclaimed:
+
+"O Queen of the Nile! What Antony awaits your smiles?"
+
+As if aware that she were scrutinized, the grey eyes, sank to the
+carpet, then met Olga's.
+
+"Miss Neville is not the only person who has found in me a
+resemblance to the Egyptian sorceress. When I return to Italy, Story
+shall immortalize me in connection with his own impassioned poem. Let
+me see, how does it begin:
+
+               'Here, Charmian, take my bracelets.'"
+
+She passed her hand across her low wide brow, and, glancing furtively
+at Mr. Palma, she daringly repeated the strongest passages of the
+poem, while her flute-like tones seemed to gather additional
+witchery.
+
+Sitting in one corner, with an open book in her hand, Regina looked
+at her and listened, fascinated by her singular beauty, but
+astonished at the emphasis with which she recited imagery that tinged
+the girl's cheek with red.
+
+"If there be a 'cockatoo' in Gotham, doubtless you will own it
+to-morrow. But forgive me, oh, Cleopatra! if I venture the heresy
+that Story's poem--gorgeous, though I grant it--leaves a bad taste in
+one's mouth, like richly spiced wine, hot and sweet and deliciously
+intoxicating; but beware of to-morrow! 'Sometimes the poison of asps
+is not confined to fig-baskets; and with your permission, I should
+like to offer you an infallible antidote, Seraph of the Nile?"
+
+Mrs. Carew smiled defiantly, and inclined her head, interpreting the
+lurking challenge in Olga's fiery hazel eyes.
+
+Leaning a little forward to note the effect, the latter began and
+recited with much skill the entire words of "Maud Muller." Whenever
+the name of the Judge was pronounced, she looked at Mr. Palma, and
+there was peculiar emphasis in her rendition of the lines:
+
+          "But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
+           When he hummed in court an old love tune.
+              *       *       *       *       *
+           He wedded a wife of richest dower,
+           Who lived for fashion, as he for power."
+
+How had Olga discovered the secret which he believed so securely
+locked in his own heart? Not a muscle moved in his cold guarded face,
+but a faint flush stole across his cheek as he met her sparkling
+gaze.
+
+Mrs. Carew's rosy lip curled scornfully:
+
+"My dear Miss Neville, should you ever be smitten by the blasts of
+adversity, your charming recitative talent would prove wonderfully
+remunerative upon the stage."
+
+"Thanks! but my observation leads me to believe that at the present
+day the profession of the Sycophants pays the heaviest dividends.
+Does Cleopatra's fondness for figs enable her to appreciate my
+worldly wisdom?"
+
+Regina knew that Olga meant mischief to both host and guest, and
+though she did not comprehend the drift of her laughing words, she
+noticed the sudden smile that flashed over her guardian's
+countenance, and the perplexed expression of Mrs. Carew's eyes.
+
+"Miss Neville has as usual floundered into her favourite blue mire,
+whose stale scraps of learning cannot tempt me to pursuit."
+
+"Not into the mud of the Nile, oh celestial Isis! but into the
+classic lore of Hellas. Ask Mr. Palma why I am opposed to smuggling
+figs, especially rose-coloured figs?"
+
+Olga's light laugh was particularly irritating and disagreeable at
+that moment, and her mother, who was a ubiquitous flag of truce on
+such occasions, hastened to interpose.
+
+"My daughter, what possible connection can Mrs. Carew or anybody else
+find between the habit of sycophancy and baskets of figs?"
+
+"Dear mamma, to explain it to you might be construed into an unfilial
+and irreverent reflection upon the insufficiency of your education,
+and of that admission nothing could induce me to be guilty. But
+Regina yonder is still in the clutches of Dominie Sampson, and as she
+is such an innocent stupid young dove, I will have mercy upon her
+curiously questioning eyes. My dear rustic 'Maud,' Sycophants means
+_fig-blabbers_; and when you are patient enough to study, and wise
+enough to appreciate Plutarch, you will learn the derivation of the
+title which justly belongs to multitudes of people."
+
+Making as near an approach to a grimace as the lines of grace (which
+she never violated) would permit, Mrs. Carew lifted one shoulder
+almost out of its satin fetters, and turned to her host.
+
+"Miss Neville should have reigned at the Hotel de Rambouillet when
+_précieuse_ was more honoured than now. I fear if society suspected
+the vastness of her learning, it would create a panic wherever she
+goes."
+
+Olga was leaving the room, had almost reached the door, but at the
+last words turned, and her face sparkled mischievously.
+
+"Beautiful Egypt is acquainted with sphinxes, and should be quick at
+guessing riddles. Will Cleopatra or Antony answer my conundrum? When
+my erudition creates a panic, why am I like those who dwelt about
+Chemmis, when the tragical fate of Osiris was accomplished?"
+
+Mr. Palma answered promptly:
+
+"Because the Pans who inhabited that region were the first who
+learned of the disaster, and as they spread the fatal news among the
+people, all sudden public frights and shocks have been ever since
+called panics. The carriage is ready. We shall be late at the
+wedding. Olga, where is your shawl?"
+
+As they quitted the room together, he added in an undertone:
+
+"Your Parthian warfare would have justified me in returning your
+arrow, but I was never an expert in the use of small arms."
+
+With her hand upon the balustrade of the stairs, which she was
+ascending, Olga looked down on him, and her eyes blazed with an
+intensity of scorn and defiance.
+
+"To your empty quiver, not your leniency, I am indebted for my
+safety. Your arrows were all skilfully barbed, and even the venom of
+asps distilled upon them; but you have done your worst, and failed.
+Parthian tactics ill suit my temper, let me tell you, and just now I
+should infinitely prefer the Scythian style. Were I only for one
+brief hour Tomyris, I would carry your head, sir, where she held that
+of Cyrus, in a bag."
+
+He walked on to the front door, and those in the sitting-room heard
+Olga run up the steps, singing with _gusto_ that strain from Far
+Diavolo, ending, "Diavolo! Diavolo!"
+
+The "Cantata of Undine" had been composed by a gifted and fashionable
+_amateur_, and was performed by young people who belonged to _le beau
+monde_, consequently at an early hour on Friday evening, the house
+was crowded to witness the appearance of a constellation of
+_amateurs_, among whom Regina shone resplendent. When after the
+opening chorus, she came first upon the stage, and stood watching the
+baton of the leader, a bum of admiration rose from the audience.
+
+The costume was of some silvery gauze that hung like mist around her
+slender figure, and was encrusted here and there with the fragile
+white water-lilies that matched the spray which twined across her
+head, and strayed down among the unbound hair now floating free, far
+below her waist.
+
+Very pale but calm, she began her solo, at first a little
+tremulously, but by degrees the rich voice gained its strength,
+asserted its spell, and nobly fulfilled the promise of Professor
+Hurtzsel, that New York should hear that night its finest
+_contralto_.
+
+Startled by the burst of applause that succeeded her song, she looked
+for the first time at the audience, and saw her guardian's tall
+conspicuous figure leaning against a column near the spot where Mrs.
+Carew sat.
+
+Very grave, coolly critical, and quite preoccupied he certainly
+looked, and none would have dreamed that the slight motion of his
+lips meant "My Lily."
+
+Twice she sang alone, and finally in a duo which admirably displayed
+the compass and _timbre_ of her very peculiar voice, and the floral
+hurricane that assailed her attested her complete triumph.
+
+The unaffected simplicity of her bearing, as contrasted with the
+_aplomb_ and artificial manner of the other young ladies who were
+performers,--the angelic purity and delicacy of the sweet girlish
+face, with a lingering trace of sadness in the superb eyes, which
+only deepened their velvet violet,--excited the earnest interest of
+all present, and many curious inquiries ran through the audience.
+
+At the close of the Cantata, Mrs. Palma drew Regina away from the
+strangers who pressed forward to offer their congratulations, and,
+throwing a fur cloak around her, kissed her cheek.
+
+It was the first caress the stately woman had ever bestowed, and as
+the girl looked up, gratified and astonished, the former said:
+
+"You sang delightfully, my dear, and we are more than satisfied,
+quite proud. Your voice was as even and smooth as a piece of
+cream-coloured Persian satin. No, Mrs. Brompton, not to-night.
+Pardon me, Professor, but I must hurry her away, for Mrs. Carew and I
+have an engagement at Mrs. Quimbey's. I shall be obliged to take our
+'Undine' home, and then return for my fair friend, who is as usual
+surrounded, and inextricable just now."
+
+While she spoke, Regina's eyes wandered across the mass of heads, and
+rested on the commanding form of her guardian, standing among a group
+of gentlemen collected around Mrs. Carew, who clad in white _moire
+antique_, with a complete overdress of finest black lace, looped with
+diamond sprays, seemed more than usually regal and brilliant.
+
+Mrs. Palma hurried Regina through a side entrance, and down to the
+carriage, and ere long, having seen her enter the hall at home, bade
+her good-night, and drove back for Mrs. Carew and Mr. Palma.
+
+It was only a little after ten o'clock, and Regina went up to the
+library, her favourite haunt. She had converted the over-skirt of her
+dress into an apron, now filled with bouquets from among the number
+showered upon her; and selecting one composed of pelargoniums and
+heliotropes, she placed it in the vase beneath her mother's picture,
+and laid the remainder in a circle around it.
+
+"Ah, mother! they praised your child; but your voice was missing.
+Would you too have been proud of me? Oh! if I could feel your lips on
+mine, and hear you whisper once more, as of old, 'My baby! my
+precious baby!'"
+
+Gazing at the portrait, she spoke with a passionate fervour very
+unusual in her composed reserved nature, and unshed tears gathered
+and glorified her eyes.
+
+The house was silent and deserted, save by the servants, by Mrs.
+Carew's child and nurse, and throwing off her cloak, Regina remained
+standing in front of the portrait, while her thoughts wandered into
+grey dreary wastes.
+
+Since the day of Mrs. Carew's arrival she had not exchanged a
+syllable with her guardian, nor had she for an instant seen him
+alone, for the early breakfasts had been discontinued, and in honour
+of his guest and client, Mr. Palma took his with the assembled
+family.
+
+There was in his deportment toward his ward nothing harsh, nothing
+that could have indicated displeasure; but he seemed to have entirely
+forgotten her from the moment when he presented her to Mr. Chesley.
+
+He never even accidentally glanced at her, and patiently watching her
+immobile cold face, sparkling only with intelligence, as he
+endeavoured to entertain his exacting and imperious guest, Regina
+began to realize the vast distance that divided her from him.
+
+His haughty Brahmimc pride seemed to lift him into some lofty plane,
+so far beyond the level of Peleg Peterson, that in contrasting them
+the girl groaned and grew sick at heart. She felt that she stood upon
+a mine already charged, and that at any moment that wretched man who
+held the fatal fuse in his brutal hand, might hurl her and all her
+hopes into irremediable chaos and ruin. If the fastidious and
+aristocratic people who had kindly applauded her singing a little
+while ago could have imagined the dense cloud of social humiliation
+that threatened to burst upon her, would she have even been tolerated
+in that assemblage? Ignorance of her parentage was her sole passport
+into really good society, and the prestige of her guardian's noble
+name an ermine mantle of protection, which might be rudely torn away.
+
+During the last three days, left to the companionship of her own sad
+thoughts, and unable to see Olga alone for even a moment, more than
+one painful and unutterably bitter discovery had been made. She felt
+that indeed her childhood had flown for ever, that the sacred
+mysterious chrism of womanhood had been poured upon her young heart.
+
+Until forced to observe the marked admiration which in his own house
+Mr. Palma evinced when conversing with Mrs. Carew, Regina had been
+conscious only of a profound respect for him, of a deeply grateful
+appreciation of his protecting care; and even when he interrogated
+her with reference to her affection for Mr. Lindsay, she had
+truthfully averred her conviction that her heart was wholly
+disengaged.
+
+But sternly honest in dealing with her own soul, subsequent events
+had painfully shocked her into a realization of the feeling that
+first manifested itself as she watched Mr. Palma and Mrs. Carew at
+the dinner-table.
+
+She knew now that the keen pang she suffered that day could mean
+nothing less solemn and distressing than the mortifying fact that she
+was beginning to love her guardian. Not merely as a grateful,
+respectful ward, the august lawyer who represented her mother's
+authority, but as a woman once, and once only in life, loves the man,
+whom her pure tender heart humbly acknowledges as her king, her
+high-priest, her one divinity in clay.
+
+Although conscience acquitted her of any intentional weakness, her
+womanly pride and delicacy bled at every pore, when she arraigned
+herself for being guilty of this emotion toward one who regarded her
+as a child, who merely pitied her forlorn isolation; and whose eye
+would fill with fiery scorn, could he dream of her presumptuous, her
+unfeminine folly.
+
+Despite the chronic sneers with which Olga always referred to his
+character and habitual conduct, Regina could not withhold a reverence
+for his opinion, and an earnest admiration of his grave, dignified,
+yet polished deportment in his household.
+
+By degrees her early dread and repulsion had melted away, confidence
+and respect usurped their place; and gradually he had grown and
+heightened in her estimation, until suddenly opening her eyes wide
+she saw that Erle Palma filled all the horizon of her hopes.
+
+During three sleepless nights she had kept her eyes riveted upon this
+unexpected and mournful fact, and while deeply humiliated by the
+discovery, she proudly resolved to uproot and cast out of her heart
+the alien growth, which she felt could prove only the upas of her
+future. Allowing herself absolutely no hope, no pardon, no quarter,
+she sternly laid the axe of indignant condemnation and destruction to
+the daring off-shoot, desperately hewing at her very heart-strings.
+
+Mrs. Carew's manner left little doubt that she was leaning like a
+ripe peach within his reach, ready at a touch to fall into his hand;
+and though Regina felt that this low-browed, sibyl-eyed woman was
+vastly his inferior in all save beauty and wealth, she knew that even
+his failure to marry the widow would furnish no justification for the
+further indulgence of her own foolish and unsought preference.
+
+The dread lest he might suspect it, and despise her, added intensity
+to her desire to leave New York, and find safety in joining her
+mother; for the thought of his cold contempt, his glittering black
+eyes, and curling lips, was unendurable.
+
+Weeks must elapse ere she could receive an answer to her letter,
+praying for permission to sail for Europe, and during this trying
+interval, she determined to guard every word and glance, to allow no
+hint of her great folly to escape.
+
+Peleg Peterson's daughter, or else "Nobody's Child," daring to lift
+her eyes to the lordly form of Erle Palma!
+
+As this bitter thought taunted and stung her, she uttered a low cry
+of anguish and shame.
+
+"What is the matter? Don't cry, it will spoil your pretty eyes."
+
+Regina turned quickly, and saw little Llora Carew standing near, and
+arrayed only in her long white night dress, and pink rosetted
+slippers.
+
+"Llora, how came you out of bed? You ought to have been asleep three
+hours ago."
+
+"So I was. But I waked up, and felt so lonesome. Mammie has gone off
+and left me, and hunting for somebody I came here. Won't you please
+let me stay awhile? I can't go to sleep."
+
+"But you will catch cold."
+
+"No, the room is warm, and I have my slippers. Oh! what a pretty
+dress! And your arms and neck are like snow, whiter even than my
+mamma's. Please do sing something for me. Your voice is sweeter than
+my musical box, and then I am going away to-morrow."
+
+She had curled herself like a pet kitten on the rug, and looking down
+at her soft dusky eyes, and rosy cheeks, Regina sighed.
+
+"I am so tired, dear. I have no voice left."
+
+"If you could sing before all the people at the Cantata, you might
+just one song for little me."
+
+"Well, pet, I know I ought not to be selfish, and I will try. Come,
+kiss me. My mother is so far away, and I have nobody to love me. Hug
+me tight."
+
+There was a door leading from Mr. Palma's sleeping-room, to the
+curtained alcove behind the writing desk, and having quietly entered
+by that passage soon after Regina came home, the master of the house
+sat on a lounge veiled by damask and lace curtains, and holding the
+drapery slightly aside, watched what passed in the library.
+
+He was rising to declare his presence, when Llora came in, and
+somewhat vexed at the _contretemps_ he awaited the result.
+
+As Regina knelt on the rug and opened her arms, the pretty child
+sprang into them, kissed her cheeks, and assured her repeatedly that
+she loved her very dearly, that she was the loveliest girl she ever
+saw, especially in that gauze dress. Particularly fond of children,
+Regina toyed with, and caressed her for some minutes, then rose, and
+said:
+
+"Now I will sing you a little song to put you to sleep. Sit here by
+the hearth, but be sure not to nod and fall into the fire."
+
+She opened the organ, and although partly beyond the range of Mr.
+Palma's vision, he heard every syllable of the sweet mellow English
+words of Kücken's "Schlummerlied," with its soothing refrain:
+
+            "Oh, hush thee now, in slumber mild,
+            While watch I keep, oh sleep, my child."
+
+She sang it with strange pathos, thinking of her own far distant
+mother, whom fate had denied the privilege of chanting lullabies over
+her lonely blue-eyed child.
+
+Ending, she came back to the hearth, and Llora clasped her tiny
+hands, and chirped:
+
+"Oh, so sweet! When you get to heaven, don't you reckon you will sit
+in the choir? Once more, oh! do, please."
+
+"What a hungry little beggar you are! Come, sit in my lap, and I will
+hum you a dear little tune. Then you must positively scamper away to
+bed, or your mamma will scold us both, and your mammie also."
+
+A tall yellow woman with a white handkerchief wound turban-style
+around her head, came stealthily forward, and said:
+
+"Miss, give her to me. I went downstairs for a drink of water, and
+when I got back I missed her. Come, baby, let me carry you to bed or
+you will have the croup, and the doctors might cut your throat."
+
+"Wait, mammie, till she sings that little tune she promised; then I
+will go."
+
+Regina sat down in a low cushioned chair, took the little girl on her
+lap, and while the curly head nestled on her shoulder, and one arm
+clasped her neck, she rested her chin upon the brown hair, and sang
+in a very sweet, subdued tone that most soothing of all lullaby
+strains, Wallace's "Cradle Song."
+
+As she proceeded, the turbaned head of the nurse kept time, swaying
+to and fro in the background, and a sweeter picture never adorned
+canvas than that which Mr. Palma watched in front of his library
+fire, and which photographed itself indelibly upon his memory.
+
+Singer and child occupied very much the same position as the figures
+in the _Madonna della Sedia_, and no more lovely woman and child ever
+sat for its painter.
+
+As Mr. Palma's fastidiously critical eyes rested on the sad perfect
+face of Regina, with the long black lashes veiling her eyes, and the
+bare arms and shoulders gleaming above the silver gauze of her
+drapery, he silently admitted that her beauty seemed strangely
+sanctified, and more spirituelle than ever before. Contrasting that
+sweet white figure, over whose delicate lips floated the dreamy
+rhythm of the cradle chant, with the hundreds of handsome,
+accomplished, witty, and brilliant women who thronged the ball-room
+he had just left, this man of the world confessed that his proud
+ambitious heart was hopelessly in bondage to the fair young singer.
+
+                "Sleep, my little one, sleep,--
+                 Sleep, my pretty one,--sleep."
+
+At that moment he was powerfully tempted to delay no longer to take
+her to his bosom for ever; and it cost him a struggle to sit
+patiently, while every fibre of his strong frame was thrilling with a
+depth and fervour of feeling that threatened to bear away all
+dictates of discretion. Ah! what a divine melody seemed to ring
+through all his future as he leaned eagerly forward, and listened to
+the closing words, softly reiterated:
+
+                "Sleep, my little one, sleep,--
+                 Sleep, my pretty one,--sleep."
+
+When she was his wife, how often in the blessed evenings spent here,
+in this hallowed room, he promised himself he would make her sing
+that song. No shadow of doubt that whenever he chose, he could win
+her for his own, clouded the brightness of the vision, for success in
+other pursuits had fed his vanity, until he believed himself
+invincible; and although he had studied her character closely, he
+failed to comprehend fully the proud obstinacy latent in her quiet
+nature.
+
+Just then even the Chief Justiceship seemed an inferior prize, in
+comparison with the possession of that white-browed girl, and her
+pure clinging love; and certainly for a time Mr. Erle Palma's
+towering pride and insatiable ambition were forgotten in his longing
+to snatch the one beloved of all his arid life to the heart that was
+throbbing almost beyond even his rigid control.
+
+For the first time within his recollection he distrusted his power of
+self-restraint, and rising passed quickly into his own room, and
+thence after some moments out into the hall. Near the stairs he met
+the mulatto nurse carrying Llora in her arms.
+
+"Does Mrs. Carew permit that child to sit up so late?"
+
+"Oh no, sir! She has been asleep once; but Miss Regina pets her a
+good deal, and had her in the library singing to her."
+
+"Mr. Palma, shall I kiss you good-night?" asked the pretty creole,
+lifting her curly head from her "mammie's" shoulder.
+
+"Good-night, Llora. Such tender birds should have been in their nests
+long before this. I shall go and scold Miss Orme for keeping you
+awake so late."
+
+He merely patted her rosy round cheek, and went to the library.
+
+Hearing his unmistakable step, Regina conjectured that he had
+escorted the ladies home much earlier than they were accustomed to
+return, and longing to avoid the possibility of a _tête-à-tête_ with
+him, she would gladly have escaped before his entrance had been
+practicable.
+
+He closed the door, and came forward, and, leaning back in the chair
+where she still sat, her hands closed tightly over each other.
+
+"I fear my ward is learning to keep late hours. It is after eleven
+o'clock, and you should be dreaming of the cool, beryl, aquatic
+abodes you have been frequenting as Undine; for indeed you look a
+very weary naïad."
+
+Was he pleased with her success, and would he deem to give her a
+morsel of commendation?
+
+A moment after, she knew that he entertained no such purpose, and
+felt that she ought to rejoice; that it was far best he should not,
+for praise from his lips would be dangerously sweet.
+
+Glancing at the floral tribute laid before her mother's portrait, he
+said:
+
+"You certainly are a faithful devotee at your mother's shrine, and no
+wonder poor Roscoe is so desperately savage at his failure to engage
+a portion of your regard. Did you have a satisfactory interview with
+him on Tuesday last? I invited him for that purpose, as he avowed
+himself dissatisfied with my efforts as proxy, and demanded the
+privilege of pleading his own cause. Permit me to hope that he
+successfully improved the opportunity which I provided by requesting
+him to escort you to dinner."
+
+Standing upon the rug, and immediately in front of her, he spoke with
+cool indifference, and though the words seemed to her a cruel mockery
+they proved a powerful tonic, bringing the grim comfort that at least
+her presumptuous madness was not suspected.
+
+"I had very little conversation with Mr. Roscoe, as I declined to
+renew the discussion of a topic which was painful and embarrassing to
+me, and I fear I have entirely forfeited his friendship."
+
+"Then after mature deliberation you still peremptorily refuse to
+become more closely related to me? Once there appeared a rosy
+possibility that you might one day call me cousin."
+
+With a sudden resolution she looked straight at him for the first
+time since his entrance, and answered quietly:
+
+"You will be my kind faithful guardian a little while longer, until I
+can hear from mother; but we shall never be any more closely
+related."
+
+The reply was not exactly what he expected and desired; but with his
+chill, out-door conventional smile he added:
+
+"Poor Roscoe! his heart frequently outstrips his reason."
+
+Looking at him, she felt assured that no one could ever justly make
+that charge against him; and unwilling to prolong the interview, she
+rose.
+
+"Pardon me, if, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, I detain
+you a few minutes from your Undine dreams. Be so good as to resume
+your seat."
+
+There was an ominous pause, and reluctantly she was forced to look
+up.
+
+He was regarding her very sternly, and as his eyes caught and held
+hers he put his fingers in his vest pocket, drawing therefrom a
+narrow strip of paper, folded carefully. Holding it out, he asked:
+
+"Did you ever see this?"
+
+Before she opened it she knew it contained the address she had given
+to Peleg Peterson on Tuesday, and a shiver crept over her.
+Mechanically glancing at it, she sighed; a sigh that was almost a
+moan.
+
+"Regina, have the courtesy to answer my question."
+
+"Of course I have seen it before. You know it is my handwriting."
+
+"Did you furnish that address with the expectation of conducting a
+clandestine correspondence?"
+
+An increasing pallor overspread her features, but in a very firm
+decided voice, she replied:
+
+"Yes sir."
+
+"Knowing that your legal guardian would forbid such an interchange of
+letters, you directed them enclosed under cover to Mrs. Mason?"
+
+"I did."
+
+The slip of paper fluttered to the floor, and her fingers locked each
+other.
+
+"A gentleman picked up that scrap of paper, in one of the squares
+located far up town, and recognizing the name of my ward, very
+discreetly placed it in the possession of her guardian."
+
+"Mr. Palma, were you not in a carriage at that square on Tuesday?"
+
+"I was not. My time is rather too valuable to be wasted in a
+rendezvous at out-of-the-way squares while a snowstorm is in full
+blast. What possible attraction do you imagine such folly could offer
+me?"
+
+"I met you not very far from that square, and I thought----"
+
+"Pray take time, and conclude your sentence."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Some important business connected with my profession, and involving
+a case long ago placed in my hands, called me, despite the
+unfavourable weather, to that section of the city. Having
+particularly desired and instructed you to come home as soon as the
+rehearsal at Mrs. Brompton's ended, I certainly had no right to
+suppose you intended to disobey me."
+
+He paused, but she remained a pale image of silent sorrow.
+
+"A few evenings since you asked me to trust you, and in defiance of
+my judgment I reluctantly promised to do so. Have you not forfeited
+your guardian's confidence?"
+
+"Perhaps so; but it was unavoidable."
+
+"Unavoidable that you should systematically deceive me?" he demanded
+very sternly.
+
+"I have not deceived you."
+
+"My duty as your guardian forces me to deal plainly with you. With
+whom have you arranged this disgraceful clandestine correspondence?"
+
+Her gaze swept quite past him, ascended to the pitying brown eyes in
+her mother's portrait; and though she grew white as her Undine
+vesture, and he saw her shudder, her voice was unshaken.
+
+"I cannot tell you."
+
+"Representing your mother's authority, I demand an answer."
+
+After an instant, she said:
+
+"Though you were twenty times my guardian, I shall not tell you,
+sir."
+
+She seemed like some marble statue, which one might hack and hew in
+twain, without extorting a confession.
+
+"Then you force me to a very shocking and shameful conclusion."
+
+Was there, she wondered, any conclusion so shameful as the truth,
+which at all hazard she was resolved for her mother's sake to hide?
+
+"You are secretly meeting and arranging to correspond with some
+vagrant lover whom you blush so acknowledge."
+
+"Lover! Oh, merciful God! When I need a father, and a father's
+protecting name--when I am heart-sick for my mother, and her
+shielding healing love--how can you cruelly talk to me of a lover?
+What right has a nameless, homeless waif to think of love? God grant
+me a father and a mother, a stainless name, and I shall never need,
+never wish, never tolerate a lover! Do not insult my misery."
+
+She lifted her clenched hands almost menacingly, and her passionate
+vehemence startled her companion, who could scarcely recognize in the
+glittering defiant gaze that met his the velvet violet eyes over
+which the silken fringes had hung with such tender Madonna grace but
+a half-hour before.
+
+"Regina, how could you deceive me so shamefully?"
+
+"I did not intend to do so. I am innocent of the disgraceful motives
+you impute to me; but I cannot explain what you condemn so severely.
+In all that I have done I have been impelled by a stern, painful
+sense of duty, and my conscience acquits me; but I shall not give you
+any explanation. To no human being, except my mother, will I confess
+the whole matter. Oh, send me at once to her! I asked you to trust
+me, and you believe me utterly unworthy, think I have forfeited your
+confidence, even your respect. It is hard, very hard, for I hoped to
+possess always your good opinion. But it must be borne, and now at
+least, holding me so low in your esteem, you will not keep me under
+your roof; you will gladly send me to mother. Let me go. Oh! do let
+me go--at once; to-morrow."
+
+She seemed inexplicably transformed into a woeful desperate woman,
+and the man's heart yearned to fold her closely in his arms,
+sheltering her for ever.
+
+Drawing nearer, he spoke in a wholly altered voice.
+
+"When you asked me to trust you, I did so. Now will you grant me a
+similar boon? Lily, trust me."
+
+His tone had never sounded so low, almost pleading before; and it
+thrilled her with an overmastering grief, that when he who was wont
+to command, condescended to sue for her confidence, she was forced
+to withhold it.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Palma, do not ask me! I cannot."
+
+He took her hands, unwinding the cold fingers, and in his peculiar
+magnetic way softly folding them in his warm palms; but she struggled
+to withdraw them, and he saw the purple shadows deepening under her
+large eyes.
+
+"Little girl, I would not betray your secret Give it to my
+safekeeping. Show me your heart."
+
+
+As if fearful he might read it, she involuntarily closed her
+eyes, and her answer was almost a sob.
+
+"It is not my secret, it involves others, and I would rather die
+to-morrow, to-night, than have it known. Oh! let me go away at once,
+and for ever!"
+
+Accustomed to compel compliance with his wishes, it was difficult for
+him to patiently endure defiance and defeat from that fair young
+creature, whom he began to perceive he could neither overawe nor
+persuade.
+
+For several minutes he seemed lost in thought, still holding her
+hands firmly; then he suddenly laughed, and stooped toward her.
+
+"Brave, true little heart! I wonder if some day you will be as
+steadfast and faithful in your devotion to your husband, as you have
+been in your loving defence of your mother? You need not tell me your
+secret, I know everything; and, Lily, I can scarcely forgive you for
+venturing within the reach and power of that wretched vagabond."
+
+He felt her start and shiver, and pitying the terrified expression
+that drifted into her countenance, he continued:
+
+"Unconsciously, you were giving alms to your own and to your mother's
+worst enemy. Peleg Peterson has for years stood between you and your
+lawful name."
+
+She reeled, and her fingers closed spasmodically over his, as white
+and faint, she gasped:
+
+"Then he is not--my----"
+
+The words died on her quivering lips.
+
+"He is the man who has slandered and traduced your mother, even to
+her own husband."
+
+"Oh! then, he is not, he cannot be my--father!"
+
+"No more your father than I am! At last I have succeeded in
+obtaining----"
+
+She was beyond the reach even of his voice, and as she drooped he
+caught her in his arms.
+
+Since Monday the terrible strain had known no relaxation, and the
+sudden release from the horrible incubus of Peleg Peterson was
+overpowering.
+
+Mr. Palma held her for some seconds clasped to his heart, and placing
+the head on his bosom, turned the white face to his. How hungrily the
+haughty man hung over those wan features, and what a wealth of
+passionate tenderness thrilled in the low trembling voice that
+whispered:
+
+"My Lily. My darling; my own."
+
+He kissed her softly, as if the cold lips were too sacred even for
+his loving touch, and gently placed her on the sofa, holding her with
+his encircling arm.
+
+Since his boyhood no woman's lips had ever pressed his, and the last
+kiss he had bestowed was upon his mother's brow, as she lay in her
+coffin.
+
+To-night the freshness of youth came back, and the cold, politic,
+non-committal lawyer found himself for the first time an ardent
+trembling lover.
+
+He watched the faint quiver of her blue-veined lids, and heard the
+shuddering sigh that assured him consciousness was returning. Softly
+stroking her hand, he saw the eyes at last unclose.
+
+"You certainly have been down among your uncanny Undine caves; for
+you quite resemble a drenched lily. Now sit up."
+
+He lifted her back into the easy chair, as if she had been an infant,
+and stood before her.
+
+As her mind cleared, she recalled what had passed, and said almost in
+a whisper:
+
+"Did I dream, or did you tell me that horrible man is not my father?"
+
+"I told you so. He is a black-hearted, vindictive miscreant, who
+successfully blackmailed you, by practising a vile imposture."
+
+"Oh! are you quite sure?"
+
+"Perfectly sure. I have been hunting him for years, and at last have
+obtained in black and white his own confession, which nobly
+exonerates your mother from his infamous aspirations."
+
+"Thank God! Thank God!"
+
+Tears were stealing down her cheeks, and he saw from the twitching of
+her face that she was fast losing control of her overtaxed nerves.
+
+"You must go to your room and rest, or you will be ill."
+
+"Oh! not if I am sure he will never dare to claim me as his child.
+Oh, Mr. Palma! that possibility has almost driven me wild."
+
+"Dismiss it as you would some hideous nightmare. Go to sleep and
+dream of your mother, and of----"
+
+He bit his lip to check the rash words, and too much agitated to
+observe his changed manner, she asked:
+
+"Where is he now?"
+
+"No matter where. He is so completely in my power, that he can
+trouble us no more."
+
+She clasped her hands joyfully, but the tears fell faster, and
+looking at her mother's picture, she exclaimed:
+
+"Have mercy upon me, Mr. Palma! Tell me--do you know--whom I am? Do
+you really know beyond doubt who was--or is--my father?"
+
+"This much I can tell you, I know your father's name; but just now I
+am forbidden by your mother to disclose it, even to you. Come to your
+room."
+
+He raised her from the chair, and as she stood before him, it was
+pitiable to witness the agonized entreaty in her pallid but beautiful
+face.
+
+"Please tell me only one thing, and I can bear all else patiently.
+Was he--was my father--a gentleman? Oh! my mother could never have
+loved any--but a gentleman."
+
+"His treatment of her and of you would scarcely entitle him to that
+honourable epithet; yet in the eyes of the world your father
+assuredly is in every respect a gentleman, is considered even an
+aristocrat."
+
+She sobbed aloud, and the violence of her emotion, which she seemed
+unable to control, alarmed him. Leading her to the library door he
+said, retaining her hand.
+
+"Compose yourself, or you will be really sick. Now that your poor
+tortured heart is easy, can you not go to sleep?"
+
+"Oh, thank you! Yes, I will try."
+
+"Lily, next time trust me. Trust your guardian in everything.
+Good-night. God bless you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+"'The dice of the gods are always loaded,' and what appears the
+merest chance is as inexorably fixed, predetermined, as the rules of
+mathematics, or the laws of crystallization. What madness to flout
+fate!"
+
+Mrs. Orme laid down her pen as she spoke, and leaned back in her
+chair.
+
+"Did you speak to me?" inquired Mrs. Waul, who had been nodding over
+her worsted work, and was aroused by the sound of the voice.
+
+"No, I was merely thinking aloud; a foolish habit I have contracted
+since I began to aspire to literary laurels. Go to sleep again, and
+finish your dream."
+
+Upon the writing desk lay a _MS_. in morocco cover, and secured by
+heavy bronze clasps, into which the owner put a small key attached to
+her watch chain, carefully locking and laying it away in a drawer of
+the desk.
+
+Approaching a table in the corner of the room, Mrs. Orme filled
+a tall narrow Venetian glass with that violet-flavoured,
+violet-perfumed Capri wine, whose golden bubbles danced upon the
+brim, and, having drained the last amber drop, she rolled her chair
+close to the window, looped back the curtains, and sat down.
+
+The lodgings she had occupied since her arrival in Naples were
+situated on the _Riviera di Chiaja_, near the _Villa Reale_, and not
+far from the divergence into the _Strada Mergellina_. Of the
+wonderful beauty of the scene beyond her front windows She had never
+wearied, and now in the ravishing afternoon glow, with the blue air
+all saturated with golden gleams, she yielded to the Parthenopean
+spell, which, once felt, seems never to be forgotten.
+
+Had it the power to chant to rest that sombre past which memory kept
+as a funeral theme for ever on its vibrating strings? Was there at
+last a file for the serpent, that had so long made its lair in her
+distorted and envenomed nature?
+
+At thirty-three time ceases to tread with feathery feet, and the
+years grow self-asserting, italicize themselves in passing; and
+across the dial of woman's beauty the shadow of decadence falls
+aslant. But although Mrs. Orme had offered sacrifice to that
+inexorable Terminus, who dwells at the last border line of youth, the
+ripeness and glow of her extraordinary loveliness showed as yet no
+hint of the coming eclipse.
+
+Health lent to cheek and lip its richest, warmest tints, and though
+the silvery splendour of hope shone no longer in the eloquent brown
+eyes, the light of an almost accomplished triumph imparted a baleful
+brilliance, which even the long lashes could not veil.
+
+Her pale lilac robe showed admirably the transparency of her
+complexion, and in her waving gilded hair she wore a cluster of
+delicate rose anemones.
+
+Her gaze seemed to have crossed the blue pavement of sea, and rested
+on the purpling outlines of Ischia and Capri; but the dimpling smile
+that crossed her face sprang from no dreamy reverie of Parthenope
+legends, and her voice was low and deep like one rehearsing for some
+tragic outbreak.
+
+"So Samson felt in Dagon's temple, amid the jubilee of his
+tormentors, when silent and calm, girded only by the sense of his
+wrongs, he meekly bowed to rest himself; and all the while his arms
+groped stealthily around the pillars destined to avenge him. Ah! how
+calm, how holy, all outside of my heart seems! How in contrast with
+that charnel-house yonder vision of peaceful loveliness appears as
+incongruous as the nightingales which the soul of Sophocles heard
+singing in the grove of the Furies? After to-day will the world ever
+look quite the same to me? Thirty-three years have brought me swiftly
+to the last fatal page; and shall the hand falter that writes
+_finis_?"
+
+A strangely solemn expression drifted over her countenance, but at
+that moment a tall form darkened the doorway, and she smiled.
+
+"Come in, General Laurance. Punctuality is essentially an American
+virtue, rarely displayed in this _dolce far niente_ land; and you
+exemplify its nationality. Five was the hour you named, and my little
+Swiss tell-tale is even now sounding the last stroke."
+
+She did not rise, seemed on the contrary, to sink farther back in her
+velvet-lined chair; and bending down General Laurance touched her
+hand.
+
+"When a man's happiness for all time is at stake does he loiter on
+his way to receive the verdict? Surely you will----"
+
+He paused and glanced significantly at the figure whose white cap was
+bowed low, as its wearer slumbered over the interminable crochet.
+
+"May not this interview at least be sacred from the presence of your
+keepers?"
+
+"Poor dear soul, she is happily oblivious, and will take no
+stenographic notes. I would as soon declare war against my own shadow
+as order her away."
+
+Evidently chagrined, the visitor stood irresolute, and meanwhile the
+gaze of his companion wandered back to the beauty of the Bay.
+
+He drew a chair close to that which she occupied, and holding his hat
+as a screen, should Mrs. Waul's spectacles chance to turn in that
+direction, spoke earnestly.
+
+"Have I been unpardonably presumptuous in interpreting favourably
+this permission to see you once more? Have you done me the honour to
+ponder the contents of my letter?"
+
+"I certainly have pondered well the contents."
+
+She kept her hands beyond his reach, and looking steadily into his
+eager handsome face, she saw it flush deeply.
+
+"Madame, I trust, I believe you are incapable of trifling."
+
+"In which, you do me bare justice only. With me the time for
+trifling is past; and just now life has put on all its tragic
+vestments. But how long since General Laurance believed me incapable
+of--worse than trifling?"
+
+"Ever since my infamous folly was reproved by you as it deserved.
+Ever since you taught me that you were even more noble in soul than
+lovely in person. Be generous, and do not humiliate me by recalling
+that temporary insanity. Having blundered fearfully, in my ignorance
+of your real character, does not the offer of yesterday embody all
+the reparation, all the atonement of which a man is capable?"
+
+"You desire me to consider the proposal contained in your letter, as
+an expiation for past offences, as an _amende honourable_ for what
+might have ripened into insult, had it not been nipped in the bud? Do
+I translate correctly your gracious diction?"
+
+"No, you cruelly torment me by referring to an audacious and shameful
+offence, for which I blush."
+
+"Successful sins are unencumbered by penitential oblations, and only
+discovered and defeated crimes arouse conscience, and paint one's
+cheeks with mortification. General Laurance merely illustrates a
+great social law."
+
+"Do not, dear madame, keep me in this fiery suspense. I have offered
+you all that a gentleman can lay at the feet of the woman he loves."
+
+A cold smile lighted her face, as some arctic moonbeams gleams for an
+instant across the spires and doomes of an iceberg.
+
+"Once you attempted to offer me your heart, or what remains of its
+ossified ruins; which I declined. Now you tender me your hand and
+name, and indeed it appears that like many of the high-born class you
+so nobly represent, your heart and hand have never hitherto been
+conjoined in your _devoir_. It were a melancholy pity they should be
+eternally divorced."
+
+Bending over her, he exclaimed:
+
+"As heaven hears me, I swear I love you better than life, than
+everything else that the broad earth holds! You cannot possibly doubt
+my sincerity, for you hold the proof in your own hands. Be merciful,
+Odille, and end my anxiety."
+
+He caught her hand, and as she attempted no resistance, he raised it
+to his moustached lip. Her eyes were resting upon the blue expanse of
+water, as if far away, across the vast vista of the Mediterranean she
+sought some strengthening influence, some sacred inspiration; and
+after a moment, turning them full upon his countenance, she said with
+grave stony composure:
+
+"You have asked me to become your wife, knowing full well that no
+affection would prompt me to entertain the thought; and you must be
+thoroughly convinced that only sordid motives of policy could
+influence me to accept you. Do men who marry under such circumstances
+honour and trust the women, who as a _dernier ressort_ bear their
+names? You are not so weak, so egregiously vain, as to delude
+yourself for one instant with the supposition that I could ever love
+you?"
+
+"Once my wife, I ask nothing more. Upon my own head and life, be the
+failure to make you love me. Only give me this hand, and I will take
+your heart Can a lover ask less, and hazard more?"
+
+"And if you fail--woefully, as fail you must?"
+
+"I shall not. You cannot awe or discourage me, for I have yet to find
+the heart that successfully defies my worship. But if you remained
+indifferent--ah, loveliest! you would not! Even then, I should be
+blessed by your presence, your society--and that alone were worth all
+other women!"
+
+"Even though it cost you the heavy, galling burden of marriage vows,
+an exorbitant price, which only necessity extorts? How vividly we of
+the nineteenth century exemplify the wisdom of the classic aphorisms?
+_Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat_. Have you no fear that you
+are seizing with bare fingers a glittering thirsty blade, which may
+flesh itself in the hand that dares to caress it?"
+
+"I fear nothing but your rejection; and though you should prove
+Judith or Jael, I would disarm you thus."
+
+Again he kissed the fair slender hand, and clasped it tenderly
+between both his own.
+
+"A man of your years does not lightly forsake the traditions of his
+Caste, and the usages of his ancestors; and what can patricians like
+General Laurance hope to secure by stooping to the borders of
+_proletaire?_"
+
+"The woman whom he loves. To you I will confess, that never until
+within the past six or eight months have I really comprehended the
+power of genuine love. Early in life I married a high-born, gentle,
+true-hearted woman, who made me a good faithful wife; but into that
+alliance my heart never entered, and although for many years I have
+been free to admire whom fickle fancy chose, and have certainly
+petted and caressed some whom the world pronounced very lovely, the
+impression made upon me was transient, as the perfume of a blossom
+plucked and worn for a few hours only. You have exerted over me a
+fascination which I can neither explain nor resist. For you I
+entertain feelings never aroused in my nature until now; and I speak
+only the simple truth, when I solemnly swear to you, upon the honour
+of a Laurance, that you are the only woman I have ever truly and
+ardently loved."
+
+"The honour of a Laurance? What more sacred pledge could I possibly
+desire?"
+
+The fingers of her free hand were toying with a small gold chain
+around her neck, to which was fastened the hidden wedding ring of
+black agate, with its white skull; and as she spoke her scarlet lips
+paled perceptibly, and her soft dreamy eyes began to glitter.
+
+"Ah! I repeat, upon my honour as a gentleman and a Laurance; and a
+holier oath no man could offer. Of my proud unsullied name I am
+fastidiously careful, and can even you demand or hope a nobler one
+than that I now lay at your feet?"
+
+"The name of Laurance? Certainly I think it would satisfy even my
+ambition."
+
+He felt the pretty hand grow suddenly cold in his grasp, and saw the
+thin delicate nostril expand slightly, as she fixed her brilliant
+eyes on his, and smiled. Then she continued:
+
+"Is it not too sacred and aristocratic a mantle to fling around an
+obscure actress, of whose pedigree and antecedent life you know
+nothing, save that widowhood and penury goaded her to histrionic
+exhibitions of a beauty, that sometimes threatened to subject her to
+impertinence and insult? Put aside the infatuation which not
+unfrequently attacks men, who like you are rapidly descending the
+hill of life, approaching the stage of second childlike simplicity,
+and listen for a moment to the cold dictates of prudence and policy.
+Suppose that ere you surrendered your reason to the magnetism of what
+you are pleased to consider my 'physical perfection,' one of your
+relatives, a brother, or say even your son, had met me at Milan as
+you did; and madly forgetting his family rank, his aristocratic ties,
+all the pride and worldly wisdom of heredity, had, while in a fit of
+complete dementia, offered as you have done to clothe my humble
+obscurity in the splendid name of Laurance? Would General René
+Laurance have pardoned him, and received me as his sister, or his
+daughter?"
+
+"Could I censure any man for surrendering to charms which have so
+completely vanquished me? Thank heaven! I have neither brother nor
+son to rival me. My only child Cuthbert is safely anchored in the
+harbour of wedlock, and having his own family ties, I am free to
+consult only my heart in the choice of a bride. I have not journeyed
+so far down the hill of life as you cruelly persist in asserting, and
+the fervour of my emotions denies your unkind imputation. When I
+proudly show the world the lovely wife of my heart's choice, you will
+find my devotion a noble refutation of your unflattering estimate.
+But a moment since, you confessed that to exchange the name of Orme
+for that of Laurance would crown your ambition; my dearest, the truth
+has escaped you."
+
+With a sudden gesture of loathing she threw off his hand, struck her
+palms together, and he started at the expression that seemed
+literally to blaze in her eyes, so vivid, so withering was the light
+that rayed out.
+
+"Yes, the truth escaped my lips. The honourable name of Laurance is
+talismanic, and offers much to Odille Orme; yet I will stain my soul
+with no dissimulation. With love and romance, I finished long, long
+ago; and to-day I have not patience to trifle even with its
+phraseology. I am thirty-three, and in my early girlhood the one love
+dream of all my life was rudely broken, leaving me no more capacity
+to indulge a second, than belongs to those marbles in the _Musée
+Bourbonique_. For my dear young husband I felt the only intense,
+idolatrous, yes, blindly worshipping devotion, that my nature could
+yield to any human being. When I lost him, I lost my heart also;
+became doubly widowed, because my grief bereft me of the power of
+properly loving even our little baby. For years I have given my body
+and soul to the accomplishment of one purpose, the elevation of my
+social status, and that of my child. Had my husband been spared to
+me, we would not have remained obscure and poor, but after my
+widowhood the struggle devolved upon me. I have not had leisure to
+think of love, have toiled solely for maintenance and position; and
+have sternly held myself aloof from the world that dared to believe
+my profession rendered me easy of access. Titles have been laid at my
+feet, but their glitter seemed fictitious, did not allure me; and no
+other name save yours has ever for an instant tempted me. To-day you
+are here to plead my acceptance of that name, and frankly, I tell
+you, sir, it dazzles me. As an American I know all that it
+represents, all that it would confer on me, all that it would prove
+for my child, and I would rather wear the name of Laurance than a
+coronet! I confess I have but one ambition, to lift my daughter into
+that high social plane, from which fate excluded her mother; and this
+eminence I covet for her, marriage with you promises me. I have no
+heart to bring you; mine died with all my wifely hopes when I lost my
+husband. If I consent to give you my hand, and nominally the claim of
+a husband, in exchange for the privilege of merging Orme in Laurance,
+it must be upon certain solemn conditions, to the fulfilment of which
+your traditional honour is pledged. Is a Laurance safely bound by
+vows?"
+
+Her voice had grown strangely metallic, losing all its liquid
+sweetness, and as her gaze searched his face, the striking
+resemblance she traced in his eyes and mouth to those of Cuthbert and
+Regina seemed to stab her heart.
+
+To the man who listened and watched with breathless anxiety her
+hardening, whitening features, she merely recalled the memory of her
+own tragic "Medea" confronting "Jason" at Athens.
+
+"Only accept my vows at the altar, and I challenge the world to
+breathe an imputation upon their sanctity. René Laurance never broke
+a promise, never forfeited a pledge; and to keep his name unsullied,
+his honour stainless, is his sole religion. Odille, my Queen----"
+
+She rose and waved him back.
+
+"Spare me rapsodies that accord neither with your years nor my
+sentiments. Understand, it is a mere bargain and a sale, and I am
+carefully arranging the conditions. For myself I ask little; but as
+you are aware, my daughter is grown, is now in her seventeenth year,
+and the man whom the world regards as my husband must share his name
+and fortune with my child. Doubtless you deem me calculating and
+mercenary, and for her dear sake I am forced to do so; for all the
+tenderness that remains in my nature is centred in my little girl.
+She has been reared as carefully as a princess, is accomplished and
+very beautiful, and when you see her I think you will scarcely refuse
+the tribute of your admiration and affection."
+
+For an instant a grey pallor spread from lip to brow, and the unhappy
+woman shuddered; but rallying, she moved across the floor to her
+writing desk, and the infatuated man followed, whispering:
+
+"If she resembles her mother, can you doubt her perfect and prompt
+adoption into my heart?"
+
+"My daughter is unlike me; is so entirely the image of her lost
+father, that the sight of her beauty sometimes overwhelms me with
+torturing memories. Here. General Laurance is a carefully written
+paper, which I submit for your examination and mature reflection.
+When in the presence of proper witnesses you sign that contract, you
+will have purchased the right to claim my hand--mark you, only my
+hand--at the altar."
+
+It was a cautiously worded marriage settlement, drawn up in
+conformity with legal requirements; and its chief exaction was the
+adoption of  Regina, the transmission of the name of Laurance, and
+the settlement upon her of a certain amount of money in stocks and
+bonds, exclusive of any real estate. As he received the paper and
+opened it, Mrs. Orme added: "Take your own time, and weigh the
+conditions carefully and deliberately."
+
+"Stay, Odille; do not leave me. A few moments will suffice for this
+matter, and I am in no mood to endure suspense."
+
+"Within an hour you can at least comprehend what I demand. I am going
+to the terrace of the Villa Reale, and when in accordance with that
+contract you decide to adopt my child, and present her to the world
+as your own, you will find me on the terrace."
+
+He would have taken her hand, but she walked away and disappeared,
+closing a door behind her.
+
+His hat had rolled out of sight, and as he searched hurriedly for it,
+Mrs. Waul spoke from her distant recess:
+
+"General Laurance will find his hat between the ottoman and the
+window."
+
+The winding walks of the Villa were comparatively deserted, when Mrs.
+Orme began to pace slowly to and fro beneath the trees, whose foliage
+swayed softly in the mild evening air. When the few remaining groups
+had passed beyond her vision, she threw back the long thick veil that
+had effectually concealed her features, and approaching the parapet
+that overhung the sea, sat down. Removing her hat and veil, she
+placed them beside her on the seat, and resting her hands on the iron
+railing, bowed her chin upon them, and looked out upon the sea
+murmuring at the foot of the wall.
+
+The flush and sparkle of an hour ago had vanished so utterly, that it
+appeared incredible that colour, light, and dimples could ever wake
+again in that frozen face, over whose rigid features brooded the calm
+of stone.
+
+                 "A woman fair and stately,
+                  But pale as are the dead,"--
+
+she seemed some impassive soulless creature, incapable alike of
+remorse or of hope, allured by no future, frightened by no past;
+silently fronting at last the one sunless, joyless, dreary goal,
+whose attainment had been for years the paramount aim of her stranded
+life. The rosy glow of dying day yet lingered in the sky and tinged
+the sea, and a golden moon followed by a few shy stars watched their
+shining images twinkling in the tremulous water; but the loveliest
+object upon which their soft light fell was that lonely, wan,
+lilac-robed woman.
+
+So Jephtha's undaunted daughter might have looked, as she saw the
+Syrian sun sink below the palms and poppies, knowing that when it
+rose once more upon the smiling happy world, her sacrifice would have
+been accomplished, her fate for ever sealed; or so perhaps Alcestis
+watched the slow-coming footsteps of that dreadful hour, when for her
+beloved she voluntarily relinquished life.
+
+To die for those we love were easy martyrdom, but to live in
+sacrificial throes fierce as Dirce's tortures, to endure for tedious
+indefinite lingering years, jilted by death, demands a fortitude
+higher than that of Cato, Socrates, or Seneca.
+
+To all of us come sooner or later lurid fateful hours that bring us
+face to face with the pale Parcæ; so close that we see the motionless
+distaff, and the glitter of the opening shears, and have no wish to
+stay the clipping of the frayed and tangled thread.
+
+In comparison with the grim destiny Mrs. Orme had so systematically
+planned the hideous "death in life," upon which she was deliberately
+preparing to enter, a leap over that wall into the placid sea beneath
+would have been welcome as heaven to tortured Dives; but despite the
+loathing and horror of her sickened and outraged soul, she
+contemplated her future lot as calmly as St. Lawrence the heating of
+his gridiron.
+
+Over the beautiful blue bay, where the moon had laid her pavement of
+gold, floated a low sweet song, a simple barcarolle, that came from a
+group of happy souls in a small boat
+
+                  "Che cosi vual que pesci
+                              Fiduline!
+                   L'anel que me cascá
+                   Nella bella mia barca
+                   Nella bella se ne vá.
+                              Fiduline."
+
+Approaching the shore, the ruddy light burning at one end of the boat
+showed its occupants; a handsome athletic young fisherman, and his
+pretty childish wife, hushing her baby in her arms, with a slow
+cradle-like movement that kept time to her husband's song.
+
+                  "Te daro cento scudi
+                              Fiduline.
+                   Sta borsa riccamá
+                   Por la bella sua barca
+                   Colla bella se ne vá
+                   Fidulilalo, Fiduline."
+
+Springing ashore he secured the boat, and held out his arms for the
+sleeping bud that contained in its folded petals all their domestic
+hopes; and as the star-eyed young mother kissed it lightly and laid
+it in its father's arms, the happy pair walked away, leaving the echo
+of their gay musical chatter lingering on the air.
+
+To the woman who watched and listened from the parapet above, it
+seemed a panel rosy, dewy, fresh from Tempe, set as a fresco upon the
+walls of Hell, to heighten the horrors of the doomed.
+
+From her chalice fate had stolen all that was sweet and rapturous in
+wifehood and motherhood, substituting hemlock; and as the vision of
+her own fair child was recalled by the sleeping babe of the Italian
+fisherman, she suffered a keen pang in the consciousness that those
+tender features of her innocent daughter reproduced vividly the image
+of the man who had blackened her life.
+
+The face in Regina's portrait was so thoroughly Laurance in outline
+and Laurance in colour, that the mother had covered it with a thick
+veil, unable to meet the deep violet eyes that she had learned to
+hate in René Laurance and his son.
+
+Yet for the sake of that daughter, whose gaze she shunned, she was
+about to step down into flames far fiercer than those of Tophet,
+silently immolating all that remained of her life.
+
+Although she neither turned her head nor removed her eyes from the
+sea, she knew that the end was at hand. For one instant her heart
+seemed to cease beating, then with a keen spasm of pain slowly
+resumed its leaden labour.
+
+The erect, graceful, manly figure at her side bent down, and the
+grizzled moustache touched her forehead.
+
+"Odille, I accept your terms. Henceforth in accordance with your own
+conditions you are mine; mine in the sight of God and man."
+
+Recoiling, she drew her handkerchief across the spot where his lips
+had rested, and her voice sounded strangely cold and haughty:
+
+"God holds Himself aloof from such sacrilege as this, and sometimes I
+think He does not witness, or surely would forbid. Just yet, you must
+not touch me. You accept the conditions named, and I shall hold
+myself bound by the stipulations; but until I am your wife, until you
+take my hand as Mrs. Laurance, you will pardon me if I absolutely
+prohibit all caresses. I am very frank, you see, and doubtless you
+consider me peculiar, probably prudish, but only a husband's lips can
+touch mine, only a husband's arm encircle me. When we are
+married----"
+
+She did not complete the sentence, but a peculiar musical laugh
+rippled over her lips, and she held out her hand to him.
+
+"Remember, I promised General Laurance only my hand, and here I
+surrender it. You have fairly earned it, but I fear it will not prove
+the guerdon you fondly imagine."
+
+He kissed it tenderly, and keeping it in his, spoke very earnestly:
+
+"Only one thing, Odille, I desire to stipulate, and that springs
+solely from my jealous love. You must promise to abandon the stage
+for ever. Indeed, my beautiful darling, I could not endure to see my
+wife, my own, before the footlights. In Mrs. Laurance the world must
+lose its lovely idol."
+
+"Am I indeed so precious in General Laurance's eyes! Will he hold me
+always such a dainty sacred treasure, safe from censure and
+aspersion? Sir, I appreciate the delicate regard that prompts this
+expression of your wishes, and with one slight exception, I willingly
+accede to them. I have written a little drama, adapting the chief
+_rôle_ to my own peculiar line of talent and I desire in that play,
+of my own composition, to bid adieu to the stage. In Paris, where
+illness curtailed my engagement, I wish to make my parting bow, and
+I trust you will not oppose so innocent a pleasure? The marriage
+ceremony shall be performed in the afternoon, and that night I
+propose to appear in my own play. May I not hope that my husband
+will consent to see me on my wedding day in that _rôle_? Only one
+night, then adieu for ever to the glittering bauble! Can my
+fastidious lover refuse the first boon I ever craved?"
+
+She turned and placed her disengaged hand on his shoulder, and as the
+moonlight shone on her smiling dangerously beguiling face, the
+infatuated man laid his lips upon the soft white fingers.
+
+"Could I refuse you anything, my beautiful brown-eyed empress? Only
+once more then; promise me after that night to resign the stage, to
+reign solely in my heart and home."
+
+"You have my promise, and when I break my vows, it will be the
+Laurance example that I follow. In your letter you stated that urgent
+business demanded your return to Paris, possibly to America. Can you
+not postpone the consummation of our marriage?"
+
+"Impossible! How could I consent to defer what I regard as the
+crowning happiness of my life? I have not so many years in store,
+that I can afford to waste even an hour without you. When I leave
+Europe, I shall take my darling with me."
+
+The moon was shining full upon her face, and the magnificent eyes
+looked steadily into his. There was no movement of nerve and muscle
+to betray all that raged in her soul, as she fought and conquered the
+temptation to spring forward, and hurl him over the parapet.
+
+In the flush and enthusiasm of his great happiness, he certainly
+seemed far younger in proportion to their respective years than his
+companion; and as he softly stroked back a wave of golden hair that
+had fallen on her white brow, he leaned until his still handsome face
+was close to hers, and whispered:
+
+"When may I claim you? Do not, my love, delay it a day longer than is
+absolutely necessary."
+
+"To-morrow morning I will give you an answer. Then I am going away
+for a few days to Pæstum, and cannot see you again till we meet in
+Paris. Recollect, I warned you, I bring no heart, no love; both are
+lost hopelessly in the ashes of the past. I never loved but one
+man--the husband of my youth, the father of my baby; and his loss I
+shall mourn till the coffin closes above me. General Laurance, you
+are running a fearful hazard, and the very marble of the altar should
+find a voice to cry out and stay your madness."
+
+She shivered, and her eyes burned almost supernaturally large and
+lustrous.
+
+Charmed by her beauty and grace, which had from the beginning of
+their acquaintance attracted him more powerfully than any other woman
+had ever done, and encouraged by the colossal vanity that had always
+predominated in his character, he merely laughed and caressed her
+hand.
+
+"Can any hazard deter me when the reward will be the privilege, the
+right to fold you in my arms? I am afraid of nothing that can result
+from making you my wife. Do not cloud my happiness by conjuring up
+spectres that only annoy you, that cannot for an instant influence
+me. Your hands are icy and you have no shawl. Let me take you home."
+
+Silently she accepted his arm, and as the fringy acacias trembled and
+sighed  above  her, she  walked  by his side; wondering if the black
+shadow that hung like a pall over the distant crest of Vesuvius were
+not a fit symbol of her own wretched doomed existence, threatening a
+sudden outbreak that would scatter ruin and despair where least
+expected?
+
+Nearing the Villa gate General Laurance asked:
+
+"What is the character of your drama? Is it historic?"
+
+"Eminently historic."
+
+"In what era?"
+
+"In the last eighteen or twenty years."
+
+"When may I read the _MS_? I am impatient to see all that springs
+from your dear hands."
+
+"The dramatic effect will be finer, when you see me act it. Pardon me
+if I am vain enough to feel assured that my little play will touch my
+husband's heart as ever Racine, Shakespeare, and Euripides never
+did!"
+
+There was a triumphant, exultant ring in her silvery voice that only
+charmed her infatuated companion, and tenderly pressing the hand that
+lay on his arm, he added pleadingly;
+
+"At least, my dear Odille, you will tell me the title?"
+
+She shook off his fingers, and answered quietly:
+
+"General Laurance, I call it merely--_Infelice_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+For some days subsequent to Mrs. Carew's departure, Regina saw little
+of her guardian, whose manner was unusually preoccupied, and entirely
+devoid of the earnest interest and sympathy he had displayed at their
+last interview. Ascribing the change to regret at the absence of the
+guest whose presence had so enlivened the house, the girl avoided all
+unnecessary opportunities of meeting him, and devoted herself
+assiduously to her music and studies.
+
+The marriage of a friend residing in Albany had called Olga thither,
+and in the confusion and hurried preparation incident to the journey
+she had found, or at least improved, no leisure to refer to the
+subject of the remarks made by Mrs. Carew and Mr. Chesley relative to
+Mr. Eggleston.
+
+Mr. Congreve and Mrs. Palma had accompanied Olga to the railroad
+depot, and she departed in unusually high spirits.
+
+Several days elapsed, during which Mr. Palma's abstraction increased,
+and by degrees Regina learned from his stepmother that a long pending
+suit involving several millions of dollars was drawing to a close.
+
+As counsel for the plaintiff, he was summing up and preparing his
+final speech. An entire day was consumed in its delivery, and on the
+following afternoon as Regina sat at the library table writing her
+German exercise, she heard, his footsteps ascending with unwonted
+rapidity the hall stairs. Outside the door he paused, and accosted
+Mrs. Palma who hastened to meet him.
+
+"Madam, I have won."
+
+"Indeed, Erle, I congratulate you. I believe it involves a very large
+fee?"
+
+"Yes, twenty thousand dollars; but the victory yields other fruit
+quite as valuable to me. Judges McLemore and Mayfield were on the
+defence, and it cost me a very hard fight: literally--' _Palma non
+sine pulvere_.' The jury deliberated only twenty minutes, and of
+course I am much gratified."
+
+"I am heartily glad, but it really is no more than I expected; for
+when did you ever fail in anything of importance?"
+
+"Most signally in one grave matter, which deeply concerns me.
+Despite my efforts, Olga's animosity grows daily more intense, and it
+annoys, wounds me; for you are aware that I have a very earnest
+interest in her welfare. I question very much the propriety of your
+course in urging this match upon her, and you know that from the
+beginning I have discouraged the whole scheme. She is vastly
+Congreve's superior, and I confess I do not relish the idea of seeing
+her sacrifice herself so completely. I attempted to tell her so,
+about a fortnight since, but she stormily forbade my mentioning
+Congreve's name in her presence, and looked so like an enraged
+leopardess that I desisted."
+
+"It will prove for the best, I hope; and nothing less binding, less
+decisive than this marriage will cure her of her obstinate folly.
+Time will heal all, and some day, Erle, she will understand you, and
+appreciate what you have done."
+
+"My dear madam, I merely mean that I desire she should regard me as a
+brother, anxious to promote her true interests; whereas she considers
+me her worst enemy. Just now we will adjourn the subject, as I must
+trouble you to pack my valise. I am obliged to start immediately to
+Washington, and cannot wait for dinner. Will you direct Octave to
+prepare a cup of coffee?"
+
+"How long will you be absent?"
+
+"I cannot say positively, as my business is of a character which may
+be transacted in three hours, or may detain me as many days. I must
+leave here in half an hour."
+
+The door was open, and hearing what passed, Regina bent lower over
+her exercise book when her guardian came forward.
+
+Although toil-worn and paler than usual, his eyes were of a proud
+glad light, that indexed gratification at his success.
+
+Leaning against the table, he said carelessly:
+
+"I am going to Washington, and will safely deliver any message you
+feel disposed to send to your admirer, Mr. Chesley."
+
+She glanced inquiringly at him.
+
+"I hope you reciprocate his regard, for he expressed great interest
+in your welfare."
+
+"I liked him exceedingly; better than any gentleman I ever met,
+except dear Mr. Hargrove."
+
+"A very comprehensive admission, and eminently flattering to poor
+Elliott and 'Brother' Douglass."
+
+"Mr. Chesley is a very noble-looking old man, and seemed to me worthy
+of admiration and confidence. He did not impress me as a stranger,
+but rather as a dear friend."
+
+"Doubtless I shall find the chances all against me, when you are
+requested to decide between us."
+
+A perplexed expression crossed the face she raised toward him.
+
+"I am not as quick as Mrs. Carew in solving enigmas."
+
+"_ A propos!_ what do you think of my charming fair client?"
+
+Her heart quickened its pulsations, but the clear sweet voice was
+quiet and steady.
+
+"I think her exceedingly beautiful and graceful."
+
+"When I am as successful in her suit as in the great case I won
+to-day, I shall expect you to offer me very sincere congratulations."
+
+He smiled pleasantly, as he looked at her pure face, which bad never
+seemed so surpassingly lovely as just then, with white hyacinths
+nestling in and perfuming her hair.
+
+"I shall not be here then; but, Mr. Palma, wherever I am, I shall
+always congratulate you upon whatever conduces to your happiness."
+
+"Then I may consider that you have already decided in favour of Mr.
+Chesley?"
+
+"Mr. Palma, I do not quite understand your jest"
+
+"Pardon me, it threatens to become serious. Mr. Chesley is immensely
+wealthy, and having no near relatives desires to adopt some pretty,
+well-bred, affectionate-natured girl, who can take care of and cheer
+his old age; and to whom he can bequeath his name and fortune. His
+covetous eye has fallen upon my ward, and he seriously contemplates
+making some grave proposals to your mother, relative to transferring
+you to Washington, and thence to San Francisco. As Mr. Chesley's
+heiress, your future will be very brilliant, and I presume that in a
+voluntary choice of guardians, I am destined to lose my ward."
+
+"Very soon my mother will be my guardian, and Mr. Chesley is
+certainly a gentleman of too much good sense and discretion to
+entertain such a thought relative to a stranger, of whom he knows
+absolutely nothing. A few polite kindly worded phrases bear no such
+serious interpretation."
+
+She had bent so persistently over her book, that he closed and
+removed it beyond her reach, forcing her to regard him; for after the
+toil, contention, and brain-wrestling of the courtroom, it was his
+reward just now to look into her deep calm eyes, and watch the
+expressions vary in her untutored ingenuous countenance.
+
+"Men, especially confirmed old bachelors, are sometimes very
+capricious and foolish; and my friend Mr. Chesley appears to have
+fallen hopelessly into the depth of your eyes. In vain I assured him
+that Helmholtz has demonstrated that the deepest blue eye is after
+all only a turbid medium. In his infatuation he persists that science
+is a learned bubble, and that your eyes are wells of truth and
+inspiration. Of course you desire that I shall present your
+affectionate regards to your future guardian?"
+
+"You can improvise any message you deem advisable, but I send none."
+
+A faint colour was stealing into her cheeks, and the long lashes
+drooped before the bright black eyes, that had borne down many a
+brave face on the witness stand.
+
+The clock struck, and Mr. Palma compared his watch with its record.
+
+He was loath to quit that charming quiet room, which held the fair
+innocent young queen of his love, and hasten away upon the impending
+journey; but it was important that he should not miss the railway
+train, and he smothered a sigh:
+
+"This morning I neglected to give you a letter which arrived
+yesterday, and of course I need expect no pardon when you ascertain
+that it is from 'India's coral strand.' If 'Brother Douglass' is as
+indefatigable in the discharge of his missionary as his epistolary
+labours, he deserves a crown of numerous converts. This letter was
+enclosed in one addressed to me, and I prefer that you should
+postpone your reply until my return. I intended to mention the matter
+this morning, but was absorbed in court proceedings, and now I am too
+much hurried."
+
+She put the letter into her pocket, and at the same time drew out a
+small envelope containing the amount of money she had borrowed.
+Rising, she handed it to him.
+
+"Allow me to cancel my debt."
+
+As he received it, their fingers met, and a hot flush rushed over the
+lawyer's weary face. He bit his lip, and recovered himself before she
+observed his emotion.
+
+"That alms-giving episode is destined to yield an inestimable harvest
+of benefits. But I must hurry away. Pray do not take passage for the
+jungles of Oude before I return, for whenever you leave me I should
+at least like the ceremony of bidding my ward adieu. Good-bye."
+
+She gave him her hand.
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Palma. I hope you will have a pleasant trip."
+
+As she stood before him, the rich blue of her soft cashmere dress
+rendered her pearly complexion fairer still, and though keen pain
+gnawed at her heart, no hint of her suffering marred the perfection
+of her face.
+
+"Lily, where did you get those lovely white hyacinths? Yesterday I
+ordered a bouquet of them, but could procure none. Would you mind
+giving me the two that smell so deliciously in your hair? I want
+them--well--no matter why. Will you oblige me?"
+
+"Certainly, sir; but I have a handsomer fresher spike of flowers in
+a glass in my room, which I will bring down to you."
+
+She turned, but he detained her.
+
+"No, these are sufficiently pretty for my purpose, and I am hurried.
+I trust I may be pardoned this robbery of your floral ornaments,
+since you will probably see neither Mr. Roscoe, Mr. Chesley, nor yet
+Padre Sahib this evening."
+
+She laid the snowy perfumed bells in his outstretched hand, and said:
+
+"I am exceedingly glad that even in such a trifle I can contribute to
+your pleasure, and I assure you that you are perfectly welcome to my
+hyacinths."
+
+The sweet downcast face, and slightly wavering voice appealed to all
+that was tender and loving in his cold undemonstrative nature, and
+he was strongly tempted to take her in his arms, and tell her the
+truth, which every day he found it more difficult to conceal.
+
+"Thank you. Some day, Lily, I will tell you their mission and fate.
+Should I forget, remind me."
+
+He smiled, bowed, and hurried from the room, leaving her sadly
+perplexed.
+
+At dinner Mrs. Palma said:
+
+"I have promised to chaperon the Brace sisters to-night to the opera,
+and shall take tea at their house. Were I sure of a seat for you, I
+should insist upon taking you, for I dislike to leave you so much
+alone; but the box might be full, and then things would be awkward."
+
+"You need have no concern on my account, for I have my books, and am
+accustomed to being alone. Moreover, I am not particularly partial to
+the music of 'Martha' which will be played to-night."
+
+"Did your guardian tell you he has just won that great 'Migdol' case
+that created so much interest?"
+
+"He mentioned it. Mrs. Palma, I thought he looked weary and jaded; as
+if he needed a rest, rather than a journey."
+
+"Erle is never weary. His nerves are steel, and he will speedily
+forget his court-house cares in Mrs. Carew's charming conversation."
+
+"But she is not in Washington?"
+
+"She told me yesterday she would go there this afternoon, and showed
+me the most superb maize-coloured satin just received from Worth,
+which she intends wearing to-morrow evening at the French
+Ambassador's ball, or reception. You know she is very fascinating,
+and though Erle thinks little about women, I really believe she will
+succeed in driving law books, for a little while at least, out of his
+cool clear head. My dear, I am going to write a short note. Will you
+please direct Hattie to bring my opera hat, cloak, and glasses?"
+
+With inexpressible relief, Regina heard the heavy silk rustle across
+the hall, when she took her departure, and rejoiced in the assurance
+that there was no one to intrude upon her solitude.
+
+How she wished that she could fly to some desert, where undiscovered
+she might cry aloud, in the great agony that possessed her heart.
+
+The thought that her guardian had hastened away to accompany that
+grey-eyed, golden-haired witch of a woman to Washington was
+intolerably bitter; and as she contemplated the possibility, nay the
+probability, of his speedy marriage, a wild longing seized her to
+make her escape, and avoid the sight of such a spectacle.
+
+When she recalled his proud, handsome, composed face, and tried to
+imagine him the husband of Mrs. Carew, bending over, caressing her,
+the girl threw her arms on his writing desk, and sunk her face upon
+them, as if to shut out the torturing vision.
+
+She knew that he was singularly reserved and undemonstrative; she had
+never seen him fondle or caress anything, and the bare thought that
+his stern marble lips would some day seek and press that woman's
+scarlet mouth made her shiver with a pang that was almost maddening.
+
+How cruelly mocking that he should take her favourite snowy hyacinths
+to offer them to Mrs. Carew! Did his keen insight penetrate the folly
+she had suffered to grow up in her own heart, and had he coolly
+resorted to this method of teaching her its hopelessness?
+
+If she could leave New York before his return, and never see him
+again, would it not be best? His eyes were so piercing, he was so
+accustomed to reading people's emotions in their countenance, and she
+felt that she could not survive his discovery of her secret.
+
+What did his irony relative to India portend? Hitherto she had quite
+forgotten the letter from Mr. Lindsay, and now breaking the seal,
+sought an explanation.
+
+A few faded flowers fell out as she unfolded it, and ere she
+completed the perusal a cry escaped her. Mr. Lindsay wrote that his
+health had suffered so severely from the climate of India that he had
+been compelled to surrender his missionary work to stronger hands,
+and would return to his native land. He believed that rest and
+America would restore him, and now he fully declared the nature of
+his affection, and the happiness with which he anticipated his
+reunion with her; reminding her of her farewell promise that none
+should have his place in her heart. More than once she read the
+closing words of that long letter.
+
+    "I had intended deferring this declaration until you were
+    eighteen, and restored to your mother's care; but my unexpectedly
+    early return, and the assurance contained in your letters that
+    your love has in no degree diminished, determine me to acquaint
+    you at once with the precious hope that so gladdens the thought
+    of our approaching reunion. While your decision must of course be
+    subject to and dependent on your mother's approval, I wish you to
+    consult only the dictates of your heart, believing that all my
+    future must be either brightened or clouded by your verdict. Open
+    the package given to you in our last interview, and if you have
+    faithfully kept your promise let me see upon your hand the ring
+    which I shall regard as the pledge of our betrothal. Whether I
+    live many or few years, God grant that your love may glorify and
+    sanctify my earthly sojourn. In life or death, my darling Regina,
+    believe me always,
+
+    "Your devoted
+
+                                             "DOUGLASS."
+
+Below the signature, and dated a week later, were several lines in
+Mrs. Lindsay's handwriting, informing her that her son had again been
+quite ill, but was improving; and that within the ensuing ten days
+they expected to sail for Japan, and thence to San Franciso, where
+Mrs. Lindsay's only sister resided. In conclusion she earnestly
+appealed to Regina, as the daughter of her adoption, not to
+extinguish the hope that formed so powerful an element in the
+recovery of her son Douglass.
+
+Was it the mercy of God, or the grim decree of fatalism, or the
+merest accident that provided this door of escape, when she was
+growing desperate?
+
+Numb with heart-ache, and strangely bewildered, Regina could
+recognize it only as a providential harbour, into which she could
+safely retreat from the storm of suffering that was beginning to roar
+around her. Recalling the peaceful happy years spent at the
+parsonage, and the noble character of the man who loved her so
+devotedly, who had so tenderly cared for her through the season of
+her childhood, a gush of grateful emotion pleaded that she owed him
+all that he now asked.
+
+When she contrasted the image of the pale student, so affectionate,
+so unselfishly considerate in all things, with the commanding figure
+and cold, guarded, non-committal face of Mr. Palma, she shivered and
+groaned: but the comparison only goaded her to find safety in the
+sheltering love, that must at least give her peace.
+
+If she were Douglass Lindsay's wife, would she not find it far easier
+to forget her guardian? Would it be sinful to promise her hand to
+one, while her heart stubbornly enshrined the other? She loved Mr.
+Lindsay very much: he seemed holy, in his supremely unselfish and
+deeply religious life; and after awhile perhaps other feelings would
+grow up toward him.
+
+In re-reading the letter, she saw that Mr. Lindsay had informed Mr.
+Palma of the proposal which it contained; as he deemed it due to her
+guardian to acquaint him with the sentiments they entertained for
+each other.
+
+Should she reject the priestly hand and loyal heart of the young
+missionary, would not Mr. Palma suspect the truth?
+
+She realized that the love in her heart was of that deep exhaustive
+nature which comes but once to women, and since she must bury it for
+ever, was it not right that she should dedicate her life to promoting
+Mr. Lindsay's happiness? Next to her mother, did she not owe him more
+than any other human being?
+
+As she sat leaning upon Mr. Palma's desk, she saw his handkerchief
+near the inkstand, where he had dropped it early that morning; and
+taking it up, she drew it caressingly across her check and lips.
+Everything in this room, where since her residence in New York she
+had been accustomed to see him, grew sacred from association with
+him, and all that he touched was strangely dear.
+
+For two hours she sat there, very quiet, weighing the past,
+considering the future; and at last she slowly resolved upon her
+course.
+
+She would write that night to her mother, enclose Mr. Lindsay's
+letter, and if her mother's permission could be obtained, she would
+give her hand to Douglass, and in his love forget the brief madness
+that now made her so wretched.
+
+From the date of the postscript she discovered that the letter had
+been delayed _en route_, and computing the time from Yokohama to San
+Francisco, according to information given by Mr. Chesley, she found
+that unless some unusual detention had occurred, the vessel in which
+Mr. and Mrs. Lindsay intended to sail should have already reached
+California.
+
+Mr. Palma's jest relative to India was explained; and evidently he
+had not sufficient interest in her decision even to pause and ask it.
+Knowing the contents, he had with cold indifference carried the
+letter for two days in his pocket, and handed it to her just as he
+was departing.
+
+She imagined him sitting in the car, beside Mrs. Carew, admiring her
+beauty, perhaps uttering in her ear tender vows, never breathed by
+his lips to any other person; while she--the waif, the fatherless,
+nameless, obscure young girl--sat there alone desperately fighting
+the battle of destiny.
+
+Bitter as was this suggestion of her aching heart, it brought
+strength; and rising, she laid aside the handkerchief, and quitted
+the apartment that babbled ceaselessly of its absent master.
+
+Among some precious souvenirs of her mother she kept the package
+which had been given to her by Mr. Lindsay with the request that it
+should remain unopened until her eighteenth birthday; and how she
+unlocked the small ebony box that contained her few treasures.
+
+The parcel was sealed with red wax, and when she removed the
+enveloping pasteboard, she found a heavy gold ring, bearing a large
+beautifully tinted opal, surrounded with small diamonds. On the
+inside was engraved "Douglass and Regina," with the date of the day
+on which he had left the parsonage for India.
+
+Kneeling beside her bed, she prayed that God would help her to do
+right, would guide her into the proper path, would enable her to do
+her duty, first to her mother, then to Mr. Lindsay.
+
+When she rose, the ring shone on her left hand, and though her face
+was worn and pallid her mournful eyes were undimmed, and she sat down
+to write her mother frankly concerning the feelings of intense
+gratitude and perfect confidence which prompted her to accept Mr.
+Lindsay's offer, provided Mrs Orme consented to the betrothal.
+
+Ere she had concluded the task, her attention was attracted by a
+noise on the stairs that were situated near her door.
+
+It was rather too early for Mrs. Palma's return from the opera, and
+the servants were all in a different portion of the building.
+
+Regina laid down her pen, and listened. Slow heavy footsteps were
+ascending, and recognizing nothing familiar in the sound, she walked
+quickly to the door which stood ajar, and looked out.
+
+A tall woman wrapped in a heavy shawl had reached the landing, and as
+the gaslight fell upon her, Regina started forward.
+
+"Olga! we did not expect you until to-morrow, but you are disguised!
+Oh! what is the matter?"
+
+Wan and haggard, apparently ten years older than when she ran down
+these steps a week previous departing for Albany, Olga stood clinging
+to the mahogany rail of the balustrade. Her large straw bonnet had
+fallen back, the heavy hair was slipping low on neck and brow, and
+her sunken eyes had a dreary stare.
+
+"Are you ill? What has happened? Dear Olga, speak to me."
+
+She threw her arms around the regal figure, and felt that she was
+shivering from head to foot.
+
+As she became aware of the close clinging embrace in which Regina
+held her, a ghastly smile parted Olga's colourless lips, and she said
+said in a husky whisper:
+
+"Is it you? True little heart; the only one left in all the world."
+
+After a few seconds, she added:
+
+"Where is mamma?"
+
+"At the opera."
+
+"To see Beelzebub? All the world is singing and playing that now, and
+you may be sure that you and I shall be in at the final chorus.
+Regina----"
+
+She swept her hand feebly over her forehead, and seemed to forget
+herself.
+
+Then she rallied, and a sudden spark glowed in her dull eyes, as when
+a gust stirs an ash heap, and uncovers a dying ember.
+
+"Erle Palma?"
+
+"Has gone to Washington."
+
+"May he never come back! O God! a hundred deaths would not satisfy
+me! A hundred graves were not sufficient to hide him from my sight!"
+
+She groaned and clasped her hand across her eyes.
+
+"What dreadful thing has occurred? Tell me, you know that you can
+trust me."
+
+"Trust! no, no; not even the archangels that fan the throne of God. I
+have done with trust. Take me in your room a little while. Hide me
+from mamma until to-morrow; then it will make no difference who sees
+me."
+
+Regina led her to the low rocking chair in her own room, and took off
+the common shawl and bonnet which she had used as a disguise, then
+seized her cold nerveless hand.
+
+"Do tell me your great sorrow."
+
+"Something rare nowaday. I had a heart, a live, warm, loving heart,
+and it is broken; dead--utterly dead. Regina, I was so happy
+yesterday. Oh! I stood at the very gate of heaven, so close that all
+the glory and the sweetness blew upon me, like June breezes over a
+rose hedge; and the angels seemed to beckon me in. I went to meet
+Belmont, to join him for ever, to turn my back on the world, and as
+his wife pass into the Eden of his love and presence.... Now, another
+gate yawns, and the fiends call me to come down, and if there really
+be a hell, why then----"
+
+For nearly a moment she remained silent.
+
+"Olga, is he ill? Is he dead?"
+
+A cry as of one indeed broken-hearted came from her quivering lips,
+and she clasped her arms over her head.
+
+"Oh, if he were indeed dead! If I could have seen him and kissed him
+in his coffin! And known that he was still mine, all mine, even in
+the grave----"
+
+Her head sank upon her bosom, and after a brief pause she resumed in
+an unnaturally calm voice.
+
+"My world so lovely yesterday has gone to pieces; and for me life is
+a black crumbling ruin. I hung all my hopes, my prayers, my fondest
+dreams on one shining silver thread of trust, and it snapped, and all
+fall together. We ask for fish, and are stung by scorpions; we pray
+for bread--only bare bread for famishing hearts--and we are stoned.
+Ah! it appears only a hideous dream; but I know it is awfully,
+horribly true."
+
+"What is true? Don't keep me in suspense."
+
+Olga bent forward, put her large hands on Regina's shoulders as the
+latter knelt in front of her, and answered drearily:
+
+"He is married."
+
+"Not Mr. Eggleston?"
+
+"Yes, my Belmont. For so many years he has been entirely mine, and
+oh, how I loved him! Now he is that woman's husband. Bought with her
+gold. I intended to run away and marry him; go with him to Europe,
+where I should never see Erle Palma's cold devilish black eyes again.
+Where in some humble little room hid among the mountains, I could be
+happy with my darling. I sold my jewellery, even my richest clothing,
+that I might have a little money to defray expenses. Then I wrote
+Belmont of my plans, told him I had forsaken everything for him, and
+appointed a place in this city where we could meet. I hastened down
+from Albany, disguised myself, and went to the place of rendezvous.
+After waiting a long time, his cousin came; brought me a letter,
+showed me the marriage notice. Only two days ago they--Belmont and
+that woman--were married, and they sailed for Europe at noon to-day,
+in the steamer upon which I had expected to go as a bride. He wrote
+that with failing health, penury staring him in the face, and,
+despairing at last of being able to win me, he had grown reckless,
+and sold himself to that wealthy widow who had long loved him, and
+who would provide generously for his helpless mother. He said he
+dared not trust himself to see me again. And so, all is over for
+ever."
+
+She dropped her head on her clenched hands, and shuddered. "Dear
+Olga, he was not worthy of you, or he would never have deserted you.
+If he truly loved you, he never could have married another, for----"
+
+She paused, for the shimmer of the diamonds on her hand accused her.
+Was she not contemplating similar treachery? Loving one man, how dare
+she entertain the thought of listening to another's suit. She was
+deeply and sincerely attached to Douglass, she reverenced him more
+than any living being; but she knew that it was not the same feeling
+her heart had declared for her guardian, and she felt condemned by
+her own words.
+
+Olga made an impatient motion, and answered:
+
+"Hush--not a word against him; none shall dishonour him. He was
+maddened, desperate. My poor darling! Erle Palma and mamma were too
+much for us, but we shall conquer at last. Belmont will not live many
+months; he had a hemorrhage from his lungs last week, and in a little
+while we shall be united. He will not long wait to join me."
+
+She leaned back and smiled triumphantly, and Regina became uneasy as
+she noted the unnatural expression of her eyes.
+
+"What do you mean, Olga? You make me unhappy, and I am afraid you are
+ill."
+
+"No, dear; but I am tired. So tired of everything in this hollow,
+heartless, shameful world, that I want to lie down and rest. For
+eight years nearly I have leaned on one hope for comfort; now it has
+crumbled under me, and I have no strength. Will you let me sleep here
+with you to-night? I will not keep you awake."
+
+"Let me help you to undress. You know I shall be glad to have you
+here."
+
+Regina unbuttoned her shoes, and began to draw them off, while Olga
+mechanically took down and twisted her weighty hair. Once she put her
+hand on her pocket, and her eyes glittered.
+
+"I want a glass of wine, or anything that will quiet me. Please go
+down to the dining-room, and get me something to put me to sleep. My
+head feels as if it were on fire."
+
+The tone was so unusually coaxing, that Regina's suspicions were
+aroused.
+
+"I don't know where to find the key of the wine closet."
+
+"Then wake Octave, and tell him to give you some wine He keeps port
+and madeira for soups and sauces. You must I would do as much for
+you. I will go to Octave."
+
+She attempted to rise, but Regina feigned acquiescence, and left the
+room, closing the door, but leaving a crevice. Outside, she knelt
+down and peeped through the key-hole.
+
+Alarmed by the unnatural expression of the fiery hazel eyes, a
+horrible dread overshadowed her, and she trembled from head to foot.
+
+While she watched, Olga rose, turned her head and listened intently;
+then drew something from her pocket, and Regina saw that it was a
+glass vial.
+
+"I win at last. To-morrow, mamma and her stepson will not exult over
+this victory. If I have an immortal soul may God--my Maker and
+Judge--have mercy upon me!"
+
+She drew out the cork with her teeth, turned, and as she lifted the
+vial to her lips, Regina ran in and seized her arm.
+
+"Olga, you are mad! Would you murder yourself?"
+
+They grappled; Olga was much taller and now desperately strong, but
+luckily Regina had her fingers also on the glass, and, dragging down
+the hand that clenched it, the vial was inverted, and a portion of
+the contents fell upon the carpet.
+
+Feeling the liquid run through her fingers, Olga uttered la cry of
+baffled rage of despair, and struck the girl a heavy blow in the face
+that made her stagger; but almost frantic with terror Regina improved
+the opportunity afforded by the withdrawal of one of the large hands,
+to tighten her own grasp, and in the renewed struggle succeeded in
+wrenching away the vial. The next instant, she hurled it against the
+marble mantlepiece, and saw it splintered into numberless fragments.
+
+As the wretched woman watched the fluid oozing over the hearth, she
+cried out and covered her face with her hands.
+
+"Dear Olga, you are delirious, and don't know what you are doing. Go
+to bed, and when you lie down, I will get the wine for you. Please,
+dear Olga! You wring my heart."
+
+"Oh, you call yourself my friend, and you have been most cruel of
+all! You keep me from going to a rest that would have no dreams, and
+no waking, and no to-morrow. Do you think I will live and let them
+taunt me with my folly, my failure? Let that iron fiend show his
+white teeth, and triumph over me? People will know I sold my clothes,
+and tried to run away, and was forsaken. Oh! if you had only let me
+alone! I should very soon lave been quiet; out of even Erle Palma's
+way! Now----"
+
+She gave utterance to a low, distressing wail, and rocked herself,
+murmuring some incoherent words.
+
+"Olga, your mother has come, and unless you wish her to hear you, and
+come in, do try to compose yourself."
+
+Shuddering at the mention of her mother, she grew silent, moody, and
+suffered Regina to undress her. After a long while, during which she
+appeared absolutely deaf to all appeals, she rose, smiled strangely,
+and threw herself across the bed; but the eyes were beginning to
+sparkle, and now and then she laughed almost hysterically.
+
+When an hour had passed, and no sound came from the prostrate figure,
+Regina leaned over to look at her, and discovered that she was
+whispering rapidly some unintelligible words.
+
+Once she startled up, exclaiming:
+
+"Don't have such a hot fire! My head is scorching."
+
+Regina watched her anxiously, softly stroking one of her hands,
+trying to soothe her to sleep; but after two o'clock, when she grew
+more restless and incoherent in her muttering, the young nurse felt
+assured she was sinking into delirium, and decided to consult Mrs.
+Palma.
+
+Concealing the shawl and bonnet, and gathering up the most
+conspicuous fragments of glass on the hearth, she put them out of
+sight, and hurried to Mrs. Palma's room.
+
+She was astonished to find her still awake, sitting before a table,
+and holding a note in her hand.
+
+"What is the matter, Regina?"
+
+"Olga has come home, and I fear she is very ill. Certainly she is
+delirious."
+
+"Oh! then she has heard it already! She must have seen the paper. I
+knew nothing of it until to-night, when Erle's hasty note from
+Philadelphia reached me, after I left the opera. I dreaded the effect
+upon my poor, unfortunate child. Where is she?"
+
+"In my room."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+During the protracted illness that ensued, Olga temporarily lost the
+pressure of the burden she had borne for so many years, and entered
+into that Eden which her imagination had painted, ere the sudden
+crash and demolition of her _Chateaux en Espagne_. Her delirium was
+never violent and raving, but took the subdued form of a beatified
+existence. In a low voice, that was almost a whisper, she babbled
+ceaselessly of her supreme satisfaction in gaining the goal of all
+her hopes--and dwelt upon the beauty of her chalet home--the tinkling
+music of the bells on distant heights where cattle browsed--the
+leaping of mountain torrents just beyond her window--the cooing of
+the pigeons upon the tall peaked roof--the breath of mignonette and
+violets stealing through the open door. When pounded ice was laid
+upon her head, an avalanche was sliding down, and the snow saluted
+her in passing; and when the physician ordered more light admitted
+that he might examine the unnaturally glowing eyes, she complained
+that the sun was setting upon the glacier and the blaze blinded her.
+Now she sat on a mossy knoll beside Belmont, reading aloud Buchanan's
+"Pan" and "The Siren," while he sketched the ghyll; and anon she
+paused in her recitation of favourite passages to watch the colour
+deepen on the canvas.
+
+From the beginning Dr. Suydam had pronounced the case peculiarly
+difficult and dangerous, and as the days wore on, bringing no
+debatement of cerebral excitement, he expressed the opinion that some
+terrible shock had produced the aberration that baffled his skill,
+and threatened to permanently disorder her faculties.
+
+Jealously Regina concealed all that had occurred on the evening of
+her return, and though Mrs. Palma briefly referred to her daughter's
+unfortunate attachment to an unworthy man, whose marriage had
+painfully startled her, she remained unaware of the revelations made
+by Olga. Although she evinced no recognition of those about her, the
+latter shrank from all save Regina whose tender ministrations were
+peculiarly soothing; and clinging to the girl's hand, she would
+smilingly talk of the peace and happiness reaped at last by her
+marriage with Belmont Eggleston, and enjoin upon her the necessity of
+preserving from "mamma and Erle Palma" the secret of her secluded
+little cottage home.
+
+On the fourth night, Mrs. Palma was so prostrated by grief and
+watching, that she succumbed to a violent nervous headache, and was
+ordered out of the room by the physician, who requested that Regina
+might for a few hours be entrusted with the care of his patient.
+
+"But if anything should happen? And Regina is so inexperienced?"
+sobbed the unhappy mother, bending over her child, who was laughing
+at the gambols of some young chamois, which delirium painted on the
+wall.
+
+"Miss Orme will at least obey my orders. She is watchful and
+possesses unusual self-control, which you, my dear madam, utterly
+lack in a sick-room. Beside, Olga yields more readily to her than to
+any one else, and I prefer that Miss Orme should have the care of
+her. Go to bed, madam, and I will send you an anodyne that will
+compose you."
+
+"If any change occurs, you will call me instantly?"
+
+"You may rest assured I shall."
+
+Mrs. Palma leaned over her daughter, and as her tears fell on the
+burning face of the sufferer, the latter put up her hands, and said:
+
+"Belmont, it is raining and your picture will be ruined, and then
+mamma will ridicule your failure. Cover it quick."
+
+"Olga, my darling, kiss mamma good-night."
+
+But she was busy trying to shield the imaginary painting with one of
+the pillows, and began in a quavering voice to sing Longfellow's
+"Rainy Day." Her mother pressed her lips to the hot cheek, but she
+seemed unconscious of the caress, and weeping bitterly Mrs. Palma
+left the room. As she passed into the hall a cry escaped her, and
+the broken words:
+
+"Oh, Erle, I thought you would never come! My poor child!"
+
+Dr. Suydam closed the door, and drawing Regina to the window,
+proceeded to question her closely, and to instruct her concerning the
+course of treatment he desired to pursue. Should Olga's pulse sink to
+a certain stage, specified doses must be given; and in a possible
+condition of the patient he must be instantly notified.
+
+"I am glad to find Mr. Palma has returned. Though he knows no more
+than a judge's gavel of what is needful in a sick-room, he will be a
+support and comfort to all, and his nerves never flag, never waver.
+Keep a written record of Olga's condition at the hours I have
+specified, and shut her mother out of the room as much as possible. I
+will try to put her to sleep for the next twelve hours, and by that
+time we shall know the result. Good-night."
+
+Olga had violently opposed the removal from Regina's room, and in
+accordance with her wishes she had remained where her weary whirling
+brain first rested on the day of her return. Arranging the medicine
+and glasses, and turning down the light, Regina put on her pale blue
+dressing-gown girded at the waist by a cord and tassel, and loosely
+twisted and fastened her hair in a large coil low on her head and
+neck. She had slept none since Olga came home, and anxiety and
+fatigue had left unmistakable traces on her pale, sad face. The
+letter to her mother had been finished and signed, but still lay in
+the drawer of her portable writing desk, awaiting envelope and stamp;
+and so oppressed had she been by sympathy with Olga's great
+suffering, that for a time her own grief was forgotten, or at least
+put aside.
+
+The announcement of Mr. Palma's return vividly recalled all that
+beclouded her future, and she began to dread the morrow that would
+subject her to his merciless bright eyes, feeling that his presence
+was dangerous. Perhaps by careful manoeuvring she might screen
+herself in the sick-room for several days, and thus avoid the chance
+of an interview, which must result in an inquiry concerning her
+answer to Mr. Lindsay's letter. Fearful of her own treacherous heart,
+she was unwilling to discuss her decision until assured she had grown
+calm and firm, from continued contemplation of her future lot;
+moreover, her guardian would probably return from Washington an
+accepted lover, and she shrank from the spectacle of his happiness,
+as from glowing ploughshares--lying scarlet in her pathway. In this
+room she would ensconce herself, and should he send for her, various
+excuses might be devised to delay the unwelcome interview.
+
+Olga had grown more quiet, and for nearly an hour after the doctor's
+departure she only now and then resumed her rambling, incoherent
+monologue. Sitting beside the bed, Regina watched quietly until the
+clock struck twelve, and she coaxed the sufferer to take a spoonful
+of a sedative from which the physician hoped much benefit. She bathed
+the crimson cheeks with a cloth dipped in iced water, and all the
+while the hazel eyes watched her suspiciously. Other reflections
+began to colour her vision, and the happy phase was merging into one
+of terror, lest her lover should die or be torn away from her.
+Leaning over her, Regina endeavoured to compose her by assurances
+that Belmont was well and safe, but restlessly she tossed from side
+to side.
+
+At last she began to cry, softly at first, like a fretful weary
+child; and while Regina held her hands, essaying to soothe her, a
+shadow glided between the gas globe and the bed, and Mr. Palma stood
+beside the two. He looked pale, anxious, and troubled, as his eyes
+rested sorrowfully on the fevered face upon the pillow, and he saw
+that the luxuriant hair had been closely clipped, to facilitate
+applications to relieve the brain. The parched lips were browned and
+cracked, and the vacant stare in the eyes told him that consciousness
+was still a long way off.
+
+But was there even then a magnetic recognition, dim and vague, of the
+person whom she regarded as the inveterate enemy of her happiness?
+Cowering among the bedclothes, she trembled and said, in a husky yet
+audible whisper:
+
+"Will you hide us a little while? Belmont and I will soon sail, and
+if Erle Palma and mamma knew it, they would tear me from my darling,
+and chain me to Silas Congreve, and that would kill me. Oh! I only
+want my darling; not the Congreve emeralds, only my Belmont, my
+darling."
+
+Something that in any other man would have been a groan, came from
+the lawyer's granite lips, and Regina, who shivered at his presence,
+looked up, and said hastily:
+
+"Please go away, Mr. Palma; the sight of you will make her worse."
+
+He only folded his arms over his chest, sighed, and sat down, keeping
+his eyes fixed on Olga. It was one o'clock before she ceased her
+passionate pleading for protection from those whom she believed
+intent upon sacrificing her, and then turning her face to the wail
+she became silent, only occasionally muttering rapid indistinct
+sentences.
+
+For some time Mr. Palma sat with his elbow on his knee, and his head
+resting on his hand, and even in that hour of deep anxiety and dread,
+Regina realized that she was completely forgotten; that he had
+neither looked at nor spoken to her.
+
+Nearly a half-hour passed thus, and his gaze had never wandered from
+the restless sufferer on the bed, when Regina rose and renewed the
+cold cloths on her forehead. She counted the pulse, and while she
+still sat on the edge of the bed, Olga half rose, threw herself
+forward with her head in Regina's lap, and one arm clasped around
+her. Softly the girl motioned to her guardian to place the bowl of
+iced water within her reach, and, dipping her left hand in the water,
+she stole her fingers lightly across the burning brow. Olga became
+quiet, and by degrees the lids drooped over the inflamed eyes.
+Patiently Regina continued her gentle cool touches, and at last she
+was rewarded by seeing the sufferer sink into the first sleep that
+had blessed her during her illness.
+
+Fearing to move even an inch lest she should arouse her, and knowing
+the physician's anxiety to secure repose, the slight figure sat like
+a statue, supporting the head and shoulders of the sleeper. The clock
+ticked on, and no other sound was audible, save a sigh from Mr.
+Palma, and the heavy breathing of Olga. The former was leaning back
+in his chair, with his arms crossed, and though Regina avoided
+looking at him, she knew from the shimmer of his glasses, that his
+eyes were turned upon her. Gradually the room grew cold, and she
+raised her hand and pointed to a large shawl lying on a chair within
+his reach. Very warily the two spread it lightly over the arms and
+shoulders, without disturbing the sleeper. One arm was clasped about
+Regina's waist, and the flushed face was pressed against her side.
+
+So they watched until three o'clock, and then Mr. Palma saw that the
+girl was wearied by the constrained, uncomfortable position. He had
+been studying the colourless, mournful features that were as regular
+and white as if fashioned in Pentelicus, and noted that the heavy
+hair coiled low at the back of the head, gave a singularly graceful
+outline to the whole. She kept her eyes bent upon the face in her
+lap, and the beautiful lashes and snowy lids drooped over their blue
+depth. He knew from the paling of her lips that she was faint and
+tired, but he realized that she could be relieved only by the
+sacrifice of that sound slumber, upon which Olga's welfare was so
+dependent. If she stirred even a muscle the sleeper might awake to
+renewed delirium.
+
+The next hour seemed the longest he had ever spent, and several times
+he looked at his watch, hoping the clock a laggard. To Regina the
+vigil was inexpressibly trying, and sitting there three feet from her
+guardian, she dared not lift her gaze to the countenance that was so
+dear.
+
+At four o'clock he took a pillow and lounge cushion and placed them
+behind her as a support for her wearied frame, but she dared not lean
+against them sufficiently to find relief; and stooping he put his arm
+around her shoulder, and pressed her head against him. Laying his
+cheek on hers, he whispered very cautiously, for his lips touched her
+ear:
+
+"I am afraid you feel very faint; you look so. Can you bear it a
+little while longer?"
+
+His breath swept warm across her cold cheek, and she hastily inclined
+her head. He lowered his arm, but remained close beside her, and at
+last she beckoned to him to bend down, and whispered:
+
+"The fire ought to be renewed in the furnace; will you go down, and
+attend to it?"
+
+Shod in his velvet slippers, he noiselessly left the room.
+
+How long he was absent, she was unable to determine, for her heart
+was beating madly from the pressure of his cheek, and the momentary
+touch of his arm; and gazing at the ring on her finger, she fiercely
+upbraided herself for this sinful folly. Wearing that opal, was it
+not unwomanly and wicked to thrill at the contact with one, who never
+could be more than her coolly kind, prudent, sagacious guardian? She
+felt numb, sick, giddy, and her heart--ah! how it ached as she tried
+to realize fully that some day he would caress Mrs. Carew!
+
+Olga slept heavily, and when Mr. Palma returned, he brought his warm
+scarlet-lined dressing-gown and softly laid it around Regina's
+shoulders. She looked up to express her thanks, but he was watching
+Olga's face, and soon after walked to the mantlepiece and stood
+leaning, with his elbow upon it.
+
+At last the slumberer moaned, turned, and after a few restless
+movements, threw herself back on the bolster, and fell asleep once
+more, with disjointed words dying on her lips. It was five o'clock,
+and Mr. Palma beckoned Regina to him.
+
+"She will be better when she wakes. Go to her room, and go to sleep.
+I will watch her until her mother comes in."
+
+"I could not sleep, and am unwilling to leave her until the doctor
+arrives."
+
+"You look utterly exhausted."
+
+"I am stronger than I seem."
+
+"Mrs. Palma tells me that you have been made acquainted with the
+unfortunate infatuation which has overshadowed poor Olga's life for
+some years at least. I should be glad to know what you have learned."
+
+"All that was communicated to me on the subject was under the seal of
+confidence, and I hope you will excuse me if I decline to betray the
+trust reposed in me."
+
+"Do you suppose I am ignorant of what has recently occurred?"
+
+"At least, sir, I shall not recapitulate what passed between Olga and
+myself."
+
+"You are aware that she considers me the author of all her
+wretchedness."
+
+"She certainly regards you and Mrs. Palma's opposition to her
+marriage with Mr. Eggleston as the greatest misfortune of her life."
+
+"He is utterly unworthy of her affection, is an unscrupulous
+dissipated man; and it were better she should die to-day, rather than
+have wrecked her future by uniting it with his."
+
+"But she loved him so devotedly."
+
+"She was deceived in his character, and refused to listen to a
+statement of facts. When she knows him as he really is, she will
+despise him."
+
+"I am afraid not"
+
+"I know her better than you do. Olga is a noble high-souled woman,
+and she will live to thank me for her salvation from Eggleston. Her
+marriage with Mr. Congreve must not be consummated; I will never
+permit it in my house."
+
+"She believes you have urged it, have manoeuvred to bring it to
+pass, and this has enhanced her bitterness."
+
+"Manoeuvring is beneath me, and I am justly accused of much for
+which I am in no degree responsible. Poor Olga has painted me an
+inhuman monster, but her good sense will ere long acquit me, when
+this madness has left her and she is once more amenable to reason."
+
+He walked softly across the floor, leaned over the bed, and for some
+minutes watched the sleeper, then quietly left the room.
+
+Drawing his dressing-gown closely around her, Regina sat down near
+the bedside; and as she felt the pleasant warmth of the pearl-grey
+merino, and detected the faint odour of cigar smoke in its folds, she
+involuntarily pressed her lips to the garment that seemed almost a
+part of its owner.
+
+Day broke clear and cold, and when the sun had risen Regina saw that
+the flush was no longer visible in Olga's face, and that to delirium
+had succeeded stupor.
+
+The physician looked anxious, and changed the medicine, and he found
+some difficulty in arousing her sufficiently to administer it. Mrs.
+Palma resumed her watch at her daughter's side, and Dr. Suydam
+remained several hours, urging the pale young nurse to take some
+repose; but aware that the crisis of the disease had arrived, the
+latter could not consent to quit the room even for a moment. Twice
+during the day, Mr. Palma came up from his office, and into the
+darkened apartment where life and death were battling for their
+prostrate prey; but he exchanged neither word nor glance with his
+ward, and after brief consultation with the doctor glided noiselessly
+away.
+
+About seven o'clock Mrs. Palma went down to dinner, leaving Regina
+alone with the sufferer, and scarcely five minutes later she heard a
+low moan from the figure that had not stirred for many hours.
+
+Brightening the light, she peered cautiously at the face lying upon
+the pillow, and was startled to find the eyes wide open. Trembling
+with anxiety she said:
+
+"Are you not better? You have slept long and soundly."
+
+Mournfully the hazel eyes looked at her, and the dry brown lips
+quivered.
+
+"I have been awake some time."
+
+"Before your mother left?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Dear Olga, is your mind quite clear again?"
+
+"Terribly clear. I suppose I have been delirious?"
+
+"Yes, you have known none of us for five days. Here, drink this, the
+doctor said you must have it the instant you waked."
+
+"To keep me from dying? Why should I live? I remember everything so
+vividly, and while custom made you all try to save me, you are
+obliged to know it would have been better, more kind and merciful, to
+have let me die at once. Give me some water."
+
+After some seconds, she wearily put her hand to her head, and a
+ghostly smile hovered over her mouth.
+
+"All my hair cut off? No matter now, Belmont will never see me again,
+and I only cared for my glossy locks because he was so proud of them.
+Poor darling."
+
+She groaned, knitted her brows, and shut her eyes; and though she did
+not speak again, Regina knew that she lay wrestling with bitter
+memories. When her mother came back, she turned her face toward the
+wall, and Mrs. Palma eagerly exclaimed:
+
+"My darling, do you know me? Kiss your mother."
+
+Olga only covered her face with her hands and said wearily:
+
+"Don't touch me yet, mamma. You have broken my heart."
+
+At the expiration of the fifth day of convalescence, Olga was wrapped
+in warm shawls and placed on the couch, which had been drawn near the
+grate where a bright fire burned. Thin and wan, she lay back on the
+cushions and pillows, with her wasted hands drooping listlessly
+beside her. Moody, and taciturn, she refused all aid from any but
+Regina, and mercilessly exacted her continual presence. By day the
+latter waited upon and read to her; by night she rested on the same
+bed, where the unhappy woman remained for hours awake, and
+inconsolable, dwelling persistently upon her luckless fate. At Mrs.
+Palma's suggestion her stepson had not visited the sick-room since
+the recovery of Olga's consciousness; and being closely confined to
+the limits of the apartment, Regina had not seen her guardian for
+several days. About three o'clock in the afternoon, when she had
+finished brushing the short tangled hair that clung in auburn rings
+around the invalid's forehead, Olga said:
+
+"Read me the 'Penelope.'"
+
+Regina sat down on a low stool close to the couch, and while she
+opened the book and read, Olga's right arm stole over her shoulder.
+At the opposite side of the hearth her mother sat, watching the pair;
+and she saw the door open sufficiently to admit Mr. Palma's head.
+Quickly she waved him back with a warning gesture; but he shook his
+head resolutely, advanced a few steps, and stood in a position which
+prevented the girls from discovering his presence. As Regina paused
+to turn a leaf, Olga began a broken recitation, grouping passages
+that suited her fancy:
+
+           "Yea, love, I am alone in all the world,
+            The past grows dark upon me where I wait.
+
+                *       *       *       *       *
+
+            Behold how I am mocked!
+
+                *       *       *       *       *
+
+            They come to me, mere men of hollow clay,
+            And whisper odious comfort, and upbraid
+            The love that follows thee where'er thou art.
+
+                *       *       *       *       *
+
+            And they have dragged a promise from my lips
+            To choose a murderer of my love for thee,
+            To choose at will from out the rest one man
+            To slay me with his kisses!"----
+
+She groaned, and gently caressing her hand, Regina read on, and
+completed the poem.
+
+When she closed the book, Mr. Palma came forward and stood at the
+side of the couch, and in his hand he held several letters. At sight
+of him a flush mounted to Olga's hollow cheek, and she put her
+fingers over her eyes. He quietly laid one hand on her forehead and
+said pleadingly:
+
+"Olga, dear sister, if you had died without becoming reconciled to
+me, I should never have felt satisfied or happy, and I thank God you
+have been spared to us; spared to allow me an opportunity of
+explaining some thirds which, misunderstood, have caused you to hate
+me. Regina let me have this seat a little while, and in half an hour
+you ard Mrs. Palma can come back. I wish to talk alone with Olga."
+
+"To gloze over your deeds and machinations, to deny the dark cowardly
+work that has stabbed my peace for ever! No, no! The only service you
+can render me now is to keep out of my sight! Erle Palma, I shall
+hate you to my dying hour; and my only remaining wish--prayer--is,
+that she whom you love may give her pure hand to another; that you
+may live to see her belong to other arms than yours, even as you have
+helped to thrust Belmont from mine! Oh, I thank God! your cold
+selfish heart has stirred at last, and I shall have my revenge, when
+you come, like me, to see the lips you love kissed by another, and
+the hands that were so sacred to your fond touch clasped by some
+other man, wearing the badge and fetter of his ownership! When your
+darling is a wife--but not yours--then the agony that you have
+inflicted on me will be your portion. Because you love her, as you
+never yet loved even yourself, may you lose her for ever!"
+
+She had struck off his hand, and while struggling up into a sitting
+posture, her eyes kindled, and her voice shook with the tempest of
+feeling that broke over her.
+
+Mr. Palma crimsoned, but motioned Mrs. Palma away, and Regina
+exclaimed:
+
+"In her feeble state this excitement may be fatal. Have you no mercy,
+Mr. Palma?"
+
+"Because I wish to be merciful to her, I desire you will leave the
+room."
+
+Mrs. Palma seized the girl's hand and drew her hastily away, and
+while the two sat on the staircase near the door of the sickroom,
+Regina learned from a hurried and fragmentary narration that her
+guardian had for years contributed to the comfort and maintenance of
+Mr. Eggleston's mother and sister, that his influence had been
+exerted to induce a friend in Philadelphia to purchase the artist's
+"California Landscape," and that his persistent opposition to Olga's
+marriage had been based upon indubitable proofs that Mr. Eggleston
+had deceived her; had addressed three other ladies during the seven
+years' clandestine correspondence, and had merely trifled with the
+holiest feelings of the girl's trusting heart. In conclusion Mrs.
+Palma added:
+
+"Erle was too proud to defend himself, and sternly prohibited me from
+acquainting her with some of his friendly acts. Even those two
+helpless Eggleston women do not dream that their annual contribution
+of money and fuel comes from him. He would leave Olga in her
+prejudice and animosity, did he not think that a knowledge of all
+that has occurred might prove to her how unworthy that man is. She
+stubbornly persists that my stepson is weary of supporting us, and
+desires to force a this marriage with Mr. Congreve; whereas he has
+from the beginning assured me he deemed it inexpedient, and dreaded
+the result."
+
+"Mrs. Palma, she insists that she will never marry any one now, and
+intends to join one of the Episcopal Church sisterhoods in a western
+city."
+
+"She certainly will not marry Mr. Congreve, for Erle called upon him
+and requested him to release Olga from the engagement, alleging,
+among other reasons, that her health was very much broken, and that
+she would spend some time in Europe. This sisterhood scheme he
+declares he will not permit her to accomplish."
+
+Between the two fell a profound silence, and Regina could think of
+nothing but her guardian's flushed confused countenance, when Olga
+taxed him with his love for Mrs. Carew. How deeply his heart must be
+engaged, when his stem, cold, noncommittal face crimsoned?
+
+It seemed a long time since they sat down there, and Regina was
+growing restless when the front door-bell rang. The servant who
+brought up a telegram addressed to Mr. Palma, informed Mrs. Palma
+that Mr. Roscoe was waiting in the dining-room to see her.
+
+"My dear, knock at the door, and hand this to Erle. I will come back
+directly."
+
+She went downstairs, and, glad of any pretext to interrupt an
+interview which she believed must be torturing to poor Olga, Regina
+tapped at the door.
+
+"Come in."
+
+Standing on the threshold, she merely said:
+
+"Here is a telegraphic despatch, which may require a reply."
+
+"Come in," repeated Mr. Palma.
+
+Advancing, she saw with amazement that he was kneeling close to the
+couch, with Olga's hand in his, and his bowed head close to her face.
+When she reached the lounge she found that Olga was weeping bitterly,
+while now and then heavy sobs convulsed her feeble frame.
+
+"Mr. Palma, do you want to throw her back into delirium by this cruel
+excitement? Do go away, and leave us in peace."
+
+"She will feel far happier after a little while, and tears will ease
+her heart. Olga, you have not yet given me your promise."
+
+"Be patient! Some day you will learn perhaps that though the idol you
+worshipped so long has fallen from the niche where you set it, even
+the dust is sacred; and you want no strange touch to defile it. Oh
+the love, the confidence, the idolatry--I have so lavishly
+squandered! Because it was wasted, and all--all is lost, can I mourn
+the less?"
+
+"At least give me your promise to wait two years, to follow my
+advice, to accede to my plan for your future."
+
+He wiped the tears from her cheek, and after some hesitation she said
+brokenly:
+
+"How can you care at all what becomes of me? But since you have saved
+me from Mr. Congreve, and contrived to conceal the traces of my
+disguise and flight from Albany, I owe you something, owe something
+to your family pride. I will think over all you wish, and perhaps
+after a time, I can see things in a different light. Now--all is
+dark, ruined--utterly----"
+
+She wept passionately, hiding her face in her hands; and rising, Mr.
+Palma placed some open letters on the chair beside her. He walked to
+the window, opened and read the telegram, and Regina saw a heavy
+frown darken his brow. As if pondering the contents, he stood for
+more than a minute, then went to the door, and said from the
+threshold:
+
+"The papers, Olga, are intended for no eye but yours. In reviewing
+the past, judge me leniently, for had you been born my own sister I
+should have no deeper interest in your welfare. Henceforth try to
+trust me as your brother, and I will forgive gladly all your unjust
+bitterness and aspersion."
+
+He disappeared, and almost simultaneously Mrs. Palma came back and
+kissed her daughter's forehead.
+
+With a low piteous wail, Olga threw her white hands up about her
+mother's neck, and sobbed:
+
+"Oh, mamma! mamma! take me to your heart! Pity me!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+Since the night of Olga's return, Regina had taken her meals in the
+sick-room, gladly availing herself of any pretext for avoiding the
+dreadful _tête-à-tête_ breakfasts.
+
+On the morning after the painful interview between Olga and Mr.
+Palma, the former desired to remove into her own apartment, and the
+easy chair in which she sat was wheeled carefully to the hearth in
+her room.
+
+"Come close to me, dear child."
+
+Olga held her companion for some seconds in a tight embrace, then
+kissed her cheek and forehead.
+
+"Patient, true little friend; you saved me from destruction. How worn
+and white you look, and I have robbed you so long of sleep! When I am
+stronger, I want to talk to you; but to-day I must be alone, must
+spend it among my dead hopes, sealing the sepulchres. Jean Ingelow
+tells us of 'a Dead Year' 'cased in cedar, and shut in a sacred
+gloom;' but I have seven to shroud and bury; and will the day ever
+dawn when I can truly say:
+
+            Silent they rest, in solemn salvatory'?
+
+Go out, dear, into the sunshine; you look so weary. Leave me alone in
+the cold crypts of memory; you need not be afraid, I have no second
+vial of poison."
+
+She seemed so hopeless, and her voice was so indescribably mournful,
+that Regina's eyes filled with tears, but Mrs. Palma just then called
+her into the hall.
+
+"Erle says you must put on your hat, wrap up closely, and come
+downstairs. He is waiting to take you to ride."
+
+She had not seen her guardian since he left Olga's sofa the previous
+day, and answered without reflection.
+
+"Ask him to excuse me. I am not very well, and prefer remaining in my
+own room."
+
+From the foot of the stairs, Mr. Palma's voice responded:
+
+"Fresh air will benefit you. I insist upon your coming immediately."
+
+She leaned over the railing, and saw him buttoning his overcoat.
+
+"Please, Mr. Palma, excuse me to-day."
+
+"Pardon me, I cannot. The carriage is waiting."
+
+She was tempted to rebel outright, to absolutely refuse obedience to
+his authority, which threatened her with the dreaded interview, but a
+moment's reflection taught her that resistance to his stubborn will
+was useless, and she went reluctantly downstairs, forgetting her
+gloves in her trepidation. He handed her into the carriage, took a
+seat beside her, and directed Farley to drive to Central Park.
+
+The day though cold was very bright, and he partly lowered the silk
+curtains to shut out the glare of the sun. For a half-hour they
+rolled along the magnificent Avenue, and only casual observations
+upon weather, passing equipages, and similar trivial topics, afforded
+Regina time to compose her perturbed thoughts. With his overcoat
+buttoned tight across his broad chest, and hat drawn a little low on
+his brow, Mr. Palma sat, holding his gloved fingers interlaced; and
+his brilliant eyes rested now and then very searching upon the face
+at his side, which was almost as white as the snowy fur sack that
+enveloped her.
+
+"What is the matter with your cheek?" he said at length.
+
+"Why do you ask?" She instantly shielded it with her hand.
+
+"It has a slightly bluish, bruised appearance."
+
+"It is of no consequence, and will soon disappear."
+
+"Olga must indeed have struck you a heavy blow, to leave a mark that
+lingers so long. She told me how desperately you wrestled to stay her
+suicidal course, and as a family we owe you much for your firm brave
+resistance."
+
+"I am sorry she has betrayed what passed. I hoped you would never
+suspect the distressing facts."
+
+"When a girl deliberately defies parental wishes and counsel, and
+scorns the advice and expostulation of those whom experience has
+taught something of life and the world, her fate sooner or later is
+sad as Olga's. A foolish caprice which young ladies invariably
+denominate 'love,' but which is generally merely flattered vanity,
+not unfrequently wrecks a woman's entire life; and though Olga will
+rally after a time, she cannot forget this humiliating episode, which
+has blighted the brightest epoch of her existence. Her rash, blind
+obstinacy has cost her very dear. Here, let us go out; I want you to
+walk awhile."
+
+They had entered the Park, and, ordering the driver to await them at
+a specified spot, Mr. Palma turned into the Ramble. For some moments
+they walked in silence, and finally he pointed to a rustic seat
+somewhat secluded, and beyond the observation of the few persons
+strolling through the grounds. Regina sat with her muff in her lap,
+and her bare hands nervously toying with her white silk tassel. Her
+guardian noticed the tremulousness of her lip, and at that moment the
+sun, smiting the ring on her finger, kindled the tiny diamonds into a
+circle of fire. Mr. Palma drew off his gloves, put them in his
+pocket, and just touched the opal, saying coldly:
+
+"Is that a recent gift from your mother? I never saw you wear it
+until the night you bathed poor Olga's forehead."
+
+"No, sir."
+
+Involuntarily she laid her palm over the jewels that was beginning to
+grow odious in her own sight.
+
+"May I inquire how long it has been in your possession?"
+
+"Since before I left the parsonage. I had it when I came to New
+York."
+
+"Why then have you never worn it?"
+
+"What interest can such a trifle possess for you, sir?"
+
+"Sufficient at least to require an answer."
+
+She sat silent.
+
+"Regina."
+
+"I hear you, Mr. Palma."
+
+"Then show me the courtesy of looking at me when you speak.
+Circumstances have debarred me until now from referring to a letter
+from India, which I gave you before I went to Washington. I presume
+you are aware that the writer in enclosing it to me acquainted me
+with its tenor and import. Will you permit me to read it?"
+
+"I sent it to my mother nearly a week ago."
+
+She had raised her eyes, and looked at him almost defiantly, nerving
+herself for the storm that already darkened his countenance.
+
+"Mr. Lindsay very properly informed me that his letter contained an
+offer of marriage, and though I requested you to defer your answer
+until my return, I could not of course doubt that it would prove a
+positive rejection, since you so earnestly assured me he could never
+be more than a brother to you. At least, let me suggest that you
+clothe the refusal in the kindest possible terms."
+
+Her face whitened, and she compressed her lips, but her beautiful
+eyes became touchingly mournful in their strained gaze. Mr Palma took
+off his glasses, and for the first time in her life she saw the full,
+fine bright black eyes, without the medium of lenses. How they looked
+down into hers?
+
+She caught her breath, and he smiled:
+
+"My ward must be frank with her guardian."
+
+"I have been frank with my mother, and since nothing has been
+concealed from her, no one else has the right to catechise me. To her
+it is incumbent upon me to confide even the sacred details to which
+you allude, and she knows all; but you can have no real interest in
+the matter."
+
+"Pardon me, I have a very deep interest in all that concerns my ward;
+especially when the disposal of her hand is involved. What answer
+have you given 'Brother Douglass'?"
+
+As he spoke, he laid his hand firmly on both of hers, but she
+attempted to rise.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Palma! Ask me no more, spare me this inquisition. You
+transcend your authority."
+
+"Sit still. Answer me frankly. You declined Mr. Lindsay's offer?"
+
+"No, sir!"
+
+She felt his hand suddenly clutch hers, and grow cold.
+
+"Lily! Lily!"
+
+The very tone was like a prayer. Presently, he said sternly:
+
+"You must not dare to trifle with me. You cannot intend to accept
+him?"
+
+"Mother will determine for me."
+
+Mr. Palma had become very pale, and his glittering teeth gnawed his
+lower lip.
+
+"Is your acceptance of that man contingent only on her consent and
+approval?"
+
+For a moment she looked away at the blue heavens bending above her,
+and wondered if the sky would blacken when she had irretrievably
+committed herself to this union. The thought was hourly growing
+horrible, and she shivered.
+
+He stooped close to her, and even then she noted how laboured was
+his breathing, and that his mouth quivered:
+
+"Answer me; do you mean to marry him?"
+
+"I do, if mother gives me permission."
+
+Bravely she met his eyes, but her words were a mere whisper, and she
+felt that the worst was over; for her there could be no retraction.
+
+It was the keenest blow, the most bitter disappointment of Erle
+Palma's hitherto successful life, but his face hardened, and he bore
+it, as was his habit, without any demonstration, save that
+discoverable in his mortal paleness.
+
+During the brief silence that ensued, he still held his hand firmly
+on hers, and when he spoke his tone was cold and stern.
+
+"My opinion of your probable course in this matter was founded
+entirely upon belief in the truthfulness of your statement that Mr.
+Lindsay had no claim on your heart. Only a short time since you
+assured me of this fact, and my faith in your candour must plead
+pardon for my present profound surprise. Certainly I was credulous
+enough to consider you incapable of deceit."
+
+The scorn in his eyes stung her like a lash, and clasping her fingers
+spasmodically around his hand, she exclaimed:
+
+"I never intended to deceive you. Oh, do not despise me!"
+
+"I presume you understand the meaning of the words you employ; and
+when I asked you if I would be justified in softening your rejection
+of my cousin by assuring him that your affections were already
+engaged you emphatically negatived that statement, saying it would be
+untrue."
+
+"Yes, and I thought so then; but did not know my own heart."
+
+Her shadowy eyes looked appealingly into his, but he smiled
+contemptuously.
+
+"You did not know your affections had travelled to India, until the
+gentleman formally asked for them? Do you expect me to believe that?"
+
+"Believe anything except that I wilfully deceived you."
+
+The anguish, the hopelessness written in her blanched face, and the
+trembling of the childishly small hands that had unconsciously
+tightened around his touched him.
+
+He put his right hand under her chin and lifted the face.
+
+"Lily, I want the truth. I intend to have it; and all of it. Now look
+me in the eye and answer me solemnly, remembering that the God you
+reverence hears your words. Do you really love Mr. Lindsay?"
+
+"Yes; he is so good, how can I help feeling attached to him?"
+
+"You love him next to your mother?"
+
+"I think I do."
+
+The words cost her a great effort, and her eyes wandered from his.
+
+"Look straight at me. You love him so well you wish to be his wife?"
+
+"I want to make him happy if I can."
+
+"No evasions, if you please. Answer yes, or no. Is Mr. Lindsay dearer
+to you than all else in the world?"
+
+"Next to mother's his happiness is dearest to me."
+
+"Yes--or no--this time; is there no one you love better?"
+
+Earth and sky, trees and rocks, seemed whirling into chaos, and she
+shut her eyes.
+
+"You have no right to question me farther. I will answer no more."
+
+Was the world really coming to an end? She heard her guardian laugh,
+and the next moment he had caught her to his heart. What did it
+mean? Was she too growing delirious with brain fever? His arm held
+her pressed close to his bosom, and his cheek leaned on her head,
+while strangely sweet and low were his words:
+
+"Ah, Lily! Lily! Hush. Be still."
+
+She wished that she could die then and there, for the thought of Mr.
+Lindsay sickened her soul. But the memory of the ring appalled her,
+and she struggled to free herself.
+
+"Let me go! Do let us go home. I am sick."
+
+His arm drew her closer still.
+
+"Be quiet, and let me talk to you, and remember I am your guardian.
+Lily, I am afraid you are tempted to stray into dangerous paths, and
+your tender little heart is not a safe counsellor. You are sincerely
+attached to your old friend, you trust and honour him, you are very
+grateful to him for years of kindness during your childhood; and now
+when his health has failed, and he appeals to you to repay the
+affection he has long given you, gratitude seems to assume the form
+of duty, and you are trying to persuade yourself that you ought to
+grant his prayer. Lily, love is the only chrism that sanctifies
+marriage, and though at present you might consent to become Mr.
+Lindsay's wife, suppose that in after years you should chance to meet
+some other man, perhaps not so holy, so purely Christian as this
+noble young missionary, but a man who seized, possessed your
+deep--deathless womanly love, and who you knew loved you in return?
+What then?"
+
+"I would still do my duty to my dear Douglass."
+
+"No doubt you would try. But you would do wrong to marry your friend
+feeling as you do; and you ought to wait and fully explain to him the
+nature of your sentiments. You are almost a child, and scarcely know
+you own heart yet, and I, as your guardian, cannot consent to see you
+rashly forge fetters that may possibly gall you in future. The letter
+to your mother has not yet been forwarded. Hattie, to whom you
+entrusted it, did not give it to me until this morning, alleging in
+apology, that she put it in her pocket and forgot it. I have reason
+to believe that in a very short time you will see your mother: let
+this matter rest until you can converse fully with her, and if she
+sanctions your decision I, of course, shall have no right to
+expostulate. Lily, I want to see you happy, and while I profoundly
+respect Mr. Lindsay, who I daresay is a most estimable gentleman, I
+should not very cordially give you away to him."
+
+She rose and stood before him, clasping her hands tightly over each
+other; tearless, tortured, striving to see the path of duty.
+
+"Mr. Palma, if I can only make him happy! I owe him so much. When I
+remember all that he did so tenderly for years, and especially on
+that awful night of the storm, I feel that I ought not to refuse what
+he asks of me."
+
+"If he knew how you felt, I think I could safely promise for him that
+he would not accept your hand. The heart of the woman he loves, is
+the boon that a man holds most precious. Lily, you know your inmost
+heart does not prompt you to marry Mr. Lindsay."
+
+Did he suspect her secret folly? The blood that had seemed to curdle
+around her aching heart surged into her cheeks, painting them a vivid
+rose, and she said hastily:
+
+"Indeed he is very dear to me. He is the noblest man I ever knew. How
+could I fail to love him?"
+
+He took her left hand and examined the ring.
+
+"You wear this, as a pledge of betrothal? Is it not premature when
+your mother is in ignorance of your purpose? Tell me, my ward, tell
+me, do you not rather keep it here to stimulate your flagging sense
+of duty? To strengthen you to adhere to your rash resolve?"
+
+"He wrote that if I had faithfully kept my farewell promise to him he
+wished me to wear it."
+
+"May I know the nature of that promise?"
+
+"That I would always love him next to my mother."
+
+"But I think you admitted that possibly you might some day meet your
+ideal who would be dearer even than mother and Douglass. I do not
+wish to distress you needlessly, but while you are under my
+protection I must unflinchingly do all that honour demands of a
+faithful guardian. I can permit no engagement without your mother's
+approval; and I honestly confess to you, that I am growing impatient
+to place you in her care. Do you still desire your letter forwarded?"
+
+"If you please."
+
+"Sit down. I have sad news for you."
+
+He unbuttoned his coat, took an envelope from his pocket, and she
+recognized the telegram which had arrived the previous day. "Regina,
+many guardians would doubtless withhold this, but fairness and
+perfect candour have been my rule of life, and I prefer frankness to
+diplomacy. This telegraphic despatch arrived yesterday, and is
+intended for you, though addressed to me."
+
+He put it in her hand, and filled with an undefined terror that
+chilled her she read:
+
+                                      "SAN FRANCISCO.
+
+   "MR. ERLE PALMA,--Tell your ward that Douglass is too ill to
+   travel farther. If she wishes to see him alive she must come
+   immediately. Can't you bring her on at once?
+
+                                      "ELISE LINDSAY."
+
+
+The despatch fluttered to the ground and the girl moaned and bowed
+her face in her hands. He waited some minutes, and with a sob she
+said:
+
+"Oh, let me go to him! It might be a comfort to him, and if he should
+die? Oh, do let me go!"
+
+"Do you think your mother would consent to your taking so grave a
+step?"
+
+"I do not know, but she would not blame me when she learned the
+circumstances. If I waited to consult her he might--oh! we are
+wasting time! Mr. Palma, pity me! Send me to him--to the friend who
+loves me so truly, so devotedly!"
+
+She started up and wrung her hands, as imagination pictured the noble
+friend ill, perhaps dying, and longing to see her.
+
+"Regina, compose yourself. That telegram has been delayed by an
+unprecedented fall of snow that interrupts the operation of the
+wires, and it is dated three days ago. Last night I telegraphed to
+learn Mr. Lindsay's condition, but up to the time of our leaving
+home, the wires were not working through to San Francisco; and the
+trains on the Union Pacific are completely snowbound. The agent told
+me this morning that it was uncertain when the cars would run
+through, as the track is blocked up. Until we ascertain something
+definite let me advise you to withhold your letter, enclosing his;
+for I ought to tell you that I am daily expecting a summons to send
+you to Europe. Come, walk with me and try to be patient."
+
+He offered her his arm, and they walked for some time in profound
+silence. At last she exclaimed passionately:
+
+"Please let me go home. I want to be alone."
+
+They finally reached the carriage, and Mr. Palma gave the coachman
+directions to drive to the telegraph office. During the ride Regina
+leaned back, with her face pressed against the silken curtain on the
+side, and her eyes closed. Her companion could see the regular
+chiselled profile, so delicate and yet so firm, and as he studied the
+curves of her beautiful mouth, he realized that she had fully
+resolved to fulfil her promise; that at any cost of personal
+suffering she would grant the prayer of the devoted young minister.
+
+Scientists tell us that "there are in the mineral world certain
+crystals, certain forms, for instance of fluor-spar, which have lain
+darkly in the earth for ages, but which nevertheless have a potency
+of light locked up within them. In their case the potential has never
+become actual, the light is, in fact, held back by a molecular
+detent. When these crystals are warmed, the detent is lifted, and an
+outflow of light immediately begins." How often subtle analogies in
+physical nature whisper interpretations of vexing psychological
+enigmas?
+
+Was Erle Palma an animated, human fluor-spar? Had the latent
+capacity, the potentiality of tenderness in his character been
+suddenly actualized, by the touch of that girl's gentle hands, the
+violet splendour of her large soft eyes, which lifted for ever the
+detent of his cold isolating selfishness?
+
+The long-hidden light had flashed at last, making his heart radiant
+with a supreme happiness which even the blaze of his towering and
+successful ambition had never kindled; and to-day he found it
+difficult indeed to stand aside, with folded arms and sealed lips,
+while she reeled upon the brink of an abyss, which was so wide and
+deep, that it threatened to bury all his hopes of that sacred home
+life--which sooner or later sings its dangerous siren song in every
+man's heart.
+
+To his proud worldly nature this dream of pure, deep, unselfish love,
+had stolen like the warm, rich spicy breath of June roses--swung
+unexpectedly over a glacier, bringing the flush and perfume of early
+summer to the glittering blue realms of winter; and he longed
+inexpressibly to open all his heart to the sweet sunshine, to gather
+it in, garnering it as his own for ever. How his stern soul clung to
+that shy, shrinking girl, who seemed in contrast to the gay brilliant
+self-asserting women he met in society as some white marble-lidded
+Psyche, standing on her pedestal, amid a group of glowing Venetian
+Venuses! He had seen riper complexions, and more rounded symmetry;
+and had smiled and bowed at graceful polished persiflage, more witty
+than aught that ever crossed her quiet, daintily carved lips; but
+though he had admired many lovely women of genius and culture, that
+pale girl, striving to hide her grieved countenance against his
+carriage curtain, was the only one he had ever desired to call his
+wife. That any other man dared hope to win or claim her seemed
+sacrilegious; and he felt that he would rather see her lying in her
+coffin, than know that she was profaned by any touch save his.
+
+Neither spoke, and when the carriage stopped at the telegraph office,
+Mr. Palma went in and remained some time. As he returned, she felt
+that he held her destiny for all time in his hands, and in after
+years he often recalled the despairing, terrified expression of the
+face that leaned forward, with parted quivering lips, and eyes that
+looked a prayer for pity.
+
+"The wires are not yet working fully, but probably messages will go
+through during the day. Regina, try to be patient, and believe that
+you shall learn the nature of Mrs. Lindsay's answer as soon as I
+receive it. Tell Mrs. Palma I shall not come home to dine, have
+pressing business at court, and cannot tell how long I may be
+detained at my office. Good-bye. The despatch shall be sent to you
+without delay."
+
+He lifted his hat, closed the carriage door, and motioned to Farley
+to drive home.
+
+Locked in her own apartment Olga denied admittance to even her
+mother, who improved the opportunity to answer a number of neglected
+letters, and Regina was left to the seclusion of her room. As the day
+wore slowly away, her restlessness increased, and she paced the floor
+until her limbs trembled from weariness. Deliberately she recalled
+all the incidents of the long residence at the parsonage, and strove
+to live again the happy season, during which the young minister had
+contributed so largely to her perfect contentment. The white pets
+they had tended and caressed together, the books she had read with
+him, the favourite passages he had italicized, the songs he loved
+best, the flowers he laid upon her breakfast plate, and now and then
+twined in her hair; above all, his loving persuasive tone, quiet
+gentle words of affectionate counsel, and tender pet name for her,
+"my white dove."
+
+How fervent had been his prayer that when he returned, he might find
+her "unspotted from the world." Was she? Could she bear to deceive
+the brave loyal heart that trusted her so completely?
+
+Once at church she had witnessed a marriage, heard the awfully solemn
+vows that the bride registered in the sight of God, and to-day the
+words flamed like the sword of the avenging angel, like a menace, a
+challenge. Would Douglass take her for his wife, if he knew that Mr.
+Palma had become dearer to her than all the world beside? Could she
+deny that his voice and the touch of his hand on hers magnetized,
+thrilled her, as no one else had power to do? She could think without
+pain of Mr. Lindsay selecting some other lady and learning to love
+her as his wife, forgetting the child Regina; but when she forced
+herself to reflect that her guardian would soon be Mrs. Carew's
+husband, the torture seemed unendurable.
+
+Unlocking a drawer, she spread before her all the little souvenirs
+Mr. Lindsay had given her. The faded flowers that once glowed under
+the fervid sun of India, the seal and pen, the blue and gold
+Tennyson, and Whittier, and the pretty copy of Christina Rossetti's
+poems, he had sent from Liverpool. One by one she read his letters
+ending with the last which Mr. Palma had laid on her lap when he left
+the carriage.
+
+Despite her efforts, above the dear meek gentle image of the
+consecrated and devout missionary towered the stately proud form of
+the brilliant lawyer, with his chilling smile and haughty marble
+brow; and she knew that he reigned supreme in her heart. He was not
+so generous, so nobly self-sacrificing, so holy and pious as Mr.
+Lindsay, nor did she reverence him so entirely; but above all else
+she loved him. Conscience, pride, and womanly delicacy all clamoured
+in behalf of the absent but faithful lover; and the true heart
+answered, "Away with sophistry, and gratitude, pitying affection,
+and sympathy! I am vassal to but one; give me Erle Palma, my king."
+
+If she married Douglass and he afterward discovered the truth, could
+he be happy, could he ever trust her again? She resolved to go to San
+Francisco, to tell Mr. Lindsay without reservation all that she felt,
+withholding only the name of the man whom she loved best; and if he
+could be content with the little she could give in return for his
+attachment, then with no deception flitting like a ghoul between
+them, she would ask her mother's permission to dedicate the future to
+Douglass Lindsay. She would never see her guardian again, and when he
+was married it would be sinful even to think of him, and her duties
+and new ties must help her to forget him.
+
+Pleading weariness and indisposition, she had absented herself from
+dinner, and when night came it was upon leaden wings that oppressed
+her. Feverish and restless she raised the sash, and though the
+temperature was freezing outside, she leaned heavily on the sill and
+inhaled the air. A distant clock struck eleven, and she stood looking
+at the moon that flooded the Avenue with splendour, and shone like a
+sheet of silver on the glass of a window opposite.
+
+Very soon a peculiarly measured step, slow and firm, rung on the
+pavement beneath her, and ere the muffled figure paused at the door,
+she recognized her guardian. He entered by means of a latch-key, and
+closing the window Regina sat down and listened. Her heart beat like
+a drum, drowning other sounds, and all else was so still that after a
+little while she supposed no message had been received, and that Mr.
+Palma had gone to sleep.
+
+She dreaded to lie down, knowing that her pillow would prove one not
+of roses, but thorns. She prayed long and fervently that God would
+help her to do right under all circumstances, would enable her to
+conquer and govern her wilful, riotous heart, subduing it to the
+dictates of duty; and in conclusion she begged that the heavenly
+Father would spare and strengthen His feeble, suffering, consecrated
+minister, spare a life she would strive to brighten.
+
+Rising from her knees she opened a little illustrated Testament Mr.
+Lindsay had given her on her thirteenth birthday, and which she was
+accustomed to read every night. The fourteenth chapter of St. John
+happened to meet her eye.
+
+"Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid; ye believe
+in God, believe also in Me." Just then she heard a low, cautious tap
+upon her door. Her heart stood still, she felt paralyzed, but found
+voice to say hoarsely:
+
+"Come in."
+
+The door was partly opened but no one entered, and she went forward
+to the threshold. Mr. Palma was standing outside, with his face
+averted, and in his outstretched hand she saw the well-known
+telegraphic envelope, which always arouses a thrill of dread, bearing
+so frequently the bolt of destruction into tranquil households.
+Shaking like aspens when the west wind blows, she took it.
+
+"Tell me, is he better?"
+
+Mr. Palma turned, gave one swift pitying glance at her agonized face,
+and as if unable to endure the sight, walked quickly away. She shut
+the door, stood a moment, spellbound by dread, then held the sheet to
+the light.
+
+                                          "SAN FRANCISCO.
+
+            "MR. ERLE PALMA,--My Douglass died last night.
+
+                                          "ELISE LINDSAY."
+
+             "Though Duty's face is stern, her path is best;
+              They sweetly sleep who die upon her breast."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+"Your bed is untouched, you did not undress! Why did you sit up all
+night, and alone?"
+
+"Because I knew it was folly to attempt to sleep; and to watch the
+bay and the beauty of the night was less wearying than to toss on a
+pillow staring at the ceiling. Mrs. Waul, what brings you here so
+early?"
+
+"A package of letters which must have arrived yesterday, but William
+only received them a few minutes since. Mrs. Orme, will you have your
+coffee now?"
+
+"After a little while. Have everything in order to leave at a
+moment's notice, for I may not return here from Pæstum. Give me the
+letters."
+
+Mrs. Orme tossed back her hair which had been unbound, and as the
+letters were placed in her hand, she seemed almost to forget them, so
+abstracted was the expression with which her eyes rested on the
+dancing waves of the Bay of Naples. The noise of the door closing
+behind Mrs. Waul seemed to arouse her, and glancing at the letters
+she opened one from Mr. Palma.
+
+The long and harrowing vigil which had lasted from the moment of
+bidding General Laurance good-night, on the previous evening, had
+left its weary traces in the beautiful face; but rigid resolution had
+also set its stem seal on the compressed mouth, and the eyes were
+relentless as those of Irene, waiting for the awful consummation in
+the Porphyry chamber at Byzantium.
+
+The spirit of revenge had effectually banished all the purer, holier
+emotions of her nature; and the hope of an overwhelming Nemesis
+beckoned her to a fearful sacrifice of womanly sensibility, but just
+now nothing seemed too sacred to be immolated upon the altar of her
+implacable Hate. To stab the hearts of those who had wronged her, she
+gladly subjected her own to the fiery ordeal of a merely nominal
+marriage with her husband's father, resolving that her triumph should
+be complete. Originally gentle, loving, yielding in nature, injustice
+and adversity had gradually petrified her character; yet beneath the
+rigid exterior flowed a lava tide, that now and then overflowed its
+stony barriers, and threatened irremediable ruin.
+
+Fully resolved upon the revolting scheme which promised punishment to
+the family of Laurance, and
+
+                "Self-girded with torn strips of hope,"
+
+she opened the New York letter.
+
+The first few lines riveted her attention. She sat erect, leaned
+forward, with eyes wide and strained, and gradually rose to her feet,
+clutching the letter, until her fingers grew purple. As she hurried
+on, breathing like one whose everlasting destiny is being laid in the
+balance, a marvellous change overspread her countenance. The blood
+glowed in lip and cheek, the wild sparkle sank, extinguished in the
+tears that filled her eyes, the hardness melted away from the
+resolute features, and at last a cry like that of some doomed spirit
+suddenly snatched from the horrors of perdition and set for ever at
+rest upon meads of Asphodel and Amaranth, rolled through the room.
+
+After so many years of reckless hopelessness the transition was
+overpowering, and the miserable wife and mother rescued upon the
+extreme verge of utter lifelong ruin, fell forward upon her knees,
+sobbing and laughing alternately.
+
+From the hour when she learned of her husband's second marriage she
+had ceased to pray, abandoning herself completely to the cynicism and
+vindictiveness that overflowed her soul like a wave of Phlegethon;
+but now the fountain of gratitude was unsealed, and she poured out a
+vehement, passionate, thanksgiving to God. Alternately praying,
+weeping, smiling, she knelt there, now and then re-reading portions
+of the letters, to assure herself that it was not a mere blessed
+dream, and at length when the strain relaxed, she dropped her head on
+a chair, and like a spent feeble child, cried heartily,
+unrestrainedly.
+
+Mr. Palma wrote that after years of fruitless effort he had succeeded
+in obtaining from Peleg Peterson a full retraction of the charges
+made against her name, whereby General Laurance had prevented a suit
+against his son. Peterson had made an affidavit of certain facts,
+which nobly exonerated her from the heinous imputations with which
+she was threatened, should she attempt legal redress for her wrongs,
+and which proved that the defence upon which General Laurance relied,
+was the result of perjury and bribery.
+
+In addition to the recantation of Peterson, Mr. Palma communicated
+the joyful intelligence that Gerbert Audré, who was believed to have
+been lost off the Labrador coast fifteen years before, had been
+discovered in Washington, where he was occupying a clerical desk in
+one of the departments; and that he had furnished conclusive
+testimony as a witness of the marriage, and a friend of Cuthbert
+Laurance.
+
+The lawyer had carefully gathered all the necessary links of
+evidence, and was prepared to bring suit against Cuthbert Laurance
+for desertion and bigamy; assuring the long-suffering wife that her
+name and life would be nobly vindicated.
+
+Within his letter was one addressed to Mrs. Orme by Peleg Peterson,
+and a portion of the scrawl was heavily underlined.
+
+"For all that I have revealed to Mr. Palma and solemnly sworn to, for
+this clearing of your reputation, you may thank your child. But for
+her, I should never have declared the truth--would have gone down to
+the grave, leaving a blot upon you; for my conscience is too dead to
+trouble me, and I hate you, Minnie! Hate you for the wreck you helped
+to make of me. But that girl's white angel face touched me, when she
+said (and I knew she meant it), 'If I find from mother that you are
+indeed my father, then I will do my duty. I will take your hand--I
+will own you my father--face the world's contempt, and we will bear
+our disgrace together as best me may.' She would have done it, at all
+risk, and I have pitied her. It is so clear her, and give her the
+name she is entitled to, that at last I have spoken the truth. She is
+a noble brave girl, too good for you, too good for her father; far
+too good to own René Laurance for her grandfather. When he sees the
+child he paid me to claim, he will not need my oath to satisfy him
+that in body she is every inch a Laurance; but where she got her
+white soul God only knows--certainly it is neither Merle nor
+Laurance. You owe your salvation to your sweet, brave child, and have
+no cause to thank me, for I shall always hate you."
+
+Had some ministering angel removed from her hand the hemlock of that
+loathsome vengeance she had contemplated, and substituted the nectar
+of hope and joy, the renewal of a life unclouded by the dread of
+disgrace that had hung over her like a pall for seventeen years? When
+gathering her garments about her to plunge into a dark gulf replete
+with seething horror, a strong hand had lifted her away from the
+fatal ledge, and she heard the voice of her youth calling her to the
+almost forgotten vale of peace; while supreme among the thronging
+visions of joy gleamed the fair face of her blue-eyed daughter. Had
+she been utterly mad in resolving to stain her own pure hand by the
+touch of René Laurance?
+
+In the light of retrospection the unnatural and monstrous deed she
+had contemplated, seemed fraught with a horror scarcely inferior to
+that which lends such lurid lustre to the "Oedipus;" and now she
+cowered in shame and loathing as she reflected upon all that she had
+deliberately arranged while sitting upon the terrace of the Villa
+Reale. Could the unbridled thirst for revenge have dragged her on
+into a monomania that would finally have ended in downright madness?
+Once nominally the wife of the man whom she so thoroughly abhorred,
+would not reason have fled before the horrors to which she linked
+herself? The rebellious bitterness of her soul melted away, and a
+fervent gratitude to Heaven fell like dew upon her arid stony heart,
+waking words of penitence and praise to which her lips had long been
+strangers.
+
+Adversity in the guise of human injustice and wrong generally
+indurates and embitters; and the chastisements that chasten are
+those which come directly from the hand of Him "who doeth all things
+well."
+
+When Mrs. Waul came back Mrs. Orme was still kneeling, with her face
+hidden in her arms, and the letters lying beside her. Laying her
+wrinkled hand on the golden hair, the faithful old woman asked:
+
+"Did you hear from your baby?"
+
+"Oh! I have good news that will make me happy as long as I live. I
+shall soon see my child; and soon, very soon, all will be clear. Just
+now I cannot explain; but thank God for me that these letters came
+safely."
+
+She rose, put back her hair, and rapidly glanced over two other
+letters, then walked to and fro, pondering the contents.
+
+"Where is Mr. Waul?"
+
+"Reading the papers in our room."
+
+"Ask him to come to me at once."
+
+She went to her desk, and wrote to General Laurance that letters
+received after their last interview compelled her to hasten to Paris,
+whither she had been recalled by a summons from the manager of the
+Theatre. She had determined, in accordance with his own earnestly
+expressed wishes, that from the day when the world knew her as Mrs.
+Laurance it should behold her no more upon the stage; consequently
+she would hasten the arrangements for the presentation of her own
+play "_Infelice_," and after he had witnessed her rendition of the
+new _rôle_, she would confer with him regarding the day appointed for
+the celebration of their marriage. Until then, she positively
+declined seeing him, but enclosed a tress of her golden hair, and
+begged to hear from him frequently; adding directions that would
+insure the reception of his letters. Concluding she signed: "Odille
+Orme, hoping by the grace of God soon to subscribe myself--Laurance."
+
+"Mr. Waul, I have unexpectedly altered my entire programme, and,
+instead of going to Pæstum, must start at once to Paris. This
+fortunately is Tuesday, and the French steamer sails for Marseilles
+at three o'clock. Go down at once and arrange for our passage, and be
+careful to let no one know by what route I leave Naples. On your way
+call at the telegraph office and see that this despatch is forwarded
+promptly; and do send me a close carriage immediately. I wish to
+avoid an unpleasant engagement, and shall drive to Torre del Greco,
+returning in time to meet you at the steamer instead of at this
+house. See that the baggage leaves here only time enough to be put
+aboard by three o'clock, and I shall not fail to join you there. When
+General Laurance calls, Mrs. Waul will instruct the servant to hand
+him the note, with the information that I have gone for a farewell
+drive around Naples."
+
+Hurriedly completing her preparations, she entered the carriage, and
+was soon borne along the incomparably beautiful road that skirts the
+graceful curves of the Bay of Naples. But the glory of the sky, and
+the legendary charms of the picturesque scenery that surrounded her,
+appealed in vain to senses that were wrapped in the light of other
+days, that listened only to the new canticle which hope long dumb was
+now singing through all the sunny chambers of her heart.
+
+Returning again and again to the perusal of the letters to assure
+herself that no contingency could arise to defraud her of her
+long-delayed recognition, she felt that the galling load of half her
+life had suddenly slipped from her weary shoulders; and the world and
+the future wore that magic radiance which greeted Miriam, as singing
+she looked back upon the destruction escaped, and on toward the
+redeemed inheritance awaiting her.
+
+Reunion with her child, and the triumphant establishment of her
+unsullied parentage, glowed as the silver stars in her new sky; while
+a baleful lurid haze surrounded the thought of that dire punishment
+she was enabled to inflict upon the men who had trampled her prayers
+beneath their iron heels.
+
+She recalled the image of the swarthy, supercilious, be-diamonded
+woman who sat that memorable night in the minister's box, claiming as
+husband the listless handsome man at her side; and as she pictured
+the dismay which would follow the sudden rending of the name of
+Laurance from the banker's daughter, and her helpless child, Mrs.
+Orme laughed aloud.
+
+Slowly the day wore on, and General Laurance failed to call at the
+appointed hour to arrange the preliminaries of his marriage. His
+servant brought a note, which Mrs. Orme read when she reached the
+steamer, informing her that sudden and severe indisposition confined
+him to his bed, and requested an interview on the ensuing morning.
+Mrs. Waul had received the note and despatched in return that given
+her by her mistress.
+
+In the magical glow of that cloudless golden afternoon Mrs. Orme saw
+the outlines of St. Elmo fade away, Capri vanish like a purple mist,
+Ischia and Procida melt insensibly into the blue of the marvellous
+bay; and watching the spark which trembled on the distant summit of
+Vesuvius like the dying eye of that cruel destiny from which she
+fled, the rescued happy woman exulted in the belief that she was at
+last sailing through serene seas.
+
+Dreaming of her child, whose pure image hovered in the mirage hope
+wove before her--
+
+          "She seemed all earthly matters to forget,
+           Of all tormenting lines her face was clear,
+           Her wide brown eyes upon the goal were set,
+           Calm and unmoved as though no foe were near."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+Since the memorable day of Regina's visit to Central Park many weeks
+had elapsed, and one wild stormy evening in March she sat at the
+library table writing her translation of a portion of "Egmont."
+
+The storm--now of sleet, now of snow--darkened the air, and the
+globes of the chandelier representing Pompeian lamps were lighted
+above the oval table, shedding a bright yet mellow glow over the warm
+quiet room.
+
+Upon a bronze console stood a terra-cotta jar containing a white
+azalea in full bloom, and the fragrance of the flowers breathed like
+a benediction on the atmosphere; while in the tall glass beneath Mrs.
+Orme's portrait two half-blown snowy camellias nestled amid a fringe
+of geranium leaves.
+
+Close to the fire, with her feet upon a Persian patterned cushion,
+Olga reclined in the luxurious easy chair that belonged to Mr.
+Palma's writing desk, and open on her lap lay a volume entitled "The
+Service of the Poor." The former brilliancy of her complexion seemed
+to have forsaken her for ever, banished by a settled sallowness; and
+she looked thin, feeble, dejected, passing her fingers abstractedly
+through the short curling ruddy hair that clustered around her
+forehead and upon her neck.
+
+As if weary of the thoughts suggested by her book, she turned and
+looked at the figure writing under the chandelier, and by degrees she
+realized the change in the countenance, which three months before had
+been pure, serene, and bright as a moonbeam.
+
+The keen and prolonged anguish which Regina had endured left its
+shadow, faint, vague, but unmistakable; and in the eyes lay gloom,
+and around the mouth patient yet melancholy lines, which hinted of a
+bitter struggle in which the calm-hearted girl died, and the wiser,
+sadder woman was born.
+
+Her grief had been silent but deep for the loss of the dear friend
+who symbolized for her all that was noble, heroic, and godly in human
+nature; and her suffering was not assuaged by letters from Mrs.
+Lindsay, furnishing the sorrowful details of the last illness of the
+minister, and the dying words of tender devotion to the young girl
+whom he believed his betrothed bride.
+
+Over these harrowing letters she had wept long and bitterly, accusing
+herself continually of her unworthiness in allowing another image to
+usurp the throne where the missionary should have reigned supreme;
+and the only consolation afforded was in the reflection that Douglass
+had died believing her faithful, happy in the perfect trust reposed
+in her. He had been buried on a sunny slope of the cemetery not far
+from the blue waves of the Pacific, and his mother remained in San
+Francisco with her sister, in whose house Mr. Lindsay had quietly
+breathed his life away, dying as he had lived, full of hope in Christ
+and trust in God.
+
+Mrs. Palma and Olga only knew that Regina had lost a dear friend whom
+she had not seen for years, and none but her guardian understood the
+nature of the sacred tie that bound them.
+
+Day and night she was haunted by memories of the kind face never more
+to be seen this side of the City of Peace, and when at length she
+received a photograph taken after death, in which, wan and emaciated,
+he seemed sleeping soundly, she felt that her life could never again
+be quite the same, and that the grey shadowy wings of Regret drooped
+low over her future pathway.
+
+Accompanying the photograph was a brief yet loving note written by
+Mr. Lindsay the evening before his death; and to it were appended the
+lines from "Jacqueline":
+
+      "Nor shall I leave thee wholly. I shall be--
+       An evening thought,--a morning dream to thee,--
+       A silence in thy life, when through the night,
+       The bell strikes, or the sun with sinking light,
+       Smites all the empty windows. As there sprout
+       Daisies, and dimpling tufts of violets, out
+       Among the grass where some corpse lies asleep,
+       So round thy life, where I lie buried deep,
+       A thousand little tender thoughts shall spring,
+       A thousand gentle memories wind and cling."
+
+As if the opal were a talisman against the revival of reflections
+that seemed an insult to the dead, Regina wore the ring constantly;
+and whenever a thrill warned her of the old madness, her right hand
+caressed the jewels, seeking from their touch a renewal of strength.
+
+Studiously she manoeuvred to avoid even casual meetings with her
+guardian, and except at the table, and in the presence of the family,
+she had not seen him for several weeks. Business engagements occupied
+him very closely; he was called away to Albany, to Boston, and once
+to Philadelphia, but no farewells were exchanged with his ward, and
+as if conscious of her sedulous efforts to avoid him, he appeared
+almost to ignore her presence.
+
+During these sad days the girl made no attempt to analyze the
+estrangement which she felt was hourly increasing between them. She
+presumed he disapproved of her resolution to accept Mr. Lindsay,
+because he was poor, and offered no brilliant worldly advantages,
+such as her guardian had been trained to regard as paramount
+inducements in the grave matter of marriage; and secluding herself
+as much as possible she fought her battle with grief and remorse as
+best she might, unaided by sympathy. If she could only escape from
+that house, with her secret undiscovered, she thought that in time
+she would crush her folly and reinstate herself in her own respect.
+
+After several interviews with Mr. Palma, the details of which Olga
+communicated to no one, she had consented to hold her scheme of the
+"Sisterhood" in abeyance for twelve months, and to accompany her
+mother to Europe, whither she had formerly been eager to travel; and
+Mrs. Palma, in accordance with instructions from her stepson, had
+perfected her preparations, so as to be able to leave New York at a
+day's notice.
+
+Mrs. Carew had returned to the city, and now and then Mr. Palma
+mentioned her name, and delivered messages from her to his
+stepmother; but Olga abstained from her old badinage, and Regina
+imagined that her forbearance sprang from a knowledge of the
+engagement which she supposed must exist between them. She could not
+hear her name without a shiver of pain, and longed to get away before
+the affair assumed a sufficiently decided form to compel her to
+notice and discuss it. To-day, after watching her for some time, Olga
+said:
+
+"You are weary, and pale almost to ghastliness. Put away your books,
+and come talk to me."
+
+Regina sighed, laid down her pen, and came to the fireplace.
+
+"I thought you promised to go very early to Mrs. St. Clare's and
+assist Valeria in arranging her bridal veil?"
+
+"So I did, and it will soon be time for me to dress. How I dislike to
+go back into the gay world, where I have frisked so recklessly and so
+long. Do you know I long for the hour when I shall end this
+masquerade, and exchange silks and lace and jewellery for coarse blue
+gown, blue apron, and white cap?"
+
+"Do you imagine the colour of your garments will change the
+complexion of your heart and mind? You remind me of Alexander's
+comment upon Antipater: 'Outwardly Antipater wears only white
+clothes, but within he is all purple.'"
+
+"Ah! but my purple pride has been utterly dethroned, and it seems to
+me now that when I find rest in cloistered duties the quiet sacred
+seclusion will prove in some degree like the well _Zem-Zem_, in which
+Gabriel washed Mohammed's heart, filled it with faith, and restored
+it to his bosom. Until I am housed safely from the roar and gibes and
+mockery of the world, I shall not grow better; for here
+
+          'God sends me back my prayers, as a father
+           Returns unoped the letters of a son
+           Who has dishonoured him.'
+
+"To conquer the world is nobler than to shun it, and to a nature such
+as yours, Olga, other lines in that poem ought to appeal with
+peculiar force:
+
+          'If thy rich heart is like a palace shattered,
+           Stand up amid the ruins of thy heart,
+           And with a calm brow front the solemn stars--
+           A brave soul is a thing which all things serve.'"
+
+The scheme which you are revolving now is one utterly antagonistic to
+the wishes of your mother, and God would not bless a step which
+involved the sacrifice of your duty to her."
+
+"After a time mamma will approve; till then I shall be patient. She
+has consented for me to go to the Mother House at Kaiserswerth, and
+to some of the Deaconess establishments in Paris and Dresden, in
+order that I may become thoroughly acquainted with the esoteric
+working of the system. I am anxious also to visit the institution for
+training nurses at Liverpool, and unless we sail directly for Havre,
+we shall soon have an opportunity of gratifying my wishes."
+
+Regina took the book from her hand, turned over the leaves, and read:
+
+"'All probationers must be unbetrothed, and their heart still
+free.'... 'A short life history of the previous inward and outward
+experiences of the future Deaconess pupil. It must be composed and
+written by herself.' Olga, what would you do with your past?"
+
+"I have buried it, dear. All the love of which I was capable I poured
+out, nay, I crushed the heart that held it; as the Syrian woman broke
+the precious box of costly ointment, anointing the feet of her God!
+When my clay idol fell I could not gather back the wasted trust and
+affection, and so, all--all is sepulchred in one deep grave. I have
+spent my wealth of spicery; the days of my anointing are for ever
+ended. To true deep-hearted women it is given to love once only, and
+all such scorn to set a second, lesser, lower idol, where formerly
+they bowed in worship. Even false gods hold sway long after their
+images are defiled, their temples overthrown, and as the Dodonian
+Groves still whisper of the old oracular days, to modern travellers,
+so a woman's idolatry leaves her no shrine, no libation, no reverence
+for new divinities; mutilated though she acknowledges her Hermæ, no
+fresh image can profane their pedestal. Memory is the high priestess
+who survives the wreck of altars and of gods, and faithfully
+ministers amid the gloom of the soul's catacombs. I owe much to
+mamma, and something to Erle Palma, who is a nobler man than I have
+deemed him, less a bronze Macchiavelli, with a heart of quartz; and
+I shall never again as heretofore rashly defy their advice and
+wishes. But I know myself too well to hope for happiness in the gay
+frivolous insincere world, where I have fluttered out my butterfly
+existence of fashionable emptiness.
+
+          'I kissed the painted bloom off Pleasure's lips
+           And found them pale as Pain's.'
+
+I have bruised and singed my Psyche wings, and _le beau monde_ has no
+new, strong pinions to replace those beat out in its hard tyrannous
+service. You think me cynical and misanthropic, but, dear, I believe
+I am only clear-eyed at last. If I had married him for whom I dared
+so much, and found too late that all the golden qualities I fondly
+dreamed that he possessed were only baser metal, gaudy tinsel that
+tarnished in my grasp, I am afraid it would have maddened me beyond
+hope of reclamation. I have made shipwreck; but a yet sadder fate
+might have overtaken me, and at least my soul has outridden the
+storm, thanks to your frail babyish hands, so desperately strong when
+they grappled that awful night with suicidal sin. Few women have
+suffered more keenly than I, and yet, in Murial's sweet patient
+words,--
+
+           'God has been good to me; you must not think
+            That I despair. _There is a quiet time
+            Like evening in my soul. I have no heart_.'"
+
+There was more peace in Olga's countenance as she clasped one of
+Regina's hands in hers than her companion had yet seen, and after a
+moment, she continued:
+
+"You know, dear, that we are only waiting for Congress to adjourn, in
+order to have Mr. Chesley's escort across the ocean, and he will
+arrive to-morrow. Erle Palma is exceedingly anxious that you should
+accompany us, and I trust your mother will sanction this arrangement,
+for I should grieve to leave you here. Perhaps you are not aware that
+your guardian has recently sold this house, and intends purchasing
+one on Murray Hill."
+
+"Mr. Palma cannot possibly desire my departure half so earnestly as I
+do, and if I am not summoned to join my mother, I shall insist upon
+returning to the convent whence he took me seven years ago. There I
+can continue my studies, and there I prefer to remain until I can be
+restored to my mother. Olga, how soon will Mr. Palma be married?"
+
+"I do not know. He communicates his plans to no one; but I may safely
+say, if he consulted merely his own wishes, it would not be long
+delayed. Until quite recently, I did not believe it possible that
+that man's cold, proud, ambitious, stony heart would bow before any
+woman, but human nature is a riddle which baffles us all--sometimes.
+I must dress for the wedding, and mamma will scold me if I am late.
+Kiss me, dear child. Ah, velvet violet eyes! if I find a
+resting-place in heaven, I shall always want even there to hover near
+you."
+
+She kissed the girl's colourless cheek, and left her; and when the
+carriage bore Olga and her mother to Mrs. St. Clare's, Regina
+retreated to her own room, dreading lest her guardian should return
+and find her in the library.
+
+At breakfast he had mentioned that he would dine at his club, in
+honour of some eminent judge from a distant State, to whom the
+members of the "Century" had tendered a dinner, but she endeavoured
+to avoid even the possibility of meeting him alone. Had she been less
+merciless in her self-denunciation, his avowed impatience to send her
+to her mother might have piqued her pride; but it only increased her
+scorn of her own fatal folly, and intensified her desire to leave his
+presence. Was it to gratify Mrs. Carew's extravagant taste that he
+had sold this elegant house, and designed the purchase of one yet
+more costly?
+
+In the midst of her heart-ache she derived some satisfaction from the
+reflection, that at least Mr. Palma's wife would never profane the
+beautiful library, where his ward had spent so many happy days, and
+which was indissolubly linked with sacred memories of its master.
+Unwilling to indulge a reverie so fraught with pain and humiliation,
+she returned to her "Egmont," resuming her translation of a speech by
+"Clärchen." Ere long Hattie knocked at the door:
+
+"Mr. Palma says, please to come down to the library; he wishes to
+speak to you."
+
+"Ask him if he will not be so kind as to wait till morning? Say I
+shall feel very much obliged if he will excuse me tonight."
+
+In a few minutes she returned:
+
+"He is sorry he must trouble you to come down this evening, as he
+leaves home to-morrow."
+
+"Very well."
+
+She went to the drawer that contained all her souvenirs of Mr.
+Lindsay, and lingered some minutes, looking sorrowfully at the
+photograph; then passed her lips to the melancholy image, and as if
+strengthened by communion with the dead face, went down to the
+library.
+
+Mr. Palma was walking slowly up and down the long room, and had
+paused in front of the snowy azalea. As she approached he put out his
+hand and took hers, for the first time since they had sat together in
+the Park.
+
+"How deliciously this perfumes the room, and it must be yours, for no
+other member of the household cares for flowers, and I see a cluster
+of the same blossoms in your hair."
+
+"I had forgotten that Olga fastened them there this afternoon. I
+bought it from the greenhouse in ---- Street, where I often get
+bouquets to place under mother's picture. Azaleas were Mr. Lindsay's
+favourite flowers, and that fact tempted me to make the purchase. We
+had just such a one as this at the parsonage, and on his birthday we
+covered the pot with white cambric, fringed the edge with violets,
+and set it in the centre of the breakfast-table; and the bees came in
+and swung over it."
+
+She had withdrawn her hand, and folding her fingers, leaned her face
+on them, a position which she often assumed when troubled. Her left
+hand was uppermost, and the opal and diamonds seemed pressed against
+her lips, though she was unconscious of their close proximity. Mr.
+Palma broke off a cluster of three half-expanded flowers, twisted the
+stem into the buttonhole of his coat, and answered coldly:
+
+"Flowers are always associated in my mind with early recollections of
+my mother, who had her own greenhouse and conservatories. They appear
+to link you with the home of your former guardian, and the days that
+were happier than those you speed here."
+
+"That dear parsonage was my happiest home, and I shall always cherish
+its precious memories."
+
+"Happier than a residence under my roof has been? Be so good as to
+look at me; it is the merest courtesy to do so, when one is being
+spoken to."
+
+"Pardon me, sir, I was not instituting a comparison; and while I am
+grateful for the kindness and considerate hospitality shown me by all
+in this pleasant house, it has never seemed to me quite the home that
+I found the dear old parsonage."
+
+"Because you prefer country to city life? Love to fondle white
+rabbits, and pigeons, and stand ankle deep in clover blooms?"
+
+"I daresay that is one reason; for my tastes are certainly very
+childish still."
+
+"Then of course you regret the necessity which brought you to reside
+here?"
+
+He bent an unusually keen look upon her, but she quietly met his
+eyes, and answered without hesitation:
+
+"You must forgive me, sir, if your questions compel me to sacrifice
+courtesy to candour. I do regret that I ever came to live in this
+city; and I believe it would have been better for me, if I had
+remained at V---- with Mr. Hargrove and the Lindsays."
+
+"You mean that you would have been happier with them than with me?"
+
+As she thought of the keen suffering her love for him had entailed
+upon her, of the dreary days and sleepless nights she had recently
+passed in that elegant luxurious home, her eyes deepened in tint,
+saddened in expression, and she said:
+
+"You have been very kind and generous to me, and I gratefully
+appreciate all you have done; but if you insist on an answer, I must
+confess I was happier two years ago than I am now."
+
+"Thank you. The truth, no matter how unflattering, is always far more
+agreeable to me than equivocation, or disingenuous-ness. Does my ward
+believe that it will conduce to her future happiness to leave my
+roof, and find a residence elsewhere?"
+
+"I know I should be happier with my mother."
+
+"Then I congratulate myself as the bearer of delightful tidings
+Regina, it gives me pleasure to relieve you from your present
+disagreeable surroundings, by informing you of the telegram received
+to-day by cable from your mother. It was dated two days ago at
+Naples, and is as follows: 'Send Regina to me by the first steamer to
+Havre. I will meet her in Paris.'"
+
+Involuntarily the girl exclaimed:
+
+"Thank God!"
+
+The joyful expression of her countenance rendered it impossible to
+doubt the genuineness of her satisfaction at the intelligence; and
+though Mr. Palma kept close guard over his own features lest they
+should betray his emotion, an increasing paleness attested the depth
+of his feelings.
+
+"How soon can I go?"
+
+"In two days a steamer sails for Havre, and I have already engaged a
+passage for you. Doubtless you are aware that Mrs. Palma and Olga
+hold themselves in readiness to start at any hour, and your friend
+and admirer Mr. Chesley will go over in the same steamer;
+consequently with so chivalrous an escort you cannot fail to have a
+pleasant voyage. Since you are so anxious to escape from my
+guardianship, I may be pardoned for emulating your frankness, and
+acknowledging that I am heartily glad you will soon cease to be my
+ward. Mr. Chesley is ambitious of succeeding to my authority, and I
+have relinquished my claim as guardian, and referred him to your
+mother, to whose hands I joyfully resign you. A residence in Europe
+will, I hope, soon obliterate the unpleasant associations connected
+with my house."
+
+"A lifetime would never obliterate the memory of all your kindness to
+me, or of some hours I have passed in this beautiful library. For all
+you have done I now desire, Mr. Palma, to thank you most sincerely."
+
+She looked up at the grave, composed face so handsome in its regular,
+high-bred outlines, and her mouth trembled, while her deep eyes grew
+misty.
+
+"I desire no thanks for the faithful discharge of my duty as a
+guardian: my conscience acquits me fully, and that is the reward I
+value most. If you really indulge any grateful sentiments on the eve
+of your departure, oblige me by singing something. I bought that
+organ, hoping that now and then when my business permitted me to
+spend a quiet evening at home, I might enjoy your music; but you
+sedulously avoid touching it when I am present. This is the last
+opportunity you will have, for I must meet Mr. Chesley at noon
+to-morrow in Baltimore, and thence I go on to Cincinnati, where I
+shall be detained, until the steamer has sailed. After to-night I
+shall not see my ward again."
+
+They were standing near the azalea, and Regina suddenly put her hand
+on the back of a chair. To see him no more after this evening--to
+know that the broad ocean rolled between--that she might never again
+look upon the face that was so inexpressibly dear;--all this swept
+over her like a bitter murderous wave, drowning the sweetness of her
+life, and she clung to the chair.
+
+She was not prepared for this sudden separation, but though his eyes
+were riveted upon her she bore it bravely. A faint numb sensation
+stole over her, and a dark shadow seemed to float through the room,
+yet her low voice was steady, when she said:
+
+"I am sorry I disappointed any pleasant anticipations you indulged
+with reference to the organ, which has certainly been a source of
+much comfort to me. I have felt very timid about singing before you,
+sir; but if it will afford you the least pleasure, I am willing to
+do the best of which I am capable."
+
+"You sang quite successfully before a large audience at Mrs.
+Brompton's, and displayed sufficient self-possession."
+
+"But those were strangers, and the opinion of those with whom we live
+is more important, their criticism is more embarrassing."
+
+"I believe I was present, and heard you on that occasion."
+
+She moved away to the organ, and sat down, glad of an excuse, for her
+limbs trembled.
+
+"Regina, what was that song you sang for little Llora Carew the night
+before she left us? Indeed there were two, one with the other without
+an accompaniment?"
+
+"You were not here at that time."
+
+"No matter; what were they? The child fancies them exceedingly, and I
+promised to get the words for her."
+
+"Kücken's 'Schlummerlied,' and a little 'Cradle Song' by Wallace."
+
+"Be so good as to let me hear them."
+
+Would Mrs. Carew sing them for him when she was far away, utterly
+forgotten by her guardian? The thought was unutterably bitter, and it
+goaded her, aided her in the ordeal.
+
+With nerves strung to their extreme tension, she sang as he
+requested, and all the while her rich mellow voice rolled through the
+room, he walked very slowly from one end of the library to the other.
+She forced herself to sing every verse, and when she concluded he was
+standing behind her chair. He put his hands on her shoulders, and
+prevented her rising, for just then he was unwilling she should see
+his countenance, which he feared would betray the suffering he was
+resolved to conceal.
+
+After a moment, he said:
+
+"Thank you. I shall buy the music in order to secure the words.
+Lily----"
+
+He paused, bent down, and rested his chin on the large coil of hair
+at the back of her head, and though she never knew it his proud lips
+touched the glossy silken mass.
+
+"Lily, if I ask a foolish trifle of you, will you grant it, as a
+farewell gift to your guardian?"
+
+"I think, sir, you do not doubt that I will."
+
+"It is a trivial thing, and will cost you nothing. The night on which
+you sang those songs to Llora is associated with something which I
+treasure as peculiarly precious; and I merely wish to request that
+you will never sing them again for any one unless I give you
+permission."
+
+Swiftly she recalled the fact that on that particular evening he had
+escorted Mrs. Carew to a "German" at Mrs. Quimbey's, and she
+explained his request by the supposition that her songs to Mrs.
+Carew's child commemorated the date of his betrothal to the grey-eyed
+mother. Could she bear even to think of them in coming years?
+
+She hastily pushed back the ivory stops, and shaking off his
+detaining palms, rose:
+
+"I am sorry that I cannot do something of more importance to oblige
+my kind guardian; for this trifle involves not the slightest
+sacrifice of feeling, and I would gladly improve a better opportunity
+of attesting my gratitude. You may rest assured I shall never sing
+those words again under any circumstances. Do not buy the music; I
+will leave my copies for Llora, and you and her mother can easily
+teach her the words."
+
+"Thanks! You will please place the music on the organ, and when I
+come back from Cincinnati it will remind me. I hope your mother will
+be pleased with you progress in French German, and music. Your
+teachers furnish very flattering reports, and I have enclosed them
+with some receipts, bills, and other valuable papers in this large
+sealed envelope, which you must give to your mother as soon as you
+see her."
+
+He went to his desk, took out the package, and handed it to her.
+Seating himself at the table where she generally wrote and studied,
+he pointed to a chair on the opposite side, and mechanically she sat
+down.
+
+"Perhaps you may recollect that some months ago, Mrs. Orme wrote me
+she was particularly desirous you should be trained to read well. It
+is a graceful accomplishment, especially for a lady, and I ordered a
+professor of elocution to give you instruction twice a week. I hope
+you have derived benefit from his tuition, as he has fitted one or
+two professional readers for the stage, and I should dislike to have
+your mother feel disappointed in any of your attainments. Now that I
+am called upon to render an account of my stewardship, I trust you
+will pardon me, if I examine you a little. Here is Jean Ingelow,
+close at hand, and I must trouble you to allow me an opportunity of
+testing your proficiency."
+
+The book which she had been reading that day lay on the table, and
+taking it up he leisurely turned over the leaves. A premonitory dread
+seized her, and she wrung her hands, which were lying cold in her
+lap.
+
+"Ah!--here is your mark; three purple pansies, crushed in the middle
+of 'Divided,'--staining the delicate cream-tinted paper with their
+dark blood. Probably you are familiar with this poem, consequently
+can interpret it for me without any great effort. Commence at the
+first, and let me see what value Professor Chrysostom's training
+possesses. Not too fast; recollect Pegasus belongs to poets,--never
+to readers."
+
+He leaned across the marble table, and placed the open book before
+her.
+
+Did he intentionally torture her? With those bright eyes reading her
+unwomanly and foolish heart, was he amusing himself, as an
+entomologist impales a feeble worm, and from its writhing deduces the
+exact character of its nervous and muscular anatomy?
+
+The thought struck her more severely than the stroke of a lash would
+have done, and turning the page to the light, she said quickly:
+
+"'Divided' is not at all dramatic, and as an exercise is not
+comparable to 'High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire,' or 'Songs of
+Seven,' or even that most exquisite of all, 'Afternoon at a
+Parsonage.'"
+
+"Try 'Divided.'"
+
+She dared not refuse lest he should despise her utterly, interpreting
+correctly her reluctance. For an instant the print danced before her,
+but the spirit of defiance was fast mastering her trepidation, and
+she sat erect, and obeyed him.
+
+Thrusting one hand inside his vest, where it rested tightly clenched
+over his heart, Mr. Palma sat intently watching her, glad of the
+privilege afforded him to study the delicate features. Her excessive
+paleness reminded him of the words:
+
+        "That white, white face, set in a night of hair,"
+
+and though the chastening touch of sorrow and continued
+heart-ache--that most nimble of all chisellers--had strangely matured
+the countenance which when it entered that house was as free from
+lines and shadows as an infant's, it still preserved its almost
+child-like purity and repose.
+
+The proud fair face, with its firm yet dainty scarlet lips, baffled
+him; and when he reflected that a hundred contingencies might arise
+to shut it from his view in future years he suddenly compressed his
+mouth to suppress a groan. His vanity demanded an assurance that her
+heart was as entirely his as he hoped, yet he knew that he loved her
+all the more tenderly, and reverently, because of the true womanly
+delicacy that prompted her to shroud her real feelings, with such
+desperate tenacity.
+
+She read the poem with skill and pathos, but no undue tremor of the
+smooth, deliciously sweet voice betrayed aught save the natural
+timidity of a tyro, essaying her first critical trial. Tonight she
+wore a white shawl draped in statuesque folds over her shoulders and
+bust, and the snowy flowers in her raven hair were scarcely purer
+than her full forehead, borne up by the airy arched black bows that
+had always attracted the admiration of her fastidious guardian; and
+as the soft radiance of the clustered lamps fell upon her, she looked
+as sweet and lovely a woman as ever man placed upon the sacred hearth
+of his home, a holy priestess to keep it bright, serene, and warm.
+
+On that same day, but a few hours earlier, she had perused these
+pages, wondering how the unknown gifted poetess beyond the sea had so
+accurately etched the suffering in her own young heart, the
+loneliness and misery that seemed coiled in the future like serpents
+in a lair. Now, holding that bruised palpitating heart under the
+steel-clad heel of pride, she was calmly declaiming that portraiture
+of her own wretchedness, as any elocutionist might a grand passage
+from the "_Antigone_," or "_Prometheus_." Not a throb of pain was
+permitted to ripple the rich voice that uttered:
+
+        "But two are walking apart for ever,
+         And wave their hands in a mute farewell."
+
+Farther on, nearing the close, Mr. Palma observed a change in the
+countenance, a quick gleam in the eyes, a triumphant ring in the deep
+and almost passionate tone that cried exultingly:
+
+        "Only my heart to my heart will show it
+         As I walk desolate day by day."
+
+He leaned forward and touched the volume:
+
+"Thank you. Give me the book. I should render the concluding verses
+very much as I heard them recently from my fair client, Mrs.
+Carew--so."
+
+In his remarkably clear, full, musical and carefully modulated voice
+he read the two remaining verses, then closed the volume and looked
+coolly across the table at the girl.
+
+With what a flash her splendid eyes challenged his, and how proudly
+her tender lips curled, as with pitiless scorn she answered:
+
+"Not so--oh, not so. Jean Ingelow would never recognize her own
+jewelled handiwork. She meant this, and any earnest woman who prized
+a faithful lover could not fail to read it aright."
+
+Her eyes sank till they rested on her ring, and slipping it to and
+fro upon her slender finger till the diamonds sparkled, she repeated
+with indescribable power and pathos:
+
+        "And yet I know, past all doubting, truly,--
+           A knowledge greater than grief can dim--
+         I know, as he loved, he will love me duly,
+           Yea better, e'en better than I love him.
+         And as I walk by the vast calm river,
+           The awful river so dread to see,
+         I say 'Thy breadth and thy depth for ever--
+           Are bridged by his thoughts that cross to me.'"
+
+"Regina, do you interpret that the River of Death?"
+
+She pointed to the jewels on her hand, and the blue eyes cold as
+steel met his.
+
+"Only the river of death could have 'divided' Douglass and me."
+
+A frown overshadowed his massive brow, but he merely added
+composedly:
+
+"I did not suspect until to-night that you were endowed with your
+mother's histrionic talent. Some day you will rival her as an
+actress, and at least I may venture to congratulate you upon the
+fact that she will scarcely be disappointed in your dramatic skill."
+
+For nearly a moment, neither spoke.
+
+"Mr. Palma, you have no objection, I hope, to my carrying mother's
+portrait with me?"
+
+"It is undeniably your property, but since you will so soon possess
+the original, I would suggest the propriety of leaving the picture
+where it is, until your mother decides where she will reside."
+
+"I understood that you had sold this house, and feared that in the
+removal it might be injured."
+
+"It will be carefully preserved with my own pictures, and if your
+mother wishes it forwarded I will comply with her instructions. All
+the business details of your voyage I have arranged with Mrs. Palma
+and Mr. Chesley; and you have only to pack your trunks and bid adieu
+to such friends as you may deem worthy of a farewell visit. Have you
+a copy of Jean Ingelow?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Then oblige me by accepting mine. I have no time for poetry."
+
+He took the book to his desk, wrote upon the fly leaf: "Lily, March
+the 10th;" then marked "Divided," and returning to the table held the
+volume toward her.
+
+"Thank you, but indeed, sir, I do not wish to accept it. I much
+prefer that you should retain it."
+
+He inclined his head, and replaced the book on the marble slab. She
+rose, and he saw the colour slowly ebbing from her lips.
+
+"Mr. Palma, I hope you will not deny me one great favour. I cannot
+leave my dog; I must have my Hero."
+
+"Indeed! I thought you had quite forgotten his existence. You have
+ceased to manifest any interest in him."
+
+"Yes, to manifest, but not to feel. You took him from me, and I was
+unwilling to annoy you with useless petitions and complaints. You
+assured me he was well cared for, and that I need not expect to have
+him while I remained here; now I am going away for ever, I want him.
+You gave him to me once; he is mine; and you have no right to
+withhold him any longer."
+
+"Circumstances have materially altered. When you were a little girl I
+sent you a dog to romp with. Now you are a young lady preparing for
+European conquests, and having had his day, Hero must retire to the
+rustic shade of your childhood."
+
+"Years have not changed my feeling for all that I love."
+
+"Are you sure, Lily, that you have not changed since you came to live
+in New York?"
+
+"Not in my attachment to all that brightened my childhood, and Hero
+is closely linked with the dear happy time I spent at the parsonage.
+Mr. Palma, I want him."
+
+Her guardian smiled, and played with his watch chain.
+
+"Officers of the ocean steamers dislike to furnish passage for dogs;
+and they are generally forwarded by sailing vessels. My ward, I
+regret to refuse you, particularly when we are about to say good-bye,
+possibly for ever. Wait six months, and if at the expiration of that
+time, you still desire to have him cross the ocean, I pledge myself
+to comply with your wishes. You know I never break a promise."
+
+"Where is Hero? May I not at least see him before I go?"
+
+"Just now he is at a farm on Staten Island, and I am sorry I cannot
+gratify you in such a trivial matter. Trust me to take care of him."
+
+Her heart was slowly sinking, for she saw him glance at the clock,
+and knew that it was very late.
+
+"I will bring you good tidings of your pet, when I see you in Europe.
+If I live, I shall probably cross the ocean some time during the
+summer; and as my business will oblige me to meet your mother, I
+shall hope to see my ward during my tour, which will be short."
+
+He was watching her very closely, and instead of pleased surprise,
+discerned the expression of dread, the unmistakable shiver that
+greeted the announcement of his projected trip. After all, had he
+utterly mistaken her feeling, flattered himself falsely?
+
+She supposed he referred to his bridal tour, and the thought that
+when they next met he would be Brunella Carew's husband, goaded her
+to hope that such torture might be averted by seeing him no more.
+
+While both stood sorrowful and perplexed, the front door bell rang
+sharply. Soon after Terry entered, with a large official envelope,
+sealed with red wax.
+
+"From Mr. Rodney, sir."
+
+"Yes, I was expecting it. Tell Octave I must have a cup of coffee at
+daylight, and Farley must not fail to have the _coupé_ ready to take
+me to the depot. Let the gas burn in the hall to-night. That is all."
+
+Mr. Palma broke the seals, glanced at the heading of several sheets
+of legal cap, and laid the whole on his desk.
+
+"Regina, all the money belonging to you I shall leave in Mrs. Palma's
+hands, and she will transmit it to you. Mr. Chesley will take charge
+of you to-morrow, soon after his arrival, and in the chivalric new
+guardian I presume the former grim custodian will speedily be
+forgotten. I have some letters to write, and as I shall leave home
+before you are awake, I must bid you good-bye to-night. Is there
+anything you wish to say to me?"
+
+Twice she attempted to speak, but no sound was audible.
+
+Mr. Palma came close to her, and held out his hand. Silently she
+placed hers in it, and when he took the other, holding both in a warm
+tightening clasp, she felt as if the world were crumbling beneath her
+unsteady feet. Her large soft eyes sought his handsome pale face,
+wistfully, hungrily, almost despairingly, and oh, how dear he was to
+her at that moment! If she could only put her arms around his neck,
+and cling to him, feeling as she had once done the touch of his cheek
+pressing hers; but there was madness in the thought.
+
+"Although you are so anxious to leave my care and my house, I hope my
+ward will think kindly of me when far distant. It is my misfortune
+that you gave your fullest confidence and affection, to your guardian
+Mr. Hargrove; but since you were committed to nay hands, I have
+endeavoured faithfully, conscientiously, to do my duty in every
+respect. In some things it has cost me dear,--how dear I think you
+will never realize. If I should live to see you again, I trust I
+shall find you the same earnest, true-hearted, pure girl that you
+leave me, for in your piety and noble nature I have a deep and
+abiding faith. My dear ward, good-bye."
+
+The beautiful face with its mournful tender eyes told little of the
+fierce agony that seemed consuming her, as she gazed into the beloved
+countenance for the last time.
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Palma. I have no words to thank you for all your care
+and goodness."
+
+"Is that all, Lily? Years ago, when I left you at the parsonage,
+looking as if your little heart would break, you said, 'I will pray
+for you every night.' Now you leave me without a tear and with no
+promise to remember me."
+
+Tenderly his low voice appealed to her heart, as he bent his head so
+close that his hair swept across her brow.
+
+She raised the hand that held hers, suddenly kissed it with an
+overwhelming passionate fervour, and holding it against her cheek,
+murmured almost in a whisper:
+
+"God knows I have never ceased to pray for you, and, Mr. Palma, as
+long as I live, come what may to both of us, I shall never fail in my
+prayers for you."
+
+She dropped his hand, and covered her face with her own.
+
+He stretched his arms toward her, all his love in his fine eyes, so
+full of a strange tenderness, a yearning to possess her entirely, but
+he checked himself, and, taking one of the hands, led her to the
+door. Upon the threshold she rallied, and looked up:
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Palma."
+
+He drew her close to his side, unconscious that he pressed her
+fingers so tight that the small points of the diamonds cut into the
+flesh.
+
+"God bless you, Lily. Think of me sometimes."
+
+They looked in each other's eyes an instant, and she walked away. He
+turned and closed the door, and she heard the click of the lock
+inside. Blind and tearless, like one staggering from a severe blow,
+she reached her own room, and fell heavily across the foot of her
+bed.
+
+Through the long hours of that night she lay motionless, striving to
+hush the moans of her crushed heart, and wondering why such anguish
+as hers was not fatal. Staring at the wall, she could not close her
+eyes, and the only staff that supported her in the ordeal was the
+consciousness that she had fought bravely, had not betrayed her
+humiliating secret.
+
+Toward dawn she rose, and opened her window. The sleet had ceased,
+and the carriage was standing before the door. An impulse she could
+not resist drove her out into the hall, to catch one more glimpse of
+the form so precious to her. She heard a door open on the hall
+beneath, and recognized her guardian's step. He paused, and she heard
+him talking to his stepmother, bidding her adieu. His last words were
+deep and gentle in their utterance.
+
+"Be very tender and patient with Olga. Wounds like hers heal slowly.
+Take good care of my ward. God bless you all."
+
+Descending the steps she saw him distinctly, enveloped in an overcoat
+buttoned so close that it showed the fine proportions of his tall
+figure; and as he stopped to light his cigar at a gas globe which a
+bronze Atalanta held in a niche half way up the stairs, his nobly
+formed head and gleaming forehead impressed itself for ever on her
+memory.
+
+Slowly he went down, and leaning over the balustrade to watch the
+vanishing figure, the withered azaleas slipped from her hair, and
+floated like a snowflake down, down to the lower hall.
+
+Fearful of discovery she shrank back, but not before he had seen the
+drifting flowers, and one swift upward glance showed him the blanched
+suffering face pale as a summer cloud, retreating from observation.
+Stooping, he snatched the bruised wilted petals that seemed a fit
+symbol of the drooping flower he was leaving behind him, kissed them
+tenderly, and thrust them into his bosom.
+
+The blessed assurance so long desired seemed nestling in their
+perfumed corollas making all his future fragrant; and how little she
+dreamed of the precious message they breathed from her heart to his!
+
+        "What could he do indeed? A weak white girl
+         Held all his heartstrings in her small white hand;
+         His hopes, and power, and majesty were hers,
+         And not his own."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+"No, mother; no. Not less, but more beautiful; not so pale as when
+you hang over me at the convent, baptizing me with hot, fast dripping
+tears. Now a delicate flush like the pink of an apple bloom
+overspreads your cheeks; and your eyes, once so sad, eyes which I
+remember as shimmering stars, burning always on the brink of clouds,
+and magnified and misty through a soft veil of April rain, are
+brighter, happier eyes than those I have so fondly dreamed of. Oh,
+mother! mother! Draw me close, hold me tight. Earth has no peace so
+holy as the blessed rest in a mother's clasping arms. After the long
+winter of separation, it is so sweet to bask in your presence,
+thawing like a numb dormouse in the sunshine of May. I knew I should
+find joy in the reunion, but how deep, how full, anticipation failed
+to paint; and only the blessed reality has taught me."
+
+On the carpet at her mother's feet, with her head in her mother's lap
+and her arms folded around her waist, Regina had thrown herself,
+feasting her eyes with the beauty of the face smiling down upon her.
+It was the second day after her arrival in Paris, and hour after hour
+she had poured into eagerly listening ears the recital of her life at
+the quiet parsonage, at the stately mansion on Fifth Avenue; and yet
+the endless stream of talk flowed on, and neither mother nor child
+took cognizance of the flight of time.
+
+Of her past the girl withheld only the acknowledgment of her profound
+interest in Mr. Palma, and when questioned concerning his opposition
+to her engagement with Mr. Lindsay she had briefly announced her
+belief that he was hastening the preparations for his marriage with
+Mrs. Carew. Of him she spoke only in quiet terms of respect and
+gratitude, and her mother never suspected the spasm of pain that the
+bare mention of his name aroused.
+
+Thus far no allusion had been hazarded to the long-veiled mystery of
+her parentage, and Mrs. Orme wondered at the exceeding delicacy with
+which her daughter avoided every reference that might have been
+construed into an inquiry. As the soft motherly hand passed
+caressingly over the forehead resting so contentedly on her knee,
+Regina continued:
+
+"In all the splendid imagery that makes 'Aurora Leigh' deathless,
+nothing affected me half so deeply as the portrait of the motherless
+child; and often when I could not sleep, I have whispered in the wee
+sma' hours:
+
+        "I felt a mother want about the world,
+         And still went seeking, like a bleating lamb
+         Left out at night, in shutting up the fold,
+         As restless as a nest-deserted bird,
+         Grown chill through something being away, though what--
+         It knows not. So mothers have God's license to be missed."
+
+"My guardians were noble, kind, high-toned, honourable gentlemen, and
+I owe them thanks, but ah! a girl should be ward only to those who
+gave her being; and, mother, brown-eyed mother, sweet and holy, it
+would have been better for your child had she shared her past with
+none but you. Do I weary you with my babble? If so, lay your hand
+upon my mouth, and I will watch your dear face, and be silent."
+
+In answer, the mother stooped and kissed many times the perfect lips
+that smiled at the pressure; but the likeness to a mouth dangerously
+sweet, treacherously beautiful, mocked her, and Regina saw her turn
+away her eyes, and felt rather than heard the strangled moan.
+
+"Mother-kisses, the sweetest relic of Eden that followed Eve into a
+world of pain. All these dreary years I have kept your memory like a
+white angel-image, set it up for worship, offered it the best part of
+myself; and I know I have grown jealously exacting, where you are
+concerned. I studied because I wished you to be proud of me; I
+practised simply that my music might be acceptable and pleasant to
+you; and when people praised me, said I was pretty, I rejoiced that
+one day I might be considered worthy of you. Something wounded me
+when at last we met. Let me tell you, my dearest, that you may take
+out the thorn, and heal the grieved spot. The day I came,--how long
+ago? for I am in a delicious dream, have been eating the luscious
+lotos of realized hope,--the day I came, and saw a new, glorious sun
+shining from my mother's eyes, you ran to meet me. I hear you again,
+'My baby! my baby!' as you rushed across the floor. You opened your
+arms, and when you clasped me to your bosom you bent my head back,
+and gazed at me--oh! how eagerly, hungrily; and I saw your face turn
+ghastly white, and a great agony sweep across it, and the lips that
+kissed me were cold and quivering. To me it was all sweet as heaven;
+but the cup of delight I drained, had bitter drops for you. Mother,
+tell me, were you disappointed in your daughter?"
+
+"No, darling; no. The little blue-eyed child has grown into a woman,
+of whom the haughtiest mother in the land might be proud. My darling
+is all I wish her."
+
+"Ah, mother! the flattery is inexpressibly sweet, falling like dew on
+parched leaves; but the eyes of your idolatrous baby have grown very
+keen, and I know that the sight of me brings you a terrible pain you
+cannot hide. Last night, when Mrs. Waul made me shake out my hair to
+show its length, and praised it and my eyebrows, you dropped my hand,
+and walked away; and in the mirror on the wall, I saw your
+countenance shaken with grief. What is it? We have been apart so
+long, do take me into your heart fully; tell me why you look at me,
+and turn aside and shiver?"
+
+Her clasping arms tightened about her mother's waist, and after a
+short silence, Mrs. Orme exclaimed:
+
+"It is true. It has always been so. From the hour when you were born,
+and your little round head black with silky locks was first laid upon
+my arm, your face stabbed me like a dagger, and your eyes are blue
+steel that murder my peace. My daughter, my daughter, you are the
+exact counterpart, the beautiful image of your father! It is because
+I see in your eyes so wonderfully blue the reproduction of his, and
+about your mouth and brows the graceful lines of his, that I shudder
+while I look at you. Ah, my darling! is it not hard that your beauty
+should sting like a serpent the mother whose blood filled your veins?
+The very tones of your voice, the carriage of your head, even the
+peculiar shape of your fingers and nails, are his--all his! Oh, my
+baby! my white lamb! my precious little one, if I had not fed you
+from my bosom--cradled you in my arms--realized that you were indeed
+flesh of my flesh--my own unfortunate, unprotected disowned baby, I
+believe I should hate you!"
+
+She bowed her head in her hands, and groaned aloud.
+
+"Forgive me, mother. If I had imagined the real cause, I would never
+have inquired. Let it pass. Tell me nothing that will bring such a
+storm of grief as this. God knows I wish I resembled you--only you."
+
+She covered her mother's hands with kisses, and tears gathered in her
+eyes.
+
+"No; God knew best, and in His wisdom, His mercy for widowhood and
+orphanage, He stamped your father's unmistakable likeness indelibly
+upon you. Providentially a badge of honourable parentage was set upon
+the deserted infant, which neither fraud, slander, nor perjury can
+ever remove. The laws God set to work in nature defy the calumny, the
+corruption, the vindictive persecution and foul injustice cloaked
+under legal statutes, human decrees; and though a world swore to the
+contrary, your face proclaims your father, and his own image will
+hunt him through all his toils and triumphantly confront him with his
+crime. No jury ever empanelled could see you side by side with your
+father, and dare to doubt that you were his child! No, bitter as are
+the memories your countenance recalls, I hold it the keenest weapon
+in the armoury of my revenge."
+
+"Let us talk of something that grieves and agitates you less. May I
+sing you a song always associated with your portrait, an invocation
+sacred to my lovely mother?"
+
+"No, sometime you must know the history I have carefully hidden from
+all but Mr. Palma and your dead guardian; and now that the bitter
+waves are already roaring over me, why should I delay the narration?
+It was not my purpose to tell you thus, I though it would too
+completely unnerve me, and I wrote the story of my life in the form
+of a drama, and called it _Infelice!_ But the recital is in Mr.
+Chesley's hands for perusal; and I shall feel stronger, less
+oppressed, when I have talked freely with you. Kiss me, my pure
+darling, my own little nameless treasure, my fatherless baby; for
+indeed I need the elixir of my daughter's love to keep me human when
+I dwell upon the past."
+
+She strained the girl to her heart, then put her away and rose.
+Opening a strong metallic box concealed in a drawer of the
+dressing-table, she took out several papers, some yellowed with age,
+and blurred with tears, and while Regina still sat, with her arm
+resting on the chair, Mrs. Orme locked the door, and began to walk
+slowly up and down the room.
+
+"One moment, mother. I want to know why my heart is drawn so steadily
+and so powerfully toward Mr. Chesley, and why something in his face
+reminds me tenderly of you? Are you quite willing to tell me why he
+seems so deeply interested in me?"
+
+"Regina, have you never guessed? Orme Chesley is my uncle, my
+mother's only brother."
+
+"Oh, how rejoiced I am! I hoped he was in some mysterious way related
+to us, but I feared to lean too much upon the pleasant thought, lest
+it proved a disappointment. My own uncle? What a blessing! Does Mr.
+Palma know it?"
+
+"Mr. Palma first suspected and traced the relationship, and it was
+from him that Uncle Orme learned of my existence, for it appears he
+believed me dead. Mr. Palma has long held all the tangled threads of
+my miserable history in his skilful hands, and to his prudent,
+patient care you and I shall owe our salvation. For years he has been
+to me the truest, wisest, kindest friend a deserted and helpless
+woman ever found."
+
+Regina sank her head upon the chair, afraid that her radiant face
+might betray the joy his praises kindled; and while she walked, Mrs.
+Orme began her recital:
+
+"My grandfather, Hubert Chesley, was from Alsace; my grandmother
+originally belonged to the French family of Ormes. They had two
+children, Orme the eldest, and Minetta, who while very young married
+a travelling musician from Switzerland, named Léon Merle. A year
+after she became his wife her father died, and the family resolved
+to emigrate to America. On the voyage, which was upon a crowded
+emigrant ship, I was born; and a few hours after my mother died.
+They buried her at sea, and would to God I too had been thrown into
+the waves, for then this tale of misery would never torture innocent
+ears. But children who have only a heritage of woe, and ought to die,
+fight for existence defying adversity, and thrive strangely; so I
+lucklessly survived.
+
+"My first recollections are of a pauper quarter in a large city,
+where my father supported us scantily by teaching music. Subsequently
+we removed to several villages, and finally settled in one where were
+located a college for young gentlemen, and a seminary for girls. In
+the latter my father was employed as musical professor, and here we
+lived very comfortably until he died of congestion of the lungs.
+Uncle Orme at that time was in feeble health, and unable to
+contribute toward our maintenance, and soon after father's death he
+went out to California to the mining region. I was about ten years
+old when he left, and recollect him as a pale, thin, delicate man.
+In those days it cost a good deal of money to reach the gold mines,
+and this alone prevented him from taking us with him.
+
+"We were very poor, but grandmother was foolishly, inconsistently
+proud, and though compelled to sew for our daily bread, she dressed
+me in a style incompatible with our poverty, and contrived to send me
+to school. Finally her eyes failed, and with destitution staring
+open-jawed upon us, she reluctantly consented to do the washing and
+mending for three college boys. She was well educated, and
+inordinately vain of her blood, and how this galling necessity
+humiliated her! We of course could employ no servant, and once when
+she was confined to her bed by inflammatory rheumatism, I was sent to
+the college to carry the clothes washed and ironed that week. It was
+the only time I was ever permitted to cross the campus, but it
+sufficed to wreck my life. On that luckless day I first met Cuthbert
+Laurance, then only nineteen, while I was not yet fifteen. Think of
+it, my darling; three years younger than you are now, and you a mere
+child still! While he paid me the money due, he looked at and talked
+to me. Oh, my daughter! my daughter! as I see you at this instant,
+with your violet eyes, watching me from under those slender, black
+arches, it seems the very same regular, aristocratic, beautiful face
+that met me that wretched afternoon, beneath the branching elms that
+shaded the campus! So courteous, so winning, so chivalric, so
+indescribably handsome did he present himself to my admiring eyes. I
+was young, pretty, an innocent, ignorant, foolish child, and I
+yielded to the fascination he exerted.
+
+"Day by day the charm deepened, and he sought numerous opportunities
+of seeing me again; gave me books, brought me flowers, became the
+king of my waking thoughts, the god of my dreams. In a cottage near
+us lived a widow, Mrs. Peterson; whose only child Peleg, a rough
+overgrown lad, was a journeyman carpenter, and quite skilful in
+carving wooden figures. We had grown up together, and he seemed
+particularly fond of and kind to me, rendering me many little
+services which a stalwart man can perform for a delicate petted young
+creature such as I was then.
+
+"As grandmother's infirmity increased, and her strict supervision
+relaxed, I met Cuthbert more frequently, but as yet without her
+knowledge; and gradually be won my childish heart completely. His
+father, General René Laurance, was a haughty wealthy planter residing
+in one of the Middle States, and Cuthbert was his only child, the
+pride of his heart and home. Those happy days seem a misty dream to
+me now, I have so utterly outgrown the faith that lent a glory to
+that early time. Cuthbert assured me of his affection, swore undying
+allegiance to me; and like many other silly, trusting, inexperienced,
+doomed young fools, I believed every syllable that he whispered in my
+ears.
+
+"One Sabbath when grandmother supposed I was saying my prayers in the
+church, which I had left home to attend, I stole away to our trysting
+place in a neighbouring wood, that bordered a small stream. Oh, the
+bitter fruits of that filial disobedience! The accursed harvest that
+ripened for me, that it seems I shall never have done garnering!
+Clandestine interviews concealed, because I knew prohibition would
+follow discovery! I am a melancholy monument of the sin of deception;
+and that child who deliberately snatches the reins of control from
+the hands where God decrees them, and dares substitute her will and
+judgment for those of parents or guardians, drives inevitably on to
+ruin, and will live to curse her folly. That day Peleg was fishing,
+and surprised us at the moment when Cuthbert was bending down to kiss
+me. Having heard all that passed, he waited till evening, and finding
+me in the little garden attached to our house, he savagely upbraided
+me for preferring Cuthbert's society to his, claimed me as his, by
+right of devotion; and when I spurned him indignantly, and forbade
+him to speak to me in future, he became infuriated, rushed into the
+cottage, and disclosed all that he had discovered."
+
+"I knew it! I felt assured you must always have loathed him!"
+exclaimed Regina, with kindling eyes; and catching her mother's dress
+as she passed beside her.
+
+"Why, my darling?"
+
+"Because he was coarse, brutal! When he dared to call you 'Minnie,'
+if I had been a man I would have strangled him!"
+
+Her mother kissed her, and answered sadly:
+
+"And yet he loved me infinitely better than the man for whom I
+repulsed, nay insulted him. He was poor, unpolished, but at that time
+he would have died to defend me from harm. It was reserved for his
+courtly, high-bred, elegant rival to betray the trust he won! The
+storm that followed Peleg's revelation was fierce, and availing
+herself of his jealous surveillance, grandmother allowed me no more
+stolen interviews. After a fortnight, Cuthbert came one day and
+demanded permission to see me, alleging that we were betrothed, and
+that he would give satisfactory explanations of his conduct.
+Grandmother was obdurate, but unfortunately I ventured in, and,
+seizing me in his arms, he swore that all the world should not
+separate us. To her he explained that his father desired him to marry
+an heiress who lived not far from the paternal mansion, and possessed
+immense estates, upon which the covetous eyes of the Laurances' had
+long been fixed; but until he completed his collegiate course matters
+must be delayed. He protested that he could love no one but me, and
+solemnly vowed that as soon as freed by his majority from parental
+control he would make me his wife. I was sufficiently insane to
+believe it all; but grandmother was wiser, and sternly interdicted
+his visits.
+
+"A month went by, during which Peleg persecuted me with professions
+of love, and offers of marriage. How I detested him, and by contrast
+how godlike appeared my refined, polished, proud young lover! At
+length Cuthbert wrote to me, entrusting the letter to a college chum
+Gerbert Audré, but Peleg's Argus scrutiny could not be baffled, and
+again I was detected.
+
+"Meantime grandmother's strength was evidently failing, and Uncle
+Orme was far away in western wilds; who would save me from my own
+rash folly if she should die, and leave me unprotected? This
+apprehension preyed ceaselessly on her mind, she grew morose, moody,
+tyrannical; and when finally Cuthbert came once more, forcing an
+entrance into the little cottage, and asking upon what conditions he
+might be permitted to visit me, she bluntly told him that she had
+determined to take me at all hazards to a convent, and shut me up for
+ever, unless within forty-eight hours he married me. The though of
+separation made him almost frantic, and after some discussion, it was
+arranged that we should be married very secretly in a distant town,
+with only grandmother and his room-mate André as witnesses. Our union
+would be concealed rigidly until Cuthbert had left college and
+attained his majority, which was then nearly two years distant; at
+which time he would enter upon the possession of a certain amount of
+property left by his mother. An approaching recess of several days,
+which would enable him to absent himself without exciting suspicion,
+was selected as an auspicious occasion for the consummation we all so
+ardently desired, and very quietly the preliminary steps were taken.
+
+"By what stratagem or fraud a license was obtained, I never learned,
+and was too ignorant and unsuspicious to question or understand the
+forms essential to legality. One stormy night we were driven across
+the country to a railway station, hurried aboard the train, and next
+morning reached the town of V----. At the parsonage you know so well
+we found Mr. Hargrove, who appeared very reluctant to accede to our
+wishes. I was only fifteen, a simple-hearted child, and Cuthbert,
+though well grown, was too youthful to assume the duties of the
+position for which he presented himself as candidate. The faithful,
+prudent pastor expostulated, and declared himself unwilling to bind a
+pair of children by ties so solemn and indissoluble; but the license
+was triumphantly exhibited as a release from ministerial
+responsibility, and grandmother urged in extenuation that in the
+event of her death I would be thrown helpless upon the world, and she
+as my sole surviving protector and guardian desired to see me
+entitled to a husband's care and shelter.
+
+"At last, with an earnest protest, the conscientious man consented,
+and standing before him that sunny morning, in the presence of God,
+and of grandmother and Mr. Audré, Cuthbert Laurance and Minnie Merle
+were solemnly married! Oh, my daughter! when I think of that day, and
+its violated vows--when I remember what I was, and contrast the
+Minnie Merle of my girlhood with the blasted, wretched ruin that I
+am, my brain reels, my veins run fire!"
+
+She clasped her palms across her forehead and moaned, as the deluge
+of bitter recollections overflowed her.
+
+Tears were stealing down Regina's cheeks, as she watched the anguish
+she felt powerless to relieve, and she began to realize the depth of
+woe that had blackened all her past.
+
+"He promised to love, honour, cherish me, as long as life lasted, and
+Mr. Hargrove pronounced me his wife, and blessed me. How dared we
+expect a blessing! Cuthbert knew that he was defying, outraging his
+father's wishes, and I had earned my title by deception and
+disobedience. God help all those who build their hopes upon the
+treacherous sands of human constancy. Mr. Hargrove laid his hand upon
+my head, and said in a strangely warning tone, I might have known was
+prophetic: 'Mrs. Laurance, you are the youngest wife I ever saw, you
+are not fit to be out of the nursery; but I trust this union will not
+fulfil my forebodings, that the result will sanction my most
+reluctant performance of this hallowed ceremony.'
+
+"How supremely happy I was! How unutterably proud of my handsome
+tender husband! I do not know whether even then he truly loved me, or
+if he merely intended me as a pretty toy to amuse him during the
+tedium of college sessions; I only remember my delirious delight, my
+boundless exultation. We returned home, and Cuthbert resumed his
+college studies, but through the co-operation of his room-mate, he
+spent much of his time in our cottage. Peleg became troublesome, and
+invidious reports were set afloat. I am not aware whether grandmother
+had always intended to publish the marriage as soon as consummated,
+or whether her breach of faith sprang from some facts she
+subsequently discovered; but certainly she distrusted Cuthbert's
+sincerity of purpose, and taking Peleg into her confidence,
+despatched him to inform General Laurance of all that had occurred.
+From that hour Peleg Peterson became my most implacable and
+dangerous foe.
+
+"Dreaming of no danger, Cuthbert and I had spent but three weeks of
+wedded happiness, when, without premonition, the sun of my joy was
+suddenly blotted out. A letter arrived, speedily followed by a
+telegram summoning him to the bedside of his father, who was
+dangerously ill. Oh, fool that I was! I fancied heaven designed to
+remove a cruel parent, and thus obliterate all obstacles to the
+completion of my bliss. What blind dolts young people are! Cuthbert
+was restless, suspicious, unwilling to leave me, or appeared so, and
+when we parted, he took me in his arms, kissed away my tears,
+implored heaven to watch over his bride, his treasure, his wife; and
+swore that at the earliest possible moment he would hold 'darling
+Minnie' to his heart once more. Turn away your face, Regina, for it
+too vividly, too intolerably recalls his image as he stood bidding me
+farewell; his glossy black hair clinging in rings around his white
+brow, his magnetic blue eyes gazing tenderly into mine! Oh, the
+wonderful charm of that beautiful treacherous face! Oh, husband of my
+love I father of my innocent baby!"
+
+She threw herself into a corner of the sofa, and the dry sob that
+shook her frame told how keen was the torture. Regina followed,
+kneeling in front of her, burying her face in her mother's dress.
+
+"I saw him enter the carriage and drive away, and thirteen years
+passed before I looked upon him again. Of course the reported illness
+was a mere ruse to lull his apprehensions. His father received him
+with a hurricane of reproaches, threats, maledictions. He taunted,
+jeered  him with  having  been hoodwinked, cajoled, outwitted by a
+'wily old washwoman,' who had inveigled him into a disgraceful
+misalliance in order to betray him, to fasten upon and devour his
+wealth. One letter only I received  from Cuthbert, denouncing
+grandmother's treachery, and announcing his father's rage and threats
+to disinherit and disown him if he did not repudiate the marriage,
+which he stated was invalid on account of his son's minority. He
+wrote that he would be compelled for the present to accede to his
+father's wishes, since for nearly two years at least he was wholly
+dependent on his bounty; but assured me that on the day when he could
+claim his inheritance from his mother he would acknowledge his
+marriage at all hazards, and proclaim me his wife. That letter, the
+first and last I ever received from my husband, you can read at your
+leisure. Three days after it was dated, he and his father sailed for
+Europe, and he has never returned to America.
+
+"Although it was a cruel blow to all my brilliant anticipations, I
+did not even then dream of the fate designed for me. I loved on,
+trusted on, hoped--oh, how sanguinely! My pride was piqued at General
+Laurance's haughty, supercilious scorn of my birth and blood, and I
+determined to fit myself for the proud niche I would one day fill as
+Cuthbert's wife. My grandmother spoke French fluently, it was her
+vernacular; and my father had left some valuable and choice books. To
+these I turned with avidity, prosecuting my studies with renewed
+zest. About three months after my husband left me, Uncle Orme sent
+money to defray our expenses to California. Grandmother who foreboded
+the future, told me I had been sacrificed, abandoned, repudiated, and
+urged me to accompany her. In return, I indignantly refused, charging
+her with having fired the temple of my happiness, by the brand of her
+betrayal of the secret. Recriminations followed, we parted in anger
+and she left me, to join Uncle Orme; but not before acquainting me
+with the startling fact that Peleg Peterson had declared his
+determination to annul the marriage by furnishing infamous testimony
+against my character.
+
+"After her departure a man who acted as agent for General Laurance
+called to negotiate for a separation, advising me to make the best
+terms in my power, as it was useless for me to attempt to cope with
+General Laurance, who would mercilessly crush me if necessary, by the
+publication of disgraceful slanders which my 'old lover Peleg
+Peterson' had sworn to prove in open court. He offered me five
+thousand dollars and my passage to San Francisco, on condition of my
+renouncing all claim to the hand and name of Cuthbert Laurance. My
+husband he assured me had reached his father's house in a state of
+intoxication; and had since become convinced of my unworthiness, and
+of the necessity of severing for ever all connection with me. Not for
+an instant did I credit him. It seemed a vile machination, and I
+scornfully rejected all overtures for separation, proclaiming my
+resolution to assert and maintain my rights as a lawful wife. It was
+open war, and how they derided my proud demand for recognition!
+
+"Mr. Audré left college the week after Cuthbert was called so
+unexpectedly away, and disappeared; and grandmother died suddenly
+with rheumatism of the heart, when only a few miles distant from the
+harbour of her destination. Peleg audaciously proposed that we should
+ignore the empty worthless marriage ceremony, accept the Laurance
+bribe, and go away to the far west, where we might begin life anew.
+He told me my husband believed me unworthy, that he had convinced him
+I would dishonour his noble name, and that my reputation was at his
+own mercy. In my amazement and horror I defied him, dared him to do
+his worst; and recklessly he accepted the rash challenge. Leaving no
+clue (as I imagined), I secretly quitted the village, where gossip
+was busy with my name, and went to New York. My scanty means rapidly
+melted away, and I hired myself as a seamstress in a wealthy family.
+Not even at this stage of affairs did I lose faith in my husband, and
+bravely I confronted the knowledge that at no distant period I should
+be forced to provide for a helpless infant.
+
+"One day, in going down a steep flight of steps, with a heavy waiter
+in my hands, I missed my footing, fell, and was picked up senseless
+on the tiled floor at the foot of the stairs. A physician living near
+was called in, and as I was only the seamstress, the information he
+gave my employer induced her to send me immediately to the hospital
+for pauper women. One of my ankles was fractured, and the day after
+my admission to the hospital you were born prematurely. In a ward of
+that hospital, surrounded by strange but kind sympathetic faces, you,
+my darling, opened your blue eyes, unwelcomed by a father's love,
+unnoticed by your wretched mother; for I was delirious for many days,
+and you were three weeks old when first I knew you were my baby. Ah,
+my daughter! why did not a merciful God order us both out of the
+world then, before it persecuted and bruised us so cruelly? I have
+wished a thousand times that you had died before I ever recognized
+you as mine!"
+
+"Oh, mother, mother, pity me! Do not reproach me with the life I owe
+to you."
+
+Regina's features writhed, and, pressing her face closer against her
+mother's knee, she sobbed unrestrainedly:
+
+"My darling, blessings often come so thoroughly disguised that we
+brand them as curses, learning later that they garner all our earthly
+hopes, sometimes our heavenly; and when I look at you now, my soul
+yearns over you with a love too deep for utterance. I know that you
+were born to avenge your wrongs and mine, to aid by your baby fingers
+in lifting the load of injustice and libel that has so long borne me
+down. You are the one solitary comfort in all the wide earth, and but
+for you I should have given up the struggle long ago."
+
+Softly she stroked the silky hair and tearful cheek, and leaning back
+continued:
+
+"While I was still an inmate of the hospital, where I was known as
+Minnie Merle, Peleg Peterson found me, and proclaimed himself your
+father. He was partly intoxicated at the time, and was forcibly
+ejected; but the excitement of that dastardly horrible charge threw
+me into a relapse, and I was dangerously ill. Lying beside me on my
+cot, I watched your little face, through the slow hours of
+convalescence, and your tiny hands seemed to strengthen me for the
+labour that beckoned me back to life. For your dear sake I must brave
+the future. To one of the noble-hearted gentle Sisters of Charity who
+visited the hospital and ministered like an angel of mercy to you and
+me, I told enough of my history to explain my presence there, and
+through her influence when I was strong enough to work, I was placed
+in a position where I was permitted to keep you with me for a year. I
+knew that my only safety lay in hiding for a time from my enemy, and
+destroying all trace of my departure from the hospital, I assumed the
+name of Odille Orphia Orme, which had belonged to a sister of my
+grandmother.
+
+"I was not sixteen when you were born, and, having had my head shaved
+during my illness, my hair grew out the bright gold you see it now,
+instead of the dark brown it had hitherto been. A strange freak of
+nature, but a providential aid to the disguise I wished to maintain.
+I wrote to Cuthbert, informing him of your birth, praying his speedy
+return, but no reply came; and again and again I repeated the
+petition. At length I was answered by the return of all my letters,
+without a line of comment. Then I began to suspect what was in store
+for me, but it threatened to drive me wild; and I shut my eyes and
+refused to think, set my teeth, and hoped, hoped still. The two years
+had almost expired, and when Cuthbert was of age he would fly to his
+wife and child, solacing them for all they had endured. I could not
+afford to doubt; that way lay madness!
+
+"When you were fourteen months old, I put you in an Orphan Asylum,
+where I could see you often, and took a situation as upper maid and
+seamstress in a fashionable family on Fifth Avenue. My duties were
+light, my employers were considerate and kind, and the young ladies,
+observing my desire to improve myself, gave me the privileges of the
+library, which was well selected and extensive. They were very
+cultivated, elegant people, and I listened to their conversation,
+observed their deportment, and modelled my manners after the example
+they furnished. I was so anxious to astonish Cuthbert by my grace and
+intelligence, when he presented me to his father, and I exulted in
+the thought that even he might one day be proud of his son's wife.
+
+"How I struggled and toiled, sowing by day, reading, studying by
+night. Finding Racine, Euripides, and Shakespeare in the library, I
+perused them carefully, and accidentally I discovered my talent. The
+ladies of the house on one occasion had private theatricals, and the
+play was one with which I chanced to be familiar. At the last
+rehearsal, on the night of the play, one of the young ladies was
+suddenly seized with such violent giddiness, that she was unable to
+appear in the character she personated, and in the dilemma I was
+summoned. So successful was my performance that I saw the new path
+opening before me, and began to fit myself for it. I gave every spare
+moment to dramatic studies, and was progressing rapidly when all hope
+was crushed.
+
+"Cuthbert's birthday came; days, weeks, months rolled by, and I wrote
+one more passionate prayer for recognition; pleading that at least
+he would allow me to see him once again, that he would just once look
+at the lovely face of his child; then if he disowned both wife and
+child we would ask him no more. How I counted the weeks that crawled
+away! how fondly I still hoped that now, being of age and free, he
+would fulfil his promise!
+
+"You were two years and a half old, and I went one Sunday to visit
+you.
+
+"How well I recollect your appearance on that fatal day! Your bare
+pearly feet gleaming on the floor over which I guided your uncertain
+steps, as you tottered along clinging to my finger, your dimpled neck
+and arms displayed by the white muslin slip my hands had fashioned,
+your jetty hair curling thick and close over your round head, your
+small milk-white teeth sparkling through your open lips, as your
+large soft violet eyes laughed up in my face!--so glad you were to
+see me! You had never seemed so lovely before, and I knelt down and
+hugged you, my darling. I kissed your dainty feet and hands, your
+lips and eyes so like Cuthbert's, and I know as I caressed you my
+heart swelled with the fond pride that only mothers can understand
+and feel, and I whispered, 'Papa's baby! Papa's own darling!
+Cuthbert's baby!'
+
+"It was harder than usual to quit you that day; you clung to me,
+nestled close to me, stole your little hand into my bosom, and
+finally fell asleep. When I laid you softly down in your low
+truckle-bed, the tears would come and hang on my lashes, and while
+I lingered, passing my hand over your dear pretty feet, I determined
+that if Cuthbert did not come, or write very soon, I would take you
+and go in search of him. What man could shut his arms and heart
+against such a lovely babe who owed him her being?
+
+"It was late when I got home, and the lady with whom I lived sent for
+me in great haste. Guests had unexpectedly come from a distance,
+dinner must be served, and the butler had been called away
+inopportunely to one of his children, who had been terribly scalded.
+Could I oblige her by consenting to serve the visitors at table? She
+was a good mistress to me, and of course I did not hesitate. One of
+the guests was a nephew of the host, and recently returned from
+Europe, as I learned from the conversation. When the desert was being
+set upon the table, he said: 'No, I rather liked him; none are
+perfect, and he has sowed his wild oats, and settled down. Marriage
+is a strong social anchor, and his bride is a very heavy-looking
+woman, though enormously rich, I hear. It is said that his father
+manoeuvred the match, for Cuthbert liked being fancy free.'
+
+"The name startled me, and the master of the house asked, 'Of whom
+are you speaking?' 'Cuthbert Laurance and his recent marriage with
+Abbie Ames the banker's daughter. My mistress pulled my dress and
+directed me to bring a bottle of champagne from the side table. I
+stood like a stone, and she repeated the command. As I lifted the
+wine and started back, the stranger added: 'Here is an account of the
+wedding; quite a brilliant affair, and as I witnessed the nuptials I
+can testify the description is not exaggerated. They were married in
+Paris, and General Laurance presented the bride with a beautiful set
+of diamonds.' The bottle fell with a crash, and in the confusion I
+tottered toward the butler's pantry and sank down insensible.
+
+"Oh, the awful, intolerable agony that has been my portion ever
+since! Do you wonder that Laurance is a synonym for all that is
+cruel, wicked? Is it strange that at times I loath the sight of your
+face, which mocks me with the assurance that you are his as well as
+mine? Oh, most unfortunate child! cursed with the fatal beauty of him
+who wrecked your mother's life, and denies you even his infamous
+name!"
+
+She sprang up, broke away from her daughter's arms, and resumed her
+walk.
+
+"After that day I was a different woman, hard, bitter, relentless,
+desperate. In the room of hope reigned hate, and I dedicated the
+future to revenge. I had heard Mr. Palma's name mentioned as the most
+promising lawyer at the bar, and though he was a young man then, he
+inspired all who knew him with confidence and respect. Withholding
+only my husband's name, I gave him my history, and sought legal
+advice. A suit would result in the foul and fatal aspersion, which
+Peleg was waiting to pour like an inky stream upon my character, and
+we ascertained that he was in the pay of the Laurances, and would
+testify according to their wishes and purposes. There was no proof of
+my marriage, unless Mr. Hargrove had preserved the license, the
+record of which had been destroyed by the burning of the court-house.
+Where were the witnesses? Grandmother was dead, and it was rumoured
+Mr. Audré had perished in a fishing excursion off the Labrador coast.
+
+"Mr. Palma advised me to wait, to patiently watch for an opportunity,
+pledging himself to do all that legal skill could effect; and nobly
+he has redeemed his promise to the desolate, friendless,
+broken-hearted woman who appealed to him for aid.
+
+"I succeeded after several repulses, in securing a very humble
+position in one of the small theatres, where I officiated first with
+scissors and needle, in fitting costumes and in various other menial
+employments; studying ceaselessly all the while to prepare myself for
+the stage. The manager became interested, encouraged me, tested me at
+rehearsals, and at last after an arduous struggle, I made my _début_
+at the benefit of one of the stock actors. My name was adroitly
+whispered about, one or two mysterious paragraphs were published at
+the expense of the actor, and so--curiosity gave me an audience and
+an opportunity.
+
+"That night seemed the crisis of my destiny; if I failed, what would
+become of my baby? Already, my love, you were my supreme thought. But
+I did not, my face was a great success; my acting was pronounced
+wonderful by the dramatic critic to whom the beneficiary sent a
+complimentary ticket, and after that evening I had no difficulty in
+securing an engagement that proved very successful.
+
+"A year after I learned that Cuthbert had married a second time, I
+went to V---- to see Mr. Hargrove, and obtain possession of my
+license. The good man only gave me a copy, to which he added his
+certificate of the solemnization of my marriage; but he sympathized
+very deeply with my unhappy condition, and promised in any emergency
+to befriend you, my darling. A few hours after I left the parsonage
+it was entered and robbed, and the license he refused me was stolen.
+Long afterward I learned he suspected me."
+
+Here Regina narrated her discovery of the mysterious facts connected
+with the loss of the paper, and her first knowledge of Peleg
+Peterson. As she explained the occurrences that succeeded the storm,
+Mrs. Orme almost scowled, and resumed:
+
+"He has been the _bête noire_ of my ill-starred life, but even his
+malice has been satiated at last. Anxious to shield you from the
+possibility of danger, and from all contaminating influences and
+association, I carried you to a distant convent; the same with which
+grandmother had threatened me, and placed you under the sacred shadow
+of the Nuns' protection. Then, assured of your safety and that your
+education would not be neglected, I devoted myself completely to my
+profession. From city to city I wandered in quest of fame and money,
+both so essential to the accomplishment of my scheme; a scheme that
+goaded me sleeping and waking, leaving no moment of repose.
+
+"One night in Chicago, having overtaxed my strength, I fainted on the
+street, _en route_ from the theatre, and while my servant fled for
+assistance, I was found by Mr. and Mrs. Waul, and taken to their
+home. Their kind hearts warmed toward me, and no parents could have
+been more tenderly watchful than they have proved ever since. They
+supplied a need of protection, of which I was growing painfully
+conscious, and I engaged them to travel with me.
+
+"Once I took three days out of my busy life, and visited the old
+family homestead of General Laurance. The owner was in Europe, the
+house closed; but, standing unnoticed under the venerable oaks that
+formed the avenue of approach to the ancestral halls of my husband, I
+looked at the stately pile and the broad fields that surrounded it,
+and called upon Heaven to spare me long enough to see my child the
+regnant heiress of all that proud domain. There I vowed that cost
+what it might, I would accomplish my revenge, would place you there
+as owner of that noble inheritance.
+
+"Through Mr. Palma's inquiries concerning the records, I ascertained
+that this property had been settled upon Cuthbert on the week of his
+second marriage. You were ten years old when I determined to go to
+Europe and consummate my plan. Peleg had disappeared, and I knew that
+the other agent of the Laurances had lost all trace of me. You were
+so grieved because I left for Europe without bidding you good-bye!
+Ah, my sweet child! You never knew that it was the hardest trial of
+my life to put the ocean between us, and that I was too cowardly to
+witness your distress at the separation that was so uncertain in
+duration.
+
+"Could I have gone without the sight of my precious baby? I reached
+the convent about dusk, and informed the sisters that I deemed it
+best to transfer you to the guardianship of two gentlemen, one of
+whom would come and take you away the ensuing week. Through a crevice
+of the dormitory door I watched you undress, envied the gentle nun
+who gathered up your long hair and tied over it the little white
+ruffled muslin cap; and when you knelt by your small curtained bed,
+and repeated your evening prayers, adding a special petition that
+'_Heavenly Father would bless dear mother, and keep her safe_,' I
+stifled my sobs in my handkerchief. When you were asleep I crept in
+on tiptoe, and while Sister Angela held the lamp, I drew aside the
+curtain and looked at you. How the sweet face of my baby stirred all
+the tenderness that was left in my embittered nature! As you
+slumbered, you threw your feet outside the cover, and murmured in
+your musical childish babble something indistinct about 'mother, and
+our Blessed Lady.'
+
+"My heart yearned over you, but I could not bear the thought of
+hearing your peculiarly plaintive wailing cry, which always pierced
+my soul so painfully, and I softly kissed your feet and hurried away.
+Come, put your arms around my neck, and kiss me, my lovely
+fatherless child!"
+
+For some seconds Mrs. Orme held her in a warm embrace. "There sit
+down. Little remains to be told, but how bitter! Here in Paris, while
+playing 'Amy Robsart,' I saw once more, after the lapse of thirteen
+years, the man who had so contemptuously repudiated me. Regina, if
+ever you are so unfortunate, so deluded, as to deeply and sincerely
+love any man, and live to know that you are forgotten, that another
+woman wears the name and receives the caresses that once made heaven
+in your heart, then, and only then, can you realize what I suffered,
+while looking at Cuthbert, with that other creature at his side,
+acknowledged his wife! I thought I had petrified, had ceased to feel
+aught but loathing and hate, but ah! the agony of that intolerable,
+that maddening sight! Ask God for a shroud and coffin, rather than
+endure what I suffered that night!"
+
+She was too much engrossed by her mournful retrospective task, to
+observe the deadly pallor that overspread Regina's face, as the girl
+rested her head on the arm of the sofa and passed her fingers across
+her eyes, striving to veil the image of one beyond the broad
+Atlantic's sweep and roar.
+
+"At last I began to taste the sweet poison of my revenge. Cuthbert
+did not suspect my identity, but he was strangely fascinated by my
+face and acting. Openly indifferent to the woman with whom his father
+had linked him, and provided with no conscientious scruples, he
+audaciously expressed his admiration, and contrived an interview to
+commence his advances. He avowed sentiments disloyal to the heiress
+who wore his name and jewels, and insulting to me had I been what he
+supposed me, merely Odille Orme a pretty actress. I repulsed and
+derided him, forbidding him my presence; and none can appreciate the
+exquisite delight it afforded me to humiliate and torture him. When
+it was a crime in the sight of man, he really began to love the
+woman, who--in God's sight--was his own lawful wife; and his
+punishment was slowly approaching.
+
+"My health gave way under the unnatural pressure of acting evening
+after evening, with his handsome magnetic face watching every
+feature, every inflection of my voice. I was ordered to rest in
+Italy, and when I learned I should there meet General Laurance, I
+consented to go. Before leaving Paris, I saw the only child of that
+hideous iniquitous sham marriage; and, darling, when I contrasted
+you, my own pure pearl, with the deformed, dwarfish, repulsive
+daughter, whom the Nemesis of my wrongs gave to Cuthbert, in little
+Maud Laurance, I almost shouted aloud in my great exultation. You so
+beautiful, with his own lineaments in every feature, disowned for
+that misshapen, imbecile heiress of his proud name. Oh, mills of the
+Gods! how delicious the slow music of their grinding!
+
+"Thus far, my daughter, I have shown you all your mother's wretched
+past, and now I shrink from the last blotted pages. Hitherto my
+record was blameless, but even now take care how you judge the
+mother, who if she has gone astray did it for you, all for you. For
+some time I had known that Cuthbert was living in reckless
+extravagance, that the affairs of the father-in-law were dangerously
+involved, and that without his own father's knowledge Cuthbert had
+borrowed large sums in London and Paris, securing the loans by
+mortgages on his real estate in America; especially the elegant
+homestead, preserved for several generations in his family. Employing
+two shrewd Hebrew brokers, I by degrees bought up those mortgages,
+straining every effort to effect the purchase.
+
+"When I reached Milan, I sat one night pondering what was most
+expedient. It was apparent that in a suit for and publication of my
+real title and rights, I should be defeated by the disgrace hurled
+upon me; and to subject the Laurances to the humiliation of a court
+scandal would poorly indemnify me for the horrible stain which
+Peterson's foul claim would entail upon your innocent but premature
+birth. My health was feeble, consumption threatened my lungs, and Mr.
+Palma urged me to attempt no legal redress for my injuries. I could
+not die without one more struggle to see you lighted, clothed with
+your lawful name.
+
+"My daughter, my darling, let all my love for you plead vehemently in
+my defence, when I tell you that for your dear sake I made a
+desperate, an awful, a sickening resolve. General Laurance was
+infatuated by my beauty, which has been as fatal to his house as his
+name to me. Like many handsome old men, he was inordinately vain, and
+imagined himself irresistible; and when he persecuted me with
+attentions that might have compromised a woman less prudent and
+prudish than I bore myself, I determined to force him to an offer of
+his hand, to marry him."
+
+With a sharp cry Regina sprang up.
+
+"Mother, not him! Not my father's father!"
+
+"Yes, René Laurance, my husband's father."
+
+With a gesture of horror the girl groaned and covered her white
+convulsed face.
+
+"Mother! Could my mother commit such a loathsome, awful crime against
+God, and nature?"
+
+"It was for your sake, my darling!" cried Mrs. Orme, wringing her
+hands, as she saw the shudder with which her child repulsed her.
+
+"For my sake that you stained you dear pure hands! For my sake that
+you steeped your soul in guilt that even brutal savages abhor, and
+loaded your name and memory with infamy! In his desertion my father
+sinned against me, and freely because he is my father I could
+forgive him; but you, the immaculate mother of my lifelong worship,
+you who have reigned white-souled and angelic over all my hopes, my
+aspirations, my love and reverence, oh, mother! mother, you have
+doubly wronged me! The disgrace of your unnatural and heinous crime I
+can never, never pardon!"
+
+With averted head she stood apart, a  pitiable picture of misery,
+that could find no adequate expression.
+
+"My baby, my love, my precious daughter!"
+
+Ah the pleading pathos of that marvellous voice which had swayed at
+will the emotions of vast audiences, as soft fitful zephyrs stir and
+bow the tender grasses in quiet meadows! Slowly the girl turned
+around, and reluctantly looked at the beloved beautiful face, tearful
+yet smiling, beaming with such passionate tenderness upon her.
+
+Mrs. Orme opened her arms, and Regina sprang forward, sinking on her
+knees at her mother's feet, clinging to her dress.
+
+"You could not smile upon me so, with that sin soiling your soul! Oh,
+mother, say you did it not!"
+
+"God had mercy, and saved me from it."
+
+"Let us praise and serve Him for ever, in thanksgiving," sobbed the
+daughter.
+
+"I see now that my punishment would have been unendurable, for I
+should have lost the one true, pure heart that clings to me. How do
+mothers face their retribution, I wonder, when they disgrace their
+innocent little ones, and see shame and horror and aversion in the
+soft faces that slept upon their bosoms, and once looked in adoration
+at the heaven of their eyes? Even in this life the pangs of the lost
+must seize all such.
+
+"I did not marry General Laurance, though I entertained the purpose
+of a merely nominal union, and he acceded to my conditions, signing
+a marriage contract to adopt you, give you his name, settled upon you
+all his remaining fortune, except the real estate which I knew he had
+transferred to his son. I think my intense hate and thirst for
+vengeance temporarily maddened me; for certainly had I been quite
+sane I should never have forced myself to hang upon the verge of such
+an odious gulf. I was tempted by the prospect of making you the real
+heiress of the Laurance name and wealth, and of beggaring Cuthbert,
+his so-called wife and crippled child, by displaying the mortgage I
+held; and which will yet sweep them to penury, for the banker has
+failed, and Abbie Ames is penniless as Minnie Merle once was.
+
+"While I floated down the dark stream to ruin, a blessed interposing
+hand arrested me. Mr. Palma wrote that at last a glorious day of hope
+dawned on my weary, starless night. Gerbert Audré was alive and
+anxious to testify to the validity of my marriage, and the perfect
+sanity and sobriety of Cuthbert when it was solemnized (his father
+was prepared to plead that he was insane from intoxication when he
+was inveigled into the ceremony); and oh, better, best of all, my
+persecutor had relented! Peleg swore that his assertions regarding my
+character were untrue, were prompted by malice, stimulated by
+Laurance gold. Having been arrested by Mr. Palma and carried before a
+magistrate, he had written and signed a noble vindication of me. To
+you he avows I owe his tardy recantation and complete justification
+of my past; and you will find among those papers his letter to me
+upon this subject.
+
+"My daughter, what do we not owe to Erle Palma? God bless
+him--now--and for ever! And may the dearest, fondest wishes of his
+heart be fulfilled as completely as have been his promises to me."
+
+Regina's face was shrouded by her mother's dress, but thinking of
+Mrs. Carew, she sank lower at Mrs. Orme's feet, knowing that her sad
+heart could not echo that prayer.
+
+"As yet my identity has not been suspected, but the end is at hand,
+and I am about to break the vials of wrath upon their heads. Mr.
+Palma only waits to hear from me to bring suit against Cuthbert for
+desertion and bigamy, and against René Laurance, the arch-demon of my
+luckless carried life, for wilful slander, premeditated defamation of
+character. My lawful unstained wife-hood will be established, your
+spotless birth and lineage triumphantly proclaimed; and I shall see
+my own darling, my Regina Laurance, reigning as mistress in the halls
+of her ancestors. To confront you with your father and grandfather, I
+have called you to Paris, and when I have talked with Uncle Orme,
+whose step I hear, I shall be able to tell you definitely of the hour
+when the thunderbolt will be hurled into the camp of our enemies.
+Kiss me good-night. God bless my child."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+
+After a sleepless night, Cuthbert Laurance sat in dressing gown and
+slippers before the table, on which was arranged his breakfast. In
+his right hand he held, partly lifted, the cup of coffee; upon the
+left he rested his head, seeming abstracted, oblivious of the dainty
+dishes that invited his attention.
+
+The graceful _insouciance_ of the Sybarite had vanished, and though
+the thirty-seven years of his life had dealt very gently with his
+manly beauty, leaving few lines about his womanishly fair brow, he
+seemed to-day gravely preoccupied, anxious, and depressed. Pushing
+back his chair, he sat for some time in a profound and evidently
+painful reverie, and when his father came in, and closed the door
+behind him, the cloud of apprehension deepened.
+
+"Good-morning, Cuthbert, I must compliment you on your early hours.
+How is Maud?"
+
+"I have not seen her this morning. Victorine usually takes her out at
+this time of the day. I hope after a night's reflection and rest, you
+feel disposed to afford me more comfort than you extended last
+evening. The fact is, unless you come forward and help me, I shall be
+utterly ruined."
+
+General Laurance lighted his cigar, and, standing before his son,
+answered coldly:
+
+"I beg you to recollect that my resources are not quite
+inexhaustible, and last year when I gave that Chicago property to
+you, I explained the necessity of curbing your reckless extravagance.
+Were I possessed of Rothschild's income, it would not suffice to keep
+upon his feet a man who sells himself to the Devil of the gaming
+table, and entertains with the prodigality of a crown prince. I never
+dreamed until last night that the real estate at home is encumbered
+by mortgages, and it will be an everlasting shame if the homestead
+should be sacrificed; but I can do no more for you. This failure of
+Ames is a disgraceful affair, and I understand soils his
+reputation--past all hope of purification. How long does Abbie expect
+to remain in Nice? It does not look well, I can tell you, that she
+should go off and leave Maud with her _bonne_."
+
+"Oh! for that matter, Maud is better off here, where she can be seen
+regularly by the physician, and Victorine knows much better what to
+do for her than her mother. Abbie is perfectly acquainted with the
+change in her father's and in my own affairs, and I should suppose
+she would have returned immediately after the receipt of the
+intelligence, especially as I informed her that we should be
+compelled to return to America."
+
+"I shall telegraph her to come back at once, for I hear that she is
+leading a very gay life at Nice, and that her conduct is not wholly
+compatible with her duties as a wife and mother."
+
+An expression of subdued scorn passed over Cuthbert's face, as he
+answered sarcastically:
+
+"Probably your influence may avail to hasten her return. As for her
+peculiar views, and way of conducting herself, I imagine it is rather
+too late for you to indulge in fastidious carpings, as you selected
+and presented her to me as a suitable bride, particularly acceptable
+to you for a daughter-in-law.
+
+"When men live as you have done since your marriage, it is scarcely
+surprising that wives should emulate their lax example. You have
+never disguised your indifference as a husband."
+
+"No, sir. When I made merchandise of my hand, I deemed that sacrifice
+sufficient, and have never pretended to include my heart in the
+bargain. But why deal in recrimination? Past mistakes are
+irremediable, and it behooves me to consider only the future. Were it
+not for poor Maud, I really should care very little, but her
+helplessness appeals to me now more forcibly than all other
+considerations. You say, sir, that you cannot help me--why not? At
+this crisis a few shares of stock, and some of those sterling bonds
+would enable me to pay off my pressing personal debts; and I could
+get away from Paris with less annoying notoriety and scandal, which
+above all things I abhor. I only ask the means of retiring from my
+associations here without disgrace, and once safely out of France I
+shall care little for the future. You certainly cannot consent to see
+me stranded here, where my position and _menage_ have been so proud?"
+
+General Laurance puffed vigorously at his cigar for some seconds,
+then tossed it down, put his hands in his pockets, and said abruptly:
+
+"When I told you last night that I could not help you, I meant it.
+The stocks and bonds you require have already been otherwise
+appropriated. I daresay, Cuthbert, you will be astonished at what I
+am about to communicate, but whatever your opinion of the step I have
+determined to take, I request in advance, that you will refrain from
+any disagreeable comments. For thirty-seven years I have devoted
+myself to the promotion of your interest and happiness, and you must
+admit you have often sorely tried my patience. If you have at last
+made shipwreck of your favourable financial prospects, it is no
+longer in my power to set you afloat again. Cuthbert, I am on the eve
+of assuming new responsibilities that require all the means your
+luxurious mode of living has left me. I am going to marry again."
+
+"To marry again! Are you approaching your dotage?"
+
+The son had risen, and his handsome face was full of undisguised
+scorn, as his eyes rested on his father's haughty and offended
+countenance.
+
+"Whatever your dissatisfaction, you will be wise in repressing it at
+least in your remarks to me. I am no longer young, but am very far
+from senility; and finding no harmony in your household, no peaceful
+fireside where I can spend the residue of my days in quiet, I have
+finally consulted the dictates of my own heart, and am prompted by
+the hope of great happiness with the woman whom I sincerely love--to
+marry her. Under these circumstances you can readily appreciate my
+inability to transfer the stocks, which it appears you have relied
+upon to float you out of this financial storm."
+
+Cuthbert bowed profoundly, and answered contemptuously:
+
+"They have, I presume, already been transferred in the form of a
+marriage contract? Pardon me, sir; but may I inquire whom you design
+to fill my mother's place?"
+
+"I expect within a few days to present to you as my wife the
+loveliest woman in all Europe, one as noble, refined, modest, and
+delicate as she is everywhere conceded to be beautiful,--the
+celebrated Madame Odille Orme."
+
+An unconquerable embarrassment caused his eyes to wander from his
+son's face as he pronounced the name, else he would have discovered
+the start, the pallor with which the intelligence was received.
+Cuthbert turned and stood at the window, with his back to his father,
+and the convulsive movement of his features attested the profound
+pain which the announcement caused.
+
+"Madame Orme is not an ordinary actress, and has always maintained a
+reputation quite rare among those of her profession. I have carefully
+studied her character, think I have seen it sufficiently tested to
+satisfy even my fastidious standard of female propriety and decorum;
+and knowing how proudly and jealously I guard my honour and my name,
+you may rest assured I have not risked anything in committing both to
+the keeping of this woman, to whom I am very deeply and tenderly
+attached. She told me she had met you once. How did she impress you?"
+
+It cost him a strong effort to answer composedly.
+
+"She certainly is the most beautiful woman I have seen in Europe."
+
+"Ah! and sweet as she is lovely! My son, do not diminish my happiness
+by unkind thoughts and expressions, which would result in our
+estrangement. No father could have devoted himself more assiduously
+to a child than I have done to you, and in my old age, if this
+marriage brings me so much delight and comfort, have I not earned the
+right to consider my own happiness? It is quite natural that you
+should be surprised, and to some extent chagrined at my determination
+to settle a portion of my property upon a new claimant for my love
+and protection; but I hope, for the sake of all concerned, you will
+at least indulge in no harsh or disrespectful remarks. I have been
+requested to invite you to accompany me to the Theatre to-night to
+witness Madame Orme's farewell to the stage, in a drama of her own
+composition. After this evening she appears no more in public, and at
+the close of the play she desires that we shall meet her at her
+hotel. I trust you will courteously fulfil the engagement I have made
+for you, as I assured her she might expect us both."
+
+He lighted a fresh cigar, and drew on his gloves.
+
+Cuthbert hastily snatched a glass of water from the stand near him,
+and laying his hand on the bolt of the door leading to his sleeping
+room, looked over his shoulder at his father.
+
+The face of the son was whitened and sharpened by acute suffering,
+and his blue eyes flushed with a peculiarly cold sarcastic light as
+he exclaimed bitterly:
+
+"That General Laurance should so far forget the aristocratic
+associations and memories of the past, as to wrap his ambitious name
+around the person and character of a pretty _coulisse_ queen,
+certainly surprises his son, in whom he would never have forgiven
+such a _mésalliance_; but _chacun à son gout!_ Permit me, sir, to
+hope that my father may display the same infallible judgment in
+selecting a bride for himself that he so successfully manifested in
+the choice of one for his son; and the sincere wish of my heart is,
+that your wedded life may prove quite as rose-coloured and blissful
+as mine."
+
+He bowed low, and disappeared; and after a few turns up and down the
+room, during which he smoothed his ruffled brow, rejoicing that the
+announcement had been made, General Laurance went down to his
+carriage, and was driven to the hotel, where he hoped to find Mrs.
+Orme.
+
+For several days after the narration of her history to Regina, the
+mother had seen comparatively little of her child, her time being
+engrossed by numerous rehearsals and the supervision of some scene
+painting, which she considered essential to the success of the play.
+
+Only on the morning of the day appointed for its presentation, did
+Regina learn that in "Infelice" her mother had merely written and
+dramatically arranged an accurate history of her own eventful life.
+By this startling method she had long designed to acquaint General
+Laurance and his son with her real name, and the play had been very
+carefully cast and prepared; but Regina heard with deep pain and
+humiliation of the vindictive nature of the surprise arranged, and
+eloquently plead that the sacred past should not be profaned by
+casting it before the public for criticism.
+
+Mr. Chesley earnestly seconded her entreaties that even now a change
+of programme might be effected, but Mrs. Orme sternly adhered to her
+purpose, declared it was too late for alteration, and that she would
+not consent to forfeit the delight of the vengeance, which alone
+sweetened the future, neither would she permit her daughter to absent
+herself. A box had been secured where, screened from observation,
+Regina and Mr. Chesley could not only witness the play, but watch the
+two men whose box was opposite.
+
+When General Laurance called and sent up a basket of choice and
+costly flowers, begging for a moment's interview, Mrs. Orme sent down
+in reply a tiny perfumed note, stating that she was then hurrying to
+the last rehearsal, which it was absolutely necessary she should
+attend; and requesting that after the close of the play General
+Laurance and his son would do her the honour to take supper at her
+hotel, where she would give him a final and very definite answer with
+regard to their nuptials. While he read the _billet_ and was
+pencilling a second appeal for the privilege of escorting her to the
+rehearsal, she ran lightly downstairs, sprang into a carriage, and
+eluded him.
+
+Left in possession of all the records relative to her mother's
+history, and furnished for the first time with a printed copy of
+"Infelice," Regina spent a melancholy day in her own room. Among the
+papers she found her father's letter, promising to claim his wife as
+soon as he attained his majority; and as she noted the elegant
+chirography and glanced from the letter to the ambrotype which
+represented Cuthbert as he looked at the period of his marriage, a
+strangely tender new feeling welled up in her heart, dimming her eyes
+with unshed tears.
+
+It was her father's face upon which she looked, and something in
+those proud high-bred features plead for him to the soul of his
+child. True he had disowned them, but could that face deliberately
+hide premeditated treachery? Might there not be some defence, some
+extenuating circumstance, that would lessen his crime?
+
+Suddenly she sprang up and began to array herself in a walking suit.
+She would go and see her father, learn what had induced his cruel
+course, and perhaps some mistake might be discovered and corrected.
+She knew that this step would subject her to her mother's
+displeasure, but just then the girl's heart was hardened against
+her, in consequence of her persistency in dramatizing a record which
+the daughter deemed too mournfully solemn and sacred for the
+desecration of the boards and footlights.
+
+Grieved and mortified by this resolution, over which her passionate
+invective and persuasion exerted not the slightest influence, she
+availed herself of the absence of her mother and Mrs. Waul to leave
+the hotel and get into a carriage.
+
+The Directory supplied her with the address she sought, and ere many
+moments she found herself in front of the stately, palatial pile, in
+which Cuthbert Laurance had long dwelt Desiring to see Mr. Laurance
+on business, she was shown into the elegant salon, and when the
+servant returned to say that he had left the house but a few minutes
+before she entered, she still lingered.
+
+"Can I see Mrs. Laurance?"
+
+"Madame is at Nice. Only Mademoiselle Maud is at home."
+
+At that instant a side door opened, and a stout, middle-aged woman
+pushed before her into the room a low chair placed on wheels, in
+which sat Maud. At sight of the stranger, Victorine turned to retreat
+with her charge, but Regina made a quick gesture to detain her, and
+went to the spot where the chair rested.
+
+Maud sat with her lap full of violets and mignonette, which she was
+trying to weave into a bouquet, but arrested in her occupation, her
+weird black eyes looked wonderingly on the visitor. How vividly they
+contrasted, the slender, symmetrical figure of Regina, her perfect
+face and graceful bearing, with the swarthy, sallow, dwarfed, and
+helpless Maud! As the former looked at the melancholy features,
+prematurely aged by suffering, a well of pity gushed in her heart,
+and she bent down and took one of the thin hands from which the
+flowers were slipping unnoticed.
+
+"Is this little Maud?"
+
+"My name is Maud Ames Laurance. What is your name? Why, you are just
+like papa! Do you know my papa?"
+
+"No, dear; but I shall some day. I should very much like to know
+you."
+
+"You look so much like papa. You may kiss me if you like."
+
+She turned her sallow cheek for the salute, and Victorine said:
+
+"Is mademoiselle a relative? You are quite the image of Mr.
+Laurance."
+
+"Do you think so? Where can I find General Laurance? Does he reside
+here?"
+
+"Oh no! He never has lived with us. Grandpapa was here this morning,
+but we were out in the park. Will you have some flowers? Your eyes
+just match my violets! So like papa's."
+
+Regina gazed sorrowfully at the afflicted figure, and holding those
+thin, hot fingers in hers, she silently determined that if possible
+the impending blow should be warded off from this pitiable little
+sufferer.
+
+"Did you come to see me?" queried Maud.
+
+"No, I called to see your papa--on some business, and I am sorry he
+is absent. Before long I shall come and see you, and we will make
+bouquets and have a pleasant time. Good-bye, Maud."
+
+Remembering that she was her half-sister, Regina lightly kissed the
+hollow cheek of the invalid.
+
+"Good-bye. I shall ask papa where you got his eyes; for they are my
+papa's lovely eyes."
+
+"Has mademoiselle left her card with Jean?" asked Victorine, whose
+curiosity was thoroughly aroused.
+
+"I have not one with me."
+
+"Then be pleased to give me your name."
+
+"No matter now. I will come again, and then you and Maud shall learn
+my name."
+
+She hastened out of the room, and when she reached her mother's
+lodgings, met her uncle pacing the floor of the reception-room.
+
+"Regina, where have you been? You are top total a stranger here to
+venture out alone, and I beg that you will not repeat the imprudence.
+I have been really uneasy about your mysterious absence."
+
+"Uncle Orme, I wanted to see my father, and I went to his home."
+
+She threw her hat upon the sofa, and sighed heavily.
+
+"My dear child, Minnie will never forgive your premature disclosure!"
+
+"I made none, because he was not at home. Oh, uncle, I saw something
+that made my heart turn sick with pity. I saw that poor little
+deformed girl, Maud Laurance, and it seems to me her haggard face,
+her utter wretchedness and helplessness would melt a heart of steel!
+I longed to take the poor forlorn creature in my arms, and cry over
+her; and I tell you, Uncle Orme, I will not be a party to her ruin
+and disgrace! I will not, I will not! I am strong and healthy, and
+God has given me many talents, and raised up dear friends, you uncle,
+the dearest of all, after mother; but what has that unfortunate
+cripple? Nothing but her father (for she has been deserted by her
+mother), and only her father's name. Do you think I could see her
+beggared, reduced to poverty that really pinched, in order that I
+might usurp her place as the Laurance heiress? Never."
+
+"My dear girl, the usurpation is on their part, not yours. The name
+and inheritance is lawfully yours, and the attainment of these rights
+for you has sustained poor Minnie through her sad, arduous career."
+
+"Abstract right is not the only thing to be considered at such a
+juncture as this. Suppose I could change places with that poor little
+deformed creature, would you not think it cruel, nay wicked, to turn
+me all helpless and forlorn out of a comfortable home, into the cold
+world of want, a nameless waif. Uncle, I know what it is to be
+fatherless and nameless! All of that bitterness and humiliation has
+been mine for years, but now that my heart is at rest concerning my
+parentage, now that _I_ know there is no blemish on mother's past
+record, I care little for what the world may think, and much, much
+more, what that poor girl would suffer. To-day, when I looked at her
+useless feet and shrunken hands and deep hollow eyes, I seemed to
+hear a voice from far Judean hills: '_Bear ye one another's
+burdens_;' and, Uncle Orme, I am willing to bear Maud's burden to the
+end of my life. My shoulders have become accustomed to the load they
+have carried for over seventeen years, and I will not shift it to
+poor Maud's. I am strong, she is pitiably feeble. I have never known
+the blessing of a father's love, have learned to do without it; she
+has no other comfort, no other balm, and I will not rob her of the
+little God has left her. I understand how mother feels, I cannot
+blame her; and while I know that her care and anxiety in this matter
+are chiefly on my account, I could never respect, never forgive
+myself, if to promote my own importance or interest I selfishly
+consented to beggar poor Maud. She cannot live long; death has set a
+shadowy mark already upon her weird eyes, and until they close in the
+peace of the grave let us leave her the name she seems so proud of.
+She pronounced it Maud Ames Laurance, as though it were a royal
+title. Let her bear it. I can wait."
+
+As Mr. Chesley watched the pale gem-like face, with its soft holy
+eyes full of a resolution which he knew all the world could not
+shake, a sudden mist blurred her image, and taking her hand, he
+kissed her forehead.
+
+"My noble child, if the golden rule you seek to practise were in
+universal acceptation and actualization, injustice, fraud, and crime
+would overturn the bulwarks of morality and decency. When men violate
+the laws of God and man as Cuthbert Laurance certainly has done, even
+religion as well as justice requires that his crime should be
+punished; although in nearly all such instances the innocent suffer
+for the sins of the guilty. Your mother owes it to you, to me, to
+herself, to society, to demand recognition of her legal rights; and
+though I do not approve all that she proposes (at least, the manner
+of its accomplishment), I cannot censure her; and you, dear child,
+for whose sake she has borne so much, should pause before you judge
+her harshly."
+
+"God forbid that I should! But oh, uncle! it seems to me something
+dreadful, sacrilegious, to act over before a multitude of strangers
+those mournful miserable events that ought to be kept sacred. The
+thought of being present is very painful to me."
+
+"None but General Laurance and his son will dream that it is more
+than a mere romance. None but they can possibly recognize the scenes,
+and the audience cannot suspect that Minnie is acting her own
+history. When a suit is instituted, it will probably result in a
+recognition of the marriage, and thereupon a large alimony will be
+granted to your mother, who will at once apply for a divorce. In the
+present condition of their financial affairs this cannot fail to
+beggar the Laurances, for I had a cable despatch this morning from
+Mr. Palma, intimating that the stock panic had grievously crippled
+several of General Laurance's best investments. This news will be
+delightful to Minnie, but I see it distresses you. Now, Regina,
+regnant, listen to me. Have no controversy with your mother; she is
+just now in no mood to bear it, and I want no distrust to grow up
+between you. Whether you wish it or not, she will establish her
+claim, and she is right in doing so. Now I wish to make a contract
+with you. Keep quiet, and if we find that the Laurances will really
+be reduced to want, I will supply you with the funds necessary to
+provide a comfortable home for them, and you shall give it to your
+father and little Maud. Minnie must not know of the matter, she would
+never forgive us, and neither can I consent that your father should
+consider me as his friend. But all that I have, my sweet girl, is
+yours, and Laurance may feel indebted to his own repudiated child for
+the gift. It is a bargain?"
+
+"Oh, Uncle Orme! how good and generous you are! No wonder my heart
+warmed to you the first time I ever saw you! How I love and thank
+you, my own noble uncle! You have no idea how earnestly I long for
+the time when you and mother and I can settle down together in a
+quiet home somewhere, shut out from the world that has used us all so
+hardly, and safe in our love, and confidence for and in each other."
+
+She had thrown her arms around his neck, and pressing her head
+against his shoulder, looked at him with eyes full of hope and
+happiness.
+
+"I am afraid, my dear girl, that as soon as our imaginary Eden is
+arranged satisfactorily, the dove that gives it peace and purity will
+be enticed away, caged in a more brilliant mansion. You will love
+Minnie and me very much I daresay until some lover steals between us
+and lures you away."
+
+She hid her countenance against his shoulder, and her words impressed
+him as singularly solemn and mournful.
+
+"I shall have no lover. I shall make it the aim and study of all my
+future life to love only God, mother, and you. My hope of happiness
+centres in the one word Home! We all three have felt the bitter want
+of one, and I desire to make ours that serene, holy ideal Home of
+which I have so long dreamed: 'We will bear our Penates with us;
+their atrium, the heart. Our household gods are the memories of our
+childhood, the recollections of the hearth round which we gathered;
+of the fostering hands which caressed us, of the scene of all the
+joys, anxieties, and hopes, the ineffable yearnings of love, which
+made us first acquainted with the mystery and the sanctity of home.'
+Such a home, dear uncle, let us fashion, somewhere in sight of the
+blue Pacific; and into its sacred rest no lover shall come."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+
+Mrs. Orme had carefully instructed Mrs. Waul concerning the details
+of her daughter's _toilette_, and selected certain articles which she
+desired her to wear; but Regina saw her mother no more that day, and
+late in the afternoon, when she knocked at the door, soliciting
+admission, for a moment only, the mother answered from within:
+
+"No; my child would only unnerve me now, and there is too much at
+stake. Uncle Orme understands all that I wish done to-night."
+
+Regina heard the quick restless tread across the floor, betraying the
+extreme agitation that prevailed in her mind and heart; and
+sorrowfully the girl went back to her uncle, in whose society she
+daily found increasing balm and comfort.
+
+The theatre was crowded when Mr. Chesley and Regina entered their
+box; and though the latter had several times attended the opera in
+New York, the elegance and brilliance of the surrounding scene
+surpassed all that she had hitherto witnessed. Mrs. Orme had created
+a profound impression by her earlier _rôles_ at this theatre, and the
+sudden termination of her engagement by the illness that succeeded
+her extraordinarily pathetic and touching "Katherine," had aroused
+much sympathy, stimulated curiosity and interest; consequently her
+reappearance in a new play, of whose plot no hint had yet been made
+public, sufficed to fill the house at an early hour.
+
+Soon after their entrance, Mr. Chesley laid his hand on his
+companion's and whispered:
+
+"Will you promise to be very calm and self-controlled, if I show you
+your father?"
+
+He felt her hand grow cold, and in reply she merely pressed his
+fingers.
+
+"When I hold the curtain slightly aside, look into the second box
+immediately opposite, where two gentlemen are sitting. They are your
+father and grandfather."
+
+She leaned and looked, and how eagerly, how yearningly her eyes dwelt
+upon the handsome face which still closely resembled the Cuthbert of
+college days, and the ambrotype she had studied so carefully since
+her arrival in Paris.
+
+As she watched her breathing became rapid, laboured, her eyes filled,
+her face quivered uncontrollably, and she half rose from her seat,
+but Mr. Chesley held her back, and dropped the curtain.
+
+"Oh, uncle! How handsome, how refined, how noble-looking! Poor
+darling mother! how could she help giving him her heart? In all my
+dreams and fancies, I never even hoped to find him such a man! My
+father, my father!"
+
+She trembled so violently that Mr. Chesley said hastily:
+
+"Compose yourself, or I shall be forced to take you home, and your
+mother will be displeased; for she particularly desired that I would
+watch the effect of the play on those two men opposite."
+
+She leaned back, shut her eyes, and bravely endeavoured to conquer
+her agitation, and luckily at this moment the stage-curtain rose.
+
+By the aid of photographs procured in America, and by dint of
+personal supervision and suggestions, Mrs. Orme had successfully
+arranged the exact reproduction of certain localities: the
+college--the campus--the humble cottage of old Mrs. Chesley with its
+peculiar porch, whose column caps were carved to represent dogs'
+heads--the interior of a hospital, of an orphan asylum, and of the
+library at the parsonage.
+
+Leaning far back in his chair, a prey to gloomy and indescribably
+bitter reflections, as he accustomed himself to the contemplation of
+the fact that the beautiful woman in whom his own fickle wayward
+heart had become earnestly interested, would sell herself to the
+grey-bearded man beside him, Cuthbert gnawed his silky moustache;
+while his father watched with feverish impatience for the opening of
+the play, and the sight of his enchantress.
+
+The curtain rose upon a group sitting on the sward before the cottage
+door. Minnie Merle in the costume of a very young girl, with her
+golden hair all hidden under a thick wig of dark curling locks, that
+straggled in childish disorder around her neck and shoulders, while
+her sun-bonnet, the veritable green and white gingham of other days,
+lay at her feet. Beside her a tall youth, who represented Peleg
+Peterson, in the garb of a carpenter, with a tool-box on the ground,
+and in his hands a wooden doll, which he was carving for the child.
+
+In the door of the cottage sat the grandmother knitting and nodding,
+with white hair shining under her snowy cap-border; and while the
+carpenter carved and whistled an old-fashioned ditty, "Meet me by
+moonlight alone," the girl in a quavering voice attempted to
+accompany him.
+
+Minnie sat with her countenance turned fully to the audience, and
+when Cuthbert Laurance's eyes fell on the cottage front, and upon
+the face under that cloud of dark elfish locks, he caught his breath,
+and his eyes seemed almost starting from their sockets. His hand fell
+heavily on his father's knee, and he groaned audibly.
+
+General Laurance turned and whispered:
+
+"For God's sake, what is the matter? Are you ill?"
+
+There was no answer from the son, who tightened his clutch upon the
+old man's knee, and watched breathlessly what was passing on the
+stage.
+
+The scene was shifted, and now the whole façade of the college rose
+before him, with a pretty picture in the foreground; a tall handsome
+student, leaning against the trunk of an ancient elm, and talking to
+the girl who sat on the turf, with a basket of freshly-ironed shirts
+resting on the grass beside her. The identical straw hat, which
+Cuthbert had left behind him when summoned home, was upon the
+student's head, and as the timid shrinking girl glanced up shyly at
+her companion, Cuthbert Laurance almost hissed in his father's ear:
+"Great God! It is Minnie herself!"
+
+General Laurance loosened the curtain next the audience, and as the
+folds swept down, concealing somewhat the figure of his son, he
+whispered:
+
+"What do you mean? Are you drunk, or mad?"
+
+Cuthbert grasped his father's hand, and murmured:
+
+"Don't you know the college? That is Minnie yonder!"
+
+"Minnie? My son, what ails you? Go home, you are ill."
+
+"I tell you, that is Minnie Merle, so surely as there is a God above
+us. Mrs. Orme--is Minnie--my Minnie! My wife! She has dramatized her
+own life!"
+
+"Impossible, Cuthbert! You are delirious--insane. You are----"
+
+"That woman yonder is my wife! Now I understand why such strange
+sweet memories thrilled me when I saw her first in 'Amy Robsart.' The
+golden hair disguised her. Oh, father!"
+
+The blank dismay in General Laurance's countenance was succeeded by
+an expression of dread, and as he looked from his son's blanched
+convulsed face to that of the actress under the arching elms of the
+campus, the horrible truth flashed upon him like a lurid glimpse of
+Hades. He struck his hand against his forehead, and his grizzled head
+sank on his bosom. All that had formerly perplexed him was hideously
+apparent, startlingly clear; and he saw the abyss to which she had
+lured him, and understood the motives that had prompted her.
+
+After some moments he pushed his seat back beyond the range of
+observation from the audience, and beckoned his son to follow his
+example, but Cuthbert stood leaning upon the back of his chair, with
+eyes riveted on the play.
+
+The courtship, the clandestine meetings, the interview in which Peleg
+intruded upon the lovers, the revelation to the grandmother, were
+accurately delineated, and in each scene the girl grew taller, by
+some arrangement of the skirts, which were at first very short, while
+she appeared in a sitting posture.
+
+When the secret marriage was decided upon, and the party left the
+cottage by night, Cuthbert turned, rested one hand on his father's
+shoulder, and as the scene changed to the quiet parsonage, he pressed
+heavily, and muttered:
+
+"Even the very dress that she wore that day! And--there is the black
+agate! On her hand--where I put it! Don't you know it? How she turns
+it!"
+
+In the tableau of the marriage ceremony she had taken her position
+with reference to the locality of the box, and as near it as
+possible, and in the glare of the footlights the ring was clearly
+revealed.
+
+Lifting his lorgnette, General Laurance inspected the white hand he
+had once kissed so rapturously, and by the aid of the lenses he
+recognized the costly ring, the valued heirloom, for the recovery of
+which he had offered five hundred dollars. Had he still cherished a
+shadowy hope that Cuthbert was suffering from some fearful delusion,
+the sight of that singular and fatal ring utterly overthrew the last
+lingering vestige of doubt. Stunned, miserable, dimly foreboding some
+overwhelming _dénouement_, he sat in stony stillness, knowing that
+this was but the prelude to some dire catastrophe.
+
+When the telegram, arrived and the young husband took his bride in
+his arms, the girlish face was lifted, and the passionate gleam of
+the dilating brown eyes sent a strange thrill to the hearts of both
+father and son. Vowing to return very soon and claim her, the husband
+tore himself away, and as he vanished through a side door near the
+box, Minnie followed, stretched out her arms, and looking up full at
+its two tenants she breathed her wild passionate prayer which rang
+with indescribable pathos through that vast building:
+
+"My husband! My husband--do not forsake me!"
+
+Cuthbert put his hand over his eyes, and but for the voices on the
+stage his shuddering groan would have been heard outside the box. In
+the scene where Peleg's advances were indignantly repulsed, and his
+threats to unleash the bloodhounds of slander, hunting her to infamy,
+were fully developed, Cuthbert seemed to rouse himself from his
+stupor and a different expression crossed his features.
+
+Skilfully the part played by General Laurance in bribing Peleg, and
+returning the letters of the wretched wife, the disgraceful threats,
+the offers to buy up and cancel her conjugal claims, were all
+presented.
+
+When the grandmother departed, and the child-wife secretly made her
+way to New York, seeking service that would secure her bread, and
+still hopeful of her husband's return, Cuthbert grasped his father's
+arm and hissed in his ear:
+
+"You deceived me! You told me she went with that villain to
+California to hide her disgrace!"
+
+Cowed and powerless, the old man sat, recognizing the faithful
+portraiture of his own dark schemes in those early days of the
+trouble, and growing numb with a vague prophetic dread that the
+foundations of the world were crumbling away.
+
+His son suddenly drew his chair a little forward and sat down, his
+elbow on his knee, his head on his hand; his gaze fixed on the woman
+who had contrived to reproduce even the fall that caused her removal
+to the hospital.
+
+The ensuing scene represented the young mother, sitting on a cot in
+the hospital, with a babe lying across her knees, and the storm of
+horror, hate, and defiance with which she spurned Peleg from her,
+calling on heaven to defend her and her baby, and denouncing the
+treachery of General Laurance who had bribed Peterson to insult and
+defame her.
+
+As he was dragged from the apartment, vowing that neither she nor her
+child should be permitted to enjoy the name to which they were
+entitled, the feeble woman, shorn of her brown locks, and wearing a
+close cap, lifted her infant, and with streaming eyes implored heaven
+to defend it and its hapless mother from cruel persecution.
+
+In the wonderful power with which she proclaimed her deathless
+loyalty to the husband of her love, and her conviction that God would
+interpose to shield his helpless child, the audience recognized the
+fervour and pathos of the rendition, and the applause that greeted
+her, as she bowed sobbing over her baby, told how the hearts of her
+hearers thrilled.
+
+The curtain fell, and Cuthbert's eyes, gleaming like steel, turned to
+his father's countenance.
+
+"Is that true? Dare you deny it?"
+
+The old man only stared blankly at the carpet on the floor, and his
+son's fingers closed like a vice around his arm.
+
+"You have practised an infernal imposture upon me! You told me she
+followed him, and that the child was his."
+
+"He said so."
+
+General Laurance's voice was husky, and a grey hue had settled upon
+his features.
+
+"You paid him to proclaim the base falsehood! You whom I trusted so
+fully. Father, where is my child?"
+
+No answer; and the curtain rose on the fair young mother, came
+forward with her own golden hair in full splendour.
+
+Involuntarily the audience testified their recognition of the
+beautiful actress who now appeared for the first time, looking as
+when she made her _début_ long ago in Paris. She was at the asylum,
+with a young child clinging to her finger, tottering at her side, and
+as she guided its steps, and hushed it in her arms, many mothers
+among the spectators felt the tears rush to their eyes.
+
+Walking with the infant cradled on her bosom, she passed twice across
+the stage, then paused beneath the box, and murmured:
+
+"Papa's baby--Papa's own precious baby!" and her splendid eyes humid
+with tears looked full, straight into those of her husband.
+
+It was the first time they had met during the evening, and something
+she saw in that quivering face made her heart ache with the old
+numbing agony. Cuthbert could scarcely restrain himself from leaping
+down upon the stage and clasping her in his arms; but she moved away,
+and the sorely smitten husband bowed his face in his hand, luckily
+shielded from public view by the position in which he sat.
+
+The dinner scene ensued, and the abrupt announcement of the second
+marriage. The anguish and despair of the repudiated wife were
+portrayed with a vividness, a marvellous eloquence and passionate
+fervour that surpassed all former exhibitions of her genius, and the
+people rose, and applauded, as audiences sometimes do, when the
+magnetic wave rolls from the heart and brain on the stage to those of
+the men and women who watch and listen completely _en rapport_.
+
+The life of the actress began, the struggle to provide for her child,
+the constant care to elude discovery, the application for legal
+advice, the statement of her helplessness, the attempt to secure the
+license; all were represented, and at last the meeting with her
+husband in the theatre.
+
+Gradually the pathos melted away, she was the stern relentless
+outraged wife, intent only upon revenge. She spared not even the
+interview in which the faithless husband sought her presence; and as
+Cuthbert watched her, repeating the sentences that had so galled his
+pride, he asked himself how he had failed to recognize his own wife?
+
+In the meeting with the child of the second marriage, her wild
+exultation, her impassioned invocation of Nemesis, was one of the
+most effective passages in the drama; and it caused a shiver to creep
+like a serpent over the body of the father, who pitied so tenderly
+the afflicted Maud.
+
+As the scheme of saying her own daughter, by sacrificing herself in a
+nominal marriage with the man whom she hated and loathed so
+intensely, developed itself, a perceptible chill fell upon the
+audience; the unnaturalness of the crime asserted itself.
+
+While she rendered almost literally the interviews at Pozzuoli and at
+Naples, Cuthbert glanced at his father, and saw a purplish flush
+steal from neck to forehead, but the old man's eyes never quitted the
+floor. He seemed incapable of moving, Gorgonized by the beautiful
+Medusa whose invectives against him were scathing, terrible.
+
+As the play approached its close and the preparation for the
+marriage, even the details of the settlement were narrated, suspense
+reached its acme. Then came the letters of reprieve, the deliverance
+from the bondage of Peterson's vindictive malice, the power of
+establishing her claim; and when she wept her thanksgiving for
+salvation, many wept in sympathy; while Regina, borne away in
+breathless admiration of her mother's wonderful genius, sobbed
+unrestrainedly.
+
+When the letters of Peterson and of the lawyer were read, mapping the
+line of prosecution for the recovery of the wife's rights, the father
+slowly raised his eyes, and, looking drearily at his son, muttered:
+
+"It is all over with us, Cuthbert. She has won; we are ruined. Let us
+go home."
+
+He attempted to rise, but with a glare of mingled wrath and scorn his
+son held him back.
+
+The last scene was reached; the triumphant vindication of wife and
+child, the condemnation of the two who had conspired to defraud them,
+the foreclosure of the mortgages, the penury of the proud
+aristocrats, and the disgrace that overwhelmed them.
+
+Finally the second wife and afflicted child came to crave leniency,
+and the husband and the father pleaded for pardon; but with a
+malediction upon the house that caused her wretchedness, the
+broken-hearted woman retreated to the palatial home she had at last
+secured, and under its upas shadow died in the arms of her daughter.
+
+Her play contained many passages which afforded her scope for the
+manifestation of her extraordinary power, and at its close the people
+would not depart until she had appeared in acknowledgment of their
+plaudits.
+
+Brilliantly beautiful she looked, with the glittering light of
+triumph in her large mesmeric eyes, a rich glow mantling her cheeks,
+and rouging her lips; while in heavy folds the black velvet robe
+swept around her queenly figure. How stately, elegant, unapproachable
+she seemed to the man who leaned forward, gazing with all his heart
+in his eyes upon the wife of his youth, the only woman he had ever
+really loved, now his most implacable foe!
+
+The audience dispersed, and Cuthbert and his father sat like those
+old Roman Senators, awaiting the breaking of the wave of savage
+vengeance that was rolling in upon them.
+
+At length General Laurance struggled to his feet, and mechanically
+quitted the theatre, followed by his son. Reaching the carriage, they
+entered, and Cuthbert ordered the coachman to drive to Mrs. Orme's
+hotel.
+
+"Not now! For God's sake, not to-night," groaned the old man.
+
+"To-night, before another hour, this awful imposture must be
+confessed, and reparation offered. I sinned against Minnie, but not
+premeditatedly. You deceived me. You made me believe her the foul,
+guilty thing you wished her. You intercepted her letters, you never
+let me know that I had a child neglected and forsaken; and, father,
+God may forgive you, but I never can. My proud, lovely Minnie! My own
+wife!"
+
+Cuthbert buried his face in his hands, and his strong frame shook as
+he pictured what might have been, contrasting it with the hideous
+reality of his loveless and miserable marriage with the banker's
+daughter, who threatened him with social disgrace.
+
+During that drive General Laurance felt that he was approaching some
+offended and avenging Fury, that he was drifting down to ruin,
+powerless to lift his hand and stay even for an instant the fatal
+descent; that he was gradually petrifying, and things seemed vague
+and intangible.
+
+When they reached the hotel, they were ushered into the salon already
+brilliantly lighted as if in expectation of their arrival. Cuthbert
+paced the floor; his father sank into a chair, resting his hands on
+the top of his cane.
+
+After a little while, a silk curtain at the lower end of the room was
+lifted, and Mrs. Orme came slowly forward. How her lustrous eyes
+gleamed as she stood in the centre of the apartment, scorn, triumph,
+hate, all struggling for mastery in her lovely face.
+
+"Gentlemen, you have read the handwriting on the wall. Do you come
+for defiance, or capitulation?"
+
+General Laurance lifted his head, but instantly dropped it on his
+bosom; he seemed to have aged suddenly, prematurely. Cuthbert
+advanced, stood close beside the woman whose gaze intensified as he
+drew near her, and said brokenly:
+
+"Minnie, I come merely to exonerate myself before God and man. Heaven
+is my witness, that I never knew I had a child in America until
+to-night, that until to-night I believed you were in California
+living as the wife of that base villain Peterson, who wrote
+announcing himself your accepted lover. From the day I kissed you
+good-bye at the cottage, I never received a line, a word, a message
+from you. When I doubted my father's and Peterson's statements
+concerning you, and wrote two letters, one to the President of the
+college, one to a resident professor, seeking some information of
+your whereabouts, in order at least to visit you once more, when I
+became twenty-one, both answered me that you had forfeited your fair
+name, had been forsaken by your grandmother, and had gone away from
+the village accompanied by Peterson, who was regarded as your
+favoured lover. I ceased to doubt, I believed you false. I knew no
+better until to-night. Father, my honour demands that the truth be
+spoken at last. Will you corroborate my statement?"
+
+Pale and proud, he stood erect, and she saw that a consciousness of
+rectitude at least in purpose, sustained him.
+
+"Mrs. Orme----" began General Laurance.
+
+"Away with such shams and masks! Mrs. Orme died on the theatrical
+boards to-night, and henceforth the world knows me as Minnie
+Laurance! Ah! by the grace of God! Minnie Laurance!"
+
+She laughed derisively, and held up her fair slender hand, exhibiting
+the black agate with its grinning skull lighted by the glow of the
+large radiant diamonds.
+
+"Minnie, I never dreamed you were his wife; oh, my God! how horrible
+it all is!"
+
+He seemed bewildered, and his son exclaimed:
+
+"Who is responsible for the separation from my wife? You, father, or
+I?"
+
+"I did it, my son. I meant it for the best. I naturally believed you
+had been entrapped into a shameful alliance, and as any other father
+would have done, I was ready to credit the unfavourable estimate
+derived from the man Peterson. He told me that Minnie had belonged to
+him until she and her grandmother conceived the scheme of inveigling
+you into a secret marriage; and afterward he informed me of the birth
+of his child. I did not pay him to claim it, but when he pronounced
+it his, I gave him money to pay the expenses of the two whom he
+claimed to California; and I supposed until to-night that both had
+accompanied him. I did not manufacture statements, I only gladly
+credited them; and believing all that man told me, I felt justified
+in intercepting letters addressed to you by the woman whom he claimed
+as mother of his child. Madame, do not blame Cuthbert. I did it all."
+
+The abject wretchedness of his mien disconcerted her; robbed her of
+half her anticipated triumph. How could she exult in trampling upon a
+bruised worm which made no attempt to crawl from beneath her heel? He
+sat, the image of hopeless dejection, his hands crossed on the gold
+head of his cane.
+
+Mrs. Orme walked to the end of the room, lifted the curtain, and at a
+signal Regina joined her. Clasping the girl's fingers firmly she led
+her forward, and when to front of the old man, she exclaimed:
+
+"René Laurance, blood triumphs over malice, perjury, and bribery;
+whose is this child? Is she Merle, Peterson, or Laurance?"
+
+Standing before them, in a dress of some soft snowy shining fabric,
+neither silk nor crape, with white starry jasmines in her raven hair
+and upon her bosom, Regina seemed some angelic visitant sent to still
+the strife of human passions, so lovely and pure was her colourless
+face; and as General Laurance looked up at her, he rose suddenly.
+
+"Pauline Laurance, my sister; the exact, the wonderful image!
+Laurance, all Laurance, from head to foot."
+
+He dropped back into the chair, and smiled vacantly.
+
+Cuthbert sprang forward, his face all aglow, his eyes radiant, and
+eloquent.
+
+"Minnie, is this indeed _our child?_ Your daughter--and mine?"
+
+He extended his arms, but she waved him back.
+
+"Do not touch her! How dare you? This is my baby, my darling, my
+treasure. This is the helpless little one, whose wails echoed in a
+hospital ward; who came into the world cursed with the likeness of
+her father. This is the child you disowned, persecuted; this is the
+baby God gave to you and to me; but you forfeited your claim long
+years ago, and she has no father, only his name henceforth. She is
+wholly, entirely her mother's blue-eyed baby. You have your Maud."
+
+As she spoke a wealth of proud tenderness shone in her eyes, which
+rested on the lily face of her child, and at that moment how she
+gloried in her perfect loveliness.
+
+Her husband groaned, and clasped his hand over his face to conceal
+the agony that was intolerable, and in an instant, ere the mother
+could suspect or frustrate her design, the girl broke from her hand,
+sprang forward and threw herself on Cuthbert's bosom, clasping her
+arms around his neck, and sobbing:
+
+"My father! Take me just once to your heart! Call me daughter; let
+me once in my life hear the blessed words from my own father's lips!"
+
+He strained her to his bosom, and kissed the pure face, while tears
+trickled over his cheeks and dripped down on hers. Her mother made a
+step forward to snatch her back, but at sight of his tears, of the
+close embrace in which he held her, the wife turned away, unable to
+look upon the spectacle and preserve her composure.
+
+A heavy fall startled all present, and a glance showed them General
+Laurance lying insensible on the carpet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+
+In the clear, cold analytical light which the "_Juventui Mundi_"
+pours upon the nebulous realm of Hellenic lore and Heroic legend, we
+learn that Homer knew "no destiny fighting with the gods, or unless
+in the shape of death, defying them,"--and that the "Nemesis often
+inaccurately rendered as revenge, was after all but self-judgment, or
+sense of moral law." Even in the dim Homeric dawn, Conscience found
+personification.
+
+Aroused suddenly to a realization of the wrongs and wretchedness to
+which his inordinate pride and ambition had chiefly contributed, the
+Nemesis of self-judgment had opened its grim assize in General
+Laurance's soul, and he cowered before the phantoms that stood forth
+to testify.
+
+No father of ordinary prudence and affection could have failed to
+oppose the reckless folly of his son's ill-starred marriage, or
+hesitated to save him, if compatible with God's law and human
+statutes, from the misery and humiliation it threatened to entail.
+But when he made a football of marriage vows, and became auxiliary
+to a second nuptial ceremony, striving by legal quibbles to cancel
+what only Death annuls, the hounds of Retribution leaped from their
+leash.
+
+The deepest, strongest love of his life had bloomed in the sunset
+light, wearing the mellow glory of the aftermath; and his heart clung
+to the beautiful dream of his old age, with a fierce tenacity that
+destroyed it, when rudely torn away by the awful revelations of
+"Infelice." To lose at once not only his lovely idol, but that
+darling fetich--Laurance _prestige_; to behold the total eclipse of
+his proud reputation and family name; to witness the ploughshare of
+social degradation and financial ruin driven by avenging hands over
+all he held dearest, was a doom which the vanquished old man could
+not survive.
+
+Perhaps the vital forces had already begun to yield to the disease
+that so suddenly prostrated him at Naples, dashing the cup of joy
+from his thirsty lips; and perchance the grim Kata-clothes had handed
+the worn tangled threads of existence to their faithful minister
+Paralysis, even before the severe shock that numbed him while sitting
+in the theatre _loge_.
+
+When his eyes closed upon the spectacle of his son, folding in his
+arms his firstborn, they shut out for ever the things of time and
+sense, and consciousness that forsook him then never reoccupied its
+throne. He was carried from the brilliant salon of the popular
+actress to the home of his son; medical skill exhausted its
+ingenuity, and though forty-eight hours elapsed before the weary
+heart ceased its slow feeble pulsations, General Laurance's soul
+passed to its final assize, without even a shadowy farewell
+recognition of the son, for whom he had hoped, suffered, dared so
+much.
+
+"Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and
+some men they follow after."
+
+During the week that succeeded his temporary entombment in the sacred
+repose of _Père La Chaise_, Mrs. Orme completed her brief engagement
+at the theatre where she had so dearly earned her freshest laurels;
+and though her tragic career closed in undimmed splendour, when she
+voluntarily abdicated the throne she had justly won, bidding adieu
+for ever to the scene of former triumphs, she heard above the
+plaudits of the multitude the stern whisper, "Vengeance is mine,
+saith the Lord, I will repay."
+
+The man whom she most intensely hated, and most ardently longed to
+humiliate and abase in public estimation, had escaped the punishment;
+housed from reproach by the stony walls of the tomb, mocking her
+efforts to requite the suffering he had inflicted; and the keenest
+anticipations of her vindictive purpose were foiled, vanquished.
+
+One morning, ten days after the presentation of "Infelice," Mrs. Orme
+sat listening to her daughter, who, observing her restless,
+dissatisfied manner, proposed to read aloud. Between the two had
+fallen an utter silence with reference to the past, and not an
+allusion had been made to Cuthbert Laurance since the night he had
+first held his daughter to his heart. Death had dropped like a sacred
+seal upon its memorable incidents, which all avoided; but mother and
+child seemed hourly to cling more closely to each other.
+
+To-day sitting on a low ottoman, with her arm thrown across her
+mother's knee, while the white hand wearing the black agate wandered
+now and then over her drooping head, Regina read the "_Madonna Mia_."
+
+She had not concluded the perusal, when a card was brought in, and a
+glance at her mother's countenance left her no room to doubt the name
+it bore.
+
+"After five minutes, show him in."
+
+Mrs. Orme closed her eyes, and her lips trembled.
+
+"My daughter, do you desire to be present at this last earthly
+interview?"
+
+"No, mother. My wrongs I freely forgive, I told him so, but yours I
+can never forget; and I would prefer in future not to meet him. God
+pity and comfort you both."
+
+She kissed her mother's cheek, lips, even her hands, and hastily
+retreated. As she vanished, Mrs. Orme threw herself on her knees, and
+her lips moved rapidly while she wrung her fingers; but the petition
+was inaudible, known only to the Searcher of hearts. Was it for
+strength to prosecute to the bitter end, or for grace to forgive?
+
+She placed a strong metal box on the ormolu stand near her chair, and
+had just resumed her seat when Mr. Laurance entered, and approached
+her. He was in deep mourning, and his intensely pale but composed
+face bore the chastening lines of a profound and hopeless sorrow; but
+retained the proud unflinching regard peculiar to his family.
+
+Of the two, he was most calm and self-possessed. Bowing in answer to
+the inclination of her head, he drew a chair in front of her, and
+when he sat down she saw a package of papers in his hand.
+
+"I am glad, Mrs. Laurance, that you grant me this opportunity of
+saying a few words, which after to-day I shall seek no occasion to
+repeat; for with this interview ends all intercourse between us, at
+least in this world. These papers I found in poor father's private
+desk, and I have read them. They are your notes, and the marriage
+contract, which only awaited the signature he intended to affix."
+
+She held out her hand, and a burning blush dyed her cheek, as she
+reflected on the loathsome purpose which had framed that carefully
+worded instrument.
+
+"To-day I leave Paris for America, to front, as best I may, the
+changed aspect of life. I have not yet told Abbie of the cloud of
+sorrow and humiliation that will soon break over our family circle,
+for poor little Maud has been quite ill, and I deferred my bitter
+revelation until her mother's mind is composed and clear enough to
+grasp the mournful truth. In the suit which I presume you will
+commence, as soon as I land in America, you need apprehend no effort
+on my part to elude the consequences of my own criminal folly and
+rashness. I shall attempt no defence, beyond requiring my counsel to
+state that no communication ever reached me from you; that I believed
+you the wife of another; and I shall also insist upon the reading of
+the two letters in answer to those I wrote, requesting the President
+and Professor to ascertain where you were. I was assured that a
+marriage contracted during my minority was invalid, and without due
+investigation of the statutes of the State in which it was performed
+and which had unfortunately undergone a change, I believed it. Your
+right as a wife is clear, indisputable, inalienable, and cannot be
+withheld; and the divorce you desire will inevitably be granted. I
+cannot censure your resolution, it is due to yourself, doubly due to
+your child--our child! My child! Oh! that I had known the truth
+seventeen years ago! How different your fate and mine!"
+
+She leaned back, closing her eyes, against the eloquent pleading of
+that mesmeric countenance which was slowly robbing her of her stern
+purposes; renewing the spell she had never been able to fully resist.
+
+He saw the spasm of pain that wrinkled her brow, blanched her lips;
+and gazing into the lovely face so dear to him, he exclaimed:
+
+"Minnie! Minnie! Oh, my wife! My own wife!"
+
+He sank on his knees before her, and his handsome head fell upon the
+arm of her chair. She covered her face with her hands, and a
+smothered sob broke from her tortured heart.
+
+"I have sinned, but not intentionally against you. God is my witness
+had I known all twenty oceans could not have kept me from my wife and
+my baby. When you lived it all over again that night, when I saw you
+ill, deserted, in a charity hospital, with the child you say is mine
+cradled in your arms, oh! then indeed I suffered what all the pangs
+of perdition cannot surpass. When you and I married we were but
+children, but I loved you; afterward when I was a man, I madly
+renewed those vows to one, whom I was urged, persuaded, to wed. I am
+not a villain, and I know my duties to the mother of my afflicted
+Maud, to the child of my loveless union, and I intend rigidly to
+discharge them. But, Minnie, God knows that you are my true, lawful
+wife, and I want here upon my knees, before we part for ever, to tell
+you that no other woman ever possessed my heart. I have tried to be a
+patient, kind, indulgent husband to Abbie, but when I look at you,
+and think of her, remembering that my own rash blindness shut me from
+the Eden that now seems so deliciously alluring, when I realize what
+might have been for you and me, my punishment indeed appears
+unendurable. Ah, no language can describe my feelings, as I looked at
+that noble, lovely girl. Oh the fond pride of knowing that she is
+mine as well as yours! My wife! my wife, let the holy blue eyes and
+pure lips of our baby, our daughter, plead her father's
+forgiveness----"
+
+His voice faltered. There was a deep silence. Although kneeling so
+near, he made no attempt to touch her. For fifteen years she had
+struggled against all tender memories, and every softening
+recollection had been harshly banished. She had trained herself to
+despise and hate the man who had so blackened her life at its dewy
+threshold; but the mysterious workings of a woman's heart baffle
+experience, analysis, and conjecture.
+
+Listening to the low cadence of the beloved voice that first waked
+her from the magic realm of childhood, and unsealed the fountain of
+affection, the days of their courtship stole back; the blissful hours
+of the brief honeymoon. He was her lover, her noble young husband;
+above all, he was the father of her baby; and yielding to the old
+irresistible infatuation she suddenly laid her hand upon his head. As
+yet she had not uttered a syllable since his entrance, but the
+floodgates were lifted, and he heard the despairing cry of her
+famished heart:
+
+"Oh, my husband! My husband, my own husband!"
+
+He threw his arms around her as she leaned toward him, and drew the
+head to his shoulder. So in silence they rested, and he felt that one
+arm tightened around him, as he knelt holding her to his heart.
+
+"Minnie, your true heart forgives your unworthy husband. Tell me so,
+and it will enable me to bear all that the future may contain. Say,
+Cuthbert, I forgive you."
+
+She struggled up, gazed into his eyes, and exclaimed:
+
+"No; I loved you too well, too insanely ever to forgive, had loved
+you less, I might have forgiven more. There is no meekness in my
+soul, but an intolerable bitterness that mocks and maddens me. I
+ought to despise myself, and I certainly shall, for this unpardonable
+weakness. But very precious memories unnerved me just then, and I
+clung, not to you, not to Abbie Ames' husband, but to the phantom of
+the Cuthbert whom long ago I loved so well, to the vision of the
+young bridegroom I worshipped so blindly. Let me go. Our interview is
+ended."
+
+She withdrew from his arms, and rose.
+
+"Before I go, let me see our child once more. Let me tell her that
+her father is inexpressibly proud of the daughter who will honour his
+unworthy name again."
+
+"She declines meeting you again."
+
+"Minnie, don't teach her to hate me."
+
+"I gave her the opportunity, and she made her own choice, saying she
+freely forgave the wrongs committed against her, but her mother's she
+could never forget. If I had asked of Heaven the keenest punishment
+within the range of vengeance, it seems to me none could exceed the
+wretchedness of the man who, owning my darling for his child, is yet
+debarred from her love, her reverence, her confidence, and the
+precious charm of her continual presence. My sweet, tender, perfect
+daughter! The one true heart in all the wide world that loves and
+clings to me. You forsook and disowned me, repudiated your vows,
+offered them elsewhere, making unto yourself strange new gods;
+profaning the altar, where other images should have stood. The
+banker's daughter, and the Laurance heiress she bore you, are
+entitled to what remains of your fickle selfish heart, and I trust
+that the two who supplanted my baby and me will suffice for your
+happiness in the future as in the past. Into my own and my darling's
+life you can enter no more. 'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
+reap. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?' You deem
+me relentless and vindictive? Think of all the grey, sunless, woeful
+existence I showed you behind the footlights not many nights since,
+and censure me if you can. There is no pious resignation in my proud
+soul for indeed 'there are chastisements that do not chasten; there
+are trials that do not purify, and sorrows that do not elevate; there
+are pains and privations that harden the tender heart, without
+softening the stubborn will.' Of such are the sombre wrap and woof of
+my ill-starred life. When you reach New York Mr. Erle Palma, who is
+my counsel, will acquaint you with the course he deems it best to
+pursue."
+
+She looked calm and stately as the Ludovisian Juno, and quite as
+lovely, in her pale pride.
+
+"Minnie, do not part from me in anger. Oh, my wife, let me fold you
+in my arms once more! And once, just once, I pray you, let me kiss
+you! Are you not my own?"
+
+She recoiled a step, her brown eyes lightened, and her words fell
+crisp as icicles:
+
+"Since I was a bride, three weeks a wife, since you pressed them
+last, no man's lips have touched mine. I hold them too sacred to that
+dear buried past to be submitted to a pressure less holy--to be
+profaned by those of another woman's husband. Only my daughter kisses
+my lips. Yours are soiled with perjury, and belong to the wife and
+child of your choice. Go, pay your vows, be true at last to
+something. Good-bye."
+
+He came closer, but her pitiless chill face repulsed him. Seizing her
+beautiful hand, white and cold as marble, he lifted it, but the flash
+of the diamonds smote his heart like a heavy flail.
+
+"The death's head that you gave me as a bridal token! Is there not a
+fatality even in symbols? Upon my wedding ring stands the cinerary
+urn that soon sepulchred my peace, my hopes. A mockery so exquisite
+could not have been accidental, and faithfully that grinning skeleton
+has walked with me. The ghastly coat of arms of Laurance."
+
+She had thrown off his clasp, raised her hand, and turned the ring
+over, till the jewels glowed, then it fell back nerveless at her
+side.
+
+"Minnie."
+
+His voice was broken, but her lustrous eyes betrayed no hint of pity.
+
+"My wife has no pardon for her erring husband. I have merited none,
+still I hoped for one kind farewell word from lips that are strangely
+dear to me. So be it. Tell my daughter, if her unhappy father dared
+to pray, he would invoke Heaven's choicest blessings on her young
+innocent head. And, Minnie love, let our baby's eyes and lips
+successfully plead pardon for her father's unintentional sins against
+the wife he never ceased to love."
+
+He caught the  hand once more, kissed the ring he had placed there
+eighteen years before, and, feeling his hot trembling lips upon her
+icy fingers, she shut her eyes. When she opened them--she was alone.
+
+        "We twain have met like ships upon the sea,
+         Who hold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet;--
+         One little hour! and then, away they speed,
+         On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud and foam--
+         To meet no more!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+
+From the window of one of those beautiful villas that encrust the
+shores of Como, nestling like white birds at the base of the laurel
+and vine-clad hills that lave their verdant feet in the blue waters,
+Regina watched the sunshine falling across the placid bosom of the
+lake. Far away, on the sky-line opposite, and towering above the
+intervening mountains, glittered the white fire of the snowy Alps, as
+if they longed to quench their dazzling lustre in the peaceful blue
+sleeping beneath.
+
+Luxuriant vines clambered along the hillsides, and where the latter
+had been cut in terraces, and seemed swinging like the gardens of
+Semiramis, orange, lemon, myrtle, and olive trees showed all their
+tender green and soft grey tints, and longhaired acacias waved in the
+evening air, that was redolent of the faint delicious vesper incense
+swung from the pink chalices of climbing roses.
+
+     "No tree cumbered with creepers let the sunshine through,
+      But it was caught in scarlet cups, and poured
+      From these on amber tufts of bloom, and dropped
+      Lower on azure stars."
+
+Never weary of studying the wonderful beauty of the surrounding
+scenery, Regina surrendered herself to an enjoyment that would have
+been unalloyed had not a lurking shadow cast its unwelcome chill on
+all. Mr. and Mrs. Waul had returned to America, and for a month Mrs.
+Laurance, accompanied by Mr. Chesley and Regina, had been quietly
+ensconced in this lovely villa, whose terraces and balconies
+projected almost into the water, and commanded some of the finest
+views of the lake.
+
+But anxiety had followed, taking up its dreary watch in the midst of
+that witchery which might have exorcised the haunting grey ghost of
+care; and though shrouded by every imaginable veil and garland of
+beauty, its grim presence was as fully felt as that of the
+byssus-clad mummy that played its allotted part at ancient Coptic
+feasts.
+
+The steamer in which Mr. Laurance embarked with his family for
+America had been lost in mid Atlantic; and only one boat filled with
+a portion of the passengers and crew had been rescued by a West
+Indian ship bound for Liverpool. Among the published names of the few
+survivors that of Laurance did not appear.
+
+Had old ocean mercifully opened its crystal bosom and gathered to
+coral caves and shrouding purple algae the unfortunate man, who had
+quaffed all the rosy foam beading the goblet of life, and for whom it
+only remained to drain the bitter lees of public humiliation and
+social disgrace?
+
+When Mrs. Laurance received the first intimation that Cuthbert had
+probably perished, with his wife and child, she vehemently and
+stubbornly refused her credence. It seemed impossible that envious
+death could have so utterly snatched from her grasp the triumph upon
+which her eager fingers were already closing.
+
+Causing advertisements to be inserted in various journals, and
+offering therein a reward for information of the missing passengers,
+she forbade the topic broached in her presence, and quitting Paris
+retired for a season to Lake Como, vainly seeking that coveted
+tranquillity which everywhere her own harrowing thoughts and
+ceaseless forebodings effectually murdered.
+
+As time wore on she grew gloomy, taciturn, almost morose, and a
+restlessness beyond the remedy of medicine robbed her of the power of
+sleep. To-day she clung convulsively to her daughter, unwilling that
+she should leave her even for an instant; to-morrow she would lock
+herself in, and for hours refuse admittance to any human being. The
+rich bloom forsook her cheek, deep shadows underlined her large
+melancholy eyes, and her dimpled hands became so diaphanous, so
+thin, that the black agate ring with difficulty held its place upon
+the wasted fingers.
+
+With patient loving care, Regina anticipated her wishes, indulged
+all her varying caprices, devoted herself assiduously to the task of
+diverting her mind, and comforting her heart by the tender
+ministrations of her own intense filial affection. By day she read,
+talked, sang to her. When in the tormenting still hours of night her
+mother refused the thorns of a sleepless pillow, the daughter drew
+her out upon the terrace against which the wavelets broke in a
+silvery monologue, and directed her thoughts to the glowing stars
+that clustered in the blue dome above, and shimmered in the azure
+beneath; or with an arm around the mother's waist, led her into the
+flowery garden, and up the winding walks that climbed the eminence
+behind the villa, where oleanders whitened the gloom, and passionate
+jasmines broke their rich hearts upon the dewy air; so, pacing to and
+fro, until the moon went down behind myrtle groves, and the bald brow
+of distant Alps flushed under the first kiss of day.
+
+For Mrs. Laurance, nepenthe was indeed a fable, and while she
+abstained from even an indirect allusion to the subject that absorbed
+her, the nameless anxiety that seemed consuming her, Regina and her
+uncle watched her with increasing apprehension.
+
+This afternoon she had complained of headache, and, throwing herself
+on a couch in the recess of the window that overlooked the lake,
+desired to be left alone, in the hope of falling asleep.
+
+Stooping to kiss her, Regina said:
+
+"Mother, let me sit by you, and while I fan you gently read the
+'Lotos Eaters.' The drowsy rhythm will lull you into that realm of
+rest,--
+
+            'In which it seemed always afternoon.'
+
+May I?"
+
+"No. To-day your blue eyes would stab my sleep. I will ring when I
+want you."
+
+Dropping the filmy lace curtains, in order to lessen the reflection
+from the water, Regina softly stole away, and sat down at the window
+of the salon, where satin-leaved arums and dainty pearly orchids
+embellished the consoles, and fragrant heliotrope and geraniums were
+blooming in pots clustered upon the stone balcony outside.
+
+Each day the favourite view of the lake and bending shore line, upon
+which she gazed from this spot, developed some new beauty, hidden
+hitherto under leafy laurel shadows, or behind the snowy soil of some
+fishing-boat, rocking idly upon the azure waves.
+
+Now the burden of her reflections was:
+
+"If we could only spend our lives in this marble haven, away from the
+turmoil and feverish confusion of the outside world--forgetting the
+past, contented with the society of each other--and shut in with God
+and nature, how peaceful the future would be! nay, how happy all
+might yet become!"
+
+Sympathy with her mother had forced her to put temporarily aside the
+contemplation of her own sorrow, but in secret it preyed upon her
+heart; and whenever a letter arrived, she dreaded the announcement of
+Mr. Palma's marriage.
+
+His parting allusion to a brief European visit she had by the aid of
+her fears interpreted to mean a bridal tour, curtailed by his
+business engagements; and though she never mentioned his name when it
+could be avoided, she could not hear it casually pronounced by her
+uncle or mother, without feeling her heart bound suddenly.
+
+Once, soon after her arrival in Paris, her mother, in reading a
+letter from Mr. Palma, glanced at her, and said:
+
+"Your guardian desires me to say, that in your undisguised devotion
+to Uncle Orme he presumes he is completely forgotten; but consoles
+himself with the reflection, that from time immemorial wards have
+been like the Carthaginians--proverbially ungrateful."
+
+Regina made no response, and since then she had received no message.
+
+While she sat gazing over Como, a mirage rose glistening between her
+eyes, and the emerald shore beyond: the dear familiar outlines of
+that Fifth Avenue library, the frescoed walls, polished floor, mellow
+gas lamps; and above all, the stately form, massive head, high brow,
+so like a slab of marble, and blight black eyes of the dear master.
+
+She was glad when Mr. Chesley came in, with an open book in his hand,
+and stood near her.
+
+"Is your mother asleep?"
+
+"I hope so. She sent me away that she might get a nap."
+
+"Just now I stumbled upon a passage which reminded me so vividly of
+the imaginary home you last week painted for us, somewhere along the
+Pacific shore, that I thought I would show it to you. That home,
+where you hope to indulge your bucolic tastes, your childish fondness
+for pets--doves, rabbits, pheasants--and similar rustic appendages to
+our cottage--in--the--air. Here, read it, aloud if you will."
+
+She glanced over the lines, smiled, and read:
+
+        "'Mong the green lanes of Kent stood an antique home
+         Within its orchard, rich with ruddy fruits;
+         For the full year was laughing in his prime.
+         Wealth of all flowers grew in that garden green,
+         And the old porch with its great oaken door
+         Was smothered in rose-blooms, while o'er the walls
+         The honeysuckle clung deliciously.
+         Before the door there lay a plot of grass
+         Snowed o'er with daisies,--flower by all beloved,
+         And famousest in song,--and in the midst
+         A carved fountain stood,...
+         On which a peacock perched and sunned itself;
+         Beneath, two petted rabbits, snowy white,
+         Squatted upon the sward.
+         A row of poplars darkly rose behind,
+         Around whose tops, and the old-fashioned vanes,
+         White pigeons fluttered; and over all was bent
+         The mighty sky, with sailing, sunny clouds."
+
+"Thank you, Uncle Orme. The picture is as sweet as its honeysuckle
+blooms, and some day we will frame it with California mountains, and
+call it Home. I shall only want to add a gently sloping field,
+wherein pearly short-horns stand ankle deep in clover, while my dear
+old dog Hero basks upon the doorstep; and upon the lawn,--
+
+                               'An almond tree
+         Pink with her blossom and alive with bees,
+         Standing against the azure.'"
+
+"Yonder come the letters."
+
+As he spoke, Mr. Chesley left the room, and soon after a servant
+entered with a letter addressed to Regina.
+
+It was from Olga, dated Baden-baden; and the vein of subdued yet
+hopeless melancholy that wandered through its contents, now and then
+intertwined strangely with a thread of her old grim humour.
+
+"Do you ever hear from that legal sphinx--Erle Palma? Mamma only now
+and then receives epistles fashioned after those once in vogue in
+Laconia. (I wonder if even the old toothless gossips in Sparta were
+ever laconic?) I am truly sorry for Erle Palma. That beautifully
+crystallized quartz heart of his is no doubt being ground between the
+upper and nether millstones of his love and his pride; and Hymen
+ought to charge him heavy mill-toll. My dear, _have_ you seen Elliott
+Roscoe's little tinted-paper poem? Of course his apostrophe to
+'violet eyes, overlaced with jet!' will sound quite Tennysonian to a
+certain little shy girl, now hiding at Como, and who 'inspired the
+strain.' But aside from the pleasant association that links you with
+the verses, they are--pardon me, dear--as thin and flavourless
+as--well, as the soup dished out at pauper restaurants. You are at
+liberty to consider me consumed by envy, green with jealousy, when I
+here spitefully record that Elliott's ambitious poem reminds me of M.
+de Bonald's biting criticism on Madame de Krüdener: 'I make bold to
+declare, with the Bible in my hand, that the poor we shall always
+have with us, were it only the poor in intellect.' Coke and Story
+will befriend poor Elliott much more effectually than the Muses, who
+have most ingloriously snubbed him. Are you really happy, little
+snowbird, nestling in the down of mother-love, which--like the
+veritable baby you are--you so pined for?
+
+"Regina, I am going to tell you something. Bar the windows, lock the
+doors, shut it up for ever, close in your own heart. A few nights
+ago, I went with an English friend to the _Conversationshaus_. When
+we had leaned awhile against one of the columns, and watched the
+dancers in the magnificent saloon, he proposed to show me the grand
+gambling-room.
+
+"As we walked slowly along, listening to the click of the gold that
+pattered down from trembling hands, I saw, sitting at a _Roulette_
+table, deeply immersed in the game (never tell it!) Belmont
+Eggleston. Not the same classic, god-like face that I would once have
+followed straight to Hades--not the man upon whom I wasted all the
+love that God gives a woman to glorify her life and home; but a
+flushed, bloated creature, as unlike the Belmont of my hopes and
+dreams as 'Hyperion to a Satyr!' I watched him till my very soul
+turned sick, and all Pandemonium seemed to have joined in a jeer at
+my former infatuation. Next day, I saw him reel from a saloon to the
+steps of his wife's carriage. Years ago, when Erle Palma told me that
+my darling drank and gambled, I denied it; and in return for the
+warning, emptied more wrath upon my informer than all the Apocalyptic
+vials held. Ah! for poor Belmont, I fought as fiercely as a tawny
+tigress, when her youngest cub is captured by the hunters. Ashes!
+Bitter ashes of love and trust! Truly 'there is no pardon for
+desecrated ideals.' I have lived to learn that--
+
+                    'Man trusts in God;
+        He is eternal. Woman trusts in man,
+        And he is shifting sand.'"
+
+"Regina!"
+
+The girl looked up, and saw her uncle with an open letter in his
+hand.
+
+"What is it? Some bad news!"
+
+"Dear little girl, you are indeed fatherless now."
+
+She bent her head upon the ledge of the window, and after a moment
+Mr. Chesley sighed, and smoothed her hair.
+
+"With all his faults, he was still your father; and having had
+several interviews with him in Paris, I was convinced he was more
+'sinned against than sinning,' though of course he knew that he could
+never have legally married again while Minnie lived. God help us to
+forgive, even as we need and hope to be forgiven."
+
+"He knows I forgave him. I told him so the night he held me to his
+heart and kissed me; and you never can know how that thought comforts
+me now. But mother! Uncle----"
+
+She sprang up pale and tearful, but he detained her.
+
+"Mr. Palma writes me that there remains no longer a doubt that
+Laurance perished in the wreck. He encloses a detailed account of the
+disaster, from an American naval surgeon, who was returning home on
+furlough, when the storm overtook them, and who was one of the few
+picked up by the West Indian vessel. Mr. Palma wrote to him, relative
+to your father, and it appears from his reply--in my hand--that he
+knew the Laurances quite well. He says that during the gale, he was
+called to prescribe for Maud, who was really ill, and rendered worse
+by terror. When it was evident the steamer could not outlive the
+storm, he saw Cuthbert Laurance place his wife in one of the boats,
+and return to the cabin for his sick child. Hastening back with the
+little cripple in his arms, he found the boats were beyond reach, and
+too crowded to admit another passenger. He shouted the nearest to
+take his child, only his child; but the violence of the gale rendered
+it impossible to do more than keep the boat from swamping, and with
+many others, he was left upon the doomed vessel. There was no
+remaining boat; night came swiftly on, the storm increased, and next
+day there was no vestige of boat or ship visible. Mrs. Laurance was
+in the second boat, the largest and strongest, but it was overladen,
+and about twilight it capsized in the fury of the gale, and _all went
+down_. The surgeon who heard the wild screams of the women knows that
+the wife perished, and says he cannot indulge the faintest hope that
+the father and child escaped. Cuthbert was a remarkably skilful
+swimmer; he had once contended for a wager off Brighton, with a party
+of naval officers, and Laurance won it; but none could live in the
+sea that boiled and bellowed around that sinking ship, and encumbered
+as he was with the helpless child, it was impossible that he would
+have survived. I would rather not tell Minnie now, but Mr. Palma
+writes that the sister and nephew of General Laurance will force a
+suit to secure the remnants of the property, and he wishes to
+anticipate their action. Come with me, dear. Minnie is not asleep. As
+I passed her door, I heard her walk across the floor."
+
+"Uncle Orme, can't you wait till to-morrow? I do not know how this
+news will affect her, and I dread it."
+
+"My dear child, her suspense is destroying her. After all, delay will
+do no good. Poor Minnie! There is her bell. She knows the hour our
+mail is due, and she will ask for letters."
+
+Opening the door, both paused at the threshold, and neither could
+ever forget the picture she represented.
+
+In a snowy _peignoir_, she sat on the side of the couch, with her
+long waving hair falling in disorder to the marble floor, and seemed
+indeed like Japhet's "Amarant":
+
+        "She in her locks is like the travelling sun,
+         Setting, all clad in coifing clouds of gold."
+
+The wan Phidian face was turned toward them, and was breathless in
+its anxious eagerly questioning expression. Her brown eyes widened,
+searching theirs; and reading all, in her daughter's tearful pitying
+gaze, what a wild look crossed her face!
+
+Regina pushed her uncle back, closed the door and sprang to the
+couch, holding out the letters.
+
+Sitting as still as stone, Mrs. Laurance did not appear to notice
+them.
+
+"Darling mother, God knows what is best for us all."
+
+Slowly the strained eyes turned to the appealing face of her
+kneeling child, and something there broke up the frozen deeps of her
+heart.
+
+"Are you sure? Is there no hope?"
+
+"No hope; except to meet him in heaven."
+
+Throwing her hands above her head, the wretched woman wrung them
+despairingly, and the pain of all the bitter past wailed in her
+passionate cry:
+
+"Lost for ever! And I would not forgive him! My husband! My own
+husband! When he begged for pardon I spurned, and derided, and
+taunted him! Oh! I meant sometime to forgive him; after I had
+accomplished all I planned. After he was beggared, and humiliated in
+the eyes of the world, and that woman occupied the position where
+they all sought to keep me, a mother and yet no lawful wife, after I
+had enjoyed my triumph a little while, I fully intended to listen to
+my heart long enough to tell him that I forgave him because he was
+your father! And now, where is my revenge? Where is my triumph? God
+has turned His back upon me; has struck from my hands all that I have
+toiled for fifteen years to accomplish. They all triumph over me now,
+in their quiet graves, resting in peace; and I live, only to regret!
+To regret!"
+
+Her eyes were dry, and shone like jewels, and when her arms fell, her
+clenched hands rested unintentionally on her daughter's head.
+
+"Mother, he knows now that you forgive him. Remember that for him all
+grief is ended; and try to be comforted."
+
+"And for me? What remains for me?"
+
+Her voice was so deep, so sepulchral, so despairing, that Regina
+clung closer to her.
+
+"Your child, who loves you so devotedly; and the hope of that blessed
+rest in heaven, where marriages are unknown, where at last we shall
+all dwell together in peace."
+
+For some time Mrs. Laurance remained motionless; then her lips moved
+inaudibly. At length she said:
+
+"Yes, my child, our child is all that is left. When he asked to kiss
+me once more, I denied him so harshly, so bitterly! When he tried to
+draw me for the last time to his bosom, I hurled away his arms, would
+not let him touch me. Now I shall never see him again. My husband!
+The one only love of my miserable and accursed life! Oh, my beloved!
+do you know at last, that the Minnie of your youth, the bride of your
+boyhood has never, never ceased to love her faithless, erring
+husband?"
+
+Her voice grew tremulous, husky, and suddenly bending back her
+daughter's head, she looked long at the grieved countenance.
+
+"His last words were: 'Minnie love, let our baby's eyes and lips
+plead pardon for her father's unintentional sins.' They do; they
+always shall. Cuthbert's own wonderful eyes shining in his
+daughter's. My husband's own proud beautiful lips that kiss me so
+fondly every time I press his child's mouth! At last I can thank God
+that our baby is indeed her father's image; and because in death
+Cuthbert is my own again, I can cherish the memory, and pray for the
+soul of my husband! Kiss me, kiss me--oh, my darling!"
+
+She kissed the girl's eyes and lips, held her off, gazing into her
+face through gathering mist, then drew her again to her bosom, and
+the long hoarded bitterness and agony found vent in a storm of sobs
+and tears.
+
+        "I must sit joyless in my place; bereft
+         As trees that suddenly have dropped their leaves,
+         And dark as nights that have no moon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+
+"Uncle Orme, are you awake?"
+
+"My dear girl, what is the matter? Is Minnie ill?"
+
+"No, sir; but this is mother's birthday, and, if you please, I want
+you. There are a few late peaches hanging too high for my arms, and
+such grape-clusters! just beyond my finger tips. Will you be so kind
+as to gather them for me? I intended to ask you yesterday afternoon,
+but mother kept me on the terrace until it was too late. I have not
+heard you moving about? Do get up; the morning air is so delicious,
+and the lake lies like a huge rose with crimped petals."
+
+"You are a tormentingly early lark, chanting your hymns to sunrise,
+when you should be sound asleep. You waked me in the midst of a
+lovelier rose-coloured dream than your tiresome, stupid lake, and I
+shall not excuse you for disturbing me. Where is that worthless,
+black-eyed chattering monkey Giulio? Am I a boy to climb peach trees
+this time of the day, for your amusement? Oh, the irreverence of
+American youth!"
+
+"Giulio has gone on a different errand, and I never should insult
+your venerable years by asking you to climb trees, even in honour of
+mother's birthday breakfast. You can easily reach all I want, and
+then you may come back and finish your dream, and I will keep
+breakfast waiting until you declare yourself ready. Here is the
+basket, I am going out to the garden."
+
+Regina ran down into the flower-plot at the rear of the house, and
+after a little while she saw her uncle unencumbered by his coat,
+bearing the basket on his arm and ascending one of the winding walks
+that terraced the hill.
+
+To her lifelong custom of early rising she still adhered, and in the
+dewy hours spent alone in watching the sun rise over Como she
+indulged precious recollections that found audience and favour at no
+other season.
+
+It was her habit to place each morning a fresh bouquet upon her
+mother's plate, and also to arrange the flower stand, that since
+their residence at the villa had never failed to grace the centre of
+the breakfast-table.
+
+It was a parsonage custom, and had always been associated in her mind
+with the pastor's solemn benediction at each meal.
+
+To-day, while filling her basket with blossoms, some stray waft of
+perfume, or perhaps the rich scarlet lips of a geranium glowing
+against the grey stone of the wall, prattled of Fifth Avenue, and
+recalled a gay _boutonnière_ she once saw Mrs. Carew fasten in Mr.
+Palma's coat.
+
+Like a serpent this thought trailed over all, and the beauty of the
+morning suddenly vanished. Was that grey-eyed Cleopatra with
+burnished hair, low smooth brow, and lips like Lamia's, resting in
+her guardian's arms--his wife?
+
+Three months had elapsed since the day on which Mr. Chesley received
+his last letter, containing tidings that bowed and broke the haughty
+spirit of Mrs. Laurance; and if Mr. Palma had written again, Regina
+had not been informed of the fact.
+
+Was he married, and in his happiness as a husband had he for a time
+forgotten the existence of the friends in Europe?
+
+A shadowy hopelessness settled in the girl's eyes when she reflected
+that this was probably the correct explanation of his long silence,
+and a deep yearning to see him once more rose in her sad heart. She
+knew that it was better so, with the Atlantic between them; and yet
+it seemed hard, bitter, to think of living out the coming years, and
+never looking upon him again.
+
+A heavy sigh crossed her lips that were beginning to wear the patient
+lines of resignation, and turning from the red geranium which had
+aroused the memory coiled in her heart she stepped upon the terrace,
+leaned over the marble balustrade, and looked out.
+
+The sun was up, and in the verdant setting of its shore the lake
+seemed a huge sapphire, girdled with emerald.
+
+In the distance a fishing boat glided slowly, its taut sails gleaming
+as the sunlight smote them, like the snowy pinions of some vast bird
+brooding over the quiet water; and high in the air, just beneath a
+strip of orange cloud as filmy as lace, a couple of happy pigeons
+circled round and round, each time nearing the sun, that was rapidly
+paving the lake with quivering gold.
+
+Solemn and serene the distant Alps lifted their glittering domes,
+which cut sharply like crystal against the sky that was as deeply,
+darkly blue as lapis-lazuli; and behind the white villas dotting the
+shore, vineyards bowed in amber and purple fruitage, plentiful as
+Eshcol, luscious as Schiraz.
+
+The cool air was burdened with mysterious hints of acacias and roses,
+which the dew had stolen from drowsy gardens, and over the gently
+rippling waters floated the holy sound of the sweet-tongued bell,
+from
+
+                    ..."Where yonder church
+        Stands up to heaven, as if to intercede
+        For sinful hamlets scattered at its feet."
+
+Into the house Regina passed slowly, a trifle paler from her matin
+reverie; and when she entered the pretty breakfast-room, Mr. Chesley
+had just deposited his fruity burden upon the floor.
+
+"Thank you, dear Uncle Orme. Mother will enjoy her peaches when she
+knows you gathered them with the dew still upon their down. Go,
+finish your dream; Heaven grant it be sweet! No one shall even pass
+your door for the next hour, unless shod with velvet, or with
+silence. This is the first of mother's birthdays I have had an
+opportunity to celebrate, and I wish to surprise her pleasantly. Go
+back to sleep."
+
+She stood on tiptoe and lightly kissed his swarthy cheek.
+
+"Unfortunately my brain is not sufficiently vassal to my will, to
+implicitly obey its mandates; and dropping on my pillow and falling
+into slumber are quite different things. Beside (you need not arch
+your eyebrows any higher, when I assure you that), despite my
+honourable years, my hearing is as painfully acute as that of the
+giant fabled to watch 'Bifrost,' and who 'heard the grass growing in
+the fields, and the wool on the backs of young lambs.' Last night,
+just as I was lapsing into a preliminary doze, two vagrant
+nightingales undertook an opera that brought them to the large myrtle
+under my window, where I hoped they had reached the _finale_. But one
+of them--the female, I warrant you, from the clatter of her small
+tongue (if female nightingales can sing)--audaciously perched on the
+stone balcony in front of my open window, and such a tirade of
+hemi-demi-semi-quavers never before insulted a sleepy  man. I clapped
+my hands, but they trilled as if all Persia had sent them a
+challenge. Now I am going to take a bath, and since you persisted in
+making me get up, I intend to punish you with my society, just as
+soon as I finish my toilette. If you see a brace of birds smothered
+in truffles on the dinner-table, you may suspect the fate of all who
+violate my dreams. Even feathered lovers are a pest. My little girl,
+before you begin your reign in my California home, I shall remind you
+of your promise, that no lover of yours will ever dare to darken my
+doors."
+
+With a smile lingering about her lip, after her uncle's departure,
+Regina filled the _epergne_ on the table with a mass of rose-coloured
+oleanders--her mother's favourite flowers, and fringed the edge with
+geraniums and fuchsias. On her plate she laid a cluster of tuberoses,
+grouped and tied in the shape of a heart, with spicy apple geranium
+leaves girdling the waxen petals. The breath of the oleanders
+perfumed the room, and when quite satisfied with the arrangement of
+the flowers, Regina piled the crimson peaches and golden grapes in a
+pyramid on the silver stand in the centre.
+
+Drawing from her pocket a slender roll of sheet music fastened with
+rose ribbon, and a tiny envelope addressed to her mother, she placed
+them upon Mrs. Laurance's plate, crowning all with the white heart of
+tuberoses.
+
+For some days she had been haunted by a musical idea, which gradually
+developed as she improvised into a _Nocturne_, full of plaintive
+minor passages; and this first complete musical composition, written
+out by her own hand, she had dedicated to her mother. It was called:
+"Dreams of my mother."
+
+Standing beside the table, her hands folded before her, and her head
+slightly drooped, she fell into a brief reverie, wondering how she
+could endure to live without the society of this beloved mother,
+which imparted such a daily charm to her own existence, and as she
+reflected on the past an expression of quiet sadness stole over her
+countenance, and into--
+
+        "The eyes of passionless, peaceful blue
+         Like twilight which faint stars gaze through."
+
+In the doorway fronting the east, Mr. Palma had stood for some
+seconds unobserved, studying the pretty room and its fair young
+queen.
+
+In honour of her mother's birthday, she wore a white India muslin,
+with a blue sash girding her slender waist, and only a knot of blue
+ribbon at her throat, where the soft lace was gathered. Her silky
+hair rolled in a heavy coil low at the back of her head, and was
+secured by a gold comb; and close to one small ear she had fastened
+a cluster of snowy velvet pansies, which contrasted daintily with the
+glossy blackness of her hair.
+
+To the man who had crossed the ocean solely to feast his hungry eyes
+upon that delicate cameo face, it seemed as pure as an angel's.
+Although continual heart-ache, and patient uncomplaining need of
+something that she knew and felt God had removed for ever beyond her
+reach, had worn the cheek to a thinner oval, and left darker shadows
+in her calm eyes, Mr. Palma who had so long and carefully
+scrutinized her features, acknowledged now, that indeed--
+
+        "She grew fairer than her peers;
+         Still her gentle forehead wears
+         Holy lights of infant years."
+
+Nearly eight years before, as he watched her asleep in the railway
+car, he had wondered whether it were possible that she could carry
+her tender loving heart, straightforward white soul, and saintly
+young face untarnished and unbruised into the checkered and feverish
+realm of womanhood?
+
+To-day she stood as fair and pure as in her early childhood, a gentle
+image of renunciation, "all unspotted from the world," whose
+withering breath he had so dreaded for his flower.
+
+Watching her, a sudden splendour of hope lighted his fine eyes, and a
+glow of intense happiness fired his usually pale cheek.
+
+Slowly she turned away from the table, and against the glory of the
+sunlight streaming through the open door, she saw her guardian's tall
+figure outlined.
+
+Was it a mere blessed vision, born of her recent reverie on the
+terrace; or had he died, and his spirit, reading the secret of her
+soul, had mercifully flown to comfort her by one farewell appearance?
+
+He opened his arms and his whole face was radiant with passionate and
+tender love. She did not move, but her eyes gazed into his, like one
+in a happy dream, who fears to awake.
+
+He came swiftly forward, and holding out his arms, exclaimed in a
+voice that trembled with the excess of his joy:
+
+"My Lily! My darling!"
+
+But she did not spring to meet him, as he hoped and expected, and
+thrilled by the music of his tone she grew paler standing quite
+still, with trembling lips and eyes that shone like stars when autumn
+mists begin to gather.
+
+"My Lily, come to me, of your own dear will."
+
+"Mr. Palma, I am glad, very glad, to see my guardian once more."
+
+She put out her hand, which shook, despite her efforts to keep it
+steady, and her own voice sounded far, far off, like an echo lost
+among strange hills.
+
+He came a step nearer, but did not take her hand, and when he leaned
+toward her, she suddenly clasped her hands and rested her chin upon
+them, in the old childish fashion he remembered so well.
+
+"Does my Lily know why I crossed the Atlantic?"
+
+A spasm of pain quivered over her features, and though he saw how
+white her lips turned at that instant, her answer was clear, cold,
+and distinct.
+
+"Yes, sir. You came on your bridal tour. Is not your wife at Como?"
+
+"I hope so. I believe so; I certainly expected to see her here."
+
+He was smiling very proudly just then, but beginning to suspect that
+he had tortured her cruelly by the tacit imposture to which he had
+assented, his eyes dimmed at the thought of her suffering.
+
+She misinterpreted the smile, and quickly rallied.
+
+"Mr. Palma, I hope you brought Llora also with you?"
+
+"No. Why should I? She is much better off at home with her mother."
+
+"But, sir, I thought--I understood----"
+
+She caught her breath, and a perplexed expression came into her
+wistful deep eyes, as she met those, fixed laughingly upon her.
+
+"You thought, you understood what? That after living single all these
+years, I am at last foolish enough to want a wife? One to kiss, to
+hold in my arms, to love even better than I love myself? Well, what
+then? I do not deny it."
+
+"And I hope, Mr. Palma, that she will make you very happy."
+
+She spoke with the startling energy of desperation.
+
+"Thank you, so do I. I believe, I know she will; I swear she shall!
+Can you tell me my darling's name?"
+
+"Yes, sir, it is no secret. All the world knows it is Mrs. Carew."
+
+She was leaning heavily upon her womanly pride; how long would it
+sustain her? Would it snap presently, and let her down for ever into
+the dust of humiliation?
+
+Mr. Palma laughed, and putting his hand under her chin, lifted the
+face.
+
+"All the world is very wise, and my ward quite readily accepted its
+teachings. None but Olga suspected the truth. I would not marry
+Brunella Carew, if she were the last woman left living on the wide
+earth. I do not want a fashion-moth. I would not have the residue of
+what once belonged to another. I want a tender, pure, sweet, fresh
+white flower that I know, and have long watched expanding from its
+pretty bud. I want my darling, whom no other man has kissed, who
+never loved any one but me; who will come like the lily she is, and
+shelter herself in my strong arms, and bloom out all her fragrant
+loveliness in my heart only. Will she come?"
+
+Once more he opened his arms, and in his brilliant eyes she read his
+meaning.
+
+The revelation burst upon her like the unexpected blinding glow of
+sunshine smiting one who approaches the mouth of a cavern, in whose
+chill gloom, after weary groping, all hope had died. She felt giddy,
+faint, and the world seemed dissolving in a rosy mist.
+
+"My Lily, my proud little flower! You will not come? Then Erle Palma
+must take his own, and hold it, and wear it for ever!"
+
+He folded his arms around her, strained her to his bosom, and laid
+his warm trembling lips on hers. What a long passionate kiss, as
+though the hunger of a lifetime could never be satisfied.
+
+After his stern self-control and patient waiting, the proud man who
+had never loved any one but the fair young girl in his arms,
+abandoned himself to the ecstasy of possession. He kissed the
+eyebrows that were so lovely in his sight, the waving hair on her
+white temples, and again and again the soft sweet trembling lips that
+glowed under his pressure.
+
+"My precious violet eyes, so tender and holy. My silver Lily, mine
+for ever. Erle Palma's first and last and only love!"
+
+When, with his cheek resting on hers, he told her why his sense of
+honour had sealed his lips while she was a ward beneath his roof,
+entrusted by her mother to his guardianship, and dwelt upon the
+suffering it had cost him to know that others were suing for her
+hand, trying to win away the love, which his regard for duty
+prevented him from soliciting, she began to realize the strength
+and fervour of the affection that was now shining so deliciously
+upon her heart. She learned the fate of the glove he had found on
+his desk and locked up; of the two faded white hyacinths he had
+begged and worn in his breast pocket because they had rested on her
+hair; of the songs he wanted simply for the reason that he had heard
+them on the night when she fainted and he had first kissed her cold
+unconscious lips.
+
+Would the brilliant New York Bar have recognized their cool,
+inflexible, haughty favourite in the man who was pouring such fervid
+passionate declarations into the small pearly ear that felt his lips
+more than once?
+
+Erle Palma had much to tell to the woman of his love, much to explain
+concerning the events of the day when Elliott Roscoe witnessed her
+first interview with Peleg Peterson, and subsequently aided in his
+arrest, but this morning long audience was denied him.
+
+In the midst of his happy whispers a step which he did not hear came
+down the stairs, a form for whom he had no eyes, stood awhile
+perplexed, and amazed on the threshold. Then a very stately figure
+swept across the marble tiles, and laid a firm hand on Regina's
+shoulder.
+
+"My daughter!"
+
+The girl looked up, startled, confused; but the encircling arms would
+not release her.
+
+"My dear madam, do not take her away."
+
+Mrs. Laurance did not heed him, her eyes were riveted on her child.
+
+"My little girl, have you too deceived and forsaken your unfortunate
+mother?"
+
+She broke away from her lover's clasp, and threw her arms around her
+mother's neck.
+
+Pressing her tightly to her heart, Mrs. Laurance turned to Mr. Palma,
+and said sternly:
+
+"Is there indeed no such thing as honour left among men? You who knew
+so well my loneliness and affliction--you, sir, to whom I trusted my
+little lamb--have tried to rob me of the only treasure I thought I
+possessed, the only comfort left to gladden my sunless life! You have
+tried to steal my child's heart, to win her from me."
+
+"No, mother, he never let me know, and I never dreamed that--that he
+cared at all for me until this morning. He did not betray your trust,
+even for----"
+
+"Let Mr. Palma plead his own defence, if he can; look you to yours,"
+answered her mother, coldly.
+
+"It is much sweeter from her lips, and you, my dear madam, are very
+cruel to deny me the pleasure of hearing it. Lily, my darling, go
+away a little while, not far, where I can easily find you, and let me
+talk to your mother. If I fail to satisfy her fully on all points, I
+shall never ask at her hands the precious boon I came here solely to
+solicit."
+
+He took her hand, drew her from the arms that reluctantly relaxed,
+and when they reached the threshold smiled down into her eyes.
+Lifting her fingers, he kissed them lightly, and closed the door.
+
+What ailed the birds that trilled their passionate strains so
+joyously as she ran down the garden walk, and into the rose-arbour?
+Had clouds and shadows flown for ever from the world, leaving only
+heavenly sunshine and Mr. Palma?
+
+"I wonder if there be indeed a quiet spot on earth where I can hide;
+a sacred refuge, where neither nightingale nor human lovers will vex
+my soul, or again disturb my peace with their eternal madrigals?"
+
+She had not seen her uncle, who was sitting in one corner, clumsily
+tying up some roses which he intended for a birthday offering to his
+niece.
+
+At the sound of his quiet voice, Regina started up.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Orme! I did not see you. Pray excuse me. I will not
+disturb you."
+
+She was hurrying away, but he caught her dress.
+
+"My dear, are you threatened with ophthalmia, that you cannot see a
+man three yards distant, who measures six feet two inches? Certainly
+I excuse you. A man who is kept awake all night by one set of love
+ditties, dragged out of his bed before sunrise, and after taking
+exercise and a bath that render him as hungry as a Modoc cut off from
+his lava-beds, is expected and forced to hold his famished frame in
+peace, while a pair of human lovers exhaust the vocabulary of cooing
+that man can patiently excuse much. Sit down, my dear girl. Because
+my beard is grey, and crow-feet gather about my eyes, do you suppose
+the old man's heart cannot sympathize with the happiness that throbs
+in yours, and that renews very sacredly the one sweet love-dream of
+his own long-buried youth? I know, dear; you need not try to tell me,
+need not blush so painfully. Mr. Palma reached Como last evening; I
+knew he was coming, and saw him early this morning. I can guess it
+all, and I am very glad. God bless you, dear child. Only be sure you
+tell Palma that we allow no lovers in our ideal home."
+
+He put his hand on her drooping head, and drawing it down, she
+silently pressed it in her own. So they sat; how long, neither knew.
+She dreaming of that golden future that had opened so unexpectedly
+before her; he listening to memory's echoes of a beloved tone long
+since hushed in the grave.
+
+When approaching voices were heard, he rose to steal away and tears
+moistened his mild brown eyes.
+
+"Stay with me, please," she whispered, clinging to his sleeve.
+
+Through the arched doorway of the arbour, she saw two walking slowly.
+
+Mrs. Laurance leaned upon Mr. Palma's arm, and as he bent his
+uncovered, head, in earnest conversation, his noble brow was placid
+and his haughty mouth relaxed in a half-smile. They reached the
+arbour, and paused.
+
+In her morning robe of delicate lilac tint, Mrs. Laurance's sad
+tear-stained face seemed in its glory of golden locks, almost as
+fair as her child's. But one was just preparing to launch her frail
+argosy of loving hopes upon the sunny sea that stretched in liquid
+splendour before her dazzled eyes; the other had seen the wreck of
+all her heart's most precious freight, in the storm of varied griefs,
+that none but Christ could hush with His divine "Be still."
+
+The repressed sorrow in the countenance of the mother was more
+touching than any outbreak could have been, and after a strong
+effort, she held out her hand, and said:
+
+"My daughter."
+
+Regina sprang up, and hid her face on her mother's neck.
+
+"When I began to hope in a blind dumb way that nothing more could
+happen to wring my heart, because I had my daughter safe, owned her
+entire undivided love, and we were all in all to each other; just
+when I dared to pray that my sky might be blue for a little while,
+because my baby's eyes mirrored it, even then the last, the dearest
+is stolen away, and by my best friend too! Child of my love, I would
+almost as soon see you in your shroud as under a bridal veil, for you
+will love your husband best, and oh! I want all of your dear heart
+for my own. How can I ever give you away, my one star-eyed angel of
+comfort!"
+
+Her white hand caressed the head upon her bosom, and clasping her
+mother's waist, the girl said distinctly:
+
+"Let it be as you wish. My mother's happiness is far dearer to me
+than my own."
+
+"Oh, my darling! Do you mean it? Would you give up your lover, for
+the sake of your poor desolate mother?"
+
+She bent back the fair face and gazed eagerly into the girl's eyes.
+
+"Mother, I should never cease to love him. Life would not be so sweet
+as it looked this morning, when I first learned he had given me his
+heart; but duty is better than joy, and I owe more to my suffering
+mother than to him, or to myself. If it adds to the cup of your many
+sorrows to give me even to him, I will try to take the bitter for my
+portion, and then sweeten as best I may the life that hitherto you
+have devoted to me. Mother, do with your child as seems best to your
+dear heart."
+
+She was very white, but her face was firm, and the fidelity of her
+purpose was printed in her sad eyes.
+
+"God bless my sweet, faithful, trusting child!"
+
+Mrs. Laurance could not restrain her tears, and Mr. Palma shaded his
+eyes with his hand.
+
+"My little girl, make your choice. Decide between us."
+
+She moved a few steps, as if to free herself, but in rain; Regina's
+arms tightened around her.
+
+"Between you? Oh no, I cannot. Both are too dear."
+
+"To whom does your heart cling most closely?"
+
+"Mother, ask me no more. There is my hand. If you can consent to give
+it to him. I shall be--oh, how happy! If it would grieve you too
+much, then, mother, hold it, keep it. I will never murmur or
+complain, for now, knowing that he loves me, I can bear almost
+anything."
+
+Tears were streaming down the mother's cheeks, and pressing her lips
+to the white mournful face of her daughter she beckoned Mr. Palma to
+her side. For a moment she hesitated, held up the fair fingers and
+kissed them, then as if distrusting herself, quickly laid the little
+hand in his.
+
+"Take my darling; and remember that she is the most precious gift a
+miserable mother ever yielded up."
+
+After a moment Mrs. Laurance whispered something, and very won the
+lovely face flushed a brilliant rose, the soft tender eyes were
+lifted timidly to Mr. Palma's face, and as he drew her to aim, she
+glided from her mother's arms into his, feeling his lips rest like a
+blessing from God on her pure brow.
+
+"Does my Lily love me best?"
+
+Only the white arms answered his whisper, clasping his neck; and Mrs.
+Laurance and Mr. Chesley left them, with the dewy roses overhead
+swinging like censers in the glorious autumn morning and the sacred
+chimes of church bells dying in silvery echoes, among the olive and
+myrtle that clothed the distant hills.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+
+In consenting to bestow Regina's hand on Mr. Palma, Mrs. Laurance had
+stipulated that the marriage should be deferred for one year,
+alleging that her daughter was yet very young, and having been so
+long separated she wished her to remain with her at least for some
+months. Mr. Palma reluctantly assented to conditions which compelled
+him to return to America without Regina, and in November Mrs.
+Laurance removed to Milan, where she desired that her child's fine
+voice and musical talent should be trained and developed by the most
+superior instruction.
+
+Swiftly the twelve months sped away, and in revisiting the
+Mediterranean shores, linked by so many painful reminiscences with
+the period of her former sojourn, Mrs. Laurance, despite the efforts
+of her faithful and fond companion, seemed to sink into a confirmed
+melancholy.
+
+By tacit agreement no reference was ever made to her past life, but a
+shadow chill and unlifting brooded over her, and the sleeplessness
+that no opiate could conquer--a sleeplessness born of heart-ache
+which no spell could narcotize--robbed her cheek of its bloom, and
+left weary lines on her patient, hopeless face.
+
+Mr. Chesley had returned with Mr. Palma to the United States, and
+late in the following autumn Mrs. Laurance and Regina sailed for New
+York.
+
+The associations of the voyage were peculiarly painful to the unhappy
+wife, whose lips never unclosed upon the topic that engrossed her
+thoughts, and soon after their arrival her physician advised a trip
+to Florida or Cuba, until the rigour of the winter had ended, as an
+obstinate cough again aroused fears of consumption.
+
+To accompany her mother, Regina postponed her marriage until June,
+and notwithstanding Mr. Palma's avowed dissatisfaction and earnest
+protest, spent the winter and spring in the West Indies. Mrs.
+Laurance gradually regained health, but not cheerfulness, and in May,
+when they returned to New York, preparations were made for the
+wedding, which in deference to her mother's feelings, Regina desired
+should be very quiet.
+
+Her husband's estate had long been in Mrs. Laurance's possession, and
+the stately mansion had been repaired and refurnished, awaiting its
+owner; but she shrank with a shiver from the mention of the place,
+announcing her intention to visit it no more, until she was laid to
+rest in the proud family tomb, whither the remains of General René
+Laurance had already been removed.
+
+In accordance with her daughter's wishes, she had taken for the
+summer a villa on the Hudson, only a short distance from the city,
+and a week before the day appointed for the marriage they took
+possession of their country home.
+
+As the time rapidly approached, Mrs. Laurance's depression of spirits
+seemed to increase; she jealously counted the hours that remained,
+and her sad eyes rested with fateful foreboding on her daughter's
+happy countenance.
+
+On the afternoon previous to the wedding, the mother sat on the
+verandah overlooking the velvet lawn that stretched between the house
+and the river. The sun was setting, and the rich red glow rested upon
+the crest of distant hills, and smote the sails of two vessels
+gliding close to the opposite shore.
+
+On the stone step sat Regina, her head leaning against her mother's
+knee, her hand half buried in the snowy locks of Hero, who crouched
+at her side.
+
+"Mrs. Palma and Uncle Orme will not arrive until noon; but Olga comes
+early to-morrow; and, mother, I know you will be glad to learn that
+at last her brother has persuaded her to abandon her intention of
+joining the----"
+
+She did not complete the sentence, for glancing up, she saw that Mrs.
+Laurance's melancholy eyes were fixed on the crimson sky and purpling
+hills far away, and she knew that her thoughts were haunting grey,
+ashy crypts of the Bygone.
+
+For some moments silence prevailed, and mother and child presented a
+singular contrast. The former was clad in some violet-coloured
+fabric, and her wealth of golden hair was brushed smoothly back and
+twisted into a loose knot, where her daughter's fingers had inserted
+a moss rose with clustering buds and glossy leaves.
+
+The girl wore a simple white muslin, high in the throat, where a
+quilling of soft lace was secured by a bunch of lemon blooms and
+violets; and around her coil of jet hair twined a long spray of
+Arabian jasmine that drooped almost to her shoulder.
+
+One face star-eyed and beaming as Hope, with rosy dreams lurking
+about the curves of her perfect mouth; the other pale, dejected, yet
+uncomplaining, a lovely statue of Regret.
+
+Very soon the white hand that wore the black agate, wandered across
+the daughter's silky hair.
+
+"Yonder goes the train; and Mr. Palma will be here in a few minutes.
+How little I dreamed that cold, undemonstrative, selfish man would
+prove such a patient, tender lover! Truly--
+
+        'Beauty hath made our greatest manhoods weak.'
+
+Kiss me, my darling, before you go to meet him. My blue-eyed baby!
+after to-morrow you will be mine no longer. In the hearts of wives
+husbands supplant mothers, and reign supreme. Do not speak, my love.
+Only kiss me, and go."
+
+She bent over the face resting on her knee, and a moment after
+Regina, followed by the noble old dog, went down the circuitous walk
+leading to the iron gate. On either side stood deodar cedars, and
+behind one of these she sat down on a rustic seat.
+
+She had not waited long when footsteps approached, and Mr. Palma's
+tall, handsome figure passed through the gate, accompanied by one who
+followed slowly.
+
+"Lily!"
+
+The lawyer passed his arm around her, drew her to his side, and
+whispered:
+
+"I bring you glad tidings. I bring my darling a very precious bridal
+present--her father."
+
+Turning quickly, he put her in Mr. Laurance's arms.
+
+"Can my daughter cordially welcome her unhappy and unworthy father?"
+
+"Oh! how merciful God has been to me! My father alive and
+safe--really folding me to his heart? Now my mother can rest, for now
+she can utter the forgiveness which her heart long ago pronounced;
+but which, having withheld at your painful parting interview, has so
+sorely weighed down her spirits. Oh, how bright the world looks!
+Thank God! at last mother can find peace."
+
+Looking fondly at her radiant face, Mr. Laurance asked in an unsteady
+voice:
+
+"Will my Minnie's child plead with her, for the long-lost husband of
+her youth?"
+
+"Oh, father! there is no need. Her love must have triumphed long ago
+over the sense of cruel wrong and the memory of the past, for since
+we learned that you were among those who perished she has silently
+mourned as only a wife can for the husband she loves. Because she
+sees in my face the reflex of yours, it has of late grown doubly dear
+to her; and sometimes at night when she believes me asleep, she
+touches me softly, and whispers, 'My Cuthbert's baby.' But why have
+you so long allowed us to believe you were lost on that vessel?"
+
+Briefly Mr. Laurance outlined the facts of his escape upon a raft,
+which was hastily constructed by several of the crew when the boats
+were beyond their reach. Upon this he had placed Maud, and on the
+morning after the wreck of the vessel they succeeded in getting into
+one of the boats which was floating bottom upward, and providentially
+drifted quite near the raft. For several days they were tossed
+helplessly from wave to wave, exposed to heavy rains, and on the
+third evening, poor little Maud who had been unconscious for some
+hours, died in her father's arms. At midnight when the moon shone
+full and bright, he had wrapped the little form in his coat, and
+consigned her to a final resting-place beneath the blue billows,
+where her mother had already gone down amid the fury of the gale. He
+knew from the colour and lettering of the boat, that it was the same
+in which he had placed his terrified wife, and when it floated to
+their raft he could not doubt her melancholy fate. A few hours after
+Maud's burial, a Danish brig bound for Valparaiso discovered the
+boat and its signals of distress, and taking on board the four
+survivors, sailed away on its destined track. Mr. Laurance bad made
+his way to Rio Janeiro, and subsequently to Havana, but learning from
+the published accounts that his wife had indeed perished, and that he
+also was numbered among the lost, he determined not to reveal the
+fact of his existence to any one. Financially beggared, his ancestral
+home covered by mortgages which Mrs. Laurance held, and utterly
+hopeless of arousing her compassion or obtaining her pardon, he was
+too proud to endure the humiliation that would overwhelm him in the
+divorce suit he knew she intended to institute; and resolved never to
+return to the United States, where he could expect only disgrace and
+sorrow.
+
+While in Liverpool, preparing to go to Melbourne, he accidentally
+found and read Mrs. Laurance's advertisement in the London _Times_,
+offering a reward for any definite information concerning Cuthbert
+Laurance, reported lost on Steamer ----. Had she relented, would she
+pardon him now? He was lonely, desolate; his heart yearned for the
+sight of his fair young daughter, doubly dear since the loss of poor
+Maud, and he longed inexpressibly to see once more the love of his
+early and his later life.
+
+If still implacably vindictive, would she have continued the
+advertisement, which so powerfully tempted him to reveal himself? He
+was fully conscious of his own unworthiness, and of the magnitude of
+the wrongs inflicted upon her, but after a long struggle with his
+pride, which bled sorely at thought of the scornful repulse that
+might await him, he had written confidentially to Mr. Palma, and in
+accordance with his advice, returned to New York.
+
+Only the day previous he had arrived, and now came to test the power
+of memory over his wife's heart.
+
+"Father, she is sitting alone on the verandah, with such a world of
+sadness in her eyes, which have lost the blessed power of weeping. Go
+to her. I believe you need no ally to reach my mother's heart."
+
+Mr. Laurance kissed her fair forehead, and walked away; and passing
+his arm around Regina, Mr. Palma drew her forward across the lawn
+till they reached a branching lilac near the verandah.
+
+Here he paused, took off his glasses, and looked proudly and
+tenderly down into the violet eyes that even now met his so shyly.
+
+"My Lily, to-morrow at this hour you will be my wife."
+
+His haughty lips were smiling as they sought hers, and with her
+lovely flushed face half hidden on his shoulder, and one small hand
+clinging to his, she watched her father's figure approaching the
+steps.
+
+Mrs. Laurance sat with her folded hands resting on the rail of the
+balustrade, her head slightly drooped upon her bosom; and the
+beautiful face was lighted by the dying sunset splendour, that
+seemed to kindle a nimbus around the golden head, and rendered her
+in her violet drapery like some haloed _Mater Dolorosa_, treading
+alone the _Via Crucis_.
+
+Dusky shadows under the melancholy brown eyes made them appear
+darker, deeper, almost prophetic, and over her lips drifted a
+fragment from "Regret"
+
+                           "Oh that word Regret!
+        There have been nights and morns, when we have sighed,
+        'Let us alone Regret! We are content
+        To throw thee all our past, so thou wilt sleep
+        For aye.' But it is patient, and it wakes;
+        It hath not learned to cry itself to sleep,
+        But plaineth on the bed that it is bard."...
+
+"Ahyes. In the room of revenge reigns regret. Where is my revenge? It
+gleamed like nectar, and when I drained it consuming poison clung to
+my lips. To revenge is to regret--for ever! To-day how utterly
+widowed; to-morrow--childless. Oh, stranded life! Infelice!
+Infelice!"
+
+Upon the stone steps stood the man whom her eyes, turned toward the
+distant hill-tops, had not yet seen, but when the passionate pathos
+of that voice which had so often charmed and swayed its audiences
+died away in a sob, a musical yet very tremulous tone fell on the
+evening air:
+
+"Minnie,--my wife! After almost twenty years of neglect, injustice,
+and wrong, can the husband of your youth, and the father of your
+child, hope for pardon?"
+
+        "There is no ruined life beyond the smile of heaven,
+         And compensating grace for every loss is given,
+         The Coliseum's shell is loved of flower and vine,
+         And through its shattered rents the peaceful planets shine."
+
+
+
+
+
+Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co London & Edinburg
+
+
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@@ -0,0 +1,23177 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Infelice, by Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Infelice
+
+
+Author: Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
+
+
+
+Release Date: February 8, 2006  [eBook #17718]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INFELICE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Roy Brown
+
+
+
+INFELICE
+
+by
+
+AUGUSTA J. EVANS WILSON
+
+Author of "At the Mercy of Tiberius", "St. Elmo" Etc.
+
+1902
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                   "The grace of God forbid
+           We should be overbold to lay rough hands
+           On any man's opinion. For opinions
+           Are, certes, venerable properties,
+           And those which show the most decrepitude
+           Should have the gentlest handling."
+                                              VANINI
+
+
+
+
+London
+James Nisbet & Co. Limited
+21 Berners Street
+
+
+
+
+INFELICE
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Did you tell her that Dr. Hargrove is absent?"
+
+"I did, ma'am; but she says she will wait."
+
+"But, Hannah, it is very uncertain when he will return, and the night
+is so stormy he may remain in town until to-morrow. Advise her to
+call again in the morning."
+
+"I said as much at the door, but she gave me to understand she came a
+long way, and should not leave here without seeing the Doctor. She
+told the driver of the carriage to call for her in about two hours,
+as she did not wish to miss the railroad train."
+
+"Where did you leave her? Not in that cold, dark parlour, I hope?"
+
+"She sat down on one of the hall chairs, and I left her there."
+
+"A hospitable parsonage reception! Do you wish her to freeze? Go and
+ask her into the library, to the fire."
+
+As Hannah left the room, Mrs. Lindsay rose and added two sticks of
+oak wood to the mass of coals that glowed between the shining brass
+andirons; then carefully removed farther from the flame on the hearth
+a silver teapot and covered dish, which contained the pastor's
+supper.
+
+"Walk in, madam. I promise you nobody shall interfere with you. Miss
+Elise, she says she wishes to see no one but the Doctor."
+
+Hannah ushered the visitor in, and stood at the door, beckoning to
+her mistress, who paused irresolute, gazing curiously at the muffled
+form and veiled face of the stranger.
+
+"Do not allow me to cause you any inconvenience, madam. My business
+is solely with Dr. Hargrove, and I do not fear the cold."
+
+The voice of the visitor was very sweet though tremulous, and she
+would have retreated, but Mrs. Lindsay put her hand on the bolt of
+the door, partly closing it.
+
+"Pray be seated. This room is at your disposal. Hannah, bring the tea
+things into the dining-room, and then you need not wait longer; I
+will lock the doors after my brother comes in."
+
+With an ugly furrow of discontent between her heavy brows, Hannah
+obeyed, and as she renewed the fire smouldering in the dining-room,
+she slowly shook her grizzled head: "Many a time I have heard my
+father say, 'Mystery breeds misery,' and take my word for it, there
+is always something wrong when a woman shuns women-folks, and hunts
+sympathy and advice from men."
+
+"Hush, Hannah! Charity,--charity; don't forget that you live in a
+parsonage, where 'sounding brass or tinkling cymbals' are not
+tolerated. All kinds of sorrow come here to be cured, and I fear that
+lady is in distress. Did you notice how her voice trembled?"
+
+"Well, I only hope no silver will be missing to-morrow. I must make
+up my buckwheat, and set it to rise. Good-night, Miss Elise."
+
+It was a tempestuous night in the latter part of January, and
+although the rain, which had fallen steadily all day, ceased at dark,
+the keen blast from the north shook the branches of the ancient trees
+encircling the parsonage, and dashed the drops in showers against the
+windows. Not a star was visible, and as the night wore on the wind
+increased in violence, roaring through leafless elm limbs, and
+whistling drearily around the corners of the old brick house, whose
+ivy-mantled chimneys had battled with the storms of seventy years.
+
+The hands of the china clock on the dining-room mantlepiece pointed
+to nine, and Mrs. Lindsay expected to hear the clear sweet strokes of
+the pendulum, when other sounds startled her; the sharp, shrill bark
+of a dog, and impatient scratching of paws on the hall door. As she
+hurried forward and withdrew the inside bolt, a middle-aged man
+entered, followed by a bluish-grey Skye terrier.
+
+"Peyton, what kept you so late?"
+
+"I was called to Beechgrove to baptize Susan Moffat's only daughter.
+The girl died at eight o'clock, and I sat awhile with the stricken
+mother, trying to comfort her. Poor Susan! it is a heavy blow, for
+she idolized the child. Be quiet, Bioern."
+
+Mr. Hargrove was leisurely divesting himself of his heavy overcoat,
+and the terrier ran up and down the hall, holding his nose high in
+the air, and barking furiously.
+
+"Bioern's instincts rarely deceive him. A stranger is waiting in the
+library to see you. Before you go in, let me give you your supper,
+for you must be tired and hungry."
+
+"Thank you, Elise, but first I must see this visitor, whose errand
+may be urgent."
+
+He opened the door of the library, and entered so quietly that the
+occupant seemed unaware of his presence.
+
+A figure draped in black sat before the table which was drawn close
+to the hearth, and the arms were crossed wearily, and the head bowed
+upon them. The dog barked and bounded toward her, and then she
+quickly rose, throwing back her veil, and eagerly advancing.
+
+"You are the Rev. Peyton Hargrove?"
+
+"I am. What can I do for you, madam? Pray take this rocking chair."
+
+She motioned it away, and exclaimed:
+
+"Can you too have forgotten me?"
+
+A puzzled expression crossed his countenance as he gazed searchingly
+at her, then shook his head.
+
+The glare of the fire, and the mellow glow of the student's lamp fell
+full on the pale features, whose exceeding delicacy is rarely found
+outside of the carved gems of the Stosch or Albani Cabinets. On camei
+and marble dwell the dainty moulding of the oval cheek, the airy
+arched tracery of the brows, the straight, slender nose, and clearly
+defined cleft of the rounded chin, and nature only now and then
+models them as a whole, in flesh. It was the lovely face of a young
+girl, fair as one of the Frate's heavenly visions, but blanched by
+some flood of sorrow that had robbed the full tender lips of bloom,
+and bereft the large soft brown eyes of the gilding glory of hope.
+
+"If I ever knew, I certainly have forgotten you."
+
+"Oh--do not say so! You must recollect me; you are the only person
+who can identify me. Four years ago I stood here, in this room. Try
+to recall me."
+
+She came close to him, and he heard her quick and laboured breathing,
+and saw the convulsive quivering of her compressed lips.
+
+"What peculiar circumstances marked my former acquaintance with you?
+Your voice is quite familiar, but----"
+
+He paused, passed his hand across his eyes, and before he could
+complete the sentence, she exclaimed:
+
+"Am I then so entirely changed? Did you not one May morning marry in
+this room Minnie Merle to Cuthbert Laurance?"
+
+"I remember that occasion very vividly, for in opposition to my
+judgment I performed the ceremony; but Minnie Merle was a
+low-statured, dark-haired child----" again he paused, and keenly
+scanned the tall, slender, elegant figure, and the crimped waves of
+shining hair that lay like a tangled mass of gold net on the low,
+full, white brow.
+
+"I was Minnie Merle. Your words of benediction made me Minnie
+Laurance. God--and the angels know it is my name, my lawful name,--
+but man denies it."
+
+Something like a sob impeded her utterance, and the minister took her
+hand.
+
+"Where is your husband? Are you widowed so early?"
+
+"Husband--my husband? One to cherish and protect, to watch over, and
+love, and defend me;--if such be the duties and the tests of a
+husband,--oh! then indeed I have never had one! Widowed did you say?
+That means something holy,--sanctified by the shadow of death, and
+the yearning sympathy and pity of the world; a widow has the right to
+hug a coffin and a grave all the weary days of her lonely life, and
+people look tenderly on her sacred weeds. To me, widowhood would be
+indeed a blessing, Sir, I thought I had learned composure,
+self-control, but the sight of this room,--of your countenance,--even
+the strong breath of the violets and heliotrope there on the mantle,
+in the same blood-coloured Bohemian vase where they bloomed that
+day,--that May day,--all these bring back so overpoweringly the time
+that is for ever dead to me,--that I feel as if I should suffocate."
+
+She walked to the nearest window, threw up the sash, and while she
+stood with the damp chill wind blowing full upon her the pastor heard
+a moan, such as comes from meek, dumb creatures, wrung by the throes
+of dissolution.
+
+When she turned once more to the light, he saw an unnatural sparkle
+in the dry, lustrous, brown eyes.
+
+"Dr. Hargrove, give me the license that was handed to you by Cuthbert
+Laurance."
+
+"What value can it possess now?"
+
+"Just now it is worth more to me than everything else in life,--more
+to me than my hopes of heaven."
+
+"Mrs. Laurance, you must remember that I refused to perform the
+marriage ceremony, because I believed you were both entirely too
+young. Your grandmother who came with you assured me she was your
+sole guardian, and desired the marriage, and your husband, who seemed
+to me a mere boy, quieted my objections by producing the license,
+which he said exonerated me from censure, and relieved me of all
+responsibility. With that morning's work I have never felt fully
+satisfied, and though I know that any magistrate would probably have
+performed the ceremony, I have sometimes thought I acted rashly, and
+have carefully kept that license as my defence and apology."
+
+"Thank God, that it has been preserved. Give it to me."
+
+"Pardon me if I say frankly, I prefer to retain it. All licenses are
+recorded by the officer who issued them, and by applying to him you
+can easily procure a copy."
+
+"Treachery baffles me there. A most opportune fire broke out eighteen
+months ago in the room where those records were kept, and although
+the court house was saved, the book containing my marriage license
+was of course destroyed."
+
+"But the clerk should be able to furnish a certificate of the facts."
+
+"Not when he has been bribed to forget them. Please give me the paper
+in your possession."
+
+She wrung her slender fingers, and her whole frame trembled like a
+weed on some bleak hillside, where wintry winds sweep unimpeded.
+
+A troubled look crossed the grave, placid countenance of the pastor,
+and he clasped his hands firmly behind him, as if girding himself to
+deny the eloquent pleading of the lovely dark eyes.
+
+"Sit down, madam, and listen to----"
+
+"I cannot! A restless fever is consuming me, and nothing but the
+possession of that license can quiet me. You have no right to
+withhold it,--you cannot be so cruel, so wicked,--unless you also
+have been corrupted, bought off!"
+
+"Be patient enough to hear me. I have always feared there was
+something wrong about that strange wedding, and your manner confirms
+my suspicions. Now I must be made acquainted with all the facts, must
+know your reason for claiming the paper in my possession, before I
+surrender it. As a minister of the Gospel, it is incumbent upon me to
+act cautiously, lest I innocently become auxiliary to deception,
+--possibly to crime."
+
+A vivid scarlet flamed up in the girl's marble cheeks.
+
+"Of what do you suspect, or accuse me?"
+
+"I accuse you of nothing. I demand your reasons for the request you
+have made."
+
+"I want that paper because it is the only proof of my marriage. There
+were two witnesses: my grandmother, who died three years ago on a
+steamship bound for California, where her only son is living, and
+Gerbert Audre, a college student, who is supposed to have been lost
+last summer in a fishing smack off the coast of Labrador or
+Greenland."
+
+"I am a witness accessible at any time, should my testimony be
+required."
+
+"Will you live for ever? Nay,--just when I need your evidence, my ill
+luck will seal your lips, and drive the screws down in your coffin
+lid."
+
+"What use do you intend to make of the license? Deal candidly with
+me."
+
+"I want to hold it, as the most precious thing left in life; to keep
+it concealed securely, until the time comes when it will serve me,
+save me, avenge me."
+
+"Why is it necessary to prove your marriage? Who disputes it?"
+
+"Cuthbert Laurance and his father."
+
+"Is it possible! Upon what plea?"
+
+"That he was a minor, was only twenty, irresponsible, and that the
+license was fraudulent."
+
+"Where is your husband?"
+
+"I tell you, I have no husband! It were sacrilege to couple that
+sacred title with the name of the man who has wronged, deserted,
+repudiated me; and who intends if possible to add to the robbery of
+my peace and happiness, that of my fair, stainless name. Less than
+one month after the day when right here, where I now stand, you
+pronounced me his wife in the sight of God and man, he was summoned
+home by a telegram from his father. I have never seen him since.
+General Laurance took his son immediately to Europe, and, sir, you
+will find it difficult to believe me, when I tell you that infamous
+father has actually forced the son by threats of disinheritance to
+many again,--to----"
+
+The words seemed to strangle her, and she hastily broke away the
+ribbons which held her bonnet and were tied beneath her chin.
+
+Mr. Hargrove poured some water into a goblet, and as he held it to
+her lips, murmured compassionately:
+
+"Poor child! God help you."
+
+Perhaps the genuine pity in the tone brought back sweet memories of
+the bygone, and for a moment softened the girl's heart, for tears
+gathered in the large eyes, giving them a strange quivering radiance.
+As if ashamed of the weakness she threw her head back defiantly, and
+continued:
+
+"I was the poor little orphan, whose grandmother did washing and
+mending for the college boys--only little unknown Minnie Merle, with
+none to aid in asserting her rights;--and she--the new wife--was a
+banker's daughter, an heiress, a fashionable belle,--and so Minnie
+Merle must be trampled out, and the new Mrs. Cuthbert Laurance dashes
+in her splendid equipage through the Bois de Bologne. Sir, give me my
+license!"
+
+Mr. Hargrove opened a secret drawer in the tall writing-desk that
+stood in one corner of the room, and, unlocking a square tin box,
+took from it a folded slip of paper. After some deliberation he
+seated himself, and began to write.
+
+Impatiently his visitor paced the floor, followed by Bioern, who now
+and then growled suspiciously.
+
+At length, when the pastor laid down his pen, his guest came to his
+side, and held out her hand.
+
+"Madam, the statements you have made are so extraordinary, that you
+must pardon me if I am unusually cautious in my course. While I have
+no right to doubt your assertions, they seem almost incredible, and
+the use you might make of the license----"
+
+"What! you find it so difficult to credit the villainy of a man--and
+yet so easy to suspect, to believe all possible deceit and wickedness
+in a poor helpless woman? Oh, man of God! is your mantle of charity
+cut to cover only your own sex? Can the wail of down-trodden
+orphanage wake no pity in your heart,--or is it locked against me by
+the cowardly dread of incurring the hate of the house of Laurance?"
+
+For an instant a dark flush bathed the tranquil brow of the minister,
+but his kind tone was unchanged when he answered slowly:
+
+"Four years ago I was in doubt concerning my duty, but just now there
+is clearly but one course for me to pursue. Unless you wish to make
+an improper use of it, this paper which I very willingly hand to you
+will serve your purpose. It is an exact copy of the license, and to
+it I have appended my certificate, as the officiating clergyman who
+performed the marriage ceremony. Examine it carefully, and you will
+find the date, and indeed every syllable rigidly accurate. From the
+original I shall never part, unless to see it replaced in the court
+house records."
+
+Bending down close to the lamp, she eagerly read and reread the paper
+which shook like an aspen in her nervous grasp; then she looked long
+and searchingly into the grave face beside her, and a sudden light
+broke over her own.
+
+"Oh, thank you! After all, the original is safer in your hands than
+in mine. I might be murdered, but they would never dare to molest
+you,--and if I should die, you would not allow them to rob my baby of
+her name?"
+
+"Your baby!"
+
+He looked at the young girlish figure and face, and it seemed
+impossible that the creature before him could be a mother. A
+melancholy smile curved her lips.
+
+"Oh! that is the sting that sometimes goads me almost to desperation.
+My own wrongs are sufficiently hard to bear, but when I think of my
+innocent baby denied the sight of her father's face, and robbed of
+the protection of her father's name, then--I forget that I am only a
+woman, I forget that God reigns in heaven to right the wrongs on
+earth, and----"
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+"How old is your child?"
+
+"Three years."
+
+"And you? A mere child now."
+
+"I am only nineteen."
+
+"Poor thing! I pity you from the depths of my soul."
+
+The clock struck ten, and the woman started from the table against
+which she leaned.
+
+"I must not miss the train; I promised to return promptly."
+
+She put on the grey cloak she had thrown aside, buttoned it about her
+throat, and tied her bonnet strings.
+
+"Before you go, explain one thing. Was not your hair very dark when
+you were married?"
+
+"Yes, a dark chestnut brown, but when my child was born I was ill a
+long time, and my head was shaved and blistered. When the hair grew
+out, it was just as you see it now. Ah! if we had only died then,
+baby and I, we might have had a quiet sleep under the violets and
+daisies. I see, sir, you doubt whether I am really little Minnie
+Merle. Do you not recollect that when you asked for the wedding ring
+none had been provided, and Cuthbert took one from his own hand,
+which was placed on my finger? Ah! there was a grim fitness in the
+selection! A death's head peeping out of a cinerary urn. You will
+readily recognize the dainty bridal token."
+
+She drew from her bosom a slender gold chain on which was suspended a
+quaint antique cameo ring of black agate, with a grinning white skull
+in the centre, and around the oval border of heavily chased gold
+glittered a row of large and very brilliant diamonds.
+
+"I distinctly remember the circumstance."
+
+As the minister restored the ring to its owner, she returned it and
+the chain to its hiding-place.
+
+"I do not wear it, I am biding my time. When General Laurance sent
+his agent first to attempt to buy me off, and, finding that
+impossible, to browbeat and terrify me into silence, one of his
+insolent demands was the restoration of this ring, which he said was
+an heirloom of untold value in his family, and must belong to none
+but a Laurance. He offered five hundred dollars for the delivery of
+it into his possession. I would sooner part with my right arm! Were
+it iron or lead, its value to me would be the same, for it is the
+only symbol of my lawful marriage,--is my child's title deed to a
+legitimate name."
+
+She turned toward the door, and Dr. Hargrove asked:
+
+"Where is your home?"
+
+"I have none. I am a waif drifting from city to city, on the
+uncertain waves of chance."
+
+"Have you no relatives?"
+
+"Only an uncle, somewhere in the gold mines of California."
+
+"Does General Laurance provide for your maintenance?"
+
+"Three years ago his agent offered me a passage to San Francisco, and
+five thousand dollars, on condition that I withdrew all claim to my
+husband and to his name, and pledged myself to 'give the Laurances no
+further trouble.' Had I been a man, I would have strangled him. Since
+then no communication of any kind has passed between us, except that
+all my letters to Cuthbert pleading for his child have been returned
+without comment."
+
+"How, then are you and the babe supported?"
+
+"That, sir, is my secret."
+
+She drew herself haughtily to her full height, and would have passed
+him, but he placed himself between her and the door.
+
+"Mrs. Laurance, do not be offended by my friendly frankness. You are
+so young and so beautiful, and the circumstances of your life render
+you so peculiarly liable to dangerous associations and influences,
+that I fear you may----"
+
+"Fear nothing for me. Can I forget my helpless baby, whose sole dower
+just now promises to be her mother's spotless name? Blushing for her
+father's perfidy, she shall never need a purer, whiter shield than
+her mother's stainless record--so help me, God!"
+
+"Will you do me the favour to put aside for future contingencies this
+small tribute to your child? The amount is not so large that you
+should hesitate to receive it; and feeling a deep interest in your
+poor little babe, it will give me sincere pleasure to know that you
+accept it for her sake, as a memento of one who will always be glad
+to hear from you, and to aid you if possible."
+
+With evident embarrassment he tendered an old-fashioned purse of
+knitted silk, through whose meshes gleamed the sheen of gold pieces.
+To his astonishment she covered her face with her hands and burst
+into a fit of passionate weeping. For some seconds she sobbed aloud,
+leaving him in painful uncertainty concerning the nature of her
+emotion.
+
+"Oh, sir!--it has been so long since words of sympathy and real
+kindness were spoken to me, that now they unnerve me. I am strong
+against calumny and injustice,--but kindness breaks me down. I thank
+you in my baby's name, but we cannot take your money. Ministers are
+never oppressed with riches, and baby and I can live without charity.
+But since you are so good, I should like to say something in strict
+confidence to you. I am suspicious now of everybody, but it seems to
+me I might surely trust you. I do not yet see my way clearly, and if
+anything should happen to me the child would be thrown helpless upon
+the world. You have neither wife nor children, and if the time ever
+comes when I shall be obliged to leave my little girl for any long
+period, may I send her here for safety, until I can claim her? She
+shall cost you nothing but care and watchfulness. I could work so
+much better, if my mind were only easy about her; if I knew she was
+safely housed in this sanctuary of peace."
+
+Ah! how irresistible was the pathetic pleading of the tearful eyes;
+but Mr. Hargrove did not immediately respond to the appeal.
+
+"I understand your  silence--you think me presumptuous in my request,
+and I daresay I am, but----"
+
+"No, madam, not at all presumptuous. I hesitate habitually before
+assuming grave responsibility, and I only regret that I did not
+hesitate longer--four years ago. A man's first instincts of
+propriety, of right and wrong, should never be smothered by
+persuasion, nor wrestled down and overcome by subtle and selfish
+reasoning. I blame myself for much that has occurred, and I am
+willing to do all that I can toward repairing my error. If your child
+should ever really need a guardian, bring or send her to me, and I
+will shield her to the full extent of my ability." Ere he was aware
+of her intention, she caught his hand, and as she carried it to her
+lips he felt her tears falling fast.
+
+"God bless you for your goodness! I have one thing more to ask;
+promise me that you will divulge to no one what I have told you. Let
+it rest between God and you and me."
+
+"I promise."
+
+"In the great city where I labour I bear an assumed name, and none
+must know, at least for the present, whom I am. Realizing fully the
+unscrupulous character of the men with whom I have to deal, my only
+hope of redress is in preserving the secret for some years, and not
+even my baby can know her real parentage until I see fit to tell her.
+You will not betray me, even to my child?"
+
+"You may trust me."
+
+"Thank you, more than mere words could ever express."
+
+"May God help you, Mrs. Laurance, to walk circumspectly--to lead a
+blameless life."
+
+He took his hat from the stand in the hall, and silently they walked
+down to the parsonage gate. The driver dismounted and opened the
+carriage door, but the draped figure lingered, with her hand upon the
+latch.
+
+"If I should die before we meet again, you will not allow them to
+trample upon my child?"
+
+"I will do my duty faithfully."
+
+"Remember that none must know I am Minnie Laurance until I give you
+permission; for snares have been set all along my path, and calumny
+is ambushed at every turn. Good-bye, sir. The God of orphans will one
+day requite you."
+
+The light from the carriage lamp shone down on her as she turned
+toward it, and in subsequent years the pastor was haunted by the
+marvellous beauty of the spirituelle features, the mournful splendour
+of the large misty eyes, and the golden glint of the rippling hair
+that had fallen low upon her temples.
+
+"If it were not so late, I would accompany you to the railway
+station. You will have a lonely ride. Good-bye, Mrs. Laurance."
+
+"Lonely, sir? Aye--lonely for ever."
+
+She laughed bitterly, and entered the carriage.
+
+     "Laughed, and the echoes huddling in affright,
+     Like Odin's hounds fled baying down the night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+With the night passed the storm which had rendered it so gloomy, and
+the fair cold day shone upon a world shrouded in icy cerements; a
+hushed, windless world, as full of glittering rime-runes as the
+frozen fields of Jotunheim. Each tree and shrub seemed a springing
+fountain, suddenly crystallized in mid-air, and not all the mediaeval
+marvels of Murano equalled the fairy fragile tracery of fine spun,
+glassy web, and film, and fringe that stretched along fences, hung
+from eaves, and belaced the ivy leaves that lay helpless on the
+walls. A blanched waning moon, a mere silver crescent, shivered upon
+the edge of the western horizon, fleeing before the scarlet and
+orange lances that already bristled along the eastern sky-line, the
+advance guard of the conqueror, who would ere many moments smite all
+that weird icy realm with consuming flames. The very air seemed
+frozen, and refused to vibrate in trills and roulades through the
+throaty organs of matutinal birds, that hopped and blinked, plumed
+their diamonded breasts, and scattered brilliants enough to set a
+tiara; and profound silence brooded over the scene, until rudely
+broken by a cry of dismay which rang out startlingly from the
+parsonage. The alarm might very readily have been ascribed to
+diligent Hannah, who, contemptuous of barometric or thermal
+vicissitudes, invariably adhered to the aphorism of Solomon, and,
+arising "while it is yet night, looketh well to the ways of her
+household."
+
+With a broom in one hand, and feather dusting-brush in the other, she
+ran down the front steps, her white cap strings flying like distress
+signals,--bent down to the ground as a blood-hound might in scenting
+a trail,--then dashed back into the quiet old house, and uttered a
+wolfish cry:
+
+"Robbers! Burglars! Thieves!"
+
+Oppressed with compassionate reflections concerning the fate of his
+visitor, the minister had found himself unable to sleep as soundly as
+usual, and from the troubled slumber into which he sank after
+daylight he was aroused by the unwonted excitement that reigned in
+the hall, upon which his apartment opened. While hastily dressing,
+his toilette labours were expedited by an impatient rap which only
+Hannah's heavy hand could have delivered. Wrapped in his
+dressing-gown he opened the door, saying benignly:
+
+"Is there an earthquake or a cyclone? You thunder as if my room were
+Mount Celion. Is any one dead?"
+
+"Some one ought to be! The house was broken open last night, and the
+silver urn is missing. Shameless wretch! This comes of mysteries and
+veiled women, who are too modest to, look an honest female in the
+face, but----!"
+
+"Oh, Hannah I that tongue of thine is more murderous than Cyrus'
+scythed chariots! Here is your urn! I put it away last night, because
+I saw from the newspapers that a quantity of plate had recently been
+stolen. Poor Hannah! don't scowl so ferociously because I have
+spoiled your little tragedy. I believe you are really sorry to see
+the dear old thing safe in defiance of your prophecy."
+
+Mrs. Lindsay came downstairs laughing heartily, and menacing irate
+Hannah with the old-fashioned urn, which had supplied three
+generations with tea.
+
+"Is that the sole cause of the disturbance?" asked the master,
+stooping to pat Bioern, who was dancing a tarantella on the good man's
+velvet slippers.
+
+Somewhat crestfallen the woman seized the urn, began to polish it
+with her apron, and finally said sulkily:
+
+"I beg pardon for raising a false alarm, but indeed it looked
+suspicious and smelled of foul play, when I found the library window
+wide open, two chairs upside down on the carpet,--mud on the
+window-sill, the inkstand upset,--and no urn on the sideboard. But as
+usual I am only an old fool, and you, sir, and Miss Elise know best I
+am very sorry I roused you so early with my racket."
+
+"Did you say the library window wide open? Impossible; I distinctly
+recollect closing the blinds, and putting down the sash before I went
+to bed. Elise, were you not with me at the time?"
+
+"Yes, I am sure you secured it, just before bidding me goodnight."
+
+"Well--no matter, facts are ugly, stubborn things. Now you two just
+see for yourselves, what I found this morning."
+
+Hannah hurried them into the library, where a fire had already been
+kindled, and her statement was confirmed by the disarranged
+furniture, and traces of mud on the window-sill and carpet. The
+inkstand had rolled almost to the hearth, scattering its contents
+_en route_, and as he glanced at his desk the minister turned pale.
+
+The secret drawer which opened with a spring had been pulled out to
+its utmost extent, and he saw that the tin box he had so carefully
+locked the previous night was missing. Some _MSS_ were scattered
+loosely in the drawer, and the purse filled with gold coins, a
+handsomely set miniature, and heavy watch chain with seal attached,
+all lay untouched, though conspicuously alluring to the cupidity of
+burglars. Bending over his rifled sanctuary, Mr. Hargrove sighed,
+and a grieved look settled on his countenance.
+
+"Peyton, do you miss anything?"
+
+"Only a box of papers."
+
+"Were they valuable?"
+
+"Pecuniarily no;--at least not convertible into money. In other
+respects, very important."
+
+"Not your beautiful sermons, I hope," cried his sister, throwing one
+arm around his neck, and leaning down to examine the remaining
+contents of the drawer.
+
+"They were more valuable, Elise, than many sermons, and some cannot
+be replaced."
+
+"But how could the burglars have overlooked the money and jewellery?"
+
+Again the minister sighed heavily, and, closing the drawer, said:
+
+"Perhaps we may discover some trace in the garden."
+
+"Aye, sir,--I searched before I raised an uproar, and here is a
+handkerchief that I found under that window, on the violet bed. It
+was frozen fast to the leaves."
+
+Hannah held it up between the tips of her fingers, as if fearful of
+contamination, and eyed it with an expression of loathing. Mr.
+Hargrove took it to the light and examined it, while an unwonted
+frown wrinkled his usually placid brow. It was a dainty square of
+finest cambric, bordered with a wreath of embroidered lilies, and in
+one corner exceedingly embellished "O O" stared like wide wondering
+eyes, at the strange hands that profaned it.
+
+"Do you notice what a curious, outlandish smell it has? It struck my
+nostrils sharper than hartshorn when I picked it up. No rum-drinking,
+tobacco-smoking burglar in breeches dropped that lace rag."
+
+Hannah set her stout arms akimbo, and looked "unutterable things" at
+the delicate fabric, that as if to deprecate its captors was all the
+while breathing out deliciously sweet but vague hints,--now of
+eglantine, and now of that subtle spiciness that dwells in daphnes,
+and anon plays hide-and-seek in nutmeg geranium blooms.
+
+Reluctance to admission of the suspicion of unworthiness in others is
+the invariable concomitant of true nobility of soul in all pure and
+exalted natures,--and with that genuine chivalry, which now, alas! is
+welnigh as rare as the _aumoniere_ of pilgrims, the pastor bravely
+cast around the absent woman the broad, soft ermine of his tender
+charity.
+
+"Hannah, if your insinuations point to the lady who called here last
+night, I can easily explain the suspicious fact of the handkerchief,
+which certainly belongs to her; for the room was close, and my
+visitor, having raised that window and leaned out for fresh air,
+doubtless dropped her handkerchief without observing the loss."
+
+"Do the initials '_O O_' represent her name?" asked Mrs. Lindsay,
+whose adroitly propounded interrogatories the previous evening had
+elicited no satisfactory information.
+
+"Do not ladies generally stamp their own monograms when marking
+articles that compose their wardrobes?" He put the unlucky piece of
+cambric in his pocket, and pertinacious Hannah suddenly stooped and
+dealt Bioern a blow, which astonished the spectators even more than
+the yelping recipient, who dropped something at her feet and crawled
+behind his master.
+
+"You horrid, greedy pest! Are you in league with the thieves, that
+you must needs try to devour the signs and tell-tales they dropped in
+the track of their dirty work? It is only a glove this time, sir, and
+it was all crumpled, just so,--where I first saw it, when I ran out
+to hunt for footprints. It was hanging on the end of a rose bush,
+yonder near the snowball, and you see it was rather too far from the
+window here to have fallen down with the handkerchief. Look, Miss
+Elise, your hands are small, but this would pinch even your fingers."
+
+She triumphantly lifted a lady's kid glove, brown in colour and
+garnished with three small oval silver buttons, the exact mate of one
+which Mr. Hargrove had noticed the previous evening, when the visitor
+held up the ring for his inspection. Exulting in the unanswerable
+logic of this latest fact, Hannah quite unintentionally gave the
+glove a scornful toss, which caused it to fall into the fireplace,
+and down between two oak logs, where it shrivelled instantaneously.
+Unfortunately science is not chivalric, and divulges the unamiable
+and ungraceful truth, that perverted female natures from even the
+lower beastly types are more implacably vindictive, more subtly
+malicious, more ingeniously cruel than the stronger sex; and when a
+woman essays to track, to capture, or to punish--_vae victis_.
+
+"Now, Bioern! improve your opportunity and heap coals of fire on
+slanderous Hannah's head, by assuring her you feel convinced she did
+not premeditatedly destroy traces, and connive at the escape of the
+burglars, by burning that most important glove, which might have
+aided us in identifying them."
+
+As Mr. Hargrove caressed his dog, he smiled, evidently relieved by
+the opportune accident; but Mrs. Lindsay looked grave, and an
+indignant flush purpled the harsh, pitiless face of the servant,
+who sullenly turned away, and busied herself in putting the
+furniture in order.
+
+"Peyton, were the stolen papers of a character to benefit that
+person,--or indeed any one but yourself, or your family?"
+
+He knew the soft blue eyes of his sister were watching him keenly,
+saw too that the old servant stood still, and turned her head to
+listen, and he answered without hesitation:
+
+"The box contained the deed to a disputed piece of property, those
+iron and lead mines in Missouri,--and I relied upon it to establish
+my claim."
+
+"Was the lady who visited you last night in any manner interested in
+that suit, or its result?"
+
+"Not in the remotest degree. She cannot even be aware of its
+existence. In addition to the deed, I have lost the policy of
+insurance on this house, which has always been entrusted to me and I
+must immediately notify the company of the fact and obtain a
+duplicate policy. Elise, will you and Hannah please give me my
+breakfast as soon as possible, that I may go into town at once?"
+
+Walking to the window, he stood for some moments, with his hands
+folded behind him, and as he noted the splendour of the spectacle
+presented by the risen sun shining upon temples and palaces of ice,
+prism-tinting domes and minarets, and burnishing after the similitude
+of silver stalactites and arcades which had built themselves into
+crystal campaniles, more glorious than Giotto's,--the pastor said:
+"The physical world, just as God left it,--how pure, how lovely, how
+entirely good;--how sacred from His hallowing touch! Oh that the
+world of men and women were half as unchangingly true, stainless, and
+holy!"
+
+An hour later he bent his steps,--not to the lawyer's, nor yet to the
+insurance office, but to the depot of the only railroad which passed
+through the quiet, old-fashioned, and comparatively unimportant town
+of V----.
+
+The station agent was asleep upon a sofa in the reception-room, but
+when aroused informed Dr. Hargrove that the down train bound south
+had been accidentally detained four hours, and instead of being "on
+time," due at eleven p.m., did not pass through V---- until after
+three a.m. A lady, corresponding in all respects with the minister's
+description, had arrived about seven on the up train, left a small
+valise, or rather traveller's satchel, for safe keeping in the
+baggage-room; had inquired at what time she could catch the down
+train, signifying her intention to return upon it, and had hired one
+of the carriages always waiting for passengers, and disappeared.
+About eleven o'clock she came back, paid the coachman, and dismissed
+the carriage; seemed very cold, and the agent built a good fire,
+telling her she could take a nap as the train was behind time, and he
+would call her when he heard the whistle. He then went home, several
+squares distant, to see one of his children who was quite ill, and
+when he returned to the station and peeped into the reception-room to
+see if it kept warm and comfortable not a soul was visible. He
+wondered where the lady could have gone at that hour, and upon such a
+freezing night, but sat down by the grate in the freight-room, and
+when the down train blew for V---- he took his lantern and went out,
+and the first person he saw was the missing lady. She asked for her
+satchel, which he gave her, and he handed her up to the platform, and
+saw her go into the ladies' car.
+
+"Had she a package or box, when she returned and asked for her
+satchel?"
+
+"I did not see any, but she wore a waterproof of grey cloth that came
+down to her feet. There was so much confusion when the train came in
+that I scarcely noticed her, but remember she shivered a good deal,
+as if almost frozen."
+
+"Did she buy a return ticket?"
+
+"No, I asked if I should go to the ticket office for her, but she
+thanked me very politely, and said she would not require anything."
+
+"Can you tell me to what place she was going?"
+
+"I do not know where she came from, nor where she went. She was most
+uncommonly beautiful."
+
+"Are the telegraph wires working south?"
+
+"Why bless you, sir! they are down in several places, from the weight
+of the ice, so I heard the station operator say, just before you came
+in."
+
+As Dr. Hargrove walked away, an expression of stern indignation
+replaced the benign look that usually reigned over his noble
+features, and he now resolutely closed all the avenues of compassion,
+along which divers fallacious excuses and charitable conjectures had
+marched into his heart, and stifled for a time the rigorous verdict
+of reason.
+
+He had known from the moment he learned the tin box was missing, that
+only the frail, fair fingers of Minnie Merle could have abstracted
+it, but justice demanded that he should have indisputable proof of
+her presence in V---- after twelve o'clock, for he had not left the
+library until that hour, and knew that the train passed through at
+eleven.
+
+Conviction is the pitiless work of unbiased reason, but faith is the
+acceptance thereof, by will, and he would not wholly believe, until
+there was no alternative. _Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus_, and
+quite naturally Dr. Hargrove began to discredit the entire narrative
+of wrongs, which had attained colossal proportions from her
+delineation, and to censure himself most harshly for having suffered
+this dazzling Delilah to extort from him a solemn promise of secrecy;
+for, unworthy of sympathy as he now deemed her, his rigid rectitude
+would not permit him to regard that unworthiness as sufficient
+justification for abrogating his plighted word. Suspicious facts
+which twelve hours before had been hushed by the soft spell of her
+rich plaintive voice, now started up clamorous and accusing, and the
+pastor could not avoid beholding the discrepancy between her pleas of
+poverty and friendlessness, and the costly appearance of her
+apparel,--coupled with her refusal to acquaint him with her means of
+maintenance.
+
+If, as she had averred, the stolen license was--with the exception of
+his verbal testimony--the sole proof of her marriage, why was she not
+satisfied with the copy given to her unless for some unrighteous
+motive she desired to possess in order to destroy all evidence?
+
+Surmise, with crooked and uncertain finger, had pointed to New
+York--whose broad deep bosom shelters so many helpless human
+waifs--as her probable place of destination, and had the
+telegraph-wires been in successful operation he would have hazarded
+the experiment of requesting her arrest at the terminus of the
+railway; but this was impracticable, and each succeeding hour aided
+in obliterating the only clue in his possession.
+
+The universal observation of man, ages ago, simmered down and
+crystallized into the adage, "Misfortunes never come singly;" and it
+is here respectfully submitted--that startling episodes, unexpected
+incidents quite as rarely travel alone. Do surprises gravitate into
+groups, or are certain facts binary?
+
+Sometimes for a quarter of a century the sluggish stream of life
+oozes by, bearing no hint of deeds, or faces,--that perchance shed
+glory, or perhaps lent gloom to the far past,--a past well-nigh
+forgotten and inurned in the gathering grey of time,--and suddenly
+without premonition, the slow monotonous current ripples and swells
+into waves that bear to our feet fateful countenances, unwelcome as
+grave-ghouls,--and the world grows garrulous of incidents that once
+more galvanize the shrouded Bygone. For four years the minister had
+received no tidings of those whom he had so reluctantly joined in the
+bonds of wedlock, and not even a reminiscence of that singular bridal
+party had floated into his quiet parsonage study; but within
+twenty-four hours he seemed destined to garner a plentiful harvest of
+disagreeable data for future speculation. He had not yet reached his
+lawyer's office, when, hearing his name pronounced vociferously, Dr.
+Hargrove looked around and saw the postmaster standing in his door
+and calling on him to enter.
+
+"Pardon me, my dear sir, for shouting after you so unceremoniously;
+but I saw you were not coming in, and knew it would promote your
+interest to pay me a visit. Fine day at last, after all the rain and
+murky weather. This crisp, frosty air sharpens one's wits,--a sort of
+atmospheric pumice, don't you see, and tempts me to drive a good
+bargain. How much will you give for a letter that has travelled half
+around the world, and had as many adventures as Robinson Crusoe, or
+Madame Pfeiffer?"
+
+He took from a drawer a dingy and much-defaced envelope, whose
+address was rather indistinct from having encountered a oath on its
+journey.
+
+"Are you sure that it is for me?" asked the minister, trying to
+decipher the uncertain characters.
+
+"Are there two of your name? This is intended for Reverend Peyton
+Hargrove of St. ---- Church -- V----, United States of America. It
+was enclosed to me by the Postmaster-General, who says that it
+arrived last week in the long-lost mail of the steamship _Algol_,
+which you doubtless recollect was lost some time ago,--plying
+between New York and Havre; It now appears that a Dutch  sailing
+vessel bound for Tasmania--wherever that may be; somewhere among the
+cannibals, I presume--boarded her after she had been deserted by the
+crew, and secured the mail bags, intending to put in along the
+Spanish coast and land them, but stress of weather drove them so far
+out to sea, that they sailed on to some point in Africa, and as the
+postmasters in that progressive and enlightened region did not serve
+their apprenticeship in the United States Postal Bureau, you perceive
+that your document has not had 'despatch.' If salt water is ever a
+preservative, your news ought not to be stale."
+
+"Thank you. I hope the contents will prove worthy of the care and
+labour of its transmission. I see it is dated Paris--one year ago,
+nearly. I am much obliged by your kind courtesy. Good-day."
+
+Dr. Hargrove walked on, and, somewhat disappointed in not receiving
+a moiety of information by way of recompense, the postmaster added:
+
+"If you find it is not your letter bring it back, and I will start it
+on another voyage of discovery, for it certainly deserves to get
+home."
+
+"There is no doubt whatever about it. It was intended for me."
+
+Unfolding the letter, he had glanced at the signature, and now
+hurrying homeward, read as follows:
+
+                                       "PARIS, _February 1st_,
+
+    "REV. PEYTON HARGROVE,--Hoping that, while entirely ignorant of
+    the facts and circumstances, you unintentionally inflicted upon
+    me an incalculable injury, I reluctantly address you with
+    reference to a subject fraught with inexpressible pain and
+    humiliation. Through your agency the happiness and welfare of my
+    only child, and the proud and unblemished name of a noble family,
+    have been wellnigh wrecked; but my profound reverence for your
+    holy office, persuades me to believe that you were unconsciously
+    the dupe of unprincipled and designing parties. When my son
+    Cuthbert entered ---- University, he was all that my fond heart
+    desired, all that his sainted mother could have hoped, and no
+    young gentleman on the wide Continent gave fairer promise of
+    future usefulness and distinction; but one year of demoralizing
+    association with dissipated and reckless youths undermined the
+    fair moral and intellectual structure I had so laboriously
+    raised, and in an unlucky hour he fell a victim to alluring
+    vices. Intemperance gradually gained such supremacy that he was
+    threatened with expulsion, and to crown all other errors he was,
+    while intoxicated, inveigled into a so-called marriage with a
+    young but notorious girl, whose only claim was her pretty face,
+    while her situation was hopelessly degraded. This creature,
+    Minnie Merle, had an infirm grandmother, who, in order to save
+    the reputation of the unfortunate girl, appealed so adroitly to
+    Cuthbert's high sense of honour, that her arguments, emphasized
+    by the girl's beauty and helplessness, prevailed over reason,
+    and--I may add--decency and one day when almost mad with brandy
+    and morphine he consented to call her his wife. Neither was of
+    age, and my son was not only a minor (lacking two months of being
+    twenty), but on that occasion was utterly irrational and
+    irresponsible, as I am prepared to prove. They intended to
+    conceal the whole shameful affair from me, but the old
+    grandmother--fearing that some untoward circumstance might mar
+    the scheme of possessing the ample fortune she well knew my boy
+    expected  to control--wrote me all the disgraceful facts,
+    imploring my clemency, and urging me to remove Cuthbert from
+    associates outside of his classmates, who were dragging him to
+    ruin. If you, my dear sir, are a father (and I hope you are),
+    paternal sympathy will enable you to realize approximately the
+    grief, indignation, almost despairing rage into which I was
+    plunged. Having informed myself through a special agent sent to
+    the University of the utter unworthiness and disreputable
+    character of the connection forced upon me, I telegraphed for
+    Cuthbert, alleging some extraneous cause for requiring his
+    presence. Three days after his arrival at home, I extorted a full
+    confession from him, and we were soon upon the Atlantic. For a
+    time I feared that inebriation had seriously impaired his
+    intellect, but, thank God! temperate habits and a good
+    constitution finally prevailed, and when a year after we left
+    America Cuthbert realized all that he had hazarded during his
+    temporary insanity, he was so overwhelmed with mortification and
+    horror that he threatened to destroy himself. Satisfied that he
+    was more 'sinned against, than sinning,' I yet endeavoured to
+    deal justly with the unprincipled authors of the stain upon my
+    family, and employed a discreet agent to negotiate with them, and
+    to try to effect some compromise. The old woman went out to
+    California; the young one refused all overtures, and for a time
+    disappeared, but, as I am reliably informed, is now living in New
+    York, supported no one knows exactly by whom. Recently she has
+    made an imperious demand for the recognition of a child, who she
+    declares shall one day inherit the Laurance estate; but I have
+    certain facts in my possession which invalidate this claim, and
+    if necessary can produce a certificate to prove that the birth of
+    the child occurred only seven months after the date of the
+    ceremony, which she contends made her Cuthbert's wife. She
+    rejects the abundant pecuniary provision which has been
+    repeatedly offered, and in her last impertinent and insanely
+    abusive communication, threatens a suit to force the
+    acknowledgment of the marriage, and of the child, stating that
+    you, sir, hold the certificate or rather the license warranting
+    the marriage, and that you will espouse and aid in prosecuting
+    her iniquitous claims. My son is now a reformed and comparatively
+    happy man, but should this degrading and bitterly repented
+    episode of his collage life be thrust before the public, and
+    allowed to blacken the fair escutcheon we are so jealously
+    anxious to protect, I dread the consequences. Only horror of a
+    notorious scandal prevented me long ago from applying for a
+    divorce, which could very easily have been obtained, but we
+    shrink from the publicity, and moreover the case does not seem to
+    demand compliance with even the ordinary forms of law. Believing
+    that you, my dear sir, would not avow yourself _particeps
+    criminis_ in so unjust and vile a crusade against the peace and
+    honour of my family were you acquainted with the facts, I have
+    taken the liberty of writing you this brief and incomplete
+    _resume_ of the outrages perpetrated upon me and mine, and must
+    refer you for disgraceful details to my agent, Mr. Peleg Peterson
+    of Whitefield, ---- Co., ----. Hoping that you will not add to
+    the injury you have already inflicted, by further complicity in
+    this audacious scheme of fraud and blackmail,
+
+                                "I am, dear sir, respectfully
+                                      An afflicted father,
+                                           RENE LAURANCE.
+
+    "P.S.--Should you desire to communicate with me, my address for
+    several months will be, Care of the American Legation, Paris."
+
+How many men or women, with lives of average length and incident,
+have failed to recognize, nay to cower before the fact, that all
+along the highways and byways of the earthly pilgrimage they have
+been hounded by a dismal _cortege_ of retarded messages,--lost
+opportunities,--miscarried warnings,--procrastinated prayers,--dilatory
+deeds,--and laggard faces,--that howl for ever in their shuddering
+ears--"Too late." Had Dr. Hargrove received this letter only
+twenty-four hours earlier, the result of the interview on the
+previous night would probably have been very different; but
+unfortunately, while the army of belated facts--the fatal Grouchy
+corps--never accomplish their intended mission, they avenge they
+failure by a pertinacious presence ever after that is sometimes
+almost maddening.
+
+An uncomfortable consciousness of having been completely overreached
+did not soften the minister's feelings toward the new custodian of
+his tin box, and an utter revulsion of sentiment ensued, wherein
+sympathy for General Rene Laurance reigned supreme. Oh instability of
+human compassion! To-day at the tumultuous flood, we weep for Caesar
+slain; To-morrow in the ebb, we vote a monument to Brutus.
+
+Ere the sun had gone down behind the sombre frozen firs that fringed
+the hills of V---- Dr. Hargrove had written to Mr. Peleg Peterson,
+desiring to be furnished with some clue by which he could trace
+Minnie Merle, and Hannah had been despatched to the post office, to
+expedite the departure of the letter.
+
+Weeks and months passed, tearful April wept itself away in the
+flowery lap of blue-eyed May, and golden June roses died in the fiery
+embrace of July, but no answer came; no additional information
+drifted upon the waves of chance, and the slow stream of life at the
+parsonage once more crept silently and monotonously on.
+
+     "Some griefs gnaw deep. Some woes are hard to bear.
+     Who knows the Past? and who can judge us right?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+The sweet-tongued convent bell had rung the Angelas, and all within
+the cloistered courts was hushed, save the low monologue of the
+fountain whose minor murmuring made solemn accord with the sacred
+harmonious repose of its surroundings. The sun shone hot and blinding
+upon the towering mass of brick and slate, which, originally designed
+in the form of a parallelogram, had from numerous modern additions
+projected here, and curved into a new chapel yonder, until the
+acquisitive building had become eminently composite in its present
+style of architecture. The belfry, once in the centre, had been left
+behind in the onward march of the walls, but it lifted unconquerably
+in mid-air its tall gilt cross, untarnished by time, though ambitious
+ivy had steadily mounted the buttresses, and partially draped the
+Gothic arches, where blue sky once shone freely through.
+
+The court upon which the ancient monastery opened was laid out in the
+stiff geometric style, which universally prevailed when its trim
+hedges of box were first planted, and giant rosebushes, stately
+lilacs, and snowballs attested the careful training and attention
+which many years had bestowed. In the centre of this court, and
+surrounded by a wide border of luxuriant lilies, was a triangular
+pedestal of granite, now green with moss, and spotted with silver
+grey lichen groups, upon which stood a statue of St. Francis, bearing
+the stigmata, and wearing the hood drawn over his head, while the
+tunic was opened to display the wound in his side, and the skull and
+the crucifix lay at his feet. Close to the base of the pedestal
+crouched a marble lamb, around whose neck crept a slender chain of
+bind-weed, and above whom the rank green lances of leaves shot up to
+guard the numerous silver-dusted lilies that swung like snowy bells
+in the soft breeze, dispensing perfume instead of chimes.
+
+Quite distinct from the spacious new chapel--with its gilded shrine,
+picture-tapestried walls, and gorgeous stained windows, where the
+outside-world believers were allowed to worship--stood a low
+cruciform oratory, situated within the stricter confines of the
+monastery, and sacred to the exclusive use of the nuns. This chapel
+was immediately opposite the St.  Francis, and to-day, as the
+old-fashioned doors of elaborately carved oak were thrown wide, the
+lovely mass of nodding lillies seemed bowing in adoration before the
+image of the Virgin and Child, who crowned the altar within, while
+the dazzling sheen of noon flashing athwart the tessellated floor
+kindles an almost unearthly halo around
+
+     "Virgin and Babe, and Saint, who
+     With the same cold, calm, beautiful regard,"
+
+had watched for many weary years the kneeling devotees beneath their
+marble feet.
+
+On the steps of the altar were a number of china pots containing rose
+and apple geraniums in full bloom, and one luxuriant Grand Duke
+jasmine, all starred with creamy flowers, so flooded the place with
+fragrance that it seemed as if the vast laboratory of floral aromas
+had been suddenly unsealed.
+
+Upon the stone pavement, immediately in front of the altar, sat a
+little figure so motionless, that a casual glance would probably have
+included it among the consecrated and permanent images of the silent
+sanctuary;--the figure of a child, whose age could not have been
+accurately computed from the inspection of the countenance, which
+indexed a degree of grave mature wisdom wholly incompatible with the
+height of the body and the size of the limbs.
+
+If devotional promptings had brought her to the Nuns' Chapel, her
+orisons had been concluded, for she had turned her back upon the
+altar, and sat gazing sorrowfully down at her lap, where lay in
+pathetic _pose_ a white rabbit and a snowy pigeon,--both dead, quite
+stark and cold,--laid out in state upon the spotless linen apron,
+around which a fluted ruffle ran crisp and smooth. One tiny waxen
+hand held a broken lily, and the other was vainly pressed upon the
+lids of the rabbit's eyes, trying to close lovingly the pink orbs
+that now stared so distressingly through glazing film. The first
+passionate burst of grief had spent its force in the tears that left
+the velvety cheeks and chin as dewy as rain-washed rose leaves, while
+not a trace of moisture dimmed the large eyes that wore a proud,
+defiant, and much injured look, as though resentment were strangling
+sorrow.
+
+Unto whom or what shall I liken this fair, tender, childish face,
+which had in the narrow space of ten years gathered such perfection
+of outline, such unearthly purity of colour, such winsome grace, such
+complex expressions? Probably amid the fig and olive groves of
+Tuscany, Fra Bartolomeo found just such an incarnation of the angelic
+ideal, which he afterward placed for the admiration of succeeding
+generations in the winged heads that glorify the _Madonna della
+Misericordia_. The stipple of time dots so lightly, so slowly, that
+at the age of ten a human countenance should present a mere fleshy
+_tabula rasa_, but now and then we are startled by meeting a child as
+unlike the round, rosy, pulpy, dimpling, unwritten faces of ordinary
+life, as the churubs of Raphael to the rigid forms of Byzantine
+mosaics, or the stone portraiture of Copan.
+
+As she sat there, in the golden radiance of the summer noon, she
+presented an almost faultless specimen of a type of beauty that is
+rarely found nowaday, that has always been peculiar, and bids fair to
+become extinct. A complexion of dazzling whiteness and transparency,
+rendered more intensely pure by contrast with luxuriant silky hair of
+the deepest black,--and large superbly shaped eyes of clear, dark
+steel blue, almost violet in hue,--with delicately arched brows and
+very long lashes of that purplish black tint which only the trite and
+oft-borrowed plumes of ravens adequately illustrate. The forehead was
+not remarkable for height, but was peculiarly broad and full with
+unusual width between the eyes, and if Strato were correct in his
+speculations with reference to Psyche's throne, then verily my little
+girl did not cramp her soul in its fleshy palace. Daintily moulded in
+figure and face, every feature instinct with a certain delicate
+patricianism, that testified to genuine "blue blood," there was
+withal a melting tenderness about the parted lips that softened the
+regal contour of one who, amid the universal catalogue of feminine
+names, could never have been appropriately called other than Regina.
+
+Over in the new chapel across the court, where the sacristan had
+opened two of the crimson and green windows that now lighted the gilt
+altar as with sacrificial fire, and now drenched it with cool beryl
+tints that extinguished the flames, a low murmur became audible,
+swelling and rising upon the air, until the thunder-throated organ
+filled all the cloistered recesses with responsive echoes of Rossini.
+Some masterly hand played the "Recitative" of _Eia Mater_, bringing
+out the bass with powerful emphasis, and concluding with the full
+strains of the chorus; then the organ-tones sank into solemn minor
+chords indescribably plaintive, and after a while a quartette of
+choir voices sang the
+
+                "Sancta Mater! istud agas,
+                Crucifixi fige plagas,"
+
+ending with the most impassioned strain of the _Stabat Mater_,--
+
+                "Virgo virginum praedara,
+                Mihi jam non sis amara,
+                Fac me tecum plangere."
+
+Two nuns came out of an arched doorway leading to the
+reception-room of the modern building, and looked up and down the
+garden walks, talking the while in eager undertones; then paused near
+the lily bank, and one called:
+
+"Regina! Regina!"
+
+"She must be somewhere in the Academy playground, I will hunt for her
+there; or perhaps you might find her over in the church, listening to
+the choir practising, you know she is strangely fond of that organ."
+
+The speaker turned away and disappeared in the cool dim arch, and the
+remaining nun moved across the paved walk with the quick, noiseless,
+religious tread peculiar to those sacred conventual retreats where
+the clatter of heels is an abomination unknown.
+
+Pausing in front of the chapel door to bend low before the marble
+Mother on the shrine, she beheld the object of her search and glided
+down the aisle as stealthily as a moonbeam.
+
+"Regina, didn't you hear Sister Gonzaga calling you just now?"
+
+"Yes, Sister."
+
+"Did you answer her?"
+
+"No, Sister."
+
+"Are you naughty to-day, and in penance?"
+
+"I suppose I am always naughty, Sister Perpetua says so; but I am not
+in penance."
+
+"Who gave you permission to come into our chapel? You know it is
+contrary to the rules. Did you ask Mother?"
+
+"I knew she would say no, so I did not ask, because I was determined
+to come."
+
+"Why? what is the matter? you have been crying."
+
+"Oh, Sister Angela! don't you see?"
+
+She lifted the corners of her apron where the dead pets lay, and her
+chin trembled.
+
+"Another rabbit gone! How many have you left?"
+
+"None. And this is my last white dove; the other two have coloured
+rings around their necks."
+
+"I am very sorry for you, dear, you seem so fond of them. But, my
+child, why did you come here?"
+
+"My Bunnie was not dead when I started, and I thought if I could only
+get to St. Francis and show it to him he would cure it, and send life
+back to my pigeon too. You know, Sister, that Father told us last
+week at instruction we must find out all about St. Francis, and next
+day Armantine was Refectory Reader, and she read us about St. Francis
+preaching to the birds at Bevagno, and how they opened their beaks
+and listened, and even let him touch them, and never stirred till he
+blessed them and made the sign of the Cross, and then they all flew
+away. She read all about the doves at the convent of Ravacciano, and
+the nest of larks, and the bad, greedy little lark that St. Francis
+ordered to die, and said nothing should eat it, and sure enough, even
+the hungry cats ran away from it. Don't you remember that when St.
+Francis went walking about the fields, the rabbits jumped into his
+bosom, because he loved them so very much? You see, I thought it was
+really all true, and that St. Francis could save mine too, and I
+carried 'Bunnie' and 'Snowball' to him--out yonder, and laid them on
+his feet, and prayed and prayed ever so long, and while I was praying
+my 'Bunnie' died right there. Then I knew he could do no good, and I
+thought I would try our Blessed Lady over here, because the Nuns'
+Chapel seems holier than ours,--but it is no use. I will never pray
+to her again, nor to St. Francis either."
+
+"Hush! you wicked child!"
+
+Regina rose slowly from the pavement, gathered up her apron very
+tenderly, and, looking steadily into the sweet serene face of the
+nun, said with much emphasis:
+
+"What have I done? Sister Angela, I am not wicked."
+
+"Yes, dear, you are. We are all born full of sin, and desperately
+wicked; but if you will only pray and try to be good, I have no doubt
+St. Francis will send you some rabbits and doves so lovely, that they
+will comfort you for those you have lost."
+
+"I know just as well as you do that he has no idea of doing anything
+of the kind, and you need not tell me pretty tales that you don't
+believe yourself. Sister, it is all humbug; 'Bunnie' is dead, and I
+sha'n't waste another prayer on St. Francis! If ever I get another
+rabbit, it will be when I buy one, as I mean to do just as soon as I
+move to some nice place where owls and hawks never come."
+
+Here the clang of a bell startled Sister Angela, who seized the
+child's hand.
+
+"Five strokes!--that is my bell. Come, Regina, we have been hunting
+you for some time, and Mother will be out of patience."
+
+"Won't you please let me bury Bunnie and Snowball before I go
+upstairs to penance? I can dig a grave in the corner of my little
+garden and plant verbena and cypress vine over it."
+
+She shivered as if the thought had chilled her heart, and her voice
+trembled, while she pressed the stiffened forms to her, breast.
+
+"Come along as fast as you can, dear, you are wanted in the parlour.
+I believe you are going away."
+
+"Oh! has my mother come?"
+
+"I don't know, but I am afraid you will leave us."
+
+"Will you be sorry, Sister Angela?"
+
+"Very sorry, dear child, for we love our little girl too well to give
+her up willingly."
+
+Regina paused and pressed her lips to the cold white fingers that
+clasped hers, but Sister Angela hurried her on till she reached a
+door opening into the Mother's reception-room. Catching the child to
+her heart, she kissed her twice, lifted the dead darlings from her
+apron, and, pushing her gently into the small parlour, closed the
+door.
+
+It was a cool, lofty, dimly lighted room, where the glare of sunshine
+never entered, and several seconds elapsed before Regina could
+distinguish any object. At one end a wooden lattice work enclosed a
+space about ten feet square, and here Mother Aloysius held audience
+with visitors whom friendship or business brought to the convent.
+Regina's eager survey showed her only a gentleman, sitting close to
+the grating, and an expression of keen disappointment swept over her
+countenance, which had been a moment before eloquent with expectation
+of meeting her mother.
+
+"Come here, Regina, and speak to Mr. Palma," said the soft, velvet
+voice behind the lattice.
+
+The visitor turned around, rose, and watched the slowly advancing
+figure.
+
+She was dressed in blue muslin, the front of which was concealed by
+her white bib-apron, and her abundant glossy hair was brushed
+straight back from her brow, confined at the top of her head by a
+blue ribbon, and thence fell in shining waves below her waist. One
+hand hung listlessly at her side, the other clasped the drooping lily
+and held it against her heart.
+
+The slightly curious expression of the stranger gave place to
+astonishment and involuntary admiration as he critically inspected
+the face and form; and, fixing her clear, earnest eyes on him, Regina
+saw a tall, commanding man of certainly not less than thirty years,
+with a noble massive head, calm pale features almost stern when in
+repose, and remarkably brilliant piercing black eyes, that were
+doubtless somewhat magnified by the delicate steel-rimmed spectacles
+he habitually wore. His closely cut hair clustered in short thick
+waves about his prominent forehead, which in pallid smoothness
+resembled a slab of marble, and where a slight depression usually
+marks the temples his swelled boldly out, rounding the entire outline
+of the splendidly developed brow. He wore neither moustache nor
+beard, and every line of his handsome mouth and finely modelled chin
+indicated the unbending tenacity of purpose and imperial pride which
+had made him a ruler even in his cradle, and almost a dictator in
+later years.
+
+In a certain diminished degree children share the instinct whereby
+brutes discern almost infallibly the nature of those who in full
+fruition of expanded reason tower above and control them; and, awed
+by something which she read in this dominative new face, Regina stood
+irresolute in front of him, unwilling to accept the shapely white
+hand held out to her.
+
+He advanced a step, and took her fingers into his soft warm palm.
+
+"I hope, Miss Regina, that you are glad to see me."
+
+Her eyes fell from his countenance to the broad seal ring on his
+little finger, then, gazing steadily up into his, she said:
+
+"I think I never saw you before, and why should I be glad? Why did
+you come and ask for me?"
+
+"Because your mother sent me to look after you."
+
+"Then I suppose, sir, you are very good; but I would rather see my
+mother. Is she well?"
+
+"Almost well now, though she has been quite ill. If you promise to be
+very good and obedient, I may find a letter for you, somewhere in my
+pockets. I have just been telling Mother Aloysius, to whom I brought
+a letter, that I have come to remove you from her kind sheltering
+care, as your mother wishes you for a while at least to be placed in
+a different position, and I have promised to carry out her
+instructions. Here is her letter. Shall I read it to you, or are you
+sufficiently advanced to be able to spell it out without my
+assistance?"
+
+He held up the letter, and she looked at him proudly, with a faint
+curl in her dainty lip, and a sudden lifting of her lovely arched
+eyebrows, which, without the aid of verbal protest, he fully
+comprehended. A smile hovered about his mouth, and disclosed a set of
+glittering perfect teeth, but he silently resumed his seat. As Regina
+broke the seal, Mother said:
+
+"Wait, dear, and read it later. Mr. Palmer has already been detained
+some time, and says he is anxious to catch the train. Run up to the
+wardrobe, and Sister Helena will change your dress. She is packing
+your clothes."
+
+When the door closed behind her a heavy sigh floated through the
+grating, and the sweet seraphic face of the nun clouded.
+
+"I wish we could keep her always; it is a sadly solemn thing to cast
+such a child as she is into the world's whirlpool of sin and sorrow.
+To-day she is as spotless in soul as one of our consecrated
+annunciation lilies; but the dust of vanity and selfishness will
+tarnish, and the shock of adversity will bruise, and the heat of the
+battle of life that rages so fiercely in the glare of the outside
+world will wither and deface the sweet blossom we have nurtured so
+carefully."
+
+"In view of the peculiar circumstances that surround her, her removal
+impresses me as singularly injudicious, and I have advised against
+it, but her mother is inflexible."
+
+"We have never been able to unravel the mystery that seems to hang
+about the child, although the Bishop assured us we were quite right
+in consenting to assume the charge of her."
+
+From beneath her heavy black hood, Mother's meek shy eyes searched
+the non-committal countenance before her, and found it about as
+satisfactorily responsive as some stone sphinx half-sepulchred in
+Egyptic sand.
+
+"May I ask, sir, if you are at all related to Regina?"
+
+"Not even remotely; am merely her mother's legal counsellor, and the
+agent appointed by her to transfer the child to different
+guardianship. I repeat, I deem the change inexpedient, but
+discretionary powers have not been conferred on me. She seems rather
+a mature bit of royalty for ten years of age. Is the intellectual
+machinery at all in consonance with the refined perfection of the
+external physique?"
+
+"She has a fine active brain, clear and quick, and is very well
+advanced in her studies, for she is fond of her books. Better than
+all, her heart is noble, and generous, and she is a conscientious
+little thing, never told a story in her life; but at times we have
+had great difficulty in controlling her will, which certainly is the
+most obstinate I have ever encountered."
+
+"She evidently does not suggest wax, save in the texture of her fine
+skin, and one rarely finds in a child's face so much of steel as is
+ambushed in the creases of the rose leaves that serve her as lips. If
+her will matches her mother's, this little one certainly was not
+afflicted with a misnomer at her baptism." He rose, looked at his
+watch, and walked across the room as if to inspect a _Pieta_ that
+hung upon the wall. Unwilling to conclude an interview which had
+yielded her no information, Mother Aloysius patiently awaited the
+result of the examination, but he finally went to the window, and a
+certain unmistakable expression of countenance which can be compared
+only to a locking of mouth and eyes, warned her that he was alert and
+inflexible. With a smothered sigh she left her seat.
+
+"As you seem impatient, Mr. Palma, I will endeavour to hasten the
+preparations for your departure."
+
+"If you please, Mother; I shall feel indebted to your kind
+consideration."
+
+Nearly an hour elapsed ere she returned leading Regina, and as the
+latter stood between Mother and Sister Angela, with a cluster of
+fresh fragrant lilies in her hand, and her tender face blanched and
+tearful, it seemed to the lawyer as if indeed the pet ewe lamb were
+being led away from peaceful flowery pastures, from the sweet
+sanctity of the cloistral fold, out through thorny devious paths
+where Temptations prowl wolf-fanged, or into fierce conflicts that
+end in the social shambles, those bloodless abattoirs where malice
+mangles humanity. How many verdure-veiled, rose-garlanded pitfalls
+yawned in that treacherous future now stretching before her like
+summer air, here all gold and blue, yonder with purple glory crowning
+the dim far away? Intuitively she recognized the fact that she was
+confronting the first cross roads in her hitherto monotonous life,
+and a vague dread flitted like ill-omened birds before her, darkening
+her vision.
+
+In the gladiatorial arena of the court-room, Mr. Palma was regarded
+as a large-brained, nimble-witted, marble-hearted man, of vast
+ambition and tireless energy in the acquisition of his aims; but his
+colleagues and clients would as soon have sought chivalric tenderness
+in a bronze statue, or a polished obelisk of porphyry. To-day as he
+curiously watched the quivering yet proud little girlish face, her
+brave struggles to meet the emergency touched some chord far down in
+his reticent stern nature, and he suddenly stooped, and took her
+hand, folding it up securely in his.
+
+"Are you not quite willing to trust yourself with me?"
+
+She hesitated a moment, then said with a slight wavering in her low
+tone:
+
+"I have been very happy here, and I love the Sisters dearly; but you
+are my mother's friend, and whatever she wishes me to do of course
+must be right."
+
+Oh beautiful instinctive faith in maternal love and maternal wisdom!
+Wot ye the moulding power ye wield, ye mothers of America?
+
+Pressing her fingers gently as if to reassure her, he said:
+
+"I dislike to hurry you away from these kind Sisters, but if your
+baggage is ready we have no time to spare."
+
+The nuns wept silently as she embraced them for the last time, kissed
+them on both cheeks, then turned and suffered Mr. Palma to lead her
+to the carriage, whither her trunk had already been sent.
+
+Leaning out, she watched the receding outlines of the convent until a
+bend of the road concealed even the belfry, and then she stooped and
+kissed the drooping lilies in her lap.
+
+Her companion expected a burst of tears, but she sat erect and quiet,
+and not a word was uttered until they reached the railway station and
+entered the cars. Securing a double seat he placed her at the window,
+and sat down opposite. It was her introduction to railway travel, and
+when the train moved off, and the locomotive sounded its prolonged
+shriek of departure, Regina started up, but, as if ashamed of her
+timidity, coloured and bit her lip. Observing that she appeared
+interested in watching the country through which they sped, Mr. Palma
+drew a book from his valise, and soon became so absorbed in the
+contents that he forgot tie silent figure on the seat before him.
+
+The afternoon wore away, the sun went down, and when the lamps were
+lighted the lawyer suddenly remembered his charge.
+
+"Well, Regina, how do you like travelling on the cars?"
+
+"Not at all; it makes my head ache."
+
+"Take off your hat, and I will try to make you more comfortable."
+
+He untied a shawl secured to the outside of his valise, placed it on
+the arm of the seat, and made her lay her head upon it.
+
+Keeping his finger as a mark amid the leaves of his book, he said:
+
+"We shall not reach our journey's end until to-morrow morning, and I
+advise you to sleep as much as possible. Whenever you feel hungry you
+will find some sandwiches, cake, and fruit in the basket at your
+feet."
+
+She looked at him intently, and interpreting the expression he added:
+
+"You wish to ask me something? Am I so very frightful that you dare
+not question me?"
+
+"Will you tell me the truth, if I ask you?"
+
+"Most assuredly."
+
+"Mr. Palma, when shall I see my mother?"
+
+His eyes went down helplessly before the girl's steady gaze, and he
+hesitated a moment.
+
+"Really, I cannot tell exactly,--but I hope----"
+
+She put up her small hand quickly, with a gesture that silenced him.
+
+"Don't say any more, please. I never want to know half of anything,
+and you can't tell me all. Good-night, Mr. Palma."
+
+She shut her eyes.
+
+This man of bronze who could terrify witnesses, torture and overwhelm
+the opposition, and thunder so successfully from the legal rostrum,
+sat there abashed by the child's tone and manner, and as he watched
+her he could not avoid smiling at her imperious mandate. Although
+silent, it was one o'clock before she fell into a deep, sound
+slumber, and then the lawyer leaned forward and studied the dreamer.
+
+The light from the lamp shone upon her, and the long silky black
+lashes lay heavily on her white cheeks. Now and then a sigh passed
+her lips, and once a dry sob shook her frame, as if she were again
+passing through the painful ordeal of parting; but gradually the
+traces of emotion disappeared, and that marvellous peace which we
+find only in children's countenances, or on the faces of the
+dead,--and which is nowhere more perfect than in old Greek
+statuary,--settled like a benediction over her features. Her frail
+hands clasped over her breast still held the faded lilies, and to
+Erle Palma she seemed too tender and fair for rude contact with the
+selfish world, in which he was so indefatigably carving out fame and
+fortune. He wondered how long a time would be requisite to transform
+this pure, spotless, ingenuous young thing into one of the fine
+fashionable miniature women with frizzed hair and huge _paniers_,
+whom he often met in the city, with school-books in their hands, and
+bold, full-blown coquetry in their eyes?
+
+Certainly he was as devoid of all romantic weakness as the
+propositions of Euclid, or the pages of Blackstone, but something in
+the beauty and helpless innocence of the sleeper appealed with
+unwonted power to his dormant sympathy, and, suspecting that lurking
+spectres crouched in her future, he mutely entered into a compact
+with his own soul, not to lose sight of, but to befriend her
+faithfully, whenever circumstances demanded succour.
+
+"Upon my word, she looks like a piece of Greek sculpture, and be her
+father whom he may, there is no better blood than beats there at her
+little dimpled wrists. The pencilling of the eyebrows is simply
+perfect."
+
+He spoke inaudibly, and just then she stirred and turned. As she
+moved, something white fluttered from one of the ruffled pockets of
+her apron, and fell to the floor. He picked it up and saw it was the
+letter he had given her some hours before. The sheet was folded
+loosely, and glancing at it, as it opened in his hand, he saw in
+delicate characters: "Oh, my baby,--my darling! Be patient and trust
+your mother." An irresistible impulse made him look up, and the
+beautiful solemn eyes of the girl were fixed upon him, but instantly
+her black lashes covered them.
+
+For the first time in years he felt the flush of shame mount into his
+cold haughty face, yet even then he noted the refined delicacy which
+made her feign sleep.
+
+"Regina."
+
+She made no movement.
+
+"Child, I know you are awake. Do you suppose I would stoop to read
+your letter clandestinely? It dropped from your pocket, and I have
+seen only one line."
+
+She put out her slender hand, took the letter, and answered:
+
+"My mother writes me that you are her best friend, and I intend to
+believe that all you say is true."
+
+"Do you think I read your letter?"
+
+"I shall think no more about it."
+
+                "I will paint her as I see her,
+                 Ten times have the lilies blown
+                 Since she looked upon the sun,
+                 Face and figure of a child,--
+                 Though top calm, you think, and tender,
+                 For the childhood you would lend her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+"Indeed, Peyton, you distress me. What can be the matter? I heard you
+walking the floor of your room long after midnight, and feared you
+were ill."
+
+"Not ill, Elise, but sorely perplexed. If I felt at liberty to
+communicate all the circumstances to you, doubtless you would readily
+comprehend and sympathize with the peculiar difficulties that
+surround me; but unfortunately I am bound by a promise which prevents
+me from placing all the facts in your possession. Occasionally
+ministers involuntarily become the custodians of family secrets that
+oppress their hearts and burden them with unwelcome responsibility,
+and just now I am suffering from the consequences of a rash promise
+which compassion extorted from me years ago. While I heartily regret
+it, my conscience will not permit me to fail in its fulfilment."
+
+An expression of pain and wounded pride overshadowed Mrs. Lindsay's
+usually bright, happy face.
+
+"Peyton, surely you do not share the unjust opinion so fashionable
+nowaday, that women are unworthy of being entrusted with a secret?
+What has so suddenly imbued you with distrust of the sister who has
+always shared your cares, and endeavoured to divide your sorrows? Do
+you believe me capable of betraying your confidence?
+
+"No, dear. In all that concerns myself, you must know I trust you
+implicitly,--trust not only your affection, but your womanly
+discretion, your subtle, critical judgment; but I have no right to
+commit even to your careful guardianship some facts which were
+expressly confided solely to my own."
+
+He laid his hand on his sister's shoulder, and looked fondly, almost
+pleadingly, into her clouded countenance, but the flush deepened on
+her fair cheek.
+
+"The conditions of secrecy, the envelope of mystery, strongly implies
+something socially disgraceful, or radically wicked, and ministers of
+the Gospel should not constitute themselves the locked reservoirs of
+such turbid streams."
+
+"Granting that you actually believe in your own supposition, why are
+you so anxious to pollute your ears with the recital of circumstances
+that you assume to be degrading, or sinful?"
+
+"I only fear your misplaced sympathy may induce you to compromise
+your ministerial dignity and consistency, for it is quite
+evident to me that your judgment does not now acquit you in this
+matter--whatever it may be."
+
+"God forbid that, in obeying the dictates of my conscience, I should
+transgress even conventional propriety, or incur the charge of
+indiscretion. None can realize more keenly than I that a minister's
+character is of the same delicate magnolia-leaf texture as a woman's
+name,--a thing so easily stained that it must be ever elevated beyond
+the cleaving dust of suspicion, and the scorching breath of gossiping
+conjecture. The time has passed (did it ever really exist?) when the
+prestige of pastoral office hedged it around with impervious
+infallibility, and to-day, instead of partial and extenuating
+leniency, pure and uncontaminated society justly denies all
+ministerial immunities as regards the rigid mandates of social
+decorum and propriety,--and the world demands that, instead of
+drawing heavily upon an indefinite fund of charitable confidence and
+trust in the clergy, pulpit-people should so live and move that the
+microscope of public scrutiny can reveal no flaws. Do you imagine I
+share the dangerous heresy that the sanctity of the office entitles
+the incumbent to make a football of the restrictions of prudence and
+discretion? Elise, I hold that pastors should be as circumspect, as
+guarded as Roman vestals; and untainted society, guided by even the
+average standard of propriety, tolerates no latitudinarians among its
+Levites. I grieve that it is necessary for me to add, that I honour
+and bow in obedience to its exactions."
+
+The chilling severity of his tone smote like a flail the loving
+heart, which had rebelled only against the apparent lack of faith in
+its owner, and springing forward Mrs. Lindsay threw her arms around
+her brother's neck.
+
+"Oh, Peyton! don't look at me so sternly, as if I were a sort of
+domestic Caiaphas set to catechise and condemn you; or as if I were
+unjustly impugning your motives. It is all your fault,--of course it
+is,--for you have spoiled me by unreserved confidence heretofore, and
+you ought not to blame me in the least for feeling hurt when at this
+late day you indulge in mysteries. Now kiss me, and forget my ugly
+temper, and set it all down to that Pandora legacy of sleepless
+curiosity, which dear mother Eve received in her impudent tete-a-tete
+with the serpent, and which she spitefully saw fit to bequeath to
+every daughter who has succeeded her. So--we are at peace once more?
+Now keep your horrid secrets to yourself, and welcome!"
+
+"You persist in believing that they must inevitably be horrid?" said
+he, softly stroking her rosy cheek with his open palm.
+
+"I persist in begging that you will not expect me to adopt the
+acrobatic style, or require me to instantly attain sanctification
+_per saltum!_ You must be satisfied with the assurance that you are
+indeed my 'Royal Highness,' and that in my creed it is written the
+king can do no wrong. There, dear, I am not at all addicted to humble
+pie, and I have already disposed of a large and unpalatable slice."
+
+She made a grimace, whereat he smiled, kissed her again, and answered
+very gently:
+
+"Will you permit me to put an appendix to your creed? 'Charity
+suffereth long, and is kind; is not easily provoked, thinketh no
+evil.' My sister, I want you to help me. In some things I find myself
+as powerless without your co-operation as a pair of scissors with the
+rivet lost; I cannot cut through obstacles unless you are in your
+proper place."
+
+"For shame, you spiteful Pequod! to rivet your treacherous appeal
+with so sharply pointed an illustration! Scissors, indeed! I will be
+revenged by cutting all your work after a biased fashion. How would
+it suit you, reverend sir, to take the rivet out of my tongue, and
+repair your clerical scissors?"
+
+"How narrowly you escaped being a genius! That is precisely what I
+was about proposing to do, and now, dear, be sure you bid adieu to
+all bias. Elise, I received a letter two days since, which annoyed me
+beyond expression."
+
+"I inferred as much, from the vindictive energy with which you thrust
+it into the fire, and bored it with the end of the poker. Was it
+infected with small-pox or leprosy?"
+
+She opened her work basket, and began to crochet vigorously, keeping
+her eyes upon her needle.
+
+"Neither. I destroyed it simply and solely because it was the earnest
+request of the writer, that I should commit it to the flames."
+
+"_Par parenthese!_ from the beginning of time have not discord,
+mischief, trouble--been personified by females? Has there been a
+serious _imbroglio_ since the days of Troy without some vexatious
+Helen? Now don't scold me, if in this case I conjecture,--He? She?
+It?"
+
+"The letter was from a mother, pleading for her child, whom I several
+years ago promised to protect and to befriend. Subsequent events
+induced me to hope that she would never exact a fulfilment of the
+pledge, and I was unpleasantly surprised when the appeal reached me."
+
+"Let me understand fully the little that you wish to tell me. Do you
+mean that you were unprepared for the demand, because the mother had
+forfeited the conditions under which you gave the promise?"
+
+"You unduly intensify the interpretation. My promise was
+unconditional, but I certainly have never expected to be called upon
+to verify it."
+
+"What does it involve?"
+
+"The temporary guardianship of a child ten years old, whom I have
+never seen."
+
+"He? She? It?"
+
+"A girl, who will in all probability arrive before noon to-day."
+
+"Peyton!"
+
+The rose-coloured crochet web fell into her lap, and deep
+dissatisfaction spread its sombre leaden banners over her telltale
+face.
+
+"I regret it more keenly than you possibly can; and, Elise, if I
+could have seen the mother before it was too late, I should have
+declined this painful responsibility."
+
+"Too late? Is the woman dead?"
+
+"No, but she has sailed for Europe, and notifies me that she leaves
+the little girl under my protection."
+
+"What a heartless creature she must be to abandon her child."
+
+"On the contrary, she seems devotedly attached to her, and uses these
+words: 'If it were not to promote her interest, do you suppose I
+could consent to put the Atlantic between my baby and me?' The
+circumstances are so unusual that I daresay you fail to understand my
+exact position."
+
+"I neither desire nor intend to force your confidence; but if you can
+willingly answer, tell me whether the mother is in every respect
+worthy of your sympathy."
+
+"I frankly admit that upon some points I have been dissatisfied, and
+her letter sorely perplexes me."
+
+"What claim had she on you, when the promise was extorted?"
+
+"She had none, save such as human misery always has on human
+sympathy. I performed the marriage ceremony for her when she was a
+mere child, and felt profound compassion for the wretchedness that
+soon overtook her as a wife and mother."
+
+"Then, my dear brother, there is no alternative, and you must do your
+duty; and I shall not fail to help you to the fullest extent of my
+feeble ability. Since it cannot be averted, let us try to put our
+hearts as well as hands into the work of receiving the waif. Where
+has the child been living?"
+
+"For nearly seven years in a convent."
+
+"_Tant mieux!_ We may at least safely infer she has been shielded
+from vicious and objectionable companionship. How is her education to
+be conducted in future?"
+
+"Her mother has arranged for the semi-annual payment of a sum quite
+sufficient to defray all necessary expenses, including tuition at
+school; but she urges me, if compatible with my clerical duties, to
+retain the school fees, and teach the child at home, as she dreads
+outside contaminating associations, and wishes the little one reared
+with rigid ideas of rectitude and propriety. Will you receive her
+among your music pupils?"
+
+"Have I a heart of steel, and a soul of flint? And since when did you
+successfully trace my pedigree to its amiable source in--
+
+           'Gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire'?
+
+"What is her name?"
+
+Mr. Hargrove hesitated a moment, and, detecting the faint colour that
+tinged his olive cheek, his sister smilingly relieved him.
+
+"Never mind, dear. What immense latitude we are allowed! If she prove
+a meek, sweet cherub, a very saint in bib-aprons,--with velvety eyes
+brown as a hazel nut, and silky chestnut ringlets,--I shall gather
+her into my heart and coo over her as--Columba, or Umilta, or
+Umbeline, or Una; but should we find her spoiled, and thoroughly
+leavened with iniquity,--a blonde, yellow-haired tornado,--then a
+proper regard for the 'unities will suggest that I vigorously
+enter a Christian protest, and lecture her grimly as Jezebel,
+Tomyris,--Fulvia or Clytemnestra.'"
+
+"She shall be called Regina Orme, and if it will not too heavily tax
+your kindness, I should like to give her the small room next your
+own, and ask Douglass to move across the hall and take the front
+chamber opening on the verandah. The little girl may be timid, and it
+would comfort her to feel that you are within call should she be sick
+or become frightened. I am sure Douglass will not object to the
+change."
+
+"Certainly not. Blessings on his royal heart! He would not be my own
+noble boy if he failed to obey any wish of yours."
+
+I will at once superintend the transfer of his books and clothes, for
+if the child comes to-day you have left me little time for
+preparation.
+
+She put away the crochet basket and, looking affectionately at the
+grave face that watched her movements, said soberly:
+
+"Do not look so lugubrious; remember Abraham's example of
+hospitality, and let us do all we can for this motherless lamb, or
+kid,--whichever she may prove. One thing more, and here-after I shall
+hold my peace. You need not live in chronic dread, lest the Guy
+Fawkes of female curiosity pry into, and explode your mystery; for I
+assure you, Peyton, I shall never directly or indirectly question the
+child, and until you voluntarily broach the subject I shall never
+mention it to you. Are you satisfied?"
+
+"Fully satisfied with my sister, and inexpressibly grateful for her
+unquestioning faith in me."
+
+She swept him an exaggerated courtesy, and, despite the grey threads
+that began to glint in her auburn hair, ran up the stairway as
+lightly as a girl of fifteen.
+
+For some time he stood with his hands behind him, gazing abstractedly
+through the open window, and now and then he heard the busy patter of
+hurrying feet in the room over head, while snatches of Easter
+anthems, and the swelling "Amen" of a "Gloria" rolled down the steps,
+assuring him that all doubt and suspicion had been ejected from the
+faithful, fond, sisterly heart.
+
+Taking his broad-brimmed gardening hat from the table, the pastor
+went down among his flower-beds, followed by Bioern, to whose innate
+asperity of temper was added the snarling fretfulness of old age.
+
+A fine young brood of white Brahma chickens, having surreptitiously
+effected an entrance into the sacred precincts of the flower-garden,
+were now diligently prosecuting their experiments in entomotomy right
+in the heart of a border of choice carnations. When Bioern had chased
+the marauders to the confines of the poultry yard, and watched the
+last awkward fledgling scramble through the palings, his master began
+to repair the damage, and soon became absorbed in the favourite task
+of tying up the spicy tufts of bloom that deluged the air with
+perfume as he lifted and bent the slender stems. His straw hat shut
+out the sight of surrounding objects, and he only turned his head
+when Mrs. Lindsay put her hand on his shoulder, and exclaimed:
+
+"Peyton, 'the Philistines _be_ upon thee'!"
+
+"Do you mean that she has come?"
+
+"I think so; there is a carriage at the gate, and I noticed a trunk
+beside the driver."
+
+He rose hastily, and stood irresolute, visibly embarrassed.
+
+"Why, Peyton! Recollect your text last Sunday: 'No man having put his
+hand to the plough,' etc., etc., etc. It certainly is rather hard to
+be pelted with, one's own sermons, but it would never do to turn your
+back upon this benevolent furrow. Come, pluck up courage, and front
+the inevitable."
+
+"Elise, how can you jest? I am sorely burdened with gloomy
+forebodings of coming ill. You cannot imagine how I shrink from this
+responsibility."
+
+"It is rather too late, dear, to climb upon the stool of repentance.
+Take this beast of Bashan by the horns, and have done with it. There
+is the bell! Shall I accompany you?"
+
+"Oh, certainly."
+
+Hannah met them, and held up a card.
+
+                  ERLE PALMA,
+                        _New York City_.
+
+As the minister entered his parlour, Mr. Palma advanced to meet him,
+holding out his hand.
+
+"I hope Dr. Hargrove has been prepared for my visit, and understands
+its object?"
+
+"I am glad to know you, sir, and had reason to expect you. Allow me
+to present Mr. Palma to my sister, Mrs. Lindsay. I am exceedingly----"
+
+The sentence was never completed, and he stood with his eyes fastened
+on the child who leaned against the window watching him with an eager
+breathless interest as some caged creature eyes a new keeper,
+wondering, mutely questioning, whether cruelty or kindness will
+predominate in the strange custodian.
+
+For a moment, oblivious of all else, each gazed into the eyes of the
+other, and a subtle magnetic current flashed from soul to soul,
+revealing certain arcana, which years of ordinary acquaintance
+sometimes fail to unveil. From the pastor's countenance melted every
+trace of doubt and apprehension; from that of the girl all shadow of
+distrust.
+
+Studying the tableau, Mr. Palma saw the clergyman smile, and as if
+involuntarily open his arms; and he was astonished when the shy,
+reticent child who had repulsed all his efforts to become acquainted,
+suddenly glided forward and into the outstretched arms of her new
+guardian. Weary from the long journey and rigid restraint imposed
+upon her feelings, the closely pent emotion broke all barriers, and,
+clinging to the minister Regina found relief in a flood of tears. Mr.
+Hargrove sat down, and, keeping his arm around her, said tenderly:
+
+"Are you so unwilling to come and live under my care? Would you
+prefer to remain with Mr. Palma?" She put her hands up, and, clasping
+them at the back of his head, answered brokenly:
+
+"No--no I it is not that. Your face shows me you are good--so good!
+But I can't help crying,--I have tried so hard to keep from it, ever
+since I kissed the Sisters good-bye,--and everything is so
+strange--and my throat aches, and aches--oh, don't scold me! Please
+let me cry!"
+
+"As much as you please. We know your poor little heart is almost
+breaking, and a good cry will help you."
+
+He gathered her close to his bosom, and the lawyer was amazed at the
+confiding manner in which she nestled her head against the stranger's
+shoulder. Mrs. Lindsay untied and removed the hat and veil, and,
+placing a glass of water to the parched trembling lips, softly kissed
+her tearful cheek, and whispered:
+
+"Now, dear, try to compose yourself. Come with me and bathe your
+face, and then you will feel better."
+
+"Don't take me away. I have stopped crying. It rests me so, to feel
+somebody's arms around me."
+
+"Well--suppose you try my arms awhile? I assure you they are quite
+ready to take you in, and hug you close. Just let me show you how I
+put my arms around my own child, though he is a man. Come, dear."
+
+Mrs. Lindsay gently disengaged the clasped hands resting on her
+brother's neck, and drew Regina into her arms, while, won by her
+sweet voice and soft touch, the latter allowed herself to be led
+into another room.
+
+They had scarcely disappeared when Mr. Palma said:
+
+"I find I was mistaken in supposing that you and your ward were
+strangers."
+
+"We are strangers, at least I never saw her until to-day."
+
+"Did you mesmerize her?"
+
+"Not that I am aware of. What suggests such an idea?"
+
+"She receives your friendly overtures so graciously, and rejected
+mine with such chill politeness. I presume you are aware of the fact
+that we have a joint guardianship over this child?"
+
+"If you will walk into the library, where we can escape intrusion, I
+should like to have some confidential conversation with you."
+
+When he had placed his visitor in his own easy chair, and locked the
+door of the library, Mr. Hargrove sat down beside the oval table,
+and, folding his hands before him, leaned forward scrutinizing the
+handsome non-committal face of the stranger, and conjecturing how far
+he would be warranted in unburdening his own oppressed heart.
+
+Coolly impassive, and without a vestige of curious interest, the
+lawyer quietly met his incisive gaze.
+
+"Mr. Palma, may I ask whether Regina's mother has unreservedly
+communicated her history to you?"
+
+"She has acquainted me with only a few facts, concerning which she
+desired legal advice."
+
+"Has she given you her real name?"
+
+"I know her only as Madame Odille Orphia Orme, an actress of very
+remarkable beauty and great talent."
+
+"Do you understand the peculiar circumstances that attended her
+marriage?"
+
+"I merely possess her assurance that she was married by you."
+
+"Have you been informed who is Regina's father?"
+
+"The name has always been carefully suppressed, but she told me
+that Orme was merely an _alias_."
+
+"Have you ever suspected the truth?"
+
+"Really, that is a question I cannot answer. I have at times
+conjectured, but only in a random unauthorized way. I should very
+much like to know, but my client declined giving me all the facts, at
+least at present; and while her extreme reticence certainly hampers
+me, it prevents me from asking you for the information, which she
+promises ere long to give me."
+
+Mr. Hargrove bowed and leaned back more easily in his chair, fully
+satisfied concerning the nature of the man with whom he had to deal.
+
+"You doubtless think it singular that Mrs. Orme should commit her
+daughter to my care, while keeping me in ignorance of her parentage.
+A few days since she signed in the presence of witnesses a cautiously
+worded instrument, in which she designated you and me as joint
+guardians of Regina Orme, and specified that should death or other
+causes prevent you from fulfilling the trust, I should assume
+exclusive control of her daughter until she attained her majority,
+or was otherwise disposed of. To this arrangement I at length very
+reluctantly assented, because it is a charge for which I have no
+leisure, and even less inclination; but as she seems to anticipate
+the time when a lawsuit may be inevitable, and wishes my services,
+she finally overruled my repugnance to the office forced upon me."
+
+"I must ask you one question, which subsequent statements will
+explain. Do you regard her in all respects as a worthy, true, good
+woman?"
+
+"The mystery of an assumed name always casts a shadow, implying the
+existence of facts or of reports inimical to the party thus ambushed;
+and concealment presupposes either indiscretion, shame, or crime.
+This circumstance excited unfavourable suspicions in my mind, but she
+assured me she had a certificate of her marriage, and that you would
+verify this statement. Can you do so? Was she legally married when
+very young?"
+
+"She was legally married in this room eleven years ago."
+
+"I am glad it is susceptible of proof. This point established, I can
+easily answer your question in the affirmative. As far as I am
+acquainted with her record, Mrs. Orme is a worthy woman, and I may
+add, a remarkably cautious circumspect person for one so
+comparatively unaccustomed to the admiration which is now lavished
+upon her. I believe it is conceded that she is the most beautiful
+woman in New York, but she shelters herself so securely in the
+constant presence of a plain but most respectable old couple, with
+whom she resides, and who accompany her when travelling, that it is
+difficult to see her, except upon the stage. Even in her business
+visits to my office she has always been attended by old Mrs. Waul."
+
+"Can you explain to me how one so uneducated and inexperienced as she
+certainly was has so suddenly attained, not only celebrity (which is
+often cheaply earned), but eminence in a profession, involving the
+amount of culture requisite for dramatic success?"
+
+A slight smile showed the glittering line of the lawyer's teeth.
+
+"When did you see her last?"
+
+"Seven years ago."
+
+"Then I venture the assertion that you would not recognize her should
+you see her in one of her favourite and famous _roles_. When, where,
+or by whom she was trained I know not, but some acquaintance with the
+most popular ornaments of her profession justifies my opinion that no
+more cultivated or artistic actress now walks the stage than Madame
+Odille Orme. She is no mere _amateur_ or novice, but told me she had
+laboriously and studiously struggled up from the comparatively menial
+position of seamstress. Even in Paris I have never heard a purer,
+finer rendition of a passage in _Phedre_ than one day burst from her
+lips in a moment of deep feeling, yet I cannot tell you how or where
+she learned French. She made her _debut_ in tragedy, somewhere in the
+West, and when she reappeared in New York her success was brilliant.
+I have never known a woman whose will was so patiently rigid, so
+colossal, whose energy was so tireless in the pursuit of one special
+aim. She has the vigilance and tenacity of a Spanish bloodhound."
+
+"In the advancement of her scheme, do you believe her capable of
+committing a theft?"
+
+"What do you denominate a theft?"
+
+The piercing black eyes of the lawyer were fixed with increased
+interest upon the clergyman.
+
+"Precisely what every honest man means by the term. If Mrs. Orme
+resolved to possess a certain paper to which she had been denied
+access, do you think she would hesitate to break into a house, open a
+secret drawer, and steal the contents?"
+
+"Not unless she had a legal right to the document, which was unjustly
+withheld from her, and even then my knowledge of the lady's character
+inclines me to believe that she would hesitate, and resort to other
+means."
+
+"You consider her strictly honest and truthful?"
+
+"I am possessed of no facts that lead me to indulge a contrary
+opinion. Suppose you state the case?"
+
+Briefly Mr. Hargrove narrated the circumstances attending his last
+interview with Regina's mother, and the loss of the tin box, dwelling
+in conclusion upon the perplexing fact that in the recent letter
+received from her relative to her daughter's removal to the
+parsonage, Mrs. Orme had implored him to carefully preserve the
+license he had retained as the marriage certificate in her possession
+might not be considered convincing proof, should litigation ensue. He
+could not understand the policy of this appeal, nor reconcile its
+necessity with his conviction that she had stolen the license.
+
+Joining his scholarly white hands with the tips of his fingers
+forming a cone, Mr. Palma leaned back in his chair and listened,
+while no hint of surprise or incredulity found expression in his
+cold, imperturbable face. When the recital was ended, he merely
+inclined his head.
+
+"Do you not regard this as strong evidence against her? Be frank, Mr.
+Palma."
+
+"It is merely circumstantial. Write to Mr. Orme, inform her of the
+loss of the license, and I think you will find that she is as
+innocent of the theft as you or I. I know she went to Europe
+believing that the final proof of her marriage was in your keeping;
+for in the event of her death, while abroad, she has empowered me to
+demand that paper from you, and to present it with certain others in
+a court of justice."
+
+"I wish I could see it as you do. I hope it will some day be
+satisfactorily cleared up, but meanwhile I must indulge a doubt. On
+one point at least my mind is at rest; this little girl is
+unquestionably the child of the man who married her mother, for I
+have never seen so remarkable a likeness as she bears to him."
+
+He sighed heavily, and patted the shaggy head which Bioern had some
+time before laid unheeded on his knee.
+
+During the brief silence that ensued the lawyer gazed out of the
+window, through which floated the spicy messages of carnations, and
+the fainter whispers of pale cream-hearted Noisette roses; then he
+rose and put both hands in his pockets.
+
+"Dr. Hargrove, you and I have been--with, I believe, equal
+reluctance--forced into the same boat, and since _bongre malgre_ we
+must voyage for a time together, in the interest of this unfortunate
+child, candour becomes us both. Men of my profession sometimes resort
+to agencies that the members of yours usually shrink from. I too was
+once very sceptical concerning the truth of Mrs. Orme's fragmentary
+story, for it was the merest _disjecta membra_ which she entrusted to
+me, and my credulity declined to honour her heavy drafts. To satisfy
+myself, I employed a shrewd female detective to 'shadow' the pretty
+actress for nearly a year, and her reports convinced me that my
+client, whilst struggling with Napoleonic ambition and pertinacity to
+attain the zenith of success in her profession, was as little
+addicted to coquetry as the statue of Washington in Union Square, or
+the steeple of Trinity Church; and that in the midst of flattery and
+adulation she was the same proud, cold, suffering, almost
+broken-hearted wife she had always appeared in her conferences with
+me. Induging this belief, I have accepted the joint guardianship of
+her daughter, on condition that whenever it becomes necessary to
+receive her under my immediate protection, I shall be made
+acquainted with her real name."
+
+"Thank you, my dear sir, for your frankness, which I would most
+joyfully reciprocate, were I not bound by a promise to make no
+revelations until she gives me permission, or her death unseals my
+lips. I hope you fully comprehend my awkward position. There is a
+conspiracy to defraud her and her child of their social and legal
+rights, and I fear both will be victimized; but she insists that
+secrecy will deliver her from the snares of her enemies. I suppose
+you are aware that General----"
+
+He paused, and bit his lip, and again the lawyer's handsome mouth
+disclosed his perfect teeth.
+
+"There is no mischief in your dropped stitch; I shall not pick it up.
+I know that Mrs. Orme's husband is in Europe, and I was assured that
+motives of a personal character induced her to make certain
+professional engagements in England and upon the Continent. I am not
+enthusiastic, and rarely venture prophecies, but I shall be much
+disappointed if her Richelieu tactics do not finally triumph."
+
+"Can you tell me why she does not openly bring suit against her
+husband for bigamy?"
+
+"Simply because she has been informed that the policy of the defence
+would be to at once attack her reputation, which she seems to guard
+with almost morbid sensitiveness on account of her daughter. She has
+been warned of the dangerous consequences of a suit, but if forced to
+extremities will hazard it; hence I bide my time."
+
+He threw back his lordly head, and his brilliant eyes seemed to
+dilate, as though the suggestion of the suit stirred his pulse, as
+the breath of carnage and the din of distant battle that of the
+war-horse, panting for the onward dash.
+
+A species of human petrel,--a juridic _Procellaria Pelagica_
+whose _habitat_ was the court-house,--Erle Palma lived amid the
+ceaseless surges of litigation, watching the signs of rising tempests
+in human hearts, plunging in defiant exultation where the billows
+rode highest, never so elated as when borne triumphantly upon the
+towering crest of some conquering wave of legal _finesse_, or
+impassioned invective, and rarely saddened in the flush of victory by
+the pale spectres of strangled hope, fortune, or reputation which
+float in the _debris_ of the wrecks that almost every day drift
+mournfully away from the precincts of courts of justice.
+
+The striking of the clock caused him to draw out his watch and
+compare the time.
+
+"I believe the regular train does not leave V---- until night, but
+the conductor told me I might catch an excursion train bound south,
+and due here about half-past one o'clock. It is necessary for me to
+return with as little delay as possible, and after I have spoken to
+Regina I must hasten to the depot You will find my address pencilled
+on the card, and I presume Mrs. Orme has given you hers. Should you
+desire to confer with me at any time relative to the child, I shall
+promptly respond to your letters, but have no leisure to spend in
+looking after her. The semiannual remittance shall not be neglected,
+and Regina has a package for you containing money for contingent
+expenses."
+
+They entered the hall, and found the little stranger sitting alone on
+the lowest step of the stairway, where Mrs. Lindsay had left her,
+while she went to prepare luncheon for the travellers. She was very
+quiet, bore no visible traces of tears, but the tender lips wore a
+piteously sad expression of heroically repressed grief, and the
+purlish shadows under her solemn blue eyes rendered them more than
+ever--pleadingly beautiful.
+
+As the two gentlemen stood before her she rose, and caught her
+breath, pressing one little palm over her heart, while the other
+grasped the balustrade.
+
+"Don't you think, dear, that you ought to be well cared for, when you
+have two guardians--two adopted fathers, Mr. Palma and I--to watch
+over you? We both intend that you shall be the happiest little girl
+in the State. Will you help us?"
+
+"I will try to be good."
+
+Her voice was very low, but steady, as if she realized she was making
+a compact.
+
+"Then I know we shall all succeed."
+
+Mr. Hargrove walked to the front door, and the lawyer put on his hat
+and came back to the steps.
+
+"Regina, I have explained to you that I brought you here because your
+mother so directed me, and I believe Dr. Hargrove will be a kind,
+good friend. Little one, I do not like to leave you so soon among
+strangers, but it cannot be helped. Will you be contented and happy?"
+
+There was singular emphasis in her reply.
+
+"I shall never complain to you, Mr. Palma."
+
+"Because you think I would not 'Sympathize with you? I am not a man
+given to soft words, nor am I accustomed to deal with children, but
+indeed I should be annoyed if I thought you were unhappy here."
+
+"Then you must not be annoyed at all."
+
+His quick nervous laugh seemed to startle her unpleasantly, for she
+shrank closer to the balustrade.
+
+"How partial you are, preferring Dr. Hargrove already, and flying
+into his arms at sight! Do you wish to make me jealous?"
+
+His eyes gleamed mischievously, and he saw the blood rising in her
+white cheeks.
+
+"Dr. Hargrove opened his arms to me, because he saw how miserable I
+was."
+
+"If I should chance to open mine, do you think that by any accident
+you would rush into them?"
+
+"You know you would never have dreamed of doing such a thing. Are you
+going away now?"
+
+"In a moment. If you get into trouble, or need anything, will you
+write to me? Remember, I am your mother's friend."
+
+"Is not Mr. Hargrove also?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+He took her hands, and bending down looked kindly into the delicate
+lovely face.
+
+"Good-bye, Regina."
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Palma."
+
+"I hope, little girl, that we shall always be friends."
+
+"You are very good to wish it. Thank you for taking care of me.
+Because you are my mother's best friend, I shall pray for you every
+night."
+
+His sternly moulded lips twitched with some strange passing
+reminiscence of earlier years, but the emotion vanished, and,
+pressing her hands gently, he turned and went down the walk leading
+to the gate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+"Please let me come in, and help you."
+
+Regina knocked timidly at the door of the parsonage guest's chamber,
+and Mrs. Lindsay answered from within:
+
+"Come in? Of course you may, but what help do you imagine you can
+render, you useless piece of prettiness? Shall I set you on the
+mantlepiece between the china kittens, and the glass lambs, right
+under the sharp nose of my grandmother's portrait, where her great
+solemn eyes will keep you in order? Whence do all those delectable
+odours come? Are you a walking _sachet?_"
+
+She was kneeling before an open drawer of the bureau, methodically
+arranging sundry garments, and, pausing in the task, looked over her
+shoulder at the girl who stood near, holding her hands behind her.
+
+"I am sure I could help you, if I were only allowed to try. I am
+quite a large girl now, more than a year older than when I came here,
+and Hannah has taught me to do ever so many things. She says I will
+be a famous cook some day. You didn't know that I made up the Sally
+Lunn for tea?"
+
+"What an ambitious bit of majesty you are! You wish to reign in the
+kitchen, rule in the poultry yard, and now presume to invade my
+province--my special kingdom of making things ready for the Bishop?
+Have you been anointing yourself with a whole vial of Lubin's extract
+of--Ah!--delicious--what is it?"
+
+"Whatever it may be, will you let me fix it to suit myself on the
+Bishop's bureau?"
+
+"No, you impertinent, wily Delilah in short clothes! I never promise
+in the dark; show it to me first, and then perhaps I may negotiate
+with you. You know as well as I do that the Bishop dearly loves
+perfumes, and if I should generously concede you the privilege of
+presenting 'sweet-smelling savours' unto him you might some day
+depose me--and I wish you distinctly to understand that I intend to
+reign over him as long as I live; not an inch of territory shall you
+filch."
+
+Regina held up her hands, displaying in one several feathery sprays
+of Belgian honeysuckle, with half of its petals pearl, half of the
+palest pink; in the other a bunch of double violets of the rarest
+shade of delicate lilac, so unusual in the floral kingdom.
+
+"You should be called 'Mab,' and ride about the world on a butterfly,
+or a streak of moonshine. How did you coax or conjure that
+honeysuckle into blooming before its appointed time?"
+
+"Here are three pieces, two for the Bishop, and one for you. May I
+fasten it in your hair?"
+
+"You recite a lesson in history every day, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Have you come to the Salem-witches yet?"
+
+"Not yet. What has my history to do with this honeysuckle?"
+
+"When you study metaphysics and begin the chase after that
+psychological fox--the-law-of-association-of-ideas, you will
+understand. Meanwhile, thank your stars, dear, that you did not live
+in Massachusetts some years ago, or you would certainly nave gone to
+heaven in the shape of smoke. How you stare, you white owl! As if you
+thought St. Vitus had rented my tongue for a dancing-saloon. It is
+all because the Bishop is coming. My blessed Bishop! Yes, put the
+handsomest spray in my hair, and then, if you make me look young and
+very pretty, you may do as you like with the others."
+
+Still kneeling, she inclined her head, while Regina twisted the
+wreath around the coil of neatly braided hair. Then, kissing the girl
+lightly on her cheek, Mrs. Lindsay closed the drawer and rose.
+Drawing a silver cup from her pocket, Regina filled it with water,
+placed it close to the mirror, and proceeded to arrange the violets
+and honeysuckle. Stepping back to inspect the effect, she folded her
+hands and smiled.
+
+"Mrs. Lindsay, tell him I gathered them for him, because he was kind
+to me when I came here a stranger, and I wish to thank him. When he
+is at home it seems always summer-time, don't you think so?"
+
+The mother's eyes filled, and, laying a hand on the girl's head, she
+answered:
+
+"Yes, dear, he is my sunshine, and my summer-time."
+
+"How long will he stay with us?"
+
+"He could not say positively when his last letter was written, but I
+hope to keep him several months. You know it is possible he may be
+forced to go to England, in order to complete some of his studies
+before--oh, Regina! could we bear to have two oceans swelling between
+our Bishop and us?"
+
+"Why, then, will you let him go?"
+
+"Can I help it?"
+
+"You are his mother, and he would never disobey you."
+
+"But he is a man, and I cannot tie him to my apron strings as I do my
+bunch of keys. I must not stand in the way, and prevent him from
+doing his duty."
+
+"I suppose I don't yet know everything about such matters, but I
+should think it was his duty first to please you. How devoted he is
+to 'duty'? It must be horrible to leave all one loves, and go out to
+India among the heathens."
+
+"Pray, what do you know about the heathens?" said a manly voice, and
+instantly two strong arms gathered the pair in a cordial embrace.
+
+"My son! You stole a march upon me! Oh, Douglass, I never was half so
+glad to see you as now!"
+
+"If you do not stop crying, I shall feel tempted to doubt you. Tears
+are so unusual in your eyes that I shall be disposed to regard your
+welcome as equivocal."
+
+He kissed her on cheek and lips, and added:
+
+"Regina, can't you contrive to say you are a little glad to see me?"
+
+There was no reply, and, turning to look for her, he found she had
+vanished.
+
+"Queer little thing, she has gone without a word, though she insisted
+on dressing her silver cup with those flowers, which she thought
+would suggest to you her gratitude for your numerous little acts of
+kindness. Have you seen your uncle?"
+
+"Yes, mother, I stopped a few moments at the church, where he is
+engaged with one of the committee. Uncle Peyton is not looking well.
+Has he been sick?"
+
+"He has suffered a good deal with his throat since you left us, and
+now and then I notice he coughs. He is overworked, and now that you
+can fill his pulpit he will have an opportunity to rest. Oh, my son!
+in every respect your visit is a blessing."
+
+Leaning her head on his breast, she looked up with proud and almost
+adoring tenderness, and, drawing his face down to hers, held it
+close, kissing him with that intense clinging fervour which only
+mother-love kindles.
+
+"Does my little mother know that she is spoiling her boy by inches;
+making a nursery darling, instead of a hardy soldier of him? You are
+weaving silken bonds to fasten me more securely here, when you ought
+rather to aid me in snapping the fetters of affection, habit, and
+association. Come, be so good as to brush the dust out of my hair,
+while you tell me everything about everybody, which you have failed
+to write during these long months of absence."
+
+For some time they talked of family matters, of occurrences in V----,
+of some invidious and unkind remarks, some caustic personal
+criticisms upon the pastor's household affairs, which had emanated
+from Mrs. Prudence Potter, a widowed member of the congregation, who
+had once rashly dreamed of presiding over the clerical hearth as Mrs.
+Peyton Hargrove, and having failed to possess her kingdom had become
+a merciless spy upon all that happened in the forbidden realm.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Prue! what a warfare exists between her name and her
+character. She should petition the legislature to allow her to be
+called--Mrs. Echidna! My son, I think modern civilization will remain
+incomplete, will not perform its mission, until it relieves society
+from the depredations of these scorpions, by colonizing them where
+they will expend their poison without dangerous results. If sting
+they must, let it be among themselves. If I were lunatic enough to
+desire to vote, I should spend my franchise in favour of a 'Gossip
+Reservation'--somewhere close to the Great Western Desert, to which
+the disappointed widows, spiteful old maids, and snarling dyspeptic
+bachelors of this much-suffering generation should be relegated for
+domiciliation and reform. Freedom serves America much as AEsop's stork
+did the frogs: we are appallingly free to be devoured by envy,
+stabbed by calumny, strangled by slander. I believe if I were a
+painter, and desired to portray Cleopatra's death, I would assuredly
+give to the asp the baleful features and sneering smirk of Mrs.
+Prudence. Every Sunday when she twists those two curls on her
+forehead till they lift themselves like horns, puts up her
+eye-glasses and pays her respects to our pew, I catch myself
+whispering '_Cerastes!_' and wishing that I were only the _camera_
+of a photographer."
+
+"Take care, mother! would you accept a homestead in your contemplated
+'Reservation'?"
+
+She pinched his ear.
+
+"Don't presume, sir, to preach to me. Really, I often wonder how
+Peyton can force himself to smile and parry the vinegar cruets that
+woman throws at him in the shape of observations upon the 'rapid
+decline of evangelical piety,' and the 'sadly backslidden nature' of
+the clergy."
+
+"Because he is the very best man in the world, and faithfully
+practises what he preaches--Christian charity. What is Mrs. Pru's
+latest grievance?"
+
+"That Peyton does not admit her to his confidence, and supply her
+with all the particulars of Regina's history and family, which he
+withholds even from you and me, and about which we should never dream
+of catechizing him. In a better cause, her bold effrontery would be
+sublime. Fortunately she was absent in Vermont for some months after
+the child came, and curiosity had subsided into indifference until
+she returned,--when lo! a geyser of righteous anxiety and suspicion
+boiled up in the congregation, and wellnigh scalded us. What do you
+suppose she blandly asked me one day, in the child's presence? 'Were
+not Mr. Hargrove's friends mistaken in believing he had never
+married?' Now I contend that the law of the land should indict for
+just such cruel and wicked innuendoes, because these social crimes
+that the statutes do not reach work almost as much mischief and
+misery as those offences against public peace which the laws declare
+penal. I confess Mrs. Potter is my _bete-noire_, and I feel as no
+doubt Paul did when he wrote to Timothy: 'Alexander the coppersmith
+did me much evil; the Lord reward him according to his works.'"
+
+"Mother, what reply did you make to her? I can imagine you towering
+like Mrs. Siddons."
+
+"You may be sure I unmasked a battery. I looked straight into her
+little faded grey eyes, which straggle away from each other as if
+ashamed of their mutual ferret experiences,--for you know one looks
+out so, and one turns always up,--and I answered, that my brother had
+been exceedingly fortunate, as, notwithstanding the numerous
+matrimonial nets adroitly spread for him, he had escaped, like the
+Psalmist, 'as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers,' and fled for
+safety unto the mountain of celibacy. Bishop, if the new school of
+science lack the link that binds us to the ophidian type, I can
+furnish a thoroughly 'developed' specimen of an 'evolved' Melusina;
+for Mrs. Pru's ancestors must have been not very remotely,
+cobra-capellos. Such a chronic blister as she is keeps up more
+inflammation in a church than all the theology at Andover can cool.
+As for general society here in V----, she damages it more than all
+the three hundred foxes of Samson did the corn-fields, vineyards,
+and olives of the Philistines. What are you laughing at?"
+
+"The ludicrous dismay that will seize you when the constablery of
+your progressive civilization notify you that you must emigrate to
+the Gossip and Slander Reservation. Poor Mrs. Prudence Potter! from
+my earliest recollection she has been practising archery upon the
+target of her neighbours' characters, and she seeks social martyrdom
+as diligently as Sir Galahad hunted the Sangreal. In the form of
+ostracism, I think she is certainly reaping her reward. Mother, let
+her rest."
+
+"With all my heart! ''tis a consummation devoutly to be wished;' but
+that is just the last thing she proposes, until the muscles of her
+tongue and eyes are paralyzed. Rest indeed! Did you ever see a hyena
+caged in a menagerie? Did you ever know it to rest for an instant
+from its snarling, snapping, grinning round? My son, I would not for
+my right hand malign or injure her, but how can I sincerely indulge
+charitable reflections concerning a person who has so persistently
+persecuted your uncle?"
+
+"Then, dear little mother, do not think of her at all. Be assured her
+ill-natured shafts will fall as blunt and harmless upon the noble
+well-tried armour of my uncle's Christian character, as a bombardment
+of cambric needles against the fortress of Cronstadt. How rapidly
+Regina has grown, since she came among us? Her complexion is perfect.
+Is she the same straightforward, guileless child I left her?"
+
+"Unchanged except in the rapid expansion of her mind, which develops
+surprisingly. She is the most mature child I have ever met, and I
+presume it is attributable to the fact that she has never been thrown
+with children, and having always associated with older persons, has
+insensibly imbibed their staid thoughts, and adopted their quiet
+ways. I should not be more astonished to see my prim puritanical
+grandmother yonder step down from the frame, and turn a somersault on
+the carpet, or indulge in leap-frog, than to find Regina guilty of
+any boisterous hoidenish behaviour, or unrefined, undignified
+language. If she had been born on the _Mayflower_, raised on Plymouth
+Rock, and fed three times a day on the 'Blue Laws' of Connecticut,
+she could not possibly have proved a more eminently 'proper' child.
+Even Hannah, who you may recollect was so surly, harsh, and
+suspicious when she first came here, and who really has as little
+cordiality or enthusiasm in her nature as a gridiron or a
+rolling-pin, seems now to be completely devoted to her; as nearly
+infatuated as one of her flinty temperament can be,--and who conquers
+old Hannah's heart--you will admit--must be wellnigh perfect."
+
+"Does my uncle continue to teach her?"
+
+"Yes, and I think it is one of his greatest pleasures. She is
+ambitious and studious, and Peyton is never too weary to explain
+whatever puzzles her. She is exceedingly fond of him, and he said
+last week that she was his 'Jabez;' he had received her so
+reluctantly, and she proved such a comfort and blessing?"
+
+"I presume her mother writes to her occasionally?"
+
+"Regularly every fortnight she receives a letter. Sometimes for days
+after Regina looks perplexed and sorrowful, but she never divulges
+the contents. Once, about two months ago, I found her lying on the
+rug in her own room, with her face in her hands, and her mother's
+last letter beside her. I asked if she had received any bad news, for
+I knew she was crying in her quiet way, and she looked up, and said
+in a tone that was really piteous: 'There is nothing new. It is
+always the same old thing!--she does not know yet when she can come,
+and I must be good and patient. Oh, Mrs. Lindsay! I am so hungry to
+see my mother! When I look at her picture, I feel as if I would be
+willing to die if I could only kiss her, and hear her say once more,
+"My baby! My darling!" Last night I dreamed she took me in her arms
+and hugged me tight, and looked at me as she used to do when she came
+to the convent, and said, "Papa's own baby! Papa's poor stray lamb!"
+Mrs. Lindsay, when I waked I had the pillow in my arms, and was
+kissing it.' Now, Douglass, it is a great mystery how a mother could
+voluntarily separate herself from such a child as Regina. I asked her
+to show me the picture, and she cried a good deal, and said: 'I have
+often wished to show it to you, but she says I must let no one see
+it. Oh! she is so beautiful! Lovelier than the Madonnas in the
+Chapels; only she always has tears in her eyes. I never saw her when
+she did not weep. Mrs. Lindsay, help me to be good, teach me to be
+smart in everything, that I may be some comfort to my mother.' The
+saddest feature in the whole affair is, that Regina begins to suspect
+there is some discreditable mystery about her mother and herself; but
+Peyton says it is marvellous how delicately she treats the subject.
+She came home one day from Sunday school and told him that Mrs.
+Prudence asked her in the presence, of her class how her mother could
+afford to dress her in such costly clothes; and whether she had ever
+seen her father? Peyton wished to know what reply she made, and she
+said her answer was: 'Mrs. Potter, if I were you and you were Regina
+Orme, I think I would have my tongue cut out, before it should ask
+you such questions.' Then Peyton told me she looked at him as if she
+were reading his secret soul, and added; 'It is hard not to
+understand everything, but I will be patient, for mother writes that
+some day I shall know all; and no matter what people say--no matter
+how strange things may seem--I will believe in my mother, as I
+believe in God!' Most girls of her age would be curious to discover
+what is concealed from her, but although your uncle thinks she is
+uncertain whether her father be living or dead, she carefully shuns
+all reference to the subject. There is the doorbell! Hannah will let
+somebody in before I can fly down and tell her to excuse me. How
+stupid of people not to know that my Bishop has come! Oh dear! it is
+Mrs. Cartney, and she has come for the aprons I promised to make for
+the Asylum children, and they have not been touched! Yes, Hannah, I
+am coming. Why didn't you say I was engaged with my son?"
+
+She disappeared, and after awhile Douglass Lindsay went down to the
+library, and thence through the door opening upon two steps that led
+into the garden.
+
+It was one of those rare golden-aired days that sometimes break over
+the bleak brows of brawling March in sunny prophecy of yet distant
+summer; windless days, when rime and haze are equally unknown, and
+tender fingers of the timid spring, lifting the shrouding sod,
+advance tendril and leaf and bud as heralds of the annual
+resurrection. Double daffodils stood erect and conspicuous like
+commissioned officers along the line of yellow jonquils that bordered
+the walks, and snowy narcissus and purple and rose hyacinths made a
+fragrant mosaic over which the brown bees swung, and hummed their
+ceaseless hymn--_laborare est orare_. Following the winding path that
+led to the palings which shut out the poultry realm, the young
+minister leaned against the gate, overshadowed by a tall lilac, and
+looked across at the feathered folk, of which from boyhood he had
+been particularly fond.
+
+In the centre of the enclosure was a handsome pigeon-house, circular
+in form, and easily accessible by a flight of steps, while upon the
+top of a cupola that sprung from the roof was built a small but
+prettily painted martin's home, in the quaint shape of the ark as we
+find it in Scriptural illustrations. Throughout the length and
+breadth of the Continent, probably no other mere _amateur_ fowl
+fancier possessed such a collection as Mr. Hargrove had patiently and
+gradually gathered from various sources. The peculiarity consisted in
+the whiteness of the fowls;--turkeys, guineas, geese, ducks, English
+Pile, Leghorn, Brahma chickens all spotlessly pure, while the pigeons
+resembling drifting snow-flakes,--and the pheasants gleamed like
+silver.
+
+Upon one of the steps of the columbary sat Regina, with a basket of
+mixed grain by her side, and in her lap a pair of white rabbits which
+she was feeding with celery and cabbage leaves. At her feet stood two
+beautiful Chinese geese, whose golden bills now and then approached
+the edge of the basket, or encroached upon the rabbits' evening meal.
+The girl was bareheaded, and the fading sunshine lingered lovingly
+upon the glossy hair and delicate lovely face which had lost naught
+of the purity that characterized it eighteen months before, while
+during that time she had grown much taller, and gave promise of
+attaining unusual height and symmetry.
+
+The dress of Marie-Louise blue merino was relieved at the throat by a
+neatly crimped ruffle, and, as in days of yore, she wore the white
+apron with pretty pockets, and ruffled bands passing over her
+shoulders and down to the belt behind, where broad strings of linen
+were looped into a bow. Her abundant hair was plaited in two long
+thick braids, and passed twice around her head, forming a jet
+coronal, and imparting a peculiarly classic contour.
+
+There was in this quiet fowlyard scene something so innocent, so
+peaceful, that it was inexpressibly soothing and attractive to the
+man who stood beneath the lilac boughs, jaded with unremitting study,
+and laden with wearying schemes of future labour. Douglass Lindsay
+was only twenty-five, but the education and habits of a theological
+student had stamped a degree of gravity on his handsome face, which
+was doubtless enhanced by a slight yet undeniable baldness.
+
+Closely resembling his mother, except in the brownness of his fine
+eyes, his countenance lacked the magnetic warmth and merry shifting
+lights that rendered hers so pleasant, yet none who looked earnestly
+upon it could doubt for an instant that he would prove a stanch,
+faithful, worthy ensign of that Banner of Peace, which Jesus unfurled
+among the olive-girdled hills of holy Judea.
+
+With no leprous taint of bigotry to sully his soul, blur his vision,
+or cramp his sphere of action, the broad stream of Christian charity
+flowed from his noble, generous heart, sweeping away obstacles that
+would have impeded the usefulness of a minister less catholic in
+sympathy, more hampered by creed ligaments and denominational
+fetters. To an almost womanly tenderness and susceptibility regarding
+the sufferings of his fellow-creatures, he united an inflexible
+adherence to the dictates of justice and the rigorous promptings of
+conscience; and while devoutly yielding allegiance solely to the
+Triune God, to whose service he had reverently dedicated his young
+life, there were times when in almost ascetic self-abnegation he
+unconsciously bowed down to that stem-lipped, stony Teraph who,
+under the name of "Duty," sat a cowled and shrouded idol in the
+secret oratory of his unselfish heart. Are there not seasons when
+even the most orthodox wonder whether the _Dii Involuti_ passed away
+for ever, with the _paterae_ and _fibulae_ that once rendered service
+in the classic shades of Chusium and Monte-pulciana?
+
+Scholarly in tastes, neither Mr. Lindsay's habits nor inclination led
+him often into the flowery mazes of fashionable society, but,
+standing upon the verge of Vanity Fair, he had looked curiously down
+at the feverish whirl, the gilded shams, the maddening, murderous
+conflict for place,--the empty mocking pageantry of the victorious,
+the sickening despair and savage irony of the legions of the
+defeated; and after the roar and shout and moan of the social
+maelstrom, as presented in the great city where his studies had been
+pursued, it was pleasant this afternoon to watch the fluttering white
+creatures that surrounded that calm beautiful child, and to listen to
+the soft cooing of the innocent lovers in the dovecote above her.
+
+Opening the latticed gate he walked toward the group, and lifting the
+basket, sat down on the steps.
+
+"Why did you not wait, and invite me to come out and inspect your
+pretty pets?"
+
+"I thought your mother could not spare you this first afternoon, she
+had so much to say to you; but I am very glad you have not quite
+forgotten us. Do you see how tall the China geese have grown? When
+the gander stretches his neck he can touch my shoulder with his bill.
+Isn't he beautiful?"
+
+"Decidedly the handsomest gander of my acquaintance. When I went away
+you were trying to find a name for him. Did you succeed?"
+
+"Yes, I call him Alcibiades."
+
+"Why? Do you wish to insult the memory of the great Athenian?"
+
+"I wish to compliment him, because he was so graceful and beautiful,
+and was so fond of birds he carried them about in his bosom. My
+Alcibiades is so good-natured he never fights or hisses at my
+pigeons, and just now one of them lighted on his back, and picked up
+the barley that had fallen on his feathers. Mr. Hargrove promises me
+that just as soon as I can make money enough to pay the brickmason,
+he will have a large cemented basin built near the pump, where the
+geese and ducks can swim about every day."
+
+"How do you propose to make money?" asked Douglass, lifting one of
+the rabbits into his lap, and offering it a crisp morsel of celery.
+
+"Don't you know that I sell the eggs? Those of the white guineas
+bring three dollars a dozen, and I could sell more of the white
+turkeys, at the same price, than we can spare. Our new pigeon palace
+was paid for entirely out of the poultry money."
+
+"Who keeps the poultry book?   Have you at last learned to multiply
+fractions?"
+
+She looked up, smiling into his laughing eyes.
+
+"Mr. Lindsay, I am not so stupid as when you tried so hard to explain
+that sum to me. I keep the account, and your uncle examines it once a
+week. He says it will teach me to be accurate in my figures."
+
+"What did you pay for your rabbits? I have a pair of Angolas for you,
+but the man from whom I bought them advised me not to remove them
+until all danger of cold weather had passed, as they are quite
+young."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Lindsay. You are very kind to remember that I wished
+for them last year. I did not buy these----"
+
+She raised the rabbit from her apron, and rubbed her cheek against
+its soft fur, then added in a lower and touching tone:
+
+"My mother sent them to me. I can't tell how she found out that of
+all things I wished most to have them, but you know, sir, that
+mothers seem inspired, they always understand what is in their
+children's hearts and minds, and need no telling. So I love these
+more than all my pets; they are the latest message from my mother."
+
+She held out her hand, and interpreting the expression in her superb
+eyes, he placed the other rabbit in her arms, and for a moment she
+pressed them close.
+
+"I must shut them up until to-morrow, or the owls might make a supper
+of them, as happened to some the Sisters kept at the convent."
+
+She opened the door of a wired apartment beneath the pigeon-house,
+where in an adjoining division the pheasants were settling upon their
+perch, and carefully deposited the bouncing furry creatures on a bed
+of wheat straw.
+
+"Mr. Lindsay, the fowls are all going to roost, and you must wait
+till morning to see the squabs, and broods of Brahmas and Leghorns.
+They look like snowballs rolling about after their food."
+
+As she locked up the grain, and balanced the key on her fingers, her
+companion said:
+
+"I must persuade Uncle Peyton to get some black Spanish, and a few
+Poland chickens."
+
+"Oh no! We don't want any black things; if they laid a dozen eggs a
+day they could not come here. We never raise a fowl that has coloured
+feathers; all our beauties must be like snow."
+
+"I see you have converted my uncle to your pet doctrine, and before
+long I suppose you will persuade him to sell his pretty bay, and buy
+a white pony?"
+
+"No, sir, I like 'Sultan' too well to care much about his colour, and
+beside, Mr. Hargrove is attached to him. There is one thing we both
+want very much indeed, and that is a white Ava cow. Your uncle read
+me a description of those cattle last week, and said when you went to
+the East he would ask you to try and send him one."
+
+As he looked down at her perfect face, then at one of the doves that
+had perched on her shoulder, and thought of treacherous swart Sepoys,
+of Bengal tigers, of all the tangled work that lay before him in
+Hindoostan jungles, a shadow fell over the young man's brow, and a
+dull pain seemed to tighten the valves of his heart. Just then his
+appointed lot in the Master's vineyard did not smile as alluringly as
+the sunny slopes of Eschol; but he put aside the contrast.
+
+"Regina, I saw Mr. Palma in New York."
+
+"I hope he is well."
+
+"He certainly looked so. Among other things, he asked if the art of
+writing had been altogether omitted in your education. I told him I
+was unacquainted with your accomplishments in that line, as I had
+written you two letters which remained unanswered."
+
+"But your mother thanked you for them in my name."
+
+"Which was very sweet and good in my dear mother, but questionably
+courteous in you. Mr. Palma sent you a present."
+
+"He is very kind indeed, but if I am expected to write and thank him,
+I would much rather not receive it."
+
+"Do you dislike him?"
+
+"How could I dislike my mother's best friend? I daresay he has a good
+heart--of course he must have; but whenever I think of him I feel a
+queer chill creep to my very finger-tips, as if the north wind blew
+hard upon me, or an iceberg sailed by."
+
+"Guess what he sent you."
+
+"A copybook, pen, and ink?"
+
+"He is too polished a gentleman to punish you so severely. Come and
+let me show you his gift."
+
+He led the way to the gallery at the rear of the house, and here they
+found Mr. Hargrove and Mrs. Lindsay admiring a young Newfoundland
+dog, which was chained to the balusters.
+
+"Look, Regina! it is a waddling snow-bank! So round, so soft and
+white! Did he come from Nova Zembla, or Hammerfest, or directly from
+'Greenland's icy mountains'?"
+
+"Mr. Palma looked all over New York and Brooklyn before he found a
+pure white dog to suit him. It seems he knew Regina's fondness for
+snowy pets, and this is the only Newfoundland I have ever seen who
+had not even a dark hair. Mr. Palma put this handsome collar and
+chain upon him, and asked me to bring him to Regina. He will be very
+large when grown; now he is only a few months old."
+
+Regina softly patted the woolly head, and her eyes glistened with
+delight.
+
+"How did Mr. Palma guess that I wanted a dog?"
+
+"He requested me to suggest something that would please you, and I
+told him that all at the parsonage were grieving over the death of
+poor old Bioern. He immediately decided to send you a dog, and this is
+a noble sagacious creature."
+
+"What is his name?"
+
+"That is left entirely to your taste; but I hope you will not go all
+the way to Greece to find a title, as you did for your classic
+gander."
+
+"Then I will call him whatever Mr. Hargrove likes best."
+
+As she spoke Regina nestled her fingers into the pastor's hand, and
+he smiled down into her radiant face.
+
+"My dear child, exercise your own preference. Have you no choice?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Suppose you name him 'Erl-King' in compliment to Mr. Palma?"
+
+"I should never dare to call him that; it would seem impertinent. He
+is such a splendid dog, I should like a fine, uncommon, grand name
+out of some of Mr. Hargrove's learned books."
+
+"Oh don't, Regina! It will be positively cruel to turn Peyton loose
+among his folios, and invite him to afflict that innocent orphaned
+brute with some dreadful seven-syllabled abomination, which he will
+convince you is Arabic, or Sanscrit, classic or mediaeval, Gaelic,
+Finnish or Norse, but which I warn you will serve your jaws (more
+elegant form--'maxillary bones') very much as an attack of mumps
+would, and will torture the victim into hydrophobia. Be pitiful, and
+say Teazer, Tiger, Towser, but don't throw the sublime nomenclature
+of the classics literally to the dogs!"
+
+"Now, mother, I protest against your infringement of Uncle Peyton's
+accorded rights. Be quiet, please, and let him give Regina a few
+historic names, from which she can select one."
+
+Douglass passed his arm over Mrs. Lindsay's shoulder, and both
+watched the eager intent face which the girl lifted to the pastor.
+
+He took off his glasses, wiped them with the end of his coat, and,
+readjusting them on his nose, addressed himself to his ward.
+
+"There is an East Indian tradition that a divinely appointed
+greyhound guards the golden herds of stars and sunbeams for the Lord
+of Heaven, and collects the nourishing rain-clouds as the celestial
+cows to the milking-place. That greyhound was called _Sarama_. Will
+that suit you?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"The Greeks tell us of a dog which was kept in the temple of
+AEsculapius at Athens, and on one occasion when a robber entered and
+stole the gold and silver treasures from the altar, the dog followed
+him for several days and nights, until the thief, who could neither
+beat him away nor persuade him to eat meat, was captured and carried
+back to Athens. Now, dear, this was a very shrewd and courageous
+animal, and his name was Capparus."
+
+"Why did not his owner change it for something handsome, after he
+performed such service?"
+
+Regina spoke dubiously, and looked down at the new pet, who wagged
+his plumy tail as if to deprecate the punishment of such a title.
+
+"When Pyrrhus died, his favourite and devoted dog refused to stir
+from the body, but when it was carried out of the house he leaped
+upon the bier, and finally sprang into the funeral pile, and was
+burned alive with his master's remains. This exceedingly faithful
+creature was Astus."
+
+"Mr. Hargrove, are all the classic names so ugly?"
+
+"I am afraid the little girl's ear is not sufficiently cultivated to
+appreciate them. I will try once more. The Welsh Prince Llewellyn had
+a noble deerhound, whom he trusted to watch the cradle of his baby
+boy while he himself was absent. One day returning home, he found the
+cradle upset and empty, the clothes and the dog's mouth dripping with
+blood. Concluding that the hound had devoured the child, the father
+drew his sword and slew the dog, but a moment after the cry of the
+babe from behind the cradle showed him his boy was alive. Looking
+around, the prince discovered the body of a huge wolf, which had
+entered the house to attack and devour the child, but which had been
+kept off and killed by this brave dog, who was named Gillert."
+
+Fearing from the expression of the girl's eloquent face, that Wales
+would win the game, Mrs. Lindsay exclaimed with an emphasis that made
+the dog prick up his ears:
+
+"_Gwrach y Rhibyn_--be merciful! The poor wretch looks as if he were
+ready to howl at the bare mention of such a heathen, fabulous name.
+Anything would be an improvement on the Welsh--Cambyses,
+Sardanapalus, are euphonic in comparison.
+
+"Mr. Hargrove, I am much obliged to you for your goodness in telling
+me so much about celebrated dogs, and if the queer names sound any
+sweeter to me after I am well educated, and grow learned, I will take
+one of them; but just now I believe would rather call my dog Hero."
+
+"Regina Orme! you benighted innocent! Don't make Peyton's hair rise
+with horror at your slaughter of the 'unities.' Why, my dear, Hero
+was a young lady who lived in Sestos a few thousand years ago, and
+was not considered a model of prudent behaviour, even then."
+
+"Are not brave noble men called heroes? Did not Mr. Hargrove say last
+week that Philo Smith was a hero, when he jumped into the mill-pond
+and saved Lemuel Martin from drowning? Does not my history call
+Leonidas a hero? I don't know exactly who the 'unities' are, but
+until I learn more I intend to call my dog Hero. To me it seems to
+mean everything I wish him to be--good, faithful, brave, grand, and I
+shall call him Hero. Come along, Hero, and get some supper."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+"Mrs. Orme, now that you are comfortable in your wrapper and
+slippers, let me take down your hair, and then I will bring you a cup
+of tea; not the vile lukewarm stuff they give us here, but good
+genuine tea made out of my own caddy, that has some strength, and
+will build you up. Rehearsals don't often serve you so badly."
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. Waul, but the tea would only make me more nervous,
+and that is a risk I cannot afford to incur. Please raise both
+windows, fresh air, even Parisian air, is better for me than anything
+else."
+
+"You have not seemed quite yourself since we came here, and I don't
+understand at all why two nights in Paris serve you worse than a
+week's acting elsewhere."
+
+"Have I not told you that I dread above every other ordeal the
+critical Parisian audience?"
+
+"But you passed so successfully through it!   Last night the
+galleries absolutely thundered, and people seemed half wild with
+delight. William says the papers are full of praise."
+
+Mrs. Waul crossed the room to lay upon the bureau the steel pins she
+had taken from her mistress's hair, and the latter muttered audibly:
+
+"For me the 'ides of March' are  come indeed, but not passed."
+
+"Did you speak to me?"
+
+"There comes your husband. I hear his slow, heavy step upon the
+stairs. Open the door."
+
+As an elderly white-haired man entered, Mrs. Orme put put her hand.
+
+"Letters from home, Mr. Waul?"
+
+"One from America, two from London, and a note from the American
+minister."
+
+"You saw the minister then? Did he give you the papers we shall
+require?"
+
+"He has been sick, I believe, but said he would be at the theatre
+to-night, and would call and see you to-morrow."
+
+"Hear this sentence, good people, from his note: 'Only indisposition
+prevented my attendance at the theatre last night to witness the
+brilliant triumph of my countrywomen. Since the palmy days of Rachel
+I have not heard such extravagant eulogies, and as an American I
+proudly and cordially congratulate you----'"
+
+"Are you going to faint! Stand back, William, and let me bathe her
+face with cologne. What is the matter, Mrs. Orme? You shake as if you
+had an ague."
+
+But her mistress sat with eyes fixed upon a line visible only to
+herself: "Your countrymen here are very much elated, and to-night I
+shall be accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Cuthbert Laurance, son of
+General Rene Laurance, whose wealth and social eminence must have at
+least rendered his name familiar to all Americans travelling in
+Europe."
+
+"Be quick, Phoebe, and get her a glass of wine. She has no more
+colour in her lips than there is in my white beard."
+
+"No--give me nothing. I only want rest--quiet."
+
+She crushed the delicate satin paper in her hand, and rallied her
+composure. After a moment she added:
+
+"A slight faintness, that is all. Mr. Waul, before the curtain rises
+to-night, I wish you to ascertain in what portion of the house the
+American minister's box is located; write it on a slip of paper and
+send it to the dressing-room by your wife. Just now I believe I have
+no other commissions. If I do not ring my little bell, do not disturb
+me until five o'clock, then bring me a cup of strong coffee. And,
+Mrs. Waul, please baste a double row of swan's-down around the neck
+and sleeves of the white silk I shall wear to-night. Let no one
+disturb me; not even the manager."
+
+As the husband and wife withdrew, she followed them to the door,
+locked it on the inside, and returned to the easy chair. With a
+whitening, hardening face she reread the note, and thrust it into one
+of the silk pockets of her robe.
+
+Although nine years had elapsed since we saw her first, in the mellow
+lamplight of Mr. Hargrove's library, time had touched her so
+daintily, so lovingly, that only two lines were discernible about the
+mouth, where habitual compression has set its print; and it would
+have been difficult to realize that she was twenty-eight, had not the
+treacherous eyes betrayed the gloom, the bitterness, the ceaseless
+heartache that filled them with shadows, which prematurely aged the
+whole countenance.
+
+The added years seemed only to have ripened and perfected her
+exquisite beauty, but with the rounded smoothness, and the fresh,
+pure colouring of youth was mingled a weird indescribable expression
+of stern hopelessness, of solemn repose, as if she had deliberately
+shaken hands for ever with all that makes life bright and precious,
+and were fronting with calm smile and quiet pulses a grim and
+desperate conflict, which she well knew could have an end only in
+the peace of the pall, that long truce, whose signal is the knell and
+the requiem.
+
+Had she been reared amid the fatalistic influences of Arabia, she
+could not have more completely adopted and exemplified the marble
+motto: "Despair is a free man; Hope is a slave." For her the rosy
+mist that usually hovers over futurity had been swept rudely aside,
+the softening glow of the To-Come had been precipitated into a dull,
+pitiless leaden ever present, at which she never raved nor railed,
+but inflexibly fought on, expecting neither sunshine nor succour,
+unappalled and patient as some stony figure of Fate, which chiselled
+when the race was young, feels the shrouding sands of centuries
+drifting around and over it, but makes no moan over the buried youth,
+and watches the approaching night with the same calm, steadfast gaze
+that looked upon the starry dawn, and the golden glory of the noon.
+
+The cautious repression which necessity had long ago rendered
+habitual had crystallized into a mask, which even when alone she
+rarely laid aside for an instant. In actual life, and among strong
+positive natures, the deepest feelings find no vent in the
+effervescence of passionate verbal outbreaks, and outside the charmed
+precincts of the tragic stage, the world would not tolerate the
+raving Hamlets and Othellos, the Macbeths and Medeas, that scowl and
+storm and anathematize so successfully in the magic glow of the
+footlights.
+
+To-day, as Madame Odille Orme leaned back in her luxuriously
+cushioned chair, she seemed quite as a statue, save the restless
+movements of her slender fingers, which twined and intertwined
+continually; while the concentrated gaze of the imperial eyes never
+stirred from the open window, whence she saw--not Parisian monuments
+of civic glory and martial splendour--only her own past, her haunting
+skull and cross-bones of the Bygone. Her violet-coloured
+dressing-gown was unbuttoned at the throat, exposing the graceful
+turn of the neck, and the proud poise of the perfectly modelled head,
+from which the shining hair fell like Danae's shower, framing the face
+and figure on a back ground as golden as that of some carefully
+preserved Byzantine picture.
+
+At last the heavily fringed lids quivered, drooped, the magnificent
+eyes closed as if to shut out some vision too torturing even for
+their brave penetrating gaze, and in her rigid whiteness she seemed
+some unearthly creature, who had done for ever with feverish life and
+the frail toys of time.
+
+Raising her arms above her head, she rested her clasped hands upon
+her brow, and in a low, strangely quiet tone her words dropped like
+icicles.
+
+"It was a groundless fear, that when the long-sought opportunity came
+my weak womanish nature would betray me, and I should fail, break
+down utterly under the crushing weight of tender memories, sacred
+associations. What are they?
+
+"Three dreamy weeks of delirious wifehood, balanced by thirteen years
+of toil, aspersion, hatred, persecution; goaded by want, pursued
+ceaselessly by the scorpion scourge whose slanderous lash coiled ever
+after my name, my reputation. Three weeks a bride,--unrecognized
+as such even then,--twelve years an outcast,--repudiated,
+insulted,--mother and child, denied, derided,--cast off as a
+serpent's skin!--Ah, memory! thou hast no charm to stir the blackened
+ashes in a heart extinguished by the steady sleet of a husband's
+repudiation. When love is dead, and regret is decently buried, and
+the song of hope is hushed for ever, then revenge mounts the chariot
+and gathers the reins in her hands of steel; and beyond the writhing
+hearts whose blood dyes her rushing wheels sees only the goal. Some
+wise anatomists of that frail yet invincible sphinx--woman's nature,
+babble of one weighty fact, one conquering  law,--that only the
+mother-joy, the  mother-love, fully unseals the slumbering sweetness
+and latent tenderness of her being; for me, maternity opened the
+sluices of a sea of hate and gall. Had I never felt the velvet touch
+of tiny fingers on my cheek, a husband's base desertion might in time
+have been forgiven, possibly at least, forgotten; but the first wail
+from my baby's lips awoke the wolf in me. My wrongs might slumber
+till that last assize, when the pitying eyes of Christ sum up the
+record, but hers--have made a hungry panther of my soul. Come,
+memory, unlock your treasure house, uncoil your spells, chant all
+your witching strains, and let us see whether the towers of _Notre
+Dame_ will not tremble and dissolve as soon as I?"
+
+Bending to a trunk near her chair, she unlocked it, and taking out a
+_papier-mache_ box, opened it with a small key that hung from her
+watch chain, and placed it on the table before her, where she had
+thrown the unread letters. Leaning forward, she crossed her arms upon
+the marble, and looked down on the contents of the box,--her child's
+letters,--her own unanswered appeals in behalf of her babe,--a
+photograph of the latter,--and most prominent of all, a large square
+ambrotype of a handsome boyish face, with a short curl of black hair
+lying inside the case.
+
+"Idolatrous? Yes all women are, embryo pagans, and the only comfort
+is, that when the idol crumbles into clay, mocking our prayers and
+offerings, we still worship at the same old shrine, having dusted and
+garnished and set thereon--maybe the Furies, which bid fair to
+survive the wreck of gods, of creeds, and of time. Like Oenone, we
+are all betrayed sooner or later by our rose-lipped Paris,--
+
+            'Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,'
+
+and after the inevitable foolish tears of vain regret we dry our
+eyes, and hunt Cassandra, to listen to the muttering of the thunder
+that is gathering to avenge us--in Troy. Bride and bridegroom, face
+to face-- Cuthbert! So you looked, when we parted, when you strained
+me to your heart, and swore that before a fortnight passed you would
+hold 'darling Minnie in your arms once more!' Did you mean it even
+then? No, no, already the hounds of slander were snuffing in my path,
+and the toils were spread for my unwary feet. Here, look back at me,
+my husband, with those fond peerless eyes, as on that day when I saw
+you last--all mine! To-night--across the gulf of separation, and of
+shameful wrong--we shall look into each other's faces once more,
+while another woman wears my name, fills my place at your side. Fair
+treacherous face of my first and only love,--handsome as a
+god!--false as Apollyon!"
+
+She had lifted the ambrotype and held it close to her eyes, then her
+hand sank until the picture dropped back into its place, and the
+lonely desolate woman buried her face in her palms. The pretty guilt
+clock on the mantle ticked monotonously, and the hum of life, and the
+busy roll of vehicles in the vast city, was borne in through the
+window, like the faint roar of yet distant Niagara; and after awhile
+when the sharp stroke of the clock announced four the bowed figure
+raised herself.
+
+Sweeping back the blinding veil of hair, her brilliant brown eyes
+shone calm and dry, dimmed by no tears of fond womanly regret, and as
+they fell upon the photograph of Regina, a smile of indescribable
+bitterness curled the lovely lips that might have served as model for
+Psyche's.
+
+"'The trail of the serpent is over all.' Can there be pardon for the
+man who makes me shrink shudderingly at times from her whose little
+veins were fed from mine, whose pulses are but a throb from my heart,
+my baby! My own baby, who, when I snatch her in my arms, smiles at me
+with his wonderful eyes of blue; and wellnigh maddens me with the
+very echo of a voice whose wily sweetness won my love, to make an
+hour's pastime, a cheap toy, soon worn out, worthless and trodden
+under foot after three weeks' sport! Stooping over my baby, when she
+stretched her little hands and coaxed me to lift her on my lap, I
+have started back from the sight of her innocent face, as if a hooded
+viper fawned upon me; for the curse of her father's image has smitten
+my only darling, my beautiful, proud child! O God! that we had both
+died in that dim damp ward of the Hospital, where she first opened
+her eyes, unwelcomed by the father, whose features she bears!"
+
+But beneath this Marah tide that was surging so fiercely over her
+long-suffering heart, bubbled the pure, sweet, incorruptible fount of
+mother-love, and while she studied the fair childish face her own
+softened, as that of some snow image whose features gradually melt as
+the sunlight creeps across it. It was a picture taken after Regina's
+removal to the parsonage, and represented her with the white rabbits
+nestling in her arms.
+
+"My proud little Regina! my pure sensitive darling! How much longer
+must we be separated? Will the time ever come when the only earthly
+rest that remains for me can be taken in her soft clinging arms?
+Patience--patience. If it were not for her--for my baby--I might
+falter even now,--but she must, she shall be righted--at any
+sacrifice, at every cost; and may the widow's and the orphan's God be
+pitiful--be pitiful--at last."
+
+She raised her child's picture in her clasped hands, as if appealing
+indeed to the justice of Him who "never slumbers, nor sleeps," and
+the tremor of her lips and voice told how passionate was the
+affection for her daughter, how powerful the motives that sustained
+her in the prolonged and torturing ordeal.
+
+Restoring the portraits to their hiding-place, she locked the trunk,
+and as she resumed her seat seemed suddenly to recollect the letters
+lying on the table.
+
+One was a brief note, from the manager of the London theatre where
+she had recently been engaged; the second from a celebrated
+money-lender, which bore only the signature, "Simon," and was as
+follows:
+
+  "DEAR MADAME,--Since our last conversation relative to the
+  purchase of a certain mortgage, I have ascertained that you can
+  secure it, by adding one hundred pounds to the amount specified by
+  the holder. Should you still desire me to effect the transfer,
+  delay might thwart your negotiation, and I respectfully solicit
+  prompt instructions."
+
+Twice she read these lines, then slowly tore the paper into strips,
+shredded and threw them toward the grate, while a stony expression
+settled once more upon her features. The remaining letter was
+post-marked New York, and addressed, in a bold, round, mercantile
+hand, but when the envelope had been removed, the formal angular
+chirography of a schoolgirl displayed itself, and as the sheet was
+opened there issued thence a delicate perfume that gushed like a
+breath of spring over the heart of the lonely mother.
+
+Several leaves of lemon-verbena and a few violets fell from the folds
+of the paper, and, picking them up, Mrs. Orme spread them on her
+palm. Only a few withered leaves and faded petals that had crossed
+the Atlantic to whisper fragrant messages of love, from the trusting
+brave young soul whose inexperienced hand had stiffly traced at the
+top of the page--"My darling mother."
+
+Ah! what a yearning tenderness glorified the woman's frozen face, as
+the flowers in her hand babbled of the blue eyes that had looked last
+upon them, of the childish fingers that brushed the dew from their
+purple velvet, of the dainty, almost infantile, lips that had fondly
+pressed them, of the holy prayer breathed over them, that ere the
+time of violets came again mother and child might be reunited.
+
+Just now she dared not read the letter, dared not surrender to the
+softening influences that might melt the rigid purpose of her soul,
+and, kissing the flowers reverently, the mother laid them aside until
+a more convenient season, and began to walk slowly to and fro....
+
+The play that night was "Kenilworth," and had been cast to admit some
+alterations made in the dramatization by Madame Orme, who frequently
+introduced startling innovations in her rendering of her parts, and
+in almost all her favourite _roles_ refused rigid adherence to the
+written text. The reputation of her beauty and former triumphs, the
+success achieved on the previous nights, and certain tart criticisms
+upon the freedom of her interpretation of Scott's lovely
+heroine--Leicester's wife--combined to draw a crowded house; and ere
+the curtain rose every box was occupied save one on the second tier
+near the stage.
+
+As the crash of the orchestra died away, and the play opened with the
+interview between Lambourn and Foster, followed by Tressilian, and
+the encounter with Varney, the door of the box opened, and the
+American minister entered, accompanied by a lady and gentleman, who,
+after seating themselves and gathering back the folds of the box
+curtains, proceeded to scan the audience.
+
+As they disposed themselves comfortably a white-haired man, watching
+through a crevice in the side scene, scribbled on a piece of paper
+which was handed into the dressing-room: "Second box, second tier,
+right-hand side. Two gentlemen, and a lady wearing a scarlet cloak."
+
+Sitting between the minister and her husband, Mrs. Laurance with her
+brilliant wrappings was the most prominent of the group, and in the
+blaze of the gaslight looked at least thirty-five; a woman of large
+proportions compactly built, with broad shoulders that sustained a
+rather short thick neck, now exposed in extreme _decollete_ style, as
+if to aid the unsuccessful elongation of nature. Her sallow
+complexion was dark, almost bistre, and the strongly marked irregular
+features were only redeemed from positive plainness by the large
+fiery black eyes, whose beauty was somewhat marred by the intrusive
+boldness of their expression. Bowing to some one opposite, her very
+full lips parted smilingly over a set of sound strong teeth, rather
+uneven in outline, and of the yellowish cast often observed in
+persons of humble birth and arduous life. Her dusky hair, belonging
+to the family of neutral-brown, was elaborately puffed and frizzed,
+and in her ears hung large solitaire diamonds that glowed like globes
+of fire, and scattered rays that were reflected in the circlet around
+her throat.
+
+Beside her sat her husband, leaning back with negligent grace, and
+carelessly stroking his silky black moustache with one gloved hand,
+while the other toyed with a jewelled opera glass. Although only two
+years her junior, she bore the appearance of much greater seniority,
+and the proud patrician cast of his handsome face contrasted as
+vividly with the coarser lower type of hers, as though in ancient
+Roman era he had veritably worn the _clavus_ and the _bulla_, while
+she trudged in lowly guise among the hard-handed heroines of the
+_proletarii_.
+
+Over his dreamy violet eyes arched the peculiarly fine jet brows that
+Mr. Palma had found so distinctive in Regina's face, and his glossy
+hair and beard possessed that purplish black tint so rarely combined
+with the transparent white complexion, which now gleamed
+conspicuously in his broad, full, untanned forehead.
+
+The indolent _insouciance_ of his bearing was quite in accord with
+his social record, as a proud high-born man of cultivated elegant
+tastes, and unmistakably dissipated tendencies, which doubtless would
+long ago have fructified in thoroughly demoralized habits had not his
+wife vigorously exerted her exigeant guardianship.
+
+"Have you heard the last joke at Count T----'s expense?" said Mrs.
+Laurance, tapping the arm of the minister with her gilded fan.
+
+"Do you refer to the _contretemps_ of the masks at the Grand Ball?"
+
+"No, something connected with Madame Orme. It seems the Count saw her
+in London, became infatuated, as men always are about pretty
+actresses, and the first night she played here he was almost frantic;
+wrote a note between the acts, and sent it to her twisted in that
+costly antique scarf-ring he is so fond of telling people once
+belonged to the Duke of Orleans. Before the play ended it was
+returned, with the note torn into several strips and bound around it.
+Fancy his chagrin! Colonel Thorpe was in the box with him, and told
+it next day, when we met at dinner. When I asked T---- his opinion of
+Madame, he answered:
+
+"She is perfectly divine! But alas! only an inspired icicle. She
+should be called '_Sulitelma_,' which I believe means--Cuthbert, what
+did you tell me it meant?"
+
+"Queen of Snows. Abbie, do lower your voice a trifle." He answered
+without even glancing at her, and she continued:
+
+"I wanted to see her last night in 'Medea,' but Cuthbert had an opera
+engagement, and beside, little Maud had the croup----"
+
+A storm of applause cut short the nursery budget, and all turned to
+the stage where Amy Robsart entered, followed by Janet and by Varney.
+Advancing with queenly grace and dignity to a pile of cushions in the
+centre of the drawing-room at Cumnor Place, she stood a moment with
+downcast eyes, till the acclamation ceased, and Varney renewed his
+appeal.
+
+Her satin dress was of that exquisite tint which in felicitous French
+phraseology is termed _de couleur de fleur de pecher_, and swept down
+from her slender figure in statuesque folds that ended in a long
+court train, particularly becoming in the pose she had selected. The
+Elizabethan ruff, with an edge of filmy lace, softened the effect of
+the bodice cut squares across the breast, and revealed the string of
+pearls--Leicester's last gift--that shone so fair upon his countess's
+snowy neck. From the mass of hair heaped high upon her head soft
+tendrils clustered to the edge of her brow, and here and there a long
+curl strayed over her shoulder, and glittered like burnished gold in
+the glare of the quivering footlights. The lovely arms and hands were
+unburdened by jewels, and save the pearls around her throat and the
+aigrette of brilliants in the upper bandeau of her hair, she wore no
+ornaments. The perfect impersonation of a beautiful, innocent, happy
+bride, impatiently expectant of her husband's entrance, she stood
+listening to his messenger, a tender smile parting her rosy lips.
+
+The chair of state chanced to be placed in the direction of the
+minister's box, and only a few feet distant, and when Varney
+attempted to place her upon it, she waved him back, and, raising her
+right hand toward it, said in that calm, deep, pure voice which had
+such thrilling emphasis in its lowest cadences:
+
+"No good, Master Richard Varney, I take not my place _there_, until
+my lord himself conducts me. I am for the present a disguised
+countess, and will not take dignity upon me, until authorized by him,
+from whom I derived it."
+
+In that brief sentence she knew her opportunity and seized it, for
+her glance followed her uplifted hand, mounted into the box, and,
+sweeping across the minister, dwelt for some seconds on the dark
+womanly countenance beside him, and then fastened upon the face of
+Mr. Laurance.
+
+Some whose seats were on that side of the house, and who chanced to
+have their lorgnettes levelled at her just then, saw a long shiver
+creep over her, as if a blast of cold air had blown down through the
+side scene, and a sudden spark blazed up in the dilating eyes, as a
+mirror flashes when a candle flame smites its cold dark surface; but
+not a muscle quivered in the fair proud face, and only the Varney at
+her side noticed that when the slight hand fell back it sought its
+mate with a quick groping motion, and the delicate fingers clutched
+each other till the nails grew purple.
+
+For fully a moment that burning gaze rested on the features that
+seemed to possess some subtle fascination for her, and wandering back
+to the wife, a shadowy smile hovered around the lips that were soon
+turned, away to answer Varney. As she moved in the direction of a
+window, to listen for the clatter of horse's hoofs, Mrs. Laurance
+whispered:
+
+"Is not she the loveliest creature you ever beheld? I never saw such
+superb eyes, they absolutely seemed to lighten just now. Cuthbert,
+did you only notice how she looked right at me? I daresay my
+solitaires attracted her attention--and no wonder, they are the
+largest in the house, and these actresses always have an eye to the
+very best jewellery. Of course it must have been my diamonds."
+
+From the moment when Amy Robsart entered, Cuthbert Laurance felt a
+strange magnetic thrill dart through every fibre of his frame; his
+sluggish pulse stirred, and as her mesmeric brown eyes, luminous,
+overmastering, met his, he drew his breath in quick gasps, and his
+heart in its rapid throbbing seemed to pour liquid fire into the
+bounding arteries. Some vague bewildering reminiscence danced through
+the clouded chambers of his brain, pointing like a mocking fiend now
+this way, then in an opposite direction; one instant assuring him
+that they had somewhere met before, the next torturing him with the
+triumphant taunt that he had hitherto never known any one half so
+lovely. Was it merely some lucky accident that had so unexpectedly
+brought them during that long flattering gaze thoroughly _en
+rapport?_
+
+He no more heard his wife's hoarse whisper, than if a cyclone had
+whirled between them, and, leaning forward to catch the measured
+melody that floated from the countess's lips, a crimson glow fired
+his cheek as he caught the lofty words.
+
+"I know a cure for jealousy. It is to speak truth to my lord at all
+times; to hold up my mind, my thoughts, before him as pure as that
+polished mirror, so that when he looks into my heart he shall see
+only his own features reflected there.[*] _Can he who took my little
+hands and made them wifely, laying therein the precious burden of his
+honour, afford to doubt the palms are clean?_"
+
+[Footnote: * Mrs. Orme's interpolations are all italicized.]
+
+No wonder Varney stared, and the prompter anathematized the sudden
+flicker of the gas jet that caused him to lose his place; there was
+no such written sentence as the last, and the rehearsal proved no
+sure index of all the countess uttered that night, but the play
+rolled on, and when the folding doors flew open and Amy sprang to
+meet her noble husband, the house began to warm into an earnest
+sympathy.
+
+In the scene that followed she sat with childlike simplicity and
+grace on the footstool at Leicester's feet, while he exhibited the
+jewelled decorations of his princely garb, and explained the
+significance of the various orders; and in the face upturned to him
+who filled the chair of state there was a wealth of loving tenderness
+that might have moved colder natures than that which now kindled in
+the deep violent eyes that watched her from the minister's box.
+
+Gradually the curious, timid, admiring bride is merged in the wife,
+with ambition budding in her heart, and exacting pride pleading for
+recognition and wifely dignities, and in this transformation the
+power of the woman asserted itself.
+
+Bending toward Leicester, until from the low seat she sank
+unintentionally upon her knees, she prayed with passionate fervour:
+
+"But shall not your wife, my love, one day soon be surrounded with
+the honour which arises neither from the toils of the mechanic who
+decks her apartment, nor from the silks and jewels with which your
+generosity adorns her, but which is attached to her place among the
+matronage, as the avowed wife of England's noblest earl? _'Tis not
+the dazzling splendour of your title that I covet, but the richer,
+nobler, dearer coronet of your beloved name, the precious privilege
+of fronting the world as your acknowledged wife_."
+
+Again, in answer to his flattering evasive sophistries, she asked in
+a voice whose marvellous modulations in the midst of intense feeling
+seemed to penetrate every nook of that vast building:
+
+"But why can it not be? Why can it not immediately take place, this
+more perfect uninterrupted union, for which you say you wish, and
+which the laws of God and man alike command? _Think you my unshod
+feet would shrink from glowing ploughshares, if crossing them I found
+the sacred shelter of my husband's name? Ah, husband! dost blanch
+before the storm of condemnation, which has no terrors for a wife's
+brave heart? It would seem but scant and tardy justice to own thy
+wedded wife!_"
+
+The earl had led her behind the scenes, and the minister had twice
+addressed him ere Mr. Laurance recovered himself sufficiently to
+perceive that his companions were smiling at his complete absorption.
+
+"Why--Cuthbert--wake up. You look like some one walking open-eyed in
+sleep. Has Madame's beauty dazed you as utterly as poor Count T----?"
+
+His wife pinched his arm, but without heeding her he looked quite
+past her into the laughing eyes of the minister, and asked:
+
+"Do you know her? Is her husband living?"
+
+"I shall call by appointment to-morrow, but this is the first time I
+have seen her. Of her history I know nothing, but rumour pronounces
+her a widow."
+
+"Which generally means that these pretty actresses have drunken,
+worthless husbands, paid comfortable salaries to shut their eyes and
+keep out of the way," added Mrs. Laurance, lengthening the range of
+her opera glass, and levelling it at a group where the shimmer of
+jewels attracted her attention.
+
+How the words grated on her husband's ear, grown strangely sensitive
+within an hour?
+
+Carelessly glancing over the sea of faces beneath and around him, the
+minister continued:
+
+"English critics contend that Madame Orme's 'Amy Robsart' is so far
+from being Scott's ideal creation, that he would fail to recognize it
+were he alive; still where she alters the text, and intensifies the
+type, they admit that the dramatic effect is heightened. She appears
+to have concentrated all her talent upon the passionate impersonation
+of one peculiar phrase of feminine suffering and endurance--that of
+the outraged and neglected wife; and her favourite _roles_ are
+'Katherine' from Henry VIII., 'Hermione,' and 'Medea,' though she is
+said to excel in 'Deborah.' My brother who saw her last night as
+'Medea' pronounced her fully equal to Rachel, and said that in that
+scene where she attempted to remove her children from the side of the
+new wife, the despairing fury of her eyes literally raised the few
+thin hairs that still faithfully cling to the top of his head.
+Ah--the parting with Leicester--how marvellously beautiful is she!"
+
+Leaning against a dressing-table loaded with toilet trifles and
+_bijouterie_, Amy stood, arrayed in the costume which displayed to
+greatest advantage the perfect symmetry of form and the dazzling
+purity of her complexion.
+
+The cymar of white silk bordered with swan's-down exposed the
+gleaming dimpled shoulders, and from beneath the pretty lace coif the
+unbound glory of her long hair swept around her like a cataract of
+gold, touching the hem of her silken gown, where, to complete the
+witchery, one slippered foot was visible. When her husband entered to
+bid her adieu, and the final petition for public acknowledgment was
+once more sternly denied, the long-pent agony in the woman's heart
+burst all barriers, overflowed every dictate of wounded pride, and
+with an utter _abandon_ of genuine poignant grief, she gave way to a
+storm that shook her frame with convulsive sobs, and deluged her
+cheeks with tears. Despite her desperate efforts to maintain her
+self-control, the sight of her husband's magnetic handsome face,
+after thirteen weary years of waiting, unnerved, overwhelmed her.
+There in the temple of Art, where critical eyes were bent searchingly
+upon her, Nature triumphantly asserted itself, and she who wept
+passionately from the bitter realisation of her own accumulated
+wrongs, was wildly applauded as the queen of actresses, who so
+successfully simulated imaginary woes.
+
+By what infallible criterion shall criticdom decide the boundaries of
+the Actual and the Ideal? Who shall compute the expenditure of
+literal heartache that builds up the popularly successful Desdemonas,
+Camilles, and Marie Stuarts; the scalding tears that gradually
+crystallize into the classic repose essential to the severe
+simplicity of the old Greek tragedies?
+
+The curtain fell upon a bowed and sobbing woman, and the tempest of
+applause that shook the building was prolonged until after a time Amy
+Robsart, with tears still glistening on her cheeks, came forward to
+acknowledge the tribute, and her silken garments were pelted with
+bouquets. Among the number that embroidered the stage lay a pyramid
+of violets edged with rose geranium leaves, and raising it she bent
+her lovely head to the audience and kissed the violets, in memory (?)
+of her far-off child--whose withered floral tribute was more precious
+to the woman's heart than all the laudatry chaplets of the great
+city, which did homage to her genuine tears.
+
+Some time elapsed while the play shifted to the court, recounting the
+feuds of Leicester and Sussex, and when Amy Robsart appeared again it
+was in the stormy interview where Varney endeavours to enforce the
+earl's command that she shall journey to Kenilworth as Varney's wife.
+The trembling submissiveness of earlier scenes was thrown away for
+ever, and, as if metamorphosed into a Fury, she rose, towered above
+him, every feature quivering with hatred, scorn, and defiance.
+
+"Look at him, Janet! that I should go with him to Kenilworth, and
+before the Queen and nobles, and in presence of my own wedded lord,
+that I should acknowledge him,--him there, that very cloak-brushing,
+shoe-cleaning fellow,--him there, my lord's lackey, for my liege
+lord and husband! I would I were a man but for five minutes!--but go!
+begone!"
+
+She paused panting, then threw back her haughty head, rose on tiptoe,
+and, shaking her hand in prophetic wrath and deathless defiance,
+almost hissed into the box beneath which Varney stood:
+
+"Go, tell thy master that when I, like him, can forget my plighted
+troth, _turn craven, bury honour, and forswear my marriage vows,
+then, oh then! I promise him, I will give him a rival, something
+worthy of the name!_"
+
+Was the avenging lash of conscience uncoiled at last in Cuthbert
+Laurance's hardened soul that the blood so suddenly ebbed from his
+lips, and he drew his breath like one overshadowed by a vampire?
+Only once had he caught the full gleam of her indignant eyes, but
+that long look had awakened torture's that would never entirely
+slumber again, until the solemn hush of the shroud and the cemetery
+was his portion. No suspicion of the truth crossed his mind, even
+for an instant,--for what resemblance could be traced between that
+regal woman, and the shy, awkward, dark-haired little rustic, who
+thirteen years before had frolicked like a spaniel about him,--loving
+but lowly?
+
+In vain he sought to arrest her attention; the actress had only once
+looked at the group, and it was not until the close that he succeeded
+in catching her glance.
+
+After her escape from Varney, Amy Robsart reached in disguise the
+confines of Kenilworth, and standing there, travel-worn, weary,
+dejected, in sight of the princely castle, with its stately towers
+and battlements, she first saw the home whose shelter was denied her,
+the palatial home where Leicester bowed in homage before Elizabeth.
+As a neglected, repudiated wife, creeping stealthily to the hearth
+where it was her right to reign, Amy turned her wan, woeful face to
+the audience, and, fixing her gaze with strange mournful intentness
+upon the eyes that watched her from the box, she seemed to throw her
+whole soul into the finest passage of the play.
+
+"I have given him all that woman has to give. Name and fame, heart
+and hand, have I given the lord of all this magnificence--at the
+altar, and England's Queen could give him no more. He is my husband;
+I am his wife. I will be bold in claiming my right; even the bolder,
+that I come thus unexpected and forlorn. Whom God hath joined, man
+cannot sunder."
+
+The irresistible pathos of look and tone electrified that wide
+assemblage, and in the midst of such plaudits as only Paris bestows
+she allowed her eyes to wander almost dreamily over the surging sea
+of human heads, and as if she were in truth some hunted, hopeless,
+homeless waif appealing for sympathy, she shrouded her pallid face in
+the blue folds of her travelling cloak, and disappeared.
+
+"She must certainly recognize her countrymen, for that splendid
+passage seemed almost thrown to us, as a tribute to our nationality.
+What a wonderful voice! And yet--she is so tender, so fragile," said
+the minister.
+
+"Did you observe how pale she grew toward the last, and so
+hollow-eyed, as if utterly worn out in the passionate struggle?"
+asked Mrs. Laurance.
+
+"The passion of the remaining parts belongs rather to Leicester and
+the Queen. By the way, this is quite a handsome earl, and the whole
+cast is decidedly strong and successful. Look, Laurance! were you an
+artist, would you desire a finer model for an Egeria? If Madame had
+been reared in Canova's studio she could not possibly have
+accomplished a more elegant felicitous pose. I should like her
+photograph at this moment."
+
+In the grotto scene, Amy was attired in pale sea-green silk, and her
+streaming hair braided it with yellow light, as she shrank back from
+the haughty visage of the Queen.
+
+Rapidly the end approached, courtiers and maids of honour crowded
+upon the stage, and thither Elizabeth dragged the unhappy wife, into
+the presence of the earl, crying in thunder tones: "My Lord of
+Leicester! knowest thou this woman?"
+
+The craven silence of the husband, the desperate rally of the
+suffering wife to shield him from the impending wrath, until at last
+she was borne away insensible in Hunsdon's strong arms, all followed
+in quick succession, and Amy's ill-starred career approached its
+close, in the last interview with her husband.
+
+When Cuthbert Laurance was a grey-haired man, trembling upon the
+brink of eternity, there came a vision in the solemn hours of night,
+and the form of Amy, wan as some marble statue, breathed again in his
+ear the last words she uttered that night.
+
+"Take your ill-fated wife by the hand, lead her to the footstool of
+Elizabeth's throne; say that 'in a moment of infatuation moved by
+supposed beauty, of which none perhaps can now trace even the
+remains, I gave my hand to this poor Amy Robsart.' You will then have
+done justice to me, and to your own honour; and should law or power
+require you to part from me, I will offer no opposition, since I may
+then with honour hide a grieved and broken heart in those shades,
+from which your love withdrew me. Then--have but a little
+patience--and Amy's life will not long darken your brighter
+prospects."
+
+The fatal hour arrived; the gorgeous pomp and ceremonial of the
+court-pageant had passed away, and in a dim light the treacherous
+balcony at Cumnor Place was visible. In the hush that pervaded the
+theatre, the minister heard the ticking of his watch, and Mrs.
+Laurance the laboured breathing of her husband.
+
+Upon the profound silence broke the tramp of a horse's hoofs in the
+neighbouring courtyard, then Varney's whistle in imitation of the
+earl's signal when visiting the countess.
+
+Instantly the door of her chamber swung open, and, standing a moment
+upon the threshold, Amy in her fleecy-white drapery wavered like a
+drifting cloud, then moved forward upon the balcony; the trapdoor
+fell, and the lovely marble face with its lustrous brown eyes sank
+into the darkness of death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+To men and women of intensely emotional nature, it sometimes happens
+that a day of keen and torturing suspense, or a night's vigil of
+great anguish, mars and darkens a countenance more indelibly than the
+lapse of several ordinary monotonous years; and as Madame Orme sat in
+her reception-room at one o'clock on the following afternoon,
+awaiting the visit of the minister, the blanched face was far sterner
+and prouder than when yesterday's sun rippled across it, and bluish
+shadows beneath the large eyes that had not closed for twenty-four
+hours lent them a deeper and more fateful glow.
+
+The soft creamy folds of her Cashmere robe were relieved at the
+throat by a knot of lilac ribbon, and amid its loops were secured
+clusters of violets, that matched in hue the long spike of hyacinth
+which was fastened in one side of the coiled hair, twined just behind
+the ear, and drooped low on the snowy neck. Before her on a gilded
+stand was the purple pyramid of flowers she had brought from the
+theatre, and beside them lay several perfumed envelopes with
+elaborate monograms. These notes contained tributes of praise from
+strangers who had been fascinated by her "Amy Robsart," and begged
+the honour of an interview, or the favour of a "photograph taken in
+the silken cymar which so advantageously displayed the symmetry of
+her figure."
+
+Among the latter she had recognized the handwriting of Mr. Laurance,
+though the signature was "Jules Duval," and her fingers had shrunk
+from the folds of rose paper, as though scorched by flame. Lying
+there on the top of the _billets-doux_, the elegant, graceful
+chirography of the "Madame Odille Orme" drew her gaze, like the
+loathsome fascination of a basilisk, and taking a package of notes
+from her pocket, she held them for a moment close to the satin
+envelope. Upon one the name of the popular actress; on the others--in
+the same peculiar beautiful characters--"Minnie Merle." She put away
+the latter, and a flash of scorn momentarily lighted her rigid face.
+
+"Craven as of old! Too cowardly to boldly ask the thing his fickle
+fancy favours; he begs under borrowed names. Doubtless his courage
+wilts before his swarthy, bold-eyed Xantippe, who allows him scant
+latitude for flirtations with pretty actresses. To be thrown
+aside--trampled down--for such a creature as Abbie Ames! his
+coarse-featured, diamond-dowered bride! Ah! my veins run lava; when I
+think of her thick heavy lips, pressing that haughty perfect mouth,
+where mine once clung so fondly! Last night the two countenances
+seemed like 'as Hyperion to a Satyr!' How completely he sold his
+treacherous beauty to the banker's daughter, whom to-day he would
+willingly betray for a fairer, fresher face. Craven traitor!"
+
+She passed her handkerchief across her lips, as if to efface some
+imaginary stain, and they slowly settled back into their customary
+stern curves.
+
+Just then a timid tap upon the door of the reception-room was
+followed almost simultaneously by the entrance of Mrs. Waul, who
+held a card in her hand.
+
+"The waiter has just brought this up. What answer shall he take
+back?"
+
+Mrs. Orme glanced at it, sprang to her feet, and a vivid scarlet
+bathed her face and neck.
+
+"Tell him--No! no--no! Madame Orme begs to decline the honour."
+
+Then the crimson tide as suddenly ebbed, she grew ghastly in her
+colourlessness, and her bloodless lips writhed, as she called after
+the retreating figure:
+
+"Stop! Come back,--let me think."
+
+She walked to the window, and stood for several moments as still as
+the bronze Mercury on the mantel. When she turned around, her
+features were as fixed as if they belonged to some sculptured slab
+from Persepolis.
+
+"Pray don't think me weak and fickle, but indeed, Mrs. Waul, some of
+my laurels gash like a crown of thorns. Tell the waiter to show this
+visitor up, after five minutes, and then I wish you to come back and
+sit with your knitting yonder, at the end of the room. And please
+drop the curtain there, the pink silk will make me look a trifle less
+ghostly after last night's work. You see I am disappointed, I
+expected the American minister on business, and he sends this Paris
+beau to make his apologies; that is all."
+
+As the old lady disappeared, Mrs. Orme shuddered, and muttered with
+clenched teeth:
+
+"All have a Gethsemane sooner or later, and mine has overtaken me
+before I am quite ready. God grant me some strengthening angel!"
+
+She sank back into the arm chair, and drew the oval gilt table before
+her as a barrier, while some inexplicable, intuitive impulse prompted
+her to draw from her bosom a locket containing Regina's miniature.
+Touching a spring, she looked at the childish features so singularly
+like those she had seen the previous evening, and when Mrs. Waul
+returned and seated herself at the end of the room, the spring
+snapped, the locket lay in one hand, the minister's card in the
+other.
+
+Mrs. Orme heard the sound on the stairs and along the hall--the
+well-remembered step. Amid the tramp of a hundred she could have
+singled it out, so often in bygone years had she crouched under the
+lilacs that overhung the gate, listening for its rapid approach,
+waiting to throw herself into the arms that would clasp her so
+fondly; to-day that unaltered step smote her ears like an echo from
+the tomb, and for an instant her heart stood still, and she shut her
+eyes; but the door swung back, and Mr. Laurance stood upon the
+threshold. As he advanced, she rose, and when he stood before her
+with outstretched hand, she ignored it, merely rested her palm on the
+table between them; and glancing at the card in her fingers said:
+
+"Mr. Laurance, I believe, introduced by the American minister. A
+countryman of mine, he writes. As such I am pleased to see you, sir,
+for when abroad the mere name of American is an _open sesame_ to
+American sympathy and hospitality. Pray be seated, Mr. Laurance.
+Pardon me, not that stiff-backed ancient contrivance of torture,
+which must have been invented by Eymeric. You will find that green
+velvet Voltaire, like its namesake, far more easy, affording ample
+latitude."
+
+The sweet voice rung its silver chimes as clearly as when she trod
+the stage, and no shadow of the past cast its dusky wing over her
+proud, pale face, while she gracefully waved him to a seat, and
+resumed her own.
+
+"If Madame Orme, so recently from home, yields readily to the
+talismanic spell of 'American' she can perhaps imagine the
+fascination it exerts over one who for many years has roamed far
+from his roof-tree and his hearthstone; but who never more proudly
+exulted in his nationality than last night, when as Queen of Tragedy,
+Madame lent new lustre to the land that claims the honour of being
+her birthplace."
+
+"Thanks. Then I may infer you paid me the tribute of your presence
+last evening?"
+
+They looked across the table, into each other's eyes,--hers radiant
+with a dangerous steely glitter, his eloquent with the intense
+admiration which kindled on the previous evening, now glowed more
+fervently from the contemplation of a beauty that to-day appeared
+tea-fold more irresistible. The question slightly disconcerted him.
+
+"I had the honour of accompanying our minister, and sharing his box."
+
+"Indeed! I have never had the pleasure of meeting him, and hoped to
+have seen him to-day, as he fixed this hour for the arrangement of
+some business details, concerning which I was advised to consult him.
+One really cannot duly appreciate American liberty until one has been
+trammelled by foreign formalities and Continental police quibbles."
+
+An incredulous smile, ambushed in his silky moustache, was reflected
+in his fine eyes, as he recalled the flattering emphasis with which
+she had certainly singled out his face in that vast auditory, and,
+thoroughly appreciating his munificent inheritance of good looks, he
+now imagined he fully interpreted her motive in desiring to ignore
+the former meeting.
+
+"Doubtless hundreds who shared with me the delight you conferred by
+your performance last night would be equally charmed to possess my
+precious privilege of expressing my unbounded admiration of your
+genius; but unfortunately the impression prevails that my charming
+countrywoman sternly interdicts all gentleman visitors, denies access
+even to the most ardent of her worshippers, and I deem myself the
+most supremely favoured of men in having triumphantly crossed into
+the enchanted realm of your presence. Of this flattering distinction
+I confess I am very proud."
+
+It was a bold challenge, and sincerely he rued his rashness, when,
+raising herself haughtily, she answered in a tone that made his
+cheeks tingle:
+
+"Unfortunately your countrywoman has not studied human nature so
+superficially as to fail to comprehend the snares and pitfalls which
+men's egregious vanity sometimes spring prematurely; and rumour
+quotes me aright, in proclaiming me a recluse when the curtain falls
+and the lights are extinguished. To-day I deviated from my usual
+custom in compliment to the representative of my country, who sends
+you--so his card reads--'charged with an explanation of his
+unavoidable absence.' As minister-extraordinary, may I venture to
+remind Mr. Laurance of his errand?"
+
+Abashed by the scornful gleam in her keen wide eyes, he replied
+hastily:
+
+"A telegram from Pau summoned him this morning to the bedside of a
+member of his family suddenly attacked with dangerous illness, and he
+desired me to assure you that so soon as he returned he would seize
+the earliest opportunity of congratulating you upon your brilliant
+triumph. In the interim he places at your disposal certain printed
+regulations, which will supply the information you desire, and which
+you will find in this envelope. May I hope, Madame, that the value of
+the contents will successfully plead the pardon of the audacious, yet
+sufficiently rebuked messenger?" He rose, and with a princely bow
+offered the packet.
+
+Suffering her eyes to follow the motion of his elegantly formed
+aristocratic hand, now ungloved, one swift glance showed her that
+instead of the unpretending slender gold circlet she had placed on
+the little finger of his left hand the day of their marriage--a ring
+endeared to her, because it had been her mother's bridal pledge--he
+now wore a flashing diamond, in a broad and costly setting. Almost
+unconsciously her own left hand glided to the violets on her breast,
+beneath which, securely fastened by a strong gold chain, she wore
+the antique cameo ring, with its grinning death's head resting upon
+her heart.
+
+Slightly inclining her head, she signed to him to place the papers on
+the table, and when he had resumed his sect, she asked:
+
+"How long, Mr. Laurance, since you left America?"
+
+"Thirteen or fourteen years ago; yet the memories of my home are
+fresh and fragrant as though I quitted it only yesterday."
+
+"Then happy indeed must have been that hearthstone, whose
+rose-coloured reminiscences linger so tenderly around your heart, and
+survive the attrition of a long residence in Paris. Your _repertoire_
+of charming memories tempts me almost to the verge of covetousness.
+In what portion of the United States did you reside?"
+
+"My boyhood was spent in one of the middle States, where my estate is
+located, but my collegiate life removed me to the north, whence I
+came immediately abroad. My residence in Europe confirms the belief
+that crossed the Atlantic with me, that in beauty, grace, and all the
+nameless charms that constitute the perfect, peerless, fascinating
+woman, my own country I pre-eminently bears the palm. Broad as is her
+domain, and noble her civil institutions, the crowning glory of
+America dwells in her lovely and gifted women."
+
+He had never looked handsomer than at that moment, as, slightly
+bending his head in homage, his dangerously beautiful eyes rested
+with an unmistakable expression upon the faultless features before
+him; and watching him, a cold smile broke up the icy outline of his
+companion's delicate lips:
+
+"American beauty might question the sincerity of a champion whose
+worship is offered only at foreign shrines, and the precious oblation
+of whose heart is laid on distant and strange altars."
+
+"Ah, Madame,--neither at foreign shrines nor strange altars, but ever
+unwaveringly at the feet of my divine countrywomen. Is it needful
+that I recross the ocean to bow before the reigning muse? Is it not
+conceded that the brightest, loveliest planet in Parisian skies,
+brought all her splendour from my western home?"
+
+"How you barb with keen regret the mortifying reflection that I,
+alas! cannot as an American lay claim to a moiety of your chivalric
+allegiance! Ill-fated Odille Orme!"
+
+The stinging sarcasm in the liquid voice perplexed him, and the
+strange lambent light that seemed now and then to ray out of the
+brilliant eyes that had never wandered from his, sent an
+uncomfortable thrill over him.
+
+"Surely the world cannot have erred in according to my own country
+the honour of your nationality?"
+
+"I was born upon a French ship, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean."
+
+"Ah, dearest Madame! then it is no marvel that, as you have inherited
+the cestus of Aphrodite, your votaries bow as blindly, as helplessly,
+as those over whom your ancient Greek mother ruled so despotically.
+By divine right of birth you should reign as Odille Anadyomene."
+
+"Madame Odille Orme has abjured the pagan aesthetics that seem to
+trench rather closely upon Mr. Laurance's ethics, and shed far too
+rosy an Orientalism over his mind and heart; and hopes he will not
+forget her proud boast that by divine right she wears a dearer,
+nobler, holier title--Odille Orme, wife and mother."
+
+Bolder libertinism than found shelter in Mr. Laurance's perverted
+nature, would have cowered before the pure face that now leaned far
+forward, with dilated, scornful eyes which seemed to run like
+electric rays up and down the secret chambers of his heart.
+
+Involuntarily he shrank back into the depths of his chair, and mutely
+questioned as on the previous night, "Where have I heard that voice
+before?"
+
+With some difficulty he recovered himself, and said hastily:
+
+"Will you forgive me if I tell you frankly, that ever since I saw you
+last night I have been tantalized by a vague yet very precious
+consciousness that somewhere you and I have met before? When or
+where, I cannot conjecture, but of one thing I am painfully certain,
+we can never be strangers henceforth. Some charm in your voice, in
+the expression of your eyes when as 'Amy Robsart' the loving woman
+you looked so fondly into your 'Leicester's' face, awoke dim memories
+that will never sleep again. Happy--enviable indeed--that Leicester
+who really rules the empire of your love."
+
+Tightening the clasp of her palms which enclosed the little gold
+locket containing the image of their child, a wintry smile broke over
+her white face, lending it that mournful glimmer which fading
+moonlight sheds on some silent cenotaph in a cemetery.
+
+"If my stage tricks of glance or tone, my carefully studied and
+practised attitudes and modulations, recall some neglected memories
+of your sunny past, let me hope that Mr. Laurance links me with the
+holy associations that cluster about a mother's or a sister's sacred
+features; reviving the earlier years, when he offered at the shrine
+of friendship, of honour, and of genius, tributes too sincere to
+admit the glozing varnish of fulsome, fashionable adulation, which
+degrades alike the lips that utter and the ears that listen. If at
+some period in the mysterious future, you, whom--because my
+countryman--I reluctantly consented to receive, should really
+discover a noble lovely woman before whose worth and beauty that
+fickle heart you call your own utterly surrenders, and whom winning
+as wife, and cherishing as only husbands can the darlings they
+worship, you were finally torn away from--by inexorable death--the
+only power that can part husbands and wives, then think you, Mr.
+Laurance, that the universe holds a grave deep enough to keep you
+quiet in your coffin--if vain heartless men profaned her sacred
+widowhood by such utterances as you presume to offer me? The stage is
+the arena, where in gladiatorial combat I wage my battle with the
+beasts of Poverty and Want: there I receive the swelling acclamations
+of triumph, or the pelting hisses of defeat; there before the
+footlights where I toil for my bread, I am a legitimate defenceless
+target for artistic criticism; but outside the precincts of the
+theatre, I hold myself as sacred from the world as if I stood in
+stone upon an altar behind some convent's bars, and as a lonely,
+sorrow-stricken mother widowed of the father of my child, bereft of a
+husband's tenderly jealous guardianship, I have a right to claim the
+profound respect, the chivalric courtesy, which every high-toned,
+honourable gentleman accords to worthy stainless women. Because as an
+actress I barter my smiles and tears for food and raiment for my
+fatherless child, it were not quite safe to imagine that I share the
+pagan tendencies which appear to have smitten some of my countrymen
+with moral leprosy."
+
+The words seemed to burst forth like a mountain cataract long locked
+in snow, which, melting suddenly under some unseasonable fiery
+influence, falls in an impetuous icy torrent, bearing the startling
+chill of winter into flowery meadows, where tender verdure sown thick
+with primroses and daisies smiles peacefully in summer sunshine.
+
+Twice the visitor half rose and essayed to speak, but that deep
+steady voice bore down all interruption, and as he watched her, Mr.
+Laurance just then would have given the fortune of the Rothschilds
+for the privilege of folding in his own the perfect hands that lay
+clasped on the marble slab.
+
+While her extraordinary beauty moved his heart as no other woman had
+yet done, the stern bitterness of her rebuke appealed to the latent
+chivalry and slumbering nobility of his worldly soul. Looking upon
+his flushed handsome face, interpreting its eloquent varying
+expressions by the aid of glancing lights which memory snatched from
+long-gone years, she saw the struggle in his dual nature, and hurried
+on, warned by the powerful magnetism of his almost invincible eyes
+that the melting spell of the Past was twining its relaxing fingers
+about the barred gateway of her own throbbing heart.
+
+"Trained in the easy school of latitudinarianism so fashionable
+nowaday on both sides of the Atlantic, doubtless Mr. Laurance deems
+his adopted countrywoman a nervous puritanical prude; and upon my
+primitive and wellnigh obsolete ideal of social decorum and
+propriety, upon my lofty standard of womanly delicacy and manly
+honour, I can patiently tolerate none of the encroachments with which
+I have recently been threatened. Just here, sir, permit a pertinent
+illustration of the impertinence that sometimes annoys me."
+
+Lifting between the tips of her fingers the pretty peach-bloom-tinted
+note, whose accusing characters betrayed the hand that penned it, she
+continued, with an outbreak of intense and overwhelming contempt:
+
+"Listen, if you please, to the turbid libation which some rose-lipped
+Paris, some silk-locked Sybarite poured out last night, after leaving
+the theatre. Under the pretence of adding a leaf to the chaplets, won
+by what he is pleased to tern 'diving dramatic genius,' this 'Jules
+Duval'--let me see, I would not libel an honourable name; yes, so it
+is signed--this Jules Duval, this brainless, heartless, soulless
+Narcissus, with no larger sense of honour than could find ample
+waltzing room on the point of a cambric needle, insolently avows his
+real sentiments in language that your _valet_ might address to his
+favourite _grisette_; and closes like some ardent accepted lover,
+with an audacious demand for my photograph, 'to wear for ever over
+his fond and loyal heart!' That is fashionable homage to my
+genius--it is? I call it an insult to my womanhood! Nay--I am
+ashamed to read it! 'Twould stain my cheeks, soil my lips, dishonour
+your gentlemanly ears. Mr. Laurance, if ever you should become a
+husband, and truly love the woman you make your wife, you will
+perhaps comprehend my feelings, when some gay unprincipled gallant
+profanes the sanctity of her retirement with such unpardonable, such
+unmerited insolence."
+
+She held it up between thumb and forefinger, shaking out the pink
+folds till the signature in violet ink flaunted before the violet
+eyes of its owner, then, crushing it as if it were a cobweb, she
+tossed it toward the window.
+
+Turning her head, she said in an altered and elevated tone:
+
+"Mrs. Waul, may I disturb you for a moment?"
+
+The quiet figure, clad in sober grey, and wearing a muslin cap whose
+crimped ruffle enclosed in a snowy frame the benevolent wrinkled
+countenance, came forward, knitting in hand, spectacles on her nose,
+and for the first time the visitor became aware of her presence.
+
+"Please lower the curtain yonder beside the etagere, the sun shines
+hot upon Mr. Laurance's brow. Then touch the bell, and order the
+carriage to be ready in twenty minutes."
+
+Humiliated as he had never been before, Mr. Laurance resolved upon
+one desperate attempt to regain the position his vanity had rashly
+forfeited. Waiting until the Quaker-like _duenna_ had retreated to
+her former seat, he rose and leaned across the small table, and under
+his rich low voice and passionately pleading eyes the actress held
+her breath and clutched the locket till its sharp edge sunk into her
+quivering flesh.
+
+"You dismiss me as unworthy of your presence, and, acknowledging the
+justice of your decree, I sincerely deplore the fatuity that prompted
+the offence. Your rebuke was warranted by my foolish presumption,
+and, confessing the error into which I was betrayed by your
+condescending notice last night, I humbly and sorrowfully solicit
+your generous forgiveness. Fervid flattering phrases sorely belie my
+real character if, sinking me almost beneath your contempt, you deem
+me devoid of a high sense of honour, or of chivalric devotion to
+noble womanly delicacy. Madame Orme, if your unparalleled beauty,
+grace, and talent bewitched me into a passing folly and vain
+impertinence, for which indeed I blush, your stern reproof recalls me
+to my senses, to my better nature; and I beg that upon the unsullied
+word of an American gentleman, you will accept with my apology the
+earnest assurance that in quitting this room I honour and revere my
+matchless countrywoman far more than when I entered her noble
+presence. Fashionable freedom may have demoralized my tongue, but by
+the God above us, I swear it has not blackened my heart, nor deadened
+my perception and appreciation of all that constitutes true feminine
+refinement and purity. You have severely punished my presumptuous
+vanity, and now will you not mercifully pardon a man who, finding in
+you the perfect fulfilment of his prophetic dreams of lofty as well
+as lovely womanhood, humbly but most earnestly craves permission to
+reinstate himself in your regard; to attempt to win your esteem and
+friendship, which he will value far more highly than the adoration of
+any--yes, of all other women?"
+
+He was so near her that she saw the regular quick flutter of the blue
+vein on his fair temples, and as the musical mastering voice so well
+remembered and once so fondly loved stole tenderly through the dark,
+lonely, dreary recesses of her desolate, aching heart, it waked for
+one instant a wild, maddening temptation, an intense longing to lift
+her arms, clasp them around his neck, lean forward upon his bosom,
+and be at rest.
+
+In the weary years that followed, how bitterly she denounced and
+deplored the fever of implacable revenge that held her back on that
+memorable day! Verily for each of us a "Nemean Lion lies in wait
+somewhere," and a lost opportunity might have cost even Hercules that
+tawny skin he wore as trophy.
+
+Mr. Laurance saw a slow dumb motion of the pale lips that breathed no
+sound to fill the verbal frame they mutely fashioned--"my husband;"
+and then with a gradual drooping of the heavily lashed lids, the eyes
+closed. Only until one might have leisurely counted five was he
+permitted to scan the wan face in its rare beautiful repose, then
+again her eyes pitiless as fate met his--so eager, so wistful--and
+she too rose, confronting him with a cold proud smile.
+
+"I fear Mr. Laurance unduly bemoans and magnifies a mistake, which,
+whatever its baleful intent, has suffered in my rude inhospitable
+hands an 'untimely nipping in the bud,' and most ingloriously failed
+of consummation. After to-day the luckless incident of our
+acquaintance must vanish like some farthing rushlight set upon a
+breezy down to mark a hidden quicksand; for in my future panorama I
+shall keep no niche for mortifying painful days like this--and you,
+sir, amid the rush and glow and glitter of this bewildering French
+capital, will have little leisure and less inclination to recall the
+unflattering failure of an attempted flirtation with a pretty but
+most utterly heartless actress, who wrung her hands, and did high
+tragedy, and stormed and wept for gold! Not for perfumed pink
+_billets-doux_, nor yet for adulation and vows of deathless devotion
+from high-born gentlemen handsome and heartless enough to serve in _Le
+Musee du Louvre_ as statues of Apollo, but for gold, Mr. Laurance,
+only for gold!"
+
+"Do not inexorably exile me--do not refuse my prayer for the
+privilege of sometimes seeing you. Permit me to come here and teach
+you to believe in my----"
+
+"_Le jeu n'en vaut pas la chandelle!_" she exclaimed, with a quick
+nervous laugh that grated grievously upon his ear.
+
+"Madame, I implore you not to deny me the delight of an occasional
+interview."
+
+A sudden pallor crept across his eager face, and he attempted to
+touch the fair dimpled hand which, still grasping the locket, rested
+upon the table.
+
+Aware of his purpose, she haughtily shrank back, drew herself up, and
+folding her arms so tightly over her breast that the cameo ring
+pressed close upon her bounding heart, she looked down on him as from
+some distant height, with an intensity of quiet scorn that no
+language could adequately render, that bruised his heart like
+hail-stones.
+
+"I deny you henceforth all opportunity of sinking yourself still
+deeper in my estimation, of annoying me by any future demonstrations
+of a style of admiration I neither desire, appreciate, nor intend to
+permit. If accident should ever thrust you again across my path, you
+will do well to forget that our minister committed the blunder of
+sending you here to-day. Mr. Laurance will please accept my thanks
+for this package of papers, which shall be returned to-morrow to the
+office of the American embassy. Resolved to forget the unpleasant
+incidents of to-day, Madame Orme is compelled to bid you good-bye."
+
+Angry but undaunted, his eloquent eyes boldly bore up under hers, as
+if in mortal challenge; and he bowed, with a degree of graceful
+_hauteur_, fully equal to her own best efforts.
+
+"Madame's commands shall be rigidly and literally obeyed, for
+Cuthbert Laurance is far too proud to obtrude his presence or his
+homage on any woman; but Mrs. Orme's interdict does not include that
+public realm, where she has repeatedly assured me that gold always
+secures admission to her smiles, and from which no earthly power can
+debar me. Watching you from the same spot, where last night you
+floated like an angelic dream of my boyhood, like a glorious
+revelation upon my vision and my heart, I shall defy the world to mar
+the happiness in store for me, so long as you remain in Paris. A
+distant but devoted worshipper, cherishing the memory of those
+thrilling glances with which 'Amy Robsart' favoured me, permit me to
+wish Madame Orme a pleasant ride, and good afternoon."
+
+He bent his handsome head low before her, and left the room less like
+an exile than a conqueror, buoyed by an abiding fatalism, a fond
+faith in that magnetic influence and fascination he had hitherto
+successfully exerted over all, whom his wayward, fickle, fastidious
+fancy had chosen to enslave.
+
+When the sound of his retreating footsteps was no longer audible, the
+slender white-robed figure moved unsteadily across the floor, entered
+the adjoining dressing-room, and locked the door.
+
+The play was over at last, the long tensions of nerve, the iron
+strain on brain and heart, the steel manacles on memory, all snapped
+simultaneously; the actress was trampled out of sight, the weak,
+suffering, long-tortured woman bowed down in helpless and hopeless
+agony before her desecrated mouldering altar, was alone with the dust
+of her overturned and crumbling idol.
+
+"My husband! O God! Thou knowest--not hers--not that woman's--but
+mine! all mine! My baby's father!--my Cuthbert--my own husband!"
+
+           "Oh past! past the sweet times that I remember well!
+           Alas that such a tale my heart can tell!
+           Ah, how I trusted him! what love was mine!
+           How sweet to feel his arms about me twine,
+           And my heart beat with his! What wealth of bliss
+           To hear his praises; all to come to this,--
+           That now I durst not look upon his face,
+           Lest in my heart that other thing have place--
+           That which men call hate!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+"Nonsense, Elise! She is but a child, and I beg you will not
+prematurely magnify her into a woman. There are so few unaffected,
+natural children in this generation, that it is as refreshing to
+contemplate our little girl's guileless purity and ingenuous
+simplicity, as to gaze upon cool green meadows on a sultry, parching
+August day. Keep her a child, let her alone."
+
+Mr. Hargrove wiped his spectacles with his handkerchief, and replaced
+them on his Roman nose with the injured air of a man who, having been
+interrupted in some favourite study to take cognizance of an
+unexpected, unwelcome, and altogether unpleasant fact, majestically
+refuses to inspect, and dogmatically waves it aside, as if to ignore
+were to annihilate.
+
+"Now, Peyton, for a sensible man (to say nothing of the astute
+philosopher and the erudite theologian), you certainly do indulge in
+the most remarkable spasms of wilful, obstinate, premeditated
+blindness. You need not stare so desperately at that page, for I
+intend to talk to you, and it is useless to try to snub either me or
+my facts. Regina is young, I know, not quite fourteen, but she is
+more precocious, more mature, than many girls are at sixteen; and you
+seem to forget that, having always associated with grown people, she
+has imbibed their ideas and caught their expressions, instead of the
+more juvenile forms of thought and speech usual in children who live
+among children. She has as far outgrown jumping-ropes as you have
+tops and kites, and has no more relish for fairy tales than your
+reverence has for base-ball, or my Bishop here for marbles. Suppose
+last October I had sprinkled a paper of lettuce-seed in the open
+border of the garden, and on the same day you had sown a lot of
+lettuce in the hot-beds against the brick wall, where all the
+sunshine falls: would you refuse your crisp, tempting, forced salad,
+because it had reached perfection so rapidity?"
+
+"Mother, do you intend us to understand that Regina is very tender,
+and very verdant?" asked Mr. Lindsay, looking up from a grammar that
+lay open before him.
+
+"I intend you, sir, to study your Hindustanee, and your Tamil, while
+I experiment upon the value of analogical reasoning in my discussions
+with your uncle. Now, Peyton, you see that child's mind has been for
+nearly four years in an intellectual hotbed,--sunned in the light of
+religion, moistened with the dew of philosophy, cultivated
+systematically with the prongs and hoes of regular study, of example,
+and precept; and, being a vigorous sprout when she was transplanted,
+she has made good use of her opportunities, and, behold! early mental
+salad, and very fine! You men theorize, ratiocinate, declaim,
+dogmatize about abstract propositions, and finally get your feet
+tangled and stumble over facts right under your noses, that women
+would never fail to pick up and put aside. The soul of Thales
+possesses you all, whereas we who sit at the cradle, and guide the
+little tottering feet, study the ground and sweep away the
+stumbling-blocks. Day after day you and Douglass discuss all kinds of
+scientific theories, and quote pagan authorities and infidel systems
+in the presence of Regina, who sits in her low chair over there in
+the corner of the fireplace as quiet as a white mouse, listening to
+every word, though 'Hans Christian Andersen' lies open on her lap,
+and scarcely winking those blue eyes of hers, that are as solemn as
+if they belonged to the Judges of Israel. If a child is raised in a
+carpenter's shop, with all manner of sharp, dangerous often two-edged
+tools scattered around in every direction, who wonders that the
+little fingers are prematurely gashed and scarred? You and Douglass
+imagine she is dreaming about the number of elves that dance on the
+greensward on moonlight nights, or the spangles on their lace wings;
+or that she is studying the latitude and longitude of the capital of
+the last territory which Congress elevated to the uncertain and
+tormenting dignity of nominal self-government, that once (_vide_
+'obsolete civil hallucinations') inhered in an American State; or
+perhaps you believe the child is longing for a pot of sugar candy?
+Then rub your eyes, you ecclesiastical bats, and let me show you the
+'outcome' of all this wise and learned chat, with which you edify one
+another. You know she beguiled me into giving her lessons on the
+organ, as well as the piano, and yesterday when I went over to the
+church at instruction hour, I was astonished at a prelude, which she
+had evidently improvised. Screened from her view, I listened till she
+finished playing. Of course I praised her (for really she has
+remarkable talent), and asked her when she began to compose, to
+improvise. Now what do you suppose she answered? A brigade of
+Philadelphia lawyers could never guess. She looked at me very
+steadily, and said as nearly as I can quote her words: 'I really
+don't know exactly when I began, but I suppose a long time ago, when
+I wore brown feathers, and went to sleep with my head under my wing,
+as all nightingales do.' Said I: 'What upon earth do you mean?' She
+replied: 'Why of course I mean when I was a nightingale, before I
+grew to be a human being. Didn't you hear Mr. Hargrove last week
+reading from that curious book, in which so many queer things were
+told about transmigration, and how the soul of a musical child came
+from the nightingale, the sweetest of singers? And don't you
+recollect Mr. Lindsay said that Plato believed it; and that Plotinus
+taught that people who lead pure lives and yet love music to excess,
+go into the bodies of melodious birds when they die? Just now when I
+played, I was wondering how a nightingale felt, swinging in a plum
+tree all white with fragrant bloom, and watching the cattle cropping
+buttercups and dandelions in the field. Mrs. Lindsay, if my soul is
+not perfectly fresh and brand new, I hope it never went into a human
+body before mine, because I would much lather it came straight to me
+from a sweet innocent bird."
+
+"Surely, Elise, you are as usual, jesting?" exclaimed her brother.
+
+"On the contrary, I assure you I neither magnify nor embellish. I am
+merely stating unvarnished facts, that you may thoroughly understand
+into what fertile soil your scattered grains of learning fall. I
+promise you, with moderate cultivation it will yield an
+hundred-fold."
+
+"Mother, what did you say to her, by way of a dose of orthodoxy to
+antidote the metempsychosis poison?" asked Mr. Lindsay, who could not
+forbear laughing, at the astonished expression of his uncle's
+countenance.
+
+"At first I was positively dumb, and stared at the child, very much
+as I daresay Mahamaia did, when her boy Arddha-Chiddi stood upon his
+feet and spoke five minutes after his entrance into this world of
+woe, or when at five months of age he sat unsupported in the air.
+Then I shook her, and asked if she had gone to sleep and dreamed she
+was a bulbul feeding on rose leaves; whereupon she looked gravely
+dignified, and when I proceeded to reason with her concerning the
+absurdity of the utterly worn-out doctrine of transmigration, how do
+you suppose she met me? With the information that far from being a
+worn-out doctrine, learned and scientific men now living were
+reviving it as the truth; and that whereas Christianity was only
+eighteen hundred years old, that metempsychosis had been believed for
+twenty-nine centuries, and at this day numbers more followers, by
+millions, than any other religion in the world. I inquired how she
+learned all this foolish fustian, and with an indescribable mixture
+of pride, pity, and triumph, as if she realized that she was throwing
+Mont Blanc at my head, she mentioned you two eminently evangelical
+guides, from whose infallible lips she had gleaned her knowledge. As
+for you, Douglass, I suggest you abandon Oriental studies, forego the
+dim hope of martyrdom in India, and begin your missionary labours at
+home. My dear, the Buddhist is at your own door. Now, Peyton, how do
+you relish the flavour of your philosophical salad?"
+
+"I am afraid I have been culpably thoughtless in introducing to her
+mind various doctrines and theories which I never imagined she could
+comprehend, or would even ponder for a moment. Since my sight has
+become so impaired and feeble, I have several times called on her to
+read some articles which certainly are not healthful pabulum for a
+child, and my conversations with Douglass, relative to scientific
+theories, have been carried on unreservedly in her presence. I am
+very glad you warned me."
+
+"And I am exceedingly sorry, if the effect of my mother's words
+should be to hamper and cramp the exercise of Regina's faculties.
+Free discussion should be dreaded only by hypocrites and fanatics,
+and after all, it is the best crucible for eliminating the false from
+the true. Does the contemplation of physical monstrosities engender a
+predilection or affection for deformity? Does it not rather by
+contrast with symmetry and perfect proportion heighten the power and
+charm of the latter? The beauty of truth is never so invincible as
+when confronted with sophistry or falsehood; just as youth and health
+seem doubly fair and precious, in the presence of trembling
+decrepitude and revolting disease."
+
+"Really, Bishop! I thought you had passed the sophomoric stage, and
+it is a shameful waste of dialectic ammunition to throw your
+antithesis at me. According to your doctrine, America ought to buy up
+and import all the deformed unfortunates who are annually exposed in
+China, in order that our people should properly appreciate the
+superiority of sound limbs, and the value of the five senses; and
+healthy young people should throng the lazarettos and alms-houses to
+learn the nature of their own disadvantages. It is equally desirable
+that wise men like you and Peyton should accustom yourselves to the
+society of--well--I use polite diction, of imbeciles, of 'innocents,'
+in order to set a true value on learning and your own astute logic?"
+
+"My dear little mother, you chop your logic so furiously with a broad
+axe, that you darken the air with a hurricane of chips and splinters.
+Like all ladies who attempt to argue, you rush into the _reductio ad
+absurdum_, and find it impossible to discriminate between----"
+
+"Wisdom and conceit? Bless you, Bishop, observation has taught me all
+the shades and delicate gradations of that difference. We women no
+more mistake the latter for the former, than the gods who declined to
+turn cannibal when they went to dine with Tantalus, and were offered
+a fricassee of Pelops. Now I----
+
+"Ceres did eat of it!" exclaimed her son, adroitly avoiding a tweak
+of the ear, by throwing his head back, beyond the touch of her
+fingers.
+
+"A wretched pagan fable, sir, with which orthodox bishops should hold
+no communion. Tell me, you beardless Gamaliel, where you accumulated
+your knowledge relative to the education of girls? Present us a chart
+of your experience. You talk of hampering and cramping Regina's
+faculties, as if I had put her brains in a pair of stays, and daily
+tightened the lacers."
+
+"I am inclined to think the usual forms of female education have
+precisely that effect. The fact is, mother, it appears that women in
+this country are expected to come the reserve magazines of piety, of
+religious fervour, on the certainly powerful principle that
+'ignorance is the mother of devotion.' True knowledge, which springs
+from fearless investigation, is a far nobler and more reliable
+conservator of pure vital Christianity."
+
+"_Exempli gratia_, Miss Martineau and Madame Dudevant, who are
+crowned heads among the _cognoscenti?_ Or perhaps you would prefer a
+second 'La Pelouse,' governed by Miss Weber, who certainly agrees
+with you, 'that girls are trained too delicately to allow the mind to
+expand.' Illuminated and expanded by 'philosophy' and 'social
+progress' she and Madame Dudevant long ago literally abjured stays,
+and glory in the usurpation of vests, pantaloons, coats, and short
+hair. Be pleased to fancy my Regina, my blue-eyed snowbird, shorn of
+that
+
+             'Gloriole of ebon locks on calmed brows'!
+
+I would rather see her in her coffin, shrouded in a ruffled
+pinafore."
+
+"Much as I love her, so would I; but, Elise, we will anticipate no
+such dreadful destiny. She has a clear fine mind, is studious and
+ambitious, but certainly not a genius, unless it be in music; and she
+can be trained into a cultivated refined woman, sufficiently
+conversant with the sciences to comprehend their contemporaneous
+development, without threatening us with pedantry, or adopting a
+style suitable to the groves of Crotona in the days of Damo, or the
+abstruse mystical diction that doomed Hypatia to the mercy of the
+monks. After all, why scare up a blue-stockinged ogre, which may have
+no intention of depredating upon our peace; for to be really learned
+is no holiday amusement in this cumulative age, and offers little
+temptation to a young girl. Not long since, I found a sentence
+bearing upon this subject, which impressed itself upon my mind, as
+both strong and healthy: 'And by this you may recognize true
+education from false. False education is a delightful thing, and
+warms you, and makes you every day think more of yourself; and true
+education is a deadly cold thing, with a gorgon's head on her shield,
+and makes you every day think worse of yourself. Worse in two ways
+also, more is the pity: it is perpetually increasing the personal
+sense of ignorance, and the personal sense of fault.'"
+
+"In that event, may I venture to wonder where and how you and
+Douglass stand in your own estimation? If quotations are _en regle_,
+I can match your reverence, though unfortunately my feminine memory
+is not like yours, a tireless beast of burden, and I must be allowed
+to read. Here is the book close at hand, in my stocking basket. Now,
+wise and gentle sirs, this is my ideal of proper, healthful, feminine
+education, as contrasted with pur new-fangled method of making girls
+either lay-figures for millinery, jewellery, and frizzled false hair,
+or else--far more horrible still--social hermaphrodites, who storm
+the posts that have been assigned to men ever since that venerable
+and sacred time when 'Adam delved and Eve span,' and who, forsaking
+holy home haunts, wage war against nature on account of the mistake
+made in their sex, and clamour for the 'hallowed inalienable right'
+to jostle and be jostled at the polls; to brawl in the market place,
+and to rant on the rostrum, like a bevy of bedlamities. Now when I
+begin to read, listen, and tell me frankly, whether when you both
+make up your minds to present me, one a sister, the other a daughter,
+you will select your wives from among quaint Evelyn's almost obsolete
+type, or whether you will commit your name, affections, wardrobe,
+larder, pantry and poultry to a strong-minded female 'scientist,' who
+will neglect your socks and buttons, to ascertain exactly how many
+_Vibriones_ and _Bacteria_ float in a drop of fluid, and when you
+come home tired and very hungry, will comfort you, and nobly atone
+for the injury of an ill-cooked and worse-served dinner, by regaling
+your weary ears with her own ingenious and brilliant interpretation
+and translation of _AElia Laelia Crispis!_ Here is my old-fashioned
+English damsel, meek as a violet, fresh as a dewy daisy, and sweet as
+a bed of thyme and marjoram. 'The style and method of life are quite
+changed, as well as the language, since the days of our ancestors,
+simple and plain as they were, courting their wives for their
+modesty, frugality, keeping at home, good housewifery, and other
+economical virtues then in reputation. And when the young damsels
+were taught all these at home in the country at their parents'
+houses; the portion they brought being more in virtue than money, she
+being a richer match than any one who could bring a million, and
+nothing else to commend her. The virgins and young ladies of that
+golden age put their hands to the spindle, nor disdained the needle;
+were obsequious and helpful to their parents, instructed in the
+management of the family, and gave presage of making excellent wives.
+Their retirements were devout and religious books, their recreations
+in the distillery and knowledge of plants and their virtues for the
+comfort of their poor neighbours, and use of the family, which
+wholesome diet and kitchen physic preserved in health. Then things
+were natural, plain, and wholesome; nothing was superfluous, nothing
+necessary wanted. The poor were relieved bountifully, and charity was
+as warm as the kitchen, where the fire was perpetual.' Now, if Regina
+were only my child, I should with some modifications train her after
+this mellow old style."
+
+"Then I am truly thankful she is not my sister! Fancy her pretty
+pearly fingers encrusted with gingerbread-dough; or her entrance into
+the library heralded by the perfume of moly, or of basil and sage,
+tolerable only as the familiars of a dish of sausage meat! Don't soil
+my dainty white dove with the dust and soot and rank odours that
+belong to the culinary realm."
+
+"Your white dove? Do you propose to adopt her? A month hence when you
+are on your way to India, what difference can it possibly make to
+you, whether she is as brown as a quail or black as a crow? Before
+you come back, she will have been conscripted into the staid army of
+matrons, and transmogrified into stout Mrs. Ptolemy Thomson, or lean
+and careworn Mrs. Simon Smith, or worse than all, erudite Mrs.
+Professor Belshazzar Brown, spelling Hercules after the learned
+style, with the loss of the u, and the substitution of a k; or making
+the ghost of Ulysses tear his hair, by writing the name of his
+enchantress 'Kirke'!"
+
+As Mrs. Lindsay spoke the smile vanished from her lips, and looking
+keenly at her son's countenance she detected the change that crossed
+it, the sudden glow that mounted to the edge of his hair.
+
+Avoiding her eyes, he answered hastily: "Suppose those distinguished
+gentlemen you mention chance to be scholars, _savans_, and disposed
+to follow the advice of Joubert in making their matrimonial
+selection: 'We should choose for a wife only the woman we should
+choose for a friend, were she a man.' Think you mere habits of
+domesticity, or skill in herbalism, would arrest and fix their
+fancy?"
+
+"But, Bishop, they might consider the Talmud more venerable authority
+than Joubert, and the Talmud says, so I am told: 'Descend a step in
+choosing a wife; mount a step in choosing a friend.'"
+
+"Thank heaven! there is indeed no Salique Law in the realm of
+learning. Mother, I believe one of the happiest auguries of the
+future consists in the broadening views of education that are now
+held by some of our ablest thinkers. If in the morning of our
+religious system, St. Peter deemed it obligatory on us to be able and
+'ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason
+of the hope that is in you,' how doubly imperative is that duty in
+this controversial age, when the popular formula has been adopted,
+'to doubt, to inquire, to discover;' when the hammer of the geologist
+pounds into dust the idols of tradition, and the lenses of astronomy
+pierce the blue wastes of space, which in our childhood we fondly
+believed were the _habitat_ of cherubim and seraphim. Now, mother, if
+you will only insure my ears against those pink tweezers, of which
+they bear stinging recollections, I should like to explain myself."
+
+Mrs. Lindsay plunged her hands into the depths of her stocking
+basket, and said sententiously:
+
+"The temple of Janus is closed."
+
+"What is the origin of the doctrine that erudition is the sole
+prerogative of men, and that it proves as dangerous in a woman's
+hands, as phosphorus or gunpowder in those of a baby----"
+
+"Why Eve's experience, of course. A ton of gunpowder would not have
+blown up the garden of Eden more effectually, than did her light
+touch upon an outside branch of the tree of knowledge. I should say
+Genesis was acceptable authority to a young minister of the Gospel."
+
+"That is a violation of the truce, Elise. You are skirmishing with
+his picket line. Go on, Douglass."
+
+"It is evidently a remnant of despotic barbarism, a fungoid growth
+from Oriental bondage----"
+
+"Bishop, may I be allowed to ask if you are referring to Genesis?"
+
+"Dear little mother, I refer to the popular fallacy, that in the same
+ratio that you thoroughly educate women, you unfit them for the holy
+duties of daughter, wife, and mother. Is there an inherent antagonism
+between learning and womanliness?"
+
+"Indeed, dear, how can I tell? I am not a 'Della-Cruscan.' I only
+'strain' milk into my dairy pans."
+
+"Elise, do be quiet. You break the thread of his argument."
+
+"Then it is entirely too brittle to hold the ponderous propositions
+he intends to string upon it. Proceed, my son."
+
+"Are we to accept the unjust and humiliating dogma that the more
+highly we cultivate feminine intellect, the more un-feminine,
+unlovely, unamiable the individual certainly becomes? Is a woman
+sweeter, more gentle, more useful to her family and friends, because
+she is unlearned? Does knowledge exert an acidulating influence upon
+female temper, or produce an ossifying effect on female hearts? Is
+ignorance an inevitable concomitant of refinement and delicacy?
+Does the knowledge of Greek and Latin cast a blight over the
+flower-garden, or a mildew in the pantry and linen closet; or
+do the classics possess the power of curdling all the milk of
+human-kindness, all the streams of tender sympathy in a woman's
+nature, as rennet coagulates a bowl of sweet milk? Can an
+acquaintance with literature, art, and science so paralyze a lady's
+energies, that she is rendered utterly averse to and incapable of
+performing those domestic offices, those household duties, so
+pre-eminently suited to her slender, dexterous busy little fingers?
+Why, my own wise precious little mother is a living refutation
+of so grossly absurd and monstrous a dogma! Have not you boxed my
+ears, because, when stumbling through the 'Anabasis,' my Greek
+pronunciation tortured your fastidious and correct taste? Did not you
+tell me that you read nearly the whole of Sallust by spreading the
+book open on the dairy shelf while you churned, thus saving time? And
+did not that same sweet golden butter, made under the shadow of a
+Latin dictionary, win you the State Fair Premium, of that very silver
+cup, from which I drank my milk, as long as I wore knee-pants and
+round jackets? Was it not my father's fond boast that his wife's
+proficiency in music was equalled only by her wonderful skill in
+making muffins, pastry, and _omelette soujflee?_"
+
+With genuine chivalric tenderness in look and tone he inclined his
+head; but though a tear certainly glistened in Mrs. Lindsay's bright
+eyes, she answered gayly:
+
+"Am I Cerberus, to be coaxed and cheated by a well-buttered sop of
+flattery? Return to your mutton, reverend sir, and know that I am
+incorruptible, and disdain to betray my cause for your thirty pieces
+of potent praise."
+
+"I think," said Mr. Hargrove, taking a bunch of cherries from the
+fruit-stand on the library table,--"I think the whole matter may be
+resolved into this; the ambitious clamours and Amazonian excesses of
+this epoch, are the inevitable consequence of the rigid tyranny of
+former ages; which sternly banished women to the numbing darkness of
+an intellectual night, denying them the legitimate and natural right
+of developing their faculties by untrammelled exercise. This belief
+in feminine inferiority is still expressed in Mohammedan lands, by
+the custom of placing a slate or tablet of marble on a woman's grave,
+while on that of men a pen or penholder is laid, to indicate that
+female hearts are mere tablets, on which man writes whatever pleases
+him best. In sociology, as well as physics and dynamics,--the angle
+of reflection is always equal to the angle of incidence,--the
+psychologic rebound is ever in proportion to the mental pressure; one
+extreme invariably impinges upon the opposite,--and when the pendulum
+has reached one end of the arc, it must of necessity swing back to
+the other. In all social revolutions the moderate and reasonable
+concessions which might have appeased the discontent in its
+incipiency are gladly tendered much too late in the contest, when the
+insurgents stung by injustice and conscious of their grievances,
+refuse all temperate compromise, and run riot. This woman's-rights
+and woman's-suffrage abomination is no suddenly concocted social
+bottle of yeast: it has been fermenting for ages, and, having finally
+blown out the cork, is rapidly leavening the mass of female
+malcontents."
+
+"But, Uncle Peyton, you surely discriminate between a few noisy
+ambitious sciolists who mistake lyceum notoriety for renown, and the
+noble band of delicate, refined women whose brilliant attainments in
+the republic of letters are surpassed only by their beautiful
+devotion to God, family, and home? Fancy Mrs. Somerville demanding a
+seat in Parliament, or Miss Herschel elbowing her way to the
+hustings! Whose domestic record is more lovely in its pure
+womanliness than Hannah More's, or Miss Mitford's, or Mrs.
+Browning's? who wears deathless laurels more modestly than Rosa
+Bonheur? It seems to me, sir, that it is not so much the amount as
+the quality of the learning that just now ought to engage attention.
+I see that one of the ablest and strongest thinkers of the day has
+handled this matter in a masterly way, and with your permission I
+should like to read a passage: 'In these times the educational tree
+seems to me to have its roots in the air, its leaves and flowers in
+the ground; and I confess I should very much like to turn it upside
+down, so that its roots might be solidly embedded among the facts of
+Nature, and draw thence a sound nutriment for the foliage and fruit
+of literature and of art. No educational system can have a claim to
+permanence, unless it recognizes the truth that education has two
+great ends, to which everything else must be subordinated. One of
+these is to increase knowledge; the other is to develop the love of
+right and the hatred of wrong. At present, education is almost
+entirely devoted to the cultivation of the power of expression, and
+of the sense of literary beauty. The matter of having anything to say
+beyond a hash of other people's opinions, or of possessing any
+criterion of beauty, so that we may distinguish between the God-like
+and the devilish, is left aside as of no moment. I think I do not err
+in saying that if science were made the foundation of education,
+instead of being at most stuck on as cornice to the edifice, this
+state of things could not exist.' Such is the system I should like to
+see established in our own country."
+
+"Provided you could reply upon the moderation of the teachers; for
+unless wisely and temperately inculcated, this system would soon make
+utter shipwreck of the noblest interests of humanity. For many years
+I have watched attentively the doublings of this fox, and while I
+yield to no man in solemn fidelity to truth, I want to be sure that
+what I accept as such, is not merely old error under new garbs, only
+a change of disguising terms. Science has its fetich, as well has
+superstition, and abstruse terminology does not always conceal its
+stolid gross proportions. The complete overthrow and annihilation of
+the belief in a personal, governing, prayer-answering God, is the end
+and aim of the gathering cohorts of science, and the sooner masking
+technicalities are thrown aside the better for all parties.
+Scientific research and analysis, nobly brave, patient, tireless, and
+worthy of all honour and gratitude, have manipulated, decomposed, and
+then integrated the universal clay, but despite microscope and
+telescope, chemical analysis, and vivisection, they can go no further
+than the whirring of the Potter's wheel, and the Potter is nowhere
+revealed. The moulding Creative hand and the plastic clay are still
+as distinct, as when the gauntlet was first flung down by proud
+ambitious constructive science. Animal and vegetable organisms have
+been analyzed, and 'the idea of adaptation developed into the
+conception that life itself, "is the definite combination of
+heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive in
+correspondence with external co-existence and sequences."' Now to the
+masses who are pardonably curious concerning this problem of
+existence, is this result perfectly satisfactory? The 'Physical basis
+of life' has been driven into a corner, hunted down, seized at last,
+and over the heads of an eager, panting, chasing generation, is
+triumphantly dangled this 'Scientific Fox' brush, 'Nucleated
+Protoplasm, the structural unit!' But how or whence sprang the laws
+of 'Protein'? Hatred of certain phrases is more bitter than of the
+principles they express, and because theologians cling to the words
+God,' Creative Acts, Divine Wisdom, Providential Adaptation,
+scientists declare them the _dicta_ of ignorance, superstition, and
+tradition, and demand that we shall bow before their superior wisdom,
+and substitute such terms as 'Biogenesis,' 'Abiogenesis,' and
+'Xenogenesis.' But where is the economy of credulity? The problems
+are only crowded by a subtle veil of learned or scientific verbiage,
+and their solution does not induce the expenditure of faith. The
+change of names is not worth the strife, for the Clay and the Potter
+are still distinct, and He who created cosmic laws cannot reasonably
+or satisfactorily be confounded with, or merged in His own statutes.
+Creeds, theories, systems are not valuable because they are religious
+and traditional, or because they are scientific or philosophical, but
+solely on account of their truth. So, Douglass, I am not sure that
+your essentially scientific method will teach Regina any more real
+wisdom in ethics, or in  AEtiolgy, than her great-grandmother
+possessed."
+
+"You forget, Uncle Peyton, that in this rapidly advancing age only
+improved educational systems will enable men and women to appreciate
+the importance of its discoveries."
+
+"My dear boy, are sudden and violent changes always synonymous with
+advancement? Is transition inevitably improvement? Was the social
+status of Paris after the revolution of 1790 an appreciable progress
+from the morals, religious or political, that existed in the days of
+Fenelon? In mechanical, agricultural, and chemical departments the
+march is indeed nobly on and upward, the discoveries and improvements
+are vast and wonderful, and for these physical material blessings we
+are entirely indebted to Science, toiling, heroic, and truly
+beneficent Science. In morals, public or private--religion, national
+or individual--or in civil polity, have we advanced? Has liberty of
+action kept pace with liberty of opinion? Are Americans as truly free
+to-day as they certainly were fifty years ago? In aesthetics do we
+surpass Phidias and Praxiteles, Raphael and Michael Angelo? Is our
+music more perfect than Pergolesi's or Mozart's? Can we exhibit any
+marvels of architecture that excel the glory of Philae, Athens,
+Paestum, and Agra? Are wars less bloody, or is crime less rampant? Our
+arrogant assumption of superiority is sometimes mournfully rebuked.
+For instance, one of the most eminent and popular scientists of
+England emphasised his views on the necessity of 'improving natural
+knowledge,' by ascribing the great plague of 1664, and the great fire
+of 1666--which in point of population and of houses, nearly swept
+London from the face of the globe--to ignorance and neglect of
+sanitary laws, and to the failure to provide suitable organizations
+for the suppression of conflagrations. He proudly asserted that the
+recurrence of such catastrophes is now prohibited by scientific
+arrangements 'that never allow even a street to burn down,' and that
+'it is the improvement of our own natural knowledge which keeps back
+the plague.' I think I am warranted in the assumption that our
+American Fire Departments, Insurance Companies, and Boards of Health
+are quite as advanced, progressive, and scientific as similar
+associations in Great Britain; yet the week after I read his
+argument, an immense city lay almost in ruins; and ere many months
+passed, several towns and districts of our land were scourged,
+desolated by pestilence so fatal, so unconquerable, that the horrors
+of the plague were revived, and the living were scarcely able to
+sepulchre the dead. Now and then we have solemn admonitions of the
+Sisyphian tendency of the attempt so oft defeated, so persistently
+renewed to banish a Personal and Ruling God, and substitute the
+scientific fetich, 'Force and Matter,' 'Natural Law,' 'Evolution,' or
+'Development.' While I desire that the basis of Regina's education
+shall be sufficiently broad, liberal, and comprehensive, I intend to
+be careful what doctrines are propounded; for unfortunately all who
+sympathize with the atheism of Comte, have not his noble frankness,
+and fail to print as he did on his title-page:
+
+                  '_Reorganiser sans Dieu ni roi,
+                  Par le culte systematique
+                  de l'Humanite_.'"
+
+"Oh, Peyton! what fearfully,  selfishly  long sentences you and
+Douglass inflict upon each other, and upon me! The colons and
+semicolons gather along the lines of conversation like an army of
+martyrs, and to my stupidly weary ears that last, that final period,
+was a most 'sweet boon'--a crowning blessing. If Regina's nightingale
+soul is to be vexed by such disquisitions as those from which you
+have been quoting, I must say it made a sorry bargain in exchanging
+brown feathers for pink flesh, and would have had a better time
+trilling madrigals in some hawthorn thicket or myrtle grove. I see
+plainly I might as well carry my dear old Evelyn--fragrant with
+mint and marjoram--back upstairs, and wrap it up in ancient
+camphor-scented linen, and put it away tenderly to sleep its last
+sleep in the venerable cedar chest, where my grandfather's huge
+knee-buckles, and my great-grandmother's yellow brocaded silk-dress,
+with its waist the length of my little finger, and the sleeves as
+wide as a balloon. Gentlemen, permit me one parting paragraph,
+before I write 'finis' on this matter of education, and 'hereafter
+for ever hold my peace.' Be it distinctly understood, 'by these
+presents,' that if that child Regina grows up a blue-stocking, or a
+metempsychosist, a scientist or a freedom-shrieker, a professor of
+physics or a practitioner of physic, judge of a court or mayor of a
+city, biologist, sociologist, heathen or heretic, it will be no work
+or wish of mine; for to each and all of these threatened, progressive
+abominations, I, Elise Lindsay, do hold up clean hands, and cry,
+Avaunt!"
+
+"I thought my sister had long since learned that borrowing trouble
+necessitated the payment of usurious interest? Just now our little
+girl carries no gorgon's head; let her alone. The most imperatively
+demanded change in our system of female training, is the addition of
+a few years in which to work. American girls are turned out upon
+society when they should be beginning their apprenticeship under
+their mothers' eyes in all household arts and sciences; and they are
+wives and mothers before they are able physically, mentally, or
+morally to appreciate the sacred, solemn responsibilities that inhere
+in such positions. If our girls pursued methodically all the branches
+of a liberal and classical education, including domestic economy,
+until they were at least twenty, how much misery would be averted!
+how many more really elegant interesting women would be added to the
+charm of society, usefulness to country, happiness and sanctity of
+home! Had I means to bestow in such enterprises, I should
+like to endow some institution, and stipulate for a chair of
+household-arts-and-sciences-and-home-duties; and Regina should not go
+into general society until she had graduated therein."
+
+"Not another word of conspiracy against my little maid's peace! Lean
+forward a little, Peyton, and look at her yonder, coming along the
+rose-walk. See how the pigeons follow her. She has been gathering
+raspberries, and I promised she should make all she could pick into
+jelly for poor old Tobitha Meggs. How pure and fair she looks in her
+white dress! Dear little thing! Sometimes I am wicked enough to wish
+she had no mother, for then she would be wholly ours, and we could
+keep her always. Listen, she is singing Schubert's '_Ave Maria_'."
+
+After a moment's silence Mrs. Lindsay rose, and, passing her arm
+around her son's neck, leaned her cheek against his head, as he sat
+near his uncle, and looking through the open door at the slowly
+approaching figure.
+
+"Bishop, if I were an artist, I would paint her as a priestess at
+Ephesus, chanting a hymn to Diana; and instead of Hero and the
+pigeons, place brown deer and spotted fawns on mossy banks in the
+background."
+
+"Pooh! What a hopeless pagan you are, Elise? If I were a sculptor I
+would chisel a statue of purity, and give it her countenance."
+
+And Mr. Lindsay smiled in his mother's face, and said only for her
+ear:
+
+"Do not her eyes entitle her to be called Glaukopis?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+The long sultry August day was drawing to a close, and those who had
+found the intense heat almost unendurable watched with delight the
+slow hands of the clock, whose lagging fingers finally pointed to
+five. The sky seemed brass, the atmosphere a blast from Tophet; and
+the sun, still standing at some distance above the horizon, glared
+mercilessly down over the panting parched: earth, as if a recent and
+unusually copious shower of "meteoric cosmical matter" had fallen
+into the solar furnace, and prompted it by increased incandescence to
+hotly deny the truth of Helmholtz's assertion: "The inexorable laws
+of mechanics show that the store of heat in the sun must be finally
+exhausted." Certainly to those who had fanned themselves through the
+tedious torture long remembered as the "hot Sunday," the
+science-predicted period of returning glaciers and polar snows where
+palms and lemons now hold sway, seemed even more distant than the
+epoch suggested by the speculative. In proportion to the elevation of
+the mercurial vein which mounted to and poisoned itself at 100
+degrees, the religious, the devotional, pulse sank lower, almost to
+zero; consequently, although circumstances of unusual interest
+attracted the congregation to the church, where Mr. Lindsay intended
+to preach his farewell sermon, only a limited number had braved the
+heat to shake hands with the young minister, who ere another sunrise
+would have started on his long journey to the pagan East.
+
+At the parsonage it had been a sad day, sad despite the grave
+serenity of Mr. Hargrove, the quiet fortitude of Mr. Lindsay, and the
+desperate attempts of the mother to drive back tears, compose
+fluttering lips, and steady the tones of her usually cheerful voice.
+For several days previous, Mr. Hargrove had been quite indisposed,
+and as his nephew would leave home at eleven p.m., the customary
+Sunday night service had been omitted.
+
+As the afternoon wore away, the family trio assembled on the shaded
+end of the north verandah, and with intuitive delicacy, Regina shrank
+from intruding on the final interview which appeared so sacred.
+
+Followed by Hero, she went through the shrubbery, and down a walk
+bordered with ancient cedars, which led to a small gate that opened
+into the adjoining churchyard.
+
+In accordance with a custom long since fallen hopelessly into
+desuetude, but prevailing when the venerable church was erected, it
+had been placed in the centre of a spacious square, every yard of
+which had subsequently become hallowed as the last resting-place of
+families who had passed away, since the lofty spire rose like a huge
+golden finger pointing heavenward. An avenue of noble elms led from
+the iron gate to the broad stone steps; and on either side and
+behind the church swelled the lines of mounds, some white with
+marble, some green with turf, now and then a heap of mossy
+shells--not a few gay with flowers--all scrupulously free from weeds,
+and those most melancholy symptoms of neglect, which even in public
+cemeteries too often impress the beholder with gloomy premonitions of
+his own inevitable future, and recall the solemn admonition of the
+Talmud: "Life is a passing shadow. Is it the shadow of a tower, or of
+a tree? A shadow that prevails for a while? No, it is the shadow of a
+bird in his flight,--away flies the bird, and there remains neither
+bird nor shadow."
+
+Has the profoundly religious sentiment of reverence for the domains
+of death lost or gained by the modern practice of municipal monopoly
+of the right of sepulture? Who, amid the pomp and splendour of
+Greedwood or Mount Auburn, where human vanity builds its own proud
+monument in the mausoleums of the dead,--who, in hurrying along the
+broad and beautiful avenues thronged with noisy groups of chattering
+pedestrians, and with gay equipages that render the name "City of
+silence" a misnomer, converting it into a _quasi_ Festa ground, a
+scene for subdued Sunday _Fete Champetre_,--who, passing from these
+magnificent city cemeteries, into some primitive old-fashioned
+churchyard, such as that of V----, has not suddenly been almost
+overpowered by the contrast presented: the deep brooding solemnity,
+the holy hush, the pervading indwelling atmosphere of true sanctity
+that distinguishes the latter?
+
+Could any other than the simple ancient churchyard of bygone days
+have suggested that sweetest, purest, noblest elegy in our mother
+tongue? Do not our hearts yearn with an intense and tender longing
+toward that church, at whose font we were baptized, at whose
+communion-table we reverently bowed, before whose altar we breathed
+the marriage vows, from whose silent chancel we shall one day be
+softly and slowly borne away to our last, long sleep? Why not lay us
+down to rest, where the organ that pealed at our wedding and sobbed
+its requiem over our senseless clay may still breathe its loving
+dirges across our graves in winter's leaden storms, or in fragrant
+amber-aired summer days? Would worldly vampires, such as political or
+financial schemes, track a man's footsteps down the aisle, and flap
+their fatal numbing pinions over his soul so securely even in the
+Sanctuary of the Lord, if from his family pew his eyes wandered now
+and then to the marble slab that lay like a benediction over the
+silver head of an honoured father or mother, or the silent form of a
+beloved wife, sister, or brother?
+
+Is there a woman so callous, so steeped in folly, that the tinsel of
+Vanity Fair, the paraphernalia of fashion, or all the thousand small
+fiends that beleaguer the female soul, could successfully lure her
+imagination from holy themes, when sitting in front of the pulpit,
+she yet sees through the open windows where butterflies like happy
+souls flutter in and out the motionless chiselled cenotaph that rests
+like a sentinel above the pulseless heart that once enshrined her
+image, called her wife, and beat in changeless devotion against her
+own; or the little grassy billow sown thick with violets that speak
+to her of the blue eyes beneath them, where in dreamless slumber that
+needs no mother's cradling arms, no maternal lullaby, reposes the
+waxen form, the darling golden head of her long-lost baby? What spot
+so peculiarly suited for "God's acre" as that surrounding God's
+temple?
+
+A residence of dearly four years' duration at the parsonage had
+rendered this quiet churchyard a favourite retreat with Regina, and,
+divesting the graves of all superstitious terrors, had awakened in
+her nature only a most profound and loving reverence for the
+precincts of the dead.
+
+To-day, longing for some secluded spot in which to indulge the
+melancholy feelings that oppressed her, she instinctively sought the
+church, yielding unconscious homage to its hallowed and soothing
+influence. Passing slowly and carefully among the head-stones, she
+went into the church, to which she had access at all times by a key,
+which enabled her to enter at will and practise on the small organ
+that was generally used in Sabbath-school music.
+
+Fancying that it might be cooler in the gallery, she ascended to the
+organ loft, and while Hero stretched himself at her feet, she sat
+down on one of the benches close to the open window that looked
+toward the mass of trees which so completely embowered the parsonage,
+that only one ivy-crowned chimney was visible. Low in the sky, and
+just opposite the tall arched window behind the pulpit, the sun
+burned like a baleful Cyclopean eye, striking through a mass of ruby
+tinted glass that had been designed to represent a lion, and other
+symbols of the Redeemer, who soared away above them.
+
+Are there certain subtle electrical currents sheathed in human flesh
+that link us sometimes with the agitated reservoirs of electricity
+trembling in the bosom of yet distant clouds? Do not our own highly
+charged nervous batteries occasionally give the first premonition of
+coming thunderstorms? Long before the low angry growl that came
+suddenly from some lightning lair in the far south, below the
+sky-line, Regina anticipated the approaching war of elements, and
+settled herself to wait for it.
+
+Not until to-day had she realized how much of the pleasure of her
+life at the parsonage was derived from the sunny presence and
+sympathizing companionship which she was now about to lose,
+certainly for many years, probably for ever.
+
+Although Mr. Lindsay's age doubled her own, he had entered so fully
+into her fancies, humoured so patiently her girlish caprices, with
+such tireless interest aided her in her studies, that she seemed to
+forget his seniority, and treated him with the quiet affectionate
+freedom which she would have indulged toward a young brother. Next to
+the memory of her mother, she probably gave him the warmest place in
+her heart, but she was a remarkably reserved, composed, and
+undemonstrative child, by no means addicted to caresses, and only in
+moments of deep feeling betrayed into an impulsive passionate
+gesture, or a burst of emotion.
+
+Sincerely attached to the entire household, who had won not merely
+her earnest gratitude, but profound respect and admiration, she was
+conscious of a peculiar clinging tenderness for Mr. Lindsay, which
+rendered the prospect of his departure the keenest trial that had
+hitherto overtaken her; and when she thought of the immense distance
+that must soon divide them, the laborious nature of the engagement
+that would detain him perhaps a lifetime in the far East, her own dim
+uncertain future looked dark and dreary. The blazing sun went down at
+last, the fiery radiance of the pulpit window faded, and the birds
+that frequented the quiet sheltered enclosure sought their perches in
+the thickest foliage where they were wont to sleep. But there was no
+abatement of the heat. The air was sulphurous, and its inspiration
+was about as refreshing as a draught from Phlegethon; while the
+distant occasional growl had grown into a frequent thunderous
+muttering that deepened with every repetition, and already began to
+shake the windows in its reverberations. Two ladies in deep mourning,
+who had been hovering like black spectres around a granite
+sarcophagus, where they deposited and arranged the customary Sabbath
+arkja of white flowers, concluded their loving tribute to the
+sleeper, and left the churchyard; and save the continual challenge
+of the thunder drawing nearer, the perfect stillness ominous and
+dread, which always precedes a violent storm, seemed brooding in
+fearful augury above the home of the dead.
+
+With one foot resting on Hero's neck, Regina sat leaning against the
+window facing, very pale, but bravely fighting this her first great
+battle with sorrow. Her face was eloquent with mute suffering, and
+her eyes were full of shadows that left no room for tears.
+
+"Going away to India, perhaps for ever!" was the burden of this woe
+that blanched even her lovely coral lips until their curves were lost
+in the pallor of her rounded cheek and dimpled chin. "Going away to
+India;" like some fateful rune presaging dire disaster, it seemed
+traced in characters of flame across the glowing sky, and over the
+stony monuments that studded the necropolis.
+
+Suddenly Hero lifted his head, sniffed the air, and rose, and almost
+simultaneously Regina heard the sound of footsteps on the gravel
+outside, and the low utterances of a voice which she recognized as
+Hannah's.
+
+"I never told you before, because I was afraid that in the end you
+would cheat me out of my share of the profit. But I have watched and
+waited, and bided my time as long as I intend to, and I am too old to
+work as I have done."
+
+"It seems to me a queer thing you have hid it so long, so many years,
+when you might have turned it into gold. The old General ought to pay
+well for the paper. Let's see it."
+
+The response was in a man's voice, harsh and discordant, and, leaning
+slightly forward, Regina saw the old servant from the parsonage
+standing immediately beneath the window, fanning herself with her
+white apron, and earnestly conversing in subdued tones with a
+middle-aged man, whose flushed and rather bloated face still retained
+traces of having once been, though in a coarse style, handsome. In
+length of limb, and compact muscular development he appeared an
+athlete, a very son of Anak; but habitual dissipation had set its
+brutalizing stamp upon his countenance, and the expression of the
+inflamed eyes and sensuous mouth was sinister and forbidding, as if a
+career of vice had left the stain of irremediable ruin on his swarthy
+face.
+
+As he concluded his remark and stretched out his hand, Hannah laughed
+scornfully.
+
+"Do you take me for a fool? Who else would travel around with a match
+and a loaded fuse in the same pocket? I haven't it with me; it is too
+valuable to be carried about. The care of that scrap of paper has
+tormented me all these years, worse than the tomb devils did the
+swine that ran down into the sea to cool off; and if I have changed
+its hiding-place once, I have twenty times. If the old General
+doesn't pay well for it, I shall gnaw off my fingers, on account of
+the sin it has cost me. I was an honest woman and could have faced
+the world until that night--so many years ago; and since then I have
+carried a load on my soul that makes me--even Hannah Hinton, who
+never flinched before man or woman or beast--a coward, a quaking
+coward! Sin stabs courage, lets it ooze out, as a knife does blood.
+Don't bully me, Peleg! I won't bear it. Jeer me if you dare."
+
+"Never fear, Aunt Hannah. I have no mind to do theatre on a small
+scale, and show you Satan reproving sin. After all, what is your bit
+of _petit larceny_, your thin slice of theft, in comparison with my
+black work? But really I don't in the least begrudge my sins, if only
+I might have my revenge,--if I could only get Minnie in my power."
+
+"Bah! don't sicken me with any more of the Minnie dose! I hate the
+name as I do small-pox or cholera. A pretty life you have led,
+dancing after her, as an outright fool might after the pewter-bells
+on a baby's rattle!"
+
+"You women can't understand how a man feels when his love changes to
+hate; and yet you ought to know all about it, for when you do turn
+upon one another you never let go. Aunt Hannah, I loved her better
+than everything else upon the broad earth; I would have kissed the
+dust where she walked; I always loved her, and she was fond of me,
+until that college dandy came between us, and made a fool of her, a
+villain of me. When she forsook me, and followed him off, I swore I
+would be revenged. There is tiger blood in me, and when I am
+thoroughly stirred up I never cool. It is a long, long time since I
+lost her trail--soon after the child was born, and eight years ago I
+almost gave up and went to Cuba; but if I can only find the track, I
+will follow it till I hunt her down. I never received your letters,
+or I would have hurried back. Where is Minnie now?"
+
+"That is more than I know, but I think somewhere in Europe. The
+letters are always sent to a lawyer in New York, who directs them to
+her. I have tried in every way to find out, but they are all too
+smart for me."
+
+"Why don't you pump the child?"
+
+"Haven't I? And gained about as much as if I had put a handle on the
+side of a lump of cast iron, and pumped. She is closer than sealing
+wax, and shrewder than a serpent. If you pumped her till the stars
+fell, you would not get an air-bubble, She can neither be scared nor
+coaxed."
+
+"Where is the paper?"
+
+"Safely buried here, among the dead."
+
+"What folly! Don't you know the dampness will destroy it? Pshaw! you
+have ruined everything."
+
+"See here, Peleg, all the brains of the family did not lodge in your
+skull; and I guess I was wiser at your age than you will be at mine.
+The paper was safe and sound when I looked at it a month ago, and it
+is wrapped up in oil-silk, then in cotton, and kept in a thick tin
+box."
+
+"When can I see it? Suppose you get it now?"
+
+"In daylight? You may depend on my steering clear of detection, no
+matter what comes. I would take it up to-night, but there is going to
+be an awful storm. Do you hear how the thunder keeps bellowing down
+yonder, under that dark line crossing the south? There will be wild
+work pretty soon; it has been simmering all day, and when it begins
+it won't be child's play. Even the marble slabs on the graves are
+hot, and the ground scorched my feet, as if Satan and his fires had
+burnt through all but a thin crust. I never was afraid of the devil
+until my sin brought me close to him. I want to finish this business,
+and before day to-morrow I will come over here and dig up my box.
+There will be dim moonlight by three o'clock, and if it should be
+cloudy, I can shut my eyes and find the place. I tell you, Peleg, I
+am sick and tired of this dirty work; and sometimes I think I am no
+better than a hyena prowling among dead men's bones. Come around to
+the cowshed in the morning, about seven o'clock, when the family will
+be in the library holding prayers; and when I go to milk, I will
+bring you the paper. Only to look at, to read over, mind you! It
+doesn't leave my hands, until the old General's gold jingles in my
+pocket. Then he is welcome to it, and Minnie may suffer the
+consequences; and you and I will divide the profits. I want to go
+away and rest with my sister Penelope the remainder of my life, and
+though the family here beg me to stay, I have already given notice
+that I intend to stop work next month."
+
+"Very well, don't fail me; I am as anxious to close up the job as you
+possibly can be. I should like to see the child, Minnie's child; but
+I might spoil everything if she looks like her mother. Good-bye till
+to-morrow."
+
+The two walked away, one passing down the avenue of elms out into the
+street. The other sauntered in the direction of the parsonage, but
+ere she reached the small gate, Hannah turned aside to a low iron
+railing that enclosed two monuments; a marble angel with expanded
+wings standing above a child's grave, and a broken column wreathed
+with sculptured ivy, placed on a mound covered with grass. Just
+behind the former and close to the railing, rose a noble Lombardy
+poplar that towered even above the elms, and at its base a mass of
+periwinkle and ground ivy ran hither and thither in luxuriant
+confusion, clasping a few ambitious tendrils even about the ancient
+trunk.
+
+Over the railing leaned Hannah, peering down for several moments, at
+the lush green creepers, then she walked on to the parsonage gate,
+and disappeared.
+
+Watching her movements, Regina readily surmised that somewhere near
+that tree the paper was secreted; and she was painfully puzzled to
+unravel the thread that evidently linked her with the mystery.
+
+"I am the child she spoke of, and she has tried again and again to
+'pump' me, as she called it. 'Minnie' must mean my mother; but that
+is not her name. Odilie Orphia Orme never could be twisted into
+'Minnie;' and that coarse, common, low, wicked man never could have
+dared to love my own dear beautiful proud mother! There must be some
+dreadful mistake. Somebody is wrong; but not mother,--no, no--never
+my mother! Once she wrote that she was forced to keep some things
+secret, because she had bitter enemies; and this man must be one of
+them, for he said he would hunt her down. But he shall not! Was it
+Providence that brought them here to talk over their wicked schemes
+where I could hear them? Oh if I only knew all! Mother--mother! you
+might trust your child! I can't believe that I am ignorant even of my
+mother's name. Surely she never was that red-faced man's 'Minnie'!"
+
+Covering her face with her hands, she shuddered at the familiar
+mention by profane lips of one so hallowed in her estimation, and
+this vague threatening of danger to her mother sufficed for a time to
+divert her thoughts from the sorrow that for some days past had
+engrossed her mind.
+
+Knowing the affection and confidence with which Hannah had always
+been treated by the members of the family, and the great length of
+time she had so faithfully served in the parsonage household, Regina
+was shocked at the discovery of her complicity in a scheme which she
+admitted had made her dishonest. Only two days before she had heard
+Mrs. Lindsay lamenting that misfortunes never came single, for as if
+Douglass's departure were not disaster enough for one year, Hannah
+must even imagine that she felt symptoms of dropsy and desired to go
+away somewhere in Iowa or Minnesota, where she could rest, and be
+nursed by her relatives.
+
+This announcement heightened the gloom that already impended, and
+various attempts had been made by Mr. Hargrove and his sister to
+induce Hannah to reconsider her resolution. But she obstinately
+maintained that she was "a worn-out old horse, who ought to be turned
+out to pasture in peace the rest of her days;" yet, notwithstanding
+her persistency, she evinced much distress at her approaching
+separation from the family, and never alluded to it without a flood
+of tears.
+
+What would the members of the household think when they discovered
+how mistaken all had been in her real character? But had she a right
+to betray Hannah to her employer? Perhaps the paper had no connection
+with the parsonage, and no matter whom else she might have wronged,
+Hannah had faithfully served the pastor, and repaid his kindness by
+devotion to his domestic interests. Regina's nature was generous as
+well as just, and she felt grateful to Hannah for many small favours
+bestowed on herself, for a uniform willingness to oblige or assist
+her, as only servants have it in their power to do.
+
+Sweetening reminiscences of caramels and crullers, of parenthetic
+patty-pancakes not ordered or expected on the parsonage bill of fare,
+pleaded pathetically for Hannah, and were ably supported by
+recollections of torn dresses deftly darned, of unseasonably and
+unreasonably soiled white aprons, which the same skilful hands had
+surreptitiously washed and fluted before the regular day for
+commencing the laundry work, all of which now made clamorous and
+desperate demands on the girl's gratitude and leniency. So complete
+had been her trust in Hannah that her reticence concerning her mother
+sprang solely from Mr. Hargrove's earnest injunction that she would
+permit no one to question her upon the subject; consequently she had
+very tenderly intimated to the old woman that she was not at liberty
+to discuss that matter with any one.
+
+"She is going away very soon, bearing a good character. Would it be
+right for me to disgrace her in her old age, by telling Mr. Hargrove
+what I accidentally overheard? If I only knew 'Minnie' meant mother,
+I could be sure this paper did not refer to Mr. Hargrove, and then I
+should see my way clearly; for they both said 'old General,' and no
+one calls Mr. or Dr. Hargrove 'General.' I only want to do what is
+right."
+
+As she lifted her face from her hands she was surprised at the sudden
+gloom that since she last looked out had settled like a pall over the
+sky, darkening the church, rendering even the monuments indistinct.
+
+Hero began to whine and bark, and, starting from her seat, Regina
+hurried toward the steps leading down from the organ-loft. Ere she
+reached them a fearful sound like the roaring of a vast flood broke
+the prophetic silence, then a blinding lurid flash seemed to wrap
+everything in flame; there was simultaneously an awful detonating
+crash, as if the pillars of the universe had given way, and the
+initial note ushered in the thunder-fugue of the tempest, that raged
+as if the Destroying Angel rode upon its blast.
+
+In the height of its fury it bowed the ancient elms as if they were
+mere reeds, and shook the stone church to its foundations as a giant
+shakes a child's toy.
+
+Frightened by the trembling of the building, Regina began to descend
+the stairs, guided by the incessant flashes of lightning, but when
+about half-way down a terrific peal of thunder so startled her that
+she missed a step, grasped at the balustrade but failed to find it,
+and rolled helplessly to the floor of the vestibule. Stunned and mute
+with terror, she attempted to rise, but her left foot, crushed under
+her in the fall, refused to serve her, and with a desperate instinct
+of faith she crawled through the inside door and down the aisle,
+seeking refuge at the altar of God. Dragging the useless member, she
+reached the chancel at last, and as the lightning showed her the
+railing, she laid herself down, and clasped the mahogany balusters in
+both hands.
+
+In the ghastly electric light she saw the wild eyes of the lion in
+the pulpit window glaring at her,--but over all the holy smile of
+Christ, as, looking down in benediction, He soared away heavenward;
+and above the howling of the hurricane rose her cry to Him who
+stilleth tempests, and saith to wind and sea, "Peace, be still!": "O
+Jesus! save me, that I may see my mother once more!"
+
+She imagined there was a lull, certainly the shrieking of the gale
+seemed to subside, but only for half a moment, and in the doubly
+fierce renewal of elemental strife, amid deafening peals if thunder
+and the unearthly glare that preceded each reverberation, there came
+other sounds more appalling, and as the church rocked and quivered
+some portion of the ancient edifice fell, adding its crash to the
+diapason of the storm.
+
+Believing that the roof was falling upon her, Regina shut her eyes,
+and in after years she recalled vividly two sensations that seemed
+her last on earth: one, the warm touch of Hero's tongue on her
+clenched fingers; the other, a supernatural wail that came down from
+the gallery, and that even then she knew was born in the organ. Was
+it the weird fingering of the sacrilegious cyclone that concentrated
+its rage upon the venerable sanctuary? After a little while the fury
+of the wind spent itself, but the rain began to fall heavily, and the
+electricity drama continued with unabated vigour and fierceness.
+
+Although  unusually brave for so young  a person, Regina had been
+completely terrified, and she lay dumb and motionless, still clinging
+to the altar railing. At last, when the wind left the war to the
+thunder and the rain, Hero, who had been quite until now, began to
+bark violently, left her side, and ran to and fro, now and then
+uttering a peculiar sound, which with him always indicated delight.
+His subtle instinct was stronger than her hope, and as she raised
+herself into a sitting posture she saw that he had sprung upon the
+top of one of the side aisle pews, and thence into the window, which
+had been left open by the sexton. Here he lingered as if irresolute,
+and in an agony of dread at the thought of being deserted, she cried
+out:
+
+"Here, Hero! Come back! Hero, don't leave me to die alone."
+
+He whined in answer, and barked furiously as if to reassure her; then
+the whole church was illumined with a lurid glory that seemed to
+scorch the eyeballs with its intolerable radiance, and in it she saw
+the white figure of the dog plunge into the blackness beyond.
+
+She knew the worst was over, unless the lightning killed her, for the
+wind had ceased, and the walls were still standing; but the
+atmosphere was thick with dust, and redolent of lime, and she
+conjectured that the plastering in the gallery had fallen, though the
+tremendous crash portended something more serious. She tried to stand
+up by steadying herself against the balustrade, but the foot refused
+to sustain her weight, and she sank back into her former crouching
+posture, feeling very desolate, but tearless and quiet as one of the
+apostolic figures that looked pityingly upon her whenever the
+lightning smote through them.
+
+She turned her head, so that at every flash she could gaze upon the
+placid face of the beatified Christ floating above the pulpit; and in
+the intense intervening darkness tried to possess her soul in
+patience, thinking of the mercy of God and the love of her mother.
+
+She knew not how long Hero had left her, for pain and terror are not
+accurate chronometers, but after what appeared a weary season of
+waiting, she started when his loud bark sounded under the window,
+through which he had effected his exit. She tried to call him, but
+her throat was dry and parched, and her foot throbbed and ached so
+painfully, that she dreaded making any movement. Then a voice always
+pleasant to her ears, but sweeter now than an archangel's, shouted
+above the steady roar of the rain:
+
+"Regina! Regina!"
+
+She rose to her knees, and with a desperate exertion of lungs and
+throat, answered:
+
+"I am here! Mr. Lindsay, I am here!"
+
+Remembering that words ending in o were more readily distinguished at
+a distance, she added:
+
+"Hero! Oh, Hero!"
+
+His frantic barking told her that she had been heard, and then
+through the window came once more the music of the loved voice.
+
+"Be patient. I am coming."
+
+She could not understand why he did not come through the door instead
+of standing beneath the window, and it seemed stranger still, that
+after a little while all grew silent again. But her confidence never
+wavered, and in the darkness she knelt there patiently, knowing that
+he would not forsake her.
+
+It seemed a very long time before Hero's bark greeted her once more,
+and, turning toward the window, a lingering zigzag flash of lightning
+showed her Douglass Lindsay's face, as he climbed in, followed by the
+dog.
+
+"Regina! where are you?"
+
+"Oh, here I am!"
+
+He stood on one of the seats, swinging a lantern in his hand, and as
+she spoke he sprang toward her.
+
+Still clutching the altar railing with one hand, she knelt, with her
+white suffering face upturned piteously to him, and stooping he threw
+his arms around her and clasped her to his heart.
+
+"My darling, God has been merciful to you and me!"
+
+She stole one arm up about his neck, and clung to him, while for the
+first time he kissed her cheek and brow.
+
+"Does my darling know what an awful risk she ran? The steeple has
+fallen, and the whole front of the church is blocked up, a mass of
+ruins. I could not get in, and feared you were crushed, until I heard
+Hero bark from the inside and followed the sound, which brought me to
+the window, whence he jumped out to meet me. At last when you
+answered my call, I was obliged to go back for a ladder. Here,
+darling, at God's altar, let us thank Him for your preservation."
+
+He bowed his face upon her head, and she heard the whispered
+thanksgiving that ascended to the throne of grace, but no words
+were audible. Rising he attempted to lift her, but she winced and
+moaned, involuntarily sinking back.
+
+"What is the matter? After all, were you hurt?"
+
+"When I came down from the gallery it turned so dark I was
+frightened, and I stumbled and fell down the steps. I must have
+broken something, for when I stand up my ankle gives way, and I can't
+walk at all."
+
+"Then how did you get here? The steps are at the front of the
+church."
+
+"I thought the altar was the safest place, and I crawled here on my
+hands and knees."
+
+He pressed her head against his shoulder, and his deep manly voice
+trembled.
+
+"Thank God, for the thought. It was your salvation, for the stairs
+and the spot where you must have fallen are a heap of stone, brick,
+and mortar. If you had remained there, you would certainly have been
+killed."
+
+"Yes, it was just after I got here and caught hold of the railing
+that the crash came. Oh! is it not awful!"
+
+"It was an almost miraculous escape, for which you ought to thank and
+serve your God all the days of the life He has mercifully spared to
+you. Stand up a minute, even if it pains you, and let me find out
+what ails your foot. I know something of surgery, for once it was my
+intention to study medicine instead of divinity."
+
+He unbuttoned and removed her shoe, and as he firmly pressed the foot
+and ankle, she flinched and sighed.
+
+"I think there are no bones broken, but probably you have wrenched
+and sprained the ankle, for it is much swollen already. Now, little
+girl, I must go back for some assistance. You will have to be taken
+out through the window, and I am afraid to attempt carrying you down
+the ladder unaided and in the darkness. I might break your neck,
+instead of your ankle."
+
+"Oh, please don't leave me here!"
+
+She stretched out her arms pleadingly, and tears sprang to his eyes
+as he noted the pallor of her beautiful face and the nervous
+fluttering of her white lips.
+
+"I shall leave Hero and the lantern with you, and you may be sure I
+shall be gone the shortest possible time. The danger is over now,
+even the lightning is comparatively distant, and you who have been so
+brave all the while certainly will not prove a coward at the last
+moment."
+
+He took her up as easily as if she had been an infant, and laid her
+tenderly down on one of the pew cushions; then placed the lantern on
+the pulpit desk, and came back.
+
+"Slip your hand under Hero's collar, to prevent him from following me
+if he should try to do so, and keep up your courage. Put yourself in
+God's hands, and wait here patiently for Douglass. Don't you know
+that I would not leave you here an instant, if it could be avoided?
+God bless you, my white dove."
+
+He stooped and kissed her forehead, then hurried away, and after a
+moment Regina knew that she and her dog were once more alone in the
+ancient church, with none nearer than the dead, who slept so soundly,
+while the soft summer rain fell ceaselessly above their coffins.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+The town clock was striking nine when the renewal of welcome sounds
+beneath the window announced to Regina that her weary dark vigil was
+ended. Soon after Mr. Lindsay's departure, the lantern above the
+altar grew dim, then went out, leaving the church in total darkness,
+relieved only by an occasional glimmer from the electric batteries
+that had wheeled far away to the north-east. Erect and alert Hero sat
+beside his mistress, now and then rubbing his head against her
+shoulder, or placing his paw on her arm, as if to encourage her by
+mute assurances of faithful guardianship; and even when the voices
+outside cheered him into one quick bark of recognition, he made no
+effort to leave the prostrate form.
+
+"All in the dark? Where is your lantern?" asked Mr. Lindsay, as he
+climbed through the window.
+
+"It went out very soon after you left. Can you find me? or shall I
+try to come to you?"
+
+"Keep still, Regina. Come up the ladder, Esau, and hold your torch so
+that I can see. It is black as Egypt inside."
+
+In a few moments the ruddy glare streamed in, and showed the anxious
+face of the sexton, and the figure of Mr. Lindsay groping from pew to
+pew. Before that cheerful red light how swiftly the trooping spectres
+and grim phantoms that had peopled the gloom fled away for ever! What
+a blessed, comforting atmosphere of love and protection seemed to
+encompass her, when, after handing one of the pew cushions to the
+sexton, Mr. Lindsay came to the spot where she lay.
+
+"How are your wounds?"
+
+"My foot is very stiff and sore, but if you will let me hold your
+arm, I can hop along."
+
+"Can you, my crippled snow-bird? Suppose I have a different use for
+my strong arms?"
+
+He lifted her very gently, but apparently without effort, and
+carried her to the window.
+
+"Go down, Esau, set the torch in the ground, and hold the
+ladder,--press it hard against the wall. I am coming down
+backward,--and if I should miss a round, you must be ready to help
+me. Come, Hero, jump out first and clear the way. Steady now, Esau."
+
+Placing his charge on the broad sill, Mr. Lindsay stepped out,
+established himself securely on the ladder, and, drawing the girl to
+the ledge, took her firmly in his arms, balancing himself with some
+difficulty as he did so.
+
+"Now say your prayers. Clasp your hands tight around my neck, and
+shut your eyes."
+
+His chin rested upon her forehead, as she clung closely about his
+neck, and they commenced the perilous descent.
+
+Once he wavered, almost tottered, but recovered himself, and from the
+fierce beating of his heart and the laboured sound of his deep
+breathing she knew that it cost him great physical exertion; but at
+last his close strain relaxed, he reached the ground safely and stood
+resting a moment, while a sigh of relief escaped him.
+
+"Esau, put the end of the torch sideways in Hero's mouth,--mind, so
+that it will not burn him; and lay the cushion on the plank.
+No!--that is wrong. Turn the torch the other way, so that as he
+walks, the wind will blow the flame in the opposite direction, away
+from his face. Take it, Hero! That's a noble fellow! Now home, Hero."
+
+When the cushion had been adjusted on the broad plank brought for the
+purpose, Mr. Lindsay laid Regina upon it, threw a blanket over her,
+and, bidding the sexton take one end of the plank, he lifted the
+other, and they began the march.
+
+"Not that way, Hero, although it is the nearest. Truly the 'longest
+way round is the shortest way' home this time; for we could not twist
+about among the graves, and must go down the avenue, though it is
+somewhat obstructed by fallen boughs. Come here, Hero, and walk ahead
+of us. Now, Regina, you can shut your eyes and imagine you are riding
+in a palankeen, as the Hindustanee ladies do when they go out for
+fresh air. The motion is exactly the same, as you will find some day
+when you come to Rohilcund or Oude, to see Padre Sahib--Lindsay. You
+shall then have a new dooley all curtained close with rose-coloured
+silk; but I can't promise that the riding will prove any more easy
+than this cushioned plank."
+
+What a stab seemed each word, bringing back all the bitter suffering
+his departure would cause,--the reviving the grief, from which the
+storm had temporarily diverted her thoughts.
+
+"You are not going to-night? You will not try to start, after this
+dreadful storm?" she said, in an unsteady voice.
+
+"Yes, I am obliged to go, in order to keep an appointment for
+to-morrow night in New York; otherwise, I would wait a day to learn
+the extent of the damage, for I am afraid the hurricane has made sad
+havoc. Esau tells me the roof and a portion of the market house was
+carried away, and it was the most violent gale I have ever known."
+
+They had reached the street and were approaching the gate of the
+parsonage, where Hero turned back, dropped the torch at Mr. Lindsay's
+feet, and shook his head vigorously, rubbing his nose with his paw.
+
+"Poor fellow! can't you stand it any longer? It must nave scorched
+him, as it burnt low. Brave fellow!"
+
+"Oh, Douglass! is that you?" cried an eager voice at some distance.
+
+"Yes, mother."
+
+Mrs. Lindsay ran to meet them.
+
+"Did you find her?"
+
+"Yes, I am bringing her home."
+
+"Bringing her--oh, my God! Is she dead?"
+
+"No, she is safe."
+
+"My son, don't try to deceive me. What is the matter? You are
+carrying something on a litter."
+
+"Why do you not speak, Regina, and assure her of your safety?"
+
+Mrs. Lindsay had groped her way to the side of her son, and put her
+hand on the figure stretched upon the cushion.
+
+"I only sprained my foot badly, and Mr. Lindsay was so good as to
+bring me home this way."
+
+"Have they got her?" shouted Hannah, who accompanied by Mr. Hargrove
+had found it impossible to keep pace with Mrs. Lindsay.
+
+"Oh, it is a corpse you are fetching home!" she added, with a genuine
+wail, as in the gloom she dimly saw the outline of several persons.
+
+"Nobody is dead, but we need a light. Run back and get a candle."
+
+Thankful that life had been spared, no more questions were asked
+until they reached the house, and deposited their burden on the
+lounge in the dining-room.
+
+Then Mr. Lindsay briefly explained what had occurred, and
+superintended the anointing and binding up of the bruised ankle, now
+much swollen.
+
+As Hannah knelt, holding the foot in her broad palm, to enable Mrs.
+Lindsay to wrap it in a linen cloth saturated with arnica, the former
+bent her grey head and tenderly kissed the wounded member. She had
+been absent for a few minutes during the recital of the accident, and
+now asked:
+
+"Where were you, that you could not get home before the storm? Heaven
+knows that cloud grumbled and gave warning long enough."
+
+"Hannah, she was in the church, and when she tried to get out, it was
+too late."
+
+"In the church! Why I was in the yard, trying to get a breath of air,
+not twenty minutes before the cloud rolled up like a mountain of ink,
+and I saw nobody."
+
+Regina understood her nervous start, and the eager questioning of her
+eyes.
+
+"I was in the organ gallery, and, falling down the steps, I hurt
+myself."
+
+"Honey, did you see me?"
+
+Her fingers closed so spasmodically over the girl's foot, that she
+winced from the pressure.
+
+"I saw you walking about the churchyard, and would have come home
+with you, if I had thought the storm was so near. Please, Hannah,
+bring me some cool water."
+
+She pitied the old woman's evident confusion and anxiety, and
+rejoiced when Mr. Hargrove changed the topic.
+
+"I am very sorry, Douglass, that I cannot accompany you as far as New
+York. When I promised this afternoon to do so, of course I did not
+anticipate this storm. There may have been lives lost, as well as
+steeples blown down, and it is my duty not to leave my people at such
+a juncture. If it were not for the sailing of the steamer, I would
+insist on your waiting a day or so, in order that I might go with you
+and have a personal interview with Dr. Pitcairns. I ought to have
+thought of and attended to that matter before this."
+
+"Pray do not feel annoyed, uncle; it can be easily arranged by
+letter. Moreover, as my mother goes with me to Boston, it would not
+be right to leave Regina here alone in her present helpless
+condition."
+
+"Do not think of me a moment, Mr. Hargrove. Go with him and stay with
+him as long as you can; I would if I could. Hannah will take care of
+me."
+
+"My dear, I think of my duty, and that keeps me at home. Douglass, I
+will write a short note to Pitcairns, and you must explain matters to
+him. Elise, it is ten o'clock, and you have not much time."
+
+He went into the library, and Mrs. Lindsay hurried upstairs to put on
+her bonnet, calling Hannah to follow and receive, some parting
+injunctions. Kneeling by the lounge, Mr. Lindsay took one of the
+girl's hands.
+
+"Regina, I desired and intended to have a long talk with you this
+afternoon, but could not find you; and now I have no time, except to
+say good-bye. You will never know how hard it is for me to leave my
+dear little friend; I did not realize it myself until to-night."
+
+"Then why will you go away? Can't you stay, and serve God as well by
+being a minister in this country? Can't you change your mind?"
+
+She raised herself on her elbow, and tears gushed over her cheeks,
+as, twining her fingers around his, she looked all the intense loving
+appeal that words could never have expressed.
+
+Just then his stony Teraph--Duty--smiled very benignantly at the
+aching heart he laid upon her dreary cold altar.
+
+"Don't tempt me to look back after putting my hand to the plough. I
+must do my duty, though at bitter cost. Will you promise never to
+forget your friend Douglass?"
+
+"How could I ever forget you? Oh, if I could only go with you!"
+
+His fine eyes sparkled, and, drawing her hand across his cheek, he
+said eagerly:
+
+"Do you really wish it? Think of me, write to me, and love me, and
+some day, if it please God to let me come home, you may have an
+opportunity of going back with me to my work in India. Would you be
+willing to leave all, and help me among the heathens?"
+
+"All but mother. You come next to my mother. Oh, it is hard that I
+must be separated from the two I love best!"
+
+For a moment she sobbed aloud.
+
+"You are only a young girl now, but some day you will be a woman, and
+I hope and believe a very noble woman. Until then we shall be
+separated, but when you are grown I shall see you again, if God
+spares my life. Peculiar and unfortunate circumstances surround you;
+there are trials ahead of you, my darling, and I wish I could shield
+you from them, but it seems impossible, and I can only leave you in
+God's hands praying continually for you. You say you love me nest to
+your mother. All I ask is, that you will allow no one else, no new
+friend, to take my place. When I see you again, years hence, I shall
+hope to hear you repeat those words, 'next to my mother.' Far away in
+the midst of Hindustan my thoughts and hopes will travel back and
+centre in my white dove. Oh, child! my heart is bound to you for
+ever."
+
+He drew her head to his shoulder, and held her close, and as in the
+church when kneeling before the altar she heard whispers which only
+God interpreted.
+
+Mrs. Lindsay came back equipped for her journey, and Mr. Hargrove
+entered at the same moment, but neither spoke. At length, fully aware
+of their presence, the young missionary raised his head, and, placing
+his hand under Regina's chin, looked long at the spirituelle
+beautiful face, as if he wished to photograph every feature on his
+memory. Without removing his eyes, he said:
+
+"Uncle, take care of her always. She is very dear to me. Keep her
+just as she is, in soul 'unspotted from the world.'"
+
+Then his lips quivered, and in a tremulous voice he added:
+
+"God bless you, my darling! My pure lovely dove."
+
+He kissed her, rose instantly, and left the room.
+
+Mrs. Lindsay came to the lounge, and while the tears rolled over her
+cheeks she said tenderly:
+
+"My dear child, it seems unkind to desert you in your crippled
+condition, but I feel assured Peyton and Hannah will nurse you
+faithfully; and every moment that I can be with Douglass seems doubly
+precious now."
+
+"Do you think I would keep you even if I could from him? Oh! don't
+you wish we were going with him to India?"
+
+"Indeed I do, from the depths of my soul. What shall we do without
+our Bishop?"
+
+Bending over the girl the mother wept unrestrainedly, but Mr.
+Hargrove called from the threshold:
+
+"Come, Elise."
+
+As Mrs. Lindsay turned to leave the room, she beckoned to Hannah.
+
+"Carry her upstairs and undress her; and if she suffers much pain,
+don't fail to send for the doctor."
+
+A white image of hopeless misery, Regina lay listening till the sound
+of departing steps became inaudible, and when Hannah left the room
+the girl groaned aloud in the excess of her grief:
+
+"I did not even say good-bye. I did not once thank him for all he did
+for me in the storm! And now I know, I feel I shall never see him
+again! Oh, Douglass!"
+
+The glass door leading into the flower-garden stood open, and Mr.
+Lindsay who had been watching her from the cover of the clustering
+honeysuckle, stepped back into the room.
+
+With a cry of delight, she held out her arms.
+
+"Dear Mr. Lindsay, I shall thank you, and pray for you, and love you
+as long as I live!"
+
+He put a small packet in her hand, and whispered:
+
+"Here is something I wish you to keep until you are eighteen. Do not
+open it before that time, unless I give you permission, or unless you
+know that I am dead."
+
+He drew her tenderly to his heart, and his lips pressed her cheek.
+Then he said brokenly:
+
+"O God! be merciful in all things, to my darling!"
+
+A moment after she heard his rapid footsteps on the gravelled walk,
+followed by the clang of the gate; then a great loneliness as of
+death fell upon her.
+
+There are indeed sorrows "that bruise the heart like hammers," and
+age it suddenly, prematurely. In subsequent years Regina looked back
+to the incidents of this eventful Sabbath, and marked it with a black
+stone in the calendar of memory as the day on which she "put away
+childish things," and began to see life and the world through new,
+strange disenchanting lenses, that dispelled all the gilding glamour
+of childhood, and unexpectedly let in a grey dull light that chilled
+and awed her.
+
+With tearless but indescribably mournful eyes, she looked vacantly at
+the door through which her friend had vanished, as it then seemed,
+for ever, and, finding that her own remarks were entirely unheard,
+unheeded, Hannah touched her shoulder.
+
+"Poor thing! Are you ready to let me carry you upstairs?"
+
+"Thank you, but I am not going upstairs to-night. I want to stay
+here, because I am too heavy to be carried up and down, and I can get
+about better from here. Bring a pillow and some bedclothes. I can
+sleep on this lounge."
+
+"I shall be scolded if you don't go to bed."
+
+"Let me alone, Hannah. I intend to stay where I am. Bring the things
+I need. Nobody shall scold you if you will only do as I ask."
+
+"Then I shall have to make a pallet on the floor, for Miss Elise gave
+positive orders that I should sleep in your room until she came back.
+Don't you mean to undress yourself?"
+
+"No. Please unfasten my clothes and then leave them as they are. You
+must not sleep on the floor. Roll in the hall sofa, and it will make
+a nice bed."
+
+There was no alternative, and when Mr. Hargrove returned at midnight,
+he deemed it useless to reprimand or expostulate, as Regina declared
+herself very comfortable, and pleaded for permission to remain until
+morning.
+
+Looking very sad and careworn, the pastor stood for some minutes
+leaning on his gold-headed cane. As he bade her goodnight and turned
+from the lounge, she put her hand on the cane.
+
+"Please, sir, lend me this until morning. Hannah sleeps soundly, and
+if I am forced to wake her, I can easily do so by tapping on the
+floor with your cane."
+
+"Certainly, dear; keep it as long as you choose. But I am afraid none
+of us will sleep much to-night. It is a heavy trial to give up
+Douglass. He is my younger, better self."
+
+He walked slowly away, and she thought he looked more aged and infirm
+than she had ever seen him, his usually erect head drooping, as if
+bowed by deep sorrow.
+
+For an hour after his departure his footsteps resounded in the room
+overhead, as he paced to and fro, but when the distant indistinct
+echo of the town clock told two all grew quiet upstairs.
+
+In the dining-room the shaded lamp burned dimly, and Regina could see
+the outline of Hannah's form on the sofa, and knew from the continual
+turning first on one side, then on the other, that the old woman was
+awake, though no sound escaped her.
+
+Engrossed by a profound yet silent grief that rendered sleep
+impossible, Regina lay with her hands folded over the small packet,
+wondering what it contained, regretting that the conditions of the
+gift prohibited her opening it for so many long years, and striving
+to divest herself of a haunting foreboding that she had looked for
+the last time on the bright benignant countenance of the donor, who
+was indissolubly linked with the happiest memories of her lonely
+life.
+
+Imagination magnified the perils of the tedious voyage that included
+two oceans, and as if to intensify and blacken the horrors of the
+future all the fiendish tragedies of Delhi, Meerut, and Cawnpore were
+vividly revived among the missionaries to whom Mr. Lindsay was
+hastening. Deeply interested in the condition of a people whose
+welfare was so dear to his heart, she had eagerly read all the
+mission reports, and thus imbibed a keen aversion to the Sepoys, who
+had become synonymous with treachery and ingenious atrocity.
+
+Is there an inherent affinity between brooding shadows of heart and
+soul, and that veil of physical darkness that wraps the world during
+the silent reign of night? Why do sad thoughts like corporeal
+suffering and disease grow more intense, more tormenting, with the
+approach of evening's gloom? Who has not realized that trials,
+sorrows, bereavements which in daylight we partly conquer and put
+aside, rally and triumph, overwhelming us by the aid of night? Why
+are the sick always encouraged, and the grief-laden rendered more
+cheerful by the coming of dawn? Is there some physical or chemical
+foundation for Figuier's wild dream of reviving sun-worship, by
+referring all life to the vivifying rays of the King Star? Does the
+mind emit gloomy sombre thoughts at night, as plants exhale carbonic
+acid? What subtle connection exists between a cheerful spirit, and
+the amount of oxygen we inhale in golden daylight? Is hope, radiant
+warm sunny hope, only one of those "beings woven of air by light,"
+whereof Moleschott wrote?
+
+To Regina the sad vigil seemed interminable, and soon after the clock
+struck four she hailed with inexpressible delight the peculiarly
+shrill crowing of her favourite white Leghorn cock, which she knew
+heralded the advent of day. The China geese responded from their
+corner of the fowlyard, and amid the _reveille_ of the poultry Hannah
+rose, crept stealthily to the table and extinguished the lamp.
+Intently listening to every movement, Regina felt assured she was
+dressing rapidly, and in a few moments the tremulous motion of the
+floor, and the carefully guarded sound of the bolt turned slowly,
+told her that the old woman had started to fulfil her promise.
+
+Having fully determined her own course, the girl lost no time in
+reflection, but hastily fastening her clothes took her shoes in one
+hand, the cane in the other, and limping to the glass door softly
+unlocked it, loosened the outside Venetian blinds, and sat down on
+the steps leading to the garden. Taking off the bandage, she slipped
+her shoe on the sprained foot, and wrapping a light white shawl
+around her, made her way slowly down the walk that wound toward the
+church.
+
+
+Unaccustomed to the cane, she used it with great difficulty, and the
+instant her wounded foot touched the ground, sharp twinges renewed
+the remonstrance that had been silent until she attempted to walk.
+
+A waning moon hung above the tree tops on the western boundary of the
+enclosure, and its wan spectral lustre lit up the churchyard, showing
+Regina the tall form of Hannah, who carried a spade or short shovel
+on her shoulder, and had just passed through the gate, leaving it
+open. Following as rapidly as she dared, in the direction of the iron
+railing, the child was only a few yards in the rear, when the old
+woman stopped suddenly, then ran forward, and a cry like that of some
+baffled wild beast broke the crystal calm of the morning air.
+
+"The curse of God is upon it! The poplar is gone!"
+
+Gliding along, Regina reached the outer edge of the railing, and,
+creeping behind the broken granite shaft which shielded her from
+observation, she peered cautiously around the corner, and saw that
+the noble towering tree had been struck by lightning and fired.
+Whether shivered by electricity, or subsequently blown down by the
+fury of the gale, none ever knew; but it appeared to have been
+twisted off about two feet above the ground, and in its fall smote
+and shattered the marble angel, which a few hours before had hovered
+with expanded wings over a child's grave. A wreath of blue smoke
+curled and floated from the heart of the stump, showing that the
+roots were burning, and the ivy and periwinkle so luxuriant on the
+previous day were now a mass of ashes and cinders.
+
+On her knees sank Hannah, raking the hot embers into a heap, and at
+last she bent her grey head almost to the ground. Lifting something
+on the end of the spade, she uttered a low wail of despair:
+
+"Melted--burnt up! I thought it was tin: it must have been lead!
+Either the curse of God, or the work of the devil!"
+
+She fell back like one smitten with a stunning blow, and sobs shook
+her powerful frame.
+
+Very near the ground the tree had contained a hollow, hidden by the
+rank lush creepers, and in this cavity she had deposited a small can,
+cylindrical in form, and similar in appearance to those generally
+used for hermetically sealed mushrooms. Upon it several spadefuls of
+earth had been thrown, to secure it from detection, should prying
+eyes discover the existence of the hollow.
+
+All that remained was a shapeless lump of molten metal.
+
+Along the east a broad band of yellow was rapidly mounting into the
+sky, and in the blended light of moon and day the churchyard
+presented a melancholy scene of devastation.
+
+The spire and belfry had fallen upon and in front of the church, and
+the long building stood like a dismasted vessel among the billowy
+graves, that swelled as a restless sea around its grey weather-beaten
+sides. Here and there ancient headstones had been blown down on the
+mounds they guarded; and one venerable willow in the centre of a
+cluster of graves had been torn from the earth, and its network of
+roots lifted until they rested against a stone cross.
+
+Awed by the solemn influence of the time and place, and painfully
+reminded of her own peril on the previous night, Regina stepped down
+from the base of the monument, and approached the figure crouching
+over the blasted smoking roots. There was no rustle of grass or leaf
+as she limped across the dewy turf, but warned by that mysterious
+magnetic instinct which so often announces some noiseless, invisible
+human presence, Hannah lifted and turned her head. With a scream of
+superstitious terror she sprang to her feet.
+
+Very ghostly the girl certainly appeared, in her snowy mull muslin
+dress and white shawl, as she leaned forward on the cane, and looked
+steadily at the old woman. Her long black hair, loosened and
+disordered by tossing about all night, hung over her shoulders and
+gave a weird, almost supernatural, aspect to the blanched and
+sorrowful young face, which in that strange chill light seemed
+wellnigh as rigid and pallid as a corpse.
+
+"Hannah Hinton!"
+
+"God have mercy! Who are you?"
+
+Hannah seized the spade and brandished it, with hands that shook from
+terror.
+
+"You wicked woman, do you want to kill me? Put down that spade."
+
+Regina advanced, but the old woman retreated, still waving the spade.
+
+"Hannah, are you afraid of me?"
+
+"Good Lord! Is it you, Regina?"
+
+"Your sin makes you a coward. Did you really think me a ghost?"
+
+"It is true, I am afraid of everything now, even of my own shadow,
+and once I was so brave. But what are you doing here? I thought you
+were crippled? What are you tracking me for?"
+
+She threw down the spade, ran forward, and seized the girl's
+shoulder, while a scowl of mingled fear and rage darkened her
+countenance.
+
+"You are watching, trailing me like a bloodhound! Is it any of your
+business where I go? Suppose I do choose to come here and say my
+prayers among the dead, while other folks are sound asleep in their
+beds, who has the right to hinder me?"
+
+"Don't tell stories, Hannah. If you really said your prayers, you
+would never have come here to sell your soul to Satan."
+
+Tightening her clutch, the old woman shook her, as if she had been
+a slender weed, and an ashen hue settled upon her wrinkled features,
+as she cried in an unnaturally shrill quavering tone:
+
+"Aha! you were eavesdropping yesterday in the church. How I wish to
+God it had all blown down on you! And you watched me,--you mean to
+disgrace me,--to ruin me,--to arrest me! You do! But you shall not! I
+will strangle you first!"
+
+"Take your hands off my shoulders, Hannah. Do you think you can scare
+me with such wild desperate threats? In the first place, I am not
+afraid to die, and in the second you know very well you dare not kill
+me. Let go my shoulder, you hurt me."
+
+Very white but fearless, the young face was lifted to hers, and
+before those wrathful glittering eyes that flashed like blue steel,
+Hannah quailed.
+
+"Will you promise not to betray me?"
+
+"I will promise nothing while you threaten me. Sit down, you are
+shaking all over as if you had an ague. When I came here I had no
+intention of betraying you; I only wanted to prevent you from
+committing a sin. Are you going to have a spasm? Do sit down."
+
+Hannah's teeth were chattering violently, and her trembling limbs
+seemed indeed unable to support her. When she sank down on the stone
+base of the shaft, Regina stood before her, leaning more heavily upon
+the cane.
+
+"I heard all that you said yesterday, yet I was not 'eavesdropping.'
+You came and stood under the window where I sat, and if you had
+looked up would have seen me. When I learned you were engaged in a
+wicked plot, I determined to try to stop you before it was too late.
+I followed you here, hoping that you would give that paper to me,
+instead of to that bold, bad man; for though you did very wrong, I
+can't believe that you have a wicked cruel heart."
+
+She paused, but the only response was a deep groan, and; Hannah
+shrouded her face in her arms.
+
+"Hannah, did my mother ever injure you, ever harm you, in any way?"
+
+"Yes, she caused me to steal, and I shall hate her as long as I live.
+I was as honest as an angel until she came that freezing night so
+many years ago, and showed me by her efforts, her anxiety to get the
+paper, how valuable it was. Beside, it was on her account that my
+nephew went to destruction; and I was sure all the blame and
+suspicion would fall on her: it seemed so clear that she stole the
+paper. I knew Mr. Hargrove gave her a copy of it, and I only wanted
+to sell the paper itself to the old General in Europe because I was
+poor, and had not money enough to stop work. I have not had a happy
+day since; my conscience has tormented me. I have carried a mountain
+of lead upon my soul, day and night, and at last when Peleg came, and
+I was about to get my gold, the Lord interfered and took it out of my
+hands. Oh! it is an awful thing to shut your eyes and stop your ears,
+and run down a steep place to meet the devil who is waiting at the
+bottom for you, and to feel yourself suddenly jerked back by
+something which you know Almighty God has sent to stop you! He sent
+that lightning to burn up the paper, and I feel that His curse will
+follow me to my grave."
+
+"Not if you earnestly repent, and pray for His forgiveness." Hannah
+raised her grey head, and gazed incredulously at the pale delicate
+face, into the violet eyes that watched her with almost tender
+compassion.
+
+"Oh, child! when our hands are tied, and we are so helpless we can't
+do any more mischief, who believes in our repentance?"
+
+"I do, Hannah; and how much more merciful is God?"
+
+"You don't mean that you would ever trust me, ever believe in me
+again?"
+
+Her hand caught the white muslin dress, and her haggard wrinkled face
+was full of eager, breathless supplication.
+
+"Yes, Hannah, I would. I do not believe you will ever steal again.
+Suppose the lightning had struck you as well as the tree where you
+hid the stolen paper, what do you think would have become of your
+poor wicked soul? You intended to sell that paper to a person who
+hates my mother, and who would have used it to injure her; but she is
+in God's hands, and you ought to be glad that this sin at least was
+prevented. In a few days you are going away, far out to the west, you
+say, where we shall probably never see or hear from you again, unless
+you choose to write us. Until you are gone, I shall keep all this
+secret. Mrs. Lindsay never shall know anything about it; but if Mr.
+Hargrove believes my mother took that paper, it is my duty to her to
+tell him the truth; and this I must do after you leave us. I promise
+he shall suspect nothing while you remain here. Can you ask me to do
+more than this for you?"
+
+Hannah was crying passionately, and attempted no answer, save by
+drawing the girl closer to her, as if she wanted to take the slender
+figure in her brawny arms.
+
+"I am sorry for you, Hannah; sorry for my dear mother; sorry for
+myself. The storm came and put an end to all the mischief you meant
+to do, so let us be thankful. You say my mother has a copy; and it
+would have injured her, if the original paper had been sold. Then you
+have harmed only yourself. Don't cry, and don't say anything more.
+Let it all rest; I shall never speak to you again on the subject.
+Hannah, will you please help me back to the house? My foot pains me
+dreadfully, and I begin to feel sick and faint."
+
+In the mellow orange light that had climbed the sky, and was flooding
+the world with a mild glory, wherein the wan moon waned ghostly, the
+old woman led the white figure toward the parsonage. When they
+reached the little gate, Regina grasped the supporting arm, and a
+deadly pallor overspread her features.
+
+"Where are you, Hannah? I cannot see----"
+
+The blue eyes closed, she tottered, and as Hannah caught and bore her
+up, a swift heavy step on the gravel caused her to glance over her
+shoulder.
+
+"What is the matter, Aunt Hannah? You look ill and frightened. Is
+that Minnie's child?"
+
+"Hush! our game is all up. For God's sake go away until seven
+o'clock, then I will explain. Don't make a noise, Peleg. I must get
+her in the house without waking any one. If Mr. Hargrove should see
+us, we are ruined."
+
+As Hannah strode swiftly toward the glass door, bearing the slight
+form in her stout arms, the stranger pressed forward, eagerly
+scrutinizing the girl's face; but at this juncture Hero, barking
+violently, sprang down the walk, and the intruder hastily retreated
+to the churchyard, securing the gate after he passed through.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+The steamer sailed promptly on the Thursday subsequent to Mrs.
+Lindsay's departure from the parsonage, but she had been absent ten
+days, detained by the illness of a friend in Boston.
+
+Impatiently her return was anticipated by every member of the
+household, and when a telegram announced that she might be expected
+on the following morning, general rejoicing succeeded the gloom which
+had hung chill and lowering over the diminished family circle. Under
+Hannah's faithful, cautious treatment Regina had sufficiently
+recovered from the effects of the sprain to walk once more without
+much pain, though she still limped perceptibly; but a nameless,
+formless foreboding of some impending evil--some baleful
+influence--some grievous calamity hovering near--rendered her
+particularly anxious for Mrs. Lindsay's comforting presence.
+
+The condition of the church, which was undergoing a complete
+renovation, as well as repairing of the steeple, prevented the usual
+services, and this compulsory rest and leisure seemed singularly
+opportune for Mr. Hargrove, who had been quite indisposed and feeble
+for some days. The physician ascribed his condition to the lassitude
+induced by the excessive heat, and Regina attributed his pale weary
+aspect and evident prostration to grief for the loss of his nephew
+and adopted son; but Hannah looked deeper, shook her grizzled head,
+and "wished Miss Elise would come home."
+
+The pastor's eyes which had long resented the exaggerated taxation
+imposed upon them by years of study, had recently rebelled outright,
+and he spoke of the necessity of visiting New York to consult an
+eminent oculist, who, Mrs. Lindsay wrote, had gone to Canada, but
+would return in September, when he hoped to examine and undertake the
+treatment of her brother's eyes.
+
+During Thursday morning the minister lay upon his library sofa, while
+Regina read aloud for several hours, but in the afternoon, receiving
+a summons to attend a sick man belonging to his church, he persisted
+in walking to a distant part of the town, to discharge what he
+considered a clerical obligation.
+
+In vain Regina protested, assuring him that the heat and fatigue
+would completely prostrate him. He only smiled, patted her head, and
+said cheerfully as he put on his hat:
+
+"Is the little girl wiser than her guardian? And has she not yet
+learned that a pastor's duty knows neither heat nor cold, neither
+fatigue nor bodily weaknesses?"
+
+"I am so glad Mrs. Lindsay will come to-morrow. She can keep you at
+home, and make you take care of yourself."
+
+Holding his sleeve, she followed him to the front door, and detained
+him a moment, to fasten in the button-hole of his coat a tuberose and
+sprig of heliotrope, his favourite flowers.
+
+"Thank you, my dear. You have learned all of Elise's pretty petting
+tricks, and some day you will be, I hope, just such a noble,
+tender-hearted woman. While I am gone, look after the young guineas;
+I have not seen them since yesterday. I shall not stay very long."
+
+He walked away, and she went out among the various pets in the
+poultry yard.
+
+It was late in August, but the afternoon was unusually close and
+warm, and argosies of frail creamy clouds with saffron shadows seemed
+becalmed in the still upper air, which was of that peculiar blue that
+betokens turbid ether, and hints at showers.
+
+About sunset Regina rolled the large easy chair out on the verandah
+at the west of the library, and, placing a table in front of it,
+busied herself in arranging the pastor's evening meal. It consisted
+of white home-made lightbread, a pineapple of golden butter, deftly
+shaped and printed by her own slender hands, a glass bowl filled
+with honey from the home hives--honey that resembled melted amber in
+cells of snow, a tiny pyramid of baked apples, and a goblet of iced
+milk.
+
+Upon a spotless square of damask daintily fringed she placed the
+supper, and in the centre a crystal vase filled with beautiful Cloth
+of Gold and Prince Albert roses, among which royal crimson and white
+carnations held up their stately heads and exhaled marvellous
+fragrance. Upon the snowy napkin beside the solitary plate, she left
+a Grand Duke jasmine lying on the heart of a rose-geranium leaf.
+
+"Has he come?" asked Hannah, throwing wide the Venetian blinds.
+
+"Not yet; but he must be here very soon."
+
+"Well, I am going to milk. Dapple has been lowing these ten minutes
+to let me know I am behind time. I waited to see if a cup of tea
+would be wanted, but it is getting late. If he should ask for it, the
+kettle is boiling, and I guess you can make it in a minute. I have
+lighted the lamp and turned it down low."
+
+She went toward the cattle-shed, swinging her copper milk-pail, which
+was burnished to a degree of ruddy glory beautiful to contemplate,
+and which, alas! is rarely seen in this age of new fashions and
+new-fashioned utensils.
+
+"Come, Hero, let us go and meet the master."
+
+But Regina had not left the verandah before Mr. Hargrove came slowly
+towards the easy chair, walking wearily, she thought, as if spent
+with fatigue.
+
+"How tired you are! Give me your hat and cane."
+
+"Yes, dear--very tired. I had something like vertigo, accompanied by
+severe palpitation as I came home, and was obliged to sit on the
+roadside till it passed."
+
+"Let me send for Dr. Melville."
+
+"You silly soft-souled young pigeon! These attacks are not dangerous,
+merely annoying while they last."
+
+"Perhaps a cup of tea will strengthen you?"
+
+"Thank you, dear; but I believe I prefer some cool water."
+
+She brought a tumbler of iced water, and a stool which she placed
+beneath his feet.
+
+"How delicious! worth all the tea in China; all the wine in Spain."
+
+He handed back the empty glass, and sank down in his comfortable
+chair.
+
+"How did you find Mr. Needham?"
+
+"Much worse than when I saw him last. He had another hemorrhage
+to-day, and is evidently sinking. I should not so surprised if I were
+recalled before to-morrow, for his poor wife is almost frantic and
+wished me to remain all night; but I knew you were lonely here."
+
+The exertion of speaking wearied him, and he laid his head back, and
+closed his eyes.
+
+"Won't you eat your supper? It will help you; and your milk is
+already iced."
+
+"I will try after a while, when I have rested a little. My child, you
+are very good to anticipate my wants. I noticed all you have done for
+me, and the flowers are lovely; so deliciously sweet too."
+
+He opened his eyes, took the Grand Duke, smelled it, smiled and
+stroked her hand which rested on the arm of his chair.
+
+Scarlet plumes and dashes of cirrus cloud that glowed like
+sacrificial fires upon the altar of the west, paled, flickered, died
+out in ashen grey; and a moon more gold than silver hung in
+shimmering splendour among the cloud ships, lending a dazzling fringe
+to their edges, and making quaint arabesque patterns of gilt
+embroidery on the verandah floor, where the soft light fell through
+interlacing vines of woodbine and honeysuckle. With the night came
+silence, broken only by the subdued plaint of the pigeons in the
+neighbouring yard, and the cooing or a pair of pet ring-doves that
+slept in the honeysuckle, and were kept awake by the moonshine which
+invaded their nest, and tempted them to gossip. After awhile a
+whipporwill which haunted the churchyard elms drew gradually nearer,
+finally settling upon a deodar cedar in the flower garden, whence it
+poured forth its lonely _miserere_ wail.
+
+Mr. Hargrove sat so still, that Regina hoped he had fallen asleep,
+but very soon he said:
+
+"My dear, you need not fan me."
+
+"I hoped you were sleeping, and that a nap would refresh you."
+
+He took her hand, pressed it gently, and said with the grave
+tenderness peculiar to him:
+
+"What a thoughtful good little nurse you are! Almost as watchful and
+patient as Elise. Have you had your supper?"
+
+"All that I want, some bread and milk. Hero and I ate our supper
+before you came. Shall I bring your slippers?"
+
+"Thank you, I believe not. Before long I will go to sleep. Regina,
+open the organ, and play something soft and holy, with the Tremulant.
+Sing me that dear old 'Protect us through the coming eight,' which my
+Douglass loves so well."
+
+"I wish I could, but you know, sir, it is a quartette; and beside, I
+should never get through my part: it reminds me so painfully of the
+last time we all sang it."
+
+"Well then, my little girl, something else. 'Oh that I had wings like
+a dove!' To-night I am almost like a weary child, and only need a
+lullaby to hush me to sleep. Go, dear, and sing me to rest."
+
+Reluctantly she obeyed, brightened the library lamp, and sat down
+before the cabinet organ which had been brought over to the parsonage
+for safe keeping while the church was being repaired. As she
+pulled out the stops, Hannah touched her.
+
+"Has he finished his supper? Can I move the dishes and table?"
+
+"Not yet. He is too tired just now to eat."
+
+"Then I will wait here. To tell you the truth, I have a queer feeling
+that scares me, makes my flesh creep. While I was straining the milk
+just now, a screech-owl flew on the top of the dairy, and its awful
+death-warning almost froze the blood in my veins. How I do wish Miss
+Elise was here! I hope it is not a sign of a railroad accident to
+her, or that the vessel is lost that carried her boy!"
+
+"Hush, you superstitious old Hannah! I often hear that screech-owl,
+and it is only hunting for mice. Mrs. Lindsay will come to-morrow."
+
+Her fingers wandered over the keys, and in a sweet, pure, and
+remarkably clear voice she sang "Oh that I had wings." With great
+earnestness and pathos she rendered the final "to be at rest,"
+lingering long on the "Amen."
+
+Then she began one of Mozart's symphonies, and from it glided away
+into favourite selections from Rossini's "Moise."
+
+Once afloat upon the mighty tide of sacred music she drifted on and
+on, now into a requiem, now a "Gloria," and at last the grand
+triumphant strains of the pastor's favourite "Jubilate" rolled
+through the silent house, out upon the calm lustrous summer night.
+
+Of the flight of time she had taken no cognizance, and as she closed
+the organ and rose she heard the clock striking nine, and saw that
+Hannah was nodding in a corner of the sofa.
+
+Surprised at the lateness of the hour, she stepped out on the
+verandah, and approached the arm chair.
+
+The moon had sunk so low that its light had been diminished, but the
+reflection from the library lamp prevented total darkness. Mr.
+Hargrove had not moved from the posture in which she left him, and
+she said very softly:
+
+"Are you asleep?"
+
+He made no answer, and, unwilling to arouse him, she sat down on the
+step to wait until he finished his nap.
+
+As the moon went down a light breeze sprang from some blue depths of
+the far west, and began to skim the frail foamy clouds that drifted
+imperceptibly across the star-lit sky; and to the crystal fingers of
+the dew the numerous flowers in the garden below yielded a generous
+tribute of perfume that blended into a wave of varied aromas, and
+rolled to and fro in the cool night air. Calm, sweet and holy, the
+night seemed a very benison, dispensing peace.
+
+Watching the white fire of constellations burning in the vault above
+her, Regina wondered whether it were a fair night far out at sea, if
+the same glittering stellar clusters swung above the deck of the
+noble vessel that had been for many days upon the ocean, or if the
+storm fiend held cyclone carnival upon the distant Atlantic.
+
+Her thoughts wandered toward the future, that _terra incognita_ which
+Mr. Lindsay's vague words--"There are trials ahead of you"--had
+peopled with dread yet intangible phantoms, whose spectral shadows
+solemnly presageful, hovered over even the present. Why was her own
+history a sealed volume--her father a mystery--her mother a wanderer
+in foreign lands?
+
+From this most unprofitable train of reflection she was gradually
+recalled by the restless singular behaviour of her dog. He had been
+lying near the table, with his head on his paws, but rose, whined,
+came close to his mistress and caught her sleeve between his
+teeth--his usual mode of attracting her attention.
+
+"What is it, Hero? Are you hungry?"
+
+He barked, ran to the easy chair, rubbed his nose against the
+pastor's hand, came back whining to Regina, and finally returning to
+the chair, sat down, bent his head to the pastor's feet and uttered a
+prolonged and dismal howl.
+
+An undefinable horror made the girl spring toward the chair.
+
+The sleeper had not moved, and stooping over she put her hand on his
+forehead. The cold damp touch terrified her, and with a cry of
+"Hannah! Oh, Hannah!" she darted into the library, and seized the
+lamp. By its light held close to the quiet figure, she saw that the
+eyes were closed as in slumber, and the lips half parted, as though
+in dreaming he had smiled; but the features were rigid, the hands
+stiff and cold, and she could feel no flutter in the wrists or
+temples.
+
+"Oh, my God! he is dead!" screamed Hannah, wringing her hands, and
+uttering a succession of shrieks, while like a statue of despair the
+girl stood staring almost vacantly at the white placid face of the
+dead. At last, shuddering from head to foot, she exclaimed:
+
+"Run for Dr. Melville! Run, Hannah! you can go faster now than I
+could."
+
+"What is the use? He is dead! stone dead!"
+
+"Perhaps not--he may revive. Oh, Hannah! why don't you go?"
+
+"Leave you alone in the house--with a corpse?"
+
+"Run--run! Tell the doctor to hurry. He may do something."
+
+As the old servant disappeared, Regina fell on her knees, and seizing
+the right hand, carried it to her lips; then began to chafe it
+violently between her own trembling palms.
+
+"O Lord, spare him a little while! Spare him till his sister comes?"
+
+She rushed into the library, procured some brandy which was kept in
+the medicine chest, and with the aid of a spoon tried to force some
+down his throat, but the muscles refused to relax, and, pouring the
+brandy on her handkerchief, she rubbed his face and the hand she had
+already chafed. In the left he tightly held the jasmine, as when he
+spoke to her last, and she shrank from touching those fingers.
+
+Finding no change in the fixed white face she took off his shoes and
+rubbed his feet with mustard, but no effect encouraged her, and
+finally she sat, praying silently, holding the feet tenderly against
+her heart.
+
+How long lasted that lonely vigil with the dead, she never knew. Hope
+deserted her, and by degrees she realized the awful truth that the
+arrival of the physician so impatiently expected would bring no
+succour. How bitterly she upbraided herself for leaving him a moment,
+even though in obedience to his wishes. Perhaps he had called and the
+organ had drowned his voice.
+
+Had he died while she sang, and was his spirit already with God when
+she repeated the words "Far away in the regions of the blest"? When
+she came on tiptoe, and asked, "Are you asleep?" was he indeed verily
+"Asleep in Jesus"? While she waited, fearful of disturbing his
+slumber, was his released and rejoicing soul nearing the pearly
+battlements of the City of Rest, lead by God's most pitying and
+tender angel, loving yet silent Death?
+
+When will humanity reject and disown the hideous, ruthless monster
+its own disordered fancy fashioned, and accept instead the beautiful
+Oriental Azrael, the most ancient "Help of God," who is sent in
+infinite mercy to guide the weary soul into the blessed realm of
+Peace?
+
+          "O Land! O Land!
+            For all the broken-hearted,
+          The mildest herald by our fate allotted--
+            Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand,
+          To lead us with a gentle hand
+            Into the Land of the great departed,--
+          Into the Silent Land."
+
+When the solemn silence that hung like a pall over the parsonage was
+broken by the hurried tread of many feet and the confused sound of
+strange voices, Regina seemed to be aroused from some horrible
+lethargy, and gazed despairingly at the doctor.
+
+"It is too late. You can't do anything for him now," she said,
+clinging to his feet, as an attempt was made to lift them from her
+lap.
+
+"He must have been dead several hours," answered Dr. Melville.
+
+"None but God and the angels know when he died. I thought he had gone
+to sleep; and so indeed he had."
+
+Hannah had spread the alarm, while searching for the doctor, and very
+soon Mr. Hargrove's personal friends and some of the members of the
+congregation thronged the library, into which the body of the
+minister had been removed.
+
+An hour afterward Dr. Melville, having searched for the girl all over
+the house, found her crouched on the steps leading down to the flower
+garden. She sat with her arm around Hero's neck, and her head bowed
+against him. Seating himself beside her, the physician said:
+
+"Poor child, this is an awful ordeal for you, and in Dr. Hargrove's
+death you have lost a friend whom the whole world cannot replace. He
+was the noblest man, the purest Christian, I ever knew, and if the
+church has a hundred pastors in future, none will ever equal him. He
+married me, he baptized my children, and when I buried my wife, his
+voice brought me the most comfort, the----"
+
+His tone faltered, and a brief silence ensued.
+
+"Regina, I wish you would tell me as nearly as you can how he seemed
+to-day, and how it all happened. I could get nothing satisfactory put
+of old Hannah."
+
+She described the occurrences of the morning, his debility and entire
+lack of appetite, and the long walk in the afternoon, followed by the
+attack of vertigo and palpitation, to which he alluded after his
+return. When she concluded her recital of the last terrible scene in
+the melancholy drama, Dr. Melville sighed, and said:
+
+"It has ended just as I feared, and predicted. His heart has been
+affected for some time, and not a month ago I urged him to give up
+his pulpit work for a while at least, and try rest and change of air.
+But he answered that he considered his work imperative, and when he
+died it would be with the harness on. He would not permit me to
+allude to the subject in the presence of his family, because he told
+me he did not wish to alarm his sister, who is so devoted to him, or
+render the parting with his nephew more painful, by adding
+apprehensions concerning his health. I fear his grief at the loss of
+Douglass has hastened the end."
+
+"When Mrs. Lindsay comes to-morrow it will kill her," groaned Regina,
+whose soul seemed to grow sick, as she thought of the devoted fond
+sister, and the anguish that awaited her already bruised and aching
+heart.
+
+"No, sorrow does not kill people, else the race would become
+extinct."
+
+"It has killed Mr. Hargrove."
+
+"Not sorrow, but the disease, which sorrow may have aggravated."
+
+"Mrs. Lindsay would not go to India with her son, because she said
+she could not leave her brother whose sight was failing, and who
+needed her most. Now she has lost both. Oh, I wish I could run away
+to-morrow, somewhere, anywhere, out of sight of her misery!"
+
+"Some one must meet her at the train, and prepare her for the sad
+news. My dear child, you would be the best person for that melancholy
+task."
+
+"I? Never! I would cut off my tongue before it should stab her heart
+with such awful news! Are people ever prepared for trouble like
+this?"
+
+"Well, somebody must do it; but, like you, I am not brave enough to
+meet her with the tidings. When it is necessary, I can amputate
+limbs, and do a great many apparently cruel things, but when it
+conies to breaking such bad news as this I am a nervous coward. Mr.
+Campbell is a kind, tenderhearted friend of the family, and I will
+request him to take a carriage and meet her to-morrow. Poor thing!
+what a welcome home!"
+
+Soon after he left her she heard the whistle of the night express,
+which arrived simultaneously with the departure of the outward train
+bound south, and she knew that it was eleven o'clock.
+
+Hannah was in the kitchen talking with Esau the sexton, and when
+several gentlemen who offered to remain until morning came out on the
+verandah, leaving the blinds of the library windows wide open, Regina
+rose and stole away to escape their observation.
+
+Although walking swiftly she caught sight of the table in the middle
+of the room and of a mass of white drapery, on which the lamp-light
+fell with ghostly lustre. Twelve hours before she had sat there,
+reading to the faithful kind friend whose affectionate gaze rested
+all the while upon her; now stiff and icy he was sleeping his last
+sleep in the same spot, and his soul? Safely resting, after the
+feverish toil and strife of Time, amid the palms of Eternal Peace.
+Not the peace of Nirwana; neither the absolute absorption of one
+school of philosophy, nor the total extinction inculcated by a yet
+grosser system. Not the vague insensate peace of Pantheism, but the
+spiritual rest of a heaven of reunion and of recognition promised by
+Jesus Christ our Lord, who, conquering death in that lonely rock-hewn
+Judaean tomb, won immortal identity for human souls. Not the
+succession of progressive changes that constitute the hereafter of--
+
+       "This age that blots out life with question-marks,
+       This nineteenth century with its knife and glass
+       That make thought physical, and thrust far off
+       The heaven, so neighbourly with man of old,
+       To voids sparse-sown with alienated stars."
+
+Among the multitudinous philosophic, psychologic, biologic systems
+that have waxed and waned, dazzled and deluded, from the first
+utterances of Gotama, to the very latest of the advanced
+Evolutionists, is there any other than the Christian solution of the
+triple-headed riddle--Whence? Wherefore? Whither?--that will deliver
+us from the devouring Sphinx Despair, or yield us even shadowy
+consolation when the pinions of gentle yet inexorable death poise
+over our household darling, and we stand beside the cold silent clay,
+which natural affection and life-long companionship render so
+inexpressibly precious?
+
+When we lower the coffin of our beloved is there soothing comfort in
+the satisfactory reflection that perhaps at some distant epoch, by
+the harmonious operation of "Natural Selection" and by virtue of the
+"Conservation of Force," the "Survival of the fittest" will certainly
+ensure the "Differentiation" the "Evolution" of our buried treasure
+into some new, strange, superior type of creature, to us for ever
+unknown and utterly unrecognizable? Tormented by aspirations which
+neither time nor space, force nor matter, will realize or satisfy,
+consumed by spiritual hunger fiercer than Ugolino's, we are invited
+to seize upon the Barmecide's banquet of "The Law which formulates
+organic development as a transformation of the homogeneous into the
+heterogeneous;" and that "this universal transformation is a change
+from indefinite homogeneity to definite heterogeneity; and that only
+when the increasing multiformity is joined with increasing
+definiteness, does it constitute Evolution, as distinguished from
+other changes that are like it, in respect of increasing
+heterogeneity."
+
+Does this wise and simple pabulum cure spiritual starvation?
+
+"God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And the
+Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
+nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
+Nay--thunders Science--put away such childish superstition, smite
+such traditionary idols; man was first made after the similitude of a
+marine ascidian, and once swam as a tadpole in primeval seas.
+
+In all the wide universe of modern speculation there remains no
+unexplored nook or cranny, where an immortal human soul can find
+refuge or haven. Having hunted it down, trampled and buried it as one
+of the little "inspired legendary" foxes that nibble and bruise the
+promising sprouts of the Science Vineyard, what are we requested to
+accept in lieu of the doctrine of spiritual immortality? "Natural
+Evolution."
+
+One who has long been regarded as an esoteric in the Eleusis of
+Science, and who ranks as a crowned head among its hierophants,
+frankly tells us: "What are the core and essence of this hypothesis
+Natural Evolution? Strip it naked, and you stand face to face with
+the notion that not alone the more ignoble forms of animalcular or
+animal life, not alone the nobler forma of the horse and lion, not
+alone the exquisite and wonderful mechanism of the human body, but
+that the human mind itself--emotion, intellect, will, and all their
+phenomena--were once latent in a fiery cloud. Many who hold it would
+probably assent to the position that at the present moment all our
+philosophy, all our poetry, all our science, all our art--Plato,
+Shakespeare, Newton, and Raphael--are potential in the fires of the
+sun."... A different pedigree from that offered us by Moses and the
+Prophets, Christ and the Apostles; but does it light up the
+Hereafter?
+
+We are instructed that our instincts and consciousness dwell in the
+"sensory ganglia," that "an idea is a contradiction, a motion, a
+configuration of the intermediate organ of sense," that "memory is
+the organic registration of their effects of impressions," and that
+the "cerebrum" is the seat of ideas, the home of thought and reason.
+But when "grey-matter" that composes this thinking mechanism becomes
+diseased, and the cold touch of death stills the action of fibre and
+vesicle, what light can our teachers pour upon the future of that
+coagulated substance where once reigned hope, ambition, love, or
+hate? Those grey granules that were memory, become oblivion.
+Certainly physiology has grown to giant stature since the days of St.
+Paul, but does it bring to weeping mourners any more comfort than the
+doctrine he taught the Corinthians?
+
+Does the steel Law Mill of Progressive Development grind us either
+tonic or balm for the fatal hours of sorest human trial? We have
+learned that "the heart of man is constructed upon the recognized
+rules of hydraulics, and with its great tubes is furnished with
+common mechanical contrivances, valves."
+
+But when the valvular action is at rest under the stern finger of
+death, can all the marvellous appliances of this intensely and
+wonderfully mechanical age force one ruddy drop through those great
+tubes, or coax one solitary throb, where God has said "Be still"?
+
+To the stricken mother, bowed over the waxen image of her darling, is
+there any system, theory, or creed that promises aught of the Great
+Beyond comparable to the Christian's sublime hope that the pet lamb
+is safely and tenderly folded by the Shepherd Jesus?
+
+To the aching heart and lonely soul of sorrowing Regina these vexing
+riddles that sit open-mouthed at our religious and scientific
+cross-roads, brought no additional gloom; for with the pure holy
+faith of unquestioning childhood she seemed to see beside the rigid
+form of her pastor and friend the angel who on sea-girt Patmos bade
+St. John write, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, from
+henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their
+labours; and their works do follow them."
+
+Anxious to avoid those who sat within keeping sad watch, the unhappy
+girl went around to the front entrance, and sank down on the lowest
+step, burying her face in her hands.
+
+The library was merely a continuation of the hall that ran east and
+west through the centre of the house, and though comparatively remote
+from the front door was immediately opposite, and from the sight of
+that room Regina shrank instinctively.
+
+Too much shocked and stunned to weep, she became so absorbed by
+thoughts of to-morrow's mournful mission, that she failed to notice
+the roll of wheels along the street, or the quick rattle of the
+gate-latch. The sound of rapid footsteps and the rustle of drapery on
+the pebbled walk, finally arrested her attention, and rising she
+would have moved aside, but a hand seized her arm.
+
+"What is the matter? How is my brother?"
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Lindsay!"
+
+"Something must have happened. I had such a presentiment of trouble
+at home that I could not wait till to-morrow. I came on the night
+express. Why is the house all lighted up? Is Peyton ill?"
+
+Trembling from head to foot, she waited an instant, but Regina only
+crouched and groaned, and Mrs. Lindsay sprang up the steps. As she
+reached the door, the light in the library revealed the shrouded
+table,--the rigid figure resting thereon,--and a piercing wail broke
+the silence of death.
+
+"Merciful God!--not my Peyton?"
+
+Thrusting her fingers into her ears, Regina fled down the walk out of
+the yard, anywhere to escape the sound and sight of that
+broken-hearted woman, whose cry was indeed _de profundis_.
+
+"Console if you will, I can bear it; 'Tis a well-meant alms of
+breath; But not all the preaching since Adam Has made Death other
+than Death."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+A dreary sunless December day had drawn to a close, prematurely
+darkened by a slow drizzling rain, that brought the gloom of early
+night, where sunset splendours should have lingered, and deepened the
+sombre desolation that mantled the parsonage. In anticipation of the
+arrival of the new minister, who was expected the ensuing week, the
+furniture had been removed and sold, the books carefully packed and
+temporarily stored at the warehouse of a friend, and even the trunks
+containing the wearing apparel of the occupants had been despatched
+to the railway depot, and checked for transmission by the night
+express.
+
+The melancholy preparations for departure were completed, friends had
+paid their final visits, and only Esau the sexton waited with his
+lantern, to lock up the deserted house, and take charge of the keys.
+
+The last mournful tribute had been offered at the grave in the
+churchyard, where the beloved pastor slept serenely; and the cold
+leaden rain fell upon a mass of beautiful flowers, which quite
+covered the mound, that marked his dreamless couch.
+
+Since that farewell visit to her brother's tomb, Mrs. Lindsay seemed
+to have lost her wonted fortitude and composure, and was pacing the
+empty library, weeping bitterly, giving vent to the long-pent anguish
+which daily duties and business details had compelled her to
+restrain.
+
+Impotent to comfort, Regina stood by the mantlepiece, gazing vacantly
+at the wood fire on the hearth, which supplied only a dim fitful and
+uncertain light in the bare chill room, once the most cosy and
+attractive in the whole cheerful house.
+
+How utterly desolate everything appeared now, with only the dreary
+monotone of the wintry rain on the roof, and the occasional sob that
+fell from the black-robed figure walking to and fro.
+
+It had been such a happy, peaceful, blessed home, where piety,
+charity, love, taste, refinement, and education all loaned their
+charms to the store of witchery, which made it doubly sad to realize
+that henceforth other feet would tread its floors, other voices echo
+in its garden and verandahs.
+
+To the girl who had really never known any other home (save the quiet
+convent courts) this parsonage was the dearest spot she had yet
+learned to love; and with profound sorrow she now prepared to bid
+adieu for ever to the haven where her happiest years had passed like
+a rosy dream.
+
+The dreary deserted aspect of the house recalled to her mind--
+
+        "How some they have died, and some they have left me,
+        And some are taken from me; all are departed"--
+
+of Charles Lamb's quaint tender "Old familiar faces," as full of
+melancholy pathos as human eyes brimming with unshed tears; and from
+it her thoughts gradually drifted to another poem, which she had
+first heard from Mr. Lindsay during the week of his departure, and
+later from the sacred lips that were now placidly smiling beneath the
+floral cross and crown in the neighbouring churchyard.
+
+To-night the words recurred with the mournful iteration of some
+dolorous refrain; and yielding to the spell she leaned her forehead
+against the chimney-piece, and repeated them sadly and slowly:
+
+             "'We sat and talked until the night
+                 Descending, filled the little room;
+               Our faces faded from the sight--
+                 Our voices only broke the gloom.
+               We spake of many a vanished scene,
+                 Of what we once had thought and said,
+               Of what had been, and might have been,
+                 And who was changed, and who was dead;
+               And all that fills the hearts of friends,
+                 When first they feel with secret pain,
+               Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
+                 And never can be one again.
+               The very tones in which we spake
+                 Had something strange, I could but mark;
+               The leaves of memory seemed to make
+                 A mournful rustling in the dark.'"
+
+Attracted by the rhythm, which softly beat upon the air like some
+muffled prelude striking only minor chords, Mrs. Lindsay came to the
+hearth, and with her arm resting on the girl's shoulder, stood
+listening.
+
+"How dearly my Douglass loved those lines."
+
+"And on the night before he died, Mr. Hargrove repeated them, asking
+me afterward to select some sweet solemn sacred tune with an organ
+accompaniment, and sing them for him. But what music is there that
+would suit a poem, which henceforth will seem as holy as a psalm to
+me?"
+
+"Perhaps after a while you and I may be able to quiet the pain, and
+set it to some sweet old chant. Just now our hearts are too sore."
+
+"After a while? What hope has after a while? It cannot bring back the
+lost; and does memory ever die? After a while has not given me my
+mother; after a while has not taught me to forget her, or made me
+more patient in my waiting. After a while I know death will come to
+us all, and then there will be no more heartache; but I can't see
+that there is any comfort in after a while, except beyond the grave.
+Mrs. Lindsay, I do not wish to be wicked or rebellious, but it seems
+very hard that I must leave this dear quiet home, and be separated
+from you and Mr. Lindsay whom I dearly love, and go and live in a
+city, with that cold, hard, harsh, stern man, of whom I am so much
+afraid. He may mean well, but he has such unkind ways of showing it.
+You have no idea how dreadful the future looks to me."
+
+She spoke drearily, and in the fitful flashes of the firelight the
+young face looked unnaturally stern.
+
+"My dear child, you must not despond; at your age one must try to see
+only the bright side. If I expected to remain in America, I would not
+give you up without a struggle; would beg your mother's permission to
+keep you until she claimed you. But I shall only wait to learn that
+Douglass has arranged for my arrival. As you know, my sister and
+brother-in-law are in Egypt, and if I were with them in Cairo, I
+could hear more regularly and frequently from my dear boy. I wish I
+could keep you, for you have grown deep into my heart, but my own
+future is too uncertain to allow me to involve any one else in my
+plans."
+
+"I understand the circumstances, but if mother only knew everything,
+I believe she would not doom me to the care of that man of stone. Oh,
+if you could only take me across the ocean, and let me go to Venice
+to mother."
+
+Mrs. Lindsay tightened her arm around the erect slender figure, and
+gently stroked back the hair from her temples.
+
+"My dear, you paint your future guardian too grimly. Mr. Palma
+is very reserved, rather haughty, and probably stern, but
+notwithstanding has a noble character, I am told, and certainly
+appears much interested in and kindly disposed toward you. Dear
+Peyton liked him exceedingly, and his two letters to me were full of
+generosity and kind sympathy. As I believe I told you, his stepmother
+resides with him, and her daughter Miss Neville, though a young lady,
+will be more of a companion for you than the older members of the
+household. Mr. Palma is one of the most eminent and popular lawyers
+in New York, is very ambitious, I have heard, and at his house you
+will meet the best society of that great city; by which I mean the
+most cultivated, high-toned, and aristocratic people. I am sorry that
+he has no religious views, habits, or associations, as I inferred
+from the remarks of the lady whom I met in Boston, and who seemed
+well acquainted with the Palma household. She told me 'none of that
+family had any religion, though of course they kept a pew in the
+fashionable church.' But, my dear little girl, I hope your principles
+and rules of life are sufficiently established to preserve you from
+all free-thinking tendencies. Constant attendance at church does not
+constitute religion, any more than the _bona  fide_ pulpit means the
+spiritual Gospel; but I have noticed that where genuine piety exists,
+it is generally united with a recognition of church duties and
+obligations. The case of books I packed and sent with your trunks
+contains some very admirable though old-fashioned works, written by
+such women as Hannah More, Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Opie, and others, to
+mould the character of girls, and instruct them in all that is
+requisite to make them noble, refined, intelligent, useful Christian
+women. Hannah More's 'Lucilla Stanley' is one of the loveliest
+portraitures of female excellence in the whole domain of literature,
+and you will find some of the passages marked to arrest your
+attention. In this age of rapid deviation from the standard rules
+that governed feminine deportment and education when I was a
+girl, many of the precepts and admonitions penned by the authors
+I have mentioned are derided and repudiated as 'puritanical,'
+'old-fashioned,' 'strait-laced,' 'stupid and prudish'; but if these
+indeed be faults, certainly in the light of modern innovations they
+appear 'to lean to virtue's side.' In fashionable society, such as
+you are destined to meet at Mr. Palma's, you will find many things
+that no doubt will impress you as strange, possibly wrong; but in all
+these matters consult the books I have selected for you, read your
+Bible, pray regularly, and under all circumstances hold fast to your
+principles. Question and listen to your conscience, and no matter how
+keen the ridicule, or severe the condemnation to which your views may
+subject you, stand firm. Moral cowardice is the inclined plane that
+leads to the first step in sin. Be sure you are right, and then
+suffer no persuasion or invective to influence you in questions
+involving conscientious scruples. You are young and peculiarly
+isolated, therefore I have given you a letter to my valued old friend
+Mrs. Mason, who will always advise you judiciously, if you will only
+consult her. I hope you will devote as much time as possible to
+music, for to one gifted with your rare talent it will serve as a
+sieve straining out every ignoble discordant suggestion, and will
+help to keep your thoughts pure and holy."
+
+"I suppose there are wicked ways and wicked people everywhere, and it
+is not the fashion or the sinfulness that I am afraid of in New York,
+but the loneliness I anticipate. I dread being shut up between brick
+walls: no flowers, no grass, no cows, no birds, no chickens, none of
+the things I care for most."
+
+"But, my dear child, you forget that you have entered your fifteenth
+year, and as you grow older you will gradually lose your inordinate
+fondness for pets. Your childish tastes will change as you approach
+womanhood."
+
+"I hope not. Why should they? When I am an old woman with white hair,
+spectacles, wrinkled cheeks, and a ruffled muslin cap like poor
+Hannah's, I expect to love pigeons and rabbits, and all pretty white
+things, just as dearly as I do now. Speaking of Hannah, how I shall
+miss her? Since she went away, I shun the kitchen as much as
+possible,--everything is so changed, so sad. Oh! the dear, dear
+old-dead-and-gone-days will never, never come back to me."
+
+For some time neither spoke. Mrs. Lindsay wept, the girl only groaned
+in spirit; and at length she said suddenly, like one nerved for some
+painful task:
+
+"When we separate at the depot, you to take one train and I another,
+we may never meet again in this world, and I must say something to
+you, which I could mention to no one else. There is a cloud hanging
+over me. I have always lived in its cold shadow, even here where
+there is, or was, so much to make me happy, and this mystery renders
+me unwilling to go into the world of curious, harsh people, who will
+wonder and question. I know that Orme is not my real name, but am
+forbidden to ask for information until I am grown. I have full faith
+in my mother: I must believe that all she has done is right, no
+matter how strange things seem; but on one point I must be satisfied.
+Is my mother's name Minnie?"
+
+"I cannot tell you, for it was the only secret dear Peyton ever kept
+from me. In speaking of her, he always called her Mrs. Orme."
+
+"Do you know anything about the loss of a valuable paper, once in Mr.
+Hargrove's possession?"
+
+"A great many years ago, before you came to live with us, some one
+entered this room, opened the secret drawer of Peyton's writing desk,
+and carried off a tin box containing some important papers."
+
+"And suspicion rested on my mother?"
+
+"My darling girl, who could have been so cruel as to distress you
+with such matters? No one----"
+
+Regina interrupted her, with an imperative motion of her hand:
+
+"Please answer my question. Truth is better than kindness, is more to
+me than sympathy. Did not you and Mr. Hargrove believe that mother
+took--stole that box?"
+
+"Peyton never admitted to me that he suspected her, though some
+circumstances seemed to connect the disappearance of the papers with
+her visit here the night they were carried off. He accused no one."
+
+Regina was deeply moved, and her whole face quivered as she answered:
+
+"Oh! how good, how truly charitable he was! I wonder if in all the
+wide borders of America there are any more like him? If I could only
+have told him the facts, and satisfied him that my mother was
+innocent! But I waited until Hannah could get away in peace, and
+before she was ready to start God called him home. In heaven of
+course he knows it all now. I promised Hannah to tell no one but him,
+and to defer the explanation until she was safe, entirely beyond the
+reach of his displeasure; but since you suspected my mother, it is
+right that I should justify her in your estimation."
+
+Very succinctly she narrated what had occurred on the evening of the
+storm, and the incidents of the ensuing morning, when she followed
+Hannah into the churchyard. As she concluded, an expression of relief
+and pleasure succeeded that of astonishment which had rested on Mrs.
+Lindsay's worn and faded face.
+
+"I am heartily glad that at last the truth has been discovered, and
+that it fully exonerated your mother from all connection with the
+theft; for I confess the circumstances prejudiced me against her. Let
+us be encouraged, my dear little girl, to believe that in due time
+all the other mysteries will be quite as satisfactorily cleared up."
+
+"I can't afford to doubt it; if I did, I should not be able to----"
+
+She paused, while an increasing pallor overspread her features.
+
+"That is right, dear, believe in her. We should drink and live upon
+faith in our mothers, as we did their milk that nourished us. When
+children lose faith in their mothers, God pity both! Did you learn
+from Hannah the character of the paper?"
+
+"How could I question a servant concerning my mother's secrets? I
+only learned that Mr. Hargrove had given to my mother a copy of that
+which was burned by the lightning."
+
+"In writing to her, did you mention the facts?"
+
+"I have not as yet. I doubted whether I ought to allude to the
+subject, lest she should think I was intruding upon her confidence."
+
+"Dismiss that fear, and in your next letter acquaint her fully with
+all you learned from poor Hannah; it may materially involve her
+interest or welfare. Now, Regina, I am about to say something which
+you must not misinterpret, for my purpose is to comfort you, to
+strengthen your confidence in your mother. I do not know her real
+name, I never heard your father's mentioned, but this I do
+know,--dear Peyton told me that in this room he performed the
+marriage ceremony that made them husband and wife. Why such profound
+secrecy was necessary your poor mother will some day explain to you.
+Until then, be patient."
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. Lindsay. It does comfort me to know that Mr.
+Hargrove was the minister who married them. Of course it is no secret
+to you that my mother is an actress? I discovered it accidentally,
+for you know the papers were never left in my way, and in all her
+letters she alluded to her 'work being successful,' but never
+mentioned what it was; and I always imagined she was a musician
+giving concerts. But one day last June, at the Sabbath-school
+Festival, Mrs. Potter gave me a Boston paper, containing an article
+marked with ink, which she said she wished me to read, because it
+would edify a Sunday-school pupil. It was a letter from Italy,
+describing one of the theatres there, where Madame Odille Orme was
+playing 'Medea.' I cut out the letter, gave it to Mr. Hargrove, and
+asked him if it meant my mother. He told me it did, and advised me to
+enclose it to her when I wrote. But I could not, I burned it. People
+look down on actresses as if they were wicked or degraded, and for
+awhile it distressed me very much indeed, but I know there must be
+good as well as bad people in all professions. Since then I have been
+more anxious to become a perfect musician, so that before long I can
+relieve mother from the necessity of working on the stage."
+
+"It was wickedly malicious in Mrs. Prudence to wound you; and we were
+all so anxious to shield you from every misgiving on your mother's
+account. Some actresses have brought opprobrium upon the profession,
+which certainly is rather dangerous, and subjects women to suspicion
+and detraction; but let me assure you, Regina, that there have been
+very noble, lovely, good ladies who made their bread exactly as your
+mother makes hers. There is no more brilliant, enviable, or stainless
+record among gifted women than that of Mrs. Siddons'; or to come down
+to the present day, the world honours, respects, and admires none
+more than Madame Ristori, or Miss Cushman. Personal characteristics
+must decide a woman's reputation, irrespective of the fact that she
+lives upon the stage; and it is unjust that the faults of some should
+reflect discreditably upon all in any profession. Individually I must
+confess I am opposed to theatres and actresses, for I am the widow of
+a minister, and have an inherited and a carefully educated prejudice
+against all such things; but while I acknowledge this fact, I dare
+not assert that some who pass their lives before the footlights may
+not be quite as conscientious and upright as I certainly try to be. I
+should grieve to see you on the stage, yet should circumstances
+induce you to select it as a profession, in the sight of God who
+alone can judge human hearts, your and your mother's chances of final
+acceptance and rest with Christ might be as good, perhaps better,
+than mine Let us 'judge not, lest we be judged.'"
+
+"The world has not your charity, but let it do its worst. Come what
+may, my mother is still my own mother, and God will hold the scales
+and see that justice is done. Perhaps some day we may follow you to
+India, and spend the remainder of our lives in some cool quiet
+valley, under the shadow of the rhododendrons on the Himalayan hills.
+Who knows what the end may be? But no matter how far we wander,
+or where we rest, we shall never find a home so sweet, so peaceful,
+so full of holy and happy associations, as this dear parsonage has
+been to me."
+
+The fire burned low, and in its dull flicker the shadows thickened;
+while the rising wind sobbed and wailed mournful as a coranach
+around the desolate old house, whence so many generations had glided
+into the sheltering bosom of the adjoining necropolis.
+
+Across the solemn gloomy stillness ran the sharp shivering sound of
+the door-bell, and when the jarring had ceased Esau entered with his
+lantern in his hand.
+
+"The carriage is at the gate. The schedule was changed last week, and
+the driver says it is nearly train time. Give me the satchels and
+basket."
+
+Slowly the two figures followed the lantern-bearer down the dim bare
+hall, and the sound of their departing footsteps echoed strangely,
+dismally through the empty, forsaken house. At the front door both
+paused and looked back into the darkness that seemed like a vast
+tomb, swallowing everything, engulfing all the happy hallowed past.
+
+But Regina imagined that in the dusky library, by the wan flicker of
+the dying fire, she could trace the spectral outline of a white
+draped table, and of a tall prostrate form bearing a Grand Duke
+jasmine in its icy hand. Shuddering violently, she wrapped her shawl
+around her and sprang down the steps into the drizzling rain, while
+Mrs. Lindsay slowly followed, weeping silently.
+
+            "Were it mine I would close the shutters,
+             Like lids when the life is fled,
+             And the funeral fire should wind it,
+             This corpse of a home that is dead."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+The snow was falling fast nest morning, when with a long hoarse
+shriek the locomotive dashed into New York, and drew up to the
+platform, where a crowd of human beings and equipages of every
+description had assembled to greet the arrival of the train.
+
+The din of voices, ringing of bells, whistle of engines, and all the
+varied notes of that Babel diapason that so utterly bewilders the
+stranger stranded on the bustling streets of busy Gotham, fell upon
+Regina's ears with the startling force of novelty. She wondered if
+there were thunder mixed with swiftly falling snow--that low, dull,
+ceaseless roar--that endless monologue of the paved streets--where
+iron and steel ground down the stone highways, along which the
+Juggernaut of Traffic rolled ponderously, day in and day out.
+
+Gazing curiously down from her window at the sea of faces wherein
+cabmen, omnibus drivers, porters, vociferated and gesticulated, each
+striving to tower above his neighbour, like the tame vipers in the
+Egyptian pitcher, whereof Teufelsdroeckh discourses in Sator Resartus,
+Regina made no attempt to leave her seat, until the courteous
+conductor to whose care Mrs. Lindsay had consigned her touched her
+arm to arrest her attention.
+
+"You are Miss Orme, I believe, and here is the gentleman who came to
+meet you."
+
+Turning quickly, with the expectation of seeing Mr. Palma, she found
+herself in the presence of an elegantly dressed young gentleman, not
+more than twenty-two or three years old, who wore ample hay-coloured
+whiskers brushed in English style, after the similitude of the fins
+of a fish, or the wings of a bat. A long moustache of the same colour
+drooped over a mouth feminine in mould, and as he lifted his brown
+fur cap and bowed she saw that his light hair was parted in the
+middle of his head.
+
+He handed her a card on which was printed, "Elliott Roscoe."
+
+"Regina Orme, I presume. My cousin Mr. Palma desired me to meet you
+at the train, and see you safely to his house, as he is not in the
+city. I guess you had a tiresome trip; you look worn out. Have you
+the checks for your baggage?"
+
+She handed them to him, took her satchel, and followed him out of the
+car, through the dense throng, to a _coupe_.
+
+The driver, whose handsome blue coat with its glittering gilt buttons
+was abundantly embroidered with snow-flakes, opened the door, and as
+Mr. Roscoe assisted the stranger to enter, he said:
+
+"Wait, Farley, until I look after the baggage."
+
+"Yonder is O'Brien with his express waggon. Give him the checks, and
+he will have the trunks at home almost as soon as we get there.
+Michael O'Brien!"
+
+As the ruddy, beaming pleasant countenance of the express man
+approached, and he received the checks, Mr. Roscoe sprang into the
+carriage, but Regina summoned courage to speak.
+
+"If you please, I want my dog."
+
+"Your dog! Did you leave it in the car? Is it a poodle?"
+
+"Poodle! He is a Newfoundland, and the express agent has him."
+
+"Then O'Brien will bring him with the trunks," said Mr. Roscoe,
+preparing to close the door.
+
+"I would not like to leave him behind."
+
+"You certainly do not expect to carry him in the carriage?" answered
+the gentleman, staring at her, as if she had been a refugee from some
+insane asylum.
+
+"Why not? There seems plenty of room. I am so much afraid something
+might happen to him among all these people. But perhaps you would not
+like him shut up in the carriage."
+
+For an instant she seemed sorely embarrassed, then leaning forward,
+addressed the coachman.
+
+"Would you mind taking my dog up there with you? thank you very much
+if you will please be so kind."
+
+Before the wistful pleading of the violet eyes, and the sweet tones
+of the hesitating voice, the surly expression vanished from Farley's
+countenance, and, touching his hat, he replied cheerfully:
+
+"Aye, miss; if he is not venomous, I will take him along."
+
+"Thank you. Mr. Roscoe, if you will be so good as to go with me to
+the express car, I can get my dog."
+
+"That is not necessary. Besides it is snowing hard, and your wraps
+are not very heavy. Give me the receipt, and I will bring him out."
+
+There was some delay, but after a little while Mr. Roscoe came back
+leading Hero by a chain attached to his collar. The dog looked sulky
+and followed reluctantly, but at sight of his mistress, sprang
+forward, barking joyfully.
+
+"Poor Hero! poor fellow! Here I am."
+
+When he had been prevailed upon to jump up beside the driver, and the
+carriage rolled homeward, Mr. Roscoe said:
+
+"That is a superb creature. The only pure white Newfoundland I ever
+saw. Where did you get him?"
+
+"He was bought in Brooklyn several years ago, and sent to me."
+
+"What is his name?"
+
+"Hero."
+
+"How very odd. Bruno, or Nero, or Ponto, or even Fido, would be so
+much more suitable."
+
+"Hero suits him, and suits me."
+
+Mr. Roscoe looked curiously into the face beside him, and laughed.
+
+"I presume you are a very romantic young miss, and have been dreaming
+about some rustic Leander in round jacket."
+
+"My dog was not called after the priestess at Sestos. It means hero
+the common noun, not Hero the proper name. Holding torches to guide
+people across the Hellespont was not heroism."
+
+If she had addressed him in Aramaic he would not have been more
+surprised; and for a moment he stared.
+
+"I am afraid your Hero will not prove a thoroughly welcome addition
+to my cousin's household. He has no fondness whatever for dogs, or
+indeed for pets of any kind, and Mrs. Palma, who has a chronic terror
+of hydrophobia, will not permit a dog to come near her."
+
+He saw something like a smile flicker across the girl's mouth, but
+she did not look up, and merely asked:
+
+"Where is Mr. Palma?"
+
+"He was unexpectedly called to Philadelphia two days ago, on urgent
+business. Do you know him?"
+
+"I have not seen him for several years."
+
+She turned away, fixing her attention upon the various objects of
+interest that flitted by, as they rolled rapidly along one of the
+principal streets. The young gentleman who in no respect resembled
+Mr. Palma, found it exceedingly pleasant to study the fair delicate
+face beside him, and not a detail of her dress, from the shape of
+her hat to the fit of her kid gloves, escaped his critical
+inspection.
+
+Almost faultily fastidious in his Broadway trained tastes, he arrived
+at the conclusion that she possessed more absolute beauty than any
+one in his wide circle of acquaintance; but her travelling suit was
+not cut in the approved reigning style, and the bow of ribbon at her
+throat did not exactly harmonize with the shade of the feather in her
+hat, all of which jarred disagreeably.
+
+As the carriage entered Fifth Avenue, and drew up before one of the
+handsome brown-stone front mansions that stretch like palatial walls
+for miles along that most regal and magnificent of American streets,
+Mr. Roscoe handed his companion out, and rang the bell.
+
+Hero leaped to the sidewalk, and, patting his head, Regina said:
+
+"Driver, I am very much obliged to you for taking care of him for
+me."
+
+"You are quite welcome, miss. He is an uncommon fine brute, and I
+will attend to him for you if you wish it."
+
+The door opened, and Regina was ushered in, and conducted by Mr.
+Roscoe into the sitting-room, where a blazing coal fire lent pleasant
+warmth and a ruddy glow to the elegantly furnished apartment.
+
+"Terry, tell the ladies we have come."
+
+The servant disappeared, and, holding his hands over the fire, Mr.
+Roscoe said:
+
+"I believe you are a stranger to all but my cousin; yet you are
+probably aware that his stepmother and her daughter reside with him."
+
+Before she could reply the door suddenly opened wide, as if moved by
+an impatient hand, and a middle-aged lady, dressed in black silk that
+rustled proudly at every step, advanced toward Regina. Involuntarily
+the girl shivered, as if an icy east wind had blown upon her.
+
+"Mrs. Palma, I have brought this young lady safely, and transfer her
+to your care. This is Regina Orme."
+
+"Miss Orme has arrived on a cold day, and looks as if she realized
+it."
+
+She put out her hand, barely touched the fingers of the stranger, and
+her keen, probing, inquisitorial eyes of palest grey wandered
+searchingly over the face and figure; while her haughty tone was
+chill--as the damp breath of a vault.
+
+Catching sight of Hero she started back, and exclaimed with
+undisguised displeasure:
+
+"What! A dog in my sitting-room! Who brought that animal here?"
+
+Regina laid a protecting hand on the head of her favourite, and said
+timidly, in a voice that faltered from embarrassment:
+
+"It is my dog. Please, madam, allow me to keep him; he will disturb
+no one; shall give no trouble."
+
+"Impossible! Dogs are my pet aversion. I would not even allow my
+daughter to accept a lovely Italian greyhound which Count Fagdalini
+sent her on her last birthday. That huge brute there would give me
+hysterics before dinner-time."
+
+"Then you shall not see him. I will keep him always out of eight; he
+shall never annoy you."
+
+"Very feasible in a Fifth Avenue house! Do you propose to lock him up
+always in your own chamber? How absurd!"
+
+She touched the bell, and added:
+
+"It always saves trouble to start exactly as we expect or intend to
+continue. I cannot endure dogs--never could, and yours must be
+disposed of at once."
+
+Pitying the distress so eloquently printed on the face of the girl,
+Mr. Roscoe interposed:
+
+"Strike, but hear me! Don't banish the poor fellow so summarily. He
+can't go mad before May or June, if then; and at least let her keep
+him a few days. She feels strange and lonely, and it will comfort her
+to have him for a while."
+
+"Nonsense, Elliott! Terry, tell Farley I shall want the carriage in
+half an hour, and meantime ask him to come here and help you take out
+this dog. We have no room for any such pests. Send Hattie to show
+this young lady to her own room."
+
+Mr. Roscoe shrugged his shoulder, and closely inspected his seal
+ring.
+
+There was an awkward silence. Mrs. Palma stirred the coals with the
+poker, and at last asked abruptly:
+
+"Miss Orme, I presume you have breakfasted?"
+
+"I do not wish any, thank you."
+
+Something in her quiet tone attracted attention, and as the lady and
+gentleman turned to look at her, both noticed a brilliant flush on
+her cheek, a peculiar sparkle dancing in her eyes.
+
+Passing her arm through the handle of her satchel, she put both her
+hands upon Hero's silver collar.
+
+"Hattie will show you up to your room, Miss Orme; and if you need
+anything call upon her for it. Farley, take that dog away, and do not
+let me see him here again."
+
+The blunt but kind-hearted coachman looked irresolute, glancing first
+at his mistress, and then pityingly at the girl. As he advanced to
+obey, Regina said in a quiet but clear and decisive tone:
+
+"Don't you touch him. He is mine, and no one shall take him from me.
+I am sorry, Mrs. Palma, that I have annoyed you so much, and I have
+no right to force unpleasant things upon you, even if I had the
+power. Come, Hero! we will find a place somewhere; New York is large
+enough to hold us both. Good-bye, Mr. Roscoe. Good-day, Mrs. Palma."
+
+She walked toward the door, leading Hero, who rubbed his head
+caressingly against her.
+
+"Where are you going?" cried Mr. Roscoe following, and catching her
+arm.
+
+"Anywhere--away from this house," she answered very quietly.
+
+"But Mr. Palma is your guardian! He will be dreadfully displeased."
+
+"He has no right to be displeased with me. Beside, I would not for
+forty guardians give up my Hero. Please stand aside, and let me
+pass."
+
+"Tell me first, what you intend to do."
+
+"First to get out, where the air is free. Then to find the house of
+a lady, to whom I have a letter of introduction from Mrs. Lindsay."
+
+Mrs. Palma was sorely perplexed, and though she trembled with excess
+of anger and chagrin, a politic regard for her own future welfare,
+which was contingent upon the maintenance of peaceful relations with
+her stepson, impelled her to concede what otherwise she would never
+have yielded. Stepping forward she said with undisguised scorn:
+
+"If this is a sample of his ward's temper, I fear Erle has resumed
+guardianship of Tartary. As Miss Orme is a total stranger in New
+York, it is sheer madness to talk of leaving here. This is Erle
+Palma's house, not mine, else I should not hesitate a moment; but
+under the circumstances I shall insist upon this girl remaining here
+at least until his return, which must be very soon. Then the dog
+question will be speedily decided by the master of the establishment."
+
+"Let us try and compromise. Suppose you trust your pet to me for a
+few days, until matters can be settled? I like dogs, and promise to
+take good care of yours, and feed him on game and chicken soup."
+
+He attempted to put his hand on the collar, but Hero, who seemed to
+comprehend that he was a _casus belli_, growled and showed his teeth.
+
+"Thank you, sir, but we have only each other now. Mrs. Palma, I do
+not wish to disturb or annoy you in any way, and as I love my dog
+very much, and you have no room for him, I would much rather go away
+now and leave you in peace. Please, Mr. Roscoe, let me pass."
+
+"I can fix things to suit all around, if madam will permit," said the
+coachman.
+
+"Well, Farley, what is your proposition?"
+
+His mistress was biting her lip from mortification and ill-concealed
+rage.
+
+"I will make a kennel in the corner of the carriage-house, where he
+can be chained up, and yet have room to stretch himself; and the
+young miss can feed him, and see him as often as she likes, till
+matters are better settled."
+
+"Very well. Attend to it at once. I hope Miss Orme is satisfied?"
+
+"No, I do not wish to give so much trouble to you all."
+
+"Oh, miss I it is no trouble worth speaking of; and if you will only
+trust me, I will see that no harm happens to him."
+
+For a moment Regina looked up at the honest, open, though somewhat
+harsh Hibernian face, then advanced and laid the chain in his hand.
+
+"Thank you very much. I will trust you. Be kind to him, and let me
+come and see him after awhile. I don't wish him ever to come into the
+house again."
+
+"The baggage-man has brought the trunks," said Terry.
+
+"Have them taken upstairs. Would you like to go to your room, Miss
+Orme?"
+
+"If you please, madam."
+
+"Then I must bid you good-bye," said Mr. Roscoe, holding out his
+hand.
+
+"Do you not live here?"
+
+"Oh no! I am only a student in my cousin's law-office, but come here
+very often. I hope the dog-war is amicably settled, but if
+hostilities are reopened, and you ever make up your mind to give Hero
+away, please remember that I am first candidate for his ownership."
+
+"I would almost as soon think of giving away my head. Good-bye, sir."
+
+As she turned to follow the servant out of the room, she ran against
+a young lady who hastily entered, singing a bar from "Traviata."
+
+"Bless me! I beg your pardon. This is----"
+
+"Miss Orme; Erle's ward."
+
+"Miss Orme does not appear supremely happy at the prospect of
+sojourning with us, beneath this hospitable roof. Mamma, I understand
+you have had a regular Austerlitz battle over that magnificent dog I
+met in the hall,--and alas! victory perched upon the standard of the
+invading enemy! Cheer up, mamma! there is a patent medicine just
+advertised in the _Herald_ that hunts down, worries, shakes, and
+strangles hydrophobia, as Gustave Billon's Skye terrier does rats.
+Good-morning, Mr. Elliott Roscoe! Poor Miss Orme looks strikingly
+like a half-famished and wholly hopeless statue of Patience that I
+saw on a monument at the last funeral I attended in Greenwood.
+Hattie, do take her to her room, and give her some hot chocolate, or
+coffee, or whatever she drinks."
+
+She had taken both the stranger's hands, shook them rather roughly,
+and in conclusion pushed her toward the door.
+
+Olga Neville was twenty-two, tall, finely formed, rather handsome;
+with unusually bright reddish-hazel eyes, and a profusion of tawny
+hair, which nine persons in ten would unhesitatingly have pronounced
+red, but which she persistently asserted was of exactly the classic
+shade of ruddy gold, that the Borgia gave to Bembo. Her features were
+large, and somewhat irregular in contour, but her complexion was
+brilliant, her carriage very graceful, and though one might safely
+predict that at some distant day she would prove "fair, fat, and
+forty," her full figure had not yet transgressed the laws of
+symmetry.
+
+As the door of the sitting-room closed, she put her large white hands
+on her mother's shoulders, shook her a little, and kissed her on the
+cheek.
+
+"Do, mamma, let us have fair play, or I shall desert to the enemy. It
+was not right to open your batteries on that little thing before she
+got well into position, and established her line. If I am any judge
+of human nature, I rather guess from the set of her lips, and the
+stars that danced up and down in her eyes, that she is not quite as
+easily flanked as a pawn on a chessboard."
+
+"I wish, Olga, that you were a better judge of common sense, and of
+the courtesy due to my opinions. I can tell you we are likely to see
+trouble enough with this high-tempered girl added to the family
+circle."
+
+"Why, she has not Lucretia-coloured tresses like my own lovely-spun
+gold? I thought her hair looked very black."
+
+"I will warrant it is not half as black as her disposition. She
+looked absolutely diabolical when she pretended to march out into the
+world, playing the _role_ of injured, persecuted innocence."
+
+"Now, mamma! She is decidedly the prettiest piece of diabolism I ever
+saw. Elliott, what do you think of her?"
+
+"That some day she will be a most astonishing beauty. Can you
+recollect that lovely green and white cameo pin set with diamonds
+that Tiffany had last spring? Ned Bartlett bought it for his wife the
+day they started to Saratoga. Well, this girl is exactly like that
+exquisite white cameo head; I noticed the likeness as soon as I saw
+her. But she needs polish, city training, society marks, and her
+clothes are at least two seasons old in style. I think too your
+mother is quite right in believing she has a will of her own. She was
+really in earnest, and would have walked out, if Farley had not come
+to the rescue. Olga, what are you laughing at?"
+
+"I am anticipating the sport in store for me when her will and Erle
+Palma's come in conflict. Won't the sparks fly! We shall have a
+domestic shower of meteors to enliven our daily dull routine! You
+know the stately and august head of this establishment savours of
+Fitz-James, and in all matters of controversy acts fully out what
+Scott only dreamed:
+
+        'Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
+         From its firm base, as soon as I!'
+
+I daresay it is his terrapin habit that helps Erle Palma to his great
+success as a lawyer; when he once takes hold, he never lets go. Now,
+mamma, if you do not hoist a white flag as far as that poor girl is
+concerned, I shall certainly ask your wary stepson to give her a
+sprig of phryxa from Mount Brixaba. Do you understand, Elliott?"
+
+"Of course not I rarely do understand you when you begin your
+spiteful challenges. Now, Olga, I always preserve an unarmed
+neutrality, so do let me alone."
+
+
+He made a deprecating gesture, and put on his hat.
+
+"Free schools and universal education is one of my spavined hobbies,
+and a brief canter for your improvement in classic lore would be
+charitable, so I proceed: Agatho the Samian says that in the Scythian
+Brixaba grows the herb phryxa (hating the wicked), which especially
+protects step children; and whenever they are in danger from a
+stepmother (observe the antiquity of Stepmotherly characteristics!)
+the phryxa gives them warning by emitting a bright flame. You see
+Erle Palma remembers his classics, and early in life turned his
+attention to the cultivation of phryxa, which flourishes----"
+
+"Olga, you vex me beyond endurance. Put on your furs at once; it is
+time to go to the Studio. Elliott, will you ride down with us, and
+look at the portrait?"
+
+"Thanks! I wish I could, but promised to write out some legal
+references before my cousin returns, and must keep my word; for you
+very well know he has scant mercy on delinquents."
+
+"I only hope he will bring his usual iron rule to bear upon this new
+element in the household, else her impertinent self-assertion will be
+unendurable. Will you be at Mrs. Delafield's reception to-night?"
+
+"I promised to attend. Suppose I call for you and Olga about nine?"
+
+"Quite agreeable to all parties. I shall expect you. Good-morning."
+
+When Regina left the sitting-room she followed the housemaid up two
+flights of steps, and into a small but beautifully furnished
+apartment, where a fire was not really necessary, as the house was
+heated by a furnace, still the absence of the cheerful red light she
+had left below made this room seem chill and uninviting.
+
+The trunks had been  brought up, and after lowering the curtain of
+the window that looked down on the beautiful Avenue, Hattie said:
+
+"Will you have tea, coffee, or chocolate?"
+
+"Neither, I thank you."
+
+"Have you had any breakfast?"
+
+"I do not want any."
+
+"It is no trouble, miss, to get what you like."
+
+Regina only shook her head, and proceeded to take off her hat and
+wrappings.
+
+"Are you an orphan?" queried Hattie, her heart warming toward a
+stranger who avoided giving trouble.
+
+"No; but my mother is in----is too far for me to go to her."
+
+"Then you aren't here on charity?"
+
+"Charity! No, indeed! Mr. Palma is my guardian until I go to my
+mother."
+
+"Well, miss, try to be contented. Miss Olga has a kinder heart than
+her mother, and though she has a bitter tongue and rough ways she
+will befriend you. Don't fret about your dog, we folks belowstairs
+will see that he does not suffer. We will help you take care of him."
+
+"Thank you, Hattie. I shall be grateful to all who are kind to him.
+Please give him some water and a piece of bread when you go down."
+
+It was a great relief to find herself once more alone, and, sinking
+down wearily into a rocking chair, she hid her face in her hands.
+
+Her heart was heavy, her head ached; her soul rose in rebellion
+against the cold selfishness and discourtesy that had characterized
+her reception by the inmates of her guardian's house.
+
+Everything around her betokened wealth, taste, elegance; the carpets
+and various articles of furniture were of the most costly materials,
+but at the thought of living here she shuddered. Fine and fashionable
+in all its appointments, but chilly, empty, surface gilded, she felt
+that she would stifle in this mansion.
+
+By comparison, how dear and sacred seemed the old life at the
+parsonage I how desolate and dreary the present! how inexpressibly
+lonely and hopeless the future!
+
+From the thought of Mr. Palma's return, she could borrow no pleasant
+auguries, rather additional gloom and apprehension; and his absence
+had really been the sole redeeming circumstance that marked her
+arrival in New York. With an unconquerable dread which arose from
+early childish prejudice and which she never attempted to analyze,
+she shrank from meeting him.
+
+There came a quick low rap on the door, but she neither heard nor
+heeded it, and started when a warm hand removed those that covered
+her face.
+
+"Just as I expected, you are having a good cry all to yourself. No,
+your eyes are dry and bright as stars. I daresay you have set us all
+down as a family of brutes; as more cruel than the Piutes or Modocs;
+as stony hearted as Solomon, when he ordered the poor little baby to
+be cut in half and distributed among its several mothers. But there
+is so little justice left in the world, that I imagine each
+individual would do well to contribute a moiety to the awfully
+slender public stock. Suppose you pay tithes to the extent of
+counting me out of this nest of persecutors? Thank Heaven! I am not a
+Palma! My soul does not work like the piston of a steam-engine,--is
+not regulated by a gauge-cock and safety-valve to prevent all
+explosions, to keep the even, steady, decorous, profitable tenor of
+its sternly politic way. I am a Neville. The blood in my veins is not
+'blue' like the Palma's, but red,--and hot enough to keep my heart
+from freezing, as the Palma's do, and to melt the ice they
+manufacture, wherever they breathe. I am no Don Quixote to redress
+your grievances, or storm windmills; for verily neither mamma nor
+Erle Palma belongs to that class of harmless innocuous bugaboos, as
+those will find to their cost who run against them. I am simply Olga
+Neville, almost twenty-three, and quite willing to help you if
+possible. Shall we enter into an alliance--offensive and defensive?"
+
+She stood by the mantlepiece, slowly buttoning her glove, and looked
+quite handsome, and very elegant in her rich wine-coloured silk and
+costly furs.
+
+Looking up into her face, Regina wondered how far she might trust
+that apparently frank open countenance, and Olga smiled, and added:
+
+"You are a cunning fledgling, not to be caught with chaff. Have they
+sent you anything to eat?"
+
+"I declined having anything. My head aches."
+
+"Then do as I tell you, and you will soon feel relieved. There is a
+bath-room on this floor. Ring for Hattie, and tell her you want a
+good hot bath. When you have taken it, lie down and go to sleep. One
+word before I go. Do try not to be hard on mamma. Poor mamma! She
+married among these Palmas, and very soon from force of habit and
+association she too grew politic, cautious; finally she also froze,
+and has never quite thawed again. She is not unkind,--you must not
+think so for an instant; she only keeps her blood down to the safe,
+wise prudent temperature of sherbet. Poor mamma! She does not like
+dogs; once she was dreadfully bitten, almost torn to pieces by one,
+and very naturally she has developed no remarkable 'affinity' for
+them since that episode. Hattie will get you anything you need. Take
+your bath and go to sleep, and dream good-natured things about
+mamma."
+
+She nodded, smiled pleasantly, and glided away as noiselessly as she
+came, leaving Regina perplexed, and nowise encouraged with reference
+to the stern cold character of her guardian.
+
+She had eaten nothing since the previous day, had been unable to
+close her eyes after bidding Mrs. Lindsay farewell; and now, quite
+overcome with the reaction from the painful excitement of yesterday's
+incidents, she threw herself across the foot of the bed, and clasped
+her hands over her throbbing temples. No sound disturbed tier, save
+the occasional roll of wheels on the street below, and very soon the
+long lashes drooped, and she slept the heavy deep sleep of mental and
+physical exhaustion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+Led by poppy-wreathed wands, through those fabled ivory gates that
+open into the enchanted realm of dreams, the weary girl forgot her
+woes, and found blessed reunion with the absent dear ones, whose loss
+had so beclouded the morning of her life.
+
+Under the burning sun of India, through the tangled jungles of Oude,
+she wandered in quest of the young missionary and his mother, now
+springing away from the crouching tigers that glared at her as she
+passed; now darting into some Himalayan cavern to escape the wild
+ferocious eyes of Nana Sahib, who offered her that wonderful lost
+ruby that he carried off in his flight, and when she seized it,
+hoping its sale would build a church for mission worship, it
+dissolved into blood that stained her fingers. With a fiendish laugh
+Nana Sahib told her it was a part of the heart of a beautiful woman
+butchered in the "House of Massacre" at Cawnpore. On and on she
+pressed, footsore and weary but undaunted, through those awful
+mountain solitudes, and finally hearing in the distance the bark of
+Hero, she followed the sound, reached the banks of Jumna, and there
+amid the ripple of fountains, and the sighing of the cypress, in the
+cool shadow cast by the marble minarets and domes of Shah Jehan's
+Moomtaj mausoleum, Mr. and Mrs. Lindsay joyfully welcomed her; while
+upon the fragrant air floated divine melodies that Douglass told her
+were chanted by angels in her mother's grave, beneath the clustering
+white columns.
+
+When after many hours she awoke, it was night. A faint light trembled
+in one of the globes of the gas chandelier, and a blanket had been
+laid over her. Starting up she saw a figure sitting at the window,
+apparently watching what passed in the street below.
+
+"I hope you feel refreshed. I can testify you have slept as soundly
+as the youths whom Decius put to bed some time since near Ephesus."
+
+Olga rose, turned on the gas that flamed up instantly, and showed her
+elaborately dressed in evening toilette. Her shoulders and arms,
+round and pearly white, were bare save the shining tracery of jewels
+in necklace and bracelets; and in the long train of blue silk that
+flowed over the carpet, she looked even taller than in the morning
+walking suit. Her ruddy hair, heaped nigh on her head, was surmounted
+by a jewelled comb, whence fell a cataract of curls of various
+lengths and sizes, that touched the filmy lace which bordered her
+shoulders like a line of foam where blue silk broke on dimpled flesh.
+
+As Regina gazed admiringly at her, Olga came closer, and stood under
+the gas-light.
+
+"A penny for your thoughts! Am I handsome? Somebody says only 'fools
+and children tell the truth.' You are not exactly the latter;
+certainly not the former; nevertheless, being a rustic, all unversed
+in the fashionable accomplishment of 'fibbing,' you may dispense with
+the varnish pot and brush. Tell me, Regina, don't you feel inclined
+to fall at my feet and worship me?"
+
+"Not in the least. But I do think you very handsome, and your dress
+is quite lovely. Are you going to a party or a ball?"
+
+"To a 'Reception,' where the people will be crowded like sardines,
+where my puffs will be mashed as flat as buckwheat cakes, and my
+train will go home with various gentlemen, clinging in scraps to
+their boot-heels! Were you ever at the seashore? If you have ever
+chanced to walk into a settlement of fiddlers, and seen them
+squirming, wriggling, backward, forward, sideways, you may
+understand that I am going into a similar promiscuous scramble.
+Human ingenuity is vastly fertile in the production of fashionable
+tortures; and when that outraged and indignant poet savagely
+asserted, that 'Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands
+mourn,' I have an abiding conviction that he had just been victimized
+at a 'Reception,' or 'German,' or 'Kettle-drum,' or 'Masque
+Ball,'--or some such fine occasion, where people are amused by
+treading on each other's toes, and gnawing (metaphorically) their
+nearest neighbour's vertebrae."
+
+"Do you not enjoy going into society?"
+
+"_Cela depend!_ You are an unsophisticated little package of innocent
+rusticity, and have yet to learn
+
+           'Society is now one polished horde,
+              Formed of two mighty tribes,
+            The Bores and Bored!'
+
+I speak advisedly, for lo these four years I have energetically
+preyed, and been preyed upon. When I was your age, I was impatient to
+break away from my governess, and soar into the flowery pastures of
+fashionable gaiety, with the crowd of other butterflies that seemed
+so happy, so lovely; but now that I have bruised my pretty wings, and
+tarnished the gilding, and rubbed off the fresh enamelling, I would
+if I could crawl back into a safe brown cocoon, or hide in some quiet
+and forgotten chrysalis. Did you ever hear of Moloch?"
+
+"Yes, of course; I know it was a brazen image, heated red hot, in
+whose arms children were placed by idolatrous heathen parents."
+
+"No such thing! that is a foolish, obsolete Rabbinical myth. You must
+not talk such old-fashioned folly. Hearken to the solemn truth that
+underlies that fable; Moloch reigns here, in far more pomp and
+splendour than the Ammonites ever dreamed of. Crowned and sceptred,
+he is now called 'Wealth and Fashion,' holds daily festivals and
+mighty orgies where salads, boned turkeys, charlotte russe,
+_fistachio souffles, creams, ices, champagne-julep, champagne
+frappe_, and persicot call the multitude to worship; and there while
+the stirring notes of Strauss ring above the sighs and groans of the
+heroic victims, fathers and mothers bring their sons and daughters
+bravely decked in broadcloth and satin, white kid and diamonds, and
+offer them in sacrifice; and Moloch clasps, scorches, blackens all!
+Wide wonderful blue eyes, how shocked you look!"
+
+Olga laughed lightly, shook out the fringed ends of her broad white
+silk sash, and glanced in the mirror of the bureau, to see the
+effect.
+
+"Regina, don't begin city life by a system of starvation that would
+do infinite credit to a Thebaid anchorite. Eat abundantly. Take
+generous care of your body, for spiritual famine is inevitably ahead
+of you. Yonder on the table, carefully covered, is your dinner. Of
+course it is cold, stone-cold as this world's charity; but people who
+sleep until eight o'clock, ought not to expect smoking hot viands. A
+good meal gives one far more real philosophy and fortitude, than all
+the volumes Aristotle and Plato ever wrote. Do you hear that bell? It
+is a signal to attend the festival of Milcom. Oh, Mammon I behold I
+come."
+
+She moved towards the door, and said from the threshold:
+
+"I say unto you--eat. Then come downstairs and amuse yourself looking
+about the house. There are some interesting things in the parlours,
+and if you are musical, you will find a piano that cost one thousand
+dollars. When I am away, there are no skeletons in this house, so you
+need not fear sleeping here alone. My room is on the same floor.
+Good-night."
+
+Refreshed by her sound sleep, Regina bathed her face, rearranged her
+hair, and ate the dinner, which although cold, was very temptingly
+prepared. When Hattie came to carry down the silver tray containing
+the delicate green and gold china dishes, she complimented the
+stranger upon the improvement in her appearance, adding:
+
+"Miss Olga directed me to show you the house, and anything you might
+like to look at, so I lighted the palours and reception-room; and the
+library always has a fire, and the gas burning. That is next to Mr.
+Palma's bedroom, and is his special place. He comes and goes so
+irregularly that we never can tell when he is in it. Once last year
+he got home at nine o'clock unexpectedly, and sat up all night
+writing there in the cold. Next morning he gave orders for fire and
+light in that room, whether he was at home or not. Miss, if you don't
+mind looking about yourself, I should like to run around to Eighth
+Avenue for a few minutes, to see my sick aunt. Terry has gone out,
+and Mary promised to answer the bell, if any one called. Farley says
+be easy about your dog; he had a hearty dinner of soup and meat, and
+is on a softer bed than some poor souls lie on to-night. Can I go?"
+
+"Certainly, I am not afraid; and when I get sleepy I will come up and
+go to bed. When will Mrs. Palma and Miss Neville come home?"
+
+"Not before midnight, if then."
+
+She explained to Regina how to elevate and extinguish the gas, and
+the two went down to the sitting-room, whence Hattie soon
+disappeared. Raising the silk curtain that divided this apartment
+from the parlours, Regina walked slowly up and down upon the velvet
+carpet in which her feet seemed to sink, as on a bed of moss; and her
+eyes wandered admiringly over the gilded stands, gleaming bronzes,
+marble statuettes, papier mache, ormolu, silk, lace, brocatel,
+moquette, satin and silver which attracted her gaze.
+
+Beautiful pictures adorned the tinted walls, and the ceiling was
+brilliantly frescoed, while one of the wide bay-windows contained a
+stand filled with a superb array of wax flowers. Regina opened the
+elegant grand piano, but forbore to touch the keys, and at last when
+she had feasted her eyes sufficiently upon some lovely landscapes by
+Gifford and Bierstadt, she quitted the richly decorated parlours, and
+slowly went up the stairs that led to the room which Hattie had
+pointed out as Mr. Palma's library.
+
+Leaving the door partly open, she entered a long lofty apartment, the
+floor of which was of marquetry, polished almost as glass, with
+furred robes laid here and there before tables, and deep luxurious
+easy chairs.
+
+Four spacious lines of book shelves with glass doors bearing silver
+handles, girded the sides of the room, and the walls were painted in
+imitation of the Pompeian style; while the corners of the ceiling
+held lovely frescoes of the season, and in the centre was a zodiac.
+Bronze and marble busts shone here and there, and where the panels of
+the wall were divided by representations of columns, metal brackets
+and wooden consoles sustained delicate figures and groups of
+sculpture.
+
+Filled with wonder and delight the girl glided across the shining
+mosaic floor, gazing now at the glowing garlands, and winged figures
+on the wall, and now at the elegantly bound books Whose gilded titles
+gleamed through the plate glass.
+
+She had read of such rooms in "St. Martin's Summer," a volume Mrs.
+Lindsay never tired of quoting; but this exquisite reality
+transcended all her previous flights of imagination, and, approaching
+the bright coal fire, she basked in the genial glow, in the
+atmosphere of taste, culture, and rare luxury. A quaint clock inlaid
+with designs in malachite, ticked drowsily upon the low black marble
+mantle, which represented winged lions bearing up the slab, and near
+the hearth was an ebony and gold escritoire which stood open,
+revealing a bronze inkstand and velvet penwiper. Before it sat the
+revolving chair, with a bright-coloured embroidered cushion for the
+feet to rest upon; and in a recess behind the desk, and partly
+screened by the sweep of damask Curtains, hung a man's pearl-grey
+dressing-gown, lined with silk; while under it rested a pair of black
+velvet slippers encrusted with vine leaves and bunches of grapes in
+gold bullion.
+
+Wishing to see the effect, Regina took a taper from the Murrhine cup
+on the mantle, and standing on a chair lighted the cluster of burners
+shaped like Pompeian lamps, in the chandelier nearest the grate; then
+went back to the rug before the fire, and enjoyed the spectacle
+presented.
+
+What treasures of knowledge were contained in this beautiful, quiet,
+brilliant room!
+
+Would she be permitted to explore the contents of those book shelves,
+where hundreds of volumes invited her eager investigation? Could she
+ever be as happy here as in the humble yet hallowed library at the
+dear old parsonage?
+
+An oval table immediately under the gas-globes held a china stand
+filled with cigars, and seeing several books lying near it, she took
+up one.
+
+It was Gustave Dore's "Wandering Jew," and, throwing herself down on
+the rug, she propped her head with one hand, while the other slowly
+turned the leaves, and she examined the wonderful illustrations. She
+was vaguely conscious that the clock struck ten, but paid little
+attention to the flight of time, and after awhile she closed the
+book, drew the cushion before the desk to the rug in front of the
+fire, laid her head on it, and soothed by the warmth and perfect
+repose of the room fell asleep.
+
+Soon after the door opened wider, and Mr. Palma entered, and walked
+half way down the room ere he perceived the recumbent figure. He
+paused, then advanced on tiptoe and stood by the hearth, warming his
+white scholarly hands and looking down on the sleeper.
+
+With the careless grace of a child, innocent of the art of
+attitudinizing, she had made herself thoroughly comfortable; and as
+the light streamed full upon her, all the marvellous beauty of the
+delicate face and the perfect modelling of the small hands and feet
+were clearly revealed. The glossy raven hair clung in waving masses
+around her white full forehead, and the long silky lashes lay like
+jet fringe on her exquisitely moulded cheeks; while the remarkably
+fine pencilling of her arched brows, which had attracted her
+guardian's notice when he first saw her at the convent, was still
+more apparent in the gradual development of her features.
+
+Studying the face and form, and rigidly testing both by the
+fastidious canons that often rendered him hypercritical, Mr. Palma
+could find no flaw in contour or in colouring, save that the
+complexion was too dazzlingly white, lacking the rosy tinge which
+youth and health are wont to impart.
+
+Stretching his arm to the escritoire, he softly opened a side drawer,
+took out an oval-shaped engraving of his favourite Sappho, and
+compared the nose, chin, and ear with those of the unconscious girl.
+Satisfied with the result, he restored the picture to its
+hiding-place. Four years had materially changed the countenance he
+had seen last at the parsonage, but the almost angelic purity of
+expression which characterized her as a child, had been intensified
+by time and recent grief, and watching her in her motionless repose
+he thought that unquestionably she was the fairest image he had ever
+seen in flesh; though a certain patient sadness about her beautiful
+lips told him that the waves of sorrow were already beating hoarsely
+upon the borders of her young life.
+
+Standing upon his own hearth, a man of magnificent stature and almost
+haughty bearing, Erle Palma looked quite forty, though in reality
+younger; and the stern repression, the cautious reticence which had
+long been habitual, seemed to have hardened his regular handsome
+features. Weary with the business cares, the professional details of
+a trip that had yielded him additional laurels and distinction, and
+gratified his towering pride, he had come home to rest; and found it
+singularly refreshing to study the exquisite picture of innocence
+lying on his library rug.
+
+He wondered how the parents of such a child could entrust her to the
+guardianship of strangers; and whether it would be possible for her
+to carry her peculiar look of holy purity safely into the cloudy
+Beyond--of womanhood?
+
+While he pondered the clock struck, and Regina awoke.
+
+At sight of that tall stately figure, looming like a black statue
+between her and the glow of the grate, she sprang first into a
+sitting posture, then to her feet.
+
+He made no effort to assist her, only watched every movement, and
+when she stood beside him, he held out his hand.
+
+"Regina, I am glad to see you in my house; and am sorry I could not
+have been at home to receive you."
+
+Painfully embarrassed by the thought of the position in which he had
+found her, she covered her face with her hand; and at the sound of
+his grave deep voice the blood swiftly mounted from her throat to the
+tip of her small shell-shaped ears.
+
+He waited for her to speak, but she could not sufficiently conquer
+her agitation, and with a firm hand he drew down the shielding
+fingers, holding, them in his.
+
+"There is nothing very dreadful in your being caught fast asleep,
+like a white kitten on a velvet rug. If you are never guilty of
+anything worse, you and your guardian will not quarrel."
+
+Her face had drooped beyond the range of his vision, and when he put
+one hand under her chin and raised it, he saw that the missing light
+in the alabaster vase had been supplied, and her smooth cheeks were
+flushed to brilliant carmine.
+
+How marvellously lovely she was in that rush of colour that dyed her
+dainty lips, and made the large soft eyes seem radiant as stars, when
+they bravely struggled up to meet his, so piercing, so coolly
+critical.
+
+"Will you answer me one question, if I ask it?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Palma; at least I will try.
+
+"Are you afraid of me?"
+
+The sweet mouth quivered, but the clear lustrous eyes did not sink.
+
+"Yes, sir; I have always been afraid of you."
+
+"Do you regard me as a monster of cruelty?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Will your conscience allow you to say, 'My guardian, I am glad to
+see you'?"
+
+She was silent.
+
+"That is right, little girl. Be perfectly truthful, and some day we
+may be friends. Sit down."
+
+He handed her a chair, and, rolling forward one of the deep cushioned
+seats, made himself comfortable in its soft luxurious latitude.
+Throwing his massive head back against the purple velvet lining, he
+adjusted his steel-rimmed spectacles, joined his hands, and built a
+pyramid with his fingers; while he scrutinized her as coldly, as
+searchingly as Swammerdam or Leeuwenhoek might have inspected some
+new and as yet unclassified animalculum, or as Filippi or Pasteur
+studied the causes of "_Pebrine_."
+
+"What do you think of New York?"
+
+"It seems a vast human sea, in which I could easily lose myself, and
+be neither missed nor found."
+
+"Have you studied mythology at all? Or was your pastor-guardian
+afraid of paganizing you? Did you ever hear of Argus?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I understand you."
+
+"He was merely a dim prophecy of our police system; and when
+adventurous girls grow rebellious and essay to lose themselves a
+hundred Arguses are watching them. You seem to like my library?"
+
+"It is the most beautiful room I have ever seen."
+
+"Wait until you examine the triumph of upholstering skill and genius
+which Mrs. Palma calls her parlours."
+
+"I saw all the pretty things downstairs, but nothing will compare
+with this lovely place." She glanced around with undisguised
+admiration.
+
+"Pretty things! _Objets de luxe!_ Oh, ye gods of fashionable
+_bric-a-brac!_ verily 'out of the mouths of babes,' etc., etc. Be
+very careful to suppress your heretical and treasonable preference in
+the presence of Mrs. Palma, who avoids this pet library of mine as if
+it were a magnified Pandora's box. Regina, I have reason to apprehend
+that you and she declared war at sight."
+
+"I know she does not like me."
+
+"And you fully reciprocate the prejudice?"
+
+"Mrs. Palma of course has a right to consult her own wishes in the
+management of her home and household."
+
+"Just here permit me to correct you. My house, if you please, my
+household, over which at my request she presides. Upon your arrival
+you did not find her quite as cordial as you anticipated?"
+
+Her gaze wandered to the fire, and she was silent.
+
+"Be so good as to look at me when I speak to you. Mrs. Palma appeared
+quite harsh to you to-day?"
+
+"I have made no complaint against your mother."
+
+"Pardon me, Mrs. Palma, my father's wife, if you please. Tell me the
+particulars of your reception here."
+
+The beautiful face turned pleadingly to him.
+
+"You must excuse me, sir. I have nothing to tell you."
+
+"And if I will not excuse you?"
+
+She folded her hands together, and compressed her lips.
+
+"Then I have some things to tell you. I am acquainted with all that
+occurred to-day."
+
+"I thought you were in Philadelphia? How could you know?'
+
+"Roscoe told me everything, and I have questioned Farley, who has not
+taken your vow of silence. Mrs. Palma has some prejudices, which, as
+far as is compatible with reason, a due sense of courtesy constrains
+me to respect; and as I have invited her to officiate as mistress of
+my establishment, it is eminently proper that I should consult her
+opinions, and encourage no rebellion against her domestic
+regulations. One of her sternest mandates, inexorable as Mede and
+Persian statutes, prohibits dogs. Now what do you expect of me?"
+
+He leaned forward, eyeing her keenly.
+
+"That you will do exactly----"
+
+"As I please?" he interrupted.
+
+"No, sir, exactly right."
+
+"That amounts to the same thing, does it not?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Your impression is, that I will not please to do exactly right?"
+
+"I have not said so, sir."
+
+"Your eyes are very brave honest witnesses, and need no support from
+your lips. Suppose we enter into negotiations and compromise matters
+between Mrs. Palma and you? This troublesome dog is a pestiferous
+creature, which might possibly be tolerated in country clover fields,
+but is most woefully out of place in a Fifth Avenue house. Beside,
+you will soon be a young lady, and your beaux will leave you no
+leisure to pet him. You are fifteen?"
+
+"Not yet; and if I were fifty it would make no difference. I don't
+want any beaux, sir; but--I must have my Hero."
+
+"Of course, all misses in their teens believe that their favourite is
+a hero."
+
+"Mr. Palma, Hero is my dog's name."
+
+He could detect a quiver in her slender nostril, and understood the
+heightening arch of her lip.
+
+"Oh! is it indeed? Well, no dog that ever barked is worth a household
+hurricane. You must make up your mind to surrender him, to shed a few
+tears and say _vale_ Hero! Now I am disposed to be generous for once,
+though understand that is not my habit, and I will buy him. I will
+pay you--let me see--thirty-five, forty--well, say fifty dollars?
+That will supply you with Maillard's _bonbons_ for almost a year;
+will sweeten your bereavement."
+
+She rose instantly, with a peculiar sparkle leaping up in her
+splendid eyes.
+
+"There is not gold enough in New York to buy him."
+
+"What! I must see this surly brute, that in your estimation is beyond
+all price. Tell me truly, do you cling to him so fondly, because some
+schoolboy sweetheart, some rosy-cheeked lad in V---- gave him to you
+as a love token? Trust me; we lawyers are locked iron safes for all
+such tender secrets, and I will never betray yours."
+
+The rich glow overflowed her cheeks once more.
+
+"I have no sweetheart. I love my Hero, because he is truly noble and
+sagacious; because he loves me, and because he is mine--all mine."
+
+"Truly satisfactory and sufficient reasons. I might ask how he came
+into your possession; but probably you shrink from divulging your
+little secret, and I am unwilling to force your confidence."
+
+She looked curiously into his face, but the handsome mouth and chin
+might have been chiselled in stone for any visible alteration in
+their fixed stern expression, and his piercing black eyes seemed
+diving into hers through microscopic glasses.
+
+"At least, Regina, I venture the hope that he came properly and
+honestly into your heart and hands?"
+
+"I hope so too, because you gave him to me."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes, sir. You know perfectly well that you sent him to me."
+
+"I sent you a dog? When? Is he black, brown, striped, or spotted?"
+
+"Snow-white, and you know as well as I do that you asked Mr. Lindsay
+to bring him to me soon after you left me at V----."
+
+"Indeed! Was I guilty of so foolish a thing? Did you thank me for the
+present?"
+
+"I asked dear Mr. Hargrove to tell you when he wrote that I was
+exceedingly grateful for your kindness."
+
+"Certainly it appears so. All these years the dog was not worth even
+a simple note of thanks; now all the banks in Gotham cannot buy him."
+
+The chill irony of his tone painfully embarrassed her.
+
+"You positively refuse to sell him to me?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Because you love him?"
+
+"Because I love him more than I can ever make you comprehend."
+
+"You regard me as a dullard in comprehending canine qualities?"
+
+"I did not say so."
+
+"Do you really find yourself possessed of any sentiment of gratitude
+toward me? If so, will you do me a favour?"
+
+"Certainly, if I can."
+
+"Thank you. I shall always feel exceedingly obliged. Pray do not look
+so uneasy, and grow so white; it is a small matter. I gave you the
+dog years ago, little dreaming that I was thereby providing future
+discord for my own hearthstone. With a degree of flattering delicacy,
+which I assure you I appreciate, you decline to sell what was a
+friendly gift; and now I simply appeal to your generosity, and ask
+you please to give him back to me."
+
+She recoiled a step, and her fingers clutched each other.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Palma! Don't ask me. I cannot give up my Hero. I would give
+you anything, everything else that I own."
+
+"Rash little girl! What else have you to give? Yourself?"
+
+He was smiling now, and the unbending of his lips, and glitter of his
+remarkably fine teeth, gave a strange charm to his countenance,
+generally so grave.
+
+"You would give yourself away, sooner than that unlucky dog?"
+
+"I belong to my mother. But he belongs to me, and I never, never will
+part with him!"
+
+"_Jacta est alea!_" muttered the lawyer, still smiling.
+
+"Mr. Palma, I hope you will excuse me. It may seem very selfish and
+obstinate in me, and perhaps it really is so, but I can't help it. I
+am so lonely now, and Hero is all that I have left to comfort me.
+Still I know as well as you or any one else, that it would be very
+wrong and unkind to force him into a house where dogs are
+particularly disliked; and therefore we will annoy no one here,--we
+will go away."
+
+"Will you? Where?"
+
+He rose, and they stood side by side.
+
+Her face wore its old childish look of patient pain, reminding him of
+the time when she stood with the cluster of lilies drooping against
+her heart. He saw that tears had gathered in her eyes, tendering them
+larger, more wistful.
+
+"I do not know yet. Anywhere that you think best, until we can write
+and get mother's permission for me to go to her. Will you not please
+use your influence with her?"
+
+"To send you from the shelter of my roof? That would be eminently
+courteous and hospitable on my part. Besides your mother does not
+want you."
+
+Observing how sharply the words wounded her, he added:
+
+"I mean, that at present she prefers to keep you here, because it is
+best for your own interests; and in all that she does, I believe your
+future welfare is her chief aim. You understand me, do you not?"
+
+"I do not understand why or how it can be best for a poor girl to be
+separated from her mother, and thrown about the world, burdening
+strangers. Still, whatever my mother does must be right."
+
+"Do you think you burden me?"
+
+"I believe, sir, that you are willing for mother's sake to do all you
+can for me, and I thank you very much; but I must not bring trouble
+or annoyance into your family. Can't you place me at school? Mrs.
+Lindsay has a dear friend--the widow of a minister--living in New
+York, and perhaps she would take me to board in her house? I have a
+letter to her. Do help me to go away from here."
+
+He turned quickly, muttering something that sounded very like a
+half-smothered oath, and took her little trembling hand, folding it
+gently between his soft warm palms.
+
+"Little girl, be patient; and in time all things will be conquered.
+As long as I have a home, I intend to keep you, or until your mother
+sends for you. She trusts me fully, and you must try to do so, even
+though sometimes I may appear harsh,--possibly unjust. Of course Hero
+cannot remain here at present, but I will take him down to my office,
+and have him carefully attended to; and as often as you like you
+shall come and see him, and take him to ramble with you through the
+parks. As soon as I can arrange matters, you shall have him with you
+again."
+
+"Please, Mr. Palma! send me to a boarding school; or take me back to
+the convent."
+
+"Never!"
+
+He spoke sternly, and his face suddenly hardened, while his fingers
+tightened over hers like a glove of steel.
+
+"I shall never be contented here."
+
+"That remains to be seen."
+
+"Mrs. Palma does not wish me to reside here."
+
+"It is my house, and in future you will find no cause to doubt your
+welcome."
+
+She knew that she might as efficaciously appeal to an iron column,
+and her features settled into an expression that could never have
+been called resignation,--that plainly meant hopeless endurance. She
+attempted twice to withdraw her hand, but his clasp tightened.
+Bending his haughty head, he asked:
+
+"Will you be reasonable?"
+
+A heavy sigh broke over her compressed mouth, and she answered in a
+low, but almost defiant tone:
+
+"It seems I cannot help myself."
+
+"Then yield gracefully to the inevitable, and you will learn that
+when struggles end, peace quickly follows."
+
+She chose neither to argue, nor acquiesce, and slowly shook her head.
+
+"Regina."
+
+She merely lifted her eyes.
+
+"I want you to be happy in my house."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+"Don't speak in that sarcastic manner. It does not sound respectable
+to one's guardian."
+
+She was growing paler, and all her old aversion to him was legible in
+her countenance.
+
+"Let us be friends. Try to be a patient, cheerful girl."
+
+"Patient,--I will try. Cheerful,--no, no, not here! How can I be
+happy in this house? Am I a brute, or a stone? Oh! I wish I could
+have died with my dear, dear Mr. Hargrove, that calm night when he
+went to rest for ever while I sang!"
+
+One by one the tears stole over her long lashes, and rolled swiftly
+down her cheeks.
+
+"Will you tell me the circumstances of his death?"
+
+"Please do not ask me now. It would bring back all the sad things
+that began when Mr. Lindsay left me. Everything was so bright until
+then,--until he went away. Since then nothing but trouble, trouble."
+
+A frown clouded the lawyer's brow; then with a half smile he asked:
+
+"Of the two ministers, who did you love best? Mr. Hargrove, or the
+young missionary?"
+
+"I do not know, both were so noble, good, and kind; and both are so
+very dear to me. Mr. Palma, please let go my hand; you hurt me."
+
+"Pardon me! I forgot I held it."
+
+He opened his hands, and, looking down at the almost childish
+fingers, saw that his seal ring had pressed heavily upon, and
+reddened the soft palm.
+
+"I did not intend to bruise you so painfully, but in some respects
+you are such a tender little thing, and I am only a harsh, selfish
+strong man, and hurt you without knowing it. One word more, before I
+send you off to sleep. Olga has the most kindly ways, and really the
+most affectionate heart under this roof of mine, and she will do all
+she can for your comfort and happiness. Be respectful to Mrs. Palma,
+and she shall meet you half way. This is as you say the most
+attractive room in the house, this is exclusively and especially
+mine; but at all times, whether I am absent, or present, you must
+consider yourself thoroughly welcome, and recollect, all it contains
+in the book line is at your service. To-morrow I will talk with you
+about your studies, and examine you in some of your text-books. _A
+propos!_ I take my breakfast alone, before the other members of the
+family are up, and unless you choose to rise early and join me at the
+seven o'clock table, you need not be surprised if you do not see me
+until dinner, which is usually at half-past six. If you require
+anything that has not been supplied in your room, do not hesitate to
+ring and order it. Try to feel at home."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+She moved a few steps, and he added:
+
+"Do not imagine that Hero is suffering all the torments painted in
+Dante's 'Inferno'; but go to sleep like a good child, and accept my
+assurance that he is resting quite comfortably. When I came home, I
+took a light, went out and examined his kennel; found him liberally
+provided with food, water, bed, every accommodation that even your
+dog, which all New York can't buy, could possibly wish. Good-night,
+little one. Don't dream that I am Blue Beard or Polyphemus."
+
+"Good-night, Mr. Palma."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+"Mrs. Orme, I am afraid you will overtax your strength. You seem to
+forget the doctor's caution."
+
+"No, I am not in the least fatigued, and this soft fresh air and
+sunshine will benefit me more than all the medicine in your ugly
+vials. Mrs. Waul, recollect that I have been shut up for two months
+in a close room, and this change is really delicious."
+
+"You have no idea how pale you look."
+
+"Do I? No wonder, bleached as I have been in a dark house. I daresay
+you are tired, and I insist that you sit yonder under the trees, and
+rest yourself while I stroll a little farther. No, keep the shawl,
+throw it around your own shoulders, which seem afflicted with a
+chronic chill. Here is a New York paper; feast on American news till
+I come back."
+
+Upon a seat in the garden of the Tuileries Mrs. Orme placed her
+grey-haired Duenna attendant, and gathering her black-lace drapery
+about her turned away into one of the broad walks that divided the
+flower-bordered lawns.
+
+Thin, almost emaciated, she appeared far taller than when last she
+swept across the stage, and having thrown back her veil, a startling
+and painful alteration was visible in the face that had so completely
+captivated fastidious Paris.
+
+Pallid as Mors, the cheeks had lost their symmetrical oval, were
+hollow, and under the sunken eyes clung dusky circles that made them
+appear unnaturally large, and almost Dantesque in their mournful
+gleaming. Even the lips seemed shrunken, changed in their classic
+contour; and the ungloved hand that clasped the folds of lace across
+her bosom was wasted, wan, diaphanous.
+
+That brilliant Parisian career, which had opened so auspiciously,
+closed summarily during the second week of her engagement in darkness
+that threatened to prove the unlifting shadow of death. The severe
+tax upon her emotional nature, the continued intense strain on her
+nerves, as night after night she played to crowded houses--shunning
+as if it contained a basilisk, the sight of that memorable box--where
+she felt, rather than saw, that a pair of violet eyes steadily
+watched her, all this had conquered even her powerful will, her stern
+resolute purpose, and one fatal evening the long-tried woman was
+irretrievably vanquished.
+
+The _role_ was "Queen Katherine," and the first premonitory faintness
+rendered her voice uneven, as, kneeling before King Henry, the
+unhappy wife uttered her appeal:
+
+                             ..."Alas, sir,
+         In what have I offended you?  What cause
+         Hath my behaviour given to your displeasure,
+         That thus you should proceed to put me off,
+         And take your good grace from me? Heaven witness,
+         I have been to you a true and humble wife."...
+
+As the play proceeded, she was warned by increasing giddiness, and a
+tremulousness that defied her efforts to control it; and she rushed
+on toward the close, fighting desperately with physical prostration.
+
+Upon the last speech of the dying and disowned wife she had safely
+entered, and a few more minutes would end her own fierce struggle
+with numbing faintness, and bring her succour in rest. But swiftly
+the blazing footlights began to dance like witches of Walpurgis night
+on Brocken heights; now they flickered, suddenly grew blue, then
+black, an icy darkness as from some ghoul-haunted crypt seized her,
+and while she threw out her hands with a strange groping motion, like
+a bird beating the air with dying wings, her own voice sounded far
+off, a mere fading echo:
+
+"Farewell--farewell. Nay, Patience----"
+
+She could only hear a low hum, as of myriads of buzzing bees; she
+realized that she must speak louder, and thus blind, shivering,
+reeling, she made her last brave rally:
+
+                              ..."Strew me o'er
+          With maiden flowers, that all the world may know
+          I was a chaste wife to my grave; embalm
+          Then lay me forth;--although unqueened,--yet--
+          Yet--like--like----"
+
+The trembling shadowy voice ceased; the lips moved to utter the few
+remaining words, but no sound came. The wide eyes stared blankly at
+the vast audience, where people held their breath, watching the
+ghastly livid pallor that actually settled upon the face of the dying
+Queen, and in another instant the proud lovely head drooped like a
+broken lily, and she fell forward senseless.
+
+As the curtain was rung hastily down, Mr. Laurance leaned from his
+box, and hurled upon the stage a large crown of white roses, which
+struck the shoulder of the prostrate figure, and shattering,
+scattered their snowy petals over the marble face and golden hair.
+
+The enthusiastic acclaim of hundreds of voices announced the triumph
+of the magnificent acting; but after repeated calls and prolonged
+applause, during which she lay unconscious, the audience was briefly
+informed that Madame Orme was too seriously indisposed to appear
+again, and receive the tribute she had earned at such fearful cost.
+
+Recovering slowly from that long swoon, she was carefully wrapped up,
+and led away, supported by the arms of Mr. Waul and his wife. As they
+lifted her into the carriage at the rear entrance of the theatre, she
+sank heavily back upon the cushions, failing to observe a manly form
+leaning against the neighbouring lamp-post, or to recognize the
+handsome face where the gas shone full lighting up the anxious blue
+eyes that followed her.
+
+For several days she was too languid to move from her couch, where
+she persisted in reclining, supported by  pillows; still struggling
+against the prostration that hourly increased, and at last the
+disease asserted itself fever, ensued, bringing unconsciousness and
+delirium.
+
+Not the scorching violent type that rapidly consumes the vital
+forces, but a low tenacious fever that baffled all opposition, and
+steadily gained ground, creeping upon the nerve centre, and sapping
+the foundations of life.
+
+For many weeks there seemed no hope of rescue, and two physicians,
+distinguished by skill and success in their profession, finally
+admitted that they were powerless to cope with this typhoid serpent,
+whose tightening folds were gradually strangling her.
+
+At length most unexpectedly, when science laid down its weapons to
+watch the close of the struggle, and nature the Divine Doctor quietly
+took up the gage of battle, the tide of conflict turned. Slowly the
+numbed brain began to exert its force, the fluttering thready pulse
+grew calmer, and one day the dreamer awoke to the bitter
+consciousness of a renewal of all the galling burden of woes which
+the tireless law of compensation had for those long weeks mercifully
+loosed and lifted.
+
+Although guarded with tender care by the faithful pair, who had
+followed her across the Atlantic, she convalesced almost
+imperceptibly, and out of her busy life two months fruitful alone in
+bodily pain glided away to the silent grey of the past.
+
+Dimly conscious that days and weeks were creeping by unimproved, she
+retained in subsequent years only a dreamy reminiscence of the period
+dating from the moment when she essayed to utter the last words of
+Queen Katherine, words which ran zigzag, hither and thither like an
+electric thread through the leaden cloud of her delirium, to the
+hour, when with returning strength, keen goading thrusts from the
+unsheathed dagger of memory, told her that the Sleeping Furies had
+once more been aroused on the threshold of the temple of her life.
+
+Noticing some rare hothouse flowers in a vase upon the table near her
+bed, Mrs. Waul hastened to explain to the invalid that every other
+day during her illness, bouquets had been brought to their hotel by
+the servant of some American gentleman, who was anxious to receive
+constant tidings of Mrs. Orme's condition, adding that the physicians
+had forbidden her to keep the flowers in the sick-room, until all
+danger seemed passed. No card had been attached, no name given, and
+by the sufferer none was needed. Gazing at the superb heart's-ease,
+whose white velvet petals were enamelled with scarlet, purple, and
+gold, the mockery stung her keenly, and with a groan she turned away,
+hiding her face on the pillow. Hearts-ease from the man who had
+bruised, trampled, broken her heart? She instructed Mrs. Waul to
+decline receiving the bouquet when next the messenger came, and to
+request him to assure his master that Madame Orme was fully conscious
+once more and wished the floral tribute discontinued. During the
+tedious days of convalescence she contracted a cold that attacked her
+lungs, and foreboded congestion; and though yielding to medical
+treatment, it left her as _souvenir_, a. troublesome cough.
+
+Her physician informed her that her whole nervous system had received
+a shock so severe that only perfect and prolonged rest of mind and
+freedom from all excitement could restore its healthful tone.
+Interdicting sternly the thought of dramatic labour for at least a
+year, they urged her to seek a quiet retreat in Italy, or Southern
+France, as her lungs had already become somewhat involved.
+
+More than once she had been taken in a carnage through the Bois de
+Boulogne, but to-day for the first time since her recovery she
+ventured on foot, in quest of renewed vigour from outdoor air and
+exercise.
+
+Wrapped in a mental cloud of painful speculation concerning her
+future career, a cloud unblessed as yet by silver lining, and
+unfringed with gold, she wandered aimlessly along the walk, taking no
+notice of passers-by until she approached the water, where swans were
+performing their daily regatta evolutions for the amusement of those
+who generally came provided with crumbs or grain wherewith to feed
+them.
+
+The sound of a sob attracted Mrs. Orme's attention, and she paused to
+witness a scene that quickly aroused her sympathy.
+
+A child's carriage had been pushed close to the margin of the basin,
+to enable the occupant to feast the swans with morsels of cake, and
+in leaning over to scatter the food a little hat composed of lace,
+silk, and flowers, had fallen into the water. Near the carriage stood
+a boy apparently about ten years old, who with a small walking-stick
+was maliciously pushing the dainty millinery bubble as far beyond
+reach as possible.
+
+In the carriage, and partly covered by a costly and brilliant afghan,
+reclined a forlorn and truly pitiable creature, who seemed to have
+sunk down helplessly on the cushions. Although her age was seven
+years, the girl's face really appeared much older, and in its
+shrunken, sallow, pinched aspect indicated lifelong suffering.
+
+The short thin dark hair was dry and harsh, lacking the silken gloss
+that belongs to childhood, and the complexion a sickly yellowish
+pallor. Her brilliant eyes were black, large and prominent, and
+across her upper lip ran a diagonal scar, occasionally seen in those
+so afflicted as to require the merciful knife of a skilful surgeon to
+aid in shaping the mouth.
+
+The unfortunate victim of physical deformity, increased by a fall
+which prevented the possibility of her ever being able to walk,
+nature had with unusual malignity stamped her with a feebleness of
+intellect that at times bordered almost on imbecility.
+
+Temporarily deserted by her nurse, the poor little creature was
+crying bitterly over the fate of her hat. Walking up behind the boy,
+who was too much engrossed by his mischievous sport to observe her
+approach, Mrs. Orme seized his arms.
+
+"You wicked boy! How can you be so cruel as to torment that afflicted
+child?"
+
+Taking his pretty mother-of-pearl-headed cane, she tried to touch the
+hat, but it was just beyond her reach, and, resolved to rescue it,
+she fastened the cane to the handle of her parasol, using her
+handkerchief to bind them together. Thus elongated it sufficed to
+draw the hat to the margin, and, raising it, she shook out the water,
+and hung the dripping bit of finery upon one of the handles of the
+carriage.
+
+"Give me my walking-stick," said the boy, whose pronunciation
+proclaimed him thoroughly English.
+
+"No, sir. I intend to punish you for your cruelty. You tyrannized
+over that helpless little girl, because you were the strongest. I
+think I have more strength than you, and you shall feel how pleasant
+such conduct is."
+
+Untying the cane, she raised it in the air, and threw it with all the
+force she could command into the middle of the water.
+
+"Now if you want it, wade in with your best boots and Sunday clothes
+and get it; and go home and tell your parents, if you have any, that
+you are a bad, rude, ugly-behaved boy. When you need your toy, think
+of that hat."
+
+The cane had sunk instantly, and with a sullen scowl of rage at her,
+and a grimace at the occupant of the carriage, the boy walked sulkily
+away.
+
+With her handkerchief, Mrs. Orme wiped off the water that adhered to
+the hat, squeezed and shook out the ribbons and laid it upon the
+afghan, in reach of the fingers that more nearly resembled claws than
+the digits of a human hand.
+
+"Don't cry, dear. It will soon dry now."
+
+The solemn black eyes, still glistening with tears, stared up at her,
+and impelled by that peculiar pitying tenderness that hovers in the
+hearts of all mothers, Mrs. Orme bent down and gently smoothed the
+elfish locks around the sallow forehead.
+
+"Has your nurse run away and left you? Don't be afraid; nothing shall
+trouble you. I will stay with you till she comes back."
+
+"Hellene is gone to buy candy," said the dwarf, timidly,
+
+"My dear, what is your name?"
+
+"Maud Ames Laurance."
+
+The stranger had compassionately taken one of the thin hands in her
+own, but throwing it from her as if it had been a serpent, she
+recoiled, involuntarily pushing the carriage from its resting-place.
+It rolled a few steps and stopped, while she stood shuddering.
+
+Her first impulse was to hurry away; the second was more feminine in
+its promptings, and conquered. Once more she approached the
+unfortunate child, and scrutinized her, with eyes that gradually
+kindled into a blaze.
+
+She bore in no respect the faintest resemblance to her father, but
+Mrs. Orme fancied she traced the image of the large-featured
+bold-eyed mother; and as she contrasted this feeble deformed creature
+with the remembered face and figure of her own beautiful darling
+girl, a bitter but intensely triumphant laugh broke suddenly on the
+air.
+
+"Maud Ames Laurance! A proud name truly--and royally you grace it!
+Ah, Nemesis! Christianity would hunt you down as a pagan myth, but
+all honour, glory to you, incorruptible pitiless Avenger! Accept my
+homage, repay my wrongs, and then demand in sacrificial tribute what
+you will, though it were my heart's best blood! Aha! will she lend
+lustre to the family name? Shall the splendour of her high-born
+aristocratic beauty gild the crime that gave her being? Yes verily,
+it seems that after all, even for me the Mills of the Gods do not
+forget to grind. '_The time of their visitation will come, and that
+inevitably; for, it is always true, that if the fathers have eaten
+sour grapes, the children's teeth are set on edge_' Command my
+lifelong allegiance, oh Queenly Nemesis!"
+
+Sometimes grovelling in the dust of gross selfishness which clings
+more or less to all of us, we bow worshipping before the gods, into
+which we elevate the meanest qualities of our own nature,
+apotheosizing sinful lusts of hate and vengeance; and while we vow
+reckless tribute and measureless libations, lo, we are unexpectedly
+called upon for speedy payment!
+
+Looking down with exultant delight on the ugly deformity who stared
+back wonderingly at her, Mrs. Orme's wan thin face grew radiant, the
+brown eyes dilated, glowed, and the blood leaped to her hollow
+cheeks, burning in two scarlet spots; but the invocation seemed
+literally answered, when she was suddenly conscious of a strange
+bubbling sensation, and over her parted, laughing lips crept the
+crimson that fed her heart.
+
+At this moment the child's nurse, a pretty bright-eyed young
+coquette, hurried toward the group, accompanied by a companion of the
+same class; and as she approached and seized the handles of the
+carriage, Mrs. Orme turned away. The hemorrhage was not copious, but
+steady, and lowering her thick veil, she endeavoured to stanch its
+flow. Her handkerchief, already damp from contact with the wet hat,
+soon became saturated, and she was obliged to substitute the end of
+her lace mantle.
+
+Fortunately Mrs. Waul, impatiently watching for her return, caught a
+glimpse of the yet distant figure and hastened to meet her.
+
+"Are you crying? What is the matter?"
+
+"My lungs are bleeding; lend me a handkerchief. Try and find a
+carriage."
+
+"What caused it? Something must have happened?"
+
+"Don't worry me now. Only help me to get home."
+
+Screened both by veils and parasols, the two had almost gained the
+street, when they met a trio of gentlemen.
+
+One asked in unmistakable New-England English:
+
+"Laurance, where is your father?"
+
+And a voice which had once epitomized for Minnie Merle the "music of
+the spheres," answered in mellow tones:
+
+"He has been in London, but goes very soon to Italy."
+
+Mrs. Waul felt a trembling hand laid on her arm, and turned anxiously
+to her companion.
+
+"Give me time. My strength fails me. I can't walk so fast."
+
+The excitement of an hour had overthrown the slow work of weeks; and
+after many days the physicians peremptorily ordered her away from
+Paris.
+
+"Home! Let us go home. You have not been yourself since we reached
+this city. In New York you will get strong."
+
+As Mrs. Waul spoke she stroked one of the invalid's thin hands, that
+hung listlessly over the side of the sofa.
+
+"I think Phoebe is right. America would cure you," added the
+grey-haired man, whose heart was yearning for his native land.
+
+Alluring, seductive as the Siren song that floated across Sicilian
+waves, was the memory of her fair young daughter to this suffering
+weary mother; and at the thought of clasping Regina in her arms, of
+feeling her tender velvet lips once more on her cheek, the lonely
+heart of the desolate woman throbbed fiercely.
+
+Her sands of life seamed ebbing fast,--the end might not be distant;
+who could tell? Why not go back--give up the chase for the empty
+shadow of a name--gather her baby to her bosom, and die, finding
+under an humble cenotaph the peace that this world denied her?
+
+An intolerable yearning for the sight of her child, for the sound of
+her voice, broke over her like some irresistible wave bearing away
+the vehement protests of policy, the sterner barriers of vindictive
+purpose, and with a long shivering moan she clasped her hands and
+shut her eyes.
+
+Impatiently the old man and his wife watched her countenance,
+confident that the decision would not long be delayed, trusting that
+the result would be a compliance with their wishes. But hope began to
+fade as they noticed the gradual compression of her pale sorrowful
+mouth,--the slow gathering of the brows that met in a heavy
+frown,--the tightening of the clenched fingers,--the greyish shadow
+that settled down on the face where renunciation was very legibly
+written. The temptation had been fierce, but she put it aside, after
+bitter struggles to hush the wail of maternal longing; and before she
+spoke the two friends looked at each other and sighed.
+
+Lifting her marble eyelids that seemed so heavy with their sweeping
+brown lashes, the invalid raised herself on one elbow, and said
+mournfully:
+
+"Not yet,--oh! not yet. I cannot give up the fight without one more
+struggle, even if it should prove that of death to me. I must not
+return to America until I win what I came for; I will not. But, my
+friends,--for such I consider you, such you have proved,--I will not
+selfishly prolong your exile; will not exact the sacrifice of your
+dearest wishes. Go back home at once, and enjoy in peace the old age
+that deserves to be so happy. I am going to Italy, hoping to regain
+my health,--possibly to die; but still I shall go. How long I may be
+detained, I know not, but meanwhile you shall return to those you
+love."
+
+"Idle words--all idle words; not worth the waste of your breath.
+Phoebe and I are homesick,--we do not deny it, and we are sorry you
+can't see things as we do; but since that night when I stumbled over
+you in the snow, and carried you to my own hearth, you have been to
+Phoebe and me--as the child we lost; and unless you are ready to go
+home with us, we stay here. You know we never will forsake you,
+especially now. Hush,--don't speak, Phoebe. Come away, wife; she is
+crying like a tired child. I never saw her give way like that before.
+It will do her good. Every tear softens the spasms that wring her
+poor heart when she thinks of her baby. In crossing the ocean she
+said that every rolling wave seemed to her a grave, in which she was
+burying her blue-eyed baby. Let her alone to-day; keep out of her
+sight. To-morrow we will arrange to quit Paris, I hope for ever."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+"Mrs. Palma, if you are at leisure, I should like to see you for a
+moment."
+
+"Certainly, Miss Orme; come in."
+
+Mrs. Palma looked up for an instant only from the blue sash which she
+was embroidering with silver.
+
+"Is your discourse confidential? If so, I shall certainly retire, and
+leave you and mamma to tender communings, and an interchange of
+souls," said Olga, who reclined on a lounge in her mother's room, and
+slowly turned the leaves of a volume of Balzac.
+
+"Not at all confidential. Mrs. Palma, I have reason to fear that my
+practising has long annoyed you."
+
+"Upon what do you base your supposition? During the year I have not
+found fault with you, have I?"
+
+"Hattie told me that you often complained that you could no longer
+enjoy your morning nap, because the sound of the piano disturbed you;
+and I wish to change the hour. The reason why I selected that time
+was because I always rose early and practised before breakfast until
+I came here; and because later in the day company in the parlours or
+reception-room keep me out. I am anxious to do whatever is most
+agreeable to you."
+
+"It is very true that when I am out frequently until two and three
+o'clock, with Olga, it is not particularly refreshing to be aroused
+at seven by scales and exercises. People who live as continually in
+society as we do must have a little rest.
+
+"I have been trying to arrange, so as to avoid annoying you, but do
+not well see how to correct the trouble. From nine until one Mr. Van
+Kleik comes to attend to my Latin, German, French, and mathematics,
+and from four until five Professor Hurtzsel gives me my lessons. In
+the interval persons are frequently calling, and of course interrupt
+me. If you will only tell me what you wish, I will gladly consult
+your convenience.
+
+"Indeed, Miss Orme, I do not know when the tiresome practising will
+be convenient, though of course it is a necessary evil and must be
+borne. The fact is, that magnificent grand piano downstairs ought
+never to be thrummed upon for daily practising. I told Erle soon
+after you came that it was a shame to have it so abused, but men have
+no understanding of the fitness of things."
+
+"Pray, mamma, do not forget your Bible injunction: 'Render unto Caesar
+the things that are Caesar's,' and to music, the matters that belong
+to its own divine art. Until Regina came among us that melodious
+siren in the front parlour had a chronic lock-jaw from want of use.
+Some of the white keys stuck fast when they were touched, and the
+black ones were so stiff they almost required a hammer to make them
+sound. Do let her limber them at her own 'sweet will.' Who wants a
+piano locked up, like that hideous old china and heavy glass that
+your grandfather's fifth cousin brought over from Amsterdam?"
+
+"At what time of day did you practise when you were a young girl?"
+asked Regina, appealing to the figure now coiled up on the lounge.
+
+"At none, thank fortune! Regard me as a genuine _rara avis_, a
+fashionable young lady with no more aptitude for the 'concord of
+sweet sounds,' than for the abstractions of Hegel, or Differential
+Calculus. It is traditional, that while in my nurse's arms, I
+performed miracles of melody such as Auld Lang Syne, with one little
+finger; but such undue precocity, madly stimulated by ambitious mamma
+and nurse Nell, resulted fatally in the total destruction of my
+marvellous talent, which died of cerebro-musical excitement when
+confronted with the gamut. Except as the language in which Strauss
+appeals to my waltzing genius, I have no more use for it than for
+ancient Aztec. Thank Heaven! this is a progressive age, and girls are
+no longer tormented as formerly by piano fiends, who once persisted
+in pounding and squeezing music into their poor struggling nauseated
+souls, as relentlessly as girls' feet are still squeezed in China. My
+talent is not for the musical tones of Pythagoras."
+
+"I should be truly glad to learn in what direction it tends." said
+her mother, rather severely.
+
+Up rose the head with its tawny crown, and there was evident emphasis
+in the ringing voice and in the fiery glance that darted from her
+laughing hazel eyes.
+
+"Cruel mamma! Because Euterpe did not preside when I was lucklessly
+ushered into this dancing gilt bubble that we call the world, were
+all good gifts denied me? The fairies ordained that I should paint,
+should soar like Apelles, Angelo, and Da Vinci into the empyrean of
+pure classic art, but no sooner did I dabble in pigment, and plume my
+slender artistic pin-feathers, than the granite hands of Palma pride
+seized the ambitious ephemeron, cut off the sprouting wings, and bade
+me paint only my lips and cheeks, if dabble in paint I must. I am
+confident the soul of Zeuxis sleeps in mine, but before the _ukase_
+of the Palmas a stouter than Zeuxis would quail, lie low,--be silent.
+Hence I am a young miss who has no talent, except for appreciating
+Balzac, caramels, Diavolini, _vanille souffle_, lobster-croquettes,
+and Strauss' waltzes; though envious people do say that I have a
+decided genius for 'malapropos historic quotations,' which you know
+are regarded as unpardonable offences by those who cannot comprehend
+them. Come here, St. John, and let me rub your fur the wrong way. The
+world will do it roughly if you survive tender kittenhood, and it is
+merciful to initiate you early, and by degrees."
+
+She took up a young black cat that was curled comfortably on the
+skirt of her dress, and stroking him softly, resumed her book.
+
+Mrs. Palma compressed her lips, knitted her heavy brows, and turned
+the silk sash to the light to observe the effect of the silver
+snowdrops she was embroidering.
+
+During her residence under the same roof, Regina had become
+accustomed to these verbal tournaments between mother and daughter,
+and having been kept in ignorance of the ground of Olga's grievance,
+she could not understand allusions that were frequently made in her
+presence, and which never failed to irritate Mrs. Palma.
+
+Desirous of diverting the conversation from a topic that threatened
+renewed tilts, she said timidly:
+
+"You do not in the least assist me, with reference to my music. Would
+you object to having a hired piano in the house? I could have it
+placed in my room, and then my practising in the middle of the day,
+or in the evening would never be interfered with, and you could have
+your morning nap."
+
+"Indeed, Miss Orme, a very good suggestion; a capital idea. I will
+speak to Erle about it to-night."
+
+Regina absolutely coloured at the shadowy compliment.
+
+"Will it be necessary to trouble Mr. Palma with the matter? He is
+always so busy, and besides you know much better than a gentleman
+what----"
+
+"I know nothing better than Erle Palma, where it concerns his
+_menage_, or the expenses incident to its control."
+
+"But out of my allowance I will pay the rent, and he need know
+nothing of the matter."
+
+"Of course that quite alters the case; and if you propose to pay the
+rent, there is no reason why he should be consulted."
+
+"Then will you please select a piano, and order it to be sent up
+to-day or to-morrow? An upright could be most conveniently carried
+upstairs."
+
+"Certainly, if you wish it. We shall be on Broadway this afternoon,
+and I will attend to the matter."
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. Palma."
+
+"Regina Orme! what an embryo diplomatist, what an incipient
+Talleyrand, Kaunitz, Bismarck you are! Mamma is as invulnerable to
+all human weaknesses as one of the suits of armour hanging in the
+Tower of London; and during my extended and rather intimate
+acquaintance with her, I have never discovered but one foible
+incident to the flesh, love of her morning nap! You have adroitly
+struck Achilles in the heel. Sound the timbrel and sing like Miriam
+over your victory; for it were better to propitiate one of the house
+of Palma, than to strangle Pharaoh. You should apply for a position
+in some foreign legation, where your talents can be fitly trained for
+the tangles of diplomacy. Now if you were only a man, how admirably
+you would suit the Hon. Erle Palma as Deputy----"
+
+"He prefers to appoint his deputies without suggestion from others,
+and regrets he can find no vacant niche for you," answered Mr. Palma,
+from the threshold of the door where he had been standing for several
+moments, unperceived by all but the hazel eyes of the graceful figure
+on the lounge.
+
+"Ah! you steal upon one as noiselessly, yet as destructive as the
+rats that crept upon the bowstrings at Pelusium! And the music of
+your eavesdropping voice;--
+
+          'Oh it came o'er my ear like the sweet south
+          That breathes upon a bank of violets.'"
+
+She rose, made him a profound salaam, and with the black kitten in
+her arms, quitted the room.
+
+"Will you come, in, Erle? Do you wish to see me?"
+
+Mrs. Palma always looked ill at ease when Olga and her stepbrother
+exchanged words, and Regina had long observed that the entrance of
+the latter was generally the signal of departure for the former.
+
+"I came in search of Regina, but chancing to hear the piano question
+discussed, permit me to say that I prefer to take the matter in my
+own hands. I will provide whatever may be deemed requisite, so that
+this young lady's Rothschild's allowance may continue to flow
+uninterruptedly into the coffers of confectioners and flower-dealers.
+Mrs. Palma, if you can spare the carriage, I should like the use of
+it for an hour or two."
+
+"Oh, certainly! I had thought of driving to Stewart's, but to-morrow
+will suit me quite as well."
+
+"By no means. You will have ample time after my return. Regina, I
+wish to see you."
+
+She followed him into the hall.
+
+"In the box of clothing that arrived several days ago, there is a
+white cashmere suit with blue silk trimmings?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Be so good as to put it on. Then wrap up well, and when ready come
+to the library. Do not keep me waiting. Bring your hair-brush and
+comb."
+
+Her mother had sent from Europe a tasteful wardrobe, which, when
+unpacked, Mrs. Palma pronounced perfect; while Olga asserted that one
+particular sash surpassed anything of the kind she had ever seen, and
+was prevailed upon to accept and wear it.
+
+With many conjectures concerning the import of Mr. Palma's
+supervision of her toilette, Regina obeyed his instructions, and
+fearful of trespassing on his patience, hurried down to the library.
+
+With one arm behind him, and the hand of the other holding a
+half-smoked cigar, he was walking meditatively up and down the
+polished floor, that reflected his tall shadow.
+
+"Where do you suppose you are going?"
+
+"I have no idea."
+
+"Why do you not inquire?"
+
+"Because you will not tell me till you choose; and I know that
+questions always annoy you."
+
+"Come in. You linger at the door as if this were the den of a lion at
+a menagerie, instead of a room to which you have been cordially
+invited several times. I am not voracious, have had my luncheon. You
+are quite ready?"
+
+"Quite ready----"
+
+She was slowly walking down the long room, and suddenly caught sight
+of something that seemed to take away her breath.
+
+The clock on the mantle had been removed to the desk, and in its
+place was a large portrait neither square nor yet exactly kit-cat,
+but in proportion more nearly resembled the latter. In imitation of
+Da Vinci's celebrated picture in the Louvre, the background
+represented a stretch of arid rocky landscape, unrelieved by foliage,
+and against it rose in pose and general outline the counterpart of
+"_La Joconde_."
+
+The dress and drapery were of black velvet, utterly bare of ornament,
+and out of the canvas looked a face of marvellous, yet mysteriously
+mournful beauty. The countenance of a comparatively young woman,
+whose radiant brown eyes had dwelt in some penetrale of woe, until
+their light was softened, saddened; whose regular features were
+statuesque in their solemn repose, and whose gold-tinted hair simply
+parted on her white round brow, fell in glinting waves down upon her
+polished shoulders. The mystical pale face of one who seemed alike
+incapable of hope or of regret, who gazed upon past, present, future,
+as proud, as passionless and calm as Destiny; and whose perfect hands
+were folded in stern fateful rest.
+
+As Regina looked up at it she stopped, then run to the hearth, and
+stood with her eyes riveted to the canvas, her lips parted and
+quivering.
+
+Watching her, Mr. Palma came to her side, and asked:
+
+"Whom can it be?"
+
+Evidently she did not hear him. Her whole heart and soul appeared
+centred in the picture; but as she gazed, her own eloquent face grew
+whiter, she drew her breath quickly, and tears rolled over her
+cheeks, as she lifted her arms toward the painting.
+
+"Mother I my beautiful sad-eyed mother!"
+
+Sobs shook her frame, and she pressed toward the mantelpiece till the
+skirt of her dress swept dangerously close to the fire. Mr. Palma
+drew her back, and said quietly:
+
+"For an uncultivated young rustic, I must say your appreciation of
+fine painting is rather surprising. Few city girls would have paid
+such a tearful tribute of heartfelt admiration to my pretty 'Mona
+Lisa.'"
+
+Without removing her fascinated eyes she asked:
+
+"When did it come?"
+
+"I have had it several days. I presume that you know it is a copy of
+Da Vinci's celebrated picture, upon which he worked four years, and
+which now hangs in the gallery of the Louvre at Paris?"
+
+She merely shook her head.
+
+"In France it is called '_La Joconde_; but I prefer the softer 'Mona
+Lisa' for my treasure."
+
+"Is it not mine? She must have sent it to me?"
+
+"She? Are you dreaming? Mona Lisa has been dead three hundred years!"
+
+"Mr. Palma, it is my mother. No other face ever looked like that, no
+other eyes except those in the _Mater Dolorosa_ resemble these
+beautiful sad brown eyes, that rained their tears upon my head. Do
+you think a child ever mistook another for her own mother? Can the
+face I first learned to know and to love, the lovely--oh! how
+lovely--face that bent over my cradle ever--ever be forgotten? If I
+never saw her again in this world, could I fail to recognise her in
+heaven? My own mother!"
+
+"Obstinate, infatuated little ignoramus! Read--and be convinced."
+
+He opened and held before her a volume of engravings of the pictures
+and statues in the Louvre, and turning to the Leonardo Da Vinci's,
+moved his fingers slowly beneath the title.
+
+Her eyes fell upon "_La Joconde_," then wandered back to the portrait
+over the fireplace; and through her tears broke a radiant smile.
+
+"Yes, sir, I perfectly understand. Your engraving is of Da Vinci's
+painting, and of course I suppose it is very fine, though the face is
+not pretty; but up yonder! that is mother! My mother who kissed and
+cried over me, and hugged me so close to her heart. Oh! Your Da Vinci
+never even dreamed of, much less painted, anything half so heavenly
+as my darling mother's face!"
+
+Closing the book, Mr. Palma threw it on the table, and as he glanced
+from the lovely countenance of the girl to that of the woman on the
+wall, something like a sigh heaved his broad chest.
+
+Did the wan meek shadow of his own patient much-suffering young
+mother lift her melancholy image in the long silent adytum of his
+proud heart, over whose chill chambers ambition and selfishness had
+passed with ossifying touch?
+
+Years ago, at the initial steps of his professional career, he had
+set before him one glittering goal, the Chief-Justiceship. In
+preparing for the long race that stretched ahead of him, seeing only
+the Judicial crown that sparkled afar off, he had laid aside his
+tender sensibilities, his warmest impulses of affection and
+generosity as so many subtle fetters, so much unprofitable luggage,
+so much useless weight to retard and burden him.
+
+While his physical and mental development had brilliantly attested
+the efficacy of the stern regiment he systematically imposed,--his
+emotional nature long discarded, had grown so feeble and inane from
+desuetude, that its very existence had become problematical. But
+to-day, deeply impressed by the intensity of love which Regina could
+not restrain at the sight of the portrait, strange softening memories
+began to stir in their frozen sleep, and to hint of earlier, warmer,
+boyish times, even as magnolia, mahogany, and cocoa trunks stranded
+along icy European shores, babble of the far sweet sunny south, and
+the torrid seas whose restless blue pulses drove them to hyperborean
+realms.
+
+"Is it indeed so striking and unmistakable a likeness? After all, the
+instincts of nature are stronger than the canons of art. Your mother
+is an exceedingly beautiful woman; but, little girl, let me tell you,
+that you are not in the least like her."
+
+"I know that sad fact, and it often grieves me."
+
+"You must certainly resemble your father, for I never saw mother and
+child so entirely dissimilar."
+
+He saw the glow of embarrassment, of acute pain tinging her throat
+and cheeks, and wondered how much of the past had been committed to
+her keeping; how far she shared her mother's confidence. During the
+year that she had been an inmate of his house she had never referred
+to the mystery of her parentage, and despite his occasional efforts
+to become better acquainted had shrunk from his presence, and
+remained the same shy reserved stranger she appeared the week of her
+arrival.
+
+"Is not the portrait for me? Mother wrote that she intended sending
+me something which she hoped I would value more than all the pretty
+clothes, and it must be this, her own beautiful precious face."
+
+"Yes, it is yours; but I presume you will be satisfied to allow it to
+hang where it is. The light is singularly good."
+
+"No, sir, I want it."
+
+"Well you have it, where you can see it at any time."
+
+"But I wish to keep it, all to myself, in my room, where it will be
+the last thing I see at night, the first in the morning--my sunrise."
+
+"How unpardonably selfish you are. Would you deprive me of the
+pleasure of admiring a fine work of art, merely to shut it in,
+converting yourself into a pagan, and the portrait into an idol?"
+
+"But, Mr. Palma, you never loved any one or anything so very dearly,
+that it seemed holy in your eyes; much too sacred for others to look
+at."
+
+"Certainly not. I am pleased to say that is a mild stage of lunacy,
+with which I have as yet never been threatened. Idolatry is a phase
+of human weakness I have been unable to tolerate."
+
+He saw a faint smile lurking about the perfect curves of her rosy
+mouth, but her eyes remained fixed on the picture.
+
+"I should be glad to know what you find so amusing in my remark."
+
+She shook her head, but the obstinate dimples reappeared.
+
+"What are you smiling at?"
+
+"At the assertion that you cannot tolerate idolatry."
+
+"Well? Of all the men in New York, probably I am the most thoroughly
+an iconoclast."
+
+"Yes, sir, of other people's gods; nevertheless, I think you worship
+ardently."
+
+"Indeed! Have you recently joined the 'Microscopical Society'? I
+solicit the benefit of your discoveries, and shall be duly grateful
+if you will graciously point out the unknown fane wherein I secretly
+worship. Is it Beauty? Genius? Riches?"
+
+"It is not done in secret. All the world knows that Mr. Palma
+imitates the example of Marcus Marcellus, and dedicates his life to
+two divinities."
+
+Standing on either side of the gate, and each pressing a hand upon
+the slab of the mantle, the lawyer looked curiously down at the
+bright young face.
+
+"You are quite fresh in foraging from historic fields,--and since I
+quitted the classic shade of Alma Mater I have had little leisure for
+Roman lore; but college memories suggest that it was to Honour and
+Valour that Marcellus erected the splendid double temple at the
+Capene Gate. I bow to your parallel, and gratefully appreciate your
+ingeniously delicate compliment."
+
+He laughed sarcastically as he interpreted the protest very legible
+in her clear honest eyes, and waited a moment for her to disclaim the
+flattery. But she was silently smiling up at her mother's face.
+
+"Does my very observant ward approve of my homage to the Roman
+deities?"
+
+"Are your favourite divinities those before whom Marcellus bent his
+knee?"
+
+Very steadily her large eyes, blue as the border of a clematis, were
+turned to meet his, and involuntarily he took his under lip between
+his glittering teeth.
+
+"My testimony would not be admissible before the bar, at which I have
+been arraigned. Since you have explored the Holy of Holies, be so
+kind as to describe what you find."
+
+"You might consider me presumptuous, possibly impertinent."
+
+"At least I may safely promise not to express any such opinion. What
+is there, think you, that Erle Palma worships?"
+
+"A statue of Ambition that stands in the vestibule of the temple of
+Fame."
+
+"Olga told you that."
+
+"Oh no, sir! Have not I lived here a year?"
+
+His eyes sparkled, and a proud smile curled his lips.
+
+"Do I offer sacrifices?"
+
+"I think you would, if they were required."
+
+"Suppose my stone god demanded my heart?"
+
+"Ah, sir! you know you gave it to him long ago."
+
+He laughed quite genially, and his whole face softened, warmed.
+
+"At least let us hope my ambition is not sordid; is unstained with
+the dross of avarice. It is a stern god, and I shall not deny that
+'Ephraim is joined to his idols! Let him alone.'"
+
+A short silence followed, during which his thoughts wandered far from
+the precincts of that quiet room.
+
+"Mr. Palma, will you please give me my picture?"
+
+"It is yours of course, but conditionally. It must remain where it
+now hangs: first, because I wish it; secondly, because your mother
+prefers (for good reasons) that it should not be known just yet as
+her portrait; and if it should be removed to your bed-chamber, the
+members of the household would probably gossip. Remaining here, it
+will be called an imitation of 'Mona Lisa del Giocondo,' and none
+will ever suspect the truth. Pray don't straiten your lips in that
+grievously defiant fashion, as Perpetua doubtless did when she heard
+the bellowing of beasts or the clash of steel in the amphitheatre.
+Make this room your favourite retreat. Now that it contains your
+painted Penates, convert it into an _atrium_. Come when you may, you
+will never disturb me. In a long letter received this week, your
+mother directs that your portrait shall be painted in a certain
+position, and wishes you to wear the suit you have on. The carriage
+is ready, and I will take you at once to the artist. Put on your
+hat."
+
+During the drive he was abstracted, now and then consulting a paper
+of memoranda, carried in the inside breast-pocket of his coat.
+
+Once introduced into the elegant studio of Mr. Harcourt in Tenth
+Street, Regina found much to interest and charm her, while her
+guardian arranged the preliminaries, and settled the details of the
+picture. Then he removed the hat and cloak, and placed her in the
+comfortable seat already prepared.
+
+The artist went into an adjoining room, and a moment after Hero
+bounded in, expressing by a succession of barks his almost frantic
+delight at the reunion with his mistress. Since her removal to New
+York, she saw him so rarely, that the pleasure was mingled with pain,
+and now with her arms around his neck, and her face hidden in his
+thick white hair, she cried softly, unable to keep back the tears.
+
+"Come, Regina, sit up. Make Hero lie on that pile of cushions, which
+will enable you to rest one hand easily on his head. Crying! Mr.
+Harcourt paints no such weeping demoiselles. Dry your eyes, and take
+down your hair. Your mother wishes it flowing, as when she saw you
+last."
+
+While she unbraided the thick coil, and shook out the shining folds,
+trying to adjust them smoothly, the lawyer stood patiently beside
+her; and once his soft white hand rested on her forehead, as he
+stroked back a rippling tress that encroached upon her temple.
+
+The dress of pearly cashmere was cut in the style usually denominated
+"infant waist," and fully exposed the dazzling whiteness and dimpling
+roundness of the neck and shoulders; while the short puffed sleeves
+showed admirably the fine modelling of the arms.
+
+Walking away to the easel, Mr. Palma looked back, and critically
+contemplated the effect; and he acknowledged it was the fairest
+picture his fastidious eyes had ever rested on.
+
+He put one hand inside his vest, and stood regarding the girl, with
+mingled feelings of pride in "Erle Palma's ward," and an increasing
+interest in the reticent calm-eyed child, which had first dawned when
+he watched her asleep in the railroad car. It was no easy matter to
+stir his leaden sympathies, save in some selfish ramification, but
+once warmed and set in motion they proved a current difficult to
+stem.
+
+In a low voice the artist said, as he selected some brushes from a
+neighbouring stand:
+
+"How old is she? Her features have a singularly infantile delicacy
+and softness, but the eyes and lips seem to belong to a much older
+person."
+
+"Regina, have you not entered upon your sixteenth year?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I believe, Mr. Palma, it is the loveliest living face I ever saw. It
+is so peculiar, so intensely--what shall I say?--prophet-eyed."
+
+"Yes, I believe that is the right word. When she looks steadily at me
+she often reminds me of a Sibyl."
+
+"But is this her usual, every-day expression?"
+
+"Rather sadder than customary, I think."
+
+He went back to the group, and, standing in front of his ward, looked
+gravely down in her upturned face.
+
+"Could you contrive to appear a little less solemn?"
+
+She forced a smile, but he made an impatient gesture.
+
+"Oh, don't! Anything would be better than that dire conflict between
+the expression of your mouth, and that of your eyes. Have you any
+hermetically sealed pleasant thoughts hidden behind that smooth brow,
+that you could be prevailed upon to call up for a few moments, just
+long enough to cast a glimmer of sunshine over your face? I think you
+once indignantly denied ever indulging in the folly of possessing a
+sweetheart, but perhaps you have really entertained more _affaires de
+coeur_ than you choose to confide to such a grim, iron guardian as
+yours? Possibly you may cherish cheerful memories of the kind-hearted
+young missionary, whose chances of hastening to heaven, _per_ Sepoy
+passport, _via_ Delhi route, seem at times to distress you? Does he
+ever write you?"
+
+"His mother has written to me twice since she reached India, and once
+enclosed a note from him; but although she said he had written, and I
+hoped for a letter, none has come."
+
+He noted the quick flutter of her lip, and the shadow that crept into
+her eyes.
+
+"Then he went away with the expectation that you would correspond
+with him?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"He is quite a bold, audacious young fellow, and you are a very
+disrespectful, imprudent, disobedient young ward, to enter into such
+an arrangement without my consent and permission. Suppose I forbid
+all communication?"
+
+"I think, sir, you would scarcely be so unreasonable and unjust; and
+if you were, I should not obey you. I would appeal to my mother. Mr.
+Hargrove, dear good Mr. Hargrove, was my guardian when Mr. Lindsay
+went away, and he did not object to the promise I made concerning a
+correspondence."
+
+The starry sparkle which during the last twelve months he had learned
+meant the signal of mutiny flashed up in her eyes.
+
+"Take care! when iron gloves are recklessly thrown down, serious
+mischief sometimes ensues. My laws are rarely Draconian, until reason
+has been exhausted; but nature endowed me with a miserly share of
+patience, and I do not think it entirely politic in you to challenge
+me. Here is a document that has an intensely Hindustanee appearance,
+and is, as you see, at my mercy. Where it has been since it left
+Calcutta last June, I know not. That Padre Sahib penned it, I indulge
+no doubt. Pray sit still. So the sunshine has come to your
+countenance at last, and all the way from India! Verily, happiness is
+the best cosmetic, and hope the brightest illuminator; even more
+successful than Bengal lights."
+
+He held up a letter post-marked Calcutta, and coldly watched the glow
+that overspread her face, as her gaze eagerly followed the motion of
+his hand.
+
+"I have not touched the seal; but as your guardian, It is proper that
+I should be made acquainted with the contents. When you have devoured
+it, I presume you will yield to the promptings of respect due to my
+position and wishes. When I assume guardianship of any person or
+thing, I invariably exert all the authority, exact all the obedience,
+and claim all the privileges and perquisites to which the
+responsibility entitles me."
+
+He placed the letter on the cushion, where Hero nestled, and turning
+to the artist, added:
+
+"I leave Miss Orme in your care, Mr. Harcourt, and shall send Mr.
+Roscoe to remain during the sitting, and take her home. Paint her
+just as she is now. Good-morning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+Through the creamy lace curtains that draped the open windows, the
+afternoon sun shone into the library, making warm lanes of yellow
+light across the rich mosaic of many coloured woods that formed the
+polished floor. Upon one of the round tables was a silver salver,
+whereon stood a wine-cooler of the same material, representing
+Bacchus crushing ripe clusters into the receptacles, that now
+contained a bottle of Ruedesheim, and a crystal claret jug. In
+tempting proximity rose a Sevres _epergne_ of green and gold, whose
+weight was upborne by a lovely figure, evidently modelled in
+imitation of Titian's Lavinia; and the crowning basket was heaped
+with purple and amber grapes, crimson-cheeked luscious peaches, and
+golden pears sun-flushed into carmine flecks.
+
+Two tall glittering Venice glasses stood upon the salver, casting
+prismatic radiance over the silver, as the sunbeams smote their
+slender fluted sides, and a pair of ruby tinted finger-bowls
+completed the colour chord.
+
+On one side of the table sat Mr. Palma, who had returned an hour
+before from Washington, and was resting comfortably in his favourite
+chair, with his head thrown back, and a cigar between his lips. His
+eyes were turned to the mantlepiece, where since the day the portrait
+was first suspended, ten months ago, Regina had never failed to keep
+a fresh dainty bouquet of fragrant flowers. This afternoon, the
+little vase held only apple-geranium leaves, and a pyramidal cluster
+of tuberoses; and her guardian had observed that when white blossoms
+could be bought, coloured ones were never offered in tribute.
+
+Opposite the lawyer was his cousin _protege_, and occupied in
+peeling a juicy peach, with one of the massive silver fruit-knives.
+
+"I have never doubted the success of the case; it was a foregone
+conclusion when you assumed charge of it. Certainly considering the
+strength of the defence, it is a brilliant triumph for you, and
+compensates for the toil you have spent upon it. I have never seen
+you labour more indefatigably."
+
+"Yes, for forty-eight hours I did not close my eyes, and of course
+the result gratifies me, for the counsel for the defence was the most
+stubbornly contestant I have dealt with for a long time. The
+Government influence was immense. Where have Mrs. Palma and Olga
+gone?"
+
+"To Manhattanville, I believe."
+
+"How long since Regina left the house?"
+
+"Only a few moments before you arrived. It seems to me singularly
+imprudent to allow her to wander about the city as she does."
+
+"Explain yourself."
+
+"I offered to accompany her as escort, but she rather curtly declined
+my attendance."
+
+"And in your estimation, that constitutes 'imprudence'?"
+
+"I certainly consider it imprudent for any young girl to stroll
+around alone in New York on Sunday afternoon; especially one so very
+attractive, so conspicuously beautiful as Regina."
+
+"During my absence has any one been kidnapped or garrotted in broad
+daylight?"
+
+"I do not study the police records."
+
+"Do you imagine that she perambulates about the sacred precincts of
+'Five Points,' or the purlieus of Chatham Street?"
+
+"I imagine nothing, sir; but I know that she frequents a distant
+portion of this city, where I should think young ladies of her social
+status would find no attraction."
+
+"You have followed her then?" Mr. Palma raised himself and struck the
+ashes from his cigar.
+
+"I have not; but others certainly have, and commented upon the fact."
+
+"Will you oblige me with the remarks, and the name of the author?"
+
+"No, Cousin Erle, certainly not the last. But I will tell you that a
+couple of young gentlemen met her on Eighth Avenue, and were so
+impressed by her face that they turned round and followed her; saw
+her finally enter one of a row of poor tenement buildings in ----
+Street. Soon after she came out and retraced her steps. They watched
+her till she entered your house, and next day one of them asked me if
+she were a sewing girl. No ward of mine should have such latitude."
+
+"Not Elliott Roscoe; but I happen to be her guardian. She visits by
+my permission the house you so vaguely designate, and the first time
+she entered it I accompanied her and pointed out the location, and
+the line of street cars that would carry her almost to the square. At
+present the house is occupied by Mrs. Mason, the widow of a minister
+who was related to Mr. Hargrove, Regina's former guardian; and the
+references furnished me by the lady give satisfactory assurance that
+the acquaintance is unobjectionable, although the widow is evidently
+in very reduced circumstances. I consented some weeks ago that my
+ward should occasionally spend Sunday afternoon with her."
+
+"I presume you are the best judge of the grave responsibility of your
+position," replied the young gentleman, stiffly.
+
+"Certainly I think so, sir; and as you may possibly have observed, I
+am not particularly grateful for volunteer suggestions relative to my
+duty. Has it ever occurred to you that the green goggles you wear at
+present may accidentally lend an unhealthy tinge to your vision?"
+
+A wave of vivid scarlet flowed to the edge of Mr. Roscoe's fair
+harvest-hued hair, as he answered angrily:
+
+"You are the only person who could with impunity make such an
+insinuation."
+
+"In insinuations I never indulge, and impunity I neither arrogate,
+nor permit in others. Keep cool, Elliott, or else change your
+profession. A man who cannot hold his temper in leash, and who flies
+emotional signals from every feature in his face, has slender chance
+of success in an avocation which demands that body and soul, heart
+and mind, abjure even secret signal service, and deal only in cipher.
+The youthful _naivete_ with which you permit your countenance to
+reflect your sentiments, renders it quite easy for me to comprehend
+the nature of your feeling for my ward. For some weeks your interest
+has been very apparent, and while I am laying no embargo on your
+affections, I insist that jealousy must not jaundice your estimate of
+my duties, or of Regina's conduct. Moreover, Elliott, I suggest that
+you thoroughly reconnoitre the ground before beginning this campaign,
+for, my dear fellow, I tell you frankly, I believe Cupid has already
+declared himself sworn ally of a certain young minister, who entered,
+and enjoys pre-emption right over what amount of heart may have thus
+far been developed in the girl. In addition she is too young, not yet
+sixteen, and I rigidly interdict all love passages; besides her
+parentage is to some extent a secret; she has no fortune but her
+face; and you are poor in all save hope and social standing.
+_Verbum_, etc., etc."
+
+Walking to the window, where he stood with his countenance averted,
+Mr. Roscoe said hesitatingly:
+
+"I would rather my weakness had been discovered by the whole world
+than that you should know it; you, who never having indulged such
+emotions, regard them as the height of folly. I am aware that at this
+moment you think me an idiot."
+
+"Not necessarily. A known weakness thoroughly conquered sometimes
+becomes an element of additional strength in human character. As the
+exercise of muscle builds up physical vigour, so the persistent
+exertion of will develops mental and moral power. Men who have a
+paramount aim in life should never hesitate in strangling all
+irrelevant and inferior appellants for sympathy. A comparatively
+briefless attorney should trample out as he would an invading worm
+the temptation to dream rose-coloured visions, wherein bows, arrows,
+and bleeding hearts are thick and plentiful as gooseberries. Love in
+a cottage with honeysuckle on the porch, and no provisions in the
+larder, belongs to the age of fables, is as dead as feudal tenure."
+
+"That you are quite incapable of such impolitic weakness, I am well
+aware; for under the heel of your iron will your heart would not even
+struggle. But unfortunately I am an impulsive, foolish, human Roscoe,
+not a systematically organized, well-regulated, and unerring Palma."
+His cousin bowed complacently.
+
+"Be kind enough to hand me the cigars. This is defective; will not
+smoke."
+
+He leisurely lighted one, and resumed: "While on the cars to-day I
+read an article which contained a passage to this effect, and I offer
+it for your future reflection: 'That man, I think, has had a liberal
+education, who has been so trained in his youth, that his body is the
+ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the
+work that as a mechanism it is capable of; whose intellect is a
+clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength and
+in smooth working order; ready like a steam-engine to be turned to
+their kind of work.' Elliott, young gentlemen should put their hearts
+in their pockets, until they fully decide before what shrine it would
+be most remunerative to offer them. The last time we dined at Judge
+Van Zandt's, certainly not more than three months ago, you were all
+devotion to his second daughter, Clara of the ruby lips and _cedre_
+hair."
+
+"Clara Van Zandt, no thank you! I would not give Regina's pure face
+and sweet violet eyes for all the other feminine flesh in New York!"
+
+Had his attention been fixed just then upon Mr. Palma, he might have
+detected the sudden flash in his black eyes, and the nervous
+clenching of his right hand that rested on the arm of the chair; but
+the younger man was absorbed by his own emotions, and very soon his
+cousin rose.
+
+"In future we will not discuss this folly. At present, please
+recollect that my ward's face has not yet been offered in the
+matrimonial market; consequently your bid is premature. Those papers
+I spoke of must be prepared as early as possible in the morning, and
+submitted to me for revision. Be careful in copying the record. Have
+a cigar? I shall not be back before dark."
+
+The happiest hours Regina had known during her residence in New York
+had been spent in the room where she now sat; a basement room with
+low ceiling, and faded olive-tinted walls. The furniture was limited
+to an old-fashioned square table of mahogany, rich with that colour
+which comes only from the mellowing touch of age, and polished until
+it reflected the goblet of white and crimson phlox, which Regina had
+placed in the centre; a few chairs, some swinging shelves filled with
+books, and a couch or lounge covered with pink and white chintz,
+whereon lay a pillow with a freshly ironed linen case, whose ruffled
+edges were crisply fluted.
+
+Upon the whitewashed hearth were several earthen pots, filled with
+odorous geraniums; and over the two windows that opened on a narrow
+border of ground between the house wall and the street were carefully
+trained a solanum jasminoides white with waxen stars, and an
+abutilor, whose orange bells striped and veined with scarlet, swung
+in every breath of air that fluttered the spotless white cotton
+curtains, so daintily trimmed with a calico border of rose-coloured
+convolvulus. In the morning when the sun shone hot upon the front of
+the building, this room was very bright and cheerful, but its
+afternoon aspect was dim, cool, shadowy. A gentle breeze now floated
+across a bunch of claret-hued carnations growing in a wooden box on
+the window-sill, which was on a level with the ground outside, and
+brought on its waves that subtle spiciness that dwells only in the
+deep heart of pinks.
+
+In an old-fashioned maplewood rocking chair sat Mrs. Mason, with her
+wasted and almost transparent hands resting on her open Bible. The
+faded face which in early years had boasted of unusual comeliness,
+bore traces of severe sorrows meekly borne; and the patient sweetness
+that sat on the lip, and smiled serenely in the mild grey eyes,
+invested it with that irresistible charm that occasionally renders
+ripe old age more attractive than flushing dimpled youth. Her hair,
+originally pale brown, was as snow-white as the tarlatan cap that now
+framed it in a crimped border; and her lustreless black dress was
+relieved at the neck and wrists by ruffles of the same material.
+
+On the Bible lay her spectacles, and upon the third finger of the
+left hand was a gold ring, worn so thin that it was a mere glittering
+thread.
+
+Near her sat Regina, playing with a large white and yellow cat that
+now and then sprang to catch a spray of lemon-scented geranium, which
+was swung teasingly just beyond the reach of her velvet paws.
+
+"I am glad, my dear, to hear you speak so kindly of the members of
+your guardian's family. I have never yet seen that person who had not
+some redeeming trait. Many years ago, I knew Louise Neville very
+well. She was then the handsome happy bride of a young naval officer,
+who was soon after drowned in the Bay of Biscay; before the birth of
+their only child, Olga. At first Louise seemed heart-broken by the
+loss of her husband, but not more than two years afterward she
+married Mr. Godwin Palma, who was reputed very wealthy. I have not
+seen her since Olga was a child, but have heard that her second
+husband was an exceedingly stem, exacting man; treating her with far
+less tenderness than she received from poor Leo Neville, who was
+certainly very fond of her. Mr. Godwin Palma died suddenly one day,
+while riding down in his carriage to his office on Wall Street, but
+he had made a will only a few weeks previous, in which he bequeathed
+all his fortune--except a small annuity to Louise--to his son Erle,
+whose own mother had possessed a handsome estate. Louise contested
+the will, but the court sustained it; and I have heard that Mr. Erle
+Palma has always treated her with marked kindness and respect, and
+that he provides liberally for her and Olga. Louise is a proud,
+ambitious woman, fond of pomp and splendour; but in those tastes she
+was educated, and I always liked her, valued her kindness of heart,
+and strict integrity of purpose."
+
+"You do not know my guardian?"
+
+"I never met him till the day he brought you first to see me, and I
+was surprised to find him so comparatively young a man, for he is
+rapidly building up a very enviable reputation in his profession. He
+has been quite generous in his treatment of some  relatives, who were
+at one time much reduced. His father's sister, Julia Palma, married a
+dissipated young physician named Roscoe, and your guardian has almost
+entirely educated one of the boys; sent him to college, and then took
+him into his law-office, besides assisting in the maintenance of Mrs.
+Roscoe, who died about three years ago. Regina, I had a letter from
+Elise Lindsay since you were here. She sends kindest messages of love
+to you, and says you must not allow new friends to supplant old ones.
+She mentioned also that the climate of India did not seem very
+desirable for Douglass, who has been quite sick more than once since
+his settlement in Rohilcund. I am glad that Elise has gone to
+Douglass, for his father died of consumption, and I always feared he
+might have inherited the tendency, though his constitution seems
+tolerably good. After Peyton's death, she had nothing to keep her
+from her noble boy. God grant that India may never prove as fatal to
+all her earthly hopes as it has been to mine."
+
+A spasm of pain made her gentle patient face quiver, and Regina
+remembered that Mrs. Mason's only daughter had married a gentleman
+connected with the English Board of Missions, and with her husband
+and babe perished in the Sepoy butchery.
+
+Dropping the fragrant geranium sprig that so tormented the cat, the
+girl's fingers interlaced tightly, and she asked almost under her
+breath:
+
+"Is Mr. Lindsay's health seriously impaired?"
+
+"I hope not Elise merely said he had had two severe attacks of
+pneumonia, and it rendered her anxious. No man of his age ranks
+higher in the ministry than Douglass Lindsay, and as an Oriental
+scholar I am told he has few equals in this country. His death would
+be a great loss to his church, and----"
+
+"Oh, do not speak of it! How can you? It would kill his mother,"
+cried Regina, passionately, clasping her hands across her eyes, as if
+to shut out some horrible vision.
+
+"Let us pray God to mercifully avert such a heavy blow. But, my dear,
+keep this in mind: with terrible bereavement comes the strength to
+bear it. The strength of endurance,--a strength born only in the
+darkest hours of a soul's anguish; and at last when affliction has
+done its worst, and all earthly hope is dead, patience with tender
+grace and gentle healing mutely sits down in hope's vacant place.
+To-day I found a passage in a new book that impressed me as
+beautiful, strong, and true. Would you like to hear it?"
+
+"If it will teach me patience, please let me hear it."
+
+"Give me the book lying on the lounge."
+
+She opened it, put on her spectacles, and read:
+
+"There is the peace of surrendered, as well as of fulfilled,
+hopes,--the peace, not of satisfied, but of extinguished
+longings,--the peace, not of the happy love and the secure fireside,
+but of unmurmuring and accepted loneliness,--the peace, not of the
+heart which lives in joyful serenity afar from trouble and from
+strife, but of the heart whose conflicts are over, and whose hopes
+are buried,--the peace of the passionless as well as the peace of the
+happy;--not the peace which brooded over Eden, but that which crowned
+Gethsemane.'"
+
+"My dear Regina, only religion brings this blessed calm; this is
+indeed that promised 'Peace that passeth all understanding,' and
+therefore we would all do well to heed the words of Isaiah: 'Their
+strength is to sit still.'"
+
+Looking reverently up at her pale, worn placid face, the girl thought
+it might have been considered a psalm of renunciation. Almost
+sorrowfully she answered:
+
+"I begin to see that there is far more shadow than sunshine in this
+world; the night is longer than the day."
+
+"You are too young to realize such solemn things, and should
+endeavour to catch all the dew of life that glistens within your
+reach; for the withering heat of the noon will come soon enough to
+even the most favoured. An erroneous impression has too long
+prevailed, that religious fervour, and a cheerful, hopeful, happy
+spirit are incompatible; that devoutness manifests itself in a
+lugubrious or at least solemn visage, and that a joyous mirthful
+temperament is closely allied to 'the world, the flesh, and the
+devil.' A more mischievous fallacy never found favour. Innocent
+happiness in our hearts is acceptable worship to our God, who has
+given us the language of joy, as He gave to birds the power of song.
+In the universal canticle which nature sends up to its Creator, shall
+humanity, the noblest of the marvellous mechanism, alone be silent?
+The innocent joyousness of a pure heart is better than incense swung
+in the temples of the Lord."
+
+"Mrs. Mason, I wish to consult you on a subject that has given me
+some anxiety. Would you approve of my attending the theatre and
+opera? I have never yet gone, because I think neither Mr. Hargrove
+nor Mr. Lindsay would have advised me to do so; and I am perplexed
+about the matter, for Mr. Palma says that next winter he shall insist
+on my seeing the best plays and operas. What ought I to do?"
+
+"If you were a member of any church, which expressly prohibited such
+amusements, I should say, do not infringe the rules which you
+voluntarily promised to respect and obey; but as yet you have taken
+no ecclesiastical vows. Habitual attendance upon such scenes as you
+refer to is very apt, I think, to vitiate the healthful tone of one's
+thoughts and feelings, but an occasional visit would probably injure
+none but very weak minds. Your guardian is, I daresay, a prudent
+judicious man, and would be careful in selecting plays that could
+offend neither morality nor delicacy. There are many things upon the
+stage which are sinful, vicious, and vulgar, but there are hundreds
+of books quite as bad and dangerous. As we choose only the best
+volumes to read, so be sure to select only pure plays and operas.
+'Lear' would teach you the awful results of filial disobedience;
+'Merchant of Venice,' the sin of avarice; 'Julius Caesar' that of
+unsanctified ambition. There are threads of wisdom, patience,
+charity, and heroism which might be gathered from the dramatic
+spindle, and woven advantageously into the garment of our daily lives
+and thoughts. There is a marvellous pathos, fervour, sanctity, in the
+'Casta Diva' of 'Norma' that appeals to my soul, as scarcely any
+other piece of music ever has done; and I really should be glad to
+hear it played on the organ every Sunday morning. Why? Because I
+recognize in it the spirit of prayer from a tortured erring human
+soul invoking celestial aid, and to me it is no longer a pagan Druid
+song, trilled by the popular Prima-Donna at the Academy of Music, but
+a hymn to the Heavenly powers, as consecrated as an _Ave Maria_, or
+as Rossini's  'Inflammatus.' Are we lower than the bees, who wisely
+discriminate between pure honey and poisonous sweets? Touching these
+things, Lowell has nobly set us an example of
+
+          'Pleading for whatsoever touches life
+           With upward impulse: be He nowhere else,
+           God is in all that liberates and lifts,
+           In all that humbles, sweetens, and consoles,'
+
+I think that in the matters you mention, you may safely defer to your
+guardian's wishes, bearing always in mind this fact, that he
+professes no religious faith; and praying God's Holy Spirit to guide
+you, and keep your heart faithful and pure."
+
+Regina longed to ask something more explicit concerning the stage,
+but the thought of her mother peremptorily forbade a discussion that
+seemed to imply censure of her profession.
+
+"There is the bell for service. Are you not going to church this
+afternoon?"
+
+"No, dear, I am not very well; and besides, I promised to stay at
+home, and see a poor old friend, who has no time to visit during the
+week, and is just now in great affliction. You are not afraid to go
+alone?"
+
+"Not afraid, Mrs. Mason, still I wish you could go with me. When you
+answer dear Mrs. Lindsay's letter ask her not to forget me, and tell
+her I am trying to do right in all things, as far as I can see my
+way. Good-bye, Mrs. Mason."
+
+She bent her head, so that the faded placid lips could kiss her
+cheek, and went out into the quiet street.
+
+Instead of turning homeward, she hastened in an opposite direction,
+toward a small brick church whose bell was ringing, and whose
+afternoon service she had several times attended with Mrs. Mason.
+Walking more slowly as she approached the building, she had not yet
+reached it, when steps which she had heard behind her for several
+minutes, paused at her side.
+
+"Regina, is this the way home?"
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Palma. I am going to church."
+
+Although he had been absent a week he did not even offer his hand,
+and it never occurred to her to remind him of the omission.
+
+"Are you in the habit of coming here alone? If so, your visits to
+this neighbourhood cease."
+
+"Mrs. Mason has always accompanied me until this after noon, and as
+she could not leave home I came alone."
+
+"I prefer you should not attend strange churches without a companion,
+and now I will see you safely home."
+
+She looked up, saw a few persons ascending the broad steps, and her
+soul rose in rebellion;
+
+"What possible harm can overtake me in God's house? Don't try to
+stand between me and my duty."
+
+"Do you not consider obedience to my wishes part of your duty?"
+
+"Sometimes, sir; but not when it conflicts with my conscience."
+
+"What is conscience?"
+
+"The feeling God put into my soul when He gave it to me, to teach me
+right from wrong."
+
+"Is it? And if you were a Calmuck or a Mongol, it would teach you to
+reverence Shigemooni as the highest god; and bid you fall down and
+worship Dalai-lama, praying him to give you a pill of consecrated
+dough."
+
+"You mean that conscience is merely education? Even if it should be
+so--which is not true, I think--the Bible says 'the heathen are a law
+unto themselves,' and God knows they worship the best they can find
+until revelation shows them their error. But I do not live in Lassa,
+and my going to church here, is not akin to Lamaism. Nothing will
+happen to me, and I assure you, sir, I will come home as soon as the
+service is over."
+
+"Is your eternal salvation dependent on church going?"
+
+"I don't know, I rather think not; because if it were impossible for
+me to attend service the Lord would know it, and He only requires
+what He makes possible. But at least you must admit it cannot harm
+me; and I enjoy coming to this church more than any I have seen since
+I left our own dear old one at V----."
+
+"It is a small, very plain affair, in no respect comparable to St.
+Thomas's Church, where Mrs. Palma takes you every Sunday morning.
+Where you not there to-day?"
+
+"Yes, sir; but----"
+
+"But--what? Speak out."
+"Perhaps I ought not to say so,--and it may be partly my fault, but
+indeed there seems to me more real religion in this plain little
+chapel, at least it does me more good to come here."
+
+"For instance, it incites and helps you defy your guardian on the
+street!"
+
+Until now she had resolutely kept her face set churchward, but as he
+uttered the last words in a severer tone than he often used in
+conversation with her, she turned quite around and retraced her
+steps.
+
+Walking beside her, he could only see the long soft lashes of her
+downcast eyes, and the firm compression of her mouth.
+
+"Little girl, are you very angry?"
+
+She looked up quickly into his brilliant smiling eyes, and her cheek
+dimpled.
+
+"Mr. Palma, I wanted so very much to go, and I do feel disappointed;
+but not angry."
+
+"Then why do you not ask me to go with you?"
+
+"You go there? Is it possible that you would ever do such a thing?
+Really would you go, sir?"
+
+"Try me."
+
+"Please Mr. Palma, go with me."
+
+He raised his hat, bowed, and said:
+
+"I will."
+
+"Oh, thank you!"
+
+They turned and walked back in silence until they reached the door,
+and he asked:
+
+"Are the pews free?"
+
+"Yes, sir; but Mrs. Mason and I generally sit yonder by that column."
+
+"Very well, you must pilot me."
+
+She turned into the side aisle next the windows, and they seated
+themselves in a pew just beyond the projection of the choir gallery.
+
+The edifice was small, but the altar and pulpit were handsome, and
+though the windows were unstained, the light was mellowed by buff
+inside blinds. The seats were by no means filled, and the
+congregation was composed of people whose appearance denoted that
+many belonged to the labouring class, and none to the Brahmin caste
+of millionnaires, though all were neatly and genteely apparelled.
+
+As the silver-haired pastor entered the pulpit the organ began to
+throb in a low prelude, and four gentlemen bore shallow waiters
+through the assemblage, to receive the contribution for the
+"Destitute." Mr. Palma saw his companion take something from her
+glove, and when the waiter reached them and she put in her small
+alms, which he judged amounted to twenty-five cents, he slipped his
+fingers in his vest pocket and dropped a bill on the plate.
+
+"Is all that huge sum going to India to the missionaries?" he
+gravely whispered.
+
+"It is to feed the poor of this church."
+
+As the organ swelled fuller and louder, Mr. Palma saw Regina start,
+and listen intently; then the choir begin to sing, and she turned
+very pale and shut her eyes. He could discover nothing remarkable in
+the music,--"Oh that I had wings!" but as it progressed the girl's
+emotion increased, became almost uncontrollable, and through the
+closed lids the tears forced themselves rapidly, while she trembled
+visibly, and seemed trying to swallow her sobs.
+
+He moved closer to her, and the blue eyes opened and looked at him
+with such pleading deprecating misery in their beautiful depths, that
+he was touched, and involuntarily laid his ungloved hand on her
+little bare fingers. Instantly they closed around it, twining like
+soft tendrils about his, and unconsciously his clasp tightened.
+
+All through the singing her tears fell unchecked, sliding over her
+cheeks and upon her white dress, and when the congregation knelt in
+prayer, Mr. Palma only leaned his head on the back of the pew in
+front, and watched the figure bowed on her knees, close beside him,
+crying silently, with her face in her hands.
+
+When the prayer ended and the minister announced the hymn, she seemed
+to have recovered her composure, and finding the page, offered her
+pretty gilt hymn-book to her guardian. He accepted it mechanically,
+and during the reading of the Scriptures that soon followed he slowly
+turned over the leaves until he reached the title-page. On the
+fly-leaf that fluttered over was written: "Regina Orme. With the love
+and prayers of Douglass Lindsay."
+
+Closing the book, he laid it in his lap, leaned back and folded his
+arms over his chest.
+
+The preacher read the sixty-third Psalm, and from it selected his
+text: "My soul followeth hard after Thee."
+
+Although certainly not a modern Chrysostom, he was an earnest,
+faithful, and enlightened man, full of persuasive fervour; and to the
+brief but interesting discourse he delivered--a discourse
+occasionally sprinkled with felicitous metaphors and rounded with
+several eloquent passages--Mr. Palma appeared to listen quite
+attentively. Once a half smile moved his mouth, as he wondered what
+his associates at the "Century" would think, if they could look in
+upon him there; otherwise his deportment was most gravely decorous.
+As he heard the monotonous rise and fall of the minister's tone, the
+words soon ceased to bear any meaning to ears that gradually caught
+other cadences long hushed; the voice of memory calling him from afar
+off, back to the dewy days of his early boyhood, when walking by his
+mother's side he had gone to church, and held her book as he now held
+Regina's. Since then, how many changes time had wrought! How holy
+seemed that distant, dim, church-going season!
+
+At long intervals, and upon especially august occasions he had now
+and then attended service in the elegant church where his pew-rent
+was regularly paid; but not until to-day had he been attacked by the
+swarming reminiscences of his childhood, all eagerly babbling of the
+long-forgotten things once learned--
+
+           "At that best academe, a mother's knee."
+
+From the benignant countenance of the earnest preacher his keen cold
+eyes began to wander, and after awhile rested upon the pale tender
+face at his side.
+
+Except that the lashes were heavy with moisture that no longer
+overflowed in drops, there was no trace of the shower that had
+fallen; for hers was one of those rare countenances, no more
+disfigured by weeping, than the pictured _Mater Dolorosa_ by the tear
+on her cheek.
+
+To-day in the subdued sadness that filled her heart, while she
+pondered the depressing news from India, her face seemed
+etherealized, singularly sublimated; and as he watched the expression
+of child-like innocence, the delicate tracery of nose and brows, the
+transparent purity of the complexion, and the unfathomable purplish
+blue of the eyes uplifted to the pulpit, a strange thrill never
+experienced before stirred his cold stony heart, and quickened the
+beat of his quiet, slow steady pulse.
+
+He had smiled and bowed before lovely women of various and bewitching
+types of beauty, had his abstract speculative ideal of feminine
+perfection, and had been feted, flattered, coaxed, baited, and
+welcomed to many shrines, whereon grace, wit, and wealth had lavished
+their choicest charms; but the carefully watched and well-regulated
+valvular machine he was pleased to designate his heart, had never as
+yet experienced a warmer sensation than that of mere critical
+admiration for classic contours, symmetrical figures, or voluptuous
+Paul Veronese colouring.
+
+Once only, early in his professional career, he had coolly,
+dispassionately, sordidly, and with a hand as firm as Astraea's own,
+held the matrimonial scales, and weighed the influence and preferment
+that he could command by a politic and brilliant marriage, against
+the advantages of freedom, and the glory of unassisted success and
+advancement. For the lady herself--a bright, mirthful, pretty
+brunette, who in contrast with his frigid nature seemed a gaudy
+tropical bird fluttering around a stolid arctic auk--he had not even
+a shadow of affection; and looked quite beyond the graceful lay
+figure draped with his name to the lofty judicial eminence where her
+distinguished father held sway, and could rapidly elevate him.
+
+No softer emotion than ambition had suggested the thought, and after
+a patient balancing of the opposing weights of selfishness, he had
+utterly thrown aside the thought of entangling himself in any
+Hymeneal snares.
+
+Probably few men have attained his age without having breathed vows
+of love into some rosy ear; but his colossal professional pride and
+vanity had absolutely absorbed him--left him neither room nor time
+for other and softer sentiments.
+
+The numerous attempts to entrap his dim chilly affections had
+somewhat lowered his estimate of female delicacy; and possessing the
+flattering assurance that no fair hand was held too high for his
+grasp, should he choose to claim it, he had grown rather arrogant. Of
+coquetry he was entirely innocent; it seemed too contemptible even
+for mere sport, and he scorned the thought of feeding his vanity by
+feminine sacrifices.
+
+Too sternly proud to owe success to any but his own will and
+resolution, he had never proposed or even desired to marry any woman;
+and was generally regarded as a hopelessly icy bachelor, whom all
+welcomed with smiles, but despaired of captivating.
+
+After forty years' sole undisputed mastery of his heart, something
+suddenly and unexpectedly wakened there, groped about, would not
+"down" at his bidding; and a new sensation made itself felt.
+
+A brief sentence of Elliott Roscoe had like Moses' rod smitten the
+rock of his affections, and forthwith gushed a flood of riotous
+feelings never known before. At the thought of any man claiming
+Regina's perfect dainty lips and peerless imperial eyes a hot wave of
+indignant protest rolled over his whole being. That she should belong
+to another now seemed monstrous, sacrilegious, and all the strength
+of his own nature rose in mutiny.
+
+Never until to-day had he analyzed his sentiments toward his ward,
+never had he deemed it possible for his wisely disciplined heart to
+bow before anything of flesh; but now, as he sat looking at the sweet
+face, he saw that rebellion desperate and uncompromising had broken
+out in his rigidly governed, long downtrodden nature, and with the
+prompt vigilance habitual to him he calmly counted the cost of
+crushing the insurrection.
+
+Shading his countenance with his fingers he deliberately studied her
+features, even the modelling of the waxen hands folded together on
+her knee; and then and there, weighing all his achievements, all his
+pictured future, so dazzling with coveted ermine, he honestly
+confessed to his own soul that the universe held for him nothing so
+precious as that fair pure young girl.
+
+How superlatively presumptuous appeared Elliott Roscoe's avowed
+admiration and preference! How dared that humble impecunious divinity
+student now sojourning in the "Land of the Veda," lift his eyes
+toward this priceless treasure, which Erle Palma wanted to call his
+own!
+
+Just then Regina took her hymn-book to search for the closing verses
+designated by the minister, and as she opened the volume the
+inscription on the fly-leaf showed conspicuously. The lawyer set his
+teeth, and the fingers of his right hand opened, then closed hard and
+tight, a gesture in which he often unconsciously indulged when
+resolving on some future step.
+
+The benediction was pronounced, and the congregation dispersed.
+
+Walking silently beside her guardian, until they had proceeded some
+distance from the church, Regina wondered how she should interpret
+the grave preoccupied expression of his countenance. Had he been
+sadly bored, and did he repent the sacrifice made to gratify her
+caprice?
+
+"Mr. Palma, I am very much obliged to you for kindly consenting to
+accompany me. Of course I know this church and service must seem
+dull and plain in comparison with that to which you are accustomed,
+but I hope you liked Mr. Kelsey's sermon?"
+
+"In some respects this afternoon has been a revelation, and I am sure
+I shall never forget the occasion."
+
+"Oh! I am so glad you enjoyed going," she said, with evident relief.
+
+"I did not intend to convey that impression; you infer more than my
+words warrant. I was thinking of other and quite irrelevant matters,
+and to be frank, really did not listen to the sermon. Do you attend
+church from a conviction that penance conduces to a sanitary
+improvement of the soul?"
+
+"Penance? I do not exactly understand you, sir."
+
+"I certainly have never seen you weep so bitterly; not even when I
+ruthlessly tore you from the kind sheltering arms of Mother Aloysius
+and Sister Angela. You appeared quite heartbroken. Was it contrition
+for your manifold transgressions?"
+
+"Oh no, sir!"
+
+"You are resolved not to appoint me your confessor?"
+
+"Mr. Palma----" her voice faltered.
+
+"Well, go on."
+
+"I was very much distressed; it made my heart ache."
+
+"So I perceived. But was it the bare church, or the minister, or my
+ward's sensitive conscience?"
+
+After a moment she lifted her misty eyes to meet his, and answered
+tremulously:
+
+"It was the singing of 'Oh that I had wings!' I have not heard it
+since that dreadful time I sang it last, and you can't possibly
+understand my feelings."
+
+"Certainly not, unless you deign to explain the circumstances."
+
+"Dear Mr. Hargrove asked me to go in and play on the organ in the
+library, and sing that sacred song for him. I sang it, and played for
+awhile on the organ, and then went back to him on the verandah, and
+he had died--alone, in his chair, while I was singing 'Oh that I had
+wings!' To-day, when the choir began it, everything came back so
+vividly to me. The dear happy home at the parsonage, the supper I had
+set for my dear Mr. Hargrove, the flowers in the garden, the smell of
+the carnations, the sound of the ring-doves in the vines, the
+moonlight shining so softly on his kind face and white hair--and
+Oh!----"
+
+They walked the length of two squares before either spoke again.
+
+"I was not aware that you performed on the organ."
+
+"Mrs. Lindsay gave me lessons, and I used the cabinet organ."
+
+"Do you prefer it to the piano?"
+
+"For sacred songs, I do."
+
+"If we had one in the library, do you suppose you would ever sing for
+me?"
+
+"If you really desired it, perhaps I would try; but of course I know
+very well that you care nothing for my music; and our dear old hymns
+and chants would only tire and annoy you."
+
+"To whom does 'our' refer?"
+
+"My dear Mr. Hargrove and Mrs. Lindsay and her son. We so often sang
+quartettes at home in the long, delicious, peaceful summer evenings,
+before the awful affliction came and separated us."
+
+The lamps were lighted, and night closed in, with silvery
+constellations overhead, before Mr. Palma and his companion were near
+their destination. As they crossed a street, he said, abruptly
+breaking a long silence:
+
+"Take my arm."
+
+Never before had such a courtesy been tendered, and she looked up in
+unfeigned surprise.
+
+He was so tall, so stately, that the proposition seemed to her
+preposterous.
+
+"Can't you reach it?"
+
+He took her hand, drew it beneath, and placed the fingers on his arm.
+
+"Of late you have grown so rapidly, your head is almost on a level
+with my shoulder; and you are quite tall enough now to accept my
+escort."
+
+When they were within a square of home, Mr. Palma said very gravely:
+
+"This afternoon I indulged one of your whims: now will you
+recipricate, and gratify a caprice of your guardian?"
+
+"Have you caprices? I think not but I will oblige you if I can do
+so."
+
+"Thank you. In future you must never walk to see Mrs. Mason, always
+go in the carriage; and I am unwilling that you should be out as late
+as this, unless Mrs. Palma accompanies you, or I am with you. You
+need not ask my reasons; it is sufficient that I wish it, and it is
+my caprice to be obeyed without questions. One thing more: I do not
+at all like your name--never did. Latinity is not one of my
+predilections, and _Regina, Reginae, Reginam_, wearily remind me of
+the classic-slough of declensions and conjugations of my Livy,
+Sallust, Tacitus. In my mind you have always been associated with the
+white lilies that you held at the convent the first time I saw you,
+that you held to your heart while asleep on the cars; and hereafter
+when only you and I are present, I intend to indulge the caprice of
+calling my ward--Lily."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+"Yonder they come! They have just left the carriage, and as usual she
+is escorted by her body-guard; those grim old fogies, who watch her
+like a pair of grey owls. Now, Doctor, you must contrive an
+introduction."
+
+General Rene Laurance raised his gold eyeglass, and looked curiously
+toward a group of three persons who were walking amid the ruins of
+Pozzuoli.
+
+His companion Dr. Plymley, who was examining an inscription, turned
+around and looked in the direction indicated.
+
+"Are you sure? I am quite near-sighted."
+
+"Very sure, for no other figure could be mistaken for hers. By all
+the gods ever worshipped here, she is the loveliest woman I ever saw,
+but as coy as a maid of fifteen. The fact that she secludes herself
+so rigidly only stimulates curiosity, and I have sworn a solemn oath
+to make her acquaintance; for it is something novel in my experience
+to have my overtures rejected, my courtesies ignored."
+
+"Come this way, General. This encounter must appear purely
+accidental, for Madame Orme is very peculiar, very suspicious; and if
+she imagines we planned this excursion to meet her, or left Naples
+with the intention of joining her party, the chances are that I as
+well as you would be snubbed. In her desire to avoid society and
+personal attention, one might suppose her an escaped abbess from some
+convent, instead of a popular actress. It was with much difficulty
+that I prevailed on her to receive my son and wife one afternoon; as
+she remarked that her object in coming here was to secure health, not
+acquaintances. In treating her professionally, I was called upon to
+prescribe for what in her case is more than ordinary sleeplessness,
+is veritably _pervigilium_; and when she refused opiates, I asked if
+there were not some trouble weighing upon her mind which prevented
+her from sleeping. Her reply was singular: 'Many years have passed
+since I became a widow and was forced to leave my only child in
+America, and the power of sound healthy sleep has deserted me.' Even
+in Naples her beauty attracts attention wherever she is seen."
+
+"Certainly I am not a tyro in these matters, and have probably had as
+much experience as any other man of my years and well improved
+opportunities, and you can form an estimate of my appreciation of her
+charms, when I tell you I have followed her since the night I first
+saw her on the stage at Milan. I see your wife beckoning us to join
+her."
+
+Although sixty-five years old, General Laurance carried himself as
+erectly as the son he left in Paris, and his proud bearing and
+handsome face seemed to contradict the record of years that had
+passed so lightly over him. A profusion of silver threads streaked
+the black locks that scorned all artificial colouring, and his
+moustache and beard were quite grizzled; but as he stood tracing
+triangles on the sand with the point of his light cane, and pushed
+back the hat from his heated brow, no one unacquainted with his
+history would have deemed him more than fifty: a man of distinguished
+appearance, commanding stature, with rather haughty, martial mien,
+healthful ruddy complexion, and sparkling blue eyes keen and
+incisive.
+
+From boyhood self had been his openly and devoutly worshipped god,
+and upon its altars conscience had long ago been securely bound and
+silenced. Pride of family, love of pomp, power, and luxury, and an
+inordinate personal vanity were the predominating characteristics of
+a man, who indulged his inclinations, no matter how devious the paths
+into which they strayed, nor how mercilessly obstacles must be
+tramped down, in order to facilitate the accomplishment of his
+purposes. Naturally neither cruel nor vindictive, he had gradually
+grown pitiless in all that conduced to self-aggrandizement or
+self-indulgence; incapable of a generosity that involved even slight
+sacrifice, a polished handsome epicurean, an experienced man of the
+world, putting aside all scruples in the attainment of his selfish
+aims.
+
+From wholly politic motives, and in order to extend his estates and
+increase his revenue, he had married early in life, and his
+affection, never bestowed upon his wife, had centred in their only
+child Cuthbert. When death removed the unloved mother, freedom was
+joyfully welcomed, and the memory of his neglected bride rarely
+visited the heart, which was not invulnerable to grace and beauty.
+
+The consummation of an alliance between his son and Abbie Ames, the
+banker's daughter, had cost him much manoeuvring and tedious
+diplomacy, for like his father, Cuthbert was fastidious in his
+tastes, and an ardent devotee to female beauty; but when finally
+accomplished, General Laurance considered his paternal obligations
+fully discharged, and henceforth roamed from city to city, sipping
+such enjoyment as money, aristocratic status, urbane manners, and a
+heritage of well-preserved good looks enabled him to taste at will.
+
+Six months before, he had first seen Madame Orme as "Deborah," in
+Mosenthal's popular drama, and, charmed by her face and figure, had
+attempted to make her acquaintance. But his floral offerings had been
+rejected, his jewels and notes returned, his presentation refused,
+his visits interdicted; and as usually occurs in natures like his,
+opposition to his wishes intensified them, cold indifference and
+denial only deepened and strengthened his determination to crush all
+barriers. His pride was wounded, his vanity sorely piqued, and to
+compel her acknowledgment of his power, her submission to his sway,
+became for the while his special aim, his paramount purpose. Hence
+he loitered at Naples, seeking occasions, lying in wait for an
+opportunity to open a campaign that promised him new triumphs.
+
+Dr. Plymley was an English physician travelling with an invalid wife
+and consumptive son, and having been consulted by Mrs. Orme on
+several occasions in Milan, had at length been prevailed upon by
+General Laurance to arrange an apparently casual introduction.
+
+It was a cloudless spring day, and leaving Mr. and Mrs. Waul to read
+a package of American papers, Mrs. Orme walked away toward the lonely
+outlines of the Serapeon.
+
+The delicious balmy atmosphere, the interest of the objects that
+lined the drive from Naples, and the exercise of wandering from point
+to point had brought a delicate glow to her cheeks, and a brighter
+carmine to her lips; and beneath the white chip hat, with its wreath
+of clustering pink convolvulus lying on her golden hair, the lovely
+face seemed almost unsurpassed in its witchery.
+
+She wore a sea-green dress of some soft fabric that floated in the
+wind as she moved, and over her shoulders was wound a white fleecy
+mantle fastened at the throat by a costly green cameo, which also
+secured a spray of lemon flowers that lavished their fragrance on the
+bright warm air. Closing her parasol, she walked down to the ruined
+Temple, and approached the wonderful cipollino columns that bear such
+mysterious attestation of the mutations of land and sea, of time and
+human religions. Since the days of Agrippina and Julia, had a fairer
+prouder face shone under the hoary marble shafts, and mirrored itself
+in the marvellous mosaic floor, than that which now looked calmly
+down on the placid water flowing so silently over the costly
+pavements, where sovereigns once reverently trod?
+
+In imagination she beheld the vast throng of worshippers, who two
+thousand years ago had filled the magnificent court, where the sun
+was now shining unimpeded; and above the low musical babble of
+wavelets breaking upon the chiselled marbles, rose the hum of the
+generations sleeping to-day in the columbaria, and the chant of the
+priests before the statue of Serapis, which sacrilegious hands had
+borne away from his ancient throne. Were the blue caverns of the
+Mediterranean not deep enough to entomb these colossal relics of that
+dim vast Past, whose feebly ebbing tide still drifts so mournfully,
+so solemnly, so mysteriously upon our listening souls? Did
+compassionate Neptune, tenderly guarding the ruins of his own
+desecrated fane, once resonant with votive paeans now echoing only
+sea-born murmurs, refuse sepulture to Serapis, and again and again
+return to the golden light of land the sculptured friezes, that could
+find permanent rest neither upon sea not shore?
+
+To-day the lonely woman, standing amid crumbling cornices and
+architraves, wondered whether the sunken pavement of the Serapeon
+were a melancholy symbol of her own blighted youth, never utterly
+lost to view, often overwhelmed by surging waves of bitterness, hate,
+and despair, but now and then lifted by memory to the light, and
+found as fresh and glowing as in the sacred bygone? To-day buried
+beneath the tide of sorrow, to-morrow shining clear and imperishable?
+
+Gazing out across the sapphire sea that mirrored a cloudless sapphire
+sky, Mrs. Orme's beautiful solemn face seemed almost a part of the
+classic surroundings, a statue of Fate shaken from its ancient niche;
+and the cameo Sappho on her breast was not more faultlessly cut and
+polished than the features that rose above it.
+
+A shadow fell aslant the glassy water through which was visible the
+glint of the submerged pavement, and turning her head, she saw the
+familiar countenance of her quondam physician.
+
+"A glorious day, Dr. Plymley?"
+
+"Glorious indeed, Madame, for a dinner at Baiae. I hope you are
+feeling quite well, and bright as this delicious sunshine? Mrs. Orme,
+will you allow me the favour of presenting my friend General
+Laurance, who requests the honour of an introduction?"
+
+She had been unaware of the presence of his companion, who was
+concealed from view, and as he stepped forward and took off his hat,
+she drew herself up, and at last they were face to face.
+
+How her brown eyes widened, lightened, and what a sudden whiteness
+fell upon her features, as if June roses had been smitten with snow!
+Holding with both hands the frail fluted ivory handle of her parasol,
+it snapped, and the carved leopard that constituted the head fell
+with a ringing sound upon one of the marble blocks, thence into the
+sluggish water beneath; but her eyes had not moved from his,--seemed
+to hold them, as with some magnetic spell. A radiant smile parted her
+pale lips, and she said in her wonderfully sweet, rich, liquid tones
+which sank into people's ears and hearts, as some mellow old wine
+creeps through the grey cells of the brain, bringing lotos dreams:
+"Is the gentleman before me General Rene Laurance of America?"
+
+"I am, Madame; and supremely happy in the accident which enables me
+to make an acquaintance so long and earnestly desired. Surely the
+ruins amidst which we meet must be those, not of the Serapeon, but of
+some antique shrine of Good Fortune, and I vow a libation worthy of
+the boon received."
+
+With that unwavering gaze still upon his dark blue eyes, she drew off
+her glove and held out her fair hand, smiling the while, as Circe
+doubtless did before her.
+
+"I am sincerely glad to meet General Laurance, of whom I heard the
+American minister at Paris speak in glowing terms of commendation. I
+believe I Also met a son of General Laurance in Paris? Certainly he
+resembles you most strikingly."
+
+As he received into his own the pretty pearly hand, and bowed low
+over it, he felt agreeably surprised by the cordiality of a reception
+which appeared utterly inconsistent with her stern contemptuous
+rejection of his previous attempts to form her acquaintance; and he
+could not quite reconcile the beaming smile on her lip, and the
+sparkling radiance in her eyes, with the pallor which he saw settle
+swiftly upon her face when his name was first pronounced.
+
+"Ah! My son Cuthbert? Handsome young dog, and like his father, finds
+beauty the most powerful magnet. Where did you meet him?"
+
+"Once only, when he was introduced by our minister, who deputized him
+to deliver to me some custom-house regulations.
+
+"Did you meet Mrs. Laurance?"
+
+"Your wife, sir?"
+
+Annoyance instantaneously clouded his countenance, and Dr. Plymley
+gnawed his lower lip to hide a smile.
+
+"My son's wife. Cuthbert and I are the only survivors of my own
+immediate family."
+
+"If Madame had not so rigidly adhered to her recluse habits, she
+could scarcely have failed to learn from his brilliant campaigns in
+gay society that the General is unfettered by matrimonial bonds, and
+almost as irresistible and popular as his naughty model D'Orsay."
+
+"Madame, Plymley is a traitor, jealously stabbing my spotless
+reputation. I deny the indictment, and appeal to your heavenly
+charity, praying you to believe that I plead guilty only to the
+possession of a heart tenderly vulnerable to the shafts of grace and
+beauty."
+
+The earnestness of his tone and manner was unmistakable, and beneath
+the bold admiration of his fine eyes, the carmine came swiftly back
+to her blanched cheek.
+
+"_Beau monde_ and its fashionable foibles constitute a sealed volume
+to me. My world is apart from that in which General Laurance wins
+myrtle crowns, and wears them so royally."
+
+"When genius like Madame's monopolizes the bay, we less gifted
+mortals must even twine myrtle leaves, or else humbly bow, bare of
+chaplets. But may I ask why you so sternly taboo that social world
+which you are so pre-eminently fitted to grace and adorn? When your
+worshippers are wellnigh frenzied with delight, watching you beyond
+the footlights, you cruelly withdraw behind the impenetrable curtain
+of seclusion; and only at rare intervals allow us tantalizing glimpses
+of you, seated in mocking inaccessibility between those two most
+abominable ancient griffons, whose claws and beaks are ever
+ferociously prominent. When some desperate deluded adorer rashly
+hires a band of Neapolitan experts to stab, and bury that grim pair
+of jailers in the broad deep grave out there, toward Procida, the
+crime of murder will be upon Madame's fair head."
+
+"And if I answer that that fine world you love so well is to me but
+as a grey stone quarry wherein I daily toil, solely for food and
+raiment for my child and myself, what then?"
+
+"Then verily if that be possible, Pygmalion's cold beauty were no
+longer a fable; and I should turn sculptor. Do you not find that here
+in Parthenope you rapidly drift into the classic tide that strands
+you on Paganism?"
+
+"Has it borne you one inch away from the gods of your life-long
+worship?"
+
+As she spoke, she bent slightly forward, and searched his bright
+eyes, as if therein floated his soul.
+
+"Indeed I can answer reverently, with my band upon my heart, Italy
+has given me a new worship, a goddess I never knew before. My
+divinity----"
+
+"Belongs, sir, to the _Dii Involuti!_ Fortunate provision of fate,
+which leaves us at least liberty to deify, you perhaps family pride,
+Venus, or even avaricious Pluto; I possibly ambition or revenge. We
+all have our veiled gods, shrouded close from curious gaze; 'the
+heart knoweth his own bitterness, and the stranger doth not
+intermeddle with his joy.'"
+
+She had interrupted him with an imperious wave of her hand, and spoke
+through closed teeth, like one tossing down a gage of battle; but the
+brilliant smile still lighted her splendid eyes, and showed the
+curves of her temptingly beautiful mouth.
+
+"Mrs. Orme, my wife and Percy are waiting for me at the amphitheatre,
+and we have an engagement to dine at Baiae. Can I persuade you to join
+our party? I promise you a delightful visit to the old home of Rome's
+proudest patricians in her palmiest days; and a dinner eaten in
+accordance with General Laurance's suggestion on the site of the
+temple of Venus, or if you prefer, upon that of Diana. Will you not
+contribute the charm of your presence to the pleasure of our
+excursion? Remember I am your physician, and this morning prescribe
+Baiae air."
+
+"You are very kind, Doctor, but I devote to-day to Avernus, Cumae, and
+the infernal gods. Next week I shall bask at Baiae. Gentlemen, I bid
+you good-day, and a pleasant hour over your Falernian."
+
+She turned once more to the mysterious solemn face of that wonderful
+legendary blue bay, and the light died out of her countenance, as in
+a room where the lamps are unexpectedly extinguished. She started
+visibly, when a voice close beside her asked:
+
+"Permit me the pleasure of seeing you to your carriage."
+
+"I am not going just yet. General Laurance should not detain the
+Doctor's party."
+
+"They have a carriage. I am on horseback, and can easily overtake
+them; but if I dared, would beg the privilege of accompanying you,
+instead of drinking sour wine, and smoking poor cigars among the
+ivy-wreathed ruins that await me at Baiae Ah, may I hope? Be generous,
+banish me not. May I attend you to-day?
+
+"No, sir. Go pay your _devoir_ to friendship and courtesy. I have
+faithful guardians in the two coming yonder to meet me."
+
+She pointed to the heads of Mr. and Mrs. Waul just visible over the
+mass of ruins that intervened, and lifting her handkerchief, waved it
+twice.
+
+"You have established a system of signal service with those antique
+ogres, griffons? Really they resemble crouching cougars, ready to
+spring upon the unwary who dare penetrate to the sacred precincts
+that enclose you. Why do you always travel with that grim body-guard?
+Surely they are not relatives?"
+
+"They are faithful old friends who followed me across the Atlantic,
+who are invaluable, and shield me from impertinent annoyances, to
+which all women of my profession are more or less subjected. The
+world to which you belong sometimes seem disposed to forget that
+beneath and behind the paint and powder, false hair and fine tragic
+airs and costumes they pay to strangle time for them at _San Carlo_,
+or _Teatro de' Fiorentini_ there breathes a genuine human thing; a
+creature with a true, pure, womanly heart beating under the velvet,
+gauze, and tinsel, and with blood that now and then boils under
+unprovoked and dastardly insult. If I were cross-eyed, or had been
+afflicted with small-pox, or were otherwise disfigured, I should not
+require Mr. and Mrs. Waul; but Madame Orme, the lonely widow deprived
+by death of a father's or brother's watchful protection, finds her
+humble companions a valuable barrier against presumption and
+insolence. For instance, when strangers, pleased with my carefully
+practised _jeu de theatre_, send fulsome notes and costly
+_bijouterie_ to my lodgings, praying in return a lock of my hair or
+a photograph, my griffons, as you facetiously term them, rarely even
+consult me, but generally send back the jewels by the bearer, and
+twist the _billets-doux_ into tapers to light Mr. Waul's pipe.
+Sometimes I see them; often I am saved the trouble of knowing
+anything about the impertinence."
+
+Her voice was sweet and mellow as a Phrygian flute sounding softly on
+moonlight nights through acacia and oleander groves, but the scorn
+burning in her eyes was intolerable, and before it the old man seemed
+to shrink, while a purplish flush swept across his proud face.
+
+"Mrs. Orme is an anomaly among lovely women, and especially among
+popular _tragediennes_, and as I am suffering the consequences of
+that unexpected fact, may I venture, in pleading for pardon, to
+remind her of that grand prayer: '_Be it my will that my mercy
+overpower my justice_.' Will she not nobly forgive errors committed
+in ignorance of the peculiar sensitiveness of her nature, the mimosa
+delicacy of her admirable character?"
+
+Not until this moment had the likeness between father and son shown
+itself so conspicuously, and in the handsome features and
+insinuating, beguiling velvet voice she found sickening resemblances
+that made her heart surge, until she seemed suffocating. Hastily she
+loosened the ribbons of her hat that were tied beneath her chin.
+
+"Is General Laurance pleading abstractly for forgiveness for his vain
+and presumptuous sex?"
+
+"Solely for my own audacious impertinence, which, had I known you,
+would never have been perpetrated. My rejected emeralds accuse me.
+Pardon me, and I will immediately donate them in expiatory offering
+to some Foundling Asylum, Hospital, or other public charity."
+
+"If I condone past offences, it must be upon condition that they are
+never repeated, for leniency is not one of my characteristics.
+Hitherto we have been strangers; you are from America the land of my
+adoption, and have been presented to me as a gentleman, as the friend
+of my physician. Henceforth consider that your acquaintance with me
+dates from to-day."
+
+She suffered him to take her hand, and bow low over it, breathing,
+volubly his thanks for her goodness, his protestations of profound
+repentance, and undying gratitude; and all the while she shut her
+eyes as if to hide some approaching horror,--and the blood in her
+views seemed to freeze at his touch, gathered like icicles around her
+aching heart, turning her gradually to stone.
+
+Taking his offered arm, they walked back toward the spot where she
+had desired her companions to await her return, and as he attempted
+to analyze the strange perplexing expression on her chiselled white
+face, he said:
+
+"I trust this delicious climate has fully restored your health?"
+
+"Thank you. I am as well as I hope to be, until I can go home to
+America, and be once more with my baby."
+
+"It is difficult to realize that you are a mother. How old is this
+darling, who steals so many of your thoughts?"
+
+"Oh, quite a large girl now! able to write me long delightful
+letters; still in memory and imagination she remains my baby, for I
+have not seen her for nearly seven years."
+
+"Indeed I you must have married when a mere child?"
+
+"Yes, unfortunately I did, and lost my husband, became a destitute
+widow when I was scarcely older than my own daughter now is. Mr.
+Waul, this is your countryman, General Laurance; and doubtless you
+have mutual acquaintances in the United States."
+
+They proceeded to the carriage, and as he assisted her to enter it,
+General Laurance asked:
+
+"Will you grant me the privilege of accompanying you next week to
+Baiae?"
+
+"I cannot promise that."
+
+"Then allow me to call upon you to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow will be the day for my exercises in Italian recitation and
+declamation. I am desirous of perfecting myself in the delicate
+inflections of this sweet intoxicating language, which is as
+deliciously soft as its native skies, and golden as its Capri
+vintage. I long to electrify these fervid enthusiastic yet critical
+Neapolitans with one of their own favourite impassioned Italian
+dramas."
+
+She had taken off her hat which pressed heavily upon her throbbing
+brow, and as the sun shone full on the coil of glittering hair, with
+here and there a golden tress rippling low on her snowy neck and ear,
+her ripe loveliness seized the man's senses with irresistible
+witchery; and the thought of her reappearance as a public idol, of
+her exhibition of her wonderful beauty to the critical gaze of all
+Naples, suddenly filled him with jealous horror and genuine pain. As
+if utterly weary and indifferent, she leaned back, nestling her head
+against the cushions of the carriage; and looking eagerly, almost
+hungrily at her, General Laurance silently registered a vow, that the
+world should soon know her no more as the Queen of Tragedy, that ere
+long the only kingdom over which she reigned should be restricted to
+the confines of his own heart and life.
+
+Pale as marble she coolly met the undisguised ardent admiration in
+his gaze, and bending forward he asked pleadingly:
+
+"Not to-morrow? Then next day, Mrs. Orme?"
+
+"Perhaps so, if I chance to be at home; which is by no means certain.
+Naples is a sorceress and draws me hither and thither at will.
+General Laurance, I wish you a pleasant ride to Baiae, and must bid
+you good-bye."
+
+She inclined her head, smiled proudly, and closed her eyes; and,
+watching her as the carriage rolled away, he wondered if mere fatigue
+had brought that ghastly pallor to the face he knew he was beginning
+to love so madly.
+
+"Shall we not return to Naples? You look weary, and unhappy," said
+Mr. Waul, who did not like the expression of the hopeless, fixed
+blanched lips.
+
+"No, no! We go to Avernus. That is the mouth of Hell, you know, and
+to Hecate and all the infernal gods I dedicate this fateful day, and
+those that will follow. It is only the storm-beaten worthless wreck
+of a life; let it drift--on--on, down! Had I ten times more to lose,
+I would not shrink back now; I would offer all--all as an oblation to
+Nemesis."
+
+"The gods have made us mighty certainly--That we can bear such
+things, and yet not die."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+"Regina, will you touch the bell for Hattie, that she may come and
+carry away all this breakfast, which I have not touched, and the bare
+sight of which surfeits me? From the amount supplied, one might
+imagine me a modern Polyphemus, or, abjuring the classics, a second
+old Mrs. Philipone, who positively drank four cups of tea at the last
+'Kettledrum.' How fervently she should pray for continued peace with
+China, and low tariff on Pekoe? I scarcely know which is the greater
+hardship, to abstain from food when very hungry, or to impose upon
+one's digestive apparatus when it piteously protests, asking for
+'rest, only rest.'"
+
+It was twelve o'clock on a bright, cold day in December, but Olga was
+still in bed; and as she raised herself, crushing the pillows under
+her shoulder for support, Regina, sewing beside her, thought she had
+never seen her look so handsome.
+
+The abundant ruddy hair tossed about in inextricable confusion,
+curled and twined, utterly regardless of established style, making a
+bright warm frame for the hazel eyes that seemed unusually keen and
+sparkling, and the smooth fair cheeks bore a rich scarlet tinge,
+rather remarkable from the fact that their owner had danced until
+three o'clock that morning.
+
+"Instead of impairing your complexion, late hours seem to increase
+its brilliancy."
+
+"Regina, never dogmatize; it is a rash and unphilosophic habit that
+leads you to ignore secondary causes. I have a fine colour to-day,
+_ergo_ the 'German' is superior to any of the patent chemical
+cosmetics? No such thing. I am tired enough in body to look just like
+what I feel, that traditional Witch of Endor; but a stroke of
+wonderful good fortune has so elated my spirits, that despite the
+fatigue of outraged muscles and persecuted nerves, my exultant pride
+and delight paint my cheeks in becoming tints. How puzzled you look!
+You pretty, sober, solemn, demure blue-eyed Annunciation lily, is
+there such a thing among flowers? If I tripped in the metaphor,
+recollect that I am no adept in floriculture, only know which
+blossoms look best on a velvet bonnet or a chip hat, and which dainty
+leaves and petals laid upon my Lucretia locks make me most resemble
+Hebe. Are you consumed by curiosity?"
+
+"Not quite; still I should like to know what good fortune has
+rendered you so happy?"
+
+"Wait until Hattie is beyond hearing. Come, take away these dishes,
+and be sure to eat every morsel of that omelette, for I would not
+willingly mortify Octave's vanity. When you have regaled yourself
+with it, show him the empty dish, tell him it was delicious, and that
+I send thanks. Hattie, say to mamma I shall not be able to go out
+to-day."
+
+"Miss Regina, I was told to tell you that you must dress for the
+rehearsal, as Mrs. Palma will take you in the carriage."
+
+"Very well. I shall be ready, if go I must."
+
+"Bravo! How gracefully you break to harness! But when these Palmas
+hold the bit, it would be idle to plunge, kick, or attempt to run.
+They are for rebellious humanity, what Rarey was for unruly
+horseflesh. Once no fiery colt of Ukraine blood more stubbornly
+refused the bridle than I did; but Erle Palma smiled and took the
+reins, and behold the metamorphosis! Did he command your attendance
+at this 'Cantata'?"
+
+"Not exactly; but he said he would be displeased if I failed to
+comply with Mrs. Brompton's request, because she was an old friend;
+and moreover that Professor Hurtsel had said they really required my
+voice for the principal solo."
+
+"Did it occur to you to threaten to break down entirely, burst into
+tears, and disgrace things generally, if forced to sing before such
+an audience? Pride is the only lever that will move him the billionth
+fraction of an inch; and he would never risk the possibility of being
+publicly mortified by his ward's failure. He dreads humiliation of
+any kind, far more than cholera or Asiatic plague, or than even the
+eternal loss of that infinitesimal microscopic bit of flint, which he
+is pleased in facetious moments to call his soul."
+
+"Of course I could not threaten him; but I told him the distressing
+truth, that I am very much afraid I shall fail if compelled to
+attempt a solo in public, for I know the audience at Mrs. Brompton's
+will be critical, and I feel extremely timid."
+
+"And he dared you--under penalty of his everlasting wrath--to break
+down? Forbade you at your peril, to allow your frightened heart to
+beat the long-roll, or the tattoo?"
+
+"No, though very positive, he was kind, and urged me to exert my
+will; reminding me that the effort was in behalf of destitute
+orphans, and that the charitable object should stimulate me."
+
+"Charity! Madame Roland incautiously blundered in her grand
+apostrophe, hastily picked up the wrong word to fling at the heads of
+her brutal tormentors. Had she lived in this year of grace, she would
+certainly have said: 'Oh, Charity! how much hypocrisy is practised in
+thy name!' How many grim and ghastly farces are enacted in thy
+honour! Oh, Charity! heavenly maid! what solemn shameful shams are
+masked beneath thy celestial garments? Of late this fashionable
+amusement called 'Charity' has risen to the dignity of a fine art;
+and old-fashioned Benevolence that did its holy work silently and
+slyly in a corner, forbidding left hand to eavesdrop, or gossip with
+right hand, would never recognize its gaudy, noisy, bustling modern
+sister. Understand, it is not peculiar to our own great city,--is a
+rank growth that flourishes all over America, possibly elsewhere. At
+certain seasons, when it is positively wicked to eat chicken salad,
+porter-house steak, and boned turkey, and when the thought of
+attending the usual round of parties gives good people nightmare, and
+sinful folks yet in the bonds of iniquity a prospective claim to the
+pleasant and enticing style of future amusements which Orcagna
+painted at Pisa, then Charity rushes to the rescue of _ennuied_
+society, and mercifully bids it give Calico Balls for a Foundling
+Hospital, or _The Musicale_ for the benefit of a Magdalen Home, or a
+Cantata and Refreshments to build a Sailors' Bethel, or help to
+clothe and feed the destitute. A few ladies dash around in open
+carriages and sell tickets, and somebody's daughters make ample
+capital for future investments, as Charity Angels, by riding,
+dancing, singing, and eating in becoming piquant costumes, for the
+'benefit of the afflicted poor.'"
+
+"Oh, Olga! how unjustly severe you are! How exceedingly uncharitable!
+How can you think so meanly of the people with whom you associate
+intimately?"
+
+"I assure you I am not maligning 'our set,' only refer to a universal
+tendency of this advancing age. I merely strip the outside rind, and
+look at the kernel, and therefore I 'see the better, my dear,'
+horrified little rustic Red Ridinghood! Now, you are quite in
+earnest, and you trudge along carrying your alms to this poor old
+Grandmother Charity; but before long you will have your eyes opened
+roughly, and learn as I did that the dear pitiful grandmother is
+utterly dead and gone; and the fangs and claws of the wolf will show
+you which way your cake and honey went. A most voracious wolf, this
+same Public Charity, and blessed with the digestion of an ostrich.
+But go you to the Cantata, and sing your best, and if you happen to
+fall at the feet of pretty little Cecile Brompton, you will hear in
+the distance a subdued growl; the first note of the lupine fantasia
+that inevitably awaits you. Oh! I wonder if ever this green earth
+knew a time when hypocrisy and cant did not prowl even among the
+young lambs, pasturing in innocence upon the 'thousand hills' of God?
+It seems to me that cant cropped out in the first pair that ever were
+born, and Cain has left an immense family. Cant everywhere, in
+science and religion; in churches and in courts; cant among lawyers,
+doctors, preachers; cant around the hearth; cant even around the
+hearse. It is the carnival of cant, this age of ours, and heartily as
+I despise it, I too have been duly noosed and collared, and taught
+the buttery dialect, and I am meekly willing to confess myself  'born
+thrall' of cant."
+
+Regina smiled and shook her head, and tossing her large strong white
+hands restlessly over her pillow, Olga continued:
+
+"Indeed, I am desperately in earnest, and it is a melancholy truth
+that Longfellow tells us: 'Things are not what they seem.' You appear
+disinclined to believe that I am one of those 'whited sepulchres,'
+outwardly fair and comely, but filled with unsavoury dust and ugly
+grinning skulls? Life is a huge sham, and we are all masked puppets,
+jumping grotesquely, just as the strongest hands pull the wires.
+Regina, I have gone to and fro upon the earth long enough to learn
+that the most acceptable present is never labelled advice;
+nevertheless, I would fain warn your unsophisticated young soul
+against some of the pitfalls into which I floundered, and got sadly
+bruised. Never openly defy or oppose your apparent destiny, so long
+as it is in the soft hands of that willow wand--your present
+guardian. Strategy is better than fierce assault, bloodless cunning
+than a gory pitched battle; Cambyses' cats took Pelusium more
+successfully than the entire Persian army could have done, and the
+head dresses Hannibal arranged for his oxen, delivered him from the
+clutches of Fabius and the legions. In my ignorance of polite and
+prudent tactics, I dashed into the conflict, yelled, clawed
+(metaphorically, you understand), and fought like the Austrians at
+Wagram; but of course came out always miserably beaten, with trailing
+banners and many gaping wounds. Regina, you might just as well stand
+below the Palisades, and fire at them with cartridges of boiled rice,
+as make open fight with Erle Palma. Be wise and assume the appearance
+of submission, no matter how stubbornly you are resolved not to give
+up. Don't you know that Cilician geese outwit even the eagles? In
+passing over Taurus, the geese always carry stones in their mouths,
+and thus by bridling their gabbling tongues they safely cross the
+mountain infested with eagles, without being discovered by their
+foes. I commend to you the strategy of silence."
+
+"Do not counsel me to be insincere and deceitful. I consider it
+dishonourable and contemptible."
+
+"Why will you persist in using words that have been out of style as
+long as huge hoop-skirts, coal-scuttle bonnets, and long-tailed
+frock-coats? Once, I know, ugly things and naughty ways were called
+outright by their proper, exact names; but you should not forget that
+the world is improving, and _nous avons change tout cela!_
+
+            'We have that sort of courtesy about us,
+             We would not flatly call a fool a fool.'
+
+I daresay some benighted denizens of the remote rural districts might
+be found, who still say 'tadpole,' whereas we know only that
+embryonic batrachians exist: and it is just possible that in the
+extreme western wilds a poor girl might rashly state that being
+sleepy she intended 'going to bed,' which you must admit could be an
+everlasting stigma and disgrace here, where all refined people merely
+'retire;' leaving the curious world to conjecture whither,--into the
+cabinet of a diplomatist, the confession box of a cathedral, the cell
+of an anchorite, or to that very essential and comfortable piece of
+household furniture which at this instant I fully appreciate, and
+which the Romans kept in their _cubiculum_. Even in my childhood,
+when I was soaped and rubbed and rinsed by my nurse, the place where
+the daily ablution was performed was frankly called a bath-rub in a
+bathroom; but now _creme de la creme_ know only 'lavatory.' Just so,
+in the march of culture and reform, such vulgarly nude phrases as
+'deceitful' have been taken forcibly to a popular tailor, and when
+they are let loose on society again you never dream that you
+meet anything but becomingly dressed 'policy;' and fashionable
+'diplomacy' has hunted 'insincerity'--that other horrid remnant of
+old-fogyism--as far away from civilization as are the lava beds of
+the Modocs. If ghosts have risible faculties, how Machiavelli must
+laugh, watching us from the Elysian Fields! Sometimes silence is
+power; try it."
+
+"But is seems to me the line of conduct you advise is cowardly, and
+that, I think, I could never be."
+
+"It is purely from ignorance that you fail to appreciate the valuable
+social organon I want to teach you. Of course you have heard your
+guardian quote Emerson? He is a favourite author with some who
+frequent the classic halls of the 'Century;' but perhaps you do not
+know that he has investigated 'Courage,' and thrown new light upon
+that ancient and rare attribute of noble souls? Now, my dear, in
+dealing with Erle Palma, if you desire to trim the lion's claws, and
+crimp his mane, adopt the courage of silence."
+
+"Have you found it successful?"
+
+"Unfortunately I did not study Emerson early in life, else I night
+have been saved many conflicts, and much useless bloodshed. Now I
+begin to comprehend Tennyson's admonition, 'Knowledge comes, but
+wisdom lingers,' and I generously offer to economize your school
+fees, and give you the benefit of my dearly bought experience."
+
+"Thank you, Olga; but I would rather hear about the wonderful piece
+of good fortune, of which you promised to tell me."
+
+"Ah, I had almost forgotten. Wonderful, glorious good fortune! The
+price of Circassian skins has gone up in the matrimonial
+slave-market."
+
+Regina laid aside her sewing, opened her eyes wider, and looked
+perplexed.
+
+"You have not lived in moral Constantinople long enough to comprehend
+the terms of traffic? You look like a stupid fawn, the first time the
+baying of the hounds scares it from its quiet sleep on dewy moss and
+woodland violets! Oh you fair pretty, innocent young thing! Why does
+not some friendly hand strangle you right now, before the pack open
+on your trial? You ought to be sewed up in white silk, and laid away
+safely under marble, before the world soils and spoils you."
+
+For a moment a mist gathered in the bright eyes that rested so
+compassionately, so affectionately on the girlish countenance beside
+her, and then Olga continued in a lighter and more mocking tone:
+
+"Can you keep a secret?"
+
+"I think so. I will try."
+
+"Well, then, prepare to envy me. Until yesterday I was poor Olga
+Neville, with no heritage but my slender share of good looks, and my
+ample dower of sound pink and white, strawberry and cream flesh,
+symmetrically spread over a healthy osseous structure. Perhaps you do
+not know (yet it would be remarkable if some gossip has not told you)
+that poor mamma was sadly cheated in her second marriage; and after
+bargaining with Mammon never collected her pay, and was finally cut
+off with a limited annuity which ceases at her death. My own poor
+father left nothing of this world's goods, consequently I am
+unprovided for. We have always been generously and kindly cared for,
+well fed, and handsomely clothed by Mr. Erle Palma, who, justice
+constrains me to say, in all that pertains to our physical
+well-being, has been almost lavish to both of us. But for some years
+I have lost favour in his eyes, have lived here as it were on
+sufferance, and my bread of late has not been any sweeter than the
+ordinary batch of charity loaves. Yesterday I was a pensioner on his
+bounty, but the god of this world's riches--_i.e._, Plutus--in
+consideration no doubt of my long and faithful worship at his altars,
+has suddenly had compassion upon me, and to-day I am prospectively
+one of the richest women in New York. Now do you wonder that
+Circassia is so jubilant?"
+
+"Do you mean that some one has died, and left you a fortune?"
+
+"Oh no! you idiotic cherub! No such heavenly blessing as that. Plutus
+is even shrewder than a Wall Street broker, and has a sharp eye to
+his own profits. I mean that at last, after many vexatious and
+grievous failures, I am promised a most eligible alliance, the
+highest market price. Mr. Silas Congreve has offered me his real
+estate, his stocks of various kinds, his villa at Newport, and his
+fine yacht. Congratulate me."
+
+"He gives them to you? Adopts and makes you his heiress? How very
+good and kind of him, and I am so glad to hear it."
+
+"He offers to many me, you stupid dove!"
+
+"Not that Mr. Congreve who dined here last week, and who is so deaf?"
+
+"That same veritable Midas. You must know he is not deaf from age; oh
+no! Scarlet fever when he was teething."
+
+"You do not intend to marry him?"
+
+"Why not? Do you suppose I have gone crazy, and lost the power of
+computing rents and dividends? Are people ever so utterly mad as
+that? If I were capable of hesitating a moment, I should deserve a
+strait-jacket for the remainder of my darkened days. Why, I am
+reliably informed that his property is unencumbered, and worth at
+least two millions three hundred thousand dollars! I think even dear
+mamma, who mother-like overrates my charms, never in her rosiest
+visions dreamed I could command such a high price. The slave trade
+is looking up once more; threatens to grow brisk, in spite of
+Congressional prohibition."
+
+She sat quite erect, with her hands clasped across the back of her
+head; a crimson spot burning on each cheek, and an unnatural lustre
+in her laughing eyes.
+
+"Olga, do you love him?"
+
+"Now I am sure you are the identical white pigeon that Noah let out
+of the ark; for nothing less antediluvian could ask such obsolete,
+such utterly dead and buried questions! I love dearly and sincerely
+rich laces, old wines, fine glass, heavy silver, blooded horses fast
+and fiery, large solitaires, rare camei; and all these comfortable
+nice little things I shall truly honour, and tenaciously cling to,
+'until death us do part,' and as Mrs. Silas Congreve--hush! Here
+comes mamma."
+
+"Olga, why are you not up and dressed? You accepted the invitation to
+'lunch' with Mrs. St. Clare, and what excuse can I possibly frame?"
+
+"I have implicit faith in your ingenuity, and give you _carte
+blanche_ in the manufacture of an apology."
+
+"And my conscience, Olga?"
+
+"Oh dear! Has it waked up again? I thought you had chloroformed it,
+as you did the last spell of toothache a year ago. I hope it is not a
+severe attack this time?"
+
+She took her mother's hand, and kissed it lightly.
+
+"My daughter, are you really sick?"
+
+"Very, mamma; such fits of palpitation."
+
+"I never saw you look better. I shall tell no stories for you to Mrs.
+St. Clare."
+
+"Cruel mamma! when you know how my tender maidenly sensibilities are
+just now lacerated by the signal success of such patient manoeuvring!
+Tell Mrs. St. Clare that like the man in the Bible who could not
+attend the supper, because he had married a wife, I stayed at home to
+ponder my brilliant prospects as Madame Silas----"
+
+"Olga!" exclaimed Mrs. Palma, with a warning gesture toward Regina.
+
+"Do you think I could hide my bliss from her? She knows the honour
+proffered me, and has promised to keep the secret."
+
+"Until the gentleman had received a positive and final acceptance, I
+should imagine such confidence premature."
+
+Mrs. Palma spoke sternly, and withdrew her fingers from her
+daughter's clasp.
+
+"As if there were even a ghost of a doubt as to the final acceptance!
+As if I dared play this heavy fish an instant, with such a frail
+line? Ah, mamma! don't tease me by such tactics! I am but an
+insignificant mouse, and you and Mr. Congreve are such a grim pair of
+cats, that I should never venture the faintest squeak. Don't roll me
+under your velvet paws, and pat me playfully, trying to arouse false
+hopes of escape, when all the while you are resolved to devour me
+presently. Don't! I am a wiry mouse, proud and sensitive, and some
+mice, it is said, will not permit insult added to injury."
+
+"Regina, are you ready? I shall take you to Mrs. Brompton's, and it
+is quite time to start."
+
+Mrs. Palma looked impatiently at Regina, and as the latter rose to
+get her hat and wrappings from her own room, she saw the mother lean
+over the pillows, saw also that the white arms of the girl were
+quickly thrown up around her neck.
+
+Soon after, she heard the front door-bell ring, and when she started
+down the steps, Olga called from her room:
+
+"Come in. Mamma has to answer a note before she leaves home. When you
+go down, please ask Terry to give a half-bottle of that white wine
+with the bronze seal to Octave, and tell him to make and send up to
+me as soon as possible a wine-chocolate. Mrs. Tarrant's long-promised
+grand affair comes off to-night, and I must build myself up for the
+occasion."
+
+"Are you feverish, Olga? Your cheeks are such a brilliant scarlet?"
+
+"Only the fever of delicious excitement, which all young ladies of my
+sentimental temperament are expected to indulge, when assured that
+the perilous voyage of portionless maidenhood is blissfully ended in
+the comfortable harbour of affluent matrimony. Does that feel like
+ordinary fever?"
+
+She put out her large well-formed hand, and, clasping it between her
+own, Regina exclaimed:
+
+"How very cold! You are ill, or worse still, you are unhappy. Your
+heart is not in this marriage."
+
+"My heart? It is only an automatic contrivance for propelling the
+blood through my system, and so long as it keeps me in becoming
+colour, I have no right to complain. The theory of hearts entering
+into connubial contracts, is as effete as Stahl's Phlogiston! One of
+the wisest and wittiest of living authors, recognizing the drift of
+the age, offers to supply a great public need, by--'A new proposition
+and suited to the tendencies of modern civilization, namely, to
+establish a universal Matrimonial Agency, as well ordered as the
+Bourse of Paris, and the London Stock Exchange. What is more useful
+and justifiable than a Bourse for affairs? Is not marriage an affair?
+Is anything else considered in it but the proper proportions? Are not
+these proportions values capable of rise and fall, of valuation and
+tariff? People declaim against marriage brokers. What else, I pray
+you, are the good friends, the near relations who take tie field,
+except obliging, sometimes official brokers?' Now, Regina, 'M.
+Graindorge,' who makes this proposal to the Parisian world, has lived
+long in America, and doubtless received his inspiration in the United
+States. Hearts? We modern belles compress our hearts, as the Chinese
+do their feet, until they become numb and dwarfed; and some even
+roast theirs before the fires of Moloch until they resemble human
+_pate de foie gras_. There are a great many valuable truths taught us
+in the ancient myths, and for rugged unvarnished wisdom commend me to
+the Scandinavian. Did you ever read the account of Iduna's captivity
+in the castle of Thiassi in Joetunheim?"
+
+"I never did, and what is more, I never will, if it teaches people to
+think as harshly of the world as you seem to do."
+
+"You sweet, simple blue-eyed dunce! How shamefully your guardian
+neglects your education! Never even heard of the Ellewomen? Why, they
+compose the most brilliant society all over the world. Iduna was a
+silly creature, with a large warm heart, and loved her husband
+devotedly; and in order to cure her of this arrant absurd folly she
+was carried away and shut up with the Ellewomen, very fair creatures
+always smiling sweetly. The more bitterly the foolish young wife wept
+and implored their pity, the more pleasantly they smiled at her; and
+when she examined them closely she found that despite their beauty
+they were quite hollow, were made with no hearts at all, and could
+compassionate no one. I have an abiding faith that they had Borgia
+hair, hazel eyes, red lips, and sloping white shoulders just like
+mine. They have peopled the world; a large colony settled in this
+country, we are nearly all Ellewomen now, and you are an ignorant,
+wretched little Iduna, _minus_ the apples, and must get rid of your
+heart at once, in order to smile constantly as we do."
+
+"Olga, don't libel yourself and society so unmercifully. Don't marry
+Mr. Congreve. Think how horrible it must be to spend all your life
+with a man whom you do not love!"
+
+"I assure you, that will form no part either of his programme, or of
+mine. I shall have my 'societies' (charitable, of course), my daily
+drives, my 'Luncheons,' and box the opera with occasional supper at
+Delmonico's; and Mr. Congreve will have his Yacht affairs, and Wall
+Street 'corners' to look after, and will of course spend the majority
+of his evenings at that fascinating 'Century,' which really is the
+only thing that your quartz-souled guardian cherishes any affection
+for."
+
+"But Mr. Palma is not married, and when you are Mr. Congreve's wife,
+of course instead of going to his club, your husband will expect to
+remain at home with you."
+
+"That might be possible in the old-fashioned parsonage where you
+imbibed so many queer outlandish doctrines; but I do assure you, we
+have quite outgrown such an intolerable orthodox system of penance.
+The less married people see of each other these days, the fewer
+scalps dangle around the hearthstone. The customs of the matrimonial
+world have changed since that distant time when sacrificing to Juno
+as the Goddess of Wedlock, the gall was so carefully extracted from
+the victim and thrown behind the altar; implying that in married life
+all anger and bitterness should be exterminated. If Tacitus could
+revisit this much-civilized world of the nineteenth century, I wonder
+if he could find a nation who would tempt him to repeat what he once
+wrote concerning the sanctity of marriage among the Germans? 'There
+vice is not laughed at, and corruption is not called the fashion.'
+Mr. Silas Congreve is much too enlightened to prefer his slippers at
+home to his place at the club. As for sitting up as a rival in the
+'Century,' female vanity never soared to so sublime a height of
+folly! and if Erle Palma were married forty times, his darling club
+would still hold the first place in his flinty affections. It must
+be a most marvellously attractive place, that bewitching 'Century,'
+to magnetize so completely the iron of his nature. I have my
+suspicion that one reason why the husbands cling so fondly to its
+beloved precincts is because it corresponds in some respects to the
+wonderful 'Peacestead' of the AEsir, whose strongest law was that 'no
+angry blow should be struck, and no spiteful word spoken within its
+limits.' Hence it is a tempting retreat from the cyclones and
+typhoons that sometimes sing among a man's Lares and Penates. In view
+of my own gilded matrimonial future, I reverently salute my ally--the
+'Century!' There! Mamma calls you. Go trill like a canary at the
+Cantata, and waste no sighs on the smiling Ellewoman you leave behind
+you. Tell Octave to hurry my wine-chocolate."
+
+She drew the girl to her, looked at her with sparkling merry eyes,
+and kissed her softly on each cheek.
+
+When Regina reached the door and looked back, she saw that Olga had
+thrown herself face downward on the bed, and the hands were clasped
+above the tanged mass of ruddy hair.
+
+During the drive, Mrs. Palma was unusually cheerful, almost
+loquacious, and her companion attributed the agreeable change in her
+generally reticent manner to maternal pride and pleasure in the
+contemplated alliance of her only child.
+
+No reference was made to the subject, and when they reached Mrs.
+Brompton's, Regina was not grieved to learn that the rehearsal had
+been postponed until he following day, in consequence of the sickness
+of Professor Hurtzsel.
+
+"Then Farley must take you home, after I get out at Mrs. St. Clare's.
+The carriage can return for me about four o'clock."
+
+"That will not be necessary. I wish to go and see Mrs. Mason, who has
+been out of town since July, and I can very easily walk. She has
+changed her lodgings."
+
+"Have you consulted Erle on the subject?"
+
+"No, ma'am; but I do not think he would object."
+
+"At least it would be best to obtain his permission, for only last
+week when you stayed so long at that floral establishment, he said he
+should forbid your going out alone. Wait till to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow I shall have no time, and all my studies are over for
+to-day. Why should he care? He allows me to go to Mrs. Mason's in the
+carriage."
+
+"It is entirely your own affair, but my advice is to consult him. At
+this hour he is probably in his office; drive down and see him, and
+if he consents, then go. Here is Mrs. St. Clare's. Farley, take Miss
+Orme to Mr. Palma's office, and be sure you are back here at
+half-past three. Don't keep me waiting."
+
+Never before had Regina gone to the law-office, and to-day she very
+reluctantly followed the unpalatable advice; but the urgency of Mrs.
+Palma's manner constrained obedience. When the carriage stopped, she
+went in, feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed, and secretly hoping
+that her guardian was absent. At a large desk near the door sat a
+young man intently copying some papers, and as the visitor entered,
+he rose and stared. "Is Mr. Palma here?"
+
+"He will be in a few moments. Take a seat."
+
+Hoping to escape before his return, she said hastily: "I have not
+time to wait. Can you give me a pencil and piece of paper? I wish to
+leave a note."
+
+There were two desks in the apartment, but glancing at their dusty
+appearance, and then at the dainty pearl-tinted gloves of the
+stranger, the young man answered hesitatingly:
+
+"You will find writing materials on the desk in the next room. The
+door is not locked."
+
+She hurried in, sat down before the desk where a number of papers
+were loosely scattered, and took up a pen lying near a handsome
+bronze inkstand.
+
+How should she commence? She had never written him a line, and felt
+perplexed. While debating whether she should say Dear Mr. Palma or My
+Dear Guardian, her eyes wandered half unconsciously about the
+apartment, until they were arrested by a large portrait hanging over
+the mantlepiece. It was a copy of the picture her mother had directed
+to be painted by Mr. Harcourt, and which had been sent to Europe.
+
+This copy differed in some respects from the original portrait; Hero
+had been entirely omitted, and in the hands of the painted girl were
+clusters of beautiful snowy lilies.
+
+Surprised and gratified that he deemed her portrait worthy of a place
+in his office, she hastily wrote on a sheet of legal cap:
+
+    "DEAR MR. PALMA,--Having no engagements until to-morrow, I wish
+    to spend the afternoon with Mrs. Mason, who has removed to No.
+    900, East ---- Street, but Mrs. Palma advised me to ask your
+    permission. Hoping that you will not object to my making the
+    visit, without having waited to see you, I am,
+
+                              "Very respectfully
+                                   Your ward,
+                                       REGINA ORME."
+
+Leaving it open on the desk, where he could not fail to see it, she
+glanced once more at the portrait, and hurried away, fearful of being
+intercepted ere she reached the carriage.
+
+"Drive to No. 900, East ---- Street."
+
+The carriage had not turned the neighbouring corner, when Mr. Palma
+leisurely approached his office door, with his thoughts intent upon
+an important will case, which was creating much interest and
+discussion among the members of the Bar, and which in an appeal form
+he had that day consented to argue before the Supreme Court. As he
+entered the front room, the clerk looked up.
+
+"Stuart, has Elliott brought back the papers?"
+
+"Not yet, sir. There was a young lady here a moment ago. Did you meet
+her?"
+
+"No. What was her business?"
+
+"She did not say. Asked for you, and would not wait."
+
+"What name?"
+
+"Did not give any. Think she left a note on your desk. She was the
+loveliest creature I ever looked at."
+
+"My desk? Hereafter in my absence allow no one to enter my private
+office. I did not consider it necessary to caution you, or inform you
+that my desk is not public property, but designed for my exclusive
+service. In future when I am out keep that door locked. Step around
+to Fitzgerald's and get that volume of Reports he borrowed last
+week." The young man coloured, picked up his hat, and disappeared;
+and the lawyer walked into his sanctum and approached his desk.
+
+Seating himself in the large revolving chair, his eyes fell instantly
+upon the long sheet, with the few lines traced in a delicate feminine
+hand.
+
+Over his cold face swept a marvellous change, strangely softening its
+outlines and expression. He examined the writing curiously, taking
+off his glasses and holding the paper close to his eyes; and he
+detected the alteration in the "Dear," which had evidently been
+commenced as "My."
+
+Laying it open before him, he took the pen, wrote "my" before the
+"dear," and drawing a line through the "Regina Orme," substituted
+above it "Lily."
+
+In her haste she had left on the desk one glove, and her small ivory
+_porte-monnaie_ which her mother had sent from Rome.
+
+He took up the little pearl-grey kid, redolent of Lubin's "violet,"
+and spread out the almost childishly small fingers on his own broad
+palm, which suddenly closed over it like a vice; then with a half
+smile of strange tenderness, in which all the stony sternness of lips
+and chin seemed steeped and melted, he drew the glove softly,
+caressingly over his bronzed cheek.
+
+Pressing the spring of the purse, it opened and showed him two small
+gold dollars, and a five dollar bill. In another compartment, wrapped
+in tissue paper, was a small bunch of pressed violets, tied with a
+bit of blue sewing silk. Upon the inside of the paper was written:
+
+"Gathered at Agra. April 8th, 18--."
+
+He knew Mr. Lindsay's handwriting, and his teeth closed firmly as he
+refolded the paper, and put the purse and glove in the inside breast
+pocket of his coat. Placing the note in an envelope, he addressed it
+to "Erle Palma," and locked it up in a private drawer.
+
+Raising his brilliant eyes to the lovely girlish face on the wall, he
+said slowly, sternly:
+
+"My Lily, and she shall be broken, and withered, and laid to rest in
+Greenwood, before any other man's hand touches hers. My Lily, housed
+sacredly in my bosom; blooming only in my heart."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Dismissing the carriage at the corner of the square, near which she
+expected to find Mrs. Mason located in more comfortable lodging,
+Regina walked on until she found the building of which she was in
+quest, and rang the bell. It was situated in a row of plain,
+unpretending but neat tenement houses, kept thoroughly repaired; and
+the general appearance of the neighbourhood indicated that the
+tenants though doubtless poor were probably genteel, and had formerly
+been in more affluent circumstances.
+
+The door was opened by a girl apparently half grown, who stated that
+Mrs. Mason had rented the basement rooms, and that her: visitors were
+admitted through the lower entrance, as a different set of lodgers
+had the next floor. She offered to show Regina the way, and knocking
+at the basement door, the girl suddenly remembered that she had seen
+Mrs. Mason visiting at the house directly opposite.
+
+"Wait, miss, and I will run across and call her."
+
+While standing at the lower door, and partly screened by the flight
+of steps leading to the rooms above, Regina saw a figure advancing
+rapidly along the sidewalk, a tall figure whose graceful carriage was
+unmistakable; and as the person ran up the steps of the next house in
+the row, and impatiently pulled the bell, Regina stepped forward and
+looked up.
+
+A gust of wind just then blew aside the thick brown veil that
+concealed the countenance, and showed for an instant only the
+strongly marked yet handsome profile of Olga Neville.
+
+The door opened; her low inaudible question was answered in the
+affirmative, and Olga was entering, when the skirt of her dress was
+held by a projecting nail, and in disengaging it, she caught a
+glimpse of the astonished countenance beneath the steps. She paused,
+leaned over the balustrade, threw up both hands with a warning
+gesture, then laid her finger on her lips, and hurried in, closing
+the door behind her.
+
+"The lady says Mrs. Mason was there, but left her about a quarter of
+an hour ago. What name shall I give when she comes home?"
+
+"Tell her Regina Orme called, and was very sorry she missed seeing
+her. Say I will try to come again on Sunday afternoon, if the weather
+is good. Who lives in the next house?"
+
+"A family named Eggleston. I hear they sculp and paint for a living.
+Good-day, miss. I won't forget to tell the old lady you called."
+
+Walking leisurely homeward, Regina felt sorely perplexed in trying to
+reconcile Olga's plea of indisposition and her lingering in bed, with
+this sudden appearance in that distant quarter of the city, and her
+evident desire to conceal her face, and to secure silence with regard
+to the casual meeting. Was Mrs. Palma acquainted with her daughter's
+movements, or was the girl's nervous excitement of the morning
+indirectly connected with some mystery, of which the mother did not
+even dream? That some adroitly hidden sorrow was the secret spring of
+Olga's bitterness toward Mr. Palma, and the unfailing source of her
+unjust and cynical railings against that society into which she
+plunged with such inconsistent recklessness, Regina had long
+suspected; and her conjecture was strengthened by the stony
+imperturbability with which her guardian received the sarcasms often
+aimed at him. Whatever the solution, delicacy forbade all attempts to
+lift the veil of concealment, and resolving to banish unfavourable
+suspicion concerning a woman to whom she had become sincerely
+attached, Regina directed her steps toward one of the numerous small
+parks that beautify the great city, and furnish breathing and
+gambolling space for the helpless young innocents, who are debarred
+all other modes of "airing," save such as are provided by the noble
+munificence of New York. The day, though cold, was very bright, the
+sky a cloudless grey-blue, the slanting beams of the sun filling the
+atmosphere with gold-dust; and in crossing the square to gain the
+street beyond Regina was attracted by a group of children romping
+along the walk, and laughing gleefully.
+
+One a toddling wee thing, with a scarlet cloak that swept the ground,
+and a hood of the same warm tint drawn over her curly yellow hair and
+dimpled round face, had fallen on the walk, unheeded by her
+boisterous companions, and becoming entangled in the long garment
+could not get up again. Pausing to lift the little creature to her
+feet, and restore the piece of cake that had escaped from the chubby
+hand, Regina stood smiling sympathetically at the sport of the larger
+children, and wondering whether all those rosy-cheeked "olive
+branches" clustered around one household altar.
+
+At that moment a heavy hand was placed on her shoulder, and turning
+she saw at her side a powerful man, thick set in stature, and whose
+clothing was worn and soiled. Beneath a battered hat drawn
+suspiciously low she discerned a swarthy, flushed, saturnine
+countenance, which had perhaps once been attractive, before the seal
+of intemperance marred and stained its lineament. Somewhere she
+certainly had seen that dark face, and a sensation of vague terror
+seized her.
+
+"Regina, it is about time you should meet and recognize me."
+
+The voice explained all; she knew the man whom Hannah bad met in the
+churchyard on the evening of the storm.
+
+She made an effort to shake off his hand, but it closed firmly upon
+her, and he asked:
+
+"Do you know who I am?"
+
+"Your name is Peleg, and you are a wicked man, an enemy of my
+mother."
+
+"The same, I do not deny it. But recollect I am also your father."
+
+She stared almost wildly at him, and her face blanched and quivered
+as she uttered a cry of horror.
+
+
+"It is false! You are not--you never could have been! You--Oh!
+never--never!"
+
+So terrible was the thought that she staggered, and sank down on an
+iron seat, covering her face with her hands.
+
+"This comes of separating father and child, and rising you above your
+proper place in the world. Your mother taught you to hate me, I knew
+she would; but I have waited as long as I can bear it, and I intend
+to assert my rights. Who do you suppose is your father? Whose child
+did she say you were?"
+
+"She never told me, but I know--O God, have mercy upon me! You cannot
+be my father! It would kill me to believe it!"
+
+She shuddered violently, and when he attempted to put his hand on
+hers, she drew back and cried out, almost fiercely:
+
+"Don't touch me! If you dare, I will scream for a policeman."
+
+"Very well, as soon as you please, and when he comes I will explain
+to him that you arc my daughter; and if necessary I will carry you
+both to the spot where you were born, and prove the fact. Do you know
+where you were born? I guess Minnie did not see fit to tell you that,
+either. Well, in was in that charity hospital on ---- Street, and I
+can tell you the year, and the day of the month. My child, you might
+at least pity, and not insult your poor unhappy father."
+
+Could it be possible after all? Her head swam; her heart seemed
+bursting; her very soul sickened, as she tried to realize all that
+his assertion implied. What could he expect to accomplish by such a
+claim, unless he intended, and felt fully prepared, to establish it
+by irrefragable facts?
+
+"My girl, your mother deserted me before you were born, and has never
+dared to let you know the truth. She is living in disguise in Europe,
+under an assumed name, and only last week I found out her
+whereabouts. She calls herself Mrs. Orme now, and has turned actress.
+She was born one; she has played a false part all her life. Do you
+think your name is Orme? My dear child, it is untrue, and I, Peleg
+Peterson, am your father."
+
+"No, no! My mother, my beautiful, refined mother never, never could
+have loved you! Oh! it is too horrible! Go away, please go away! or I
+shall go mad."
+
+She bound her hands tightly across her eyes, shutting out the
+loathsome face, and in the intensity of her agony and dread she
+groaned aloud. If it were true, could she hear it, and live? What
+would Mr. Lindsay think, if he could see that coarse brutal man
+claiming her as his daughter? What would her haughty guardian say, if
+he who so sedulously watched over her movements, and fastidiously
+chose her associates, could look upon her now?
+
+Born in a. hospital, owning that repulsive countenance there beside
+her as parent?
+
+Heavy cold drops oozed out, and glistened on her brow, and she
+shivered from head to foot, rocking herself to and fro.
+
+Almost desperate as she thought of the mysterious circumstances that
+seemed to entangle her mother as in some inextricable net, the girl
+suddenly started up, and exclaimed:
+
+"It is a fraud, a wicked fraud, or you would never have left me so
+long in peace. My father was, must have been, a gentleman; I know, I
+feel it! You are--you--Save me, O Lord in heaven, from such a curse
+as that!"
+
+He grasped her arm and hissed:
+
+"I am poor and obscure, it is true; but Peterson is better than no
+name at all, and if you are not my child, then you have no name. That
+is all; take your choice."
+
+What a pall settled on earth and sky! The sun shining so brightly in
+the west grew black, and a shadow colder and darker than death seized
+her soul. Was it the least of alternate horrors to accept this man,
+acknowledging his paternal claim, and thereby defend her mother's
+name? How the lovely sad face of that young mother rose like a star,
+gilding all this fearful blackness; and her holy abiding faith in her
+mother proved a strengthening angel in this Gethsemane.
+
+Rallying, she forced herself to look steadily at her companion.
+
+"You say that your name is Peleg Peterson; why did you never come
+openly to the parsonage and claim me? I know that my mother was
+married in that house, by Mr. Hargrove."
+
+"Because I never could find out where you were hid away, until my
+aunt, Hannah Hinton, told me the week before the great storm. Then
+she promised me the marriage license, which she had found in a desk
+at the parsonage, on condition that I would not disturb you; as she
+thought you were happy and well-cared for, and would be highly
+educated, and I was too miserably poor to give you any advantages.
+You know the license was burned by lightning, else I would show it to
+you."
+
+"Proving that you are my mother's legal husband?"
+
+"Certainly, else what use do you suppose I had for it."
+
+"Oh no! You intended to sell it. Hannah told me so."
+
+"No such thing. Minnie does not want to own me now, and I intended to
+show the license to the father of the man for whom she deserted both
+you and me. She has followed him to Europe, though she knows he is a
+married man."
+
+"It is false! How dare you! You shall not slander her dear name. My
+mother could never have done that! There is some foul conspiracy to
+injure her; not another word against her! No matter what may have
+happened, no matter how dark and strange things look, she was not to
+blame. She is right, always right; I know, I feel it! I tell you, if
+the sun and the stars, and the very archangels in heaven accused her,
+I would not listen, I would not believe--no--never! She is my mother,
+do you hear me? She is my mother, and God's own angels would go
+astray as soon as she!"
+
+She looked as white and rigid as a corpse twelve hours dead, and her
+large defiant eyes burned with a supernatural lustre.
+
+He comprehended the nature with which he had to deal, and after a
+pause, said sullenly:
+
+"Minnie does not deserve such a child, and it is hard that you, my
+own flesh and blood, refuse to recognize me. Regina, I am desperately
+poor, or I would take you now, forcibly if necessary; and if Minnie
+dared deny my claim, I would publish the facts in a court of justice.
+Even your guardian is deceived, and many things would come to light,
+utterly disgraceful to you, and to your father and mother. But at
+present I cannot take care of you, and I am in need, actual need.
+Will my child see her own father want bread and clothing, and refuse
+to assist him? Can you not contribute something toward my support,
+until I can collect some money due me? If you can help me a little
+now, I will try to be patient, and leave you where you are, in luxury
+and peace; at least till I can hear from Minnie, to whom I have
+written."
+
+"Why do you not go at once to my guardian, and demand me?"
+
+"If you wish it I will, before sunset. Come, I am ready. But when I
+do, the facts will be blazoned to the world, and you and Minnie and I
+shall all go down together in disgrace and ruin. If you are willing
+to drag all the shameful history into the papers, I am ready now."
+
+He rose, but she shrank away, and putting her hand in her pocket,
+became aware of the loss of her purse. Had she been robbed, or had
+she dropped her _porte-monnaie_ in the carriage?
+
+"I have not a cent with me. I have lost my purse since I left home."
+
+She saw the gloomy scowl that lowered on his brow. "When can you give
+me some money? Mind, it must not be known that I am literally
+begging. I am as proud, my daughter, as you are, and if people find
+out that I am getting alms from you, I shall explain that it is from
+my own child I receive aid."
+
+A feeble gleam of hope stole across her soul, and rapidly she
+reflected on the best method of escape.
+
+"I have very little money, but to-morrow I will send you through the
+post office every cent I possess. How shall I address it?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"That would not satisfy me. I want to see you again, to look at your
+sweet face. Do you think I do not love my child? Meet me here this
+time to-morrow."
+
+Each word smote like pelting hailstones, and he saw all her loathing
+printed on her face.
+
+"I have an engagement that may detain me beyond this hour; but if I
+live, I will be as punctual as circumstances permit."
+
+"If you tell Palma you have seen me, he must know everything, for
+Minnie has hired him to help her deceive you and the world, and all
+the while she has kept the truth from him. Shrewd as he is, she has
+completely duped him. If he learns you have been with me, I shall
+unmask everything; and when he washes his hands of you and your
+mother, I will take you where you shall never lay your eyes again on
+the two who have taught you to hate me--Minnie and Palma. My child,
+do you understand me?"
+
+She shuddered as he leaned toward her, and stepping back, she
+answered resolutely:
+
+"That threat will prove very effectual. I will meet you here,
+bringing the little money I have, and will keep this awful day a
+secret from all but God, who never fails to protect the right."
+
+"You promise that?"
+
+"What else is left me? My guardian shall know nothing from me until I
+can hear from my mother, to whom I shall write this night. Do not
+detain me. My absence will excite suspicion."
+
+"Good-bye, my daughter."
+
+He held out his hand.
+
+She looked at him, and her lips writhed as she tried to contemplate
+for an instant the bare possibility that after all he might be her
+parent. She forced herself to hold out her left hand which was
+gloved, but he had scarcely grasped her fingers, when she snatched
+them back, turned and darted away, while he called after her:
+
+"This time to-morrow. Don't fail."
+
+The glory of the world, and the light of her young life had suddenly
+been extinguished, and fearful spectres vague and menacing thronged
+the future. Death appeared a mere trifle in comparison with the
+lifelong humiliation, perhaps disgrace, that was in store for her;
+and bitterly she demanded of fate, why she had been reared so
+tenderly, so delicately, in an atmosphere of honour and refinement,
+if destined to fall at last into the hands of that coarse vicious
+man? The audacity of his claim almost overwhelmed her faint hope that
+some infamous imposture was being practised at her expense; and the
+severity of the shock, the intensity of her mental suffering,
+rendered her utterly oblivious of everything else.
+
+At another time she would doubtless have heard and recognized a
+familiar step that followed her from the moment she quitted the
+square; but to-day, almost stupefied, she hurried along the pavement,
+mechanically turning the corners, looking neither to right nor left.
+
+Fifth Avenue was a long way off, and it was late in the afternoon
+when she reached home, and ran up to her own room, anxious to escape
+observation.
+
+Hattie was arranging some towels on the washstand, and turning
+around, exclaimed:
+
+"Good gracious, miss! You are as white as the coverlid on the bed! I
+guess something has happened?"
+
+"I am not well. I am tired, so tired. Have they all come home?"
+
+"Yes, and there will be company to dinner. Two gentlemen, Terry said.
+Are you going to wear that dress?"
+
+"I don't want any dinner. If they ask for me, tell Mrs. Palma I feel
+very badly, and that I beg she will excuse me. Where is Olga?"
+
+"Busy trimming her overskirt with flowers. You know Mrs. Tarrant
+gives her ball to-night, and Miss Olga says she has saved herself,
+rested all day, to be fresh for it. Lou-Lou has just come to dress
+her hair. What a pity you can't go too, you look quite old enough.
+Miss Olga has such a gay, splendid time."
+
+"I do not want to go. I only wish I could lie down and sleep for
+ever. Shut the door, and ask them all please to let me alone this
+evening."
+
+How the richness of the furniture and the elegance that prevailed
+throughout this house mocked the threadbare raiment and
+poverty-stricken aspect of the man who threatened to drag her down to
+his own lower plane of life and association? Her innate pride, and
+her cultivated fondness for all beautiful objects, rebelled at the
+picture which her imagination painted in such sombre hues, and with a
+bitter cry of shame and dread she bowed her head against the marble
+mantlepiece.
+
+For many years she had known that some unfortunate cloud hung over
+her own and her mother's history, but faith in the latter, and a
+perfect trust in the wisdom and goodness of Mr. Hargrove, had
+encouraged her in every previous hour of disquiet and apprehension.
+Until to-day the positive and hideous ghoul of disgrace had never
+actually confronted her, and with the intuitive hopefulness of youth,
+she had waved aside all forebodings, believing that at the proper
+time her mother would satisfactorily explain the necessity for the
+mystery of her conduct. Was Mr. Lindsay acquainted with some terrible
+trouble that threatened her future when in bidding her farewell he
+had said he would gladly shield her, were it possible, from trials
+that he foresaw would be her portion?
+
+Did he know all, and would he love her less, if that bold bad man
+should prove his paternal claim to her? Her father! As she tried to
+face the possibility, it was with difficulty that she smothered a
+passionate cry, and throwing herself across the foot of the bed,
+buried her face in her hands.
+
+If she could only run away and go to India, where Mr. Lindsay would
+shield, pity, and love her! How gratefully she thought of him at this
+juncture,--how noble, tender, and generous he had always been! what a
+haven of safety and rest his presence would be now!
+
+As a very dear brother she had ever regarded him, for her affection,
+though intense and profound, was as entirely free from all taint of
+sentimentality, as that which she entertained for his mother; and her
+pure young heart had never indulged a feeling that could have
+coloured her cheek with confusion had the world searched its
+recesses.
+
+Were Douglass accessible, she would unhesitatingly have sprung into
+his protecting arms, as any suffering young sister might have done,
+and, fully unburdening her soul, would have sought brotherly counsel;
+but in his absence, to whom was it possible for her to turn?
+
+To her guardian? As she thought of his fastidious overweening pride,
+his haughty scorn of everything plebeian, his detestation of all that
+appertained to the ranks of the ill-bred, a keen pang of almost
+intolerable shame darted through her heart, and a burning tide surged
+over her cheeks, painting them fiery scarlet. Would he accord her the
+shelter of his roof, were he aware of all that had occurred that day?
+
+She started up, prompted by a sudden impulse to seek him and divulge
+everything; to ask how much was true, to demand that he would send
+her at once to her mother.
+
+Perhaps he could authoritatively deny that man's statements, and
+certainly he was far too prudent to assume guardianship of a girl
+whose real parentage was unknown to him.
+
+Implicit confidence in his wisdom and friendship, and earnest
+gratitude for the grave kindness of his conduct toward her since she
+became an inmate of his house, had gradually displaced the fear and
+aversion that formerly influenced her against him; and just now the
+only comfort she could extract from any quarter arose from the
+reflection that in every emergency Mr. Palma would protect her from
+harm and insult, until he could place her under her mother's care.
+
+Two years of daily association had taught her to appreciate the
+sternness and tenacity of his purpose, and his stubborn iron will, so
+often dreaded before, now became a source of consolation, a tower of
+refuge to which in extremity she could retreat.
+
+But if she were indeed the low-born girl that man had dared to
+assert, and Mr. Palma should learn that he had been deceived, how
+could she ever meet his coldly contemptuous eyes?
+
+Some one tapped at the door, but she made no response, hoping she
+might be considered asleep. Mrs. Palma came in, groping her way.
+
+"Why have you not a light?"
+
+"I did not need one. I only wanted to be quiet."
+
+"Where are the matches?"
+
+"On the mantlepiece."
+
+Mrs. Palma lighted the gas, then came to the bed.
+
+"Regina, are you ill, that you obstinately absent yourself when you
+know there is company to dinner?"
+
+"I feel very badly indeed, and I hoped you would excuse me."
+
+"Have you fever? You seemed very well when I parted from you at Mrs.
+St. Clare's door."
+
+"No fever, I think; but I felt unable to go downstairs. I shall be
+better to-morrow."
+
+"Erle desired me to say that he wishes to see you this evening, and
+you must come down to the library about nine o'clock. He has gone to
+his office, and you know he will be displeased if you fail to obey
+him."
+
+"Please, Mrs. Palma, tell him I am not able. Ask him to excuse me
+this evening. Intercede for me, will you not?"
+
+"Oh! I never interfere when Erle gives an order. Beside, I shall not
+see him again before midnight. I am going with Olga to Mrs.
+Tarrant's, and must leave home quite early because I promised to call
+for Melissa Gardner and chaperon her. Of course she will not be
+ready, young ladies never are, and we shall have to wait. It is only
+eight o'clock now, and an hour's sleep will refresh you. I will
+direct Hattie to call you, when your guardian comes in. Do you
+require any medicine? You do look very badly."
+
+"Only rest, I think. Can't you persuade Mr. Palma to go to the party,
+or ball, or whatever it may be?"
+
+"He has promised to drop in, toward the close of the evening and
+escort us home. Quite a compliment to Mrs. Tarrant, for Erle rarely
+deigns to honour such entertainments; but her husband is a prominent
+lawyer, and a college friend of Erle's. Good-night."
+
+She went out, closing the door softly, and Regina felt more desolate
+than ever. Was Mr. Palma displeased, because she had gone visiting
+without waiting for his consent? If she had been more patient, might
+not this fearful discovery have been averted? Was her sorrow part of
+the wages of her disobedient haste?
+
+What had become of her purse? How could she without exciting
+suspicion obtain the money she had so positively promised?
+
+She rang the bell, and sent Hattie to request Farley to examine the
+carriage, and see if she had not dropped her _porte-monnaie_ into
+some of its crevices. It was a long time before the servant returned,
+alleging in excuse that she had been detained to assist is dressing
+Miss Olga. Farley had searched everywhere, and could not find the
+purse.
+
+Hattie hurried away to Mrs. Palma, and Regina unlocked a small drawer
+of her bureau, and took out what remained of her semi-annual
+allowance of pocket money. She counted it carefully, but found only
+thirteen dollars.
+
+If she could have recovered her _porte-monnaie_ she would have had
+twenty dollars to offer, and even that seemed mockingly insufficient,
+as the price of silence, of temporary escape from humiliation.
+
+What could she do? She had never asked a cent from her guardian, and
+the necessity of appealing to him was inexpressibly mortifying; but
+to whom could she apply?
+
+"'But Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of
+these'--society tiger lilies."
+
+The door swung wide open, and as she spoke Olga seemed to swim into
+the room, so quick yet noiseless was her entrance.
+
+At the sound of her voice, Regina dropped the money back into the
+drawer, and turned to inspect the elegant toilette, which consisted
+of gold-coloured silk and Mechlin lace, rich yellow roses with
+sulphurous hearts, and a very complete set of topaz, which flashed
+amber rays over the neck, ears, and arms of the wearer. With her
+brilliant complexion, sparkling eyes, and hair elaborately powdered
+with gold dust, she seemed a vision of light, at whom Regina gazed
+with unfeigned admiration.
+
+"Beautiful, Olga; beautiful."
+
+"The textile fabrics, the silk and lace? Or the human framework, the
+flesh and blood machine that serves as lay figure to show off the
+statuesque folds, the creamy waves of cosily Mechlin, the Persian
+roses, and expensive pebbles?"
+
+"Both. The dress, and the wearer. I never saw you look so well."
+
+"Thanks. Behold the result of the morning's self-denial, of a day
+passed quietly in bed, with only the companionship of pillows and
+dreams. I was forced to choose between Mrs. St. Clare's 'lunch' and
+Mrs. Tarrant's 'crush,' 'not that I love Caesar less, but that I love
+Rome more;' and the success of my strategy is brilliant. Am I not the
+complete impersonation of sunshine? How deadly white and chill you
+look! Come closer and warm yourself in my glorious rays. Do you scout
+oneiriomancy as a heathenish fable? To-day I unexpectedly became a
+convert to its sublime secrets. After you and mamma deserted me for
+Cantata and Luncheon, I fell into a heavy sleep, and dreamed that I
+was Danae, with a mist of gold drizzling over me; and lo! when I began
+to dress this evening, my dazzled eyes beheld these superb topaz
+gems. 'Compliments of Mr. Erle Palma, who thought they would
+harmonize with the gold-coloured silk, and ordered them for the
+occasion.' So said the card lying on the velvet case! Do you wonder
+if the world is coming to its long-predicted end? Not at all; merely
+the close of Olga Neville's career; the sun of my maidenhood setting
+in unexpected splendour. Do you understand that scriptural paradox:
+'To him that hath shall be given, but from him that hath not shall be
+taken,' etc., etc? Once when I was better than I am now, and studied
+my Bible, it puzzled me; now I know it means that stiff-necked Olga
+Neville finds no favour in Mr. Palma's eyes; but the obedient, and
+amiable, prospective Mrs. Silas Congreve shall be furnished with
+gewgaws, which very soon she will possess in abundance, and to spare.
+Just now mamma gave me the delightful intelligence that, having been
+informed of my intention to trade myself off for stocks and
+brown-stone-fronts, her very distinguished and magnanimous stepson
+signified his approbation by announcing his determination to settle
+ten thousand dollars on this Lucretia Borgia head, upon the day when
+it wears a bridal veil."
+
+All this was uttered volubly, as if she feared interruption; and she
+stood surveying her brilliant image in the mirror, shaking out the
+silk skirt, looping the lace, arranging the rose leaves and turning,
+so as to catch her profile reflection.
+
+Regina readily perceived that she adopted this method of ignoring the
+casual meeting in East ---- Street, and resolved to tacitly accept
+the cue; but before she could frame a reply, Olga hurried on:
+
+"Were you really sick and unable to dine, or are you practising the
+first steps, the initial measure of that policy system, so cordially
+commended to your favourable regard? You missed an unusually good
+dinner. Octave seems to have days of culinary inspiration, and this
+has been one. The _turbot a la creme_ was fit for Lucullus, the
+noyeau-flavoured _gauffres_ as crisp as criticism, as light as one of
+Taglioni's movements, the marbled _glaces_ simply perfect. But when
+your chair remained vacant your guardian darkened like a
+thunder-cloud in an August sky, and Roscoe, poor Elliott Roscoe,
+looked precisely as I imagine a hungry wolf feels, when crouching to
+catch a tender ewe lamb he finds that the watchful shepherd has
+safely locked it in the fold. Evidently he believes that you and Erle
+Palma have conspired to starve him out, and really he is ludicrously
+irate. Don't trifle with his expanding affections; they are not quite
+fledged yet, and are easily bruised. Deal with him kindly; he is
+better than his cousin, better than any of us. What have you done to
+render him so unmanageable?
+
+"I have not seen Mr. Roscoe for a week."
+
+"Certainly he has seen you in much less time--he imagines, as
+recently as this afternoon; but appearances are desperately
+deceitful, and our fancy often manufactures likenesses. In this world
+of fleeting shadows we are often called upon to reject the evidence
+of all five of the senses, and what madness, what culpable folly, to
+credit that of mere treacherous sight! Shall I tell Elliott that he
+was dreaming, and did not see you?"
+
+"I have no message for him. That he may have seen me sometime to-day,
+walking upon the street, is quite possible, but certainly of no
+consequence. Your bracelet has become unfastened."
+
+She bent down to clasp the topaz crescent, and Olga laid her hand on
+the girl's shoulder.
+
+"Something pains you very much, and your face has not yet learned the
+great feminine art of masking misery in smiles, and burying it in
+dimples. Mind, dear, I do not ask, I do not wish to know what your
+hidden fox is, preying so ravenously upon your vitals. Sooner or
+later the punishment of the Spartan thief overtakes us all, and after
+a while you will learn to bear the gnawing as gaily as I do. I don't
+want to know your secret wound, I should only lacerate it with my
+callous policy handling, only torment you by pouring into its gaping
+mouth the vitriol of my fashionable worldly philosophy, which
+consumes what it touches. How I wish stupid society would stand aside
+and let me do you a genuine kindness; open your blue veins and let
+out gently--slowly--all the pangs and throbs. Dear, it would be a
+blessing, like that man in the East who stabbed his devoted wife at
+her request, because he loved her and wished to put her at rest; but
+something very blind indeed, and which under the cloak of Law mocks
+and outrages justice, would blindly hang me! This is the age of Law;
+even miracles are severely forbidden, and if the herd of Gadarene
+swine had miraculously perished in this generation and country, our
+Lord and His disciples would have inevitably been sued for damages.
+Don't you know that Erle Palma would have been engaged for the
+prosecution? Yes, mamma! quite ready, and coming, Go to sleep,
+snowdrop, and dream that you are like me, a topaz-bedizened
+_odalisque_ swimming in sunshine."
+
+She stooped, kissed the girl softly on both cheeks, and looked
+tenderly, pityingly at her; then suddenly gathered her close to her
+heart, holding her there an instant, as if to shelter her from some
+impending storm.
+
+"If you love your mother, and she loves you, run away now and join
+her, before the chains are tightened. Your guardian is setting
+snares; little white rabbit, flee for your life, while escape is
+possible."
+
+She floated away like some dazzling gilded cloud, and a moment later
+her peculiarly light merry laugh rang through the hall below, as she
+ran down to join her mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+Unable to throw off the load of painful apprehension that weighed so
+heavily on her heart, Regina derived some consolation from the
+reflection that she was entirely alone in the house, and could at
+least escape scrutiny and curious criticism; for she hoped that Mr.
+Palma, forgetting her, would go directly from his office to Mrs.
+Tarrant's, allowing her a reprieve until morning. During the second
+year of her residence beneath his roof, she had at his request taken
+her breakfast with him, sitting at the head of the table, where Mrs.
+Palma presided at all other times. Olga and her mother generally
+slept quite late, and consequently Regina now looked forward with
+dread to the _tete-a-tete_ awaiting her next morning.
+
+A few days subsequent to the Sunday afternoon on which her guardian
+had so unexpectedly accompanied her to church, she had been
+pleasantly surprised by finding in the library a handsome Mason &
+Hamlin parlour organ; on which lay a slip of paper, expressing Mr.
+Palma's desire that she would consider it exclusively hers, and
+sometimes play upon it for him. But an unconquerable timidity and
+repugnance to using the instrument when he was at home had prevented
+a compliance with the request, which was never repeated.
+
+To-night the thought of the organ brought dear and comforting
+memories, and feeling quite secure from intrusion she went down to
+the library. As usual the room was bright and comfortable as gas and
+anthracite could make it, and failing to observe a sudden movement of
+the curtains hanging over the recess behind the writing-desk, Regina
+entered, closed the door and walked up to the glowing grate.
+
+Beneath her mother's portrait sat the customary floral offering,
+which on this occasion consisted of double white and blue violets,
+and standing awhile on the hearth, the girl gazed up at the picture
+with mournful, longing tenderness. Could that proud lovely face ever
+have owned as husband, the coarser, meaner, and degraded clay, who
+that afternoon had dared with sacrilegious presumption to speak of
+her as "Minnie"?
+
+What was the mystery, and upon whom must rest the blame, possibly the
+lifelong shame?
+
+"Not you, dear sad-eyed mother. Let the whole world condemn, deride,
+and despise us; but only your own lips shall teach me to doubt you.
+Everything else may crumble beneath me, all may drift away; but faith
+and trust in mother shall stand fast--as Jacob's ladder, linking me
+with the angels who will surely come down its golden rounds and
+comfort me. Oh, mother I the time has come when you and I must clasp
+hands and fight the battle together; and God will be merciful to the
+right."
+
+Standing there in her blue cashmere dress, relieved by dainty collar
+and cuffs of lace, she seemed indeed no longer a young almost
+childish girl, but one who had passed the threshold and entered the
+mysterious realm of early womanhood.
+
+Rather below than above medium height, her figure was exquisitely
+moulded, and the beautiful head was poised on the shoulders with that
+indescribable proud grace one sometimes sees in perfect marble
+sculpture. But the delicate woeful Oenone face, as white and
+gleaming under its shining coil of ebon hair, as a statue carved from
+the heart of Lygdos; how shall mere words ever portray its peculiar
+loveliness, its faultless purity? Unconsciously she had paused in the
+exact position selected for that beautiful figure of "Faith" which
+Palmer has given to the world; and standing with drooping clasped
+hands and uplifted eyes gazing upon her mother's portrait, as the
+"Faith" looks to the lonely cross above her the resemblance in form
+and features was so striking, that all who have studied that
+exquisite marble can readily recall the countenance of the girl in
+the library.
+
+Turning away, she opened the organ, drew out the stops and began to
+play.
+
+As the soft yet sacredly solemn strains rolled through the long room,
+hallowed associations of the old parsonage life floated up,
+clustering like familiar faces around her. Once more she heard the
+cooing of ring-doves in the honeysuckle, and the loved voices, now
+silent in death, or far, far away among the palms of India.
+
+"Cast thy burden on the Lord" had been one of their favourite
+selections at V----, and now hoping for comfort she sang it.
+
+It was the first time she had attempted it since the evening before
+the storm, when Mr. Lindsay had sung it with her, while Mr. Hargrove
+softly hummed the base, as he walked up and down the verandah, with
+his arm on his sister's shoulder.
+
+How many holy memories rushed like a flood over her heart and soul,
+burying for a time the bitter experience of to-day!
+
+Unable to conclude the song, she leaned back in her chair, and gave
+way to the tears that rolled swiftly down her cheeks.
+
+So wan and hopeless was her face that Mr. Palma, watching her from
+the curtained alcove, came quickly forward.
+
+He was elegantly dressed in full evening toilette, and, throwing his
+white gloves on the table, approached his ward.
+
+At sight of him she started up, and hastily wiped away the tears that
+obstinately dripped despite her efforts.
+
+"Oh, sir! I hoped you would forget to come home, and would go to Mrs.
+Tarrant's. I did not know you were in the house."
+
+"I never forget my duties, and though I am going to Mrs. Tarrant's
+after a while, I attend to 'business before pleasure'; it has been my
+lifelong habit."
+
+His new suit of black, and the white vest and cravat were singularly
+becoming to him. He was aware of the fact; and even in the midst of
+her anxiety and depression, Regina thought she had never seen him
+look so handsome.
+
+"I wish to ask you a few questions. Was it actual bodily sickness,
+physical pain, that kept you in your room during dinner, at which I
+particularly desired your attendance?"
+
+"I cannot say that it was."
+
+"You had no fever, no headache, no fainting-spell?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Then why did you absent yourself?"
+
+"I felt unhappy, and shrank from seeing any one: especially strange
+guests."
+
+"Unhappy? About what?"
+
+"My heart ached, and I wished to be alone."
+
+"Heart-ache, so early? However, you are in your seventeenth year,
+quite old enough, I suppose, for the premonitory symptoms. What gave
+you heart-ache?"
+
+She was silent.
+
+"You feared my displeasure, knowing I had cause to feel offended,
+when making a pretence of deferring to my wishes, you hurried away
+from my office, just as I was returning to it? Why did you not wait?"
+
+"I was afraid you would refuse your permission, and I wanted so very
+much to go to Mrs. Mason's."
+
+Above all other virtues he reverenced and admired stern unvarnished
+truth, and this strong element of her reticent nature had powerfully
+attracted him.
+
+"Little girl, am I such a stony-hearted ogre?" A strangely genial
+smile wanned and brightened his usually grave cold face, and
+certainly at that moment Erle Palma showed one aspect of his nature
+never exhibited before to any human being.
+
+"What a fascinating person this poor old Mrs. Mason must be;
+absolutely tempting you to disobedience. Does she not correspond with
+the saints in Oude?"
+
+"If you mean Mr. Lindsay and his mother, she certainly hears from
+them occasionally."
+
+"Why not phrase it Mrs. Lindsay and her son? Was it the dreadful news
+that malarial fever is epidemic at the Missions, or that the Sepoys
+are threatening another revolt, that destroyed your appetite,
+unfitted you for the social amenities at the dinner-table, and gave
+you heart-ache?"
+
+"If there is such bad news, I did not hear it Mrs. Mason was not at
+home."
+
+"Indeed! Then whom did you see?"
+
+"When I ascertained she was absent, I had already sent the carriage
+away, and I came home, after stopping a few moments in ---- Square."
+
+She grew very white as she spoke, and he saw her lips quiver.
+
+"Regina, what is the matter?"
+
+She did not reply; and bending toward her, he said in a low, winning
+voice entirely unlike his usual tone:
+
+"Lily, trust your guardian."
+
+Looking into his brilliant eyes, she felt tempted to tell him all, to
+repose implicitly upon his wisdom and guidance, but the image of
+Peleg Peterson rose like a hideous warning spectre.
+
+Readily interpreting the varying expression of a countenance which he
+had so long and carefully studied, he continued:
+
+"You wish to tell me frankly, yet you shrink from the ordeal. Lily,
+what have you done that you blush to confess to me?"
+
+"Nothing, sir."
+
+"Why then do you hesitate?"
+
+"Because other persons are involved. Oh, Mr. Palma! I am very
+unhappy."
+
+She clasped her hands, and bowed her chin upon them, a peculiar
+position into which sorrow always drove her.
+
+"I inferred as much, from your manner while at the organ. I am very
+sorry that my house is not a happy home for my ward. Have you been
+subjected to any annoyances from the members of my household?"
+
+"None whatever. All are kind and considerate. But I can never be
+satisfied till I see my mother. I shall write tonight, imploring her
+permission to join her in Europe, and I beg that you will please use
+your influence in favour of my wishes. Oh, sir, do help me to go to
+my mother!"
+
+His smile froze, his face hardened; and he led her to a low sofa
+capable of seating only two persons, and drawn near the fire.
+
+"Madame Orme does not want her daughter just yet"
+
+"But I want my mother. Oh, I must go!"
+
+He took both her hands as they lay folded in her lap, opened the
+clenched fingers, clasping them softly in his own, so white and
+shapely, and his black eyes glittered:
+
+"Am I cruel and harsh to my Lily, that she is so anxious to run away
+from her guardian?"
+
+"No, sir, oh no! Kind and very good, consulting what you consider my
+welfare in all things. But you can't take mother's place in my
+heart."
+
+"I assure you, little girl, I do not want your mother's place."
+
+Something peculiar in his tone arrested her notice, and lifting her
+large lovely eyes she met his searching gaze.
+
+"That is right, keep your eyes so, fixed steadily on mine, while I
+discharge a rather delicate and embarrassing duty, which sometimes
+devolves upon the grim guardians of pretty young ladies. In your
+mother's absence I am supposed to occupy a _quasi_ parental position
+toward you; and am the authorized custodian of your secrets, should
+you, like most persons of your age, chance to possess any. Your
+mother, you are aware, invested me with this right as her vicegerent,
+consequently you must pardon the inquisition into the state of your
+affections, which just now I am compelled to make. Although I
+consider you entirely too young for such grave propositions, it is
+nevertheless proper that I should be the medium of their presentation
+when they become inevitable. Upon the tender and very susceptible
+heart of Mr. Elliott Roscoe it appears that either with 'malice
+prepense,' or else, let us hope, in innocent unconsciousness, you
+have been practising certain feminine wiles and sorcery, which have
+so far capsized his reason, that he is incapacitated for attending to
+his business. When I remonstrated against the lunacy into which he is
+drifting, he in very poetic and chivalric style--which it is
+unnecessary to repeat here--assured me that you were the element
+which had utterly deranged his cerebral equipoise. Elliott Roscoe is
+my cousin, is a young gentleman of good character, good mind, good
+education, good heart, and good manners, and in due time may command
+a good income from his profession; but just now, in pecuniary
+matters, he would not be considered a brilliant match. Mr. Roscoe
+informs me that he desires an interview with you to-morrow, for the
+purpose of offering you his heart and hand; and while protesting on
+the ground of your youth, I have promised to communicate his wishes
+to you, and should he be favourably received, write to your mother at
+once."
+
+Perplexed and confused, she had not fully comprehended his purpose
+until he uttered the closing sentence, and painful astonishment kept
+her silent, while as if spellbound her gaze met his.
+
+"Now it remains for you to answer one question. Should your mother
+give her consent, does Miss Regina Orme intend to become my cousin?"
+
+"Oh, never! You distress me; you ought not to talk to me of such
+things. I am so young, you know mother would not approve of it."
+
+She blushed scarlet, and attempted to withdraw her hands, but found
+it impossible.
+
+"Quite true, and if crazy young gentlemen could be prevailed upon to
+keep silent, rest assured I should never have broached a subject,
+which I regard as premature. But while I certainly applaud your good
+sense, it is rather problematical whether I should feel gratified at
+your summary rejection of an alliance with my cousin. Are you fully
+resolved that I shall never be related to you, except as your
+guardian?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I do not wish to be your cousin."
+
+Once more the smile shone out suddenly, making sunshine in his face.
+
+"Thank you. At what hour will you see Mr. Roscoe?"
+
+"At none. Please do not let him come here, or speak to me on that
+subject; it would be so extremely painful. I should never meet him
+afterward without feeling distressed, and things would be intolerably
+disagreeable. Please, Mr. Palma, shield me from it."
+
+She involuntarily drew closer to him, as if for protection, and
+noting the movement, he smiled, and tightened his clasp of her hands.
+
+"I cannot positively forbid him to address you on this terrible
+topic, but if you wish it, I will endeavour to dissuade him. Elliott
+has Palma blood in his veins, and that has certain unmistakable
+tendencies to obstinacy, though its conduct in love affairs yet
+remains to be tested; but it occurs to me that if you are in earnest
+in desiring to crush this foolish whim in the bud, you can very
+easily accomplish it by empowering me to make to my cousin a simple
+statement, which will extinguish the matter beyond all possibility of
+resurrection."
+
+"Then tell him whatever your judgment dictates."
+
+"My judgment must be instructed by facts, and the simple statement I
+propose might involve grave consequences. Do you authorize me to
+close the discussion of this matter at once and for ever, by
+informing Mr. Roscoe that you cannot entertain the thought of
+granting him an interview because his suit is hopeless from the fact
+that your affections are already engaged?"
+
+She was too much embarrassed by his piercing merciless eyes, to
+notice that he slipped one finger upon the pulse at her wrist,
+keeping her hands firmly in his warm clasp; or that he leaned lower
+as he spoke, until his noble massive head very nearly approached
+hers.
+
+"I could not ask you to tell him that. It would be untrue."
+
+"Are you sure, Lily?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Palma."
+
+"Have you forgotten Mr. Lindsay?"
+
+He thought for an instant that the pulse stood still, then beat
+regularly calmly on, and he wondered if his own tight pressure had
+baffled his object.
+
+"No, I never forget Mr. Lindsay."
+
+She did not shrink or colour, but a sad hopeless look crept into her
+splendid eyes at the mention of his name.
+
+"You are certain that the young missionary will not prove the
+obstacle to your becoming more closely related to your guardian?
+Thus far, I have found you singularly truthful in all things; be
+careful that just here you deceive neither yourself nor me. There is
+a tradition that in the river Inachus is found a peculiar stone
+resembling a beryl, which turns black in the hands of those who
+intend to bear false witness; and you can readily understand that
+lawyers find such stones invaluable in the court-room. I have placed
+you on the witness stand, and my beryl-tinted seal ring presses your
+palm at this instant. Be frank; are you not very deeply attached to
+Mr. Lindsay?"
+
+Suddenly a burning flush bathed her brow, she struggled to free her
+hands in order to hide her face from his glowing probing eyes, but
+his hold was unyielding as a band of steel; and hardly conscious
+where she found shelter, she turned and pressed her cheek against his
+shoulder, striving to avoid that inquisitorial gaze.
+
+She did not see his face grow grey and stony, or that the white teeth
+gnawed the lower lip; but when he spoke his voice was stern, and
+indescribably icy.
+
+"My ward should study her heart before she empowers her guardian to
+consider it unoccupied property. You should at least inform your
+mother that it has become a mere missionary station."
+
+With her hot cheeks still hidden against his shoulder, she exclaimed:
+
+"No, no! You do not at all understand me. I feel to him, to Douglass,
+exactly as I did when he went away."
+
+"So I infer. Your feeling is sufficiently apparent."
+
+"Not what you imagine. When he left me I promised him I would always
+love him as I did then; and I told him what was true: I loved him
+next to my mother. But not as you mean, oh no! If God had given me a
+brother, I should think of him exactly as I do of dear Douglass. I
+miss him very much, more than I can express; and I love him, and want
+to see him. But I never had any other thought, except as his adopted
+sister, until this moment when you spoke, and it shocked, it almost
+humiliated me. Indeed my feeling for him is almost holy, and your
+thought, your meaning seems to me sacrilegious. He is my noble true
+friend, my dear good brother, and you must not think such things of
+him and of me; it hurts me."
+
+For nearly a moment there was silence.
+
+Mr. Palma dropped one of her hands, and his arm passed quickly around
+her shoulder, while his open palm pressed her head closer against
+him.
+
+"Is my ward sure that if he wished to be more than a brother, she
+would never reciprocate, would never cherish a different feeling, a
+stronger affection?"
+
+"He could never wish that. He is so much older and wiser and better
+than I am; and looks on me only as a little sister."
+
+"Is superiority in years and wisdom the only obstacle you can
+imagine?"
+
+"I have never thought of it at all until you spoke, and it is
+painful to me. It seems disrespectful to connect such ideas as yours
+with the name of one whom I honour as my brother."
+
+He put his hand under her chin, turning her face to view despite her
+struggle to prevent it, and bending his head--he did not kiss her! Oh
+no! Erle Palma had never kissed any one since his childhood; but for
+one instant his dark cheek was laid close to hers, with a tender
+caressing touch, that astonished her as completely as if one of the
+bronze statuettes on the console above her head had laughed aloud,
+and clapped its metallic hands.
+
+"Henceforth the 'disrespectful idea' shall never be associated with
+the name of Mr. Douglass Lindsay, and in the future I warn you, there
+shall be none but a purely fraternal niche allowed him; moreover, it
+is not requisite that you should speak of him as 'dear Douglass' in
+order to assure me of your sisterly regard. What I shall do with my
+unfortunate young cousin is not quite so transparent; for Elliott
+will not receive his rejection by proxy."
+
+He had withdrawn his arm, and released her hand, and rising she
+exclaimed impetuously:
+
+"Tell him that Regina Orme will never permit him to broach that
+subject; and tell him, too, that I am a waif, a girl over whose
+parentage hangs a shadow dark and chill as a pall. Oh! tell him I
+want my mother, and an honourable unsullied name, and until I can
+find these I have no room in my mind or heart for a lover!"
+
+As the events of the day, temporarily banished from her thoughts by
+the unexpected character of the interview, rushed back with renewed
+force and bitterness, the transient colour died out of her face,
+leaving it strangely wan and worn in aspect; and Mr. Palma saw now
+that purple shadows lay beneath the deep eyes, rendering them more
+than ever prophetic in their solemn mournful expression.
+
+"What unusual occurrence has stimulated your interest and curiosity
+concerning your parentage?"
+
+"It never slumbers. It is the last thought at night, and the first
+when the day dawns. It is a burden that is never lifted, that galls
+continually; and sometimes, as to-night, I feel that I cannot endure
+it much longer."
+
+"You must be patient, for awhile at least----"
+
+"Yes, I have heard that for ten long years, and I have been both
+patient and silent: but the time has come when I can bear no more.
+Anything positive, definite, susceptible of proof, no matter how
+distressing, would be more tolerable than this suspense, this
+maddening conjecture. I will see my mother; I must know the truth, be
+it what it may!"
+
+The witchery of childhood had vanished for ever. Even the glimmer of
+hope seemed paling in the almost supernatural eyes, that had grown
+prematurely womanly; viewing life no more through the rainbow lenses
+of sanguine girlhood, but henceforth as an anxious woman haunting the
+penetralia of sorrow, never oblivious of the fact that over her path
+hovered the gibing spectre of disgrace.
+
+The unwonted recklessness of her tone and mien annoyed and surprised
+her guardian, and while a frown gathered on his brow he rose and
+stood beside her.
+
+"Your petulant vehemence is both unbecoming and displeasing; and in
+future you would do well to recollect that, as a child submitted to
+my guidance by your mother's desire, it is disrespectful both to her
+and to me to insist upon a course at variance with our judgment and
+wishes."
+
+"I am not a child. To-day I know, I feel, I have done for ever with
+my old--happy childhood; I am--what I wish I were not, a woman. Oh,
+Mr. Palma, be merciful, and send me to mother!"
+
+He looked down into the worn face gleaming under the gas-lamps of the
+chandelier, into the shadowy eloquent eyes, and noting the bloodless
+lips drawn sharply into curves of pain, his hand fell upon her
+shoulder.
+
+"Lily, because I am merciful I shall keep you here. I am not a
+patient man, am unaccustomed to teasing importunity, and it would
+pain me to harshly bruise the white flower I have undertaken to
+shelter from storm and dust; therefore you must be quiet, docile, and
+annoy me no more with fruitless solicitations. Your mother does not
+want you in Europe."
+
+"You will not let me go?"
+
+"I will not. Let this subject rest henceforth, until I renew it."
+
+With a faint moan, she shut her eyes and shivered; and again he took
+her little white cold hands.
+
+"Little snow-statue, why will you not trust me? Tell me what has so
+suddenly changed the soft white Lily-bud of yesterday into this
+hollow-eyed, defiant young woman?"
+
+The temptation was powerful to unburden her heart, to demand of him
+the truth, with which she suspected he was at least partly
+acquainted; but the thought of casting so fearful an imputation upon
+her mother sealed her lips. Moreover, she felt assured that her
+entreaties would never prevail upon him to disclose what he deemed it
+expedient to conceal.
+
+He watched and understood the struggle, and a cold smile moved his
+handsome mouth.
+
+"You have resolved to withhold your confidence. Very well, I shall
+never again solicit it. It is not my habit to petition for that which
+I have a right to command. You merely force me to draw the reins
+where I preferred you should at least imagine you were unbridled."
+
+He dropped her hands, looked at his watch, and took up his gloves;
+adding, in an entirely altered and indifferent voice:
+
+"What have you lost to-day?"
+
+It was with difficulty that she restrained the words:
+"My youth, my peace of mind, my hope and faith in my future."
+
+Raising her hands wearily, she rested her chin upon them, and
+answered slowly:
+
+"Many things, I fear."
+
+"Valuable articles? Faded flowers, perfumed with choice Oriental
+reminiscences?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I lost my purse, and my Agra violets."
+
+"What reward will you offer for the recovery of such precious relics
+of fraternal affection? A promise of implicit obedience to your
+guardian? Certainly, they are worth that trifle?"
+
+"They are very precious indeed. Where did you find my purse?"
+
+"On the desk at my office."
+
+He held up the ivory toy, then laid it on the table.
+
+"Thank you, sir. Mr. Palma, will you grant me a great favour?"
+
+"As I never forfeit my word, I avoid entangling myself rashly in the
+meshes of promise. Just now I am in no mood to grant your
+unreasonable petitions; still, I will be glad to hear what my ward
+desires of her guardian."
+
+Her lip quivered, and his heart smote him as he observed her wounded
+expression. She was silent, still resting her drooped head on her
+folded hands.
+
+"Regina, I am waiting to hear you."
+
+"It is useless. You would refuse me."
+
+"Probably I should; yet I prefer that you should express your wishes,
+and afford me an opportunity of judging of their propriety."
+
+She sighed and shook her head.
+
+"I shall not permit such childish trifling. Tell me at once what you
+wish me to do."
+
+"Will you be so kind as to lend me twenty-five dollars, until I
+receive my remittance?"
+
+His eyes fell beneath her timidly pleading gaze, and a deep flush of
+embarrassment passed over his face.
+
+"That depends upon the use you intend to make of it. If you desire to
+run away from me, I am afraid you must borrow of some one else. Do
+you wish to pay your passage to Europe?"
+
+"Oh no! I wish that I could. You allow me no such comforting hope."
+
+"What do you want with it?"
+
+"I cannot tell you."
+
+"Because you know that your object is improper?"
+
+"No, sir; but you would not understand my motives."
+
+"Try me."
+
+"I will not I hoped you would have sufficient confidence in me to
+grant my request without demanding my reasons."
+
+"I have confidence in the purity of your motives. I do not question
+the goodness of your heart, or the propriety of your intentions; but
+I gravely doubt the correctness of your youthful judgment. Do not
+force me to refuse you such a trivial thing. Tell me your purpose."
+
+"No, sir."
+
+A proud grieved look crossed her delicate features.
+
+He walked away, reached the door, then came back for one of his
+gloves which had fallen on the rug.
+
+"Mr. Palma."
+
+"Well, Miss Orme."
+
+"Trust me."
+
+He looked down into her beautiful sad eyes, and his heart began to
+throb fiercely.
+
+"Lily, I will."
+
+"Some day I will explain everything."
+
+"When do you want the money?"
+
+"To-morrow morning, if you please."
+
+"At breakfast you will find it in an envelope under your plate."
+
+"Thank you, sir. It is for----"
+
+"Hush! Tell me nothing till you tell me all. I prefer to trust you
+entirely, and I shall wait for the hour when no concealment exists
+between us; when your secret thoughts are as much my property as my
+own. Less than that will never content your exacting guardian, but
+that hour is very distant."
+
+She took his hand and pressed her soft lips upon it, ere he could
+snatch it away.
+
+"God grant that hour may come speedily."
+
+"Amen, Lily. You look strangely worn and ill; and your eyes are
+distressingly elfish and shadowy. Go to sleep, little girl, and
+forget that you forced me to be stem and harsh. Remember that your
+guardian, in defiance of his judgment, trusts you fully--entirely."
+
+He turned quickly and quitted the library before she could reply,
+and soon after, hearing the street door close, she knew he had gone
+to Mrs. Tarrant's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+The letter which Regina wrote that night was earnest, almost
+passionate, in its appeal that she might be permitted to join her
+mother; yet no hint of the _bete noire_ of the square darkened its
+contents, for the writer felt that only face to face, eye to eye,
+could she ask her mother that fearful question, upon which all her
+future peace depended.
+
+Having sealed and addressed the envelope, she extinguished the light,
+and tried to find in sleep that blessed oblivion which nature
+mercifully provides for aching hearts and heavily laden brains; but
+about three o'clock she heard the carriage at the front door, the
+voices of the trio ascending the stairs, and once a ringing
+triumphant laugh which was peculiarly Olga's, then all grew still in
+the house, and quiet in the street.
+
+Unable to compose herself, tossing restlessly on her bed, with hot
+throbbing temples and a sore heart Regina wearily listened for the
+low silvery strokes of the clock, and when it announced half-past
+three she began to long for daylight.
+
+Suddenly, although warned by not even the faintest sound, she became
+aware that she was not alone; that a human being was breathing the
+same atmosphere. Starting into a sitting posture she exclaimed:
+
+"Who is there?"
+
+"Hush! I am no burglar. Don't make a noise."
+
+Simultaneously she heard the stroke of a match, and a small wax taper
+was lighted and held high over Olga's head, showing her tall form
+enveloped in a cherry-coloured dressing-gown and shawl. Stepping
+cautiously across the floor, she lighted one of the gas burners,
+placed the taper on the bureau, and came to the bedside.
+
+"Make room for me. I am cold, my feet are like ice."
+
+"What is the matter? Has anything happened?"
+
+"Nothing particularly new or strange. Something happens every hour,
+you know; people are born, bartered--die and are buried; lives get
+blackened and hearts bleed and are trampled by human hoofs, until
+they are crushed beyond recognition. My dear, civilization is a huge
+cheat, and the Red Law of Savages in primeval night is worth all the
+tomes of jurisprudence, from the Pandects of Justinian to the
+Commentaries of Blackstone, and the wisdom of Coke and Story. Oh
+halcyon days of prehistoric humanity! When instead of bowing and
+smiling, and chatting gracefully with one's deadliest foe, drinking
+his Amontillado and eating his truffles, people had the sublime
+satisfaction of roasting his flesh and calcining his bones, for an
+antediluvian _dejeuner a la fourchette_,--(only, to escape
+anachronism) _sans fourchette!_ What a pity I have not the privilege
+of _la belle sauvage_, far away in some cannibalistic nook of pagan
+Polynesia."
+
+She was sitting with the bedclothes drawn closely over her, and
+Regina could scarcely recognize in the pale, almost haggard face
+beside her the radiant, laughing woman who had seemed so dazzling a
+few hours before, as she burned away in her festive robes.
+
+"Olga, you talk like a heathen."
+
+"Of course. To be sincere, unselfish, honest, and womanly is nowaday
+inevitably heathenish. I wish I had a nose as flat as a buckwheat
+cake, and lips three inches thick, with huge brass rings dangling
+from them both! And for raiment, instead of Worth's miracles, a
+mantle of featherwork, or a deerskin cut into fringe, and studded
+with blue glass beads! Civilization is a gibing impostor, and
+religion is laughing in its sacerdotal sleeves at its own
+unblushing----"
+
+"Hush, Olga! You are blasphemous. No wonder you shiver while you
+talk. New York is full of noble Christians, of generous charming
+people, and there must be some wickedness everywhere. Don't you know
+that God will ultimately overrule all, and evangelize the world?"
+
+"_Peut-etre!_ But I have not even the traditional grain of mustard
+seed to sow; and I might answer you as Laplace once did: '_Je n'avais
+pas besoin de cette hypothese_.'"
+
+"Had you a pleasant evening at Mrs. Tarrant's?" asked Regina, anxious
+to change the topic.
+
+"Wonderfully brilliant, and quite a topaz success. I sparkled,
+blazed, and people complimented profusely (criticizing _sotto voce_),
+and envied openly; and when I bowed myself out at last, I felt like
+Sir Peter Teazle on quitting Lady Sneerwell's: 'I leave my character
+behind me.' Mamma was charmed with me, and Mr. Silas Midas looked
+proud possession, as if he had in his vest pocket a bill of sale to
+every pound of my white flesh,--and Mr. Erle Palma smiled as benignly
+as some cast-iron statue of Pluto, freshly painted white, and
+glistening in the sunshine. _A propos!_ I asked him to-night if he
+would loosen his martinet rein upon you, and permit you to make your
+_debut_ in society as my bridesmaid? How those maddening white teeth
+of his glittered, as he smiled approvingly at the proposition?
+Whenever they gleam out, they remind me of a tiger preparing to
+crunch the bones of a tender gazelle, or a bleating lamb. Now you
+comprehend what brings me here at this unseasonable hour? Armed with
+your noble guardian's sanction, I crave the honour of your services
+as bridesmaid at my approaching nuptials. Your dress, dear, must be
+gentian-coloured silk to match your eyes, and clouded over with
+_tulle_ of the same hue, relieved by sprays of gentians with silver
+leaves glittering with icicles, and you shall look on that occasion
+as lovely as an orthodox Hebrew angel; or, what is far more stylish,
+beautiful as ox-eyed Here poised above Olympos, watching old Zeus
+flirt surreptitiously with Aphrodite! Will you be first bridesmaid?"
+
+"No, I will not be your bridesmaid. I could never co-operate in the
+unhallowed scheme of wedding a man whom you despise. Oh, Olga! do not
+degrade yourself by such a mercenary traffic."
+
+"My dear, uncontaminated innocent, don't you see that society, and
+mamma, and Erle Palma have all conspired to make an Isaac of me?
+Bound hand and foot, I lie on the Moriah of fashionable life; but the
+grim fact stares me in the face, that no ram will be forthcoming when
+the slaughter begins! No relenting hand will stay the uplifted knife.
+Diana will not snatch me into Tauris, and mamma cannot sail
+prosperously from the Aulis of Erle Palma's charity until I am
+sacrificed. Ah! the pitying tenderness of maternal love!"
+
+She spoke with intolerable bitterness, and Regina put one arm around
+her.
+
+"Olga, she loves you too well to doom you to lifelong misery. You
+always talk so mockingly, and say so many queer things you do not
+mean, that she does not realize your true sentiments. Show her your
+heart, your real feelings, and she will never consent to see you
+marry that man."
+
+"Do you believe that I successfully mask my heart? Not from mamma,
+not from Erle Palma. They know all its tortures, all its wild
+desperate struggles, and they are confident that after awhile I shall
+wear out my own opposition, and sullenly succumb to their wishes.
+They have taken an inventory of Silas Congreve's worldly goods, and
+in exchange would gladly brand his name as title-deed upon my brow.
+To-night I have danced, laughed, chattered like a yellow parrot, ate,
+drank champagne, flattered, flirted, and fibbed, until I am wellnigh
+mad. It seems to me that a whole legion of demons lie in wait outside
+of your door to seize my shivering desolate soul."
+
+She shuddered, and pressed her fingers over her glittering eyes.
+
+"Regina, you are a silly young thing, as ignorant of the ways of the
+world as an unfledged Java sparrow; but your heart is pure and true,
+and your affection is no adroitly set steel-trap, to spring unawares,
+and catch and cut me. From the day when you first came among us with
+your sweet childish face and holy eyes, as much out of place in this
+house as Abel's saintly countenance would be in Caina, I have watched
+and believed in you; and my wretched worldly heart began to put out
+fibres toward you, as those hyacinths there in your bulb-glasses grow
+roots. Will it be safe for me to confide in you? Can I trust you?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Will you promise to keep secret whatever I may tell you?"
+
+"Does it concern only yourself?"
+
+"Only myself, and one other person whom you do not even know. If I
+venture to tell you anything, you must give me your solemn promise to
+betray me to no human being. I want your sympathy at least, for I
+feel desperate."
+
+Looking pityingly at her pale sorrowful face and quivering mouth,
+Regina drew closer to her.
+
+"You may trust me. I will never betray you."
+
+"Not to mamma, not to your guardian? You promise?"
+
+Her cold hand seized her companion's, and wistfully her hollow eyes
+searched the girl's face.
+
+"I promise."
+
+"Would you help me to escape from the misery of this fine marriage?
+Are you brave enough to meet your guardian's black frown and freezing
+censure?
+
+"I hope I am brave enough to do right; and you certainly would not
+expect or desire me to do anything wrong."
+
+Olga threw her arms around Regina, and leaned her head on her
+shoulder. She seemed for a time shaken by some storm of sorrow that
+threatened to bear away all her habitual restraint, and Regina
+silently stroked her glossy red hair, waiting to hear some painful
+revelation.
+
+"I think I never should have ventured to divulge my misery to you if
+you had not seen me yesterday, and abstained from all allusion to the
+matter when you saw that I boldly ignored it. Do you suspect the
+nature of my errand to East ---- Street?"
+
+"I thought it possible that you were engaged in some charitable
+mission; at least I hoped so."
+
+"Charitable! Then you considered the feigned sickness a 'pious
+fraud,' and did not condemn me? If charity carried me there, it was
+solely charity to my suffering starving heart, which cried out for
+its idol. You have heard of Dirce and Damiens dragged by wild
+beasts? Theirs was a mere afternoon airing in comparison with the
+race I am driven by the lash of your guardian, the spur of mamma, and
+the frantic wails of my famished heart. I wish I could speak without
+bitterness, and mockery, and exaggeration, but it has grown to be a
+part of my nature, as features habituated to a mask insensibly assume
+to some extent its outlines. I will try to put aside my flippant
+hollow attempts at persiflage, which constitute my worldly mannerism,
+and tell you in a few simple words. When I was about your age, I
+think my nature must have resembled yours, for many of your ideas and
+views of duty in this life remind me in a mournfully vague, tender
+way of my own early youth; and from that far distant time taunting
+reminiscences float down to me, whispers from my old self long, long
+dead. When I was seventeen, I went one June to spend some weeks with
+my Grandmother Neville, who was an invalid, and resided on the
+Hudson, near a very picturesque spot, which artists were in the habit
+of frequenting with their sketch-books. Allowed a degree of liberty
+which mamma never accorded me at home, I availed myself of the lax
+regimen of my grandmother, and roamed at will about the beautiful
+country adjacent. In one of these ill-fated excursions I encountered
+a young artist, who was spending a few days in the neighbourhood. I
+was a simple-hearted schoolgirl, untutored in worldly wisdom, and had
+always spent my vacations with grandmother, who was afflicted with no
+aristocratic whims and vagaries; who thought it not wholly
+unpardonable to be poor, and was so old-fashioned as to judge people
+from their merits, not by the amount of their income tax.
+
+"Belmont Eggleston was then about twenty-five, very handsome, very
+talented, full of chivalric enthusiasm, and as refined and tender in
+sensibility as a woman. We met accidentally at a farmhouse, where a
+sudden shower drove us for shelter, and from that hour neither could
+forget the other. It was the old, old immemorial story--two fresh
+young souls united, two hearts exchanged, two lives for ever
+entangled. We walked and rode together, he taught me drawing, came
+now and then and spent the long summer afternoons, and grandmother
+liked and welcomed him; offered no obstacle to the strong current of
+love that ran like a golden stream for those few hallowed weeks, and
+afterward found only rapids and whirlpools. How deliriously happy I
+was! What a glory seems even now to linger about every tree and rock
+that we visited together! He told me he was very poor, and was
+encumbered with the care of an infirm mother and sister, and of a
+young brother who displayed great plastic skill, and gave promise of
+becoming renowned in sculpture, while Belmont was devoted to
+painting. He frankly explained his poverty, detailed his plans,
+expatiated with beautiful poetic fervour upon the hopes that gilded
+his future, and asked my sympathy and affection. While he was obscure
+he was unwilling to claim me, his love was too unselfish to
+transplant me from a sphere of luxury and affluence to one of
+pecuniary want; and he only desired that I would patiently wait until
+his genius won recognition. One star-lit night, standing on the bank
+of the river, with the perfume of jasmines stealing over us, I put my
+hand in his, and pledged my heart, my life for his. Nearly eight
+years have passed since then, but no shadow of regret has ever
+crossed my mind for the solemn promise I gave; and, despite all I
+have suffered, were it in my power to cancel the past I would not!
+Bitter waves have broken over me, but the memory of my lover, of his
+devotion, is sweeter, oh! sweeter than my hopes of heaven! God
+forgive me if it be sinful idolatry. It is the one golden link that
+held me back, that saves me now, from selling myself to Satan. In the
+midst of that rose-crowned June and July, in the height of my
+innocent happiness, mamma fell upon us, as a hawk swoops upon a
+dovecote, dividing a cooing pair. Disguising nothing, I freely told
+her all, and Belmont nobly pleaded for permission to prove his
+worthiness. Grandmother was a powerful ally, and perhaps the result
+might have been different, and mamma would have ultimately been won
+over, had not Erle Palma's counsel been sought. That cold-blooded
+tyrant has been the one curse of my life. But for him, I should be
+to-day a happy, loving wife. Do you wonder that I hate him? How I
+have longed for the seven Apocalyptic vials of wrath! He and mamma
+conferred. An investigation concerning the Egglestons elicited the
+fatal fact that some branch of the family had once been accused of
+embezzlement, had been prosecuted by Erle Palma, and in defiance of
+his efforts to convict him had been acquitted. Mamma and your
+guardian possessed then, as now, only one criterion:
+
+         'He is .poor, and that's suspicious; he is unknown,
+          And that's defenceless!'
+
+Then and there they sternly prohibited even my acquaintance with one
+to whom I had promised all that woman can give of affection, faith,
+and deathless constancy. No more pity or regard was shown to my agony
+of heart and mind than the cattle drover manifests in driving
+innocent dumb horned creatures from quiet clover meadows where they
+browsed in peace, to the reeking public shambles. Even a parting
+interview was denied me; but clandestinely I found an opportunity to
+renew my vows, to assure Belmont that no power on earth should compel
+me to renounce him, and that if necessary I would wait twenty years
+for him to claim me. Older and wiser than I, he realized what
+stretched before me, and while repeatedly assuring me his love was
+inextinguishable, he generously attempted to dissuade me from defying
+those who had legal control of me. So we parted, pledged irrevocably
+one to the other; and whenever we have met since that summer, it has
+been by strategy. My mother, from the day when the doom of my love
+was decreed, has been as deaf to my pleadings, and my heart-breaking
+cries, as the golden calf was to the indignant denunciations of
+Moses. I was hurried prematurely into society, thrown into a
+maelstrom of gaiety that whirled me as though I were a dancing
+dervish, and left me apparently no leisure for retrospection or
+regret, or for the indulgence of the rosy dream that lay like a
+lovely morning cloud above and behind me. My clothing was costly and
+tasteful; I was exhibited at Saratoga, Long Branch, and Newport,
+those popular human expositions, where wealth and fashion flock to
+display and compare their textile fabrics and jewellery, as less
+'developed' cattle still on four feet are hurried to State fairs, to
+ascertain the value of their pearly short horns, thin tails, and
+satin-coated skins. No expense or pains were spared, and my mother's
+stepson certainly lavished his money as well as advice upon me. At
+long intervals I had stolen interviews with Belmont, then he went far
+south to study for a tropical landscape, and was absent two years.
+When he returned, beaming with hope, the cloud over our lives seemed
+silvering at the edges, and he was sanguine that his picture would
+compel recognition, and bring him fame, which in art means food.
+But Earl Palma had resolved otherwise. It was our misfortune, that in
+my haste to see the picture, I neglected my usual precautionary
+measures to elude suspicion, and  your   guardian tracked me to the
+attic, where the finishing touches were being put on. Unluckily
+Belmont was never a favourite among the artists, and he explained to
+me that it was because he was proud, reticent, and held himself aloof
+from their club life and social haunts. Taking advantage of his
+personal unpopularity, your magnanimous guardian organized a cabal
+against him. No sooner was the painting exhibited, than a tirade of
+ridicule and abuse was poured upon it, and the journal most
+influential in forming and directing artistic taste, contained an
+overwhelmingly adverse criticism, which was written by a particular
+friend and chum of Erle Palma, who, I am convinced, caused its
+preparation. Oh, Regina! it was a cruel, cruel stab, that entered my
+darling's noble tender heart, and almost maddened him. In literature,
+savage criticism defeats its own unamiable purpose, by promoting the
+sale of books it is designed to crush; but unfortunately this law
+does not often operate in the department of painting. In a fit of
+gloomy despondency, Belmont offered his lovely work for a mere
+trifle, but the picture dealers declined to touch it at any price,
+and rashly cutting it from the frame, he threw the labour of years
+into the flames. Meantime grand-mamma had died, and Belmont's mother
+became hopelessly bedridden, while his young brother had made his way
+to Europe, where he occupied a menial position in a sculptor's
+_atelier_ at Florence. A more rigid surveillance was exerted over me,
+and the dancing dervishes crowned me queen of their revels. By day
+and by night I was surrounded with influence intended to beguile me
+from the past, to narcotize memory, to make me in reality the
+heartless, soulless, scoffing creature that I certainly seem. But
+Erle Palma has found me stiff tough clay, and despite his efforts, I
+have been true to the one love of my life. What I have suffered, none
+but the listening watching God above us knows; and sometimes I
+despise and loathe myself for the miserable subterfuges I am forced
+to practise in order to elude my keepers. Poor mamma loves me, after
+a selfish worldly fashion, and there are moments when I really think
+she pities me; but from Palma influence and association wealth has
+long been her most precious fetich. Poverty, obscurity terrify her,
+and for the fleshpots of fashion she would literally sell me, as she
+once sold herself to Godwin Palma. Repeatedly I have been urged to
+accept offers of marriage that revolted every instinct of my nature,
+that seemed insulting to a woman who long ago gave away all that was
+best, in her heart's idolatrous love. To-day my Belmont is ten-fold
+dearer, than when in the dawning flush of womanhood, I plighted my
+lifelong faith to him; and reigns more royally than ever over all
+that is good and true in my perverted and cynical nature. I cling to
+him, to my faith in his noble, manly, unselfish, undying love for me,
+unworthy as I have grown, even as a drowning wretch to some
+overhanging bough, which alone saves her from the black destruction
+beneath. Unable to conquer the opposition he encountered here,
+Belmont went West, and finally strayed into the solitudes of Oregon
+and British America. At one time, for a year, I did not know whether
+he were living or dead, and what torture I silently endured! Six
+months ago he returned, buoyed by the hope of retrieving his past;
+and one of his pictures was bought by a wealthy man in Philadelphia,
+who had commissioned him to paint two more landscapes. At last we
+began to dream of an humble little home somewhere, where at least we
+should have the blessing of our mutual love and presence. The thought
+was magnetic,--it showed me there was some good left in my poor
+scoffing soul; that I possessed capacity for happiness, for
+self-sacrificing devotion to my noble Belmont,--that made our future
+seem a canticle. Oh! how delicious was the release I imagined!"
+
+She groaned aloud, and rocked herself to and fro, with a hopelessness
+that awed and grieved her pale mute listener.
+
+"The Fates are fond of Erle Palma. They will pet him to the end, for
+he is a man after their own flinty hearts; pitiless as those grim
+three, whom Michael Angelo must have seen during nightmare. When I
+think how he will gloat over the overthrow of my darling hope, I feel
+that it is scarcely safe for me to remain under his roof; I am so
+powerfully tempted to strangle him. Exposure to the rigour of two
+winters in the far North-West has seriously undermined Belmont's
+health. His physician apprehends consumption, and orders him to
+hasten to Southern Europe, or South America."
+
+For some moments Olga was silent, and her mournful eyes were fixed on
+the wall, with a half vacant stare, as her thoughts wandered to her
+unfortunate lover.
+
+Regina could scarcely realize that this pallid face so full of
+anguish was the radiant mocking countenance she had hitherto seen
+only in mask, and taking her hand she pressed it gently to recall her
+attention.
+
+"Feeling as you do, dear Olga, how can you think of marrying Mr.
+Congreve?"
+
+"Marrying him! I do not; I am not yet quite so degraded as that
+implies. I would sooner buy a pistol, or an ounce of arsenic, and end
+all this misery. While Belmont lives, I belong to him; I love him as
+I never have loved any one else; but when he is taken from me, only
+Heaven sees what will be my wretched fate. Destiny has made a
+football of the most precious hope that ever gladdened a woman's
+heart, and when the end comes, I rather think Erle Palma will not
+curl his granite lips, and taunt me. My assent to the Congreve
+purchase is but a _ruse_; in other words, honest words, a disgraceful
+subterfuge, fraud, to gain time. I can bear the life I lead no
+longer, and ere many days I shall burst my fetters, and snatch
+freedom, no matter what cost I pay hereafter."
+
+"Olga, you cannot mean that you intend----"
+
+"No matter what I intend, I shall not falter when the time comes.
+Yesterday I went to see his mother--poor patient sufferer--and to
+learn the latest tidings from my darling. You saw me when I entered,
+and no doubt puzzled your brains to reconcile the inconsistency of my
+conduct. Your delicate reticence entitles you to this explanation.
+Now you know all my sorrow, and no matter what happens you must not
+betray my movements. From this house, my letters to Belmont have been
+intercepted, and our correspondence has long been conducted under
+cover to his mother."
+
+"Where is he now?"
+
+"In Philadelphia."
+
+"How is he?"
+
+"No better. His physician says January must find him _en route_ to a
+warmer climate."
+
+"When did you see him last?"
+
+"In September. Even then his cough rendered me anxious, but he
+laughed at my apprehensions. O God! be merciful to him and to me! I
+know I am unworthy; I know I have a bitter wicked tongue, and a world
+of hate in my heart; but if God would be pitiful, if He only spares
+my darling's life, I will try to be a better woman."
+
+She leaned her head once more on Regina's shoulder, and burst into a
+flood of tears, the first her companion had ever seen her shed. After
+some minutes the sympathizing listener said:
+
+"Perhaps if you appealed frankly to Mr. Palma, and showed him the
+dreadful suffering of your heart, he would relent."
+
+"You do not know him. Does a lion relent with his paw upon his prey?"
+
+"His opposition must arise from an erroneous view of what would best
+promote your happiness. He cannot be actuated by merely vindictive
+motives, and I am sure he would sympathize with you if he realized
+the intensity of your feelings."
+
+"I would as soon expect ancient Cheops to dissolve in tears at the
+recital of my woes; or that statue of Washington in Union Place to
+dismount and wipe my eyes! An Eggleston once defied and triumphed
+over him in the court-room; and defeat Erle Palma never forgets,
+never forgives. He proposes to give me ten thousand dollars as a
+bridal present, when owning millions, I need it not; and to-day
+one-half that amount would make me the happiest woman in all America,
+would enable Belmont to travel south and re-establish his health,
+would render two wretched souls everlastingly happy and grateful! Ah
+how happy!"
+
+"Tell him so! Try him just once more, and I have an abiding faith
+that he will generously respond to your appeal."
+
+Olga looked compassionately at her companion for an instant, and the
+old bitter laugh jarred upon the girl's ears.
+
+"Poor little dove trying your wings in the upper air, flashing the
+silver in the sun; fancying you are free to circle in the heavens so
+blue above you! Your wary hawk watches patiently, only waiting for
+you to soar a little higher, venture a little farther from the
+shelter of the dovecote; then he will strike you down, fasten his
+talons in your heart. 'Be ye wise as serpents, and harmless as
+doves.' The first yon have yet to leap, and with Erle Palma as your
+preceptor, your prospective tuition fees are heavy. You are a sweet
+good earnest-hearted child, but in this house you need to be
+something quite different--a Seraph. Do you understand? Now you are
+only a cherub, which in the original means dove; but some day, if you
+live here, you will learn the wisdom of the Seraph, which means
+serpent! I know little 'Latin, less of Greek,' no Hebrew; but a
+learned seer of New England taught me this."
+
+She tossed aside the bedclothes, and sprang out upon the floor,
+wrapping herself in her cherry-coloured shawl.
+
+"Five o'clock, I daresay. Out of doors it is grey daylight, and I
+must go back to my own room unobserved. What a world of sorrowful
+sympathy shines in your wonderful eyes! What a pity you can't die
+now, just as you are, for then your pure sinless soul would float
+straight to that Fifth Heaven of the Midrash, 'Gan-Eden,' which is
+set apart exclusively for the souls of noble women, and Pharaoh's
+daughter, who is presumed to be Queen there, would certainly make you
+maid of honour! One word more, before I run away. Do you know why
+Cleopatra is coming here?''
+
+"Olga, I do not in the least understand half you are saying."
+
+Olga's large white hand smoothed back the hair that clouded the
+girl's forehead, and she asked almost incredulously:
+
+"Don't you really know that the Sorceress of the Nile drifts hither
+in her gilded barge? You have heard of Brunella Carew, the richest
+woman in the Antilles? She is the most dangerous of smooth-skinned
+witches, as fascinating as Phryne, but more wisely discreet. When you
+see her you will be at once reminded of Owen Meredith's 'Fatality':
+
+          'Live hair afloat with snakes of gold,
+           And a throat as white as snow,
+           And a stately figure and foot
+           And that faint pink smile, so sweet, so cold.'
+
+Just now this Cuban widow is the fashionable lioness; she is also a
+pet _clientele_ of Erle Palma, and comes here to-day on a brief
+visit. Heaven grant she prove his Lamia! As she affects Oriental
+style, I call her Cleopatra, which pleases her vastly. Having been
+endowed at birth with beauty and fortune, her remaining ambition is
+to appear fastidious in literature, and _dilettante_ in art, and if
+you wish to stretch her on St. Lawrence's gridiron, you have only to
+offer a quotation or illustration which she cannot understand. Beware
+of the poison of asps. There is an object to be accomplished by
+inviting her here, and you may safely indulge the belief that her own
+campaign is well matured. Keep your solemn sinless eyes wide open,
+and don't under any circumstances quarrel with poor Elliott Roscoe.
+One drop of his blood floats more generosity and magnanimity than all
+the blue ice in his cousin's body. He was in a savage mood last
+night, at Mrs. Tarrant's, and had some angry words with your
+guardian, who of course treated him as he would a spoiled boy. Roscoe
+at least has or had a heart. There is the day staring at us! I must
+be gone. Remember--I have trusted you."
+
+She left the room, closing the door noiselessly, and Regina was lost
+in perplexing conjectures concerning the significance of her parting
+warning.
+
+It was not yet eight o'clock when she descended to the
+breakfast-room, but Mr. Palma was already there, and stood at the
+window, with an open newspaper which he appeared to scan very
+intently.
+
+In answer to her subdued "Good-morning," he merely bowed, without
+turning his head, and she rang the bell and took her place at the
+table.
+
+While she scalded and wiped the cups (one of his requirements), he
+walked to the hearth, glanced at his watch, and said:
+
+"Let me have my coffee at once. I have an early engagement. As it
+threatens snow, you must keep indoors today."
+
+"I am obliged to attend the Cantata rehearsal at Mrs. Brompton's."
+
+"Then I will order the carriage to be placed at your disposal. What
+hour?"
+
+"One o'clock."
+
+Upon her plate lay a sealed envelope, and as she put it in her
+pocket, his keen eyes searched her countenance.
+
+"Did you sleep well? I should judge you had not closed your eyes."
+
+"I wrote a long letter to mother, and afterward I could not sleep."
+
+"You look as if you had grown five years older, since you gave me my
+coffee yesterday. When the rehearsal ends, I wish you to come
+directly home and go to sleep; for there will be company here to-day,
+and it might be rather unflattering to me as guardian, to present my
+ward to strangers, and imagine their comments on your weary hollow
+eyes and face as blanched, as 'pale as Seneca's Paulina.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+Notwithstanding the snow which fell steadily at one o'clock, all who
+were to take part in the "Cantata," assembled punctually at Mrs.
+Brompton's, and as Regina hurried down to the carriage, she found
+that Mrs. Carew, her little daughter and maid, had just arrived.
+Avoiding a presentation, she proceeded at once to the "Rehearsal,"
+and dismissed the carriage, assuring Farley that it was wrong to keep
+the horses out in such inclement weather; and as she was provided
+with "waterproof," overshoes, and umbrella, would walk home.
+
+The musical exercises were unusually tedious, the choruses were
+halting and uneven, and the repetition seemed endless. The day
+darkened, and the great bronze chandeliers were lighted, and still
+Professor Hurtzsel mercilessly flourished his baton, and required new
+trials; until at length feverishly impatient, Regina having
+satisfactorily rendered her _solos_, requested and received
+permission to retire.
+
+It was almost four o'clock, the hour designated for her meeting, when
+she enveloped herself in her waterproof cloak, drew the hood over her
+hat, and almost ran for several squares from Mrs. Brompton's, toward
+a line of street cars which would convey her to the vicinity of the
+park. She succeeded in meeting an upward-bound car, entered, and
+breathed more freely.
+
+It was quite crowded, and, forced to stand up, Regina steadied
+herself by one of the leathern straps suspended from the roof. At her
+side was an elderly gentleman with very white hair, eyebrows, and
+moustache, who was muffled in a heavy overcoat, and leaned upon a
+gold-headed cane. Soon after, another passenger pressed in, elbowed
+his way forward, and, touching the old gentleman, exclaimed:
+
+"Colonel Tichnor in America! And above all in a street car! When did
+you arrive?"
+
+"Last week. These cars are too democratic for men with gouty feet;
+but I dislike to bring my horses out in such weather. Not more than a
+dozen people have stood on my toes during the last fifteen minutes.
+Ringold, how is Palma? Prosperous as ever?"
+
+"If you had been at Mrs. Tarrant's last night, you would not need to
+inquire. Positively we younger men have no showing when he deigns to
+enter the beaux list. He is striding upward in his profession, and
+you know there is no limit to his ambition. Hitherto he had
+cautiously steered clear of politics, but it is rumoured that a
+certain caucus will probably tender him the nomination for----"
+
+Here a child close to Regina cried out so sharply that she could not
+hear several sentences; and when quiet was restored, the young
+gentleman was saying:
+
+"Very true; there is no accounting for taste. It does appear queer
+that after living a bachelor so long, he should at last surrender to
+a widow. But, my dear sir, she is a perfect Circe,--and I suspect
+those immense estates in Cuba and Jamaica are quite as potential with
+Palma as her other undeniable charms. Last night, as he promenaded
+with her, it was conceded that they were the handsomest couple in the
+room; and Mrs. Grundy has patted them on the head, and bestowed the
+approved,--'Heaven bless you, my children.' Palma is the proudest man
+in----"
+
+"Here is my street. Good-day, Ringold."
+
+The elderly gentleman left the car, and after awhile the young man
+also departed; but there seemed no diminution of the crowd, and as
+the track was heavy with drifting snow the horses moved slowly. At
+last they reached a point where the line of road turned away from the
+direction in which Regina desired to go, and quitting the car, she
+walked toward East ---- Street.
+
+After the heated atmosphere she had just left, the sharp biting cold
+was refreshing, and against the glistening needles of snow she
+pressed rapidly on, until finally the trees in the square gladdened
+her eyes.
+
+Near one of the corners, stood a large close carriage whose driver
+was enveloped in a cloak, and protected by an umbrella, while the
+yellow silk inside curtains were drawn down over the windows.
+
+Agitated by contending emotions of reluctance to meeting the man
+whose presence was so painful, and of dread lest he had grown
+impatient, and might present himself to her guardian, Regina hastened
+into the square, and looked eagerly about the deserted walks.
+
+Pressed against the south side of a leafless tree whose trunk partly
+shielded him from the driving snow-laden north-east wind, Peleg
+Peterson stood watching her, and as she approached, he came forward.
+
+"Better late than never. How long did you expect me to wait here,
+with the cold eating into my vitals?"
+
+"Indeed I am very sorry, but I could not come a moment sooner."
+
+"Who is in that carriage yonder?"
+
+"I do not know. How should I?"
+
+"There is something suspicious about it. Is it waiting for you?"
+
+"Certainly not, No human being knows where I am at this moment. Here
+are forty-five dollars, every cent that I possess. You must not
+expect me to aid you in future, for I shall not be able; and moreover
+I shall be subjected to suspicion if I come here again."
+
+She handed him the money rolled up in a small package, and he
+deposited it in his pocket.
+
+"You might at least have made it a hundred."
+
+"I have no more money."
+
+"Do you still doubt that you are my child?"
+
+"When you make your claim in a court of justice, as you yesterday
+threatened, the proofs must be established. Until then, I shall not
+discuss it with you. I have an abiding faith in the instincts of
+nature, and I believe that when I stand before my father, my heart
+will unmistakably proclaim it. From you it shrinks with dread and
+horror."
+
+"Because Minnie taught you to hate me. I knew she would."
+
+"Mother never mentioned your name to me. Only to Hannah am I indebted
+for any knowledge of you. Where is Hannah now?"
+
+"I don't know. We quarrelled not long ago. Regina, I want your
+photograph. I want to wear my daughter's picture over my heart."
+
+He moved closer to her, and put out his arm, but she sprang back.
+
+"You must not touch me, at least not now; not until I can hear from
+mother. I have no photographs of myself. The only picture taken for
+years is a portrait which Mr. Palma had painted, and sent to mother.
+In any emergency that may occur, if you should be really ill, or in
+actual suffering and want, write to me, and address your letter
+according to the directions on this slip of paper. Mrs. Mason will
+always see that your note reaches me safely. You look very cold, and
+I must hasten back, or my absence might cause questions and censure.
+I shall find out everything from mother, for she will not deceive me;
+and if--if what you say is true, then I shall know what is my duty,
+and you must believe that I shall perform it. I pray to God that you
+may not be my father, and I cannot believe that you are; but if after
+all you prove your claim, I will do what is right. I will take your
+hand then, and face the world's contempt; and we will bear our
+disgrace together as best we may. When I know you are my father, I
+will pay you all that a child owes a parent. This I promise you."
+
+Her face was wellnigh as white as the snow that covered and fringed
+her hood; and out of its pallid beauty, the sad eyes looked
+steadfastly into the bloated visage before her.
+
+"I believe you! There spoke my girl! You are true steel, and worth a
+hundred of Minnie. Some day, my pretty child, you and I shall know
+one another, as father and daughter should."
+
+He once more attempted to touch her, but vigilant and agile she
+eluded his hand, and said decisively:
+
+"You have all that I can give you now--the money. Don't put your hand
+on me, for as yet I deny your parental claim. When I know I am your
+child, you shall find me obedient in all things. Now, sir, good-bye."
+
+Turning, she ran swiftly away, and glanced over her shoulder, fearful
+of pursuit, but the figure stood where she had left him; was occupied
+in counting the money, and, breathing more freely, Regina shook the
+snow from her wrappings, from her umbrella, and walked homeward.
+
+Had she purchased a sufficient reprieve to keep him quiet until she
+could hear from her mother, and receive the expected summons to join
+her? Or was this but an illusive relief, a mere momentary lull in the
+tempest of humiliation that was muttering and darkening around her?
+
+She had walked only a short distance from the square, and was turning
+a corner, when she ran against a gentleman hurrying from the opposite
+direction.
+
+"Pray pardon me, miss."
+
+She could not suppress the cry that broke from her lips.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Palma!"
+
+He turned as though he had not until now recognized her, but there
+was no surprise in his stern fixed face.
+
+"I thought Mrs. Brompton resided on West ---- Street; had not heard
+of her change of residence. From the length of your rehearsal you
+certainly should be perfect in your performance. It is now half-past
+five, and I think you told me you commenced at one? Rather
+disagreeable weather for you to be out. Wait here, under this awning,
+till I come back."
+
+He was absent not more than five minutes, and returned with a close
+carriage; but a glance sufficed to show her it was not the one she
+had seen in the neighbourhood of the square.
+
+As he opened the door and beckoned her forward, he took her umbrella,
+handed her in, and with one keen cold look into her face, said:
+
+"I trust my ward's dinner toilette will be an improvement upon her
+present appearance, as several guests have been invited. The Cantata
+must have bored you immensely."
+
+He bowed, closed the door, directed the driven to the number of his
+residence on Fifth Avenue, and disappeared.
+
+Sinking down in one corner, Regina shut her eyes, and groaned. Could
+his presence have been accidental? She had given no one a clue in her
+movements, and how could he have followed her circuitous route after
+leaving Mrs. Brompton's? He had evinced no surprise, had asked no
+explanation of her conduct, but would he abstain in future? Was his
+promise to trust her the cause of his forbearance? Or was it
+attributable to the fact that his thoughts were concentrated upon the
+lady with whose name people were associating his?
+
+The strain upon her nerves was beginning to relax; her head ached,
+her eyes smarted, and she felt sick and faint. Like one in a
+perplexing dream, she was whirled along the streets, and at last
+reached home.
+
+The house was already brilliantly lighted, for the day had closed
+prematurely, with the darkness of the increasing snow, and in the
+seclusion of her own room the girl threw herself down in a rocking
+chair.
+
+Everything seemed dancing in kaleidoscopic confusion, and amid the
+chaos only one grim fact was immovable, she must dress and go down to
+dinner. Just now, unwelcome as was the task, she dared not neglect
+it, for her absence might stimulate the investigation she so much
+dreaded, and wearily she rose and began her toilette.
+
+At half-past seven Hattie entered.
+
+"Aren't you ready, miss? Mrs. Palma says you must hurry down, for the
+company are all in the parlour, and Mr. Palma has asked for you. Stop
+a minute, miss. Your sash is all crooked. There, all right. Let me
+tell you there is more lace and velvet downstairs than you can show,
+and jewellery! No end of it! But as for born good looks, you can
+outface them all."
+
+"Don't I look very pale and jaded?"
+
+"Very white, miss; you always do, and red cheeks would be as much out
+of your style as paint on a corpse. I can tell you what you do look
+like, more than ever I saw you before; that marble figure with the
+dove on its finger, which stands in the front parlour bay-window."
+
+It was Mr. Palma's pet piece of sculpture, a statue of "Innocence,"
+originally intended for his library, but Mrs. Palma had pleaded for
+permission to exhibit it downstairs.
+
+During Regina's residence in New York scarcely a week elapsed without
+her meeting guests at the dinner-table, and the frequency of the
+occurrence had quite worn away the awkward shyness with which she had
+at first confronted strangers. Yet to-day she felt nervously timid as
+she approached the threshold of the brilliant room, and caught a
+glimpse of those within.
+
+Two gentlemen stood on the rug talking with Olga, a third sat on a
+sofa engaged in conversation with Mrs. Palma, while Mrs. St. Clare
+and her daughter entertained two strangers in the opposite corner,
+and on a _tete-a-tete_ drawn conspicuously forward under the
+chandelier were Mr. Palma and Mrs. Carew.
+
+Regina merely glanced at Olga long enough to observe how handsome she
+appeared, in her rose-hued silk, with its rich black lace garniture,
+and the spray of crushed pink roses drooping against her neck, then
+her gaze dwelt upon the woman under the chandelier.
+
+Unusually tall, and proportionately developed, her size might safely
+have been pronounced heroic, and would by comparison have dwarfed a
+man of less commanding stature than Mr. Palma; yet so symmetrical was
+the outline of face and figure that the type seemed wellnigh
+faultless, and she might have served as a large-limbed rounded model
+for those majestic women whom Buonaroti painted for the admiration of
+all humanity, upon the walls of the Sistine.
+
+The face was oval, with a remarkably low but full brow, a straight
+finely-cut nose, very wide between the eyes, which were large,
+almond-shaped, and of a singularly radiant grey, with long curling
+gold-tinted lashes. Her complexion was of that peculiar creamy
+colourlessness, which is found in the smooth petals of a magnolia,
+and the lips were outlined in bright carmine that hinted at chemical
+combinations, so ripe and luscious was the tint.
+
+Had she really stepped down from some glorious old Venetian picture,
+bringing that crown of hair, of the true "_biondina_" hue, so rare
+nowaday, and never seen in perfection save among the marbles and
+lagunes of crumbling Venice? Was it natural, that mass of very pale
+gold, so pale that it seemed a flossy heap of raw silk, or had she by
+some subtle stroke of skill discovered the secret of that beautiful
+artificial colouring, which was so successfully practised in the days
+of Giorgione?
+
+Her dress was velvet, of that light lilac tint which only perfect
+complexions dare approach, was cut very low and square in front and
+trimmed with a profusion of gossamer white lace. Diamonds flashed on
+her neck and arms, and in the centre of the puffed and crimped hair a
+large butterfly of diamonds scattered light upon the yellow mass.
+
+Mr. Palma was smiling at some low spoken sentence that rippled like
+Italian poetry over her full lips, when his eye detected the figure
+hovering near the door, and at once he advanced, and drew her in.
+
+Without taking her hand, his fingers just touched her sleeve, as
+walking beside her he said:
+
+"Mrs. Carew must allow me the pleasure of presenting my ward Miss
+Orme, who has most unpardonably detained us from our soup."
+
+The stranger smiled and offered her hand.
+
+"Ah, Miss Orme! I shall never pardon you for stealing the only heart
+whose loyalty I claim. My little Llora saw you at Mrs. Brompton's,
+heard you sing, and was enchanted with your eyes, which she assured
+me were 'blue as the sky, _ma mere_, and like violets with black lace
+quilled around them.'"
+
+Regina barely touched the ivory hand encrusted with costly jewels,
+and Mr. Palma drew her near a sofa, where sat a noble-looking elderly
+gentleman, slightly bald, and whose ample beard and long moustache
+were snow-white, although his eyebrows were black, and his fine brown
+eyes sparkled with the fire and enthusiasm of youth.
+
+"My ward, Miss Orme, has a juvenile reverence for Congressmen, whom
+knowing only historically, she fondly considers above and beyond the
+common clay of mankind, regards them as the worthy successors of the
+Roman _Patres Conscripti_, and in the Honourable Mr. Chesley she is
+doubtless destined to realize all her romantic ideas relative to
+American statesmen. Regina, Mr. Chesley represents California in the
+council of the nation, and can tell you all about those wonderful
+canons of which you were speaking last week."
+
+The guest took her fingers, shook them cordially, and looking into
+his fine face, the girl felt a sudden thrill run through her frame.
+What was there in the soft brown eyes, and shape of the brow that was
+so familiar, that made her heart beat so fiercely?
+
+Mechanically she sat down near him, failing to answer some trivial
+question from Mrs. Palma, and bowing in an absent preoccupied manner
+to the remainder of the guests.
+
+Fortunately dinner was announced immediately, and as Mrs. Palma moved
+away on Mr. Chesley's arm, while Mr. Palma gave his to Mrs. Carew,
+Regina felt a cold hand seize hers, and lead her forward.
+
+"Mr. Roscoe, where did you secrete yourself? I was not aware that you
+were in the room."
+
+"Standing near the window, watching you bow to every one else. Your
+guardian requested me to hand you in to dinner."
+
+Something in his voice and manner annoyed her, and looking up, she
+said coldly;
+
+"My guardian is very kind; but I regret that his consideration in
+providing me an escort has taxed your courtesy so severely."
+
+Before he could reply they had reached the table, and, glancing at
+the card attached to the bouquet at each plate, Regina found her
+chair had been placed next to Mr. Chesley's, while Olga was her
+_vis-a-vis_.
+
+"If I ask you it question, will you answer it truly?" said Elliott.
+
+"That depends entirely upon what it may prove. If a proper one, I
+shall answer it truly; otherwise, not at all."
+
+"Was it of your own free will, without advice or bias, that you
+refused the interview I asked you to grant me?"
+
+"It was."
+
+"My cousin influenced you adversely?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"He is purely selfish in his course toward----"
+
+"At least it is ungrateful and unbecoming in you to accuse him, and I
+will not hear you."
+
+She turned her face toward Mr. Chesley, who was carrying on an
+animated conversation with Mrs. Palma, and some moments elapsed
+before Elliott resumed:
+
+"Regina, I must see you alone, sometime this evening."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"To demand an explanation of what I have seen and heard,--otherwise I
+would not credit."
+
+"I have no explanations to offer on any subject. If you refer to a
+conversation which Mr. Palma had with me yesterday at your request,
+let me say once for all, that I cannot consent to its revival. Mr.
+Roscoe, we are good friends now, I hope; but we should be such no
+longer, if you persist in violating my wishes in this matter."
+
+"What I wish to say to you involves your own safety and happiness."
+
+"I am grateful for your kind intentions, but they result from some
+erroneous impression. My individual welfare is bound up with those
+whom you know not, and at all events I prefer not to discuss it."
+
+"You refuse me the privilege of a confidential talk with you?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Roscoe. Now be pleasant, and let us converse on some more
+agreeable topic. Did you ever meet Mrs. Carew until to-day?"
+
+He was too angry to reply immediately; but after a little while
+mastered his indignation.
+
+"I have the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Carew quite well."
+
+"She is remarkably beautiful."
+
+"Oh, unquestionably! And she knows it better than any other article
+in her creed. New York is spoiling her dreadfully."
+
+He turned and addressed some remarks to Miss St. Clare, who sat on
+his right, and Regina rejoiced in the opportunity afforded her of
+becoming a quiet observer and listener. She had never seen her
+guardian so animated, so handsome as now, while he smiled genially
+and talked with his lovely guest, and watching them, Regina
+recollected the remark concerning their appearance which had been
+made by the gentleman in the car.
+
+Was it possible that after all the lawyer's heart had been seriously
+interested? Could that satin-cheeked, grey-eyed Circe with pale
+yellow hair and lashes, hold him in silken bonds at her feet? The
+idea that he could be captivated by any woman seemed utterly
+incompatible with all that his ward knew of his life and character,
+and it had appeared an established fact that he was incapable of any
+tender emotion; but certainly at this instant the expression with
+which he was gazing down into Mrs. Carew's lotos face, was earnestly
+admiring. While Regina watched the pair, a cold sensation crept over
+her as on some mild starlit night, one suddenly and unconsciously
+drifts under the lee of some vast, slow-sailing iceberg, and knows
+not, dreams not, of danger until smitten with the fatal prophetic
+chill.
+
+Suppose the ambitious middle-aged man intended to marry this wealthy,
+petted, lovely widow, was it not in all respects a brilliant suitable
+match, which _le beau monde_ would cordially applaud? Was there a
+possibility that she would decline an alliance with that proud
+patrician, whose future seemed dazzling?
+
+In birth, fortune, and beauty could he find her superior?
+
+The flowers in the tall gold _epergne_ in the centre of the table,
+and the wreath of scarlet camellias that swung down to meet them from
+the green bronze chandelier, began to dance a saraband. Silver,
+crystal, china, even the human figures appeared whirling in a misty
+circle, across which the orange, emerald, and blue tints of the hock
+glasses shot hither and thither like witch-lights on the Brocken; and
+indistinct and spectral, yet alluring, gleamed the almond-shaped grey
+eyes with their gold fringes.
+
+With a quick unsteady motion Regina grasped and drained a goblet of
+iced-water, and after a little while the mist rolled away, and she
+heard once more the voices that had never for an instant ceased their
+utterances.
+
+The shuttlecock of conversation was well kept up from all sides of
+the table, and when Regina's thoughts crept back from their numbing
+reverie, Mr. Chesley was eloquently describing some of the most
+picturesque localities in Oregon and California.
+
+Across the table floated a liquid response.
+
+"I saw in Philadelphia a large painting of that particular spot, and
+though not remarkably well done, it enables one to form an
+approximate idea of the grandeur of the scenery."
+
+Mr. Chesley bowed to Mrs. Carew, and answered:
+ "I met the artist, while upon his sketching tour, and was deeply
+interested in his success. At one time, I hoped he would cast
+matrimonial anchor in San Francisco, and remain among us; but his
+fickle fair one deserted him for a young naval officer, and after her
+marriage, California possessed few charms for him. I pitied poor
+Eggleston most cordially."
+
+"Then permit me to assure you, that you are needlessly expending your
+sympathy, for I bear witness to the fact that his wounds have
+cicatrized. A fair Philadelphian has touched them with her fairy
+finger, and at present he bows at another shrine."
+
+Shivering with sympathy for Olga, Regina could not refrain from
+looking at her, while Mrs. Carew spoke, and marvelled at the calm
+deference, the smiling _insouciance_ with which her hazel eyes rested
+on the speaker. Then they wandered as if accidentally to the
+countenance of Mr. Palma, and a lambent flame seemed to kindle in
+their brown depths.
+
+"Mr. Eggleston has talent, and I am surprised that he has not been
+more successful," replied the Congressman.
+
+Mr. Palma was pressing Mrs. St. Clare to take more wine, and appeared
+deaf to the conversation, but Mrs. Carew's flute-like voice
+responded:
+
+"Yes, a certain order of talent for mere landscape painting; but he
+should never attempt a higher or different style. He made a wretched
+copy of the Crucifixion for a wealthy retired tailor, who boasts of
+his investments in 'virtue and bigotry;' and I fear I gave mortal
+offence by venturing to say to the owner, that it reminded me of the
+criticism of Luis de Vargas on a similar failure: 'Methinks he is
+saying, Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do.'"
+
+"_A propos!_ of pictures. Mrs. Carew, I must arrange to have you see
+a superb new painting recently hung upon the wall at the 'Century,'
+and ask your opinion of its merit----"
+
+Regina did not catch the remainder of her guardian's sentence, which
+she felt assured was intended to divert the conversation and shield
+Olga, for just then Mr. Chesley asked to fill her glass, and the talk
+drifted away to less dangerous topics.
+
+Irresistibly attracted by some subtle charm in his manner she found
+herself drawn into a pleasant dialogue with him relative to some
+startling incidents which he narrated of the early miners in the far
+West. Watching his face, she puzzled her brain with the solution of
+the singular familiarity it possessed. She had never met him until
+to-day, and yet her heart wanned toward him more and more.
+
+At length she ventured the question: "Did you leave your family in
+California?"
+
+"Unfortunately I have no family, and no relatives. My dear young
+lady, is it not melancholy to find a confirmed old bachelor, verging
+fast upon decrepitude, with no one to look after or care for him?
+When I was a good-looking young beau, and should have been hunting me
+a bonny blue-eyed bride, I was digging gold from the rocky ribs of
+mountains in Western solitudes. When I made my fortune, I discovered
+too late that I had given my youth in exchange."
+
+
+"I should think, sir, that you might still marry, and be very happy."
+
+His low pleasant laugh did not embarrass her, and he answered:
+
+"You are very kind to kindle that beacon of encouragement, but I fear
+your charitable sympathy clouds your judgment. Do you imagine any
+fair young girl could brave my grey hairs and wrinkles?"
+
+"A young girl would not suit you, sir; but there must be noble
+middle-aged ladies whom you could admire, and trust, and love?"
+
+He bent his white head, and whispered:
+
+"Such, for instance, as Mrs. Carew, who converts all places into
+Ogygia?"
+
+Without lifting her eyes, she merely shook her head, and he
+continued:
+
+"Miss Orme, all men have their roseleaf romance. Mine expanded very
+early, but fate crumpled, crushed it into a shapeless ruin, and
+leaving the wreck behind me, I went to the wilds of California. Since
+then, I have missed the humanising influence of home ties, of
+feminine association; but as I look down the hill, when the sun of my
+life is casting long shadows, I sometimes feel that it would be a
+great blessing had I a sister, cousin, niece, or even an adopted
+daughter, whom I could love and lean upon in my lonely old age. Once
+I seriously entertained the thought of selecting an orphan from some
+Asylum, and adopting her into my heart and home."
+
+"When you do, I sincerely hope she will prove all that you wish, and
+faithfully requite your goodness."
+
+She spoke so earnestly that he smiled, and added:
+
+"Can you recommend one to me? I envy Palma his guardianship, and if I
+could find a young girl like you, I should not hesitate to
+solicit----"
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Chesley, but Mr. Palma is endeavouring to attract
+your notice," said Mrs. Palma.
+
+The host held in his hand an envelope.
+
+"A telegram for you. Shall I direct the bearer to wait?"
+
+"With your permission, I will examine it."
+
+Having glanced at the lines, he turned the sheet of paper over, and
+with a pencil wrote a few words; then handed it to Terry, requesting
+him to direct the bearer to have the answer promptly telegraphed.
+
+"Nothing unpleasant, I trust?" said Mr. Palma.
+
+"Thank you, no. Only a summons which obliges me to curtail my visit,
+and return to Washington by the midnight train."
+
+Interpreting a look from her stepson, Mrs. Palma hastened the slow
+course of the dinner by a whisper to the waiter behind her chair; and
+as she asked some questions relative to mutual friends residing in
+Washington, Regina had no opportunity of renewing the conversation.
+
+Mr. Roscoe was assiduous in his attentions to Miss St. Clare, and
+Regina looked over at Olga, who was talking very learnedly to a small
+gentleman, a prominent and erudite scientist, whose knitted eyebrows
+now and then indicated dissatisfaction with her careless manner of
+handling his pet theories.
+
+Her cheeks glowed, her eyes sparkled, and a teasing smile sat upon
+her lips, as she recklessly rolled her irreverent ball among his
+technical ten pins; and repeated defiantly:
+
+          "Is old Religion but a spectre now,
+           Haunting the solitude of darkened minds,
+           Mocked out of memory by the sceptic day?
+           Is there no corner safe from peeping Doubt?"
+
+"But, Miss Neville, I must be allowed to say that you do not in the
+least grasp the vastness of this wonderful law of 'Natural
+Selection,' of the 'Survival of the Fittest,' which is omnipotent
+in its influence."
+
+"Ah, but my reverence for Civilization cries out against your savage
+enactments! Look at the bulwarks of defence which Asylums and
+Hospitals lift against the operation of your merciless decree. The
+maimed, the feeble, the demented, become the wards of religion and
+charity; the Unfittest of humanity are carefully preserved, and the
+race is retarded it its development. Civilized legislation and
+philanthropy are directly opposed to your 'Survival of the Fittest;'
+and since I am not a tattooed princess of the South Pacific, allowed
+to regale myself with _croquettes_ of human brains, or a _ragout_ of
+baby's ears and hands, well flavoured with wine and lemon, I
+accepted civilization. I believe China is the best place for the
+successful testing of your theory, for there the unfittest have for
+centuries been destroyed; yet I have not heard that the superior, the
+'Coming Race,' has appeared among the tea farms."
+
+Elevating his voice, the small gentleman appealed to his host.
+
+"I thought Mr. Palma too zealous a disciple of Modern Science to
+permit Miss Neville to indulge such flagrant heresies. She has
+absolutely denied that the mental development of a horse, or a dog,
+or ape is strictly analogous to that of man----"
+
+"Quote me correctly, I pray you, Doctor; to that of women, if you
+please," interrupted Olga.
+
+"She believes that it is not a difference of degree (which we know to
+be the case), but of kind; not comparative, but structural--you
+understand. How can you tolerate such schism in your household?
+Moreover, she scouts the great Spencerian organon."
+
+"Olga is too astute not to discover the discrepancy between the
+theory of Scientists and the usages of civilized society, whose
+sanitary provisions thwart and neutralize your law in its operations
+upon the human race. 'Those whom it saves from dying prematurely, it
+preserves to propagate dismal and imperfect lives. In our
+complicated modern communities, a race is being run between moral and
+mental enlightenment, and the deterioration of the physical and moral
+constitution through the defeasance of the law of Natural
+Selection.'"
+
+Lifting her champagne glass, Olga sipped the amber bubbles from its
+brim, and slightly bent her head in acknowledgment.
+
+"Thanks. I disclaim any doubt of the accuracy of his pedigree from
+the monad, through the ape, up to the present erudite philosopher;
+but I humbly crave permission to assert a far different lineage for
+myself. Pray, Doctor, train your battery now upon Mr. Palma, and
+since he assails you with Greg, _minus_ quotation marks, require him
+to avow his real sentiments concerning that sentence in 'De
+Profundis': 'That purely political conception of religion which
+regards the Ten Commandments as a sort of 'cheap defence' of property
+and life, God Almighty as an ubiquitous and unpaid Policeman, and
+Hell as a self-supporting jail, a penal settlement at the
+Antipodes!'"
+
+Prudent Mrs. Palma rose at that moment, and the party left the
+dining-room.
+
+Mrs. St. Clare called Regina to her sofa, to make some inquiries
+about the Cantata, and when the latter was released, he saw that both
+Mr. Chesley and Mr. Palma were absent.
+
+A half-hour elapsed, during which Olga continued to annoy the learned
+small man with her irreverent flippancy, and Mrs. Carew seemed to
+fascinate the two gentlemen who hovered about her like eager moths
+around a lamp. Then the host and Congressman came in together, and
+Regina saw her guardian cross the room, and murmur something to his
+fair client, who smilingly assented.
+
+Mr. Chesley looked at the widow, and at Olga, and his eyes came back,
+and dwelt upon the young girl who stood leaning against Mrs. Palma's
+chair.
+
+Her dress was a pearl white alpaca, with no trimming, save tulle
+ruchings at throat and wrists, and a few violets fastened in the
+cameo Psyche that constituted her brooch.
+
+Pure, pale, almost sad, she looked in that brilliant drawing-room
+like some fragile snowdrop, astray in a bed of gorgeous peonies and
+poppies.
+
+Lifting her eyes to her host, as he leaned over the back of her sofa,
+Mrs. Carew said:
+
+"Miss Orme poses almost faultlessly; she has evidently studied all
+the rules of the art. Quite pretty too; and her hair has a peculiar
+gloss that reminds one of the pounded peach-stones with which Van
+Dyck glazed his pictures."
+
+The fingers of the hand that hung at his side clenched suddenly, but
+adjusting his glasses more firmly he said very quietly:
+
+"My ward is not quite herself this evening, and is really too unwell
+to be downstairs; but appeared at dinner in honour of your presence,
+and in deference to my wishes. Shall I ring for your wrappings? The
+carriage is waiting."
+
+"When I have kissed my cherub good-night, I shall be ready."
+
+He gave her his arm to the foot of the stairs, and returning,
+announced his regret that Mrs. Carew was pledged to show herself at a
+party, to which he had promised to escort her. Whereupon the other
+ladies remembered that they also had promised to be present.
+
+Mr. Chesley, standing at some distance, had been very attentively
+studying Regina's face, and now approaching her, took her hand with a
+certain tender courtesy that touched her strangely.
+
+"My dear Miss Orme, I think we are destined to become firm fast
+friends, and were I not compelled to hurry back to Washington to
+oppose a certain bill, I should endeavour to improve our
+acquaintance. Before long I shall see you again, and meanwhile you
+must help me to find an adopted daughter as much like yourself as
+possible, or I shall be tempted to steal you from Palma. Good-bye.
+God bless you."
+
+His earnest tone and warm pressure of her fingers thrilled her heart,
+and she thought his mild brown eyes held tears.
+
+"Good-bye, sir. I hope we shall meet again."
+
+"You may be sure we shall."
+
+He leaned down, and as he looked at her, she saw his mouth tremble.
+
+A wild conjecture flashed across her brain, and her hand clutched his
+spasmodically, while her heart seemed to stand still. Was Mr. Chesley
+her father?
+
+Before she could collect her thoughts, he turned away and left the
+room, accompanied by Mr. Palma, who during the evening bad not once
+glanced toward her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+Mrs. Carew had arrived on Tuesday morning, and announced that a
+previous engagement would limit her visit to Saturday, at which time
+she had promised to become the guest of a friend on Murray Hill.
+
+During Wednesday and Thursday the house was thronged with visitors.
+There was company to dinner and to luncheon, and every imaginable
+tribute paid to the taste and vanity of the beautiful woman, who
+accepted the incense offered as flowers the dew of heaven, and stars
+the light that constitutes their glory. Accustomed from her cradle to
+adulation and indulgence, she had a pretty, yet imperious manner of
+exacting it from all who ventured within her circle; and could not
+forgive the cool indifference which generally characterized Olga's
+behaviour.
+
+Too well-bred to be guilty of rudeness, the latter contrived in a
+very adroit way to defy every proposition advanced by the fair guest,
+and while she never transcended the bounds of courtesy, she piqued
+and harassed and puzzled not only Mrs. Carew, but Mr. Palma.
+
+At ten o'clock on Thursday night, when the guests invited to dinner
+had departed, and the family circle had collected in the sitting-room
+to await the carriage which would convey the ladies to a Wedding
+Reception, Mrs. Carew came downstairs magnificently attired in a
+delicate green satin, covered with an over dress of exquisite white
+lace, and adorned with a profusion of emeralds and pearls.
+
+Her hair was arranged in a unique style (which Olga denominated "Isis
+fashion"), and above her forehead rested a jewelled lotos, the petals
+of large pearls, the leaves of emeralds.
+
+As she stood before the grate, with the white lace shawl slipping
+from her shoulders, and exposing the bare gleaming bust, Olga
+exclaimed:
+
+"O Queen of the Nile! What Antony awaits your smiles?"
+
+As if aware that she were scrutinized, the grey eyes, sank to the
+carpet, then met Olga's.
+
+"Miss Neville is not the only person who has found in me a
+resemblance to the Egyptian sorceress. When I return to Italy, Story
+shall immortalize me in connection with his own impassioned poem. Let
+me see, how does it begin:
+
+               'Here, Charmian, take my bracelets.'"
+
+She passed her hand across her low wide brow, and, glancing furtively
+at Mr. Palma, she daringly repeated the strongest passages of the
+poem, while her flute-like tones seemed to gather additional
+witchery.
+
+Sitting in one corner, with an open book in her hand, Regina looked
+at her and listened, fascinated by her singular beauty, but
+astonished at the emphasis with which she recited imagery that tinged
+the girl's cheek with red.
+
+"If there be a 'cockatoo' in Gotham, doubtless you will own it
+to-morrow. But forgive me, oh, Cleopatra! if I venture the heresy
+that Story's poem--gorgeous, though I grant it--leaves a bad taste in
+one's mouth, like richly spiced wine, hot and sweet and deliciously
+intoxicating; but beware of to-morrow! 'Sometimes the poison of asps
+is not confined to fig-baskets; and with your permission, I should
+like to offer you an infallible antidote, Seraph of the Nile?"
+
+Mrs. Carew smiled defiantly, and inclined her head, interpreting the
+lurking challenge in Olga's fiery hazel eyes.
+
+Leaning a little forward to note the effect, the latter began and
+recited with much skill the entire words of "Maud Muller." Whenever
+the name of the Judge was pronounced, she looked at Mr. Palma, and
+there was peculiar emphasis in her rendition of the lines:
+
+          "But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
+           When he hummed in court an old love tune.
+              *       *       *       *       *
+           He wedded a wife of richest dower,
+           Who lived for fashion, as he for power."
+
+How had Olga discovered the secret which he believed so securely
+locked in his own heart? Not a muscle moved in his cold guarded face,
+but a faint flush stole across his cheek as he met her sparkling
+gaze.
+
+Mrs. Carew's rosy lip curled scornfully:
+
+"My dear Miss Neville, should you ever be smitten by the blasts of
+adversity, your charming recitative talent would prove wonderfully
+remunerative upon the stage."
+
+"Thanks! but my observation leads me to believe that at the present
+day the profession of the Sycophants pays the heaviest dividends.
+Does Cleopatra's fondness for figs enable her to appreciate my
+worldly wisdom?"
+
+Regina knew that Olga meant mischief to both host and guest, and
+though she did not comprehend the drift of her laughing words, she
+noticed the sudden smile that flashed over her guardian's
+countenance, and the perplexed expression of Mrs. Carew's eyes.
+
+"Miss Neville has as usual floundered into her favourite blue mire,
+whose stale scraps of learning cannot tempt me to pursuit."
+
+"Not into the mud of the Nile, oh celestial Isis! but into the
+classic lore of Hellas. Ask Mr. Palma why I am opposed to smuggling
+figs, especially rose-coloured figs?"
+
+Olga's light laugh was particularly irritating and disagreeable at
+that moment, and her mother, who was a ubiquitous flag of truce on
+such occasions, hastened to interpose.
+
+"My daughter, what possible connection can Mrs. Carew or anybody else
+find between the habit of sycophancy and baskets of figs?"
+
+"Dear mamma, to explain it to you might be construed into an unfilial
+and irreverent reflection upon the insufficiency of your education,
+and of that admission nothing could induce me to be guilty. But
+Regina yonder is still in the clutches of Dominie Sampson, and as she
+is such an innocent stupid young dove, I will have mercy upon her
+curiously questioning eyes. My dear rustic 'Maud,' Sycophants means
+_fig-blabbers_; and when you are patient enough to study, and wise
+enough to appreciate Plutarch, you will learn the derivation of the
+title which justly belongs to multitudes of people."
+
+Making as near an approach to a grimace as the lines of grace (which
+she never violated) would permit, Mrs. Carew lifted one shoulder
+almost out of its satin fetters, and turned to her host.
+
+"Miss Neville should have reigned at the Hotel de Rambouillet when
+_precieuse_ was more honoured than now. I fear if society suspected
+the vastness of her learning, it would create a panic wherever she
+goes."
+
+Olga was leaving the room, had almost reached the door, but at the
+last words turned, and her face sparkled mischievously.
+
+"Beautiful Egypt is acquainted with sphinxes, and should be quick at
+guessing riddles. Will Cleopatra or Antony answer my conundrum? When
+my erudition creates a panic, why am I like those who dwelt about
+Chemmis, when the tragical fate of Osiris was accomplished?"
+
+Mr. Palma answered promptly:
+
+"Because the Pans who inhabited that region were the first who
+learned of the disaster, and as they spread the fatal news among the
+people, all sudden public frights and shocks have been ever since
+called panics. The carriage is ready. We shall be late at the
+wedding. Olga, where is your shawl?"
+
+As they quitted the room together, he added in an undertone:
+
+"Your Parthian warfare would have justified me in returning your
+arrow, but I was never an expert in the use of small arms."
+
+With her hand upon the balustrade of the stairs, which she was
+ascending, Olga looked down on him, and her eyes blazed with an
+intensity of scorn and defiance.
+
+"To your empty quiver, not your leniency, I am indebted for my
+safety. Your arrows were all skilfully barbed, and even the venom of
+asps distilled upon them; but you have done your worst, and failed.
+Parthian tactics ill suit my temper, let me tell you, and just now I
+should infinitely prefer the Scythian style. Were I only for one
+brief hour Tomyris, I would carry your head, sir, where she held that
+of Cyrus, in a bag."
+
+He walked on to the front door, and those in the sitting-room heard
+Olga run up the steps, singing with _gusto_ that strain from Far
+Diavolo, ending, "Diavolo! Diavolo!"
+
+The "Cantata of Undine" had been composed by a gifted and fashionable
+_amateur_, and was performed by young people who belonged to _le beau
+monde_, consequently at an early hour on Friday evening, the house
+was crowded to witness the appearance of a constellation of
+_amateurs_, among whom Regina shone resplendent. When after the
+opening chorus, she came first upon the stage, and stood watching the
+baton of the leader, a bum of admiration rose from the audience.
+
+The costume was of some silvery gauze that hung like mist around her
+slender figure, and was encrusted here and there with the fragile
+white water-lilies that matched the spray which twined across her
+head, and strayed down among the unbound hair now floating free, far
+below her waist.
+
+Very pale but calm, she began her solo, at first a little
+tremulously, but by degrees the rich voice gained its strength,
+asserted its spell, and nobly fulfilled the promise of Professor
+Hurtzsel, that New York should hear that night its finest
+_contralto_.
+
+Startled by the burst of applause that succeeded her song, she looked
+for the first time at the audience, and saw her guardian's tall
+conspicuous figure leaning against a column near the spot where Mrs.
+Carew sat.
+
+Very grave, coolly critical, and quite preoccupied he certainly
+looked, and none would have dreamed that the slight motion of his
+lips meant "My Lily."
+
+Twice she sang alone, and finally in a duo which admirably displayed
+the compass and _timbre_ of her very peculiar voice, and the floral
+hurricane that assailed her attested her complete triumph.
+
+The unaffected simplicity of her bearing, as contrasted with the
+_aplomb_ and artificial manner of the other young ladies who were
+performers,--the angelic purity and delicacy of the sweet girlish
+face, with a lingering trace of sadness in the superb eyes, which
+only deepened their velvet violet,--excited the earnest interest of
+all present, and many curious inquiries ran through the audience.
+
+At the close of the Cantata, Mrs. Palma drew Regina away from the
+strangers who pressed forward to offer their congratulations, and,
+throwing a fur cloak around her, kissed her cheek.
+
+It was the first caress the stately woman had ever bestowed, and as
+the girl looked up, gratified and astonished, the former said:
+
+"You sang delightfully, my dear, and we are more than satisfied,
+quite proud. Your voice was as even and smooth as a piece of
+cream-coloured Persian satin. No, Mrs. Brompton, not to-night.
+Pardon me, Professor, but I must hurry her away, for Mrs. Carew and I
+have an engagement at Mrs. Quimbey's. I shall be obliged to take our
+'Undine' home, and then return for my fair friend, who is as usual
+surrounded, and inextricable just now."
+
+While she spoke, Regina's eyes wandered across the mass of heads, and
+rested on the commanding form of her guardian, standing among a group
+of gentlemen collected around Mrs. Carew, who clad in white _moire
+antique_, with a complete overdress of finest black lace, looped with
+diamond sprays, seemed more than usually regal and brilliant.
+
+Mrs. Palma hurried Regina through a side entrance, and down to the
+carriage, and ere long, having seen her enter the hall at home, bade
+her good-night, and drove back for Mrs. Carew and Mr. Palma.
+
+It was only a little after ten o'clock, and Regina went up to the
+library, her favourite haunt. She had converted the over-skirt of her
+dress into an apron, now filled with bouquets from among the number
+showered upon her; and selecting one composed of pelargoniums and
+heliotropes, she placed it in the vase beneath her mother's picture,
+and laid the remainder in a circle around it.
+
+"Ah, mother! they praised your child; but your voice was missing.
+Would you too have been proud of me? Oh! if I could feel your lips on
+mine, and hear you whisper once more, as of old, 'My baby! my
+precious baby!'"
+
+Gazing at the portrait, she spoke with a passionate fervour very
+unusual in her composed reserved nature, and unshed tears gathered
+and glorified her eyes.
+
+The house was silent and deserted, save by the servants, by Mrs.
+Carew's child and nurse, and throwing off her cloak, Regina remained
+standing in front of the portrait, while her thoughts wandered into
+grey dreary wastes.
+
+Since the day of Mrs. Carew's arrival she had not exchanged a
+syllable with her guardian, nor had she for an instant seen him
+alone, for the early breakfasts had been discontinued, and in honour
+of his guest and client, Mr. Palma took his with the assembled
+family.
+
+There was in his deportment toward his ward nothing harsh, nothing
+that could have indicated displeasure; but he seemed to have entirely
+forgotten her from the moment when he presented her to Mr. Chesley.
+
+He never even accidentally glanced at her, and patiently watching her
+immobile cold face, sparkling only with intelligence, as he
+endeavoured to entertain his exacting and imperious guest, Regina
+began to realize the vast distance that divided her from him.
+
+His haughty Brahmimc pride seemed to lift him into some lofty plane,
+so far beyond the level of Peleg Peterson, that in contrasting them
+the girl groaned and grew sick at heart. She felt that she stood upon
+a mine already charged, and that at any moment that wretched man who
+held the fatal fuse in his brutal hand, might hurl her and all her
+hopes into irremediable chaos and ruin. If the fastidious and
+aristocratic people who had kindly applauded her singing a little
+while ago could have imagined the dense cloud of social humiliation
+that threatened to burst upon her, would she have even been tolerated
+in that assemblage? Ignorance of her parentage was her sole passport
+into really good society, and the prestige of her guardian's noble
+name an ermine mantle of protection, which might be rudely torn away.
+
+During the last three days, left to the companionship of her own sad
+thoughts, and unable to see Olga alone for even a moment, more than
+one painful and unutterably bitter discovery had been made. She felt
+that indeed her childhood had flown for ever, that the sacred
+mysterious chrism of womanhood had been poured upon her young heart.
+
+Until forced to observe the marked admiration which in his own house
+Mr. Palma evinced when conversing with Mrs. Carew, Regina had been
+conscious only of a profound respect for him, of a deeply grateful
+appreciation of his protecting care; and even when he interrogated
+her with reference to her affection for Mr. Lindsay, she had
+truthfully averred her conviction that her heart was wholly
+disengaged.
+
+But sternly honest in dealing with her own soul, subsequent events
+had painfully shocked her into a realization of the feeling that
+first manifested itself as she watched Mr. Palma and Mrs. Carew at
+the dinner-table.
+
+She knew now that the keen pang she suffered that day could mean
+nothing less solemn and distressing than the mortifying fact that she
+was beginning to love her guardian. Not merely as a grateful,
+respectful ward, the august lawyer who represented her mother's
+authority, but as a woman once, and once only in life, loves the man,
+whom her pure tender heart humbly acknowledges as her king, her
+high-priest, her one divinity in clay.
+
+Although conscience acquitted her of any intentional weakness, her
+womanly pride and delicacy bled at every pore, when she arraigned
+herself for being guilty of this emotion toward one who regarded her
+as a child, who merely pitied her forlorn isolation; and whose eye
+would fill with fiery scorn, could he dream of her presumptuous, her
+unfeminine folly.
+
+Despite the chronic sneers with which Olga always referred to his
+character and habitual conduct, Regina could not withhold a reverence
+for his opinion, and an earnest admiration of his grave, dignified,
+yet polished deportment in his household.
+
+By degrees her early dread and repulsion had melted away, confidence
+and respect usurped their place; and gradually he had grown and
+heightened in her estimation, until suddenly opening her eyes wide
+she saw that Erle Palma filled all the horizon of her hopes.
+
+During three sleepless nights she had kept her eyes riveted upon this
+unexpected and mournful fact, and while deeply humiliated by the
+discovery, she proudly resolved to uproot and cast out of her heart
+the alien growth, which she felt could prove only the upas of her
+future. Allowing herself absolutely no hope, no pardon, no quarter,
+she sternly laid the axe of indignant condemnation and destruction to
+the daring off-shoot, desperately hewing at her very heart-strings.
+
+Mrs. Carew's manner left little doubt that she was leaning like a
+ripe peach within his reach, ready at a touch to fall into his hand;
+and though Regina felt that this low-browed, sibyl-eyed woman was
+vastly his inferior in all save beauty and wealth, she knew that even
+his failure to marry the widow would furnish no justification for the
+further indulgence of her own foolish and unsought preference.
+
+The dread lest he might suspect it, and despise her, added intensity
+to her desire to leave New York, and find safety in joining her
+mother; for the thought of his cold contempt, his glittering black
+eyes, and curling lips, was unendurable.
+
+Weeks must elapse ere she could receive an answer to her letter,
+praying for permission to sail for Europe, and during this trying
+interval, she determined to guard every word and glance, to allow no
+hint of her great folly to escape.
+
+Peleg Peterson's daughter, or else "Nobody's Child," daring to lift
+her eyes to the lordly form of Erle Palma!
+
+As this bitter thought taunted and stung her, she uttered a low cry
+of anguish and shame.
+
+"What is the matter? Don't cry, it will spoil your pretty eyes."
+
+Regina turned quickly, and saw little Llora Carew standing near, and
+arrayed only in her long white night dress, and pink rosetted
+slippers.
+
+"Llora, how came you out of bed? You ought to have been asleep three
+hours ago."
+
+"So I was. But I waked up, and felt so lonesome. Mammie has gone off
+and left me, and hunting for somebody I came here. Won't you please
+let me stay awhile? I can't go to sleep."
+
+"But you will catch cold."
+
+"No, the room is warm, and I have my slippers. Oh! what a pretty
+dress! And your arms and neck are like snow, whiter even than my
+mamma's. Please do sing something for me. Your voice is sweeter than
+my musical box, and then I am going away to-morrow."
+
+She had curled herself like a pet kitten on the rug, and looking down
+at her soft dusky eyes, and rosy cheeks, Regina sighed.
+
+"I am so tired, dear. I have no voice left."
+
+"If you could sing before all the people at the Cantata, you might
+just one song for little me."
+
+"Well, pet, I know I ought not to be selfish, and I will try. Come,
+kiss me. My mother is so far away, and I have nobody to love me. Hug
+me tight."
+
+There was a door leading from Mr. Palma's sleeping-room, to the
+curtained alcove behind the writing desk, and having quietly entered
+by that passage soon after Regina came home, the master of the house
+sat on a lounge veiled by damask and lace curtains, and holding the
+drapery slightly aside, watched what passed in the library.
+
+He was rising to declare his presence, when Llora came in, and
+somewhat vexed at the _contretemps_ he awaited the result.
+
+As Regina knelt on the rug and opened her arms, the pretty child
+sprang into them, kissed her cheeks, and assured her repeatedly that
+she loved her very dearly, that she was the loveliest girl she ever
+saw, especially in that gauze dress. Particularly fond of children,
+Regina toyed with, and caressed her for some minutes, then rose, and
+said:
+
+"Now I will sing you a little song to put you to sleep. Sit here by
+the hearth, but be sure not to nod and fall into the fire."
+
+She opened the organ, and although partly beyond the range of Mr.
+Palma's vision, he heard every syllable of the sweet mellow English
+words of Kuecken's "Schlummerlied," with its soothing refrain:
+
+            "Oh, hush thee now, in slumber mild,
+            While watch I keep, oh sleep, my child."
+
+She sang it with strange pathos, thinking of her own far distant
+mother, whom fate had denied the privilege of chanting lullabies over
+her lonely blue-eyed child.
+
+Ending, she came back to the hearth, and Llora clasped her tiny
+hands, and chirped:
+
+"Oh, so sweet! When you get to heaven, don't you reckon you will sit
+in the choir? Once more, oh! do, please."
+
+"What a hungry little beggar you are! Come, sit in my lap, and I will
+hum you a dear little tune. Then you must positively scamper away to
+bed, or your mamma will scold us both, and your mammie also."
+
+A tall yellow woman with a white handkerchief wound turban-style
+around her head, came stealthily forward, and said:
+
+"Miss, give her to me. I went downstairs for a drink of water, and
+when I got back I missed her. Come, baby, let me carry you to bed or
+you will have the croup, and the doctors might cut your throat."
+
+"Wait, mammie, till she sings that little tune she promised; then I
+will go."
+
+Regina sat down in a low cushioned chair, took the little girl on her
+lap, and while the curly head nestled on her shoulder, and one arm
+clasped her neck, she rested her chin upon the brown hair, and sang
+in a very sweet, subdued tone that most soothing of all lullaby
+strains, Wallace's "Cradle Song."
+
+As she proceeded, the turbaned head of the nurse kept time, swaying
+to and fro in the background, and a sweeter picture never adorned
+canvas than that which Mr. Palma watched in front of his library
+fire, and which photographed itself indelibly upon his memory.
+
+Singer and child occupied very much the same position as the figures
+in the _Madonna della Sedia_, and no more lovely woman and child ever
+sat for its painter.
+
+As Mr. Palma's fastidiously critical eyes rested on the sad perfect
+face of Regina, with the long black lashes veiling her eyes, and the
+bare arms and shoulders gleaming above the silver gauze of her
+drapery, he silently admitted that her beauty seemed strangely
+sanctified, and more spirituelle than ever before. Contrasting that
+sweet white figure, over whose delicate lips floated the dreamy
+rhythm of the cradle chant, with the hundreds of handsome,
+accomplished, witty, and brilliant women who thronged the ball-room
+he had just left, this man of the world confessed that his proud
+ambitious heart was hopelessly in bondage to the fair young singer.
+
+                "Sleep, my little one, sleep,--
+                 Sleep, my pretty one,--sleep."
+
+At that moment he was powerfully tempted to delay no longer to take
+her to his bosom for ever; and it cost him a struggle to sit
+patiently, while every fibre of his strong frame was thrilling with a
+depth and fervour of feeling that threatened to bear away all
+dictates of discretion. Ah! what a divine melody seemed to ring
+through all his future as he leaned eagerly forward, and listened to
+the closing words, softly reiterated:
+
+                "Sleep, my little one, sleep,--
+                 Sleep, my pretty one,--sleep."
+
+When she was his wife, how often in the blessed evenings spent here,
+in this hallowed room, he promised himself he would make her sing
+that song. No shadow of doubt that whenever he chose, he could win
+her for his own, clouded the brightness of the vision, for success in
+other pursuits had fed his vanity, until he believed himself
+invincible; and although he had studied her character closely, he
+failed to comprehend fully the proud obstinacy latent in her quiet
+nature.
+
+Just then even the Chief Justiceship seemed an inferior prize, in
+comparison with the possession of that white-browed girl, and her
+pure clinging love; and certainly for a time Mr. Erle Palma's
+towering pride and insatiable ambition were forgotten in his longing
+to snatch the one beloved of all his arid life to the heart that was
+throbbing almost beyond even his rigid control.
+
+For the first time within his recollection he distrusted his power of
+self-restraint, and rising passed quickly into his own room, and
+thence after some moments out into the hall. Near the stairs he met
+the mulatto nurse carrying Llora in her arms.
+
+"Does Mrs. Carew permit that child to sit up so late?"
+
+"Oh no, sir! She has been asleep once; but Miss Regina pets her a
+good deal, and had her in the library singing to her."
+
+"Mr. Palma, shall I kiss you good-night?" asked the pretty creole,
+lifting her curly head from her "mammie's" shoulder.
+
+"Good-night, Llora. Such tender birds should have been in their nests
+long before this. I shall go and scold Miss Orme for keeping you
+awake so late."
+
+He merely patted her rosy round cheek, and went to the library.
+
+Hearing his unmistakable step, Regina conjectured that he had
+escorted the ladies home much earlier than they were accustomed to
+return, and longing to avoid the possibility of a _tete-a-tete_ with
+him, she would gladly have escaped before his entrance had been
+practicable.
+
+He closed the door, and came forward, and, leaning back in the chair
+where she still sat, her hands closed tightly over each other.
+
+"I fear my ward is learning to keep late hours. It is after eleven
+o'clock, and you should be dreaming of the cool, beryl, aquatic
+abodes you have been frequenting as Undine; for indeed you look a
+very weary naiad."
+
+Was he pleased with her success, and would he deem to give her a
+morsel of commendation?
+
+A moment after, she knew that he entertained no such purpose, and
+felt that she ought to rejoice; that it was far best he should not,
+for praise from his lips would be dangerously sweet.
+
+Glancing at the floral tribute laid before her mother's portrait, he
+said:
+
+"You certainly are a faithful devotee at your mother's shrine, and no
+wonder poor Roscoe is so desperately savage at his failure to engage
+a portion of your regard. Did you have a satisfactory interview with
+him on Tuesday last? I invited him for that purpose, as he avowed
+himself dissatisfied with my efforts as proxy, and demanded the
+privilege of pleading his own cause. Permit me to hope that he
+successfully improved the opportunity which I provided by requesting
+him to escort you to dinner."
+
+Standing upon the rug, and immediately in front of her, he spoke with
+cool indifference, and though the words seemed to her a cruel mockery
+they proved a powerful tonic, bringing the grim comfort that at least
+her presumptuous madness was not suspected.
+
+"I had very little conversation with Mr. Roscoe, as I declined to
+renew the discussion of a topic which was painful and embarrassing to
+me, and I fear I have entirely forfeited his friendship."
+
+"Then after mature deliberation you still peremptorily refuse to
+become more closely related to me? Once there appeared a rosy
+possibility that you might one day call me cousin."
+
+With a sudden resolution she looked straight at him for the first
+time since his entrance, and answered quietly:
+
+"You will be my kind faithful guardian a little while longer, until I
+can hear from mother; but we shall never be any more closely
+related."
+
+The reply was not exactly what he expected and desired; but with his
+chill, out-door conventional smile he added:
+
+"Poor Roscoe! his heart frequently outstrips his reason."
+
+Looking at him, she felt assured that no one could ever justly make
+that charge against him; and unwilling to prolong the interview, she
+rose.
+
+"Pardon me, if, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, I detain
+you a few minutes from your Undine dreams. Be so good as to resume
+your seat."
+
+There was an ominous pause, and reluctantly she was forced to look
+up.
+
+He was regarding her very sternly, and as his eyes caught and held
+hers he put his fingers in his vest pocket, drawing therefrom a
+narrow strip of paper, folded carefully. Holding it out, he asked:
+
+"Did you ever see this?"
+
+Before she opened it she knew it contained the address she had given
+to Peleg Peterson on Tuesday, and a shiver crept over her.
+Mechanically glancing at it, she sighed; a sigh that was almost a
+moan.
+
+"Regina, have the courtesy to answer my question."
+
+"Of course I have seen it before. You know it is my handwriting."
+
+"Did you furnish that address with the expectation of conducting a
+clandestine correspondence?"
+
+An increasing pallor overspread her features, but in a very firm
+decided voice, she replied:
+
+"Yes sir."
+
+"Knowing that your legal guardian would forbid such an interchange of
+letters, you directed them enclosed under cover to Mrs. Mason?"
+
+"I did."
+
+The slip of paper fluttered to the floor, and her fingers locked each
+other.
+
+"A gentleman picked up that scrap of paper, in one of the squares
+located far up town, and recognizing the name of my ward, very
+discreetly placed it in the possession of her guardian."
+
+"Mr. Palma, were you not in a carriage at that square on Tuesday?"
+
+"I was not. My time is rather too valuable to be wasted in a
+rendezvous at out-of-the-way squares while a snowstorm is in full
+blast. What possible attraction do you imagine such folly could offer
+me?"
+
+"I met you not very far from that square, and I thought----"
+
+"Pray take time, and conclude your sentence."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Some important business connected with my profession, and involving
+a case long ago placed in my hands, called me, despite the
+unfavourable weather, to that section of the city. Having
+particularly desired and instructed you to come home as soon as the
+rehearsal at Mrs. Brompton's ended, I certainly had no right to
+suppose you intended to disobey me."
+
+He paused, but she remained a pale image of silent sorrow.
+
+"A few evenings since you asked me to trust you, and in defiance of
+my judgment I reluctantly promised to do so. Have you not forfeited
+your guardian's confidence?"
+
+"Perhaps so; but it was unavoidable."
+
+"Unavoidable that you should systematically deceive me?" he demanded
+very sternly.
+
+"I have not deceived you."
+
+"My duty as your guardian forces me to deal plainly with you. With
+whom have you arranged this disgraceful clandestine correspondence?"
+
+Her gaze swept quite past him, ascended to the pitying brown eyes in
+her mother's portrait; and though she grew white as her Undine
+vesture, and he saw her shudder, her voice was unshaken.
+
+"I cannot tell you."
+
+"Representing your mother's authority, I demand an answer."
+
+After an instant, she said:
+
+"Though you were twenty times my guardian, I shall not tell you,
+sir."
+
+She seemed like some marble statue, which one might hack and hew in
+twain, without extorting a confession.
+
+"Then you force me to a very shocking and shameful conclusion."
+
+Was there, she wondered, any conclusion so shameful as the truth,
+which at all hazard she was resolved for her mother's sake to hide?
+
+"You are secretly meeting and arranging to correspond with some
+vagrant lover whom you blush so acknowledge."
+
+"Lover! Oh, merciful God! When I need a father, and a father's
+protecting name--when I am heart-sick for my mother, and her
+shielding healing love--how can you cruelly talk to me of a lover?
+What right has a nameless, homeless waif to think of love? God grant
+me a father and a mother, a stainless name, and I shall never need,
+never wish, never tolerate a lover! Do not insult my misery."
+
+She lifted her clenched hands almost menacingly, and her passionate
+vehemence startled her companion, who could scarcely recognize in the
+glittering defiant gaze that met his the velvet violet eyes over
+which the silken fringes had hung with such tender Madonna grace but
+a half-hour before.
+
+"Regina, how could you deceive me so shamefully?"
+
+"I did not intend to do so. I am innocent of the disgraceful motives
+you impute to me; but I cannot explain what you condemn so severely.
+In all that I have done I have been impelled by a stern, painful
+sense of duty, and my conscience acquits me; but I shall not give you
+any explanation. To no human being, except my mother, will I confess
+the whole matter. Oh, send me at once to her! I asked you to trust
+me, and you believe me utterly unworthy, think I have forfeited your
+confidence, even your respect. It is hard, very hard, for I hoped to
+possess always your good opinion. But it must be borne, and now at
+least, holding me so low in your esteem, you will not keep me under
+your roof; you will gladly send me to mother. Let me go. Oh! do let
+me go--at once; to-morrow."
+
+She seemed inexplicably transformed into a woeful desperate woman,
+and the man's heart yearned to fold her closely in his arms,
+sheltering her for ever.
+
+Drawing nearer, he spoke in a wholly altered voice.
+
+"When you asked me to trust you, I did so. Now will you grant me a
+similar boon? Lily, trust me."
+
+His tone had never sounded so low, almost pleading before; and it
+thrilled her with an overmastering grief, that when he who was wont
+to command, condescended to sue for her confidence, she was forced
+to withhold it.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Palma, do not ask me! I cannot."
+
+He took her hands, unwinding the cold fingers, and in his peculiar
+magnetic way softly folding them in his warm palms; but she struggled
+to withdraw them, and he saw the purple shadows deepening under her
+large eyes.
+
+"Little girl, I would not betray your secret Give it to my
+safekeeping. Show me your heart."
+
+
+As if fearful he might read it, she involuntarily closed her
+eyes, and her answer was almost a sob.
+
+"It is not my secret, it involves others, and I would rather die
+to-morrow, to-night, than have it known. Oh! let me go away at once,
+and for ever!"
+
+Accustomed to compel compliance with his wishes, it was difficult for
+him to patiently endure defiance and defeat from that fair young
+creature, whom he began to perceive he could neither overawe nor
+persuade.
+
+For several minutes he seemed lost in thought, still holding her
+hands firmly; then he suddenly laughed, and stooped toward her.
+
+"Brave, true little heart! I wonder if some day you will be as
+steadfast and faithful in your devotion to your husband, as you have
+been in your loving defence of your mother? You need not tell me your
+secret, I know everything; and, Lily, I can scarcely forgive you for
+venturing within the reach and power of that wretched vagabond."
+
+He felt her start and shiver, and pitying the terrified expression
+that drifted into her countenance, he continued:
+
+"Unconsciously, you were giving alms to your own and to your mother's
+worst enemy. Peleg Peterson has for years stood between you and your
+lawful name."
+
+She reeled, and her fingers closed spasmodically over his, as white
+and faint, she gasped:
+
+"Then he is not--my----"
+
+The words died on her quivering lips.
+
+"He is the man who has slandered and traduced your mother, even to
+her own husband."
+
+"Oh! then, he is not, he cannot be my--father!"
+
+"No more your father than I am! At last I have succeeded in
+obtaining----"
+
+She was beyond the reach even of his voice, and as she drooped he
+caught her in his arms.
+
+Since Monday the terrible strain had known no relaxation, and the
+sudden release from the horrible incubus of Peleg Peterson was
+overpowering.
+
+Mr. Palma held her for some seconds clasped to his heart, and placing
+the head on his bosom, turned the white face to his. How hungrily the
+haughty man hung over those wan features, and what a wealth of
+passionate tenderness thrilled in the low trembling voice that
+whispered:
+
+"My Lily. My darling; my own."
+
+He kissed her softly, as if the cold lips were too sacred even for
+his loving touch, and gently placed her on the sofa, holding her with
+his encircling arm.
+
+Since his boyhood no woman's lips had ever pressed his, and the last
+kiss he had bestowed was upon his mother's brow, as she lay in her
+coffin.
+
+To-night the freshness of youth came back, and the cold, politic,
+non-committal lawyer found himself for the first time an ardent
+trembling lover.
+
+He watched the faint quiver of her blue-veined lids, and heard the
+shuddering sigh that assured him consciousness was returning. Softly
+stroking her hand, he saw the eyes at last unclose.
+
+"You certainly have been down among your uncanny Undine caves; for
+you quite resemble a drenched lily. Now sit up."
+
+He lifted her back into the easy chair, as if she had been an infant,
+and stood before her.
+
+As her mind cleared, she recalled what had passed, and said almost in
+a whisper:
+
+"Did I dream, or did you tell me that horrible man is not my father?"
+
+"I told you so. He is a black-hearted, vindictive miscreant, who
+successfully blackmailed you, by practising a vile imposture."
+
+"Oh! are you quite sure?"
+
+"Perfectly sure. I have been hunting him for years, and at last have
+obtained in black and white his own confession, which nobly
+exonerates your mother from his infamous aspirations."
+
+"Thank God! Thank God!"
+
+Tears were stealing down her cheeks, and he saw from the twitching of
+her face that she was fast losing control of her overtaxed nerves.
+
+"You must go to your room and rest, or you will be ill."
+
+"Oh! not if I am sure he will never dare to claim me as his child.
+Oh, Mr. Palma! that possibility has almost driven me wild."
+
+"Dismiss it as you would some hideous nightmare. Go to sleep and
+dream of your mother, and of----"
+
+He bit his lip to check the rash words, and too much agitated to
+observe his changed manner, she asked:
+
+"Where is he now?"
+
+"No matter where. He is so completely in my power, that he can
+trouble us no more."
+
+She clasped her hands joyfully, but the tears fell faster, and
+looking at her mother's picture, she exclaimed:
+
+"Have mercy upon me, Mr. Palma! Tell me--do you know--whom I am? Do
+you really know beyond doubt who was--or is--my father?"
+
+"This much I can tell you, I know your father's name; but just now I
+am forbidden by your mother to disclose it, even to you. Come to your
+room."
+
+He raised her from the chair, and as she stood before him, it was
+pitiable to witness the agonized entreaty in her pallid but beautiful
+face.
+
+"Please tell me only one thing, and I can bear all else patiently.
+Was he--was my father--a gentleman? Oh! my mother could never have
+loved any--but a gentleman."
+
+"His treatment of her and of you would scarcely entitle him to that
+honourable epithet; yet in the eyes of the world your father
+assuredly is in every respect a gentleman, is considered even an
+aristocrat."
+
+She sobbed aloud, and the violence of her emotion, which she seemed
+unable to control, alarmed him. Leading her to the library door he
+said, retaining her hand.
+
+"Compose yourself, or you will be really sick. Now that your poor
+tortured heart is easy, can you not go to sleep?"
+
+"Oh, thank you! Yes, I will try."
+
+"Lily, next time trust me. Trust your guardian in everything.
+Good-night. God bless you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+"'The dice of the gods are always loaded,' and what appears the
+merest chance is as inexorably fixed, predetermined, as the rules of
+mathematics, or the laws of crystallization. What madness to flout
+fate!"
+
+Mrs. Orme laid down her pen as she spoke, and leaned back in her
+chair.
+
+"Did you speak to me?" inquired Mrs. Waul, who had been nodding over
+her worsted work, and was aroused by the sound of the voice.
+
+"No, I was merely thinking aloud; a foolish habit I have contracted
+since I began to aspire to literary laurels. Go to sleep again, and
+finish your dream."
+
+Upon the writing desk lay a _MS_. in morocco cover, and secured by
+heavy bronze clasps, into which the owner put a small key attached to
+her watch chain, carefully locking and laying it away in a drawer of
+the desk.
+
+Approaching a table in the corner of the room, Mrs. Orme filled
+a tall narrow Venetian glass with that violet-flavoured,
+violet-perfumed Capri wine, whose golden bubbles danced upon the
+brim, and, having drained the last amber drop, she rolled her chair
+close to the window, looped back the curtains, and sat down.
+
+The lodgings she had occupied since her arrival in Naples were
+situated on the _Riviera di Chiaja_, near the _Villa Reale_, and not
+far from the divergence into the _Strada Mergellina_. Of the
+wonderful beauty of the scene beyond her front windows She had never
+wearied, and now in the ravishing afternoon glow, with the blue air
+all saturated with golden gleams, she yielded to the Parthenopean
+spell, which, once felt, seems never to be forgotten.
+
+Had it the power to chant to rest that sombre past which memory kept
+as a funeral theme for ever on its vibrating strings? Was there at
+last a file for the serpent, that had so long made its lair in her
+distorted and envenomed nature?
+
+At thirty-three time ceases to tread with feathery feet, and the
+years grow self-asserting, italicize themselves in passing; and
+across the dial of woman's beauty the shadow of decadence falls
+aslant. But although Mrs. Orme had offered sacrifice to that
+inexorable Terminus, who dwells at the last border line of youth, the
+ripeness and glow of her extraordinary loveliness showed as yet no
+hint of the coming eclipse.
+
+Health lent to cheek and lip its richest, warmest tints, and though
+the silvery splendour of hope shone no longer in the eloquent brown
+eyes, the light of an almost accomplished triumph imparted a baleful
+brilliance, which even the long lashes could not veil.
+
+Her pale lilac robe showed admirably the transparency of her
+complexion, and in her waving gilded hair she wore a cluster of
+delicate rose anemones.
+
+Her gaze seemed to have crossed the blue pavement of sea, and rested
+on the purpling outlines of Ischia and Capri; but the dimpling smile
+that crossed her face sprang from no dreamy reverie of Parthenope
+legends, and her voice was low and deep like one rehearsing for some
+tragic outbreak.
+
+"So Samson felt in Dagon's temple, amid the jubilee of his
+tormentors, when silent and calm, girded only by the sense of his
+wrongs, he meekly bowed to rest himself; and all the while his arms
+groped stealthily around the pillars destined to avenge him. Ah! how
+calm, how holy, all outside of my heart seems! How in contrast with
+that charnel-house yonder vision of peaceful loveliness appears as
+incongruous as the nightingales which the soul of Sophocles heard
+singing in the grove of the Furies? After to-day will the world ever
+look quite the same to me? Thirty-three years have brought me swiftly
+to the last fatal page; and shall the hand falter that writes
+_finis_?"
+
+A strangely solemn expression drifted over her countenance, but at
+that moment a tall form darkened the doorway, and she smiled.
+
+"Come in, General Laurance. Punctuality is essentially an American
+virtue, rarely displayed in this _dolce far niente_ land; and you
+exemplify its nationality. Five was the hour you named, and my little
+Swiss tell-tale is even now sounding the last stroke."
+
+She did not rise, seemed on the contrary, to sink farther back in her
+velvet-lined chair; and bending down General Laurance touched her
+hand.
+
+"When a man's happiness for all time is at stake does he loiter on
+his way to receive the verdict? Surely you will----"
+
+He paused and glanced significantly at the figure whose white cap was
+bowed low, as its wearer slumbered over the interminable crochet.
+
+"May not this interview at least be sacred from the presence of your
+keepers?"
+
+"Poor dear soul, she is happily oblivious, and will take no
+stenographic notes. I would as soon declare war against my own shadow
+as order her away."
+
+Evidently chagrined, the visitor stood irresolute, and meanwhile the
+gaze of his companion wandered back to the beauty of the Bay.
+
+He drew a chair close to that which she occupied, and holding his hat
+as a screen, should Mrs. Waul's spectacles chance to turn in that
+direction, spoke earnestly.
+
+"Have I been unpardonably presumptuous in interpreting favourably
+this permission to see you once more? Have you done me the honour to
+ponder the contents of my letter?"
+
+"I certainly have pondered well the contents."
+
+She kept her hands beyond his reach, and looking steadily into his
+eager handsome face, she saw it flush deeply.
+
+"Madame, I trust, I believe you are incapable of trifling."
+
+"In which, you do me bare justice only. With me the time for
+trifling is past; and just now life has put on all its tragic
+vestments. But how long since General Laurance believed me incapable
+of--worse than trifling?"
+
+"Ever since my infamous folly was reproved by you as it deserved.
+Ever since you taught me that you were even more noble in soul than
+lovely in person. Be generous, and do not humiliate me by recalling
+that temporary insanity. Having blundered fearfully, in my ignorance
+of your real character, does not the offer of yesterday embody all
+the reparation, all the atonement of which a man is capable?"
+
+"You desire me to consider the proposal contained in your letter, as
+an expiation for past offences, as an _amende honourable_ for what
+might have ripened into insult, had it not been nipped in the bud? Do
+I translate correctly your gracious diction?"
+
+"No, you cruelly torment me by referring to an audacious and shameful
+offence, for which I blush."
+
+"Successful sins are unencumbered by penitential oblations, and only
+discovered and defeated crimes arouse conscience, and paint one's
+cheeks with mortification. General Laurance merely illustrates a
+great social law."
+
+"Do not, dear madame, keep me in this fiery suspense. I have offered
+you all that a gentleman can lay at the feet of the woman he loves."
+
+A cold smile lighted her face, as some arctic moonbeams gleams for an
+instant across the spires and doomes of an iceberg.
+
+"Once you attempted to offer me your heart, or what remains of its
+ossified ruins; which I declined. Now you tender me your hand and
+name, and indeed it appears that like many of the high-born class you
+so nobly represent, your heart and hand have never hitherto been
+conjoined in your _devoir_. It were a melancholy pity they should be
+eternally divorced."
+
+Bending over her, he exclaimed:
+
+"As heaven hears me, I swear I love you better than life, than
+everything else that the broad earth holds! You cannot possibly doubt
+my sincerity, for you hold the proof in your own hands. Be merciful,
+Odille, and end my anxiety."
+
+He caught her hand, and as she attempted no resistance, he raised it
+to his moustached lip. Her eyes were resting upon the blue expanse of
+water, as if far away, across the vast vista of the Mediterranean she
+sought some strengthening influence, some sacred inspiration; and
+after a moment, turning them full upon his countenance, she said with
+grave stony composure:
+
+"You have asked me to become your wife, knowing full well that no
+affection would prompt me to entertain the thought; and you must be
+thoroughly convinced that only sordid motives of policy could
+influence me to accept you. Do men who marry under such circumstances
+honour and trust the women, who as a _dernier ressort_ bear their
+names? You are not so weak, so egregiously vain, as to delude
+yourself for one instant with the supposition that I could ever love
+you?"
+
+"Once my wife, I ask nothing more. Upon my own head and life, be the
+failure to make you love me. Only give me this hand, and I will take
+your heart Can a lover ask less, and hazard more?"
+
+"And if you fail--woefully, as fail you must?"
+
+"I shall not. You cannot awe or discourage me, for I have yet to find
+the heart that successfully defies my worship. But if you remained
+indifferent--ah, loveliest! you would not! Even then, I should be
+blessed by your presence, your society--and that alone were worth all
+other women!"
+
+"Even though it cost you the heavy, galling burden of marriage vows,
+an exorbitant price, which only necessity extorts? How vividly we of
+the nineteenth century exemplify the wisdom of the classic aphorisms?
+_Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat_. Have you no fear that you
+are seizing with bare fingers a glittering thirsty blade, which may
+flesh itself in the hand that dares to caress it?"
+
+"I fear nothing but your rejection; and though you should prove
+Judith or Jael, I would disarm you thus."
+
+Again he kissed the fair slender hand, and clasped it tenderly
+between both his own.
+
+"A man of your years does not lightly forsake the traditions of his
+Caste, and the usages of his ancestors; and what can patricians like
+General Laurance hope to secure by stooping to the borders of
+_proletaire?_"
+
+"The woman whom he loves. To you I will confess, that never until
+within the past six or eight months have I really comprehended the
+power of genuine love. Early in life I married a high-born, gentle,
+true-hearted woman, who made me a good faithful wife; but into that
+alliance my heart never entered, and although for many years I have
+been free to admire whom fickle fancy chose, and have certainly
+petted and caressed some whom the world pronounced very lovely, the
+impression made upon me was transient, as the perfume of a blossom
+plucked and worn for a few hours only. You have exerted over me a
+fascination which I can neither explain nor resist. For you I
+entertain feelings never aroused in my nature until now; and I speak
+only the simple truth, when I solemnly swear to you, upon the honour
+of a Laurance, that you are the only woman I have ever truly and
+ardently loved."
+
+"The honour of a Laurance? What more sacred pledge could I possibly
+desire?"
+
+The fingers of her free hand were toying with a small gold chain
+around her neck, to which was fastened the hidden wedding ring of
+black agate, with its white skull; and as she spoke her scarlet lips
+paled perceptibly, and her soft dreamy eyes began to glitter.
+
+"Ah! I repeat, upon my honour as a gentleman and a Laurance; and a
+holier oath no man could offer. Of my proud unsullied name I am
+fastidiously careful, and can even you demand or hope a nobler one
+than that I now lay at your feet?"
+
+"The name of Laurance? Certainly I think it would satisfy even my
+ambition."
+
+He felt the pretty hand grow suddenly cold in his grasp, and saw the
+thin delicate nostril expand slightly, as she fixed her brilliant
+eyes on his, and smiled. Then she continued:
+
+"Is it not too sacred and aristocratic a mantle to fling around an
+obscure actress, of whose pedigree and antecedent life you know
+nothing, save that widowhood and penury goaded her to histrionic
+exhibitions of a beauty, that sometimes threatened to subject her to
+impertinence and insult? Put aside the infatuation which not
+unfrequently attacks men, who like you are rapidly descending the
+hill of life, approaching the stage of second childlike simplicity,
+and listen for a moment to the cold dictates of prudence and policy.
+Suppose that ere you surrendered your reason to the magnetism of what
+you are pleased to consider my 'physical perfection,' one of your
+relatives, a brother, or say even your son, had met me at Milan as
+you did; and madly forgetting his family rank, his aristocratic ties,
+all the pride and worldly wisdom of heredity, had, while in a fit of
+complete dementia, offered as you have done to clothe my humble
+obscurity in the splendid name of Laurance? Would General Rene
+Laurance have pardoned him, and received me as his sister, or his
+daughter?"
+
+"Could I censure any man for surrendering to charms which have so
+completely vanquished me? Thank heaven! I have neither brother nor
+son to rival me. My only child Cuthbert is safely anchored in the
+harbour of wedlock, and having his own family ties, I am free to
+consult only my heart in the choice of a bride. I have not journeyed
+so far down the hill of life as you cruelly persist in asserting, and
+the fervour of my emotions denies your unkind imputation. When I
+proudly show the world the lovely wife of my heart's choice, you will
+find my devotion a noble refutation of your unflattering estimate.
+But a moment since, you confessed that to exchange the name of Orme
+for that of Laurance would crown your ambition; my dearest, the truth
+has escaped you."
+
+With a sudden gesture of loathing she threw off his hand, struck her
+palms together, and he started at the expression that seemed
+literally to blaze in her eyes, so vivid, so withering was the light
+that rayed out.
+
+"Yes, the truth escaped my lips. The honourable name of Laurance is
+talismanic, and offers much to Odille Orme; yet I will stain my soul
+with no dissimulation. With love and romance, I finished long, long
+ago; and to-day I have not patience to trifle even with its
+phraseology. I am thirty-three, and in my early girlhood the one love
+dream of all my life was rudely broken, leaving me no more capacity
+to indulge a second, than belongs to those marbles in the _Musee
+Bourbonique_. For my dear young husband I felt the only intense,
+idolatrous, yes, blindly worshipping devotion, that my nature could
+yield to any human being. When I lost him, I lost my heart also;
+became doubly widowed, because my grief bereft me of the power of
+properly loving even our little baby. For years I have given my body
+and soul to the accomplishment of one purpose, the elevation of my
+social status, and that of my child. Had my husband been spared to
+me, we would not have remained obscure and poor, but after my
+widowhood the struggle devolved upon me. I have not had leisure to
+think of love, have toiled solely for maintenance and position; and
+have sternly held myself aloof from the world that dared to believe
+my profession rendered me easy of access. Titles have been laid at my
+feet, but their glitter seemed fictitious, did not allure me; and no
+other name save yours has ever for an instant tempted me. To-day you
+are here to plead my acceptance of that name, and frankly, I tell
+you, sir, it dazzles me. As an American I know all that it
+represents, all that it would confer on me, all that it would prove
+for my child, and I would rather wear the name of Laurance than a
+coronet! I confess I have but one ambition, to lift my daughter into
+that high social plane, from which fate excluded her mother; and this
+eminence I covet for her, marriage with you promises me. I have no
+heart to bring you; mine died with all my wifely hopes when I lost my
+husband. If I consent to give you my hand, and nominally the claim of
+a husband, in exchange for the privilege of merging Orme in Laurance,
+it must be upon certain solemn conditions, to the fulfilment of which
+your traditional honour is pledged. Is a Laurance safely bound by
+vows?"
+
+Her voice had grown strangely metallic, losing all its liquid
+sweetness, and as her gaze searched his face, the striking
+resemblance she traced in his eyes and mouth to those of Cuthbert and
+Regina seemed to stab her heart.
+
+To the man who listened and watched with breathless anxiety her
+hardening, whitening features, she merely recalled the memory of her
+own tragic "Medea" confronting "Jason" at Athens.
+
+"Only accept my vows at the altar, and I challenge the world to
+breathe an imputation upon their sanctity. Rene Laurance never broke
+a promise, never forfeited a pledge; and to keep his name unsullied,
+his honour stainless, is his sole religion. Odille, my Queen----"
+
+She rose and waved him back.
+
+"Spare me rapsodies that accord neither with your years nor my
+sentiments. Understand, it is a mere bargain and a sale, and I am
+carefully arranging the conditions. For myself I ask little; but as
+you are aware, my daughter is grown, is now in her seventeenth year,
+and the man whom the world regards as my husband must share his name
+and fortune with my child. Doubtless you deem me calculating and
+mercenary, and for her dear sake I am forced to do so; for all the
+tenderness that remains in my nature is centred in my little girl.
+She has been reared as carefully as a princess, is accomplished and
+very beautiful, and when you see her I think you will scarcely refuse
+the tribute of your admiration and affection."
+
+For an instant a grey pallor spread from lip to brow, and the unhappy
+woman shuddered; but rallying, she moved across the floor to her
+writing desk, and the infatuated man followed, whispering:
+
+"If she resembles her mother, can you doubt her perfect and prompt
+adoption into my heart?"
+
+"My daughter is unlike me; is so entirely the image of her lost
+father, that the sight of her beauty sometimes overwhelms me with
+torturing memories. Here. General Laurance is a carefully written
+paper, which I submit for your examination and mature reflection.
+When in the presence of proper witnesses you sign that contract, you
+will have purchased the right to claim my hand--mark you, only my
+hand--at the altar."
+
+It was a cautiously worded marriage settlement, drawn up in
+conformity with legal requirements; and its chief exaction was the
+adoption of  Regina, the transmission of the name of Laurance, and
+the settlement upon her of a certain amount of money in stocks and
+bonds, exclusive of any real estate. As he received the paper and
+opened it, Mrs. Orme added: "Take your own time, and weigh the
+conditions carefully and deliberately."
+
+"Stay, Odille; do not leave me. A few moments will suffice for this
+matter, and I am in no mood to endure suspense."
+
+"Within an hour you can at least comprehend what I demand. I am going
+to the terrace of the Villa Reale, and when in accordance with that
+contract you decide to adopt my child, and present her to the world
+as your own, you will find me on the terrace."
+
+He would have taken her hand, but she walked away and disappeared,
+closing a door behind her.
+
+His hat had rolled out of sight, and as he searched hurriedly for it,
+Mrs. Waul spoke from her distant recess:
+
+"General Laurance will find his hat between the ottoman and the
+window."
+
+The winding walks of the Villa were comparatively deserted, when Mrs.
+Orme began to pace slowly to and fro beneath the trees, whose foliage
+swayed softly in the mild evening air. When the few remaining groups
+had passed beyond her vision, she threw back the long thick veil that
+had effectually concealed her features, and approaching the parapet
+that overhung the sea, sat down. Removing her hat and veil, she
+placed them beside her on the seat, and resting her hands on the iron
+railing, bowed her chin upon them, and looked out upon the sea
+murmuring at the foot of the wall.
+
+The flush and sparkle of an hour ago had vanished so utterly, that it
+appeared incredible that colour, light, and dimples could ever wake
+again in that frozen face, over whose rigid features brooded the calm
+of stone.
+
+                 "A woman fair and stately,
+                  But pale as are the dead,"--
+
+she seemed some impassive soulless creature, incapable alike of
+remorse or of hope, allured by no future, frightened by no past;
+silently fronting at last the one sunless, joyless, dreary goal,
+whose attainment had been for years the paramount aim of her stranded
+life. The rosy glow of dying day yet lingered in the sky and tinged
+the sea, and a golden moon followed by a few shy stars watched their
+shining images twinkling in the tremulous water; but the loveliest
+object upon which their soft light fell was that lonely, wan,
+lilac-robed woman.
+
+So Jephtha's undaunted daughter might have looked, as she saw the
+Syrian sun sink below the palms and poppies, knowing that when it
+rose once more upon the smiling happy world, her sacrifice would have
+been accomplished, her fate for ever sealed; or so perhaps Alcestis
+watched the slow-coming footsteps of that dreadful hour, when for her
+beloved she voluntarily relinquished life.
+
+To die for those we love were easy martyrdom, but to live in
+sacrificial throes fierce as Dirce's tortures, to endure for tedious
+indefinite lingering years, jilted by death, demands a fortitude
+higher than that of Cato, Socrates, or Seneca.
+
+To all of us come sooner or later lurid fateful hours that bring us
+face to face with the pale Parcae; so close that we see the motionless
+distaff, and the glitter of the opening shears, and have no wish to
+stay the clipping of the frayed and tangled thread.
+
+In comparison with the grim destiny Mrs. Orme had so systematically
+planned the hideous "death in life," upon which she was deliberately
+preparing to enter, a leap over that wall into the placid sea beneath
+would have been welcome as heaven to tortured Dives; but despite the
+loathing and horror of her sickened and outraged soul, she
+contemplated her future lot as calmly as St. Lawrence the heating of
+his gridiron.
+
+Over the beautiful blue bay, where the moon had laid her pavement of
+gold, floated a low sweet song, a simple barcarolle, that came from a
+group of happy souls in a small boat
+
+                  "Che cosi vual que pesci
+                              Fiduline!
+                   L'anel que me casca
+                   Nella bella mia barca
+                   Nella bella se ne va.
+                              Fiduline."
+
+Approaching the shore, the ruddy light burning at one end of the boat
+showed its occupants; a handsome athletic young fisherman, and his
+pretty childish wife, hushing her baby in her arms, with a slow
+cradle-like movement that kept time to her husband's song.
+
+                  "Te daro cento scudi
+                              Fiduline.
+                   Sta borsa riccama
+                   Por la bella sua barca
+                   Colla bella se ne va
+                   Fidulilalo, Fiduline."
+
+Springing ashore he secured the boat, and held out his arms for the
+sleeping bud that contained in its folded petals all their domestic
+hopes; and as the star-eyed young mother kissed it lightly and laid
+it in its father's arms, the happy pair walked away, leaving the echo
+of their gay musical chatter lingering on the air.
+
+To the woman who watched and listened from the parapet above, it
+seemed a panel rosy, dewy, fresh from Tempe, set as a fresco upon the
+walls of Hell, to heighten the horrors of the doomed.
+
+From her chalice fate had stolen all that was sweet and rapturous in
+wifehood and motherhood, substituting hemlock; and as the vision of
+her own fair child was recalled by the sleeping babe of the Italian
+fisherman, she suffered a keen pang in the consciousness that those
+tender features of her innocent daughter reproduced vividly the image
+of the man who had blackened her life.
+
+The face in Regina's portrait was so thoroughly Laurance in outline
+and Laurance in colour, that the mother had covered it with a thick
+veil, unable to meet the deep violet eyes that she had learned to
+hate in Rene Laurance and his son.
+
+Yet for the sake of that daughter, whose gaze she shunned, she was
+about to step down into flames far fiercer than those of Tophet,
+silently immolating all that remained of her life.
+
+Although she neither turned her head nor removed her eyes from the
+sea, she knew that the end was at hand. For one instant her heart
+seemed to cease beating, then with a keen spasm of pain slowly
+resumed its leaden labour.
+
+The erect, graceful, manly figure at her side bent down, and the
+grizzled moustache touched her forehead.
+
+"Odille, I accept your terms. Henceforth in accordance with your own
+conditions you are mine; mine in the sight of God and man."
+
+Recoiling, she drew her handkerchief across the spot where his lips
+had rested, and her voice sounded strangely cold and haughty:
+
+"God holds Himself aloof from such sacrilege as this, and sometimes I
+think He does not witness, or surely would forbid. Just yet, you must
+not touch me. You accept the conditions named, and I shall hold
+myself bound by the stipulations; but until I am your wife, until you
+take my hand as Mrs. Laurance, you will pardon me if I absolutely
+prohibit all caresses. I am very frank, you see, and doubtless you
+consider me peculiar, probably prudish, but only a husband's lips can
+touch mine, only a husband's arm encircle me. When we are
+married----"
+
+She did not complete the sentence, but a peculiar musical laugh
+rippled over her lips, and she held out her hand to him.
+
+"Remember, I promised General Laurance only my hand, and here I
+surrender it. You have fairly earned it, but I fear it will not prove
+the guerdon you fondly imagine."
+
+He kissed it tenderly, and keeping it in his, spoke very earnestly:
+
+"Only one thing, Odille, I desire to stipulate, and that springs
+solely from my jealous love. You must promise to abandon the stage
+for ever. Indeed, my beautiful darling, I could not endure to see my
+wife, my own, before the footlights. In Mrs. Laurance the world must
+lose its lovely idol."
+
+"Am I indeed so precious in General Laurance's eyes! Will he hold me
+always such a dainty sacred treasure, safe from censure and
+aspersion? Sir, I appreciate the delicate regard that prompts this
+expression of your wishes, and with one slight exception, I willingly
+accede to them. I have written a little drama, adapting the chief
+_role_ to my own peculiar line of talent and I desire in that play,
+of my own composition, to bid adieu to the stage. In Paris, where
+illness curtailed my engagement, I wish to make my parting bow, and
+I trust you will not oppose so innocent a pleasure? The marriage
+ceremony shall be performed in the afternoon, and that night I
+propose to appear in my own play. May I not hope that my husband
+will consent to see me on my wedding day in that _role_? Only one
+night, then adieu for ever to the glittering bauble! Can my
+fastidious lover refuse the first boon I ever craved?"
+
+She turned and placed her disengaged hand on his shoulder, and as the
+moonlight shone on her smiling dangerously beguiling face, the
+infatuated man laid his lips upon the soft white fingers.
+
+"Could I refuse you anything, my beautiful brown-eyed empress? Only
+once more then; promise me after that night to resign the stage, to
+reign solely in my heart and home."
+
+"You have my promise, and when I break my vows, it will be the
+Laurance example that I follow. In your letter you stated that urgent
+business demanded your return to Paris, possibly to America. Can you
+not postpone the consummation of our marriage?"
+
+"Impossible! How could I consent to defer what I regard as the
+crowning happiness of my life? I have not so many years in store,
+that I can afford to waste even an hour without you. When I leave
+Europe, I shall take my darling with me."
+
+The moon was shining full upon her face, and the magnificent eyes
+looked steadily into his. There was no movement of nerve and muscle
+to betray all that raged in her soul, as she fought and conquered the
+temptation to spring forward, and hurl him over the parapet.
+
+In the flush and enthusiasm of his great happiness, he certainly
+seemed far younger in proportion to their respective years than his
+companion; and as he softly stroked back a wave of golden hair that
+had fallen on her white brow, he leaned until his still handsome face
+was close to hers, and whispered:
+
+"When may I claim you? Do not, my love, delay it a day longer than is
+absolutely necessary."
+
+"To-morrow morning I will give you an answer. Then I am going away
+for a few days to Paestum, and cannot see you again till we meet in
+Paris. Recollect, I warned you, I bring no heart, no love; both are
+lost hopelessly in the ashes of the past. I never loved but one
+man--the husband of my youth, the father of my baby; and his loss I
+shall mourn till the coffin closes above me. General Laurance, you
+are running a fearful hazard, and the very marble of the altar should
+find a voice to cry out and stay your madness."
+
+She shivered, and her eyes burned almost supernaturally large and
+lustrous.
+
+Charmed by her beauty and grace, which had from the beginning of
+their acquaintance attracted him more powerfully than any other woman
+had ever done, and encouraged by the colossal vanity that had always
+predominated in his character, he merely laughed and caressed her
+hand.
+
+"Can any hazard deter me when the reward will be the privilege, the
+right to fold you in my arms? I am afraid of nothing that can result
+from making you my wife. Do not cloud my happiness by conjuring up
+spectres that only annoy you, that cannot for an instant influence
+me. Your hands are icy and you have no shawl. Let me take you home."
+
+Silently she accepted his arm, and as the fringy acacias trembled and
+sighed  above  her, she  walked  by his side; wondering if the black
+shadow that hung like a pall over the distant crest of Vesuvius were
+not a fit symbol of her own wretched doomed existence, threatening a
+sudden outbreak that would scatter ruin and despair where least
+expected?
+
+Nearing the Villa gate General Laurance asked:
+
+"What is the character of your drama? Is it historic?"
+
+"Eminently historic."
+
+"In what era?"
+
+"In the last eighteen or twenty years."
+
+"When may I read the _MS_? I am impatient to see all that springs
+from your dear hands."
+
+"The dramatic effect will be finer, when you see me act it. Pardon me
+if I am vain enough to feel assured that my little play will touch my
+husband's heart as ever Racine, Shakespeare, and Euripides never
+did!"
+
+There was a triumphant, exultant ring in her silvery voice that only
+charmed her infatuated companion, and tenderly pressing the hand that
+lay on his arm, he added pleadingly;
+
+"At least, my dear Odille, you will tell me the title?"
+
+She shook off his fingers, and answered quietly:
+
+"General Laurance, I call it merely--_Infelice_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+For some days subsequent to Mrs. Carew's departure, Regina saw little
+of her guardian, whose manner was unusually preoccupied, and entirely
+devoid of the earnest interest and sympathy he had displayed at their
+last interview. Ascribing the change to regret at the absence of the
+guest whose presence had so enlivened the house, the girl avoided all
+unnecessary opportunities of meeting him, and devoted herself
+assiduously to her music and studies.
+
+The marriage of a friend residing in Albany had called Olga thither,
+and in the confusion and hurried preparation incident to the journey
+she had found, or at least improved, no leisure to refer to the
+subject of the remarks made by Mrs. Carew and Mr. Chesley relative to
+Mr. Eggleston.
+
+Mr. Congreve and Mrs. Palma had accompanied Olga to the railroad
+depot, and she departed in unusually high spirits.
+
+Several days elapsed, during which Mr. Palma's abstraction increased,
+and by degrees Regina learned from his stepmother that a long pending
+suit involving several millions of dollars was drawing to a close.
+
+As counsel for the plaintiff, he was summing up and preparing his
+final speech. An entire day was consumed in its delivery, and on the
+following afternoon as Regina sat at the library table writing her
+German exercise, she heard, his footsteps ascending with unwonted
+rapidity the hall stairs. Outside the door he paused, and accosted
+Mrs. Palma who hastened to meet him.
+
+"Madam, I have won."
+
+"Indeed, Erle, I congratulate you. I believe it involves a very large
+fee?"
+
+"Yes, twenty thousand dollars; but the victory yields other fruit
+quite as valuable to me. Judges McLemore and Mayfield were on the
+defence, and it cost me a very hard fight: literally--' _Palma non
+sine pulvere_.' The jury deliberated only twenty minutes, and of
+course I am much gratified."
+
+"I am heartily glad, but it really is no more than I expected; for
+when did you ever fail in anything of importance?"
+
+"Most signally in one grave matter, which deeply concerns me.
+Despite my efforts, Olga's animosity grows daily more intense, and it
+annoys, wounds me; for you are aware that I have a very earnest
+interest in her welfare. I question very much the propriety of your
+course in urging this match upon her, and you know that from the
+beginning I have discouraged the whole scheme. She is vastly
+Congreve's superior, and I confess I do not relish the idea of seeing
+her sacrifice herself so completely. I attempted to tell her so,
+about a fortnight since, but she stormily forbade my mentioning
+Congreve's name in her presence, and looked so like an enraged
+leopardess that I desisted."
+
+"It will prove for the best, I hope; and nothing less binding, less
+decisive than this marriage will cure her of her obstinate folly.
+Time will heal all, and some day, Erle, she will understand you, and
+appreciate what you have done."
+
+"My dear madam, I merely mean that I desire she should regard me as a
+brother, anxious to promote her true interests; whereas she considers
+me her worst enemy. Just now we will adjourn the subject, as I must
+trouble you to pack my valise. I am obliged to start immediately to
+Washington, and cannot wait for dinner. Will you direct Octave to
+prepare a cup of coffee?"
+
+"How long will you be absent?"
+
+"I cannot say positively, as my business is of a character which may
+be transacted in three hours, or may detain me as many days. I must
+leave here in half an hour."
+
+The door was open, and hearing what passed, Regina bent lower over
+her exercise book when her guardian came forward.
+
+Although toil-worn and paler than usual, his eyes were of a proud
+glad light, that indexed gratification at his success.
+
+Leaning against the table, he said carelessly:
+
+"I am going to Washington, and will safely deliver any message you
+feel disposed to send to your admirer, Mr. Chesley."
+
+She glanced inquiringly at him.
+
+"I hope you reciprocate his regard, for he expressed great interest
+in your welfare."
+
+"I liked him exceedingly; better than any gentleman I ever met,
+except dear Mr. Hargrove."
+
+"A very comprehensive admission, and eminently flattering to poor
+Elliott and 'Brother' Douglass."
+
+"Mr. Chesley is a very noble-looking old man, and seemed to me worthy
+of admiration and confidence. He did not impress me as a stranger,
+but rather as a dear friend."
+
+"Doubtless I shall find the chances all against me, when you are
+requested to decide between us."
+
+A perplexed expression crossed the face she raised toward him.
+
+"I am not as quick as Mrs. Carew in solving enigmas."
+
+"_ A propos!_ what do you think of my charming fair client?"
+
+Her heart quickened its pulsations, but the clear sweet voice was
+quiet and steady.
+
+"I think her exceedingly beautiful and graceful."
+
+"When I am as successful in her suit as in the great case I won
+to-day, I shall expect you to offer me very sincere congratulations."
+
+He smiled pleasantly, as he looked at her pure face, which bad never
+seemed so surpassingly lovely as just then, with white hyacinths
+nestling in and perfuming her hair.
+
+"I shall not be here then; but, Mr. Palma, wherever I am, I shall
+always congratulate you upon whatever conduces to your happiness."
+
+"Then I may consider that you have already decided in favour of Mr.
+Chesley?"
+
+"Mr. Palma, I do not quite understand your jest"
+
+"Pardon me, it threatens to become serious. Mr. Chesley is immensely
+wealthy, and having no near relatives desires to adopt some pretty,
+well-bred, affectionate-natured girl, who can take care of and cheer
+his old age; and to whom he can bequeath his name and fortune. His
+covetous eye has fallen upon my ward, and he seriously contemplates
+making some grave proposals to your mother, relative to transferring
+you to Washington, and thence to San Francisco. As Mr. Chesley's
+heiress, your future will be very brilliant, and I presume that in a
+voluntary choice of guardians, I am destined to lose my ward."
+
+"Very soon my mother will be my guardian, and Mr. Chesley is
+certainly a gentleman of too much good sense and discretion to
+entertain such a thought relative to a stranger, of whom he knows
+absolutely nothing. A few polite kindly worded phrases bear no such
+serious interpretation."
+
+She had bent so persistently over her book, that he closed and
+removed it beyond her reach, forcing her to regard him; for after the
+toil, contention, and brain-wrestling of the courtroom, it was his
+reward just now to look into her deep calm eyes, and watch the
+expressions vary in her untutored ingenuous countenance.
+
+"Men, especially confirmed old bachelors, are sometimes very
+capricious and foolish; and my friend Mr. Chesley appears to have
+fallen hopelessly into the depth of your eyes. In vain I assured him
+that Helmholtz has demonstrated that the deepest blue eye is after
+all only a turbid medium. In his infatuation he persists that science
+is a learned bubble, and that your eyes are wells of truth and
+inspiration. Of course you desire that I shall present your
+affectionate regards to your future guardian?"
+
+"You can improvise any message you deem advisable, but I send none."
+
+A faint colour was stealing into her cheeks, and the long lashes
+drooped before the bright black eyes, that had borne down many a
+brave face on the witness stand.
+
+The clock struck, and Mr. Palma compared his watch with its record.
+
+He was loath to quit that charming quiet room, which held the fair
+innocent young queen of his love, and hasten away upon the impending
+journey; but it was important that he should not miss the railway
+train, and he smothered a sigh:
+
+"This morning I neglected to give you a letter which arrived
+yesterday, and of course I need expect no pardon when you ascertain
+that it is from 'India's coral strand.' If 'Brother Douglass' is as
+indefatigable in the discharge of his missionary as his epistolary
+labours, he deserves a crown of numerous converts. This letter was
+enclosed in one addressed to me, and I prefer that you should
+postpone your reply until my return. I intended to mention the matter
+this morning, but was absorbed in court proceedings, and now I am too
+much hurried."
+
+She put the letter into her pocket, and at the same time drew out a
+small envelope containing the amount of money she had borrowed.
+Rising, she handed it to him.
+
+"Allow me to cancel my debt."
+
+As he received it, their fingers met, and a hot flush rushed over the
+lawyer's weary face. He bit his lip, and recovered himself before she
+observed his emotion.
+
+"That alms-giving episode is destined to yield an inestimable harvest
+of benefits. But I must hurry away. Pray do not take passage for the
+jungles of Oude before I return, for whenever you leave me I should
+at least like the ceremony of bidding my ward adieu. Good-bye."
+
+She gave him her hand.
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Palma. I hope you will have a pleasant trip."
+
+As she stood before him, the rich blue of her soft cashmere dress
+rendered her pearly complexion fairer still, and though keen pain
+gnawed at her heart, no hint of her suffering marred the perfection
+of her face.
+
+"Lily, where did you get those lovely white hyacinths? Yesterday I
+ordered a bouquet of them, but could procure none. Would you mind
+giving me the two that smell so deliciously in your hair? I want
+them--well--no matter why. Will you oblige me?"
+
+"Certainly, sir; but I have a handsomer fresher spike of flowers in
+a glass in my room, which I will bring down to you."
+
+She turned, but he detained her.
+
+"No, these are sufficiently pretty for my purpose, and I am hurried.
+I trust I may be pardoned this robbery of your floral ornaments,
+since you will probably see neither Mr. Roscoe, Mr. Chesley, nor yet
+Padre Sahib this evening."
+
+She laid the snowy perfumed bells in his outstretched hand, and said:
+
+"I am exceedingly glad that even in such a trifle I can contribute to
+your pleasure, and I assure you that you are perfectly welcome to my
+hyacinths."
+
+The sweet downcast face, and slightly wavering voice appealed to all
+that was tender and loving in his cold undemonstrative nature, and
+he was strongly tempted to take her in his arms, and tell her the
+truth, which every day he found it more difficult to conceal.
+
+"Thank you. Some day, Lily, I will tell you their mission and fate.
+Should I forget, remind me."
+
+He smiled, bowed, and hurried from the room, leaving her sadly
+perplexed.
+
+At dinner Mrs. Palma said:
+
+"I have promised to chaperon the Brace sisters to-night to the opera,
+and shall take tea at their house. Were I sure of a seat for you, I
+should insist upon taking you, for I dislike to leave you so much
+alone; but the box might be full, and then things would be awkward."
+
+"You need have no concern on my account, for I have my books, and am
+accustomed to being alone. Moreover, I am not particularly partial to
+the music of 'Martha' which will be played to-night."
+
+"Did your guardian tell you he has just won that great 'Migdol' case
+that created so much interest?"
+
+"He mentioned it. Mrs. Palma, I thought he looked weary and jaded; as
+if he needed a rest, rather than a journey."
+
+"Erle is never weary. His nerves are steel, and he will speedily
+forget his court-house cares in Mrs. Carew's charming conversation."
+
+"But she is not in Washington?"
+
+"She told me yesterday she would go there this afternoon, and showed
+me the most superb maize-coloured satin just received from Worth,
+which she intends wearing to-morrow evening at the French
+Ambassador's ball, or reception. You know she is very fascinating,
+and though Erle thinks little about women, I really believe she will
+succeed in driving law books, for a little while at least, out of his
+cool clear head. My dear, I am going to write a short note. Will you
+please direct Hattie to bring my opera hat, cloak, and glasses?"
+
+With inexpressible relief, Regina heard the heavy silk rustle across
+the hall, when she took her departure, and rejoiced in the assurance
+that there was no one to intrude upon her solitude.
+
+How she wished that she could fly to some desert, where undiscovered
+she might cry aloud, in the great agony that possessed her heart.
+
+The thought that her guardian had hastened away to accompany that
+grey-eyed, golden-haired witch of a woman to Washington was
+intolerably bitter; and as she contemplated the possibility, nay the
+probability, of his speedy marriage, a wild longing seized her to
+make her escape, and avoid the sight of such a spectacle.
+
+When she recalled his proud, handsome, composed face, and tried to
+imagine him the husband of Mrs. Carew, bending over, caressing her,
+the girl threw her arms on his writing desk, and sunk her face upon
+them, as if to shut out the torturing vision.
+
+She knew that he was singularly reserved and undemonstrative; she had
+never seen him fondle or caress anything, and the bare thought that
+his stern marble lips would some day seek and press that woman's
+scarlet mouth made her shiver with a pang that was almost maddening.
+
+How cruelly mocking that he should take her favourite snowy hyacinths
+to offer them to Mrs. Carew! Did his keen insight penetrate the folly
+she had suffered to grow up in her own heart, and had he coolly
+resorted to this method of teaching her its hopelessness?
+
+If she could leave New York before his return, and never see him
+again, would it not be best? His eyes were so piercing, he was so
+accustomed to reading people's emotions in their countenance, and she
+felt that she could not survive his discovery of her secret.
+
+What did his irony relative to India portend? Hitherto she had quite
+forgotten the letter from Mr. Lindsay, and now breaking the seal,
+sought an explanation.
+
+A few faded flowers fell out as she unfolded it, and ere she
+completed the perusal a cry escaped her. Mr. Lindsay wrote that his
+health had suffered so severely from the climate of India that he had
+been compelled to surrender his missionary work to stronger hands,
+and would return to his native land. He believed that rest and
+America would restore him, and now he fully declared the nature of
+his affection, and the happiness with which he anticipated his
+reunion with her; reminding her of her farewell promise that none
+should have his place in her heart. More than once she read the
+closing words of that long letter.
+
+    "I had intended deferring this declaration until you were
+    eighteen, and restored to your mother's care; but my unexpectedly
+    early return, and the assurance contained in your letters that
+    your love has in no degree diminished, determine me to acquaint
+    you at once with the precious hope that so gladdens the thought
+    of our approaching reunion. While your decision must of course be
+    subject to and dependent on your mother's approval, I wish you to
+    consult only the dictates of your heart, believing that all my
+    future must be either brightened or clouded by your verdict. Open
+    the package given to you in our last interview, and if you have
+    faithfully kept your promise let me see upon your hand the ring
+    which I shall regard as the pledge of our betrothal. Whether I
+    live many or few years, God grant that your love may glorify and
+    sanctify my earthly sojourn. In life or death, my darling Regina,
+    believe me always,
+
+    "Your devoted
+
+                                             "DOUGLASS."
+
+Below the signature, and dated a week later, were several lines in
+Mrs. Lindsay's handwriting, informing her that her son had again been
+quite ill, but was improving; and that within the ensuing ten days
+they expected to sail for Japan, and thence to San Franciso, where
+Mrs. Lindsay's only sister resided. In conclusion she earnestly
+appealed to Regina, as the daughter of her adoption, not to
+extinguish the hope that formed so powerful an element in the
+recovery of her son Douglass.
+
+Was it the mercy of God, or the grim decree of fatalism, or the
+merest accident that provided this door of escape, when she was
+growing desperate?
+
+Numb with heart-ache, and strangely bewildered, Regina could
+recognize it only as a providential harbour, into which she could
+safely retreat from the storm of suffering that was beginning to roar
+around her. Recalling the peaceful happy years spent at the
+parsonage, and the noble character of the man who loved her so
+devotedly, who had so tenderly cared for her through the season of
+her childhood, a gush of grateful emotion pleaded that she owed him
+all that he now asked.
+
+When she contrasted the image of the pale student, so affectionate,
+so unselfishly considerate in all things, with the commanding figure
+and cold, guarded, non-committal face of Mr. Palma, she shivered and
+groaned: but the comparison only goaded her to find safety in the
+sheltering love, that must at least give her peace.
+
+If she were Douglass Lindsay's wife, would she not find it far easier
+to forget her guardian? Would it be sinful to promise her hand to
+one, while her heart stubbornly enshrined the other? She loved Mr.
+Lindsay very much: he seemed holy, in his supremely unselfish and
+deeply religious life; and after awhile perhaps other feelings would
+grow up toward him.
+
+In re-reading the letter, she saw that Mr. Lindsay had informed Mr.
+Palma of the proposal which it contained; as he deemed it due to her
+guardian to acquaint him with the sentiments they entertained for
+each other.
+
+Should she reject the priestly hand and loyal heart of the young
+missionary, would not Mr. Palma suspect the truth?
+
+She realized that the love in her heart was of that deep exhaustive
+nature which comes but once to women, and since she must bury it for
+ever, was it not right that she should dedicate her life to promoting
+Mr. Lindsay's happiness? Next to her mother, did she not owe him more
+than any other human being?
+
+As she sat leaning upon Mr. Palma's desk, she saw his handkerchief
+near the inkstand, where he had dropped it early that morning; and
+taking it up, she drew it caressingly across her check and lips.
+Everything in this room, where since her residence in New York she
+had been accustomed to see him, grew sacred from association with
+him, and all that he touched was strangely dear.
+
+For two hours she sat there, very quiet, weighing the past,
+considering the future; and at last she slowly resolved upon her
+course.
+
+She would write that night to her mother, enclose Mr. Lindsay's
+letter, and if her mother's permission could be obtained, she would
+give her hand to Douglass, and in his love forget the brief madness
+that now made her so wretched.
+
+From the date of the postscript she discovered that the letter had
+been delayed _en route_, and computing the time from Yokohama to San
+Francisco, according to information given by Mr. Chesley, she found
+that unless some unusual detention had occurred, the vessel in which
+Mr. and Mrs. Lindsay intended to sail should have already reached
+California.
+
+Mr. Palma's jest relative to India was explained; and evidently he
+had not sufficient interest in her decision even to pause and ask it.
+Knowing the contents, he had with cold indifference carried the
+letter for two days in his pocket, and handed it to her just as he
+was departing.
+
+She imagined him sitting in the car, beside Mrs. Carew, admiring her
+beauty, perhaps uttering in her ear tender vows, never breathed by
+his lips to any other person; while she--the waif, the fatherless,
+nameless, obscure young girl--sat there alone desperately fighting
+the battle of destiny.
+
+Bitter as was this suggestion of her aching heart, it brought
+strength; and rising, she laid aside the handkerchief, and quitted
+the apartment that babbled ceaselessly of its absent master.
+
+Among some precious souvenirs of her mother she kept the package
+which had been given to her by Mr. Lindsay with the request that it
+should remain unopened until her eighteenth birthday; and how she
+unlocked the small ebony box that contained her few treasures.
+
+The parcel was sealed with red wax, and when she removed the
+enveloping pasteboard, she found a heavy gold ring, bearing a large
+beautifully tinted opal, surrounded with small diamonds. On the
+inside was engraved "Douglass and Regina," with the date of the day
+on which he had left the parsonage for India.
+
+Kneeling beside her bed, she prayed that God would help her to do
+right, would guide her into the proper path, would enable her to do
+her duty, first to her mother, then to Mr. Lindsay.
+
+When she rose, the ring shone on her left hand, and though her face
+was worn and pallid her mournful eyes were undimmed, and she sat down
+to write her mother frankly concerning the feelings of intense
+gratitude and perfect confidence which prompted her to accept Mr.
+Lindsay's offer, provided Mrs Orme consented to the betrothal.
+
+Ere she had concluded the task, her attention was attracted by a
+noise on the stairs that were situated near her door.
+
+It was rather too early for Mrs. Palma's return from the opera, and
+the servants were all in a different portion of the building.
+
+Regina laid down her pen, and listened. Slow heavy footsteps were
+ascending, and recognizing nothing familiar in the sound, she walked
+quickly to the door which stood ajar, and looked out.
+
+A tall woman wrapped in a heavy shawl had reached the landing, and as
+the gaslight fell upon her, Regina started forward.
+
+"Olga! we did not expect you until to-morrow, but you are disguised!
+Oh! what is the matter?"
+
+Wan and haggard, apparently ten years older than when she ran down
+these steps a week previous departing for Albany, Olga stood clinging
+to the mahogany rail of the balustrade. Her large straw bonnet had
+fallen back, the heavy hair was slipping low on neck and brow, and
+her sunken eyes had a dreary stare.
+
+"Are you ill? What has happened? Dear Olga, speak to me."
+
+She threw her arms around the regal figure, and felt that she was
+shivering from head to foot.
+
+As she became aware of the close clinging embrace in which Regina
+held her, a ghastly smile parted Olga's colourless lips, and she said
+said in a husky whisper:
+
+"Is it you? True little heart; the only one left in all the world."
+
+After a few seconds, she added:
+
+"Where is mamma?"
+
+"At the opera."
+
+"To see Beelzebub? All the world is singing and playing that now, and
+you may be sure that you and I shall be in at the final chorus.
+Regina----"
+
+She swept her hand feebly over her forehead, and seemed to forget
+herself.
+
+Then she rallied, and a sudden spark glowed in her dull eyes, as when
+a gust stirs an ash heap, and uncovers a dying ember.
+
+"Erle Palma?"
+
+"Has gone to Washington."
+
+"May he never come back! O God! a hundred deaths would not satisfy
+me! A hundred graves were not sufficient to hide him from my sight!"
+
+She groaned and clasped her hand across her eyes.
+
+"What dreadful thing has occurred? Tell me, you know that you can
+trust me."
+
+"Trust! no, no; not even the archangels that fan the throne of God. I
+have done with trust. Take me in your room a little while. Hide me
+from mamma until to-morrow; then it will make no difference who sees
+me."
+
+Regina led her to the low rocking chair in her own room, and took off
+the common shawl and bonnet which she had used as a disguise, then
+seized her cold nerveless hand.
+
+"Do tell me your great sorrow."
+
+"Something rare nowaday. I had a heart, a live, warm, loving heart,
+and it is broken; dead--utterly dead. Regina, I was so happy
+yesterday. Oh! I stood at the very gate of heaven, so close that all
+the glory and the sweetness blew upon me, like June breezes over a
+rose hedge; and the angels seemed to beckon me in. I went to meet
+Belmont, to join him for ever, to turn my back on the world, and as
+his wife pass into the Eden of his love and presence.... Now, another
+gate yawns, and the fiends call me to come down, and if there really
+be a hell, why then----"
+
+For nearly a moment she remained silent.
+
+"Olga, is he ill? Is he dead?"
+
+A cry as of one indeed broken-hearted came from her quivering lips,
+and she clasped her arms over her head.
+
+"Oh, if he were indeed dead! If I could have seen him and kissed him
+in his coffin! And known that he was still mine, all mine, even in
+the grave----"
+
+Her head sank upon her bosom, and after a brief pause she resumed in
+an unnaturally calm voice.
+
+"My world so lovely yesterday has gone to pieces; and for me life is
+a black crumbling ruin. I hung all my hopes, my prayers, my fondest
+dreams on one shining silver thread of trust, and it snapped, and all
+fall together. We ask for fish, and are stung by scorpions; we pray
+for bread--only bare bread for famishing hearts--and we are stoned.
+Ah! it appears only a hideous dream; but I know it is awfully,
+horribly true."
+
+"What is true? Don't keep me in suspense."
+
+Olga bent forward, put her large hands on Regina's shoulders as the
+latter knelt in front of her, and answered drearily:
+
+"He is married."
+
+"Not Mr. Eggleston?"
+
+"Yes, my Belmont. For so many years he has been entirely mine, and
+oh, how I loved him! Now he is that woman's husband. Bought with her
+gold. I intended to run away and marry him; go with him to Europe,
+where I should never see Erle Palma's cold devilish black eyes again.
+Where in some humble little room hid among the mountains, I could be
+happy with my darling. I sold my jewellery, even my richest clothing,
+that I might have a little money to defray expenses. Then I wrote
+Belmont of my plans, told him I had forsaken everything for him, and
+appointed a place in this city where we could meet. I hastened down
+from Albany, disguised myself, and went to the place of rendezvous.
+After waiting a long time, his cousin came; brought me a letter,
+showed me the marriage notice. Only two days ago they--Belmont and
+that woman--were married, and they sailed for Europe at noon to-day,
+in the steamer upon which I had expected to go as a bride. He wrote
+that with failing health, penury staring him in the face, and,
+despairing at last of being able to win me, he had grown reckless,
+and sold himself to that wealthy widow who had long loved him, and
+who would provide generously for his helpless mother. He said he
+dared not trust himself to see me again. And so, all is over for
+ever."
+
+She dropped her head on her clenched hands, and shuddered. "Dear
+Olga, he was not worthy of you, or he would never have deserted you.
+If he truly loved you, he never could have married another, for----"
+
+She paused, for the shimmer of the diamonds on her hand accused her.
+Was she not contemplating similar treachery? Loving one man, how dare
+she entertain the thought of listening to another's suit. She was
+deeply and sincerely attached to Douglass, she reverenced him more
+than any living being; but she knew that it was not the same feeling
+her heart had declared for her guardian, and she felt condemned by
+her own words.
+
+Olga made an impatient motion, and answered:
+
+"Hush--not a word against him; none shall dishonour him. He was
+maddened, desperate. My poor darling! Erle Palma and mamma were too
+much for us, but we shall conquer at last. Belmont will not live many
+months; he had a hemorrhage from his lungs last week, and in a little
+while we shall be united. He will not long wait to join me."
+
+She leaned back and smiled triumphantly, and Regina became uneasy as
+she noted the unnatural expression of her eyes.
+
+"What do you mean, Olga? You make me unhappy, and I am afraid you are
+ill."
+
+"No, dear; but I am tired. So tired of everything in this hollow,
+heartless, shameful world, that I want to lie down and rest. For
+eight years nearly I have leaned on one hope for comfort; now it has
+crumbled under me, and I have no strength. Will you let me sleep here
+with you to-night? I will not keep you awake."
+
+"Let me help you to undress. You know I shall be glad to have you
+here."
+
+Regina unbuttoned her shoes, and began to draw them off, while Olga
+mechanically took down and twisted her weighty hair. Once she put her
+hand on her pocket, and her eyes glittered.
+
+"I want a glass of wine, or anything that will quiet me. Please go
+down to the dining-room, and get me something to put me to sleep. My
+head feels as if it were on fire."
+
+The tone was so unusually coaxing, that Regina's suspicions were
+aroused.
+
+"I don't know where to find the key of the wine closet."
+
+"Then wake Octave, and tell him to give you some wine He keeps port
+and madeira for soups and sauces. You must I would do as much for
+you. I will go to Octave."
+
+She attempted to rise, but Regina feigned acquiescence, and left the
+room, closing the door, but leaving a crevice. Outside, she knelt
+down and peeped through the key-hole.
+
+Alarmed by the unnatural expression of the fiery hazel eyes, a
+horrible dread overshadowed her, and she trembled from head to foot.
+
+While she watched, Olga rose, turned her head and listened intently;
+then drew something from her pocket, and Regina saw that it was a
+glass vial.
+
+"I win at last. To-morrow, mamma and her stepson will not exult over
+this victory. If I have an immortal soul may God--my Maker and
+Judge--have mercy upon me!"
+
+She drew out the cork with her teeth, turned, and as she lifted the
+vial to her lips, Regina ran in and seized her arm.
+
+"Olga, you are mad! Would you murder yourself?"
+
+They grappled; Olga was much taller and now desperately strong, but
+luckily Regina had her fingers also on the glass, and, dragging down
+the hand that clenched it, the vial was inverted, and a portion of
+the contents fell upon the carpet.
+
+Feeling the liquid run through her fingers, Olga uttered la cry of
+baffled rage of despair, and struck the girl a heavy blow in the face
+that made her stagger; but almost frantic with terror Regina improved
+the opportunity afforded by the withdrawal of one of the large hands,
+to tighten her own grasp, and in the renewed struggle succeeded in
+wrenching away the vial. The next instant, she hurled it against the
+marble mantlepiece, and saw it splintered into numberless fragments.
+
+As the wretched woman watched the fluid oozing over the hearth, she
+cried out and covered her face with her hands.
+
+"Dear Olga, you are delirious, and don't know what you are doing. Go
+to bed, and when you lie down, I will get the wine for you. Please,
+dear Olga! You wring my heart."
+
+"Oh, you call yourself my friend, and you have been most cruel of
+all! You keep me from going to a rest that would have no dreams, and
+no waking, and no to-morrow. Do you think I will live and let them
+taunt me with my folly, my failure? Let that iron fiend show his
+white teeth, and triumph over me? People will know I sold my clothes,
+and tried to run away, and was forsaken. Oh! if you had only let me
+alone! I should very soon lave been quiet; out of even Erle Palma's
+way! Now----"
+
+She gave utterance to a low, distressing wail, and rocked herself,
+murmuring some incoherent words.
+
+"Olga, your mother has come, and unless you wish her to hear you, and
+come in, do try to compose yourself."
+
+Shuddering at the mention of her mother, she grew silent, moody, and
+suffered Regina to undress her. After a long while, during which she
+appeared absolutely deaf to all appeals, she rose, smiled strangely,
+and threw herself across the bed; but the eyes were beginning to
+sparkle, and now and then she laughed almost hysterically.
+
+When an hour had passed, and no sound came from the prostrate figure,
+Regina leaned over to look at her, and discovered that she was
+whispering rapidly some unintelligible words.
+
+Once she startled up, exclaiming:
+
+"Don't have such a hot fire! My head is scorching."
+
+Regina watched her anxiously, softly stroking one of her hands,
+trying to soothe her to sleep; but after two o'clock, when she grew
+more restless and incoherent in her muttering, the young nurse felt
+assured she was sinking into delirium, and decided to consult Mrs.
+Palma.
+
+Concealing the shawl and bonnet, and gathering up the most
+conspicuous fragments of glass on the hearth, she put them out of
+sight, and hurried to Mrs. Palma's room.
+
+She was astonished to find her still awake, sitting before a table,
+and holding a note in her hand.
+
+"What is the matter, Regina?"
+
+"Olga has come home, and I fear she is very ill. Certainly she is
+delirious."
+
+"Oh! then she has heard it already! She must have seen the paper. I
+knew nothing of it until to-night, when Erle's hasty note from
+Philadelphia reached me, after I left the opera. I dreaded the effect
+upon my poor, unfortunate child. Where is she?"
+
+"In my room."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+During the protracted illness that ensued, Olga temporarily lost the
+pressure of the burden she had borne for so many years, and entered
+into that Eden which her imagination had painted, ere the sudden
+crash and demolition of her _Chateaux en Espagne_. Her delirium was
+never violent and raving, but took the subdued form of a beatified
+existence. In a low voice, that was almost a whisper, she babbled
+ceaselessly of her supreme satisfaction in gaining the goal of all
+her hopes--and dwelt upon the beauty of her chalet home--the tinkling
+music of the bells on distant heights where cattle browsed--the
+leaping of mountain torrents just beyond her window--the cooing of
+the pigeons upon the tall peaked roof--the breath of mignonette and
+violets stealing through the open door. When pounded ice was laid
+upon her head, an avalanche was sliding down, and the snow saluted
+her in passing; and when the physician ordered more light admitted
+that he might examine the unnaturally glowing eyes, she complained
+that the sun was setting upon the glacier and the blaze blinded her.
+Now she sat on a mossy knoll beside Belmont, reading aloud Buchanan's
+"Pan" and "The Siren," while he sketched the ghyll; and anon she
+paused in her recitation of favourite passages to watch the colour
+deepen on the canvas.
+
+From the beginning Dr. Suydam had pronounced the case peculiarly
+difficult and dangerous, and as the days wore on, bringing no
+debatement of cerebral excitement, he expressed the opinion that some
+terrible shock had produced the aberration that baffled his skill,
+and threatened to permanently disorder her faculties.
+
+Jealously Regina concealed all that had occurred on the evening of
+her return, and though Mrs. Palma briefly referred to her daughter's
+unfortunate attachment to an unworthy man, whose marriage had
+painfully startled her, she remained unaware of the revelations made
+by Olga. Although she evinced no recognition of those about her, the
+latter shrank from all save Regina whose tender ministrations were
+peculiarly soothing; and clinging to the girl's hand, she would
+smilingly talk of the peace and happiness reaped at last by her
+marriage with Belmont Eggleston, and enjoin upon her the necessity of
+preserving from "mamma and Erle Palma" the secret of her secluded
+little cottage home.
+
+On the fourth night, Mrs. Palma was so prostrated by grief and
+watching, that she succumbed to a violent nervous headache, and was
+ordered out of the room by the physician, who requested that Regina
+might for a few hours be entrusted with the care of his patient.
+
+"But if anything should happen? And Regina is so inexperienced?"
+sobbed the unhappy mother, bending over her child, who was laughing
+at the gambols of some young chamois, which delirium painted on the
+wall.
+
+"Miss Orme will at least obey my orders. She is watchful and
+possesses unusual self-control, which you, my dear madam, utterly
+lack in a sick-room. Beside, Olga yields more readily to her than to
+any one else, and I prefer that Miss Orme should have the care of
+her. Go to bed, madam, and I will send you an anodyne that will
+compose you."
+
+"If any change occurs, you will call me instantly?"
+
+"You may rest assured I shall."
+
+Mrs. Palma leaned over her daughter, and as her tears fell on the
+burning face of the sufferer, the latter put up her hands, and said:
+
+"Belmont, it is raining and your picture will be ruined, and then
+mamma will ridicule your failure. Cover it quick."
+
+"Olga, my darling, kiss mamma good-night."
+
+But she was busy trying to shield the imaginary painting with one of
+the pillows, and began in a quavering voice to sing Longfellow's
+"Rainy Day." Her mother pressed her lips to the hot cheek, but she
+seemed unconscious of the caress, and weeping bitterly Mrs. Palma
+left the room. As she passed into the hall a cry escaped her, and
+the broken words:
+
+"Oh, Erle, I thought you would never come! My poor child!"
+
+Dr. Suydam closed the door, and drawing Regina to the window,
+proceeded to question her closely, and to instruct her concerning the
+course of treatment he desired to pursue. Should Olga's pulse sink to
+a certain stage, specified doses must be given; and in a possible
+condition of the patient he must be instantly notified.
+
+"I am glad to find Mr. Palma has returned. Though he knows no more
+than a judge's gavel of what is needful in a sick-room, he will be a
+support and comfort to all, and his nerves never flag, never waver.
+Keep a written record of Olga's condition at the hours I have
+specified, and shut her mother out of the room as much as possible. I
+will try to put her to sleep for the next twelve hours, and by that
+time we shall know the result. Good-night."
+
+Olga had violently opposed the removal from Regina's room, and in
+accordance with her wishes she had remained where her weary whirling
+brain first rested on the day of her return. Arranging the medicine
+and glasses, and turning down the light, Regina put on her pale blue
+dressing-gown girded at the waist by a cord and tassel, and loosely
+twisted and fastened her hair in a large coil low on her head and
+neck. She had slept none since Olga came home, and anxiety and
+fatigue had left unmistakable traces on her pale, sad face. The
+letter to her mother had been finished and signed, but still lay in
+the drawer of her portable writing desk, awaiting envelope and stamp;
+and so oppressed had she been by sympathy with Olga's great
+suffering, that for a time her own grief was forgotten, or at least
+put aside.
+
+The announcement of Mr. Palma's return vividly recalled all that
+beclouded her future, and she began to dread the morrow that would
+subject her to his merciless bright eyes, feeling that his presence
+was dangerous. Perhaps by careful manoeuvring she might screen
+herself in the sick-room for several days, and thus avoid the chance
+of an interview, which must result in an inquiry concerning her
+answer to Mr. Lindsay's letter. Fearful of her own treacherous heart,
+she was unwilling to discuss her decision until assured she had grown
+calm and firm, from continued contemplation of her future lot;
+moreover, her guardian would probably return from Washington an
+accepted lover, and she shrank from the spectacle of his happiness,
+as from glowing ploughshares--lying scarlet in her pathway. In this
+room she would ensconce herself, and should he send for her, various
+excuses might be devised to delay the unwelcome interview.
+
+Olga had grown more quiet, and for nearly an hour after the doctor's
+departure she only now and then resumed her rambling, incoherent
+monologue. Sitting beside the bed, Regina watched quietly until the
+clock struck twelve, and she coaxed the sufferer to take a spoonful
+of a sedative from which the physician hoped much benefit. She bathed
+the crimson cheeks with a cloth dipped in iced water, and all the
+while the hazel eyes watched her suspiciously. Other reflections
+began to colour her vision, and the happy phase was merging into one
+of terror, lest her lover should die or be torn away from her.
+Leaning over her, Regina endeavoured to compose her by assurances
+that Belmont was well and safe, but restlessly she tossed from side
+to side.
+
+At last she began to cry, softly at first, like a fretful weary
+child; and while Regina held her hands, essaying to soothe her, a
+shadow glided between the gas globe and the bed, and Mr. Palma stood
+beside the two. He looked pale, anxious, and troubled, as his eyes
+rested sorrowfully on the fevered face upon the pillow, and he saw
+that the luxuriant hair had been closely clipped, to facilitate
+applications to relieve the brain. The parched lips were browned and
+cracked, and the vacant stare in the eyes told him that consciousness
+was still a long way off.
+
+But was there even then a magnetic recognition, dim and vague, of the
+person whom she regarded as the inveterate enemy of her happiness?
+Cowering among the bedclothes, she trembled and said, in a husky yet
+audible whisper:
+
+"Will you hide us a little while? Belmont and I will soon sail, and
+if Erle Palma and mamma knew it, they would tear me from my darling,
+and chain me to Silas Congreve, and that would kill me. Oh! I only
+want my darling; not the Congreve emeralds, only my Belmont, my
+darling."
+
+Something that in any other man would have been a groan, came from
+the lawyer's granite lips, and Regina, who shivered at his presence,
+looked up, and said hastily:
+
+"Please go away, Mr. Palma; the sight of you will make her worse."
+
+He only folded his arms over his chest, sighed, and sat down, keeping
+his eyes fixed on Olga. It was one o'clock before she ceased her
+passionate pleading for protection from those whom she believed
+intent upon sacrificing her, and then turning her face to the wail
+she became silent, only occasionally muttering rapid indistinct
+sentences.
+
+For some time Mr. Palma sat with his elbow on his knee, and his head
+resting on his hand, and even in that hour of deep anxiety and dread,
+Regina realized that she was completely forgotten; that he had
+neither looked at nor spoken to her.
+
+Nearly a half-hour passed thus, and his gaze had never wandered from
+the restless sufferer on the bed, when Regina rose and renewed the
+cold cloths on her forehead. She counted the pulse, and while she
+still sat on the edge of the bed, Olga half rose, threw herself
+forward with her head in Regina's lap, and one arm clasped around
+her. Softly the girl motioned to her guardian to place the bowl of
+iced water within her reach, and, dipping her left hand in the water,
+she stole her fingers lightly across the burning brow. Olga became
+quiet, and by degrees the lids drooped over the inflamed eyes.
+Patiently Regina continued her gentle cool touches, and at last she
+was rewarded by seeing the sufferer sink into the first sleep that
+had blessed her during her illness.
+
+Fearing to move even an inch lest she should arouse her, and knowing
+the physician's anxiety to secure repose, the slight figure sat like
+a statue, supporting the head and shoulders of the sleeper. The clock
+ticked on, and no other sound was audible, save a sigh from Mr.
+Palma, and the heavy breathing of Olga. The former was leaning back
+in his chair, with his arms crossed, and though Regina avoided
+looking at him, she knew from the shimmer of his glasses, that his
+eyes were turned upon her. Gradually the room grew cold, and she
+raised her hand and pointed to a large shawl lying on a chair within
+his reach. Very warily the two spread it lightly over the arms and
+shoulders, without disturbing the sleeper. One arm was clasped about
+Regina's waist, and the flushed face was pressed against her side.
+
+So they watched until three o'clock, and then Mr. Palma saw that the
+girl was wearied by the constrained, uncomfortable position. He had
+been studying the colourless, mournful features that were as regular
+and white as if fashioned in Pentelicus, and noted that the heavy
+hair coiled low at the back of the head, gave a singularly graceful
+outline to the whole. She kept her eyes bent upon the face in her
+lap, and the beautiful lashes and snowy lids drooped over their blue
+depth. He knew from the paling of her lips that she was faint and
+tired, but he realized that she could be relieved only by the
+sacrifice of that sound slumber, upon which Olga's welfare was so
+dependent. If she stirred even a muscle the sleeper might awake to
+renewed delirium.
+
+The next hour seemed the longest he had ever spent, and several times
+he looked at his watch, hoping the clock a laggard. To Regina the
+vigil was inexpressibly trying, and sitting there three feet from her
+guardian, she dared not lift her gaze to the countenance that was so
+dear.
+
+At four o'clock he took a pillow and lounge cushion and placed them
+behind her as a support for her wearied frame, but she dared not lean
+against them sufficiently to find relief; and stooping he put his arm
+around her shoulder, and pressed her head against him. Laying his
+cheek on hers, he whispered very cautiously, for his lips touched her
+ear:
+
+"I am afraid you feel very faint; you look so. Can you bear it a
+little while longer?"
+
+His breath swept warm across her cold cheek, and she hastily inclined
+her head. He lowered his arm, but remained close beside her, and at
+last she beckoned to him to bend down, and whispered:
+
+"The fire ought to be renewed in the furnace; will you go down, and
+attend to it?"
+
+Shod in his velvet slippers, he noiselessly left the room.
+
+How long he was absent, she was unable to determine, for her heart
+was beating madly from the pressure of his cheek, and the momentary
+touch of his arm; and gazing at the ring on her finger, she fiercely
+upbraided herself for this sinful folly. Wearing that opal, was it
+not unwomanly and wicked to thrill at the contact with one, who never
+could be more than her coolly kind, prudent, sagacious guardian? She
+felt numb, sick, giddy, and her heart--ah! how it ached as she tried
+to realize fully that some day he would caress Mrs. Carew!
+
+Olga slept heavily, and when Mr. Palma returned, he brought his warm
+scarlet-lined dressing-gown and softly laid it around Regina's
+shoulders. She looked up to express her thanks, but he was watching
+Olga's face, and soon after walked to the mantlepiece and stood
+leaning, with his elbow upon it.
+
+At last the slumberer moaned, turned, and after a few restless
+movements, threw herself back on the bolster, and fell asleep once
+more, with disjointed words dying on her lips. It was five o'clock,
+and Mr. Palma beckoned Regina to him.
+
+"She will be better when she wakes. Go to her room, and go to sleep.
+I will watch her until her mother comes in."
+
+"I could not sleep, and am unwilling to leave her until the doctor
+arrives."
+
+"You look utterly exhausted."
+
+"I am stronger than I seem."
+
+"Mrs. Palma tells me that you have been made acquainted with the
+unfortunate infatuation which has overshadowed poor Olga's life for
+some years at least. I should be glad to know what you have learned."
+
+"All that was communicated to me on the subject was under the seal of
+confidence, and I hope you will excuse me if I decline to betray the
+trust reposed in me."
+
+"Do you suppose I am ignorant of what has recently occurred?"
+
+"At least, sir, I shall not recapitulate what passed between Olga and
+myself."
+
+"You are aware that she considers me the author of all her
+wretchedness."
+
+"She certainly regards you and Mrs. Palma's opposition to her
+marriage with Mr. Eggleston as the greatest misfortune of her life."
+
+"He is utterly unworthy of her affection, is an unscrupulous
+dissipated man; and it were better she should die to-day, rather than
+have wrecked her future by uniting it with his."
+
+"But she loved him so devotedly."
+
+"She was deceived in his character, and refused to listen to a
+statement of facts. When she knows him as he really is, she will
+despise him."
+
+"I am afraid not"
+
+"I know her better than you do. Olga is a noble high-souled woman,
+and she will live to thank me for her salvation from Eggleston. Her
+marriage with Mr. Congreve must not be consummated; I will never
+permit it in my house."
+
+"She believes you have urged it, have manoeuvred to bring it to
+pass, and this has enhanced her bitterness."
+
+"Manoeuvring is beneath me, and I am justly accused of much for
+which I am in no degree responsible. Poor Olga has painted me an
+inhuman monster, but her good sense will ere long acquit me, when
+this madness has left her and she is once more amenable to reason."
+
+He walked softly across the floor, leaned over the bed, and for some
+minutes watched the sleeper, then quietly left the room.
+
+Drawing his dressing-gown closely around her, Regina sat down near
+the bedside; and as she felt the pleasant warmth of the pearl-grey
+merino, and detected the faint odour of cigar smoke in its folds, she
+involuntarily pressed her lips to the garment that seemed almost a
+part of its owner.
+
+Day broke clear and cold, and when the sun had risen Regina saw that
+the flush was no longer visible in Olga's face, and that to delirium
+had succeeded stupor.
+
+The physician looked anxious, and changed the medicine, and he found
+some difficulty in arousing her sufficiently to administer it. Mrs.
+Palma resumed her watch at her daughter's side, and Dr. Suydam
+remained several hours, urging the pale young nurse to take some
+repose; but aware that the crisis of the disease had arrived, the
+latter could not consent to quit the room even for a moment. Twice
+during the day, Mr. Palma came up from his office, and into the
+darkened apartment where life and death were battling for their
+prostrate prey; but he exchanged neither word nor glance with his
+ward, and after brief consultation with the doctor glided noiselessly
+away.
+
+About seven o'clock Mrs. Palma went down to dinner, leaving Regina
+alone with the sufferer, and scarcely five minutes later she heard a
+low moan from the figure that had not stirred for many hours.
+
+Brightening the light, she peered cautiously at the face lying upon
+the pillow, and was startled to find the eyes wide open. Trembling
+with anxiety she said:
+
+"Are you not better? You have slept long and soundly."
+
+Mournfully the hazel eyes looked at her, and the dry brown lips
+quivered.
+
+"I have been awake some time."
+
+"Before your mother left?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Dear Olga, is your mind quite clear again?"
+
+"Terribly clear. I suppose I have been delirious?"
+
+"Yes, you have known none of us for five days. Here, drink this, the
+doctor said you must have it the instant you waked."
+
+"To keep me from dying? Why should I live? I remember everything so
+vividly, and while custom made you all try to save me, you are
+obliged to know it would have been better, more kind and merciful, to
+have let me die at once. Give me some water."
+
+After some seconds, she wearily put her hand to her head, and a
+ghostly smile hovered over her mouth.
+
+"All my hair cut off? No matter now, Belmont will never see me again,
+and I only cared for my glossy locks because he was so proud of them.
+Poor darling."
+
+She groaned, knitted her brows, and shut her eyes; and though she did
+not speak again, Regina knew that she lay wrestling with bitter
+memories. When her mother came back, she turned her face toward the
+wall, and Mrs. Palma eagerly exclaimed:
+
+"My darling, do you know me? Kiss your mother."
+
+Olga only covered her face with her hands and said wearily:
+
+"Don't touch me yet, mamma. You have broken my heart."
+
+At the expiration of the fifth day of convalescence, Olga was wrapped
+in warm shawls and placed on the couch, which had been drawn near the
+grate where a bright fire burned. Thin and wan, she lay back on the
+cushions and pillows, with her wasted hands drooping listlessly
+beside her. Moody, and taciturn, she refused all aid from any but
+Regina, and mercilessly exacted her continual presence. By day the
+latter waited upon and read to her; by night she rested on the same
+bed, where the unhappy woman remained for hours awake, and
+inconsolable, dwelling persistently upon her luckless fate. At Mrs.
+Palma's suggestion her stepson had not visited the sick-room since
+the recovery of Olga's consciousness; and being closely confined to
+the limits of the apartment, Regina had not seen her guardian for
+several days. About three o'clock in the afternoon, when she had
+finished brushing the short tangled hair that clung in auburn rings
+around the invalid's forehead, Olga said:
+
+"Read me the 'Penelope.'"
+
+Regina sat down on a low stool close to the couch, and while she
+opened the book and read, Olga's right arm stole over her shoulder.
+At the opposite side of the hearth her mother sat, watching the pair;
+and she saw the door open sufficiently to admit Mr. Palma's head.
+Quickly she waved him back with a warning gesture; but he shook his
+head resolutely, advanced a few steps, and stood in a position which
+prevented the girls from discovering his presence. As Regina paused
+to turn a leaf, Olga began a broken recitation, grouping passages
+that suited her fancy:
+
+           "Yea, love, I am alone in all the world,
+            The past grows dark upon me where I wait.
+
+                *       *       *       *       *
+
+            Behold how I am mocked!
+
+                *       *       *       *       *
+
+            They come to me, mere men of hollow clay,
+            And whisper odious comfort, and upbraid
+            The love that follows thee where'er thou art.
+
+                *       *       *       *       *
+
+            And they have dragged a promise from my lips
+            To choose a murderer of my love for thee,
+            To choose at will from out the rest one man
+            To slay me with his kisses!"----
+
+She groaned, and gently caressing her hand, Regina read on, and
+completed the poem.
+
+When she closed the book, Mr. Palma came forward and stood at the
+side of the couch, and in his hand he held several letters. At sight
+of him a flush mounted to Olga's hollow cheek, and she put her
+fingers over her eyes. He quietly laid one hand on her forehead and
+said pleadingly:
+
+"Olga, dear sister, if you had died without becoming reconciled to
+me, I should never have felt satisfied or happy, and I thank God you
+have been spared to us; spared to allow me an opportunity of
+explaining some thirds which, misunderstood, have caused you to hate
+me. Regina let me have this seat a little while, and in half an hour
+you ard Mrs. Palma can come back. I wish to talk alone with Olga."
+
+"To gloze over your deeds and machinations, to deny the dark cowardly
+work that has stabbed my peace for ever! No, no! The only service you
+can render me now is to keep out of my sight! Erle Palma, I shall
+hate you to my dying hour; and my only remaining wish--prayer--is,
+that she whom you love may give her pure hand to another; that you
+may live to see her belong to other arms than yours, even as you have
+helped to thrust Belmont from mine! Oh, I thank God! your cold
+selfish heart has stirred at last, and I shall have my revenge, when
+you come, like me, to see the lips you love kissed by another, and
+the hands that were so sacred to your fond touch clasped by some
+other man, wearing the badge and fetter of his ownership! When your
+darling is a wife--but not yours--then the agony that you have
+inflicted on me will be your portion. Because you love her, as you
+never yet loved even yourself, may you lose her for ever!"
+
+She had struck off his hand, and while struggling up into a sitting
+posture, her eyes kindled, and her voice shook with the tempest of
+feeling that broke over her.
+
+Mr. Palma crimsoned, but motioned Mrs. Palma away, and Regina
+exclaimed:
+
+"In her feeble state this excitement may be fatal. Have you no mercy,
+Mr. Palma?"
+
+"Because I wish to be merciful to her, I desire you will leave the
+room."
+
+Mrs. Palma seized the girl's hand and drew her hastily away, and
+while the two sat on the staircase near the door of the sickroom,
+Regina learned from a hurried and fragmentary narration that her
+guardian had for years contributed to the comfort and maintenance of
+Mr. Eggleston's mother and sister, that his influence had been
+exerted to induce a friend in Philadelphia to purchase the artist's
+"California Landscape," and that his persistent opposition to Olga's
+marriage had been based upon indubitable proofs that Mr. Eggleston
+had deceived her; had addressed three other ladies during the seven
+years' clandestine correspondence, and had merely trifled with the
+holiest feelings of the girl's trusting heart. In conclusion Mrs.
+Palma added:
+
+"Erle was too proud to defend himself, and sternly prohibited me from
+acquainting her with some of his friendly acts. Even those two
+helpless Eggleston women do not dream that their annual contribution
+of money and fuel comes from him. He would leave Olga in her
+prejudice and animosity, did he not think that a knowledge of all
+that has occurred might prove to her how unworthy that man is. She
+stubbornly persists that my stepson is weary of supporting us, and
+desires to force a this marriage with Mr. Congreve; whereas he has
+from the beginning assured me he deemed it inexpedient, and dreaded
+the result."
+
+"Mrs. Palma, she insists that she will never marry any one now, and
+intends to join one of the Episcopal Church sisterhoods in a western
+city."
+
+"She certainly will not marry Mr. Congreve, for Erle called upon him
+and requested him to release Olga from the engagement, alleging,
+among other reasons, that her health was very much broken, and that
+she would spend some time in Europe. This sisterhood scheme he
+declares he will not permit her to accomplish."
+
+Between the two fell a profound silence, and Regina could think of
+nothing but her guardian's flushed confused countenance, when Olga
+taxed him with his love for Mrs. Carew. How deeply his heart must be
+engaged, when his stem, cold, noncommittal face crimsoned?
+
+It seemed a long time since they sat down there, and Regina was
+growing restless when the front door-bell rang. The servant who
+brought up a telegram addressed to Mr. Palma, informed Mrs. Palma
+that Mr. Roscoe was waiting in the dining-room to see her.
+
+"My dear, knock at the door, and hand this to Erle. I will come back
+directly."
+
+She went downstairs, and, glad of any pretext to interrupt an
+interview which she believed must be torturing to poor Olga, Regina
+tapped at the door.
+
+"Come in."
+
+Standing on the threshold, she merely said:
+
+"Here is a telegraphic despatch, which may require a reply."
+
+"Come in," repeated Mr. Palma.
+
+Advancing, she saw with amazement that he was kneeling close to the
+couch, with Olga's hand in his, and his bowed head close to her face.
+When she reached the lounge she found that Olga was weeping bitterly,
+while now and then heavy sobs convulsed her feeble frame.
+
+"Mr. Palma, do you want to throw her back into delirium by this cruel
+excitement? Do go away, and leave us in peace."
+
+"She will feel far happier after a little while, and tears will ease
+her heart. Olga, you have not yet given me your promise."
+
+"Be patient! Some day you will learn perhaps that though the idol you
+worshipped so long has fallen from the niche where you set it, even
+the dust is sacred; and you want no strange touch to defile it. Oh
+the love, the confidence, the idolatry--I have so lavishly
+squandered! Because it was wasted, and all--all is lost, can I mourn
+the less?"
+
+"At least give me your promise to wait two years, to follow my
+advice, to accede to my plan for your future."
+
+He wiped the tears from her cheek, and after some hesitation she said
+brokenly:
+
+"How can you care at all what becomes of me? But since you have saved
+me from Mr. Congreve, and contrived to conceal the traces of my
+disguise and flight from Albany, I owe you something, owe something
+to your family pride. I will think over all you wish, and perhaps
+after a time, I can see things in a different light. Now--all is
+dark, ruined--utterly----"
+
+She wept passionately, hiding her face in her hands; and rising, Mr.
+Palma placed some open letters on the chair beside her. He walked to
+the window, opened and read the telegram, and Regina saw a heavy
+frown darken his brow. As if pondering the contents, he stood for
+more than a minute, then went to the door, and said from the
+threshold:
+
+"The papers, Olga, are intended for no eye but yours. In reviewing
+the past, judge me leniently, for had you been born my own sister I
+should have no deeper interest in your welfare. Henceforth try to
+trust me as your brother, and I will forgive gladly all your unjust
+bitterness and aspersion."
+
+He disappeared, and almost simultaneously Mrs. Palma came back and
+kissed her daughter's forehead.
+
+With a low piteous wail, Olga threw her white hands up about her
+mother's neck, and sobbed:
+
+"Oh, mamma! mamma! take me to your heart! Pity me!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+Since the night of Olga's return, Regina had taken her meals in the
+sick-room, gladly availing herself of any pretext for avoiding the
+dreadful _tete-a-tete_ breakfasts.
+
+On the morning after the painful interview between Olga and Mr.
+Palma, the former desired to remove into her own apartment, and the
+easy chair in which she sat was wheeled carefully to the hearth in
+her room.
+
+"Come close to me, dear child."
+
+Olga held her companion for some seconds in a tight embrace, then
+kissed her cheek and forehead.
+
+"Patient, true little friend; you saved me from destruction. How worn
+and white you look, and I have robbed you so long of sleep! When I am
+stronger, I want to talk to you; but to-day I must be alone, must
+spend it among my dead hopes, sealing the sepulchres. Jean Ingelow
+tells us of 'a Dead Year' 'cased in cedar, and shut in a sacred
+gloom;' but I have seven to shroud and bury; and will the day ever
+dawn when I can truly say:
+
+            Silent they rest, in solemn salvatory'?
+
+Go out, dear, into the sunshine; you look so weary. Leave me alone in
+the cold crypts of memory; you need not be afraid, I have no second
+vial of poison."
+
+She seemed so hopeless, and her voice was so indescribably mournful,
+that Regina's eyes filled with tears, but Mrs. Palma just then called
+her into the hall.
+
+"Erle says you must put on your hat, wrap up closely, and come
+downstairs. He is waiting to take you to ride."
+
+She had not seen her guardian since he left Olga's sofa the previous
+day, and answered without reflection.
+
+"Ask him to excuse me. I am not very well, and prefer remaining in my
+own room."
+
+From the foot of the stairs, Mr. Palma's voice responded:
+
+"Fresh air will benefit you. I insist upon your coming immediately."
+
+She leaned over the railing, and saw him buttoning his overcoat.
+
+"Please, Mr. Palma, excuse me to-day."
+
+"Pardon me, I cannot. The carriage is waiting."
+
+She was tempted to rebel outright, to absolutely refuse obedience to
+his authority, which threatened her with the dreaded interview, but a
+moment's reflection taught her that resistance to his stubborn will
+was useless, and she went reluctantly downstairs, forgetting her
+gloves in her trepidation. He handed her into the carriage, took a
+seat beside her, and directed Farley to drive to Central Park.
+
+The day though cold was very bright, and he partly lowered the silk
+curtains to shut out the glare of the sun. For a half-hour they
+rolled along the magnificent Avenue, and only casual observations
+upon weather, passing equipages, and similar trivial topics, afforded
+Regina time to compose her perturbed thoughts. With his overcoat
+buttoned tight across his broad chest, and hat drawn a little low on
+his brow, Mr. Palma sat, holding his gloved fingers interlaced; and
+his brilliant eyes rested now and then very searching upon the face
+at his side, which was almost as white as the snowy fur sack that
+enveloped her.
+
+"What is the matter with your cheek?" he said at length.
+
+"Why do you ask?" She instantly shielded it with her hand.
+
+"It has a slightly bluish, bruised appearance."
+
+"It is of no consequence, and will soon disappear."
+
+"Olga must indeed have struck you a heavy blow, to leave a mark that
+lingers so long. She told me how desperately you wrestled to stay her
+suicidal course, and as a family we owe you much for your firm brave
+resistance."
+
+"I am sorry she has betrayed what passed. I hoped you would never
+suspect the distressing facts."
+
+"When a girl deliberately defies parental wishes and counsel, and
+scorns the advice and expostulation of those whom experience has
+taught something of life and the world, her fate sooner or later is
+sad as Olga's. A foolish caprice which young ladies invariably
+denominate 'love,' but which is generally merely flattered vanity,
+not unfrequently wrecks a woman's entire life; and though Olga will
+rally after a time, she cannot forget this humiliating episode, which
+has blighted the brightest epoch of her existence. Her rash, blind
+obstinacy has cost her very dear. Here, let us go out; I want you to
+walk awhile."
+
+They had entered the Park, and, ordering the driver to await them at
+a specified spot, Mr. Palma turned into the Ramble. For some moments
+they walked in silence, and finally he pointed to a rustic seat
+somewhat secluded, and beyond the observation of the few persons
+strolling through the grounds. Regina sat with her muff in her lap,
+and her bare hands nervously toying with her white silk tassel. Her
+guardian noticed the tremulousness of her lip, and at that moment the
+sun, smiting the ring on her finger, kindled the tiny diamonds into a
+circle of fire. Mr. Palma drew off his gloves, put them in his
+pocket, and just touched the opal, saying coldly:
+
+"Is that a recent gift from your mother? I never saw you wear it
+until the night you bathed poor Olga's forehead."
+
+"No, sir."
+
+Involuntarily she laid her palm over the jewels that was beginning to
+grow odious in her own sight.
+
+"May I inquire how long it has been in your possession?"
+
+"Since before I left the parsonage. I had it when I came to New
+York."
+
+"Why then have you never worn it?"
+
+"What interest can such a trifle possess for you, sir?"
+
+"Sufficient at least to require an answer."
+
+She sat silent.
+
+"Regina."
+
+"I hear you, Mr. Palma."
+
+"Then show me the courtesy of looking at me when you speak.
+Circumstances have debarred me until now from referring to a letter
+from India, which I gave you before I went to Washington. I presume
+you are aware that the writer in enclosing it to me acquainted me
+with its tenor and import. Will you permit me to read it?"
+
+"I sent it to my mother nearly a week ago."
+
+She had raised her eyes, and looked at him almost defiantly, nerving
+herself for the storm that already darkened his countenance.
+
+"Mr. Lindsay very properly informed me that his letter contained an
+offer of marriage, and though I requested you to defer your answer
+until my return, I could not of course doubt that it would prove a
+positive rejection, since you so earnestly assured me he could never
+be more than a brother to you. At least, let me suggest that you
+clothe the refusal in the kindest possible terms."
+
+Her face whitened, and she compressed her lips, but her beautiful
+eyes became touchingly mournful in their strained gaze. Mr Palma took
+off his glasses, and for the first time in her life she saw the full,
+fine bright black eyes, without the medium of lenses. How they looked
+down into hers?
+
+She caught her breath, and he smiled:
+
+"My ward must be frank with her guardian."
+
+"I have been frank with my mother, and since nothing has been
+concealed from her, no one else has the right to catechise me. To her
+it is incumbent upon me to confide even the sacred details to which
+you allude, and she knows all; but you can have no real interest in
+the matter."
+
+"Pardon me, I have a very deep interest in all that concerns my ward;
+especially when the disposal of her hand is involved. What answer
+have you given 'Brother Douglass'?"
+
+As he spoke, he laid his hand firmly on both of hers, but she
+attempted to rise.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Palma! Ask me no more, spare me this inquisition. You
+transcend your authority."
+
+"Sit still. Answer me frankly. You declined Mr. Lindsay's offer?"
+
+"No, sir!"
+
+She felt his hand suddenly clutch hers, and grow cold.
+
+"Lily! Lily!"
+
+The very tone was like a prayer. Presently, he said sternly:
+
+"You must not dare to trifle with me. You cannot intend to accept
+him?"
+
+"Mother will determine for me."
+
+Mr. Palma had become very pale, and his glittering teeth gnawed his
+lower lip.
+
+"Is your acceptance of that man contingent only on her consent and
+approval?"
+
+For a moment she looked away at the blue heavens bending above her,
+and wondered if the sky would blacken when she had irretrievably
+committed herself to this union. The thought was hourly growing
+horrible, and she shivered.
+
+He stooped close to her, and even then she noted how laboured was
+his breathing, and that his mouth quivered:
+
+"Answer me; do you mean to marry him?"
+
+"I do, if mother gives me permission."
+
+Bravely she met his eyes, but her words were a mere whisper, and she
+felt that the worst was over; for her there could be no retraction.
+
+It was the keenest blow, the most bitter disappointment of Erle
+Palma's hitherto successful life, but his face hardened, and he bore
+it, as was his habit, without any demonstration, save that
+discoverable in his mortal paleness.
+
+During the brief silence that ensued, he still held his hand firmly
+on hers, and when he spoke his tone was cold and stern.
+
+"My opinion of your probable course in this matter was founded
+entirely upon belief in the truthfulness of your statement that Mr.
+Lindsay had no claim on your heart. Only a short time since you
+assured me of this fact, and my faith in your candour must plead
+pardon for my present profound surprise. Certainly I was credulous
+enough to consider you incapable of deceit."
+
+The scorn in his eyes stung her like a lash, and clasping her fingers
+spasmodically around his hand, she exclaimed:
+
+"I never intended to deceive you. Oh, do not despise me!"
+
+"I presume you understand the meaning of the words you employ; and
+when I asked you if I would be justified in softening your rejection
+of my cousin by assuring him that your affections were already
+engaged you emphatically negatived that statement, saying it would be
+untrue."
+
+"Yes, and I thought so then; but did not know my own heart."
+
+Her shadowy eyes looked appealingly into his, but he smiled
+contemptuously.
+
+"You did not know your affections had travelled to India, until the
+gentleman formally asked for them? Do you expect me to believe that?"
+
+"Believe anything except that I wilfully deceived you."
+
+The anguish, the hopelessness written in her blanched face, and the
+trembling of the childishly small hands that had unconsciously
+tightened around his touched him.
+
+He put his right hand under her chin and lifted the face.
+
+"Lily, I want the truth. I intend to have it; and all of it. Now look
+me in the eye and answer me solemnly, remembering that the God you
+reverence hears your words. Do you really love Mr. Lindsay?"
+
+"Yes; he is so good, how can I help feeling attached to him?"
+
+"You love him next to your mother?"
+
+"I think I do."
+
+The words cost her a great effort, and her eyes wandered from his.
+
+"Look straight at me. You love him so well you wish to be his wife?"
+
+"I want to make him happy if I can."
+
+"No evasions, if you please. Answer yes, or no. Is Mr. Lindsay dearer
+to you than all else in the world?"
+
+"Next to mother's his happiness is dearest to me."
+
+"Yes--or no--this time; is there no one you love better?"
+
+Earth and sky, trees and rocks, seemed whirling into chaos, and she
+shut her eyes.
+
+"You have no right to question me farther. I will answer no more."
+
+Was the world really coming to an end? She heard her guardian laugh,
+and the next moment he had caught her to his heart. What did it
+mean? Was she too growing delirious with brain fever? His arm held
+her pressed close to his bosom, and his cheek leaned on her head,
+while strangely sweet and low were his words:
+
+"Ah, Lily! Lily! Hush. Be still."
+
+She wished that she could die then and there, for the thought of Mr.
+Lindsay sickened her soul. But the memory of the ring appalled her,
+and she struggled to free herself.
+
+"Let me go! Do let us go home. I am sick."
+
+His arm drew her closer still.
+
+"Be quiet, and let me talk to you, and remember I am your guardian.
+Lily, I am afraid you are tempted to stray into dangerous paths, and
+your tender little heart is not a safe counsellor. You are sincerely
+attached to your old friend, you trust and honour him, you are very
+grateful to him for years of kindness during your childhood; and now
+when his health has failed, and he appeals to you to repay the
+affection he has long given you, gratitude seems to assume the form
+of duty, and you are trying to persuade yourself that you ought to
+grant his prayer. Lily, love is the only chrism that sanctifies
+marriage, and though at present you might consent to become Mr.
+Lindsay's wife, suppose that in after years you should chance to meet
+some other man, perhaps not so holy, so purely Christian as this
+noble young missionary, but a man who seized, possessed your
+deep--deathless womanly love, and who you knew loved you in return?
+What then?"
+
+"I would still do my duty to my dear Douglass."
+
+"No doubt you would try. But you would do wrong to marry your friend
+feeling as you do; and you ought to wait and fully explain to him the
+nature of your sentiments. You are almost a child, and scarcely know
+you own heart yet, and I, as your guardian, cannot consent to see you
+rashly forge fetters that may possibly gall you in future. The letter
+to your mother has not yet been forwarded. Hattie, to whom you
+entrusted it, did not give it to me until this morning, alleging in
+apology, that she put it in her pocket and forgot it. I have reason
+to believe that in a very short time you will see your mother: let
+this matter rest until you can converse fully with her, and if she
+sanctions your decision I, of course, shall have no right to
+expostulate. Lily, I want to see you happy, and while I profoundly
+respect Mr. Lindsay, who I daresay is a most estimable gentleman, I
+should not very cordially give you away to him."
+
+She rose and stood before him, clasping her hands tightly over each
+other; tearless, tortured, striving to see the path of duty.
+
+"Mr. Palma, if I can only make him happy! I owe him so much. When I
+remember all that he did so tenderly for years, and especially on
+that awful night of the storm, I feel that I ought not to refuse what
+he asks of me."
+
+"If he knew how you felt, I think I could safely promise for him that
+he would not accept your hand. The heart of the woman he loves, is
+the boon that a man holds most precious. Lily, you know your inmost
+heart does not prompt you to marry Mr. Lindsay."
+
+Did he suspect her secret folly? The blood that had seemed to curdle
+around her aching heart surged into her cheeks, painting them a vivid
+rose, and she said hastily:
+
+"Indeed he is very dear to me. He is the noblest man I ever knew. How
+could I fail to love him?"
+
+He took her left hand and examined the ring.
+
+"You wear this, as a pledge of betrothal? Is it not premature when
+your mother is in ignorance of your purpose? Tell me, my ward, tell
+me, do you not rather keep it here to stimulate your flagging sense
+of duty? To strengthen you to adhere to your rash resolve?"
+
+"He wrote that if I had faithfully kept my farewell promise to him he
+wished me to wear it."
+
+"May I know the nature of that promise?"
+
+"That I would always love him next to my mother."
+
+"But I think you admitted that possibly you might some day meet your
+ideal who would be dearer even than mother and Douglass. I do not
+wish to distress you needlessly, but while you are under my
+protection I must unflinchingly do all that honour demands of a
+faithful guardian. I can permit no engagement without your mother's
+approval; and I honestly confess to you, that I am growing impatient
+to place you in her care. Do you still desire your letter forwarded?"
+
+"If you please."
+
+"Sit down. I have sad news for you."
+
+He unbuttoned his coat, took an envelope from his pocket, and she
+recognized the telegram which had arrived the previous day. "Regina,
+many guardians would doubtless withhold this, but fairness and
+perfect candour have been my rule of life, and I prefer frankness to
+diplomacy. This telegraphic despatch arrived yesterday, and is
+intended for you, though addressed to me."
+
+He put it in her hand, and filled with an undefined terror that
+chilled her she read:
+
+                                      "SAN FRANCISCO.
+
+   "MR. ERLE PALMA,--Tell your ward that Douglass is too ill to
+   travel farther. If she wishes to see him alive she must come
+   immediately. Can't you bring her on at once?
+
+                                      "ELISE LINDSAY."
+
+
+The despatch fluttered to the ground and the girl moaned and bowed
+her face in her hands. He waited some minutes, and with a sob she
+said:
+
+"Oh, let me go to him! It might be a comfort to him, and if he should
+die? Oh, do let me go!"
+
+"Do you think your mother would consent to your taking so grave a
+step?"
+
+"I do not know, but she would not blame me when she learned the
+circumstances. If I waited to consult her he might--oh! we are
+wasting time! Mr. Palma, pity me! Send me to him--to the friend who
+loves me so truly, so devotedly!"
+
+She started up and wrung her hands, as imagination pictured the noble
+friend ill, perhaps dying, and longing to see her.
+
+"Regina, compose yourself. That telegram has been delayed by an
+unprecedented fall of snow that interrupts the operation of the
+wires, and it is dated three days ago. Last night I telegraphed to
+learn Mr. Lindsay's condition, but up to the time of our leaving
+home, the wires were not working through to San Francisco; and the
+trains on the Union Pacific are completely snowbound. The agent told
+me this morning that it was uncertain when the cars would run
+through, as the track is blocked up. Until we ascertain something
+definite let me advise you to withhold your letter, enclosing his;
+for I ought to tell you that I am daily expecting a summons to send
+you to Europe. Come, walk with me and try to be patient."
+
+He offered her his arm, and they walked for some time in profound
+silence. At last she exclaimed passionately:
+
+"Please let me go home. I want to be alone."
+
+They finally reached the carriage, and Mr. Palma gave the coachman
+directions to drive to the telegraph office. During the ride Regina
+leaned back, with her face pressed against the silken curtain on the
+side, and her eyes closed. Her companion could see the regular
+chiselled profile, so delicate and yet so firm, and as he studied the
+curves of her beautiful mouth, he realized that she had fully
+resolved to fulfil her promise; that at any cost of personal
+suffering she would grant the prayer of the devoted young minister.
+
+Scientists tell us that "there are in the mineral world certain
+crystals, certain forms, for instance of fluor-spar, which have lain
+darkly in the earth for ages, but which nevertheless have a potency
+of light locked up within them. In their case the potential has never
+become actual, the light is, in fact, held back by a molecular
+detent. When these crystals are warmed, the detent is lifted, and an
+outflow of light immediately begins." How often subtle analogies in
+physical nature whisper interpretations of vexing psychological
+enigmas?
+
+Was Erle Palma an animated, human fluor-spar? Had the latent
+capacity, the potentiality of tenderness in his character been
+suddenly actualized, by the touch of that girl's gentle hands, the
+violet splendour of her large soft eyes, which lifted for ever the
+detent of his cold isolating selfishness?
+
+The long-hidden light had flashed at last, making his heart radiant
+with a supreme happiness which even the blaze of his towering and
+successful ambition had never kindled; and to-day he found it
+difficult indeed to stand aside, with folded arms and sealed lips,
+while she reeled upon the brink of an abyss, which was so wide and
+deep, that it threatened to bury all his hopes of that sacred home
+life--which sooner or later sings its dangerous siren song in every
+man's heart.
+
+To his proud worldly nature this dream of pure, deep, unselfish love,
+had stolen like the warm, rich spicy breath of June roses--swung
+unexpectedly over a glacier, bringing the flush and perfume of early
+summer to the glittering blue realms of winter; and he longed
+inexpressibly to open all his heart to the sweet sunshine, to gather
+it in, garnering it as his own for ever. How his stern soul clung to
+that shy, shrinking girl, who seemed in contrast to the gay brilliant
+self-asserting women he met in society as some white marble-lidded
+Psyche, standing on her pedestal, amid a group of glowing Venetian
+Venuses! He had seen riper complexions, and more rounded symmetry;
+and had smiled and bowed at graceful polished persiflage, more witty
+than aught that ever crossed her quiet, daintily carved lips; but
+though he had admired many lovely women of genius and culture, that
+pale girl, striving to hide her grieved countenance against his
+carriage curtain, was the only one he had ever desired to call his
+wife. That any other man dared hope to win or claim her seemed
+sacrilegious; and he felt that he would rather see her lying in her
+coffin, than know that she was profaned by any touch save his.
+
+Neither spoke, and when the carriage stopped at the telegraph office,
+Mr. Palma went in and remained some time. As he returned, she felt
+that he held her destiny for all time in his hands, and in after
+years he often recalled the despairing, terrified expression of the
+face that leaned forward, with parted quivering lips, and eyes that
+looked a prayer for pity.
+
+"The wires are not yet working fully, but probably messages will go
+through during the day. Regina, try to be patient, and believe that
+you shall learn the nature of Mrs. Lindsay's answer as soon as I
+receive it. Tell Mrs. Palma I shall not come home to dine, have
+pressing business at court, and cannot tell how long I may be
+detained at my office. Good-bye. The despatch shall be sent to you
+without delay."
+
+He lifted his hat, closed the carriage door, and motioned to Farley
+to drive home.
+
+Locked in her own apartment Olga denied admittance to even her
+mother, who improved the opportunity to answer a number of neglected
+letters, and Regina was left to the seclusion of her room. As the day
+wore slowly away, her restlessness increased, and she paced the floor
+until her limbs trembled from weariness. Deliberately she recalled
+all the incidents of the long residence at the parsonage, and strove
+to live again the happy season, during which the young minister had
+contributed so largely to her perfect contentment. The white pets
+they had tended and caressed together, the books she had read with
+him, the favourite passages he had italicized, the songs he loved
+best, the flowers he laid upon her breakfast plate, and now and then
+twined in her hair; above all, his loving persuasive tone, quiet
+gentle words of affectionate counsel, and tender pet name for her,
+"my white dove."
+
+How fervent had been his prayer that when he returned, he might find
+her "unspotted from the world." Was she? Could she bear to deceive
+the brave loyal heart that trusted her so completely?
+
+Once at church she had witnessed a marriage, heard the awfully solemn
+vows that the bride registered in the sight of God, and to-day the
+words flamed like the sword of the avenging angel, like a menace, a
+challenge. Would Douglass take her for his wife, if he knew that Mr.
+Palma had become dearer to her than all the world beside? Could she
+deny that his voice and the touch of his hand on hers magnetized,
+thrilled her, as no one else had power to do? She could think without
+pain of Mr. Lindsay selecting some other lady and learning to love
+her as his wife, forgetting the child Regina; but when she forced
+herself to reflect that her guardian would soon be Mrs. Carew's
+husband, the torture seemed unendurable.
+
+Unlocking a drawer, she spread before her all the little souvenirs
+Mr. Lindsay had given her. The faded flowers that once glowed under
+the fervid sun of India, the seal and pen, the blue and gold
+Tennyson, and Whittier, and the pretty copy of Christina Rossetti's
+poems, he had sent from Liverpool. One by one she read his letters
+ending with the last which Mr. Palma had laid on her lap when he left
+the carriage.
+
+Despite her efforts, above the dear meek gentle image of the
+consecrated and devout missionary towered the stately proud form of
+the brilliant lawyer, with his chilling smile and haughty marble
+brow; and she knew that he reigned supreme in her heart. He was not
+so generous, so nobly self-sacrificing, so holy and pious as Mr.
+Lindsay, nor did she reverence him so entirely; but above all else
+she loved him. Conscience, pride, and womanly delicacy all clamoured
+in behalf of the absent but faithful lover; and the true heart
+answered, "Away with sophistry, and gratitude, pitying affection,
+and sympathy! I am vassal to but one; give me Erle Palma, my king."
+
+If she married Douglass and he afterward discovered the truth, could
+he be happy, could he ever trust her again? She resolved to go to San
+Francisco, to tell Mr. Lindsay without reservation all that she felt,
+withholding only the name of the man whom she loved best; and if he
+could be content with the little she could give in return for his
+attachment, then with no deception flitting like a ghoul between
+them, she would ask her mother's permission to dedicate the future to
+Douglass Lindsay. She would never see her guardian again, and when he
+was married it would be sinful even to think of him, and her duties
+and new ties must help her to forget him.
+
+Pleading weariness and indisposition, she had absented herself from
+dinner, and when night came it was upon leaden wings that oppressed
+her. Feverish and restless she raised the sash, and though the
+temperature was freezing outside, she leaned heavily on the sill and
+inhaled the air. A distant clock struck eleven, and she stood looking
+at the moon that flooded the Avenue with splendour, and shone like a
+sheet of silver on the glass of a window opposite.
+
+Very soon a peculiarly measured step, slow and firm, rung on the
+pavement beneath her, and ere the muffled figure paused at the door,
+she recognized her guardian. He entered by means of a latch-key, and
+closing the window Regina sat down and listened. Her heart beat like
+a drum, drowning other sounds, and all else was so still that after a
+little while she supposed no message had been received, and that Mr.
+Palma had gone to sleep.
+
+She dreaded to lie down, knowing that her pillow would prove one not
+of roses, but thorns. She prayed long and fervently that God would
+help her to do right under all circumstances, would enable her to
+conquer and govern her wilful, riotous heart, subduing it to the
+dictates of duty; and in conclusion she begged that the heavenly
+Father would spare and strengthen His feeble, suffering, consecrated
+minister, spare a life she would strive to brighten.
+
+Rising from her knees she opened a little illustrated Testament Mr.
+Lindsay had given her on her thirteenth birthday, and which she was
+accustomed to read every night. The fourteenth chapter of St. John
+happened to meet her eye.
+
+"Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid; ye believe
+in God, believe also in Me." Just then she heard a low, cautious tap
+upon her door. Her heart stood still, she felt paralyzed, but found
+voice to say hoarsely:
+
+"Come in."
+
+The door was partly opened but no one entered, and she went forward
+to the threshold. Mr. Palma was standing outside, with his face
+averted, and in his outstretched hand she saw the well-known
+telegraphic envelope, which always arouses a thrill of dread, bearing
+so frequently the bolt of destruction into tranquil households.
+Shaking like aspens when the west wind blows, she took it.
+
+"Tell me, is he better?"
+
+Mr. Palma turned, gave one swift pitying glance at her agonized face,
+and as if unable to endure the sight, walked quickly away. She shut
+the door, stood a moment, spellbound by dread, then held the sheet to
+the light.
+
+                                          "SAN FRANCISCO.
+
+            "MR. ERLE PALMA,--My Douglass died last night.
+
+                                          "ELISE LINDSAY."
+
+             "Though Duty's face is stern, her path is best;
+              They sweetly sleep who die upon her breast."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+"Your bed is untouched, you did not undress! Why did you sit up all
+night, and alone?"
+
+"Because I knew it was folly to attempt to sleep; and to watch the
+bay and the beauty of the night was less wearying than to toss on a
+pillow staring at the ceiling. Mrs. Waul, what brings you here so
+early?"
+
+"A package of letters which must have arrived yesterday, but William
+only received them a few minutes since. Mrs. Orme, will you have your
+coffee now?"
+
+"After a little while. Have everything in order to leave at a
+moment's notice, for I may not return here from Paestum. Give me the
+letters."
+
+Mrs. Orme tossed back her hair which had been unbound, and as the
+letters were placed in her hand, she seemed almost to forget them, so
+abstracted was the expression with which her eyes rested on the
+dancing waves of the Bay of Naples. The noise of the door closing
+behind Mrs. Waul seemed to arouse her, and glancing at the letters
+she opened one from Mr. Palma.
+
+The long and harrowing vigil which had lasted from the moment of
+bidding General Laurance good-night, on the previous evening, had
+left its weary traces in the beautiful face; but rigid resolution had
+also set its stem seal on the compressed mouth, and the eyes were
+relentless as those of Irene, waiting for the awful consummation in
+the Porphyry chamber at Byzantium.
+
+The spirit of revenge had effectually banished all the purer, holier
+emotions of her nature; and the hope of an overwhelming Nemesis
+beckoned her to a fearful sacrifice of womanly sensibility, but just
+now nothing seemed too sacred to be immolated upon the altar of her
+implacable Hate. To stab the hearts of those who had wronged her, she
+gladly subjected her own to the fiery ordeal of a merely nominal
+marriage with her husband's father, resolving that her triumph should
+be complete. Originally gentle, loving, yielding in nature, injustice
+and adversity had gradually petrified her character; yet beneath the
+rigid exterior flowed a lava tide, that now and then overflowed its
+stony barriers, and threatened irremediable ruin.
+
+Fully resolved upon the revolting scheme which promised punishment to
+the family of Laurance, and
+
+                "Self-girded with torn strips of hope,"
+
+she opened the New York letter.
+
+The first few lines riveted her attention. She sat erect, leaned
+forward, with eyes wide and strained, and gradually rose to her feet,
+clutching the letter, until her fingers grew purple. As she hurried
+on, breathing like one whose everlasting destiny is being laid in the
+balance, a marvellous change overspread her countenance. The blood
+glowed in lip and cheek, the wild sparkle sank, extinguished in the
+tears that filled her eyes, the hardness melted away from the
+resolute features, and at last a cry like that of some doomed spirit
+suddenly snatched from the horrors of perdition and set for ever at
+rest upon meads of Asphodel and Amaranth, rolled through the room.
+
+After so many years of reckless hopelessness the transition was
+overpowering, and the miserable wife and mother rescued upon the
+extreme verge of utter lifelong ruin, fell forward upon her knees,
+sobbing and laughing alternately.
+
+From the hour when she learned of her husband's second marriage she
+had ceased to pray, abandoning herself completely to the cynicism and
+vindictiveness that overflowed her soul like a wave of Phlegethon;
+but now the fountain of gratitude was unsealed, and she poured out a
+vehement, passionate, thanksgiving to God. Alternately praying,
+weeping, smiling, she knelt there, now and then re-reading portions
+of the letters, to assure herself that it was not a mere blessed
+dream, and at length when the strain relaxed, she dropped her head on
+a chair, and like a spent feeble child, cried heartily,
+unrestrainedly.
+
+Mr. Palma wrote that after years of fruitless effort he had succeeded
+in obtaining from Peleg Peterson a full retraction of the charges
+made against her name, whereby General Laurance had prevented a suit
+against his son. Peterson had made an affidavit of certain facts,
+which nobly exonerated her from the heinous imputations with which
+she was threatened, should she attempt legal redress for her wrongs,
+and which proved that the defence upon which General Laurance relied,
+was the result of perjury and bribery.
+
+In addition to the recantation of Peterson, Mr. Palma communicated
+the joyful intelligence that Gerbert Audre, who was believed to have
+been lost off the Labrador coast fifteen years before, had been
+discovered in Washington, where he was occupying a clerical desk in
+one of the departments; and that he had furnished conclusive
+testimony as a witness of the marriage, and a friend of Cuthbert
+Laurance.
+
+The lawyer had carefully gathered all the necessary links of
+evidence, and was prepared to bring suit against Cuthbert Laurance
+for desertion and bigamy; assuring the long-suffering wife that her
+name and life would be nobly vindicated.
+
+Within his letter was one addressed to Mrs. Orme by Peleg Peterson,
+and a portion of the scrawl was heavily underlined.
+
+"For all that I have revealed to Mr. Palma and solemnly sworn to, for
+this clearing of your reputation, you may thank your child. But for
+her, I should never have declared the truth--would have gone down to
+the grave, leaving a blot upon you; for my conscience is too dead to
+trouble me, and I hate you, Minnie! Hate you for the wreck you helped
+to make of me. But that girl's white angel face touched me, when she
+said (and I knew she meant it), 'If I find from mother that you are
+indeed my father, then I will do my duty. I will take your hand--I
+will own you my father--face the world's contempt, and we will bear
+our disgrace together as best me may.' She would have done it, at all
+risk, and I have pitied her. It is so clear her, and give her the
+name she is entitled to, that at last I have spoken the truth. She is
+a noble brave girl, too good for you, too good for her father; far
+too good to own Rene Laurance for her grandfather. When he sees the
+child he paid me to claim, he will not need my oath to satisfy him
+that in body she is every inch a Laurance; but where she got her
+white soul God only knows--certainly it is neither Merle nor
+Laurance. You owe your salvation to your sweet, brave child, and have
+no cause to thank me, for I shall always hate you."
+
+Had some ministering angel removed from her hand the hemlock of that
+loathsome vengeance she had contemplated, and substituted the nectar
+of hope and joy, the renewal of a life unclouded by the dread of
+disgrace that had hung over her like a pall for seventeen years? When
+gathering her garments about her to plunge into a dark gulf replete
+with seething horror, a strong hand had lifted her away from the
+fatal ledge, and she heard the voice of her youth calling her to the
+almost forgotten vale of peace; while supreme among the thronging
+visions of joy gleamed the fair face of her blue-eyed daughter. Had
+she been utterly mad in resolving to stain her own pure hand by the
+touch of Rene Laurance?
+
+In the light of retrospection the unnatural and monstrous deed she
+had contemplated, seemed fraught with a horror scarcely inferior to
+that which lends such lurid lustre to the "Oedipus;" and now she
+cowered in shame and loathing as she reflected upon all that she had
+deliberately arranged while sitting upon the terrace of the Villa
+Reale. Could the unbridled thirst for revenge have dragged her on
+into a monomania that would finally have ended in downright madness?
+Once nominally the wife of the man whom she so thoroughly abhorred,
+would not reason have fled before the horrors to which she linked
+herself? The rebellious bitterness of her soul melted away, and a
+fervent gratitude to Heaven fell like dew upon her arid stony heart,
+waking words of penitence and praise to which her lips had long been
+strangers.
+
+Adversity in the guise of human injustice and wrong generally
+indurates and embitters; and the chastisements that chasten are
+those which come directly from the hand of Him "who doeth all things
+well."
+
+When Mrs. Waul came back Mrs. Orme was still kneeling, with her face
+hidden in her arms, and the letters lying beside her. Laying her
+wrinkled hand on the golden hair, the faithful old woman asked:
+
+"Did you hear from your baby?"
+
+"Oh! I have good news that will make me happy as long as I live. I
+shall soon see my child; and soon, very soon, all will be clear. Just
+now I cannot explain; but thank God for me that these letters came
+safely."
+
+She rose, put back her hair, and rapidly glanced over two other
+letters, then walked to and fro, pondering the contents.
+
+"Where is Mr. Waul?"
+
+"Reading the papers in our room."
+
+"Ask him to come to me at once."
+
+She went to her desk, and wrote to General Laurance that letters
+received after their last interview compelled her to hasten to Paris,
+whither she had been recalled by a summons from the manager of the
+Theatre. She had determined, in accordance with his own earnestly
+expressed wishes, that from the day when the world knew her as Mrs.
+Laurance it should behold her no more upon the stage; consequently
+she would hasten the arrangements for the presentation of her own
+play "_Infelice_," and after he had witnessed her rendition of the
+new _role_, she would confer with him regarding the day appointed for
+the celebration of their marriage. Until then, she positively
+declined seeing him, but enclosed a tress of her golden hair, and
+begged to hear from him frequently; adding directions that would
+insure the reception of his letters. Concluding she signed: "Odille
+Orme, hoping by the grace of God soon to subscribe myself--Laurance."
+
+"Mr. Waul, I have unexpectedly altered my entire programme, and,
+instead of going to Paestum, must start at once to Paris. This
+fortunately is Tuesday, and the French steamer sails for Marseilles
+at three o'clock. Go down at once and arrange for our passage, and be
+careful to let no one know by what route I leave Naples. On your way
+call at the telegraph office and see that this despatch is forwarded
+promptly; and do send me a close carriage immediately. I wish to
+avoid an unpleasant engagement, and shall drive to Torre del Greco,
+returning in time to meet you at the steamer instead of at this
+house. See that the baggage leaves here only time enough to be put
+aboard by three o'clock, and I shall not fail to join you there. When
+General Laurance calls, Mrs. Waul will instruct the servant to hand
+him the note, with the information that I have gone for a farewell
+drive around Naples."
+
+Hurriedly completing her preparations, she entered the carriage, and
+was soon borne along the incomparably beautiful road that skirts the
+graceful curves of the Bay of Naples. But the glory of the sky, and
+the legendary charms of the picturesque scenery that surrounded her,
+appealed in vain to senses that were wrapped in the light of other
+days, that listened only to the new canticle which hope long dumb was
+now singing through all the sunny chambers of her heart.
+
+Returning again and again to the perusal of the letters to assure
+herself that no contingency could arise to defraud her of her
+long-delayed recognition, she felt that the galling load of half her
+life had suddenly slipped from her weary shoulders; and the world and
+the future wore that magic radiance which greeted Miriam, as singing
+she looked back upon the destruction escaped, and on toward the
+redeemed inheritance awaiting her.
+
+Reunion with her child, and the triumphant establishment of her
+unsullied parentage, glowed as the silver stars in her new sky; while
+a baleful lurid haze surrounded the thought of that dire punishment
+she was enabled to inflict upon the men who had trampled her prayers
+beneath their iron heels.
+
+She recalled the image of the swarthy, supercilious, be-diamonded
+woman who sat that memorable night in the minister's box, claiming as
+husband the listless handsome man at her side; and as she pictured
+the dismay which would follow the sudden rending of the name of
+Laurance from the banker's daughter, and her helpless child, Mrs.
+Orme laughed aloud.
+
+Slowly the day wore on, and General Laurance failed to call at the
+appointed hour to arrange the preliminaries of his marriage. His
+servant brought a note, which Mrs. Orme read when she reached the
+steamer, informing her that sudden and severe indisposition confined
+him to his bed, and requested an interview on the ensuing morning.
+Mrs. Waul had received the note and despatched in return that given
+her by her mistress.
+
+In the magical glow of that cloudless golden afternoon Mrs. Orme saw
+the outlines of St. Elmo fade away, Capri vanish like a purple mist,
+Ischia and Procida melt insensibly into the blue of the marvellous
+bay; and watching the spark which trembled on the distant summit of
+Vesuvius like the dying eye of that cruel destiny from which she
+fled, the rescued happy woman exulted in the belief that she was at
+last sailing through serene seas.
+
+Dreaming of her child, whose pure image hovered in the mirage hope
+wove before her--
+
+          "She seemed all earthly matters to forget,
+           Of all tormenting lines her face was clear,
+           Her wide brown eyes upon the goal were set,
+           Calm and unmoved as though no foe were near."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+Since the memorable day of Regina's visit to Central Park many weeks
+had elapsed, and one wild stormy evening in March she sat at the
+library table writing her translation of a portion of "Egmont."
+
+The storm--now of sleet, now of snow--darkened the air, and the
+globes of the chandelier representing Pompeian lamps were lighted
+above the oval table, shedding a bright yet mellow glow over the warm
+quiet room.
+
+Upon a bronze console stood a terra-cotta jar containing a white
+azalea in full bloom, and the fragrance of the flowers breathed like
+a benediction on the atmosphere; while in the tall glass beneath Mrs.
+Orme's portrait two half-blown snowy camellias nestled amid a fringe
+of geranium leaves.
+
+Close to the fire, with her feet upon a Persian patterned cushion,
+Olga reclined in the luxurious easy chair that belonged to Mr.
+Palma's writing desk, and open on her lap lay a volume entitled "The
+Service of the Poor." The former brilliancy of her complexion seemed
+to have forsaken her for ever, banished by a settled sallowness; and
+she looked thin, feeble, dejected, passing her fingers abstractedly
+through the short curling ruddy hair that clustered around her
+forehead and upon her neck.
+
+As if weary of the thoughts suggested by her book, she turned and
+looked at the figure writing under the chandelier, and by degrees she
+realized the change in the countenance, which three months before had
+been pure, serene, and bright as a moonbeam.
+
+The keen and prolonged anguish which Regina had endured left its
+shadow, faint, vague, but unmistakable; and in the eyes lay gloom,
+and around the mouth patient yet melancholy lines, which hinted of a
+bitter struggle in which the calm-hearted girl died, and the wiser,
+sadder woman was born.
+
+Her grief had been silent but deep for the loss of the dear friend
+who symbolized for her all that was noble, heroic, and godly in human
+nature; and her suffering was not assuaged by letters from Mrs.
+Lindsay, furnishing the sorrowful details of the last illness of the
+minister, and the dying words of tender devotion to the young girl
+whom he believed his betrothed bride.
+
+Over these harrowing letters she had wept long and bitterly, accusing
+herself continually of her unworthiness in allowing another image to
+usurp the throne where the missionary should have reigned supreme;
+and the only consolation afforded was in the reflection that Douglass
+had died believing her faithful, happy in the perfect trust reposed
+in her. He had been buried on a sunny slope of the cemetery not far
+from the blue waves of the Pacific, and his mother remained in San
+Francisco with her sister, in whose house Mr. Lindsay had quietly
+breathed his life away, dying as he had lived, full of hope in Christ
+and trust in God.
+
+Mrs. Palma and Olga only knew that Regina had lost a dear friend whom
+she had not seen for years, and none but her guardian understood the
+nature of the sacred tie that bound them.
+
+Day and night she was haunted by memories of the kind face never more
+to be seen this side of the City of Peace, and when at length she
+received a photograph taken after death, in which, wan and emaciated,
+he seemed sleeping soundly, she felt that her life could never again
+be quite the same, and that the grey shadowy wings of Regret drooped
+low over her future pathway.
+
+Accompanying the photograph was a brief yet loving note written by
+Mr. Lindsay the evening before his death; and to it were appended the
+lines from "Jacqueline":
+
+      "Nor shall I leave thee wholly. I shall be--
+       An evening thought,--a morning dream to thee,--
+       A silence in thy life, when through the night,
+       The bell strikes, or the sun with sinking light,
+       Smites all the empty windows. As there sprout
+       Daisies, and dimpling tufts of violets, out
+       Among the grass where some corpse lies asleep,
+       So round thy life, where I lie buried deep,
+       A thousand little tender thoughts shall spring,
+       A thousand gentle memories wind and cling."
+
+As if the opal were a talisman against the revival of reflections
+that seemed an insult to the dead, Regina wore the ring constantly;
+and whenever a thrill warned her of the old madness, her right hand
+caressed the jewels, seeking from their touch a renewal of strength.
+
+Studiously she manoeuvred to avoid even casual meetings with her
+guardian, and except at the table, and in the presence of the family,
+she had not seen him for several weeks. Business engagements occupied
+him very closely; he was called away to Albany, to Boston, and once
+to Philadelphia, but no farewells were exchanged with his ward, and
+as if conscious of her sedulous efforts to avoid him, he appeared
+almost to ignore her presence.
+
+During these sad days the girl made no attempt to analyze the
+estrangement which she felt was hourly increasing between them. She
+presumed he disapproved of her resolution to accept Mr. Lindsay,
+because he was poor, and offered no brilliant worldly advantages,
+such as her guardian had been trained to regard as paramount
+inducements in the grave matter of marriage; and secluding herself
+as much as possible she fought her battle with grief and remorse as
+best she might, unaided by sympathy. If she could only escape from
+that house, with her secret undiscovered, she thought that in time
+she would crush her folly and reinstate herself in her own respect.
+
+After several interviews with Mr. Palma, the details of which Olga
+communicated to no one, she had consented to hold her scheme of the
+"Sisterhood" in abeyance for twelve months, and to accompany her
+mother to Europe, whither she had formerly been eager to travel; and
+Mrs. Palma, in accordance with instructions from her stepson, had
+perfected her preparations, so as to be able to leave New York at a
+day's notice.
+
+Mrs. Carew had returned to the city, and now and then Mr. Palma
+mentioned her name, and delivered messages from her to his
+stepmother; but Olga abstained from her old badinage, and Regina
+imagined that her forbearance sprang from a knowledge of the
+engagement which she supposed must exist between them. She could not
+hear her name without a shiver of pain, and longed to get away before
+the affair assumed a sufficiently decided form to compel her to
+notice and discuss it. To-day, after watching her for some time, Olga
+said:
+
+"You are weary, and pale almost to ghastliness. Put away your books,
+and come talk to me."
+
+Regina sighed, laid down her pen, and came to the fireplace.
+
+"I thought you promised to go very early to Mrs. St. Clare's and
+assist Valeria in arranging her bridal veil?"
+
+"So I did, and it will soon be time for me to dress. How I dislike to
+go back into the gay world, where I have frisked so recklessly and so
+long. Do you know I long for the hour when I shall end this
+masquerade, and exchange silks and lace and jewellery for coarse blue
+gown, blue apron, and white cap?"
+
+"Do you imagine the colour of your garments will change the
+complexion of your heart and mind? You remind me of Alexander's
+comment upon Antipater: 'Outwardly Antipater wears only white
+clothes, but within he is all purple.'"
+
+"Ah! but my purple pride has been utterly dethroned, and it seems to
+me now that when I find rest in cloistered duties the quiet sacred
+seclusion will prove in some degree like the well _Zem-Zem_, in which
+Gabriel washed Mohammed's heart, filled it with faith, and restored
+it to his bosom. Until I am housed safely from the roar and gibes and
+mockery of the world, I shall not grow better; for here
+
+          'God sends me back my prayers, as a father
+           Returns unoped the letters of a son
+           Who has dishonoured him.'
+
+"To conquer the world is nobler than to shun it, and to a nature such
+as yours, Olga, other lines in that poem ought to appeal with
+peculiar force:
+
+          'If thy rich heart is like a palace shattered,
+           Stand up amid the ruins of thy heart,
+           And with a calm brow front the solemn stars--
+           A brave soul is a thing which all things serve.'"
+
+The scheme which you are revolving now is one utterly antagonistic to
+the wishes of your mother, and God would not bless a step which
+involved the sacrifice of your duty to her."
+
+"After a time mamma will approve; till then I shall be patient. She
+has consented for me to go to the Mother House at Kaiserswerth, and
+to some of the Deaconess establishments in Paris and Dresden, in
+order that I may become thoroughly acquainted with the esoteric
+working of the system. I am anxious also to visit the institution for
+training nurses at Liverpool, and unless we sail directly for Havre,
+we shall soon have an opportunity of gratifying my wishes."
+
+Regina took the book from her hand, turned over the leaves, and read:
+
+"'All probationers must be unbetrothed, and their heart still
+free.'... 'A short life history of the previous inward and outward
+experiences of the future Deaconess pupil. It must be composed and
+written by herself.' Olga, what would you do with your past?"
+
+"I have buried it, dear. All the love of which I was capable I poured
+out, nay, I crushed the heart that held it; as the Syrian woman broke
+the precious box of costly ointment, anointing the feet of her God!
+When my clay idol fell I could not gather back the wasted trust and
+affection, and so, all--all is sepulchred in one deep grave. I have
+spent my wealth of spicery; the days of my anointing are for ever
+ended. To true deep-hearted women it is given to love once only, and
+all such scorn to set a second, lesser, lower idol, where formerly
+they bowed in worship. Even false gods hold sway long after their
+images are defiled, their temples overthrown, and as the Dodonian
+Groves still whisper of the old oracular days, to modern travellers,
+so a woman's idolatry leaves her no shrine, no libation, no reverence
+for new divinities; mutilated though she acknowledges her Hermae, no
+fresh image can profane their pedestal. Memory is the high priestess
+who survives the wreck of altars and of gods, and faithfully
+ministers amid the gloom of the soul's catacombs. I owe much to
+mamma, and something to Erle Palma, who is a nobler man than I have
+deemed him, less a bronze Macchiavelli, with a heart of quartz; and
+I shall never again as heretofore rashly defy their advice and
+wishes. But I know myself too well to hope for happiness in the gay
+frivolous insincere world, where I have fluttered out my butterfly
+existence of fashionable emptiness.
+
+          'I kissed the painted bloom off Pleasure's lips
+           And found them pale as Pain's.'
+
+I have bruised and singed my Psyche wings, and _le beau monde_ has no
+new, strong pinions to replace those beat out in its hard tyrannous
+service. You think me cynical and misanthropic, but, dear, I believe
+I am only clear-eyed at last. If I had married him for whom I dared
+so much, and found too late that all the golden qualities I fondly
+dreamed that he possessed were only baser metal, gaudy tinsel that
+tarnished in my grasp, I am afraid it would have maddened me beyond
+hope of reclamation. I have made shipwreck; but a yet sadder fate
+might have overtaken me, and at least my soul has outridden the
+storm, thanks to your frail babyish hands, so desperately strong when
+they grappled that awful night with suicidal sin. Few women have
+suffered more keenly than I, and yet, in Murial's sweet patient
+words,--
+
+           'God has been good to me; you must not think
+            That I despair. _There is a quiet time
+            Like evening in my soul. I have no heart_.'"
+
+There was more peace in Olga's countenance as she clasped one of
+Regina's hands in hers than her companion had yet seen, and after a
+moment, she continued:
+
+"You know, dear, that we are only waiting for Congress to adjourn, in
+order to have Mr. Chesley's escort across the ocean, and he will
+arrive to-morrow. Erle Palma is exceedingly anxious that you should
+accompany us, and I trust your mother will sanction this arrangement,
+for I should grieve to leave you here. Perhaps you are not aware that
+your guardian has recently sold this house, and intends purchasing
+one on Murray Hill."
+
+"Mr. Palma cannot possibly desire my departure half so earnestly as I
+do, and if I am not summoned to join my mother, I shall insist upon
+returning to the convent whence he took me seven years ago. There I
+can continue my studies, and there I prefer to remain until I can be
+restored to my mother. Olga, how soon will Mr. Palma be married?"
+
+"I do not know. He communicates his plans to no one; but I may safely
+say, if he consulted merely his own wishes, it would not be long
+delayed. Until quite recently, I did not believe it possible that
+that man's cold, proud, ambitious, stony heart would bow before any
+woman, but human nature is a riddle which baffles us all--sometimes.
+I must dress for the wedding, and mamma will scold me if I am late.
+Kiss me, dear child. Ah, velvet violet eyes! if I find a
+resting-place in heaven, I shall always want even there to hover near
+you."
+
+She kissed the girl's colourless cheek, and left her; and when the
+carriage bore Olga and her mother to Mrs. St. Clare's, Regina
+retreated to her own room, dreading lest her guardian should return
+and find her in the library.
+
+At breakfast he had mentioned that he would dine at his club, in
+honour of some eminent judge from a distant State, to whom the
+members of the "Century" had tendered a dinner, but she endeavoured
+to avoid even the possibility of meeting him alone. Had she been less
+merciless in her self-denunciation, his avowed impatience to send her
+to her mother might have piqued her pride; but it only increased her
+scorn of her own fatal folly, and intensified her desire to leave his
+presence. Was it to gratify Mrs. Carew's extravagant taste that he
+had sold this elegant house, and designed the purchase of one yet
+more costly?
+
+In the midst of her heart-ache she derived some satisfaction from the
+reflection, that at least Mr. Palma's wife would never profane the
+beautiful library, where his ward had spent so many happy days, and
+which was indissolubly linked with sacred memories of its master.
+Unwilling to indulge a reverie so fraught with pain and humiliation,
+she returned to her "Egmont," resuming her translation of a speech by
+"Claerchen." Ere long Hattie knocked at the door:
+
+"Mr. Palma says, please to come down to the library; he wishes to
+speak to you."
+
+"Ask him if he will not be so kind as to wait till morning? Say I
+shall feel very much obliged if he will excuse me tonight."
+
+In a few minutes she returned:
+
+"He is sorry he must trouble you to come down this evening, as he
+leaves home to-morrow."
+
+"Very well."
+
+She went to the drawer that contained all her souvenirs of Mr.
+Lindsay, and lingered some minutes, looking sorrowfully at the
+photograph; then passed her lips to the melancholy image, and as if
+strengthened by communion with the dead face, went down to the
+library.
+
+Mr. Palma was walking slowly up and down the long room, and had
+paused in front of the snowy azalea. As she approached he put out his
+hand and took hers, for the first time since they had sat together in
+the Park.
+
+"How deliciously this perfumes the room, and it must be yours, for no
+other member of the household cares for flowers, and I see a cluster
+of the same blossoms in your hair."
+
+"I had forgotten that Olga fastened them there this afternoon. I
+bought it from the greenhouse in ---- Street, where I often get
+bouquets to place under mother's picture. Azaleas were Mr. Lindsay's
+favourite flowers, and that fact tempted me to make the purchase. We
+had just such a one as this at the parsonage, and on his birthday we
+covered the pot with white cambric, fringed the edge with violets,
+and set it in the centre of the breakfast-table; and the bees came in
+and swung over it."
+
+She had withdrawn her hand, and folding her fingers, leaned her face
+on them, a position which she often assumed when troubled. Her left
+hand was uppermost, and the opal and diamonds seemed pressed against
+her lips, though she was unconscious of their close proximity. Mr.
+Palma broke off a cluster of three half-expanded flowers, twisted the
+stem into the buttonhole of his coat, and answered coldly:
+
+"Flowers are always associated in my mind with early recollections of
+my mother, who had her own greenhouse and conservatories. They appear
+to link you with the home of your former guardian, and the days that
+were happier than those you speed here."
+
+"That dear parsonage was my happiest home, and I shall always cherish
+its precious memories."
+
+"Happier than a residence under my roof has been? Be so good as to
+look at me; it is the merest courtesy to do so, when one is being
+spoken to."
+
+"Pardon me, sir, I was not instituting a comparison; and while I am
+grateful for the kindness and considerate hospitality shown me by all
+in this pleasant house, it has never seemed to me quite the home that
+I found the dear old parsonage."
+
+"Because you prefer country to city life? Love to fondle white
+rabbits, and pigeons, and stand ankle deep in clover blooms?"
+
+"I daresay that is one reason; for my tastes are certainly very
+childish still."
+
+"Then of course you regret the necessity which brought you to reside
+here?"
+
+He bent an unusually keen look upon her, but she quietly met his
+eyes, and answered without hesitation:
+
+"You must forgive me, sir, if your questions compel me to sacrifice
+courtesy to candour. I do regret that I ever came to live in this
+city; and I believe it would have been better for me, if I had
+remained at V---- with Mr. Hargrove and the Lindsays."
+
+"You mean that you would have been happier with them than with me?"
+
+As she thought of the keen suffering her love for him had entailed
+upon her, of the dreary days and sleepless nights she had recently
+passed in that elegant luxurious home, her eyes deepened in tint,
+saddened in expression, and she said:
+
+"You have been very kind and generous to me, and I gratefully
+appreciate all you have done; but if you insist on an answer, I must
+confess I was happier two years ago than I am now."
+
+"Thank you. The truth, no matter how unflattering, is always far more
+agreeable to me than equivocation, or disingenuous-ness. Does my ward
+believe that it will conduce to her future happiness to leave my
+roof, and find a residence elsewhere?"
+
+"I know I should be happier with my mother."
+
+"Then I congratulate myself as the bearer of delightful tidings
+Regina, it gives me pleasure to relieve you from your present
+disagreeable surroundings, by informing you of the telegram received
+to-day by cable from your mother. It was dated two days ago at
+Naples, and is as follows: 'Send Regina to me by the first steamer to
+Havre. I will meet her in Paris.'"
+
+Involuntarily the girl exclaimed:
+
+"Thank God!"
+
+The joyful expression of her countenance rendered it impossible to
+doubt the genuineness of her satisfaction at the intelligence; and
+though Mr. Palma kept close guard over his own features lest they
+should betray his emotion, an increasing paleness attested the depth
+of his feelings.
+
+"How soon can I go?"
+
+"In two days a steamer sails for Havre, and I have already engaged a
+passage for you. Doubtless you are aware that Mrs. Palma and Olga
+hold themselves in readiness to start at any hour, and your friend
+and admirer Mr. Chesley will go over in the same steamer;
+consequently with so chivalrous an escort you cannot fail to have a
+pleasant voyage. Since you are so anxious to escape from my
+guardianship, I may be pardoned for emulating your frankness, and
+acknowledging that I am heartily glad you will soon cease to be my
+ward. Mr. Chesley is ambitious of succeeding to my authority, and I
+have relinquished my claim as guardian, and referred him to your
+mother, to whose hands I joyfully resign you. A residence in Europe
+will, I hope, soon obliterate the unpleasant associations connected
+with my house."
+
+"A lifetime would never obliterate the memory of all your kindness to
+me, or of some hours I have passed in this beautiful library. For all
+you have done I now desire, Mr. Palma, to thank you most sincerely."
+
+She looked up at the grave, composed face so handsome in its regular,
+high-bred outlines, and her mouth trembled, while her deep eyes grew
+misty.
+
+"I desire no thanks for the faithful discharge of my duty as a
+guardian: my conscience acquits me fully, and that is the reward I
+value most. If you really indulge any grateful sentiments on the eve
+of your departure, oblige me by singing something. I bought that
+organ, hoping that now and then when my business permitted me to
+spend a quiet evening at home, I might enjoy your music; but you
+sedulously avoid touching it when I am present. This is the last
+opportunity you will have, for I must meet Mr. Chesley at noon
+to-morrow in Baltimore, and thence I go on to Cincinnati, where I
+shall be detained, until the steamer has sailed. After to-night I
+shall not see my ward again."
+
+They were standing near the azalea, and Regina suddenly put her hand
+on the back of a chair. To see him no more after this evening--to
+know that the broad ocean rolled between--that she might never again
+look upon the face that was so inexpressibly dear;--all this swept
+over her like a bitter murderous wave, drowning the sweetness of her
+life, and she clung to the chair.
+
+She was not prepared for this sudden separation, but though his eyes
+were riveted upon her she bore it bravely. A faint numb sensation
+stole over her, and a dark shadow seemed to float through the room,
+yet her low voice was steady, when she said:
+
+"I am sorry I disappointed any pleasant anticipations you indulged
+with reference to the organ, which has certainly been a source of
+much comfort to me. I have felt very timid about singing before you,
+sir; but if it will afford you the least pleasure, I am willing to
+do the best of which I am capable."
+
+"You sang quite successfully before a large audience at Mrs.
+Brompton's, and displayed sufficient self-possession."
+
+"But those were strangers, and the opinion of those with whom we live
+is more important, their criticism is more embarrassing."
+
+"I believe I was present, and heard you on that occasion."
+
+She moved away to the organ, and sat down, glad of an excuse, for her
+limbs trembled.
+
+"Regina, what was that song you sang for little Llora Carew the night
+before she left us? Indeed there were two, one with the other without
+an accompaniment?"
+
+"You were not here at that time."
+
+"No matter; what were they? The child fancies them exceedingly, and I
+promised to get the words for her."
+
+"Kuecken's 'Schlummerlied,' and a little 'Cradle Song' by Wallace."
+
+"Be so good as to let me hear them."
+
+Would Mrs. Carew sing them for him when she was far away, utterly
+forgotten by her guardian? The thought was unutterably bitter, and it
+goaded her, aided her in the ordeal.
+
+With nerves strung to their extreme tension, she sang as he
+requested, and all the while her rich mellow voice rolled through the
+room, he walked very slowly from one end of the library to the other.
+She forced herself to sing every verse, and when she concluded he was
+standing behind her chair. He put his hands on her shoulders, and
+prevented her rising, for just then he was unwilling she should see
+his countenance, which he feared would betray the suffering he was
+resolved to conceal.
+
+After a moment, he said:
+
+"Thank you. I shall buy the music in order to secure the words.
+Lily----"
+
+He paused, bent down, and rested his chin on the large coil of hair
+at the back of her head, and though she never knew it his proud lips
+touched the glossy silken mass.
+
+"Lily, if I ask a foolish trifle of you, will you grant it, as a
+farewell gift to your guardian?"
+
+"I think, sir, you do not doubt that I will."
+
+"It is a trivial thing, and will cost you nothing. The night on which
+you sang those songs to Llora is associated with something which I
+treasure as peculiarly precious; and I merely wish to request that
+you will never sing them again for any one unless I give you
+permission."
+
+Swiftly she recalled the fact that on that particular evening he had
+escorted Mrs. Carew to a "German" at Mrs. Quimbey's, and she
+explained his request by the supposition that her songs to Mrs.
+Carew's child commemorated the date of his betrothal to the grey-eyed
+mother. Could she bear even to think of them in coming years?
+
+She hastily pushed back the ivory stops, and shaking off his
+detaining palms, rose:
+
+"I am sorry that I cannot do something of more importance to oblige
+my kind guardian; for this trifle involves not the slightest
+sacrifice of feeling, and I would gladly improve a better opportunity
+of attesting my gratitude. You may rest assured I shall never sing
+those words again under any circumstances. Do not buy the music; I
+will leave my copies for Llora, and you and her mother can easily
+teach her the words."
+
+"Thanks! You will please place the music on the organ, and when I
+come back from Cincinnati it will remind me. I hope your mother will
+be pleased with you progress in French German, and music. Your
+teachers furnish very flattering reports, and I have enclosed them
+with some receipts, bills, and other valuable papers in this large
+sealed envelope, which you must give to your mother as soon as you
+see her."
+
+He went to his desk, took out the package, and handed it to her.
+Seating himself at the table where she generally wrote and studied,
+he pointed to a chair on the opposite side, and mechanically she sat
+down.
+
+"Perhaps you may recollect that some months ago, Mrs. Orme wrote me
+she was particularly desirous you should be trained to read well. It
+is a graceful accomplishment, especially for a lady, and I ordered a
+professor of elocution to give you instruction twice a week. I hope
+you have derived benefit from his tuition, as he has fitted one or
+two professional readers for the stage, and I should dislike to have
+your mother feel disappointed in any of your attainments. Now that I
+am called upon to render an account of my stewardship, I trust you
+will pardon me, if I examine you a little. Here is Jean Ingelow,
+close at hand, and I must trouble you to allow me an opportunity of
+testing your proficiency."
+
+The book which she had been reading that day lay on the table, and
+taking it up he leisurely turned over the leaves. A premonitory dread
+seized her, and she wrung her hands, which were lying cold in her
+lap.
+
+"Ah!--here is your mark; three purple pansies, crushed in the middle
+of 'Divided,'--staining the delicate cream-tinted paper with their
+dark blood. Probably you are familiar with this poem, consequently
+can interpret it for me without any great effort. Commence at the
+first, and let me see what value Professor Chrysostom's training
+possesses. Not too fast; recollect Pegasus belongs to poets,--never
+to readers."
+
+He leaned across the marble table, and placed the open book before
+her.
+
+Did he intentionally torture her? With those bright eyes reading her
+unwomanly and foolish heart, was he amusing himself, as an
+entomologist impales a feeble worm, and from its writhing deduces the
+exact character of its nervous and muscular anatomy?
+
+The thought struck her more severely than the stroke of a lash would
+have done, and turning the page to the light, she said quickly:
+
+"'Divided' is not at all dramatic, and as an exercise is not
+comparable to 'High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire,' or 'Songs of
+Seven,' or even that most exquisite of all, 'Afternoon at a
+Parsonage.'"
+
+"Try 'Divided.'"
+
+She dared not refuse lest he should despise her utterly, interpreting
+correctly her reluctance. For an instant the print danced before her,
+but the spirit of defiance was fast mastering her trepidation, and
+she sat erect, and obeyed him.
+
+Thrusting one hand inside his vest, where it rested tightly clenched
+over his heart, Mr. Palma sat intently watching her, glad of the
+privilege afforded him to study the delicate features. Her excessive
+paleness reminded him of the words:
+
+        "That white, white face, set in a night of hair,"
+
+and though the chastening touch of sorrow and continued
+heart-ache--that most nimble of all chisellers--had strangely matured
+the countenance which when it entered that house was as free from
+lines and shadows as an infant's, it still preserved its almost
+child-like purity and repose.
+
+The proud fair face, with its firm yet dainty scarlet lips, baffled
+him; and when he reflected that a hundred contingencies might arise
+to shut it from his view in future years he suddenly compressed his
+mouth to suppress a groan. His vanity demanded an assurance that her
+heart was as entirely his as he hoped, yet he knew that he loved her
+all the more tenderly, and reverently, because of the true womanly
+delicacy that prompted her to shroud her real feelings, with such
+desperate tenacity.
+
+She read the poem with skill and pathos, but no undue tremor of the
+smooth, deliciously sweet voice betrayed aught save the natural
+timidity of a tyro, essaying her first critical trial. Tonight she
+wore a white shawl draped in statuesque folds over her shoulders and
+bust, and the snowy flowers in her raven hair were scarcely purer
+than her full forehead, borne up by the airy arched black bows that
+had always attracted the admiration of her fastidious guardian; and
+as the soft radiance of the clustered lamps fell upon her, she looked
+as sweet and lovely a woman as ever man placed upon the sacred hearth
+of his home, a holy priestess to keep it bright, serene, and warm.
+
+On that same day, but a few hours earlier, she had perused these
+pages, wondering how the unknown gifted poetess beyond the sea had so
+accurately etched the suffering in her own young heart, the
+loneliness and misery that seemed coiled in the future like serpents
+in a lair. Now, holding that bruised palpitating heart under the
+steel-clad heel of pride, she was calmly declaiming that portraiture
+of her own wretchedness, as any elocutionist might a grand passage
+from the "_Antigone_," or "_Prometheus_." Not a throb of pain was
+permitted to ripple the rich voice that uttered:
+
+        "But two are walking apart for ever,
+         And wave their hands in a mute farewell."
+
+Farther on, nearing the close, Mr. Palma observed a change in the
+countenance, a quick gleam in the eyes, a triumphant ring in the deep
+and almost passionate tone that cried exultingly:
+
+        "Only my heart to my heart will show it
+         As I walk desolate day by day."
+
+He leaned forward and touched the volume:
+
+"Thank you. Give me the book. I should render the concluding verses
+very much as I heard them recently from my fair client, Mrs.
+Carew--so."
+
+In his remarkably clear, full, musical and carefully modulated voice
+he read the two remaining verses, then closed the volume and looked
+coolly across the table at the girl.
+
+With what a flash her splendid eyes challenged his, and how proudly
+her tender lips curled, as with pitiless scorn she answered:
+
+"Not so--oh, not so. Jean Ingelow would never recognize her own
+jewelled handiwork. She meant this, and any earnest woman who prized
+a faithful lover could not fail to read it aright."
+
+Her eyes sank till they rested on her ring, and slipping it to and
+fro upon her slender finger till the diamonds sparkled, she repeated
+with indescribable power and pathos:
+
+        "And yet I know, past all doubting, truly,--
+           A knowledge greater than grief can dim--
+         I know, as he loved, he will love me duly,
+           Yea better, e'en better than I love him.
+         And as I walk by the vast calm river,
+           The awful river so dread to see,
+         I say 'Thy breadth and thy depth for ever--
+           Are bridged by his thoughts that cross to me.'"
+
+"Regina, do you interpret that the River of Death?"
+
+She pointed to the jewels on her hand, and the blue eyes cold as
+steel met his.
+
+"Only the river of death could have 'divided' Douglass and me."
+
+A frown overshadowed his massive brow, but he merely added
+composedly:
+
+"I did not suspect until to-night that you were endowed with your
+mother's histrionic talent. Some day you will rival her as an
+actress, and at least I may venture to congratulate you upon the
+fact that she will scarcely be disappointed in your dramatic skill."
+
+For nearly a moment, neither spoke.
+
+"Mr. Palma, you have no objection, I hope, to my carrying mother's
+portrait with me?"
+
+"It is undeniably your property, but since you will so soon possess
+the original, I would suggest the propriety of leaving the picture
+where it is, until your mother decides where she will reside."
+
+"I understood that you had sold this house, and feared that in the
+removal it might be injured."
+
+"It will be carefully preserved with my own pictures, and if your
+mother wishes it forwarded I will comply with her instructions. All
+the business details of your voyage I have arranged with Mrs. Palma
+and Mr. Chesley; and you have only to pack your trunks and bid adieu
+to such friends as you may deem worthy of a farewell visit. Have you
+a copy of Jean Ingelow?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Then oblige me by accepting mine. I have no time for poetry."
+
+He took the book to his desk, wrote upon the fly leaf: "Lily, March
+the 10th;" then marked "Divided," and returning to the table held the
+volume toward her.
+
+"Thank you, but indeed, sir, I do not wish to accept it. I much
+prefer that you should retain it."
+
+He inclined his head, and replaced the book on the marble slab. She
+rose, and he saw the colour slowly ebbing from her lips.
+
+"Mr. Palma, I hope you will not deny me one great favour. I cannot
+leave my dog; I must have my Hero."
+
+"Indeed! I thought you had quite forgotten his existence. You have
+ceased to manifest any interest in him."
+
+"Yes, to manifest, but not to feel. You took him from me, and I was
+unwilling to annoy you with useless petitions and complaints. You
+assured me he was well cared for, and that I need not expect to have
+him while I remained here; now I am going away for ever, I want him.
+You gave him to me once; he is mine; and you have no right to
+withhold him any longer."
+
+"Circumstances have materially altered. When you were a little girl I
+sent you a dog to romp with. Now you are a young lady preparing for
+European conquests, and having had his day, Hero must retire to the
+rustic shade of your childhood."
+
+"Years have not changed my feeling for all that I love."
+
+"Are you sure, Lily, that you have not changed since you came to live
+in New York?"
+
+"Not in my attachment to all that brightened my childhood, and Hero
+is closely linked with the dear happy time I spent at the parsonage.
+Mr. Palma, I want him."
+
+Her guardian smiled, and played with his watch chain.
+
+"Officers of the ocean steamers dislike to furnish passage for dogs;
+and they are generally forwarded by sailing vessels. My ward, I
+regret to refuse you, particularly when we are about to say good-bye,
+possibly for ever. Wait six months, and if at the expiration of that
+time, you still desire to have him cross the ocean, I pledge myself
+to comply with your wishes. You know I never break a promise."
+
+"Where is Hero? May I not at least see him before I go?"
+
+"Just now he is at a farm on Staten Island, and I am sorry I cannot
+gratify you in such a trivial matter. Trust me to take care of him."
+
+Her heart was slowly sinking, for she saw him glance at the clock,
+and knew that it was very late.
+
+"I will bring you good tidings of your pet, when I see you in Europe.
+If I live, I shall probably cross the ocean some time during the
+summer; and as my business will oblige me to meet your mother, I
+shall hope to see my ward during my tour, which will be short."
+
+He was watching her very closely, and instead of pleased surprise,
+discerned the expression of dread, the unmistakable shiver that
+greeted the announcement of his projected trip. After all, had he
+utterly mistaken her feeling, flattered himself falsely?
+
+She supposed he referred to his bridal tour, and the thought that
+when they next met he would be Brunella Carew's husband, goaded her
+to hope that such torture might be averted by seeing him no more.
+
+While both stood sorrowful and perplexed, the front door bell rang
+sharply. Soon after Terry entered, with a large official envelope,
+sealed with red wax.
+
+"From Mr. Rodney, sir."
+
+"Yes, I was expecting it. Tell Octave I must have a cup of coffee at
+daylight, and Farley must not fail to have the _coupe_ ready to take
+me to the depot. Let the gas burn in the hall to-night. That is all."
+
+Mr. Palma broke the seals, glanced at the heading of several sheets
+of legal cap, and laid the whole on his desk.
+
+"Regina, all the money belonging to you I shall leave in Mrs. Palma's
+hands, and she will transmit it to you. Mr. Chesley will take charge
+of you to-morrow, soon after his arrival, and in the chivalric new
+guardian I presume the former grim custodian will speedily be
+forgotten. I have some letters to write, and as I shall leave home
+before you are awake, I must bid you good-bye to-night. Is there
+anything you wish to say to me?"
+
+Twice she attempted to speak, but no sound was audible.
+
+Mr. Palma came close to her, and held out his hand. Silently she
+placed hers in it, and when he took the other, holding both in a warm
+tightening clasp, she felt as if the world were crumbling beneath her
+unsteady feet. Her large soft eyes sought his handsome pale face,
+wistfully, hungrily, almost despairingly, and oh, how dear he was to
+her at that moment! If she could only put her arms around his neck,
+and cling to him, feeling as she had once done the touch of his cheek
+pressing hers; but there was madness in the thought.
+
+"Although you are so anxious to leave my care and my house, I hope my
+ward will think kindly of me when far distant. It is my misfortune
+that you gave your fullest confidence and affection, to your guardian
+Mr. Hargrove; but since you were committed to nay hands, I have
+endeavoured faithfully, conscientiously, to do my duty in every
+respect. In some things it has cost me dear,--how dear I think you
+will never realize. If I should live to see you again, I trust I
+shall find you the same earnest, true-hearted, pure girl that you
+leave me, for in your piety and noble nature I have a deep and
+abiding faith. My dear ward, good-bye."
+
+The beautiful face with its mournful tender eyes told little of the
+fierce agony that seemed consuming her, as she gazed into the beloved
+countenance for the last time.
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Palma. I have no words to thank you for all your care
+and goodness."
+
+"Is that all, Lily? Years ago, when I left you at the parsonage,
+looking as if your little heart would break, you said, 'I will pray
+for you every night.' Now you leave me without a tear and with no
+promise to remember me."
+
+Tenderly his low voice appealed to her heart, as he bent his head so
+close that his hair swept across her brow.
+
+She raised the hand that held hers, suddenly kissed it with an
+overwhelming passionate fervour, and holding it against her cheek,
+murmured almost in a whisper:
+
+"God knows I have never ceased to pray for you, and, Mr. Palma, as
+long as I live, come what may to both of us, I shall never fail in my
+prayers for you."
+
+She dropped his hand, and covered her face with her own.
+
+He stretched his arms toward her, all his love in his fine eyes, so
+full of a strange tenderness, a yearning to possess her entirely, but
+he checked himself, and, taking one of the hands, led her to the
+door. Upon the threshold she rallied, and looked up:
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Palma."
+
+He drew her close to his side, unconscious that he pressed her
+fingers so tight that the small points of the diamonds cut into the
+flesh.
+
+"God bless you, Lily. Think of me sometimes."
+
+They looked in each other's eyes an instant, and she walked away. He
+turned and closed the door, and she heard the click of the lock
+inside. Blind and tearless, like one staggering from a severe blow,
+she reached her own room, and fell heavily across the foot of her
+bed.
+
+Through the long hours of that night she lay motionless, striving to
+hush the moans of her crushed heart, and wondering why such anguish
+as hers was not fatal. Staring at the wall, she could not close her
+eyes, and the only staff that supported her in the ordeal was the
+consciousness that she had fought bravely, had not betrayed her
+humiliating secret.
+
+Toward dawn she rose, and opened her window. The sleet had ceased,
+and the carriage was standing before the door. An impulse she could
+not resist drove her out into the hall, to catch one more glimpse of
+the form so precious to her. She heard a door open on the hall
+beneath, and recognized her guardian's step. He paused, and she heard
+him talking to his stepmother, bidding her adieu. His last words were
+deep and gentle in their utterance.
+
+"Be very tender and patient with Olga. Wounds like hers heal slowly.
+Take good care of my ward. God bless you all."
+
+Descending the steps she saw him distinctly, enveloped in an overcoat
+buttoned so close that it showed the fine proportions of his tall
+figure; and as he stopped to light his cigar at a gas globe which a
+bronze Atalanta held in a niche half way up the stairs, his nobly
+formed head and gleaming forehead impressed itself for ever on her
+memory.
+
+Slowly he went down, and leaning over the balustrade to watch the
+vanishing figure, the withered azaleas slipped from her hair, and
+floated like a snowflake down, down to the lower hall.
+
+Fearful of discovery she shrank back, but not before he had seen the
+drifting flowers, and one swift upward glance showed him the blanched
+suffering face pale as a summer cloud, retreating from observation.
+Stooping, he snatched the bruised wilted petals that seemed a fit
+symbol of the drooping flower he was leaving behind him, kissed them
+tenderly, and thrust them into his bosom.
+
+The blessed assurance so long desired seemed nestling in their
+perfumed corollas making all his future fragrant; and how little she
+dreamed of the precious message they breathed from her heart to his!
+
+        "What could he do indeed? A weak white girl
+         Held all his heartstrings in her small white hand;
+         His hopes, and power, and majesty were hers,
+         And not his own."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+"No, mother; no. Not less, but more beautiful; not so pale as when
+you hang over me at the convent, baptizing me with hot, fast dripping
+tears. Now a delicate flush like the pink of an apple bloom
+overspreads your cheeks; and your eyes, once so sad, eyes which I
+remember as shimmering stars, burning always on the brink of clouds,
+and magnified and misty through a soft veil of April rain, are
+brighter, happier eyes than those I have so fondly dreamed of. Oh,
+mother! mother! Draw me close, hold me tight. Earth has no peace so
+holy as the blessed rest in a mother's clasping arms. After the long
+winter of separation, it is so sweet to bask in your presence,
+thawing like a numb dormouse in the sunshine of May. I knew I should
+find joy in the reunion, but how deep, how full, anticipation failed
+to paint; and only the blessed reality has taught me."
+
+On the carpet at her mother's feet, with her head in her mother's lap
+and her arms folded around her waist, Regina had thrown herself,
+feasting her eyes with the beauty of the face smiling down upon her.
+It was the second day after her arrival in Paris, and hour after hour
+she had poured into eagerly listening ears the recital of her life at
+the quiet parsonage, at the stately mansion on Fifth Avenue; and yet
+the endless stream of talk flowed on, and neither mother nor child
+took cognizance of the flight of time.
+
+Of her past the girl withheld only the acknowledgment of her profound
+interest in Mr. Palma, and when questioned concerning his opposition
+to her engagement with Mr. Lindsay she had briefly announced her
+belief that he was hastening the preparations for his marriage with
+Mrs. Carew. Of him she spoke only in quiet terms of respect and
+gratitude, and her mother never suspected the spasm of pain that the
+bare mention of his name aroused.
+
+Thus far no allusion had been hazarded to the long-veiled mystery of
+her parentage, and Mrs. Orme wondered at the exceeding delicacy with
+which her daughter avoided every reference that might have been
+construed into an inquiry. As the soft motherly hand passed
+caressingly over the forehead resting so contentedly on her knee,
+Regina continued:
+
+"In all the splendid imagery that makes 'Aurora Leigh' deathless,
+nothing affected me half so deeply as the portrait of the motherless
+child; and often when I could not sleep, I have whispered in the wee
+sma' hours:
+
+        "I felt a mother want about the world,
+         And still went seeking, like a bleating lamb
+         Left out at night, in shutting up the fold,
+         As restless as a nest-deserted bird,
+         Grown chill through something being away, though what--
+         It knows not. So mothers have God's license to be missed."
+
+"My guardians were noble, kind, high-toned, honourable gentlemen, and
+I owe them thanks, but ah! a girl should be ward only to those who
+gave her being; and, mother, brown-eyed mother, sweet and holy, it
+would have been better for your child had she shared her past with
+none but you. Do I weary you with my babble? If so, lay your hand
+upon my mouth, and I will watch your dear face, and be silent."
+
+In answer, the mother stooped and kissed many times the perfect lips
+that smiled at the pressure; but the likeness to a mouth dangerously
+sweet, treacherously beautiful, mocked her, and Regina saw her turn
+away her eyes, and felt rather than heard the strangled moan.
+
+"Mother-kisses, the sweetest relic of Eden that followed Eve into a
+world of pain. All these dreary years I have kept your memory like a
+white angel-image, set it up for worship, offered it the best part of
+myself; and I know I have grown jealously exacting, where you are
+concerned. I studied because I wished you to be proud of me; I
+practised simply that my music might be acceptable and pleasant to
+you; and when people praised me, said I was pretty, I rejoiced that
+one day I might be considered worthy of you. Something wounded me
+when at last we met. Let me tell you, my dearest, that you may take
+out the thorn, and heal the grieved spot. The day I came,--how long
+ago? for I am in a delicious dream, have been eating the luscious
+lotos of realized hope,--the day I came, and saw a new, glorious sun
+shining from my mother's eyes, you ran to meet me. I hear you again,
+'My baby! my baby!' as you rushed across the floor. You opened your
+arms, and when you clasped me to your bosom you bent my head back,
+and gazed at me--oh! how eagerly, hungrily; and I saw your face turn
+ghastly white, and a great agony sweep across it, and the lips that
+kissed me were cold and quivering. To me it was all sweet as heaven;
+but the cup of delight I drained, had bitter drops for you. Mother,
+tell me, were you disappointed in your daughter?"
+
+"No, darling; no. The little blue-eyed child has grown into a woman,
+of whom the haughtiest mother in the land might be proud. My darling
+is all I wish her."
+
+"Ah, mother! the flattery is inexpressibly sweet, falling like dew on
+parched leaves; but the eyes of your idolatrous baby have grown very
+keen, and I know that the sight of me brings you a terrible pain you
+cannot hide. Last night, when Mrs. Waul made me shake out my hair to
+show its length, and praised it and my eyebrows, you dropped my hand,
+and walked away; and in the mirror on the wall, I saw your
+countenance shaken with grief. What is it? We have been apart so
+long, do take me into your heart fully; tell me why you look at me,
+and turn aside and shiver?"
+
+Her clasping arms tightened about her mother's waist, and after a
+short silence, Mrs. Orme exclaimed:
+
+"It is true. It has always been so. From the hour when you were born,
+and your little round head black with silky locks was first laid upon
+my arm, your face stabbed me like a dagger, and your eyes are blue
+steel that murder my peace. My daughter, my daughter, you are the
+exact counterpart, the beautiful image of your father! It is because
+I see in your eyes so wonderfully blue the reproduction of his, and
+about your mouth and brows the graceful lines of his, that I shudder
+while I look at you. Ah, my darling! is it not hard that your beauty
+should sting like a serpent the mother whose blood filled your veins?
+The very tones of your voice, the carriage of your head, even the
+peculiar shape of your fingers and nails, are his--all his! Oh, my
+baby! my white lamb! my precious little one, if I had not fed you
+from my bosom--cradled you in my arms--realized that you were indeed
+flesh of my flesh--my own unfortunate, unprotected disowned baby, I
+believe I should hate you!"
+
+She bowed her head in her hands, and groaned aloud.
+
+"Forgive me, mother. If I had imagined the real cause, I would never
+have inquired. Let it pass. Tell me nothing that will bring such a
+storm of grief as this. God knows I wish I resembled you--only you."
+
+She covered her mother's hands with kisses, and tears gathered in her
+eyes.
+
+"No; God knew best, and in His wisdom, His mercy for widowhood and
+orphanage, He stamped your father's unmistakable likeness indelibly
+upon you. Providentially a badge of honourable parentage was set upon
+the deserted infant, which neither fraud, slander, nor perjury can
+ever remove. The laws God set to work in nature defy the calumny, the
+corruption, the vindictive persecution and foul injustice cloaked
+under legal statutes, human decrees; and though a world swore to the
+contrary, your face proclaims your father, and his own image will
+hunt him through all his toils and triumphantly confront him with his
+crime. No jury ever empanelled could see you side by side with your
+father, and dare to doubt that you were his child! No, bitter as are
+the memories your countenance recalls, I hold it the keenest weapon
+in the armoury of my revenge."
+
+"Let us talk of something that grieves and agitates you less. May I
+sing you a song always associated with your portrait, an invocation
+sacred to my lovely mother?"
+
+"No, sometime you must know the history I have carefully hidden from
+all but Mr. Palma and your dead guardian; and now that the bitter
+waves are already roaring over me, why should I delay the narration?
+It was not my purpose to tell you thus, I though it would too
+completely unnerve me, and I wrote the story of my life in the form
+of a drama, and called it _Infelice!_ But the recital is in Mr.
+Chesley's hands for perusal; and I shall feel stronger, less
+oppressed, when I have talked freely with you. Kiss me, my pure
+darling, my own little nameless treasure, my fatherless baby; for
+indeed I need the elixir of my daughter's love to keep me human when
+I dwell upon the past."
+
+She strained the girl to her heart, then put her away and rose.
+Opening a strong metallic box concealed in a drawer of the
+dressing-table, she took out several papers, some yellowed with age,
+and blurred with tears, and while Regina still sat, with her arm
+resting on the chair, Mrs. Orme locked the door, and began to walk
+slowly up and down the room.
+
+"One moment, mother. I want to know why my heart is drawn so steadily
+and so powerfully toward Mr. Chesley, and why something in his face
+reminds me tenderly of you? Are you quite willing to tell me why he
+seems so deeply interested in me?"
+
+"Regina, have you never guessed? Orme Chesley is my uncle, my
+mother's only brother."
+
+"Oh, how rejoiced I am! I hoped he was in some mysterious way related
+to us, but I feared to lean too much upon the pleasant thought, lest
+it proved a disappointment. My own uncle? What a blessing! Does Mr.
+Palma know it?"
+
+"Mr. Palma first suspected and traced the relationship, and it was
+from him that Uncle Orme learned of my existence, for it appears he
+believed me dead. Mr. Palma has long held all the tangled threads of
+my miserable history in his skilful hands, and to his prudent,
+patient care you and I shall owe our salvation. For years he has been
+to me the truest, wisest, kindest friend a deserted and helpless
+woman ever found."
+
+Regina sank her head upon the chair, afraid that her radiant face
+might betray the joy his praises kindled; and while she walked, Mrs.
+Orme began her recital:
+
+"My grandfather, Hubert Chesley, was from Alsace; my grandmother
+originally belonged to the French family of Ormes. They had two
+children, Orme the eldest, and Minetta, who while very young married
+a travelling musician from Switzerland, named Leon Merle. A year
+after she became his wife her father died, and the family resolved
+to emigrate to America. On the voyage, which was upon a crowded
+emigrant ship, I was born; and a few hours after my mother died.
+They buried her at sea, and would to God I too had been thrown into
+the waves, for then this tale of misery would never torture innocent
+ears. But children who have only a heritage of woe, and ought to die,
+fight for existence defying adversity, and thrive strangely; so I
+lucklessly survived.
+
+"My first recollections are of a pauper quarter in a large city,
+where my father supported us scantily by teaching music. Subsequently
+we removed to several villages, and finally settled in one where were
+located a college for young gentlemen, and a seminary for girls. In
+the latter my father was employed as musical professor, and here we
+lived very comfortably until he died of congestion of the lungs.
+Uncle Orme at that time was in feeble health, and unable to
+contribute toward our maintenance, and soon after father's death he
+went out to California to the mining region. I was about ten years
+old when he left, and recollect him as a pale, thin, delicate man.
+In those days it cost a good deal of money to reach the gold mines,
+and this alone prevented him from taking us with him.
+
+"We were very poor, but grandmother was foolishly, inconsistently
+proud, and though compelled to sew for our daily bread, she dressed
+me in a style incompatible with our poverty, and contrived to send me
+to school. Finally her eyes failed, and with destitution staring
+open-jawed upon us, she reluctantly consented to do the washing and
+mending for three college boys. She was well educated, and
+inordinately vain of her blood, and how this galling necessity
+humiliated her! We of course could employ no servant, and once when
+she was confined to her bed by inflammatory rheumatism, I was sent to
+the college to carry the clothes washed and ironed that week. It was
+the only time I was ever permitted to cross the campus, but it
+sufficed to wreck my life. On that luckless day I first met Cuthbert
+Laurance, then only nineteen, while I was not yet fifteen. Think of
+it, my darling; three years younger than you are now, and you a mere
+child still! While he paid me the money due, he looked at and talked
+to me. Oh, my daughter! my daughter! as I see you at this instant,
+with your violet eyes, watching me from under those slender, black
+arches, it seems the very same regular, aristocratic, beautiful face
+that met me that wretched afternoon, beneath the branching elms that
+shaded the campus! So courteous, so winning, so chivalric, so
+indescribably handsome did he present himself to my admiring eyes. I
+was young, pretty, an innocent, ignorant, foolish child, and I
+yielded to the fascination he exerted.
+
+"Day by day the charm deepened, and he sought numerous opportunities
+of seeing me again; gave me books, brought me flowers, became the
+king of my waking thoughts, the god of my dreams. In a cottage near
+us lived a widow, Mrs. Peterson; whose only child Peleg, a rough
+overgrown lad, was a journeyman carpenter, and quite skilful in
+carving wooden figures. We had grown up together, and he seemed
+particularly fond of and kind to me, rendering me many little
+services which a stalwart man can perform for a delicate petted young
+creature such as I was then.
+
+"As grandmother's infirmity increased, and her strict supervision
+relaxed, I met Cuthbert more frequently, but as yet without her
+knowledge; and gradually be won my childish heart completely. His
+father, General Rene Laurance, was a haughty wealthy planter residing
+in one of the Middle States, and Cuthbert was his only child, the
+pride of his heart and home. Those happy days seem a misty dream to
+me now, I have so utterly outgrown the faith that lent a glory to
+that early time. Cuthbert assured me of his affection, swore undying
+allegiance to me; and like many other silly, trusting, inexperienced,
+doomed young fools, I believed every syllable that he whispered in my
+ears.
+
+"One Sabbath when grandmother supposed I was saying my prayers in the
+church, which I had left home to attend, I stole away to our trysting
+place in a neighbouring wood, that bordered a small stream. Oh, the
+bitter fruits of that filial disobedience! The accursed harvest that
+ripened for me, that it seems I shall never have done garnering!
+Clandestine interviews concealed, because I knew prohibition would
+follow discovery! I am a melancholy monument of the sin of deception;
+and that child who deliberately snatches the reins of control from
+the hands where God decrees them, and dares substitute her will and
+judgment for those of parents or guardians, drives inevitably on to
+ruin, and will live to curse her folly. That day Peleg was fishing,
+and surprised us at the moment when Cuthbert was bending down to kiss
+me. Having heard all that passed, he waited till evening, and finding
+me in the little garden attached to our house, he savagely upbraided
+me for preferring Cuthbert's society to his, claimed me as his, by
+right of devotion; and when I spurned him indignantly, and forbade
+him to speak to me in future, he became infuriated, rushed into the
+cottage, and disclosed all that he had discovered."
+
+"I knew it! I felt assured you must always have loathed him!"
+exclaimed Regina, with kindling eyes; and catching her mother's dress
+as she passed beside her.
+
+"Why, my darling?"
+
+"Because he was coarse, brutal! When he dared to call you 'Minnie,'
+if I had been a man I would have strangled him!"
+
+Her mother kissed her, and answered sadly:
+
+"And yet he loved me infinitely better than the man for whom I
+repulsed, nay insulted him. He was poor, unpolished, but at that time
+he would have died to defend me from harm. It was reserved for his
+courtly, high-bred, elegant rival to betray the trust he won! The
+storm that followed Peleg's revelation was fierce, and availing
+herself of his jealous surveillance, grandmother allowed me no more
+stolen interviews. After a fortnight, Cuthbert came one day and
+demanded permission to see me, alleging that we were betrothed, and
+that he would give satisfactory explanations of his conduct.
+Grandmother was obdurate, but unfortunately I ventured in, and,
+seizing me in his arms, he swore that all the world should not
+separate us. To her he explained that his father desired him to marry
+an heiress who lived not far from the paternal mansion, and possessed
+immense estates, upon which the covetous eyes of the Laurances' had
+long been fixed; but until he completed his collegiate course matters
+must be delayed. He protested that he could love no one but me, and
+solemnly vowed that as soon as freed by his majority from parental
+control he would make me his wife. I was sufficiently insane to
+believe it all; but grandmother was wiser, and sternly interdicted
+his visits.
+
+"A month went by, during which Peleg persecuted me with professions
+of love, and offers of marriage. How I detested him, and by contrast
+how godlike appeared my refined, polished, proud young lover! At
+length Cuthbert wrote to me, entrusting the letter to a college chum
+Gerbert Audre, but Peleg's Argus scrutiny could not be baffled, and
+again I was detected.
+
+"Meantime grandmother's strength was evidently failing, and Uncle
+Orme was far away in western wilds; who would save me from my own
+rash folly if she should die, and leave me unprotected? This
+apprehension preyed ceaselessly on her mind, she grew morose, moody,
+tyrannical; and when finally Cuthbert came once more, forcing an
+entrance into the little cottage, and asking upon what conditions he
+might be permitted to visit me, she bluntly told him that she had
+determined to take me at all hazards to a convent, and shut me up for
+ever, unless within forty-eight hours he married me. The though of
+separation made him almost frantic, and after some discussion, it was
+arranged that we should be married very secretly in a distant town,
+with only grandmother and his room-mate Andre as witnesses. Our union
+would be concealed rigidly until Cuthbert had left college and
+attained his majority, which was then nearly two years distant; at
+which time he would enter upon the possession of a certain amount of
+property left by his mother. An approaching recess of several days,
+which would enable him to absent himself without exciting suspicion,
+was selected as an auspicious occasion for the consummation we all so
+ardently desired, and very quietly the preliminary steps were taken.
+
+"By what stratagem or fraud a license was obtained, I never learned,
+and was too ignorant and unsuspicious to question or understand the
+forms essential to legality. One stormy night we were driven across
+the country to a railway station, hurried aboard the train, and next
+morning reached the town of V----. At the parsonage you know so well
+we found Mr. Hargrove, who appeared very reluctant to accede to our
+wishes. I was only fifteen, a simple-hearted child, and Cuthbert,
+though well grown, was too youthful to assume the duties of the
+position for which he presented himself as candidate. The faithful,
+prudent pastor expostulated, and declared himself unwilling to bind a
+pair of children by ties so solemn and indissoluble; but the license
+was triumphantly exhibited as a release from ministerial
+responsibility, and grandmother urged in extenuation that in the
+event of her death I would be thrown helpless upon the world, and she
+as my sole surviving protector and guardian desired to see me
+entitled to a husband's care and shelter.
+
+"At last, with an earnest protest, the conscientious man consented,
+and standing before him that sunny morning, in the presence of God,
+and of grandmother and Mr. Audre, Cuthbert Laurance and Minnie Merle
+were solemnly married! Oh, my daughter! when I think of that day, and
+its violated vows--when I remember what I was, and contrast the
+Minnie Merle of my girlhood with the blasted, wretched ruin that I
+am, my brain reels, my veins run fire!"
+
+She clasped her palms across her forehead and moaned, as the deluge
+of bitter recollections overflowed her.
+
+Tears were stealing down Regina's cheeks, as she watched the anguish
+she felt powerless to relieve, and she began to realize the depth of
+woe that had blackened all her past.
+
+"He promised to love, honour, cherish me, as long as life lasted, and
+Mr. Hargrove pronounced me his wife, and blessed me. How dared we
+expect a blessing! Cuthbert knew that he was defying, outraging his
+father's wishes, and I had earned my title by deception and
+disobedience. God help all those who build their hopes upon the
+treacherous sands of human constancy. Mr. Hargrove laid his hand upon
+my head, and said in a strangely warning tone, I might have known was
+prophetic: 'Mrs. Laurance, you are the youngest wife I ever saw, you
+are not fit to be out of the nursery; but I trust this union will not
+fulfil my forebodings, that the result will sanction my most
+reluctant performance of this hallowed ceremony.'
+
+"How supremely happy I was! How unutterably proud of my handsome
+tender husband! I do not know whether even then he truly loved me, or
+if he merely intended me as a pretty toy to amuse him during the
+tedium of college sessions; I only remember my delirious delight, my
+boundless exultation. We returned home, and Cuthbert resumed his
+college studies, but through the co-operation of his room-mate, he
+spent much of his time in our cottage. Peleg became troublesome, and
+invidious reports were set afloat. I am not aware whether grandmother
+had always intended to publish the marriage as soon as consummated,
+or whether her breach of faith sprang from some facts she
+subsequently discovered; but certainly she distrusted Cuthbert's
+sincerity of purpose, and taking Peleg into her confidence,
+despatched him to inform General Laurance of all that had occurred.
+From that hour Peleg Peterson became my most implacable and
+dangerous foe.
+
+"Dreaming of no danger, Cuthbert and I had spent but three weeks of
+wedded happiness, when, without premonition, the sun of my joy was
+suddenly blotted out. A letter arrived, speedily followed by a
+telegram summoning him to the bedside of his father, who was
+dangerously ill. Oh, fool that I was! I fancied heaven designed to
+remove a cruel parent, and thus obliterate all obstacles to the
+completion of my bliss. What blind dolts young people are! Cuthbert
+was restless, suspicious, unwilling to leave me, or appeared so, and
+when we parted, he took me in his arms, kissed away my tears,
+implored heaven to watch over his bride, his treasure, his wife; and
+swore that at the earliest possible moment he would hold 'darling
+Minnie' to his heart once more. Turn away your face, Regina, for it
+too vividly, too intolerably recalls his image as he stood bidding me
+farewell; his glossy black hair clinging in rings around his white
+brow, his magnetic blue eyes gazing tenderly into mine! Oh, the
+wonderful charm of that beautiful treacherous face! Oh, husband of my
+love I father of my innocent baby!"
+
+She threw herself into a corner of the sofa, and the dry sob that
+shook her frame told how keen was the torture. Regina followed,
+kneeling in front of her, burying her face in her mother's dress.
+
+"I saw him enter the carriage and drive away, and thirteen years
+passed before I looked upon him again. Of course the reported illness
+was a mere ruse to lull his apprehensions. His father received him
+with a hurricane of reproaches, threats, maledictions. He taunted,
+jeered  him with  having  been hoodwinked, cajoled, outwitted by a
+'wily old washwoman,' who had inveigled him into a disgraceful
+misalliance in order to betray him, to fasten upon and devour his
+wealth. One letter only I received  from Cuthbert, denouncing
+grandmother's treachery, and announcing his father's rage and threats
+to disinherit and disown him if he did not repudiate the marriage,
+which he stated was invalid on account of his son's minority. He
+wrote that he would be compelled for the present to accede to his
+father's wishes, since for nearly two years at least he was wholly
+dependent on his bounty; but assured me that on the day when he could
+claim his inheritance from his mother he would acknowledge his
+marriage at all hazards, and proclaim me his wife. That letter, the
+first and last I ever received from my husband, you can read at your
+leisure. Three days after it was dated, he and his father sailed for
+Europe, and he has never returned to America.
+
+"Although it was a cruel blow to all my brilliant anticipations, I
+did not even then dream of the fate designed for me. I loved on,
+trusted on, hoped--oh, how sanguinely! My pride was piqued at General
+Laurance's haughty, supercilious scorn of my birth and blood, and I
+determined to fit myself for the proud niche I would one day fill as
+Cuthbert's wife. My grandmother spoke French fluently, it was her
+vernacular; and my father had left some valuable and choice books. To
+these I turned with avidity, prosecuting my studies with renewed
+zest. About three months after my husband left me, Uncle Orme sent
+money to defray our expenses to California. Grandmother who foreboded
+the future, told me I had been sacrificed, abandoned, repudiated, and
+urged me to accompany her. In return, I indignantly refused, charging
+her with having fired the temple of my happiness, by the brand of her
+betrayal of the secret. Recriminations followed, we parted in anger
+and she left me, to join Uncle Orme; but not before acquainting me
+with the startling fact that Peleg Peterson had declared his
+determination to annul the marriage by furnishing infamous testimony
+against my character.
+
+"After her departure a man who acted as agent for General Laurance
+called to negotiate for a separation, advising me to make the best
+terms in my power, as it was useless for me to attempt to cope with
+General Laurance, who would mercilessly crush me if necessary, by the
+publication of disgraceful slanders which my 'old lover Peleg
+Peterson' had sworn to prove in open court. He offered me five
+thousand dollars and my passage to San Francisco, on condition of my
+renouncing all claim to the hand and name of Cuthbert Laurance. My
+husband he assured me had reached his father's house in a state of
+intoxication; and had since become convinced of my unworthiness, and
+of the necessity of severing for ever all connection with me. Not for
+an instant did I credit him. It seemed a vile machination, and I
+scornfully rejected all overtures for separation, proclaiming my
+resolution to assert and maintain my rights as a lawful wife. It was
+open war, and how they derided my proud demand for recognition!
+
+"Mr. Audre left college the week after Cuthbert was called so
+unexpectedly away, and disappeared; and grandmother died suddenly
+with rheumatism of the heart, when only a few miles distant from the
+harbour of her destination. Peleg audaciously proposed that we should
+ignore the empty worthless marriage ceremony, accept the Laurance
+bribe, and go away to the far west, where we might begin life anew.
+He told me my husband believed me unworthy, that he had convinced him
+I would dishonour his noble name, and that my reputation was at his
+own mercy. In my amazement and horror I defied him, dared him to do
+his worst; and recklessly he accepted the rash challenge. Leaving no
+clue (as I imagined), I secretly quitted the village, where gossip
+was busy with my name, and went to New York. My scanty means rapidly
+melted away, and I hired myself as a seamstress in a wealthy family.
+Not even at this stage of affairs did I lose faith in my husband, and
+bravely I confronted the knowledge that at no distant period I should
+be forced to provide for a helpless infant.
+
+"One day, in going down a steep flight of steps, with a heavy waiter
+in my hands, I missed my footing, fell, and was picked up senseless
+on the tiled floor at the foot of the stairs. A physician living near
+was called in, and as I was only the seamstress, the information he
+gave my employer induced her to send me immediately to the hospital
+for pauper women. One of my ankles was fractured, and the day after
+my admission to the hospital you were born prematurely. In a ward of
+that hospital, surrounded by strange but kind sympathetic faces, you,
+my darling, opened your blue eyes, unwelcomed by a father's love,
+unnoticed by your wretched mother; for I was delirious for many days,
+and you were three weeks old when first I knew you were my baby. Ah,
+my daughter! why did not a merciful God order us both out of the
+world then, before it persecuted and bruised us so cruelly? I have
+wished a thousand times that you had died before I ever recognized
+you as mine!"
+
+"Oh, mother, mother, pity me! Do not reproach me with the life I owe
+to you."
+
+Regina's features writhed, and, pressing her face closer against her
+mother's knee, she sobbed unrestrainedly:
+
+"My darling, blessings often come so thoroughly disguised that we
+brand them as curses, learning later that they garner all our earthly
+hopes, sometimes our heavenly; and when I look at you now, my soul
+yearns over you with a love too deep for utterance. I know that you
+were born to avenge your wrongs and mine, to aid by your baby fingers
+in lifting the load of injustice and libel that has so long borne me
+down. You are the one solitary comfort in all the wide earth, and but
+for you I should have given up the struggle long ago."
+
+Softly she stroked the silky hair and tearful cheek, and leaning back
+continued:
+
+"While I was still an inmate of the hospital, where I was known as
+Minnie Merle, Peleg Peterson found me, and proclaimed himself your
+father. He was partly intoxicated at the time, and was forcibly
+ejected; but the excitement of that dastardly horrible charge threw
+me into a relapse, and I was dangerously ill. Lying beside me on my
+cot, I watched your little face, through the slow hours of
+convalescence, and your tiny hands seemed to strengthen me for the
+labour that beckoned me back to life. For your dear sake I must brave
+the future. To one of the noble-hearted gentle Sisters of Charity who
+visited the hospital and ministered like an angel of mercy to you and
+me, I told enough of my history to explain my presence there, and
+through her influence when I was strong enough to work, I was placed
+in a position where I was permitted to keep you with me for a year. I
+knew that my only safety lay in hiding for a time from my enemy, and
+destroying all trace of my departure from the hospital, I assumed the
+name of Odille Orphia Orme, which had belonged to a sister of my
+grandmother.
+
+"I was not sixteen when you were born, and, having had my head shaved
+during my illness, my hair grew out the bright gold you see it now,
+instead of the dark brown it had hitherto been. A strange freak of
+nature, but a providential aid to the disguise I wished to maintain.
+I wrote to Cuthbert, informing him of your birth, praying his speedy
+return, but no reply came; and again and again I repeated the
+petition. At length I was answered by the return of all my letters,
+without a line of comment. Then I began to suspect what was in store
+for me, but it threatened to drive me wild; and I shut my eyes and
+refused to think, set my teeth, and hoped, hoped still. The two years
+had almost expired, and when Cuthbert was of age he would fly to his
+wife and child, solacing them for all they had endured. I could not
+afford to doubt; that way lay madness!
+
+"When you were fourteen months old, I put you in an Orphan Asylum,
+where I could see you often, and took a situation as upper maid and
+seamstress in a fashionable family on Fifth Avenue. My duties were
+light, my employers were considerate and kind, and the young ladies,
+observing my desire to improve myself, gave me the privileges of the
+library, which was well selected and extensive. They were very
+cultivated, elegant people, and I listened to their conversation,
+observed their deportment, and modelled my manners after the example
+they furnished. I was so anxious to astonish Cuthbert by my grace and
+intelligence, when he presented me to his father, and I exulted in
+the thought that even he might one day be proud of his son's wife.
+
+"How I struggled and toiled, sowing by day, reading, studying by
+night. Finding Racine, Euripides, and Shakespeare in the library, I
+perused them carefully, and accidentally I discovered my talent. The
+ladies of the house on one occasion had private theatricals, and the
+play was one with which I chanced to be familiar. At the last
+rehearsal, on the night of the play, one of the young ladies was
+suddenly seized with such violent giddiness, that she was unable to
+appear in the character she personated, and in the dilemma I was
+summoned. So successful was my performance that I saw the new path
+opening before me, and began to fit myself for it. I gave every spare
+moment to dramatic studies, and was progressing rapidly when all hope
+was crushed.
+
+"Cuthbert's birthday came; days, weeks, months rolled by, and I wrote
+one more passionate prayer for recognition; pleading that at least
+he would allow me to see him once again, that he would just once look
+at the lovely face of his child; then if he disowned both wife and
+child we would ask him no more. How I counted the weeks that crawled
+away! how fondly I still hoped that now, being of age and free, he
+would fulfil his promise!
+
+"You were two years and a half old, and I went one Sunday to visit
+you.
+
+"How well I recollect your appearance on that fatal day! Your bare
+pearly feet gleaming on the floor over which I guided your uncertain
+steps, as you tottered along clinging to my finger, your dimpled neck
+and arms displayed by the white muslin slip my hands had fashioned,
+your jetty hair curling thick and close over your round head, your
+small milk-white teeth sparkling through your open lips, as your
+large soft violet eyes laughed up in my face!--so glad you were to
+see me! You had never seemed so lovely before, and I knelt down and
+hugged you, my darling. I kissed your dainty feet and hands, your
+lips and eyes so like Cuthbert's, and I know as I caressed you my
+heart swelled with the fond pride that only mothers can understand
+and feel, and I whispered, 'Papa's baby! Papa's own darling!
+Cuthbert's baby!'
+
+"It was harder than usual to quit you that day; you clung to me,
+nestled close to me, stole your little hand into my bosom, and
+finally fell asleep. When I laid you softly down in your low
+truckle-bed, the tears would come and hang on my lashes, and while
+I lingered, passing my hand over your dear pretty feet, I determined
+that if Cuthbert did not come, or write very soon, I would take you
+and go in search of him. What man could shut his arms and heart
+against such a lovely babe who owed him her being?
+
+"It was late when I got home, and the lady with whom I lived sent for
+me in great haste. Guests had unexpectedly come from a distance,
+dinner must be served, and the butler had been called away
+inopportunely to one of his children, who had been terribly scalded.
+Could I oblige her by consenting to serve the visitors at table? She
+was a good mistress to me, and of course I did not hesitate. One of
+the guests was a nephew of the host, and recently returned from
+Europe, as I learned from the conversation. When the desert was being
+set upon the table, he said: 'No, I rather liked him; none are
+perfect, and he has sowed his wild oats, and settled down. Marriage
+is a strong social anchor, and his bride is a very heavy-looking
+woman, though enormously rich, I hear. It is said that his father
+manoeuvred the match, for Cuthbert liked being fancy free.'
+
+"The name startled me, and the master of the house asked, 'Of whom
+are you speaking?' 'Cuthbert Laurance and his recent marriage with
+Abbie Ames the banker's daughter. My mistress pulled my dress and
+directed me to bring a bottle of champagne from the side table. I
+stood like a stone, and she repeated the command. As I lifted the
+wine and started back, the stranger added: 'Here is an account of the
+wedding; quite a brilliant affair, and as I witnessed the nuptials I
+can testify the description is not exaggerated. They were married in
+Paris, and General Laurance presented the bride with a beautiful set
+of diamonds.' The bottle fell with a crash, and in the confusion I
+tottered toward the butler's pantry and sank down insensible.
+
+"Oh, the awful, intolerable agony that has been my portion ever
+since! Do you wonder that Laurance is a synonym for all that is
+cruel, wicked? Is it strange that at times I loath the sight of your
+face, which mocks me with the assurance that you are his as well as
+mine? Oh, most unfortunate child! cursed with the fatal beauty of him
+who wrecked your mother's life, and denies you even his infamous
+name!"
+
+She sprang up, broke away from her daughter's arms, and resumed her
+walk.
+
+"After that day I was a different woman, hard, bitter, relentless,
+desperate. In the room of hope reigned hate, and I dedicated the
+future to revenge. I had heard Mr. Palma's name mentioned as the most
+promising lawyer at the bar, and though he was a young man then, he
+inspired all who knew him with confidence and respect. Withholding
+only my husband's name, I gave him my history, and sought legal
+advice. A suit would result in the foul and fatal aspersion, which
+Peleg was waiting to pour like an inky stream upon my character, and
+we ascertained that he was in the pay of the Laurances, and would
+testify according to their wishes and purposes. There was no proof of
+my marriage, unless Mr. Hargrove had preserved the license, the
+record of which had been destroyed by the burning of the court-house.
+Where were the witnesses? Grandmother was dead, and it was rumoured
+Mr. Audre had perished in a fishing excursion off the Labrador coast.
+
+"Mr. Palma advised me to wait, to patiently watch for an opportunity,
+pledging himself to do all that legal skill could effect; and nobly
+he has redeemed his promise to the desolate, friendless,
+broken-hearted woman who appealed to him for aid.
+
+"I succeeded after several repulses, in securing a very humble
+position in one of the small theatres, where I officiated first with
+scissors and needle, in fitting costumes and in various other menial
+employments; studying ceaselessly all the while to prepare myself for
+the stage. The manager became interested, encouraged me, tested me at
+rehearsals, and at last after an arduous struggle, I made my _debut_
+at the benefit of one of the stock actors. My name was adroitly
+whispered about, one or two mysterious paragraphs were published at
+the expense of the actor, and so--curiosity gave me an audience and
+an opportunity.
+
+"That night seemed the crisis of my destiny; if I failed, what would
+become of my baby? Already, my love, you were my supreme thought. But
+I did not, my face was a great success; my acting was pronounced
+wonderful by the dramatic critic to whom the beneficiary sent a
+complimentary ticket, and after that evening I had no difficulty in
+securing an engagement that proved very successful.
+
+"A year after I learned that Cuthbert had married a second time, I
+went to V---- to see Mr. Hargrove, and obtain possession of my
+license. The good man only gave me a copy, to which he added his
+certificate of the solemnization of my marriage; but he sympathized
+very deeply with my unhappy condition, and promised in any emergency
+to befriend you, my darling. A few hours after I left the parsonage
+it was entered and robbed, and the license he refused me was stolen.
+Long afterward I learned he suspected me."
+
+Here Regina narrated her discovery of the mysterious facts connected
+with the loss of the paper, and her first knowledge of Peleg
+Peterson. As she explained the occurrences that succeeded the storm,
+Mrs. Orme almost scowled, and resumed:
+
+"He has been the _bete noire_ of my ill-starred life, but even his
+malice has been satiated at last. Anxious to shield you from the
+possibility of danger, and from all contaminating influences and
+association, I carried you to a distant convent; the same with which
+grandmother had threatened me, and placed you under the sacred shadow
+of the Nuns' protection. Then, assured of your safety and that your
+education would not be neglected, I devoted myself completely to my
+profession. From city to city I wandered in quest of fame and money,
+both so essential to the accomplishment of my scheme; a scheme that
+goaded me sleeping and waking, leaving no moment of repose.
+
+"One night in Chicago, having overtaxed my strength, I fainted on the
+street, _en route_ from the theatre, and while my servant fled for
+assistance, I was found by Mr. and Mrs. Waul, and taken to their
+home. Their kind hearts warmed toward me, and no parents could have
+been more tenderly watchful than they have proved ever since. They
+supplied a need of protection, of which I was growing painfully
+conscious, and I engaged them to travel with me.
+
+"Once I took three days out of my busy life, and visited the old
+family homestead of General Laurance. The owner was in Europe, the
+house closed; but, standing unnoticed under the venerable oaks that
+formed the avenue of approach to the ancestral halls of my husband, I
+looked at the stately pile and the broad fields that surrounded it,
+and called upon Heaven to spare me long enough to see my child the
+regnant heiress of all that proud domain. There I vowed that cost
+what it might, I would accomplish my revenge, would place you there
+as owner of that noble inheritance.
+
+"Through Mr. Palma's inquiries concerning the records, I ascertained
+that this property had been settled upon Cuthbert on the week of his
+second marriage. You were ten years old when I determined to go to
+Europe and consummate my plan. Peleg had disappeared, and I knew that
+the other agent of the Laurances had lost all trace of me. You were
+so grieved because I left for Europe without bidding you good-bye!
+Ah, my sweet child! You never knew that it was the hardest trial of
+my life to put the ocean between us, and that I was too cowardly to
+witness your distress at the separation that was so uncertain in
+duration.
+
+"Could I have gone without the sight of my precious baby? I reached
+the convent about dusk, and informed the sisters that I deemed it
+best to transfer you to the guardianship of two gentlemen, one of
+whom would come and take you away the ensuing week. Through a crevice
+of the dormitory door I watched you undress, envied the gentle nun
+who gathered up your long hair and tied over it the little white
+ruffled muslin cap; and when you knelt by your small curtained bed,
+and repeated your evening prayers, adding a special petition that
+'_Heavenly Father would bless dear mother, and keep her safe_,' I
+stifled my sobs in my handkerchief. When you were asleep I crept in
+on tiptoe, and while Sister Angela held the lamp, I drew aside the
+curtain and looked at you. How the sweet face of my baby stirred all
+the tenderness that was left in my embittered nature! As you
+slumbered, you threw your feet outside the cover, and murmured in
+your musical childish babble something indistinct about 'mother, and
+our Blessed Lady.'
+
+"My heart yearned over you, but I could not bear the thought of
+hearing your peculiarly plaintive wailing cry, which always pierced
+my soul so painfully, and I softly kissed your feet and hurried away.
+Come, put your arms around my neck, and kiss me, my lovely
+fatherless child!"
+
+For some seconds Mrs. Orme held her in a warm embrace. "There sit
+down. Little remains to be told, but how bitter! Here in Paris, while
+playing 'Amy Robsart,' I saw once more, after the lapse of thirteen
+years, the man who had so contemptuously repudiated me. Regina, if
+ever you are so unfortunate, so deluded, as to deeply and sincerely
+love any man, and live to know that you are forgotten, that another
+woman wears the name and receives the caresses that once made heaven
+in your heart, then, and only then, can you realize what I suffered,
+while looking at Cuthbert, with that other creature at his side,
+acknowledged his wife! I thought I had petrified, had ceased to feel
+aught but loathing and hate, but ah! the agony of that intolerable,
+that maddening sight! Ask God for a shroud and coffin, rather than
+endure what I suffered that night!"
+
+She was too much engrossed by her mournful retrospective task, to
+observe the deadly pallor that overspread Regina's face, as the girl
+rested her head on the arm of the sofa and passed her fingers across
+her eyes, striving to veil the image of one beyond the broad
+Atlantic's sweep and roar.
+
+"At last I began to taste the sweet poison of my revenge. Cuthbert
+did not suspect my identity, but he was strangely fascinated by my
+face and acting. Openly indifferent to the woman with whom his father
+had linked him, and provided with no conscientious scruples, he
+audaciously expressed his admiration, and contrived an interview to
+commence his advances. He avowed sentiments disloyal to the heiress
+who wore his name and jewels, and insulting to me had I been what he
+supposed me, merely Odille Orme a pretty actress. I repulsed and
+derided him, forbidding him my presence; and none can appreciate the
+exquisite delight it afforded me to humiliate and torture him. When
+it was a crime in the sight of man, he really began to love the
+woman, who--in God's sight--was his own lawful wife; and his
+punishment was slowly approaching.
+
+"My health gave way under the unnatural pressure of acting evening
+after evening, with his handsome magnetic face watching every
+feature, every inflection of my voice. I was ordered to rest in
+Italy, and when I learned I should there meet General Laurance, I
+consented to go. Before leaving Paris, I saw the only child of that
+hideous iniquitous sham marriage; and, darling, when I contrasted
+you, my own pure pearl, with the deformed, dwarfish, repulsive
+daughter, whom the Nemesis of my wrongs gave to Cuthbert, in little
+Maud Laurance, I almost shouted aloud in my great exultation. You so
+beautiful, with his own lineaments in every feature, disowned for
+that misshapen, imbecile heiress of his proud name. Oh, mills of the
+Gods! how delicious the slow music of their grinding!
+
+"Thus far, my daughter, I have shown you all your mother's wretched
+past, and now I shrink from the last blotted pages. Hitherto my
+record was blameless, but even now take care how you judge the
+mother, who if she has gone astray did it for you, all for you. For
+some time I had known that Cuthbert was living in reckless
+extravagance, that the affairs of the father-in-law were dangerously
+involved, and that without his own father's knowledge Cuthbert had
+borrowed large sums in London and Paris, securing the loans by
+mortgages on his real estate in America; especially the elegant
+homestead, preserved for several generations in his family. Employing
+two shrewd Hebrew brokers, I by degrees bought up those mortgages,
+straining every effort to effect the purchase.
+
+"When I reached Milan, I sat one night pondering what was most
+expedient. It was apparent that in a suit for and publication of my
+real title and rights, I should be defeated by the disgrace hurled
+upon me; and to subject the Laurances to the humiliation of a court
+scandal would poorly indemnify me for the horrible stain which
+Peterson's foul claim would entail upon your innocent but premature
+birth. My health was feeble, consumption threatened my lungs, and Mr.
+Palma urged me to attempt no legal redress for my injuries. I could
+not die without one more struggle to see you lighted, clothed with
+your lawful name.
+
+"My daughter, my darling, let all my love for you plead vehemently in
+my defence, when I tell you that for your dear sake I made a
+desperate, an awful, a sickening resolve. General Laurance was
+infatuated by my beauty, which has been as fatal to his house as his
+name to me. Like many handsome old men, he was inordinately vain, and
+imagined himself irresistible; and when he persecuted me with
+attentions that might have compromised a woman less prudent and
+prudish than I bore myself, I determined to force him to an offer of
+his hand, to marry him."
+
+With a sharp cry Regina sprang up.
+
+"Mother, not him! Not my father's father!"
+
+"Yes, Rene Laurance, my husband's father."
+
+With a gesture of horror the girl groaned and covered her white
+convulsed face.
+
+"Mother! Could my mother commit such a loathsome, awful crime against
+God, and nature?"
+
+"It was for your sake, my darling!" cried Mrs. Orme, wringing her
+hands, as she saw the shudder with which her child repulsed her.
+
+"For my sake that you stained you dear pure hands! For my sake that
+you steeped your soul in guilt that even brutal savages abhor, and
+loaded your name and memory with infamy! In his desertion my father
+sinned against me, and freely because he is my father I could
+forgive him; but you, the immaculate mother of my lifelong worship,
+you who have reigned white-souled and angelic over all my hopes, my
+aspirations, my love and reverence, oh, mother! mother, you have
+doubly wronged me! The disgrace of your unnatural and heinous crime I
+can never, never pardon!"
+
+With averted head she stood apart, a  pitiable picture of misery,
+that could find no adequate expression.
+
+"My baby, my love, my precious daughter!"
+
+Ah the pleading pathos of that marvellous voice which had swayed at
+will the emotions of vast audiences, as soft fitful zephyrs stir and
+bow the tender grasses in quiet meadows! Slowly the girl turned
+around, and reluctantly looked at the beloved beautiful face, tearful
+yet smiling, beaming with such passionate tenderness upon her.
+
+Mrs. Orme opened her arms, and Regina sprang forward, sinking on her
+knees at her mother's feet, clinging to her dress.
+
+"You could not smile upon me so, with that sin soiling your soul! Oh,
+mother, say you did it not!"
+
+"God had mercy, and saved me from it."
+
+"Let us praise and serve Him for ever, in thanksgiving," sobbed the
+daughter.
+
+"I see now that my punishment would have been unendurable, for I
+should have lost the one true, pure heart that clings to me. How do
+mothers face their retribution, I wonder, when they disgrace their
+innocent little ones, and see shame and horror and aversion in the
+soft faces that slept upon their bosoms, and once looked in adoration
+at the heaven of their eyes? Even in this life the pangs of the lost
+must seize all such.
+
+"I did not marry General Laurance, though I entertained the purpose
+of a merely nominal union, and he acceded to my conditions, signing
+a marriage contract to adopt you, give you his name, settled upon you
+all his remaining fortune, except the real estate which I knew he had
+transferred to his son. I think my intense hate and thirst for
+vengeance temporarily maddened me; for certainly had I been quite
+sane I should never have forced myself to hang upon the verge of such
+an odious gulf. I was tempted by the prospect of making you the real
+heiress of the Laurance name and wealth, and of beggaring Cuthbert,
+his so-called wife and crippled child, by displaying the mortgage I
+held; and which will yet sweep them to penury, for the banker has
+failed, and Abbie Ames is penniless as Minnie Merle once was.
+
+"While I floated down the dark stream to ruin, a blessed interposing
+hand arrested me. Mr. Palma wrote that at last a glorious day of hope
+dawned on my weary, starless night. Gerbert Audre was alive and
+anxious to testify to the validity of my marriage, and the perfect
+sanity and sobriety of Cuthbert when it was solemnized (his father
+was prepared to plead that he was insane from intoxication when he
+was inveigled into the ceremony); and oh, better, best of all, my
+persecutor had relented! Peleg swore that his assertions regarding my
+character were untrue, were prompted by malice, stimulated by
+Laurance gold. Having been arrested by Mr. Palma and carried before a
+magistrate, he had written and signed a noble vindication of me. To
+you he avows I owe his tardy recantation and complete justification
+of my past; and you will find among those papers his letter to me
+upon this subject.
+
+"My daughter, what do we not owe to Erle Palma? God bless
+him--now--and for ever! And may the dearest, fondest wishes of his
+heart be fulfilled as completely as have been his promises to me."
+
+Regina's face was shrouded by her mother's dress, but thinking of
+Mrs. Carew, she sank lower at Mrs. Orme's feet, knowing that her sad
+heart could not echo that prayer.
+
+"As yet my identity has not been suspected, but the end is at hand,
+and I am about to break the vials of wrath upon their heads. Mr.
+Palma only waits to hear from me to bring suit against Cuthbert for
+desertion and bigamy, and against Rene Laurance, the arch-demon of my
+luckless carried life, for wilful slander, premeditated defamation of
+character. My lawful unstained wife-hood will be established, your
+spotless birth and lineage triumphantly proclaimed; and I shall see
+my own darling, my Regina Laurance, reigning as mistress in the halls
+of her ancestors. To confront you with your father and grandfather, I
+have called you to Paris, and when I have talked with Uncle Orme,
+whose step I hear, I shall be able to tell you definitely of the hour
+when the thunderbolt will be hurled into the camp of our enemies.
+Kiss me good-night. God bless my child."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+
+After a sleepless night, Cuthbert Laurance sat in dressing gown and
+slippers before the table, on which was arranged his breakfast. In
+his right hand he held, partly lifted, the cup of coffee; upon the
+left he rested his head, seeming abstracted, oblivious of the dainty
+dishes that invited his attention.
+
+The graceful _insouciance_ of the Sybarite had vanished, and though
+the thirty-seven years of his life had dealt very gently with his
+manly beauty, leaving few lines about his womanishly fair brow, he
+seemed to-day gravely preoccupied, anxious, and depressed. Pushing
+back his chair, he sat for some time in a profound and evidently
+painful reverie, and when his father came in, and closed the door
+behind him, the cloud of apprehension deepened.
+
+"Good-morning, Cuthbert, I must compliment you on your early hours.
+How is Maud?"
+
+"I have not seen her this morning. Victorine usually takes her out at
+this time of the day. I hope after a night's reflection and rest, you
+feel disposed to afford me more comfort than you extended last
+evening. The fact is, unless you come forward and help me, I shall be
+utterly ruined."
+
+General Laurance lighted his cigar, and, standing before his son,
+answered coldly:
+
+"I beg you to recollect that my resources are not quite
+inexhaustible, and last year when I gave that Chicago property to
+you, I explained the necessity of curbing your reckless extravagance.
+Were I possessed of Rothschild's income, it would not suffice to keep
+upon his feet a man who sells himself to the Devil of the gaming
+table, and entertains with the prodigality of a crown prince. I never
+dreamed until last night that the real estate at home is encumbered
+by mortgages, and it will be an everlasting shame if the homestead
+should be sacrificed; but I can do no more for you. This failure of
+Ames is a disgraceful affair, and I understand soils his
+reputation--past all hope of purification. How long does Abbie expect
+to remain in Nice? It does not look well, I can tell you, that she
+should go off and leave Maud with her _bonne_."
+
+"Oh! for that matter, Maud is better off here, where she can be seen
+regularly by the physician, and Victorine knows much better what to
+do for her than her mother. Abbie is perfectly acquainted with the
+change in her father's and in my own affairs, and I should suppose
+she would have returned immediately after the receipt of the
+intelligence, especially as I informed her that we should be
+compelled to return to America."
+
+"I shall telegraph her to come back at once, for I hear that she is
+leading a very gay life at Nice, and that her conduct is not wholly
+compatible with her duties as a wife and mother."
+
+An expression of subdued scorn passed over Cuthbert's face, as he
+answered sarcastically:
+
+"Probably your influence may avail to hasten her return. As for her
+peculiar views, and way of conducting herself, I imagine it is rather
+too late for you to indulge in fastidious carpings, as you selected
+and presented her to me as a suitable bride, particularly acceptable
+to you for a daughter-in-law.
+
+"When men live as you have done since your marriage, it is scarcely
+surprising that wives should emulate their lax example. You have
+never disguised your indifference as a husband."
+
+"No, sir. When I made merchandise of my hand, I deemed that sacrifice
+sufficient, and have never pretended to include my heart in the
+bargain. But why deal in recrimination? Past mistakes are
+irremediable, and it behooves me to consider only the future. Were it
+not for poor Maud, I really should care very little, but her
+helplessness appeals to me now more forcibly than all other
+considerations. You say, sir, that you cannot help me--why not? At
+this crisis a few shares of stock, and some of those sterling bonds
+would enable me to pay off my pressing personal debts; and I could
+get away from Paris with less annoying notoriety and scandal, which
+above all things I abhor. I only ask the means of retiring from my
+associations here without disgrace, and once safely out of France I
+shall care little for the future. You certainly cannot consent to see
+me stranded here, where my position and _menage_ have been so proud?"
+
+General Laurance puffed vigorously at his cigar for some seconds,
+then tossed it down, put his hands in his pockets, and said abruptly:
+
+"When I told you last night that I could not help you, I meant it.
+The stocks and bonds you require have already been otherwise
+appropriated. I daresay, Cuthbert, you will be astonished at what I
+am about to communicate, but whatever your opinion of the step I have
+determined to take, I request in advance, that you will refrain from
+any disagreeable comments. For thirty-seven years I have devoted
+myself to the promotion of your interest and happiness, and you must
+admit you have often sorely tried my patience. If you have at last
+made shipwreck of your favourable financial prospects, it is no
+longer in my power to set you afloat again. Cuthbert, I am on the eve
+of assuming new responsibilities that require all the means your
+luxurious mode of living has left me. I am going to marry again."
+
+"To marry again! Are you approaching your dotage?"
+
+The son had risen, and his handsome face was full of undisguised
+scorn, as his eyes rested on his father's haughty and offended
+countenance.
+
+"Whatever your dissatisfaction, you will be wise in repressing it at
+least in your remarks to me. I am no longer young, but am very far
+from senility; and finding no harmony in your household, no peaceful
+fireside where I can spend the residue of my days in quiet, I have
+finally consulted the dictates of my own heart, and am prompted by
+the hope of great happiness with the woman whom I sincerely love--to
+marry her. Under these circumstances you can readily appreciate my
+inability to transfer the stocks, which it appears you have relied
+upon to float you out of this financial storm."
+
+Cuthbert bowed profoundly, and answered contemptuously:
+
+"They have, I presume, already been transferred in the form of a
+marriage contract? Pardon me, sir; but may I inquire whom you design
+to fill my mother's place?"
+
+"I expect within a few days to present to you as my wife the
+loveliest woman in all Europe, one as noble, refined, modest, and
+delicate as she is everywhere conceded to be beautiful,--the
+celebrated Madame Odille Orme."
+
+An unconquerable embarrassment caused his eyes to wander from his
+son's face as he pronounced the name, else he would have discovered
+the start, the pallor with which the intelligence was received.
+Cuthbert turned and stood at the window, with his back to his father,
+and the convulsive movement of his features attested the profound
+pain which the announcement caused.
+
+"Madame Orme is not an ordinary actress, and has always maintained a
+reputation quite rare among those of her profession. I have carefully
+studied her character, think I have seen it sufficiently tested to
+satisfy even my fastidious standard of female propriety and decorum;
+and knowing how proudly and jealously I guard my honour and my name,
+you may rest assured I have not risked anything in committing both to
+the keeping of this woman, to whom I am very deeply and tenderly
+attached. She told me she had met you once. How did she impress you?"
+
+It cost him a strong effort to answer composedly.
+
+"She certainly is the most beautiful woman I have seen in Europe."
+
+"Ah! and sweet as she is lovely! My son, do not diminish my happiness
+by unkind thoughts and expressions, which would result in our
+estrangement. No father could have devoted himself more assiduously
+to a child than I have done to you, and in my old age, if this
+marriage brings me so much delight and comfort, have I not earned the
+right to consider my own happiness? It is quite natural that you
+should be surprised, and to some extent chagrined at my determination
+to settle a portion of my property upon a new claimant for my love
+and protection; but I hope, for the sake of all concerned, you will
+at least indulge in no harsh or disrespectful remarks. I have been
+requested to invite you to accompany me to the Theatre to-night to
+witness Madame Orme's farewell to the stage, in a drama of her own
+composition. After this evening she appears no more in public, and at
+the close of the play she desires that we shall meet her at her
+hotel. I trust you will courteously fulfil the engagement I have made
+for you, as I assured her she might expect us both."
+
+He lighted a fresh cigar, and drew on his gloves.
+
+Cuthbert hastily snatched a glass of water from the stand near him,
+and laying his hand on the bolt of the door leading to his sleeping
+room, looked over his shoulder at his father.
+
+The face of the son was whitened and sharpened by acute suffering,
+and his blue eyes flushed with a peculiarly cold sarcastic light as
+he exclaimed bitterly:
+
+"That General Laurance should so far forget the aristocratic
+associations and memories of the past, as to wrap his ambitious name
+around the person and character of a pretty _coulisse_ queen,
+certainly surprises his son, in whom he would never have forgiven
+such a _mesalliance_; but _chacun a son gout!_ Permit me, sir, to
+hope that my father may display the same infallible judgment in
+selecting a bride for himself that he so successfully manifested in
+the choice of one for his son; and the sincere wish of my heart is,
+that your wedded life may prove quite as rose-coloured and blissful
+as mine."
+
+He bowed low, and disappeared; and after a few turns up and down the
+room, during which he smoothed his ruffled brow, rejoicing that the
+announcement had been made, General Laurance went down to his
+carriage, and was driven to the hotel, where he hoped to find Mrs.
+Orme.
+
+For several days after the narration of her history to Regina, the
+mother had seen comparatively little of her child, her time being
+engrossed by numerous rehearsals and the supervision of some scene
+painting, which she considered essential to the success of the play.
+
+Only on the morning of the day appointed for its presentation, did
+Regina learn that in "Infelice" her mother had merely written and
+dramatically arranged an accurate history of her own eventful life.
+By this startling method she had long designed to acquaint General
+Laurance and his son with her real name, and the play had been very
+carefully cast and prepared; but Regina heard with deep pain and
+humiliation of the vindictive nature of the surprise arranged, and
+eloquently plead that the sacred past should not be profaned by
+casting it before the public for criticism.
+
+Mr. Chesley earnestly seconded her entreaties that even now a change
+of programme might be effected, but Mrs. Orme sternly adhered to her
+purpose, declared it was too late for alteration, and that she would
+not consent to forfeit the delight of the vengeance, which alone
+sweetened the future, neither would she permit her daughter to absent
+herself. A box had been secured where, screened from observation,
+Regina and Mr. Chesley could not only witness the play, but watch the
+two men whose box was opposite.
+
+When General Laurance called and sent up a basket of choice and
+costly flowers, begging for a moment's interview, Mrs. Orme sent down
+in reply a tiny perfumed note, stating that she was then hurrying to
+the last rehearsal, which it was absolutely necessary she should
+attend; and requesting that after the close of the play General
+Laurance and his son would do her the honour to take supper at her
+hotel, where she would give him a final and very definite answer with
+regard to their nuptials. While he read the _billet_ and was
+pencilling a second appeal for the privilege of escorting her to the
+rehearsal, she ran lightly downstairs, sprang into a carriage, and
+eluded him.
+
+Left in possession of all the records relative to her mother's
+history, and furnished for the first time with a printed copy of
+"Infelice," Regina spent a melancholy day in her own room. Among the
+papers she found her father's letter, promising to claim his wife as
+soon as he attained his majority; and as she noted the elegant
+chirography and glanced from the letter to the ambrotype which
+represented Cuthbert as he looked at the period of his marriage, a
+strangely tender new feeling welled up in her heart, dimming her eyes
+with unshed tears.
+
+It was her father's face upon which she looked, and something in
+those proud high-bred features plead for him to the soul of his
+child. True he had disowned them, but could that face deliberately
+hide premeditated treachery? Might there not be some defence, some
+extenuating circumstance, that would lessen his crime?
+
+Suddenly she sprang up and began to array herself in a walking suit.
+She would go and see her father, learn what had induced his cruel
+course, and perhaps some mistake might be discovered and corrected.
+She knew that this step would subject her to her mother's
+displeasure, but just then the girl's heart was hardened against
+her, in consequence of her persistency in dramatizing a record which
+the daughter deemed too mournfully solemn and sacred for the
+desecration of the boards and footlights.
+
+Grieved and mortified by this resolution, over which her passionate
+invective and persuasion exerted not the slightest influence, she
+availed herself of the absence of her mother and Mrs. Waul to leave
+the hotel and get into a carriage.
+
+The Directory supplied her with the address she sought, and ere many
+moments she found herself in front of the stately, palatial pile, in
+which Cuthbert Laurance had long dwelt Desiring to see Mr. Laurance
+on business, she was shown into the elegant salon, and when the
+servant returned to say that he had left the house but a few minutes
+before she entered, she still lingered.
+
+"Can I see Mrs. Laurance?"
+
+"Madame is at Nice. Only Mademoiselle Maud is at home."
+
+At that instant a side door opened, and a stout, middle-aged woman
+pushed before her into the room a low chair placed on wheels, in
+which sat Maud. At sight of the stranger, Victorine turned to retreat
+with her charge, but Regina made a quick gesture to detain her, and
+went to the spot where the chair rested.
+
+Maud sat with her lap full of violets and mignonette, which she was
+trying to weave into a bouquet, but arrested in her occupation, her
+weird black eyes looked wonderingly on the visitor. How vividly they
+contrasted, the slender, symmetrical figure of Regina, her perfect
+face and graceful bearing, with the swarthy, sallow, dwarfed, and
+helpless Maud! As the former looked at the melancholy features,
+prematurely aged by suffering, a well of pity gushed in her heart,
+and she bent down and took one of the thin hands from which the
+flowers were slipping unnoticed.
+
+"Is this little Maud?"
+
+"My name is Maud Ames Laurance. What is your name? Why, you are just
+like papa! Do you know my papa?"
+
+"No, dear; but I shall some day. I should very much like to know
+you."
+
+"You look so much like papa. You may kiss me if you like."
+
+She turned her sallow cheek for the salute, and Victorine said:
+
+"Is mademoiselle a relative? You are quite the image of Mr.
+Laurance."
+
+"Do you think so? Where can I find General Laurance? Does he reside
+here?"
+
+"Oh no! He never has lived with us. Grandpapa was here this morning,
+but we were out in the park. Will you have some flowers? Your eyes
+just match my violets! So like papa's."
+
+Regina gazed sorrowfully at the afflicted figure, and holding those
+thin, hot fingers in hers, she silently determined that if possible
+the impending blow should be warded off from this pitiable little
+sufferer.
+
+"Did you come to see me?" queried Maud.
+
+"No, I called to see your papa--on some business, and I am sorry he
+is absent. Before long I shall come and see you, and we will make
+bouquets and have a pleasant time. Good-bye, Maud."
+
+Remembering that she was her half-sister, Regina lightly kissed the
+hollow cheek of the invalid.
+
+"Good-bye. I shall ask papa where you got his eyes; for they are my
+papa's lovely eyes."
+
+"Has mademoiselle left her card with Jean?" asked Victorine, whose
+curiosity was thoroughly aroused.
+
+"I have not one with me."
+
+"Then be pleased to give me your name."
+
+"No matter now. I will come again, and then you and Maud shall learn
+my name."
+
+She hastened out of the room, and when she reached her mother's
+lodgings, met her uncle pacing the floor of the reception-room.
+
+"Regina, where have you been? You are top total a stranger here to
+venture out alone, and I beg that you will not repeat the imprudence.
+I have been really uneasy about your mysterious absence."
+
+"Uncle Orme, I wanted to see my father, and I went to his home."
+
+She threw her hat upon the sofa, and sighed heavily.
+
+"My dear child, Minnie will never forgive your premature disclosure!"
+
+"I made none, because he was not at home. Oh, uncle, I saw something
+that made my heart turn sick with pity. I saw that poor little
+deformed girl, Maud Laurance, and it seems to me her haggard face,
+her utter wretchedness and helplessness would melt a heart of steel!
+I longed to take the poor forlorn creature in my arms, and cry over
+her; and I tell you, Uncle Orme, I will not be a party to her ruin
+and disgrace! I will not, I will not! I am strong and healthy, and
+God has given me many talents, and raised up dear friends, you uncle,
+the dearest of all, after mother; but what has that unfortunate
+cripple? Nothing but her father (for she has been deserted by her
+mother), and only her father's name. Do you think I could see her
+beggared, reduced to poverty that really pinched, in order that I
+might usurp her place as the Laurance heiress? Never."
+
+"My dear girl, the usurpation is on their part, not yours. The name
+and inheritance is lawfully yours, and the attainment of these rights
+for you has sustained poor Minnie through her sad, arduous career."
+
+"Abstract right is not the only thing to be considered at such a
+juncture as this. Suppose I could change places with that poor little
+deformed creature, would you not think it cruel, nay wicked, to turn
+me all helpless and forlorn out of a comfortable home, into the cold
+world of want, a nameless waif. Uncle, I know what it is to be
+fatherless and nameless! All of that bitterness and humiliation has
+been mine for years, but now that my heart is at rest concerning my
+parentage, now that _I_ know there is no blemish on mother's past
+record, I care little for what the world may think, and much, much
+more, what that poor girl would suffer. To-day, when I looked at her
+useless feet and shrunken hands and deep hollow eyes, I seemed to
+hear a voice from far Judean hills: '_Bear ye one another's
+burdens_;' and, Uncle Orme, I am willing to bear Maud's burden to the
+end of my life. My shoulders have become accustomed to the load they
+have carried for over seventeen years, and I will not shift it to
+poor Maud's. I am strong, she is pitiably feeble. I have never known
+the blessing of a father's love, have learned to do without it; she
+has no other comfort, no other balm, and I will not rob her of the
+little God has left her. I understand how mother feels, I cannot
+blame her; and while I know that her care and anxiety in this matter
+are chiefly on my account, I could never respect, never forgive
+myself, if to promote my own importance or interest I selfishly
+consented to beggar poor Maud. She cannot live long; death has set a
+shadowy mark already upon her weird eyes, and until they close in the
+peace of the grave let us leave her the name she seems so proud of.
+She pronounced it Maud Ames Laurance, as though it were a royal
+title. Let her bear it. I can wait."
+
+As Mr. Chesley watched the pale gem-like face, with its soft holy
+eyes full of a resolution which he knew all the world could not
+shake, a sudden mist blurred her image, and taking her hand, he
+kissed her forehead.
+
+"My noble child, if the golden rule you seek to practise were in
+universal acceptation and actualization, injustice, fraud, and crime
+would overturn the bulwarks of morality and decency. When men violate
+the laws of God and man as Cuthbert Laurance certainly has done, even
+religion as well as justice requires that his crime should be
+punished; although in nearly all such instances the innocent suffer
+for the sins of the guilty. Your mother owes it to you, to me, to
+herself, to society, to demand recognition of her legal rights; and
+though I do not approve all that she proposes (at least, the manner
+of its accomplishment), I cannot censure her; and you, dear child,
+for whose sake she has borne so much, should pause before you judge
+her harshly."
+
+"God forbid that I should! But oh, uncle! it seems to me something
+dreadful, sacrilegious, to act over before a multitude of strangers
+those mournful miserable events that ought to be kept sacred. The
+thought of being present is very painful to me."
+
+"None but General Laurance and his son will dream that it is more
+than a mere romance. None but they can possibly recognize the scenes,
+and the audience cannot suspect that Minnie is acting her own
+history. When a suit is instituted, it will probably result in a
+recognition of the marriage, and thereupon a large alimony will be
+granted to your mother, who will at once apply for a divorce. In the
+present condition of their financial affairs this cannot fail to
+beggar the Laurances, for I had a cable despatch this morning from
+Mr. Palma, intimating that the stock panic had grievously crippled
+several of General Laurance's best investments. This news will be
+delightful to Minnie, but I see it distresses you. Now, Regina,
+regnant, listen to me. Have no controversy with your mother; she is
+just now in no mood to bear it, and I want no distrust to grow up
+between you. Whether you wish it or not, she will establish her
+claim, and she is right in doing so. Now I wish to make a contract
+with you. Keep quiet, and if we find that the Laurances will really
+be reduced to want, I will supply you with the funds necessary to
+provide a comfortable home for them, and you shall give it to your
+father and little Maud. Minnie must not know of the matter, she would
+never forgive us, and neither can I consent that your father should
+consider me as his friend. But all that I have, my sweet girl, is
+yours, and Laurance may feel indebted to his own repudiated child for
+the gift. It is a bargain?"
+
+"Oh, Uncle Orme! how good and generous you are! No wonder my heart
+warmed to you the first time I ever saw you! How I love and thank
+you, my own noble uncle! You have no idea how earnestly I long for
+the time when you and mother and I can settle down together in a
+quiet home somewhere, shut out from the world that has used us all so
+hardly, and safe in our love, and confidence for and in each other."
+
+She had thrown her arms around his neck, and pressing her head
+against his shoulder, looked at him with eyes full of hope and
+happiness.
+
+"I am afraid, my dear girl, that as soon as our imaginary Eden is
+arranged satisfactorily, the dove that gives it peace and purity will
+be enticed away, caged in a more brilliant mansion. You will love
+Minnie and me very much I daresay until some lover steals between us
+and lures you away."
+
+She hid her countenance against his shoulder, and her words impressed
+him as singularly solemn and mournful.
+
+"I shall have no lover. I shall make it the aim and study of all my
+future life to love only God, mother, and you. My hope of happiness
+centres in the one word Home! We all three have felt the bitter want
+of one, and I desire to make ours that serene, holy ideal Home of
+which I have so long dreamed: 'We will bear our Penates with us;
+their atrium, the heart. Our household gods are the memories of our
+childhood, the recollections of the hearth round which we gathered;
+of the fostering hands which caressed us, of the scene of all the
+joys, anxieties, and hopes, the ineffable yearnings of love, which
+made us first acquainted with the mystery and the sanctity of home.'
+Such a home, dear uncle, let us fashion, somewhere in sight of the
+blue Pacific; and into its sacred rest no lover shall come."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+
+Mrs. Orme had carefully instructed Mrs. Waul concerning the details
+of her daughter's _toilette_, and selected certain articles which she
+desired her to wear; but Regina saw her mother no more that day, and
+late in the afternoon, when she knocked at the door, soliciting
+admission, for a moment only, the mother answered from within:
+
+"No; my child would only unnerve me now, and there is too much at
+stake. Uncle Orme understands all that I wish done to-night."
+
+Regina heard the quick restless tread across the floor, betraying the
+extreme agitation that prevailed in her mind and heart; and
+sorrowfully the girl went back to her uncle, in whose society she
+daily found increasing balm and comfort.
+
+The theatre was crowded when Mr. Chesley and Regina entered their
+box; and though the latter had several times attended the opera in
+New York, the elegance and brilliance of the surrounding scene
+surpassed all that she had hitherto witnessed. Mrs. Orme had created
+a profound impression by her earlier _roles_ at this theatre, and the
+sudden termination of her engagement by the illness that succeeded
+her extraordinarily pathetic and touching "Katherine," had aroused
+much sympathy, stimulated curiosity and interest; consequently her
+reappearance in a new play, of whose plot no hint had yet been made
+public, sufficed to fill the house at an early hour.
+
+Soon after their entrance, Mr. Chesley laid his hand on his
+companion's and whispered:
+
+"Will you promise to be very calm and self-controlled, if I show you
+your father?"
+
+He felt her hand grow cold, and in reply she merely pressed his
+fingers.
+
+"When I hold the curtain slightly aside, look into the second box
+immediately opposite, where two gentlemen are sitting. They are your
+father and grandfather."
+
+She leaned and looked, and how eagerly, how yearningly her eyes dwelt
+upon the handsome face which still closely resembled the Cuthbert of
+college days, and the ambrotype she had studied so carefully since
+her arrival in Paris.
+
+As she watched her breathing became rapid, laboured, her eyes filled,
+her face quivered uncontrollably, and she half rose from her seat,
+but Mr. Chesley held her back, and dropped the curtain.
+
+"Oh, uncle! How handsome, how refined, how noble-looking! Poor
+darling mother! how could she help giving him her heart? In all my
+dreams and fancies, I never even hoped to find him such a man! My
+father, my father!"
+
+She trembled so violently that Mr. Chesley said hastily:
+
+"Compose yourself, or I shall be forced to take you home, and your
+mother will be displeased; for she particularly desired that I would
+watch the effect of the play on those two men opposite."
+
+She leaned back, shut her eyes, and bravely endeavoured to conquer
+her agitation, and luckily at this moment the stage-curtain rose.
+
+By the aid of photographs procured in America, and by dint of
+personal supervision and suggestions, Mrs. Orme had successfully
+arranged the exact reproduction of certain localities: the
+college--the campus--the humble cottage of old Mrs. Chesley with its
+peculiar porch, whose column caps were carved to represent dogs'
+heads--the interior of a hospital, of an orphan asylum, and of the
+library at the parsonage.
+
+Leaning far back in his chair, a prey to gloomy and indescribably
+bitter reflections, as he accustomed himself to the contemplation of
+the fact that the beautiful woman in whom his own fickle wayward
+heart had become earnestly interested, would sell herself to the
+grey-bearded man beside him, Cuthbert gnawed his silky moustache;
+while his father watched with feverish impatience for the opening of
+the play, and the sight of his enchantress.
+
+The curtain rose upon a group sitting on the sward before the cottage
+door. Minnie Merle in the costume of a very young girl, with her
+golden hair all hidden under a thick wig of dark curling locks, that
+straggled in childish disorder around her neck and shoulders, while
+her sun-bonnet, the veritable green and white gingham of other days,
+lay at her feet. Beside her a tall youth, who represented Peleg
+Peterson, in the garb of a carpenter, with a tool-box on the ground,
+and in his hands a wooden doll, which he was carving for the child.
+
+In the door of the cottage sat the grandmother knitting and nodding,
+with white hair shining under her snowy cap-border; and while the
+carpenter carved and whistled an old-fashioned ditty, "Meet me by
+moonlight alone," the girl in a quavering voice attempted to
+accompany him.
+
+Minnie sat with her countenance turned fully to the audience, and
+when Cuthbert Laurance's eyes fell on the cottage front, and upon
+the face under that cloud of dark elfish locks, he caught his breath,
+and his eyes seemed almost starting from their sockets. His hand fell
+heavily on his father's knee, and he groaned audibly.
+
+General Laurance turned and whispered:
+
+"For God's sake, what is the matter? Are you ill?"
+
+There was no answer from the son, who tightened his clutch upon the
+old man's knee, and watched breathlessly what was passing on the
+stage.
+
+The scene was shifted, and now the whole facade of the college rose
+before him, with a pretty picture in the foreground; a tall handsome
+student, leaning against the trunk of an ancient elm, and talking to
+the girl who sat on the turf, with a basket of freshly-ironed shirts
+resting on the grass beside her. The identical straw hat, which
+Cuthbert had left behind him when summoned home, was upon the
+student's head, and as the timid shrinking girl glanced up shyly at
+her companion, Cuthbert Laurance almost hissed in his father's ear:
+"Great God! It is Minnie herself!"
+
+General Laurance loosened the curtain next the audience, and as the
+folds swept down, concealing somewhat the figure of his son, he
+whispered:
+
+"What do you mean? Are you drunk, or mad?"
+
+Cuthbert grasped his father's hand, and murmured:
+
+"Don't you know the college? That is Minnie yonder!"
+
+"Minnie? My son, what ails you? Go home, you are ill."
+
+"I tell you, that is Minnie Merle, so surely as there is a God above
+us. Mrs. Orme--is Minnie--my Minnie! My wife! She has dramatized her
+own life!"
+
+"Impossible, Cuthbert! You are delirious--insane. You are----"
+
+"That woman yonder is my wife! Now I understand why such strange
+sweet memories thrilled me when I saw her first in 'Amy Robsart.' The
+golden hair disguised her. Oh, father!"
+
+The blank dismay in General Laurance's countenance was succeeded by
+an expression of dread, and as he looked from his son's blanched
+convulsed face to that of the actress under the arching elms of the
+campus, the horrible truth flashed upon him like a lurid glimpse of
+Hades. He struck his hand against his forehead, and his grizzled head
+sank on his bosom. All that had formerly perplexed him was hideously
+apparent, startlingly clear; and he saw the abyss to which she had
+lured him, and understood the motives that had prompted her.
+
+After some moments he pushed his seat back beyond the range of
+observation from the audience, and beckoned his son to follow his
+example, but Cuthbert stood leaning upon the back of his chair, with
+eyes riveted on the play.
+
+The courtship, the clandestine meetings, the interview in which Peleg
+intruded upon the lovers, the revelation to the grandmother, were
+accurately delineated, and in each scene the girl grew taller, by
+some arrangement of the skirts, which were at first very short, while
+she appeared in a sitting posture.
+
+When the secret marriage was decided upon, and the party left the
+cottage by night, Cuthbert turned, rested one hand on his father's
+shoulder, and as the scene changed to the quiet parsonage, he pressed
+heavily, and muttered:
+
+"Even the very dress that she wore that day! And--there is the black
+agate! On her hand--where I put it! Don't you know it? How she turns
+it!"
+
+In the tableau of the marriage ceremony she had taken her position
+with reference to the locality of the box, and as near it as
+possible, and in the glare of the footlights the ring was clearly
+revealed.
+
+Lifting his lorgnette, General Laurance inspected the white hand he
+had once kissed so rapturously, and by the aid of the lenses he
+recognized the costly ring, the valued heirloom, for the recovery of
+which he had offered five hundred dollars. Had he still cherished a
+shadowy hope that Cuthbert was suffering from some fearful delusion,
+the sight of that singular and fatal ring utterly overthrew the last
+lingering vestige of doubt. Stunned, miserable, dimly foreboding some
+overwhelming _denouement_, he sat in stony stillness, knowing that
+this was but the prelude to some dire catastrophe.
+
+When the telegram, arrived and the young husband took his bride in
+his arms, the girlish face was lifted, and the passionate gleam of
+the dilating brown eyes sent a strange thrill to the hearts of both
+father and son. Vowing to return very soon and claim her, the husband
+tore himself away, and as he vanished through a side door near the
+box, Minnie followed, stretched out her arms, and looking up full at
+its two tenants she breathed her wild passionate prayer which rang
+with indescribable pathos through that vast building:
+
+"My husband! My husband--do not forsake me!"
+
+Cuthbert put his hand over his eyes, and but for the voices on the
+stage his shuddering groan would have been heard outside the box. In
+the scene where Peleg's advances were indignantly repulsed, and his
+threats to unleash the bloodhounds of slander, hunting her to infamy,
+were fully developed, Cuthbert seemed to rouse himself from his
+stupor and a different expression crossed his features.
+
+Skilfully the part played by General Laurance in bribing Peleg, and
+returning the letters of the wretched wife, the disgraceful threats,
+the offers to buy up and cancel her conjugal claims, were all
+presented.
+
+When the grandmother departed, and the child-wife secretly made her
+way to New York, seeking service that would secure her bread, and
+still hopeful of her husband's return, Cuthbert grasped his father's
+arm and hissed in his ear:
+
+"You deceived me! You told me she went with that villain to
+California to hide her disgrace!"
+
+Cowed and powerless, the old man sat, recognizing the faithful
+portraiture of his own dark schemes in those early days of the
+trouble, and growing numb with a vague prophetic dread that the
+foundations of the world were crumbling away.
+
+His son suddenly drew his chair a little forward and sat down, his
+elbow on his knee, his head on his hand; his gaze fixed on the woman
+who had contrived to reproduce even the fall that caused her removal
+to the hospital.
+
+The ensuing scene represented the young mother, sitting on a cot in
+the hospital, with a babe lying across her knees, and the storm of
+horror, hate, and defiance with which she spurned Peleg from her,
+calling on heaven to defend her and her baby, and denouncing the
+treachery of General Laurance who had bribed Peterson to insult and
+defame her.
+
+As he was dragged from the apartment, vowing that neither she nor her
+child should be permitted to enjoy the name to which they were
+entitled, the feeble woman, shorn of her brown locks, and wearing a
+close cap, lifted her infant, and with streaming eyes implored heaven
+to defend it and its hapless mother from cruel persecution.
+
+In the wonderful power with which she proclaimed her deathless
+loyalty to the husband of her love, and her conviction that God would
+interpose to shield his helpless child, the audience recognized the
+fervour and pathos of the rendition, and the applause that greeted
+her, as she bowed sobbing over her baby, told how the hearts of her
+hearers thrilled.
+
+The curtain fell, and Cuthbert's eyes, gleaming like steel, turned to
+his father's countenance.
+
+"Is that true? Dare you deny it?"
+
+The old man only stared blankly at the carpet on the floor, and his
+son's fingers closed like a vice around his arm.
+
+"You have practised an infernal imposture upon me! You told me she
+followed him, and that the child was his."
+
+"He said so."
+
+General Laurance's voice was husky, and a grey hue had settled upon
+his features.
+
+"You paid him to proclaim the base falsehood! You whom I trusted so
+fully. Father, where is my child?"
+
+No answer; and the curtain rose on the fair young mother, came
+forward with her own golden hair in full splendour.
+
+Involuntarily the audience testified their recognition of the
+beautiful actress who now appeared for the first time, looking as
+when she made her _debut_ long ago in Paris. She was at the asylum,
+with a young child clinging to her finger, tottering at her side, and
+as she guided its steps, and hushed it in her arms, many mothers
+among the spectators felt the tears rush to their eyes.
+
+Walking with the infant cradled on her bosom, she passed twice across
+the stage, then paused beneath the box, and murmured:
+
+"Papa's baby--Papa's own precious baby!" and her splendid eyes humid
+with tears looked full, straight into those of her husband.
+
+It was the first time they had met during the evening, and something
+she saw in that quivering face made her heart ache with the old
+numbing agony. Cuthbert could scarcely restrain himself from leaping
+down upon the stage and clasping her in his arms; but she moved away,
+and the sorely smitten husband bowed his face in his hand, luckily
+shielded from public view by the position in which he sat.
+
+The dinner scene ensued, and the abrupt announcement of the second
+marriage. The anguish and despair of the repudiated wife were
+portrayed with a vividness, a marvellous eloquence and passionate
+fervour that surpassed all former exhibitions of her genius, and the
+people rose, and applauded, as audiences sometimes do, when the
+magnetic wave rolls from the heart and brain on the stage to those of
+the men and women who watch and listen completely _en rapport_.
+
+The life of the actress began, the struggle to provide for her child,
+the constant care to elude discovery, the application for legal
+advice, the statement of her helplessness, the attempt to secure the
+license; all were represented, and at last the meeting with her
+husband in the theatre.
+
+Gradually the pathos melted away, she was the stern relentless
+outraged wife, intent only upon revenge. She spared not even the
+interview in which the faithless husband sought her presence; and as
+Cuthbert watched her, repeating the sentences that had so galled his
+pride, he asked himself how he had failed to recognize his own wife?
+
+In the meeting with the child of the second marriage, her wild
+exultation, her impassioned invocation of Nemesis, was one of the
+most effective passages in the drama; and it caused a shiver to creep
+like a serpent over the body of the father, who pitied so tenderly
+the afflicted Maud.
+
+As the scheme of saying her own daughter, by sacrificing herself in a
+nominal marriage with the man whom she hated and loathed so
+intensely, developed itself, a perceptible chill fell upon the
+audience; the unnaturalness of the crime asserted itself.
+
+While she rendered almost literally the interviews at Pozzuoli and at
+Naples, Cuthbert glanced at his father, and saw a purplish flush
+steal from neck to forehead, but the old man's eyes never quitted the
+floor. He seemed incapable of moving, Gorgonized by the beautiful
+Medusa whose invectives against him were scathing, terrible.
+
+As the play approached its close and the preparation for the
+marriage, even the details of the settlement were narrated, suspense
+reached its acme. Then came the letters of reprieve, the deliverance
+from the bondage of Peterson's vindictive malice, the power of
+establishing her claim; and when she wept her thanksgiving for
+salvation, many wept in sympathy; while Regina, borne away in
+breathless admiration of her mother's wonderful genius, sobbed
+unrestrainedly.
+
+When the letters of Peterson and of the lawyer were read, mapping the
+line of prosecution for the recovery of the wife's rights, the father
+slowly raised his eyes, and, looking drearily at his son, muttered:
+
+"It is all over with us, Cuthbert. She has won; we are ruined. Let us
+go home."
+
+He attempted to rise, but with a glare of mingled wrath and scorn his
+son held him back.
+
+The last scene was reached; the triumphant vindication of wife and
+child, the condemnation of the two who had conspired to defraud them,
+the foreclosure of the mortgages, the penury of the proud
+aristocrats, and the disgrace that overwhelmed them.
+
+Finally the second wife and afflicted child came to crave leniency,
+and the husband and the father pleaded for pardon; but with a
+malediction upon the house that caused her wretchedness, the
+broken-hearted woman retreated to the palatial home she had at last
+secured, and under its upas shadow died in the arms of her daughter.
+
+Her play contained many passages which afforded her scope for the
+manifestation of her extraordinary power, and at its close the people
+would not depart until she had appeared in acknowledgment of their
+plaudits.
+
+Brilliantly beautiful she looked, with the glittering light of
+triumph in her large mesmeric eyes, a rich glow mantling her cheeks,
+and rouging her lips; while in heavy folds the black velvet robe
+swept around her queenly figure. How stately, elegant, unapproachable
+she seemed to the man who leaned forward, gazing with all his heart
+in his eyes upon the wife of his youth, the only woman he had ever
+really loved, now his most implacable foe!
+
+The audience dispersed, and Cuthbert and his father sat like those
+old Roman Senators, awaiting the breaking of the wave of savage
+vengeance that was rolling in upon them.
+
+At length General Laurance struggled to his feet, and mechanically
+quitted the theatre, followed by his son. Reaching the carriage, they
+entered, and Cuthbert ordered the coachman to drive to Mrs. Orme's
+hotel.
+
+"Not now! For God's sake, not to-night," groaned the old man.
+
+"To-night, before another hour, this awful imposture must be
+confessed, and reparation offered. I sinned against Minnie, but not
+premeditatedly. You deceived me. You made me believe her the foul,
+guilty thing you wished her. You intercepted her letters, you never
+let me know that I had a child neglected and forsaken; and, father,
+God may forgive you, but I never can. My proud, lovely Minnie! My own
+wife!"
+
+Cuthbert buried his face in his hands, and his strong frame shook as
+he pictured what might have been, contrasting it with the hideous
+reality of his loveless and miserable marriage with the banker's
+daughter, who threatened him with social disgrace.
+
+During that drive General Laurance felt that he was approaching some
+offended and avenging Fury, that he was drifting down to ruin,
+powerless to lift his hand and stay even for an instant the fatal
+descent; that he was gradually petrifying, and things seemed vague
+and intangible.
+
+When they reached the hotel, they were ushered into the salon already
+brilliantly lighted as if in expectation of their arrival. Cuthbert
+paced the floor; his father sank into a chair, resting his hands on
+the top of his cane.
+
+After a little while, a silk curtain at the lower end of the room was
+lifted, and Mrs. Orme came slowly forward. How her lustrous eyes
+gleamed as she stood in the centre of the apartment, scorn, triumph,
+hate, all struggling for mastery in her lovely face.
+
+"Gentlemen, you have read the handwriting on the wall. Do you come
+for defiance, or capitulation?"
+
+General Laurance lifted his head, but instantly dropped it on his
+bosom; he seemed to have aged suddenly, prematurely. Cuthbert
+advanced, stood close beside the woman whose gaze intensified as he
+drew near her, and said brokenly:
+
+"Minnie, I come merely to exonerate myself before God and man. Heaven
+is my witness, that I never knew I had a child in America until
+to-night, that until to-night I believed you were in California
+living as the wife of that base villain Peterson, who wrote
+announcing himself your accepted lover. From the day I kissed you
+good-bye at the cottage, I never received a line, a word, a message
+from you. When I doubted my father's and Peterson's statements
+concerning you, and wrote two letters, one to the President of the
+college, one to a resident professor, seeking some information of
+your whereabouts, in order at least to visit you once more, when I
+became twenty-one, both answered me that you had forfeited your fair
+name, had been forsaken by your grandmother, and had gone away from
+the village accompanied by Peterson, who was regarded as your
+favoured lover. I ceased to doubt, I believed you false. I knew no
+better until to-night. Father, my honour demands that the truth be
+spoken at last. Will you corroborate my statement?"
+
+Pale and proud, he stood erect, and she saw that a consciousness of
+rectitude at least in purpose, sustained him.
+
+"Mrs. Orme----" began General Laurance.
+
+"Away with such shams and masks! Mrs. Orme died on the theatrical
+boards to-night, and henceforth the world knows me as Minnie
+Laurance! Ah! by the grace of God! Minnie Laurance!"
+
+She laughed derisively, and held up her fair slender hand, exhibiting
+the black agate with its grinning skull lighted by the glow of the
+large radiant diamonds.
+
+"Minnie, I never dreamed you were his wife; oh, my God! how horrible
+it all is!"
+
+He seemed bewildered, and his son exclaimed:
+
+"Who is responsible for the separation from my wife? You, father, or
+I?"
+
+"I did it, my son. I meant it for the best. I naturally believed you
+had been entrapped into a shameful alliance, and as any other father
+would have done, I was ready to credit the unfavourable estimate
+derived from the man Peterson. He told me that Minnie had belonged to
+him until she and her grandmother conceived the scheme of inveigling
+you into a secret marriage; and afterward he informed me of the birth
+of his child. I did not pay him to claim it, but when he pronounced
+it his, I gave him money to pay the expenses of the two whom he
+claimed to California; and I supposed until to-night that both had
+accompanied him. I did not manufacture statements, I only gladly
+credited them; and believing all that man told me, I felt justified
+in intercepting letters addressed to you by the woman whom he claimed
+as mother of his child. Madame, do not blame Cuthbert. I did it all."
+
+The abject wretchedness of his mien disconcerted her; robbed her of
+half her anticipated triumph. How could she exult in trampling upon a
+bruised worm which made no attempt to crawl from beneath her heel? He
+sat, the image of hopeless dejection, his hands crossed on the gold
+head of his cane.
+
+Mrs. Orme walked to the end of the room, lifted the curtain, and at a
+signal Regina joined her. Clasping the girl's fingers firmly she led
+her forward, and when to front of the old man, she exclaimed:
+
+"Rene Laurance, blood triumphs over malice, perjury, and bribery;
+whose is this child? Is she Merle, Peterson, or Laurance?"
+
+Standing before them, in a dress of some soft snowy shining fabric,
+neither silk nor crape, with white starry jasmines in her raven hair
+and upon her bosom, Regina seemed some angelic visitant sent to still
+the strife of human passions, so lovely and pure was her colourless
+face; and as General Laurance looked up at her, he rose suddenly.
+
+"Pauline Laurance, my sister; the exact, the wonderful image!
+Laurance, all Laurance, from head to foot."
+
+He dropped back into the chair, and smiled vacantly.
+
+Cuthbert sprang forward, his face all aglow, his eyes radiant, and
+eloquent.
+
+"Minnie, is this indeed _our child?_ Your daughter--and mine?"
+
+He extended his arms, but she waved him back.
+
+"Do not touch her! How dare you? This is my baby, my darling, my
+treasure. This is the helpless little one, whose wails echoed in a
+hospital ward; who came into the world cursed with the likeness of
+her father. This is the child you disowned, persecuted; this is the
+baby God gave to you and to me; but you forfeited your claim long
+years ago, and she has no father, only his name henceforth. She is
+wholly, entirely her mother's blue-eyed baby. You have your Maud."
+
+As she spoke a wealth of proud tenderness shone in her eyes, which
+rested on the lily face of her child, and at that moment how she
+gloried in her perfect loveliness.
+
+Her husband groaned, and clasped his hand over his face to conceal
+the agony that was intolerable, and in an instant, ere the mother
+could suspect or frustrate her design, the girl broke from her hand,
+sprang forward and threw herself on Cuthbert's bosom, clasping her
+arms around his neck, and sobbing:
+
+"My father! Take me just once to your heart! Call me daughter; let
+me once in my life hear the blessed words from my own father's lips!"
+
+He strained her to his bosom, and kissed the pure face, while tears
+trickled over his cheeks and dripped down on hers. Her mother made a
+step forward to snatch her back, but at sight of his tears, of the
+close embrace in which he held her, the wife turned away, unable to
+look upon the spectacle and preserve her composure.
+
+A heavy fall startled all present, and a glance showed them General
+Laurance lying insensible on the carpet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+
+In the clear, cold analytical light which the "_Juventui Mundi_"
+pours upon the nebulous realm of Hellenic lore and Heroic legend, we
+learn that Homer knew "no destiny fighting with the gods, or unless
+in the shape of death, defying them,"--and that the "Nemesis often
+inaccurately rendered as revenge, was after all but self-judgment, or
+sense of moral law." Even in the dim Homeric dawn, Conscience found
+personification.
+
+Aroused suddenly to a realization of the wrongs and wretchedness to
+which his inordinate pride and ambition had chiefly contributed, the
+Nemesis of self-judgment had opened its grim assize in General
+Laurance's soul, and he cowered before the phantoms that stood forth
+to testify.
+
+No father of ordinary prudence and affection could have failed to
+oppose the reckless folly of his son's ill-starred marriage, or
+hesitated to save him, if compatible with God's law and human
+statutes, from the misery and humiliation it threatened to entail.
+But when he made a football of marriage vows, and became auxiliary
+to a second nuptial ceremony, striving by legal quibbles to cancel
+what only Death annuls, the hounds of Retribution leaped from their
+leash.
+
+The deepest, strongest love of his life had bloomed in the sunset
+light, wearing the mellow glory of the aftermath; and his heart clung
+to the beautiful dream of his old age, with a fierce tenacity that
+destroyed it, when rudely torn away by the awful revelations of
+"Infelice." To lose at once not only his lovely idol, but that
+darling fetich--Laurance _prestige_; to behold the total eclipse of
+his proud reputation and family name; to witness the ploughshare of
+social degradation and financial ruin driven by avenging hands over
+all he held dearest, was a doom which the vanquished old man could
+not survive.
+
+Perhaps the vital forces had already begun to yield to the disease
+that so suddenly prostrated him at Naples, dashing the cup of joy
+from his thirsty lips; and perchance the grim Kata-clothes had handed
+the worn tangled threads of existence to their faithful minister
+Paralysis, even before the severe shock that numbed him while sitting
+in the theatre _loge_.
+
+When his eyes closed upon the spectacle of his son, folding in his
+arms his firstborn, they shut out for ever the things of time and
+sense, and consciousness that forsook him then never reoccupied its
+throne. He was carried from the brilliant salon of the popular
+actress to the home of his son; medical skill exhausted its
+ingenuity, and though forty-eight hours elapsed before the weary
+heart ceased its slow feeble pulsations, General Laurance's soul
+passed to its final assize, without even a shadowy farewell
+recognition of the son, for whom he had hoped, suffered, dared so
+much.
+
+"Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and
+some men they follow after."
+
+During the week that succeeded his temporary entombment in the sacred
+repose of _Pere La Chaise_, Mrs. Orme completed her brief engagement
+at the theatre where she had so dearly earned her freshest laurels;
+and though her tragic career closed in undimmed splendour, when she
+voluntarily abdicated the throne she had justly won, bidding adieu
+for ever to the scene of former triumphs, she heard above the
+plaudits of the multitude the stern whisper, "Vengeance is mine,
+saith the Lord, I will repay."
+
+The man whom she most intensely hated, and most ardently longed to
+humiliate and abase in public estimation, had escaped the punishment;
+housed from reproach by the stony walls of the tomb, mocking her
+efforts to requite the suffering he had inflicted; and the keenest
+anticipations of her vindictive purpose were foiled, vanquished.
+
+One morning, ten days after the presentation of "Infelice," Mrs. Orme
+sat listening to her daughter, who, observing her restless,
+dissatisfied manner, proposed to read aloud. Between the two had
+fallen an utter silence with reference to the past, and not an
+allusion had been made to Cuthbert Laurance since the night he had
+first held his daughter to his heart. Death had dropped like a sacred
+seal upon its memorable incidents, which all avoided; but mother and
+child seemed hourly to cling more closely to each other.
+
+To-day sitting on a low ottoman, with her arm thrown across her
+mother's knee, while the white hand wearing the black agate wandered
+now and then over her drooping head, Regina read the "_Madonna Mia_."
+
+She had not concluded the perusal, when a card was brought in, and a
+glance at her mother's countenance left her no room to doubt the name
+it bore.
+
+"After five minutes, show him in."
+
+Mrs. Orme closed her eyes, and her lips trembled.
+
+"My daughter, do you desire to be present at this last earthly
+interview?"
+
+"No, mother. My wrongs I freely forgive, I told him so, but yours I
+can never forget; and I would prefer in future not to meet him. God
+pity and comfort you both."
+
+She kissed her mother's cheek, lips, even her hands, and hastily
+retreated. As she vanished, Mrs. Orme threw herself on her knees, and
+her lips moved rapidly while she wrung her fingers; but the petition
+was inaudible, known only to the Searcher of hearts. Was it for
+strength to prosecute to the bitter end, or for grace to forgive?
+
+She placed a strong metal box on the ormolu stand near her chair, and
+had just resumed her seat when Mr. Laurance entered, and approached
+her. He was in deep mourning, and his intensely pale but composed
+face bore the chastening lines of a profound and hopeless sorrow; but
+retained the proud unflinching regard peculiar to his family.
+
+Of the two, he was most calm and self-possessed. Bowing in answer to
+the inclination of her head, he drew a chair in front of her, and
+when he sat down she saw a package of papers in his hand.
+
+"I am glad, Mrs. Laurance, that you grant me this opportunity of
+saying a few words, which after to-day I shall seek no occasion to
+repeat; for with this interview ends all intercourse between us, at
+least in this world. These papers I found in poor father's private
+desk, and I have read them. They are your notes, and the marriage
+contract, which only awaited the signature he intended to affix."
+
+She held out her hand, and a burning blush dyed her cheek, as she
+reflected on the loathsome purpose which had framed that carefully
+worded instrument.
+
+"To-day I leave Paris for America, to front, as best I may, the
+changed aspect of life. I have not yet told Abbie of the cloud of
+sorrow and humiliation that will soon break over our family circle,
+for poor little Maud has been quite ill, and I deferred my bitter
+revelation until her mother's mind is composed and clear enough to
+grasp the mournful truth. In the suit which I presume you will
+commence, as soon as I land in America, you need apprehend no effort
+on my part to elude the consequences of my own criminal folly and
+rashness. I shall attempt no defence, beyond requiring my counsel to
+state that no communication ever reached me from you; that I believed
+you the wife of another; and I shall also insist upon the reading of
+the two letters in answer to those I wrote, requesting the President
+and Professor to ascertain where you were. I was assured that a
+marriage contracted during my minority was invalid, and without due
+investigation of the statutes of the State in which it was performed
+and which had unfortunately undergone a change, I believed it. Your
+right as a wife is clear, indisputable, inalienable, and cannot be
+withheld; and the divorce you desire will inevitably be granted. I
+cannot censure your resolution, it is due to yourself, doubly due to
+your child--our child! My child! Oh! that I had known the truth
+seventeen years ago! How different your fate and mine!"
+
+She leaned back, closing her eyes, against the eloquent pleading of
+that mesmeric countenance which was slowly robbing her of her stern
+purposes; renewing the spell she had never been able to fully resist.
+
+He saw the spasm of pain that wrinkled her brow, blanched her lips;
+and gazing into the lovely face so dear to him, he exclaimed:
+
+"Minnie! Minnie! Oh, my wife! My own wife!"
+
+He sank on his knees before her, and his handsome head fell upon the
+arm of her chair. She covered her face with her hands, and a
+smothered sob broke from her tortured heart.
+
+"I have sinned, but not intentionally against you. God is my witness
+had I known all twenty oceans could not have kept me from my wife and
+my baby. When you lived it all over again that night, when I saw you
+ill, deserted, in a charity hospital, with the child you say is mine
+cradled in your arms, oh! then indeed I suffered what all the pangs
+of perdition cannot surpass. When you and I married we were but
+children, but I loved you; afterward when I was a man, I madly
+renewed those vows to one, whom I was urged, persuaded, to wed. I am
+not a villain, and I know my duties to the mother of my afflicted
+Maud, to the child of my loveless union, and I intend rigidly to
+discharge them. But, Minnie, God knows that you are my true, lawful
+wife, and I want here upon my knees, before we part for ever, to tell
+you that no other woman ever possessed my heart. I have tried to be a
+patient, kind, indulgent husband to Abbie, but when I look at you,
+and think of her, remembering that my own rash blindness shut me from
+the Eden that now seems so deliciously alluring, when I realize what
+might have been for you and me, my punishment indeed appears
+unendurable. Ah, no language can describe my feelings, as I looked at
+that noble, lovely girl. Oh the fond pride of knowing that she is
+mine as well as yours! My wife! my wife, let the holy blue eyes and
+pure lips of our baby, our daughter, plead her father's
+forgiveness----"
+
+His voice faltered. There was a deep silence. Although kneeling so
+near, he made no attempt to touch her. For fifteen years she had
+struggled against all tender memories, and every softening
+recollection had been harshly banished. She had trained herself to
+despise and hate the man who had so blackened her life at its dewy
+threshold; but the mysterious workings of a woman's heart baffle
+experience, analysis, and conjecture.
+
+Listening to the low cadence of the beloved voice that first waked
+her from the magic realm of childhood, and unsealed the fountain of
+affection, the days of their courtship stole back; the blissful hours
+of the brief honeymoon. He was her lover, her noble young husband;
+above all, he was the father of her baby; and yielding to the old
+irresistible infatuation she suddenly laid her hand upon his head. As
+yet she had not uttered a syllable since his entrance, but the
+floodgates were lifted, and he heard the despairing cry of her
+famished heart:
+
+"Oh, my husband! My husband, my own husband!"
+
+He threw his arms around her as she leaned toward him, and drew the
+head to his shoulder. So in silence they rested, and he felt that one
+arm tightened around him, as he knelt holding her to his heart.
+
+"Minnie, your true heart forgives your unworthy husband. Tell me so,
+and it will enable me to bear all that the future may contain. Say,
+Cuthbert, I forgive you."
+
+She struggled up, gazed into his eyes, and exclaimed:
+
+"No; I loved you too well, too insanely ever to forgive, had loved
+you less, I might have forgiven more. There is no meekness in my
+soul, but an intolerable bitterness that mocks and maddens me. I
+ought to despise myself, and I certainly shall, for this unpardonable
+weakness. But very precious memories unnerved me just then, and I
+clung, not to you, not to Abbie Ames' husband, but to the phantom of
+the Cuthbert whom long ago I loved so well, to the vision of the
+young bridegroom I worshipped so blindly. Let me go. Our interview is
+ended."
+
+She withdrew from his arms, and rose.
+
+"Before I go, let me see our child once more. Let me tell her that
+her father is inexpressibly proud of the daughter who will honour his
+unworthy name again."
+
+"She declines meeting you again."
+
+"Minnie, don't teach her to hate me."
+
+"I gave her the opportunity, and she made her own choice, saying she
+freely forgave the wrongs committed against her, but her mother's she
+could never forget. If I had asked of Heaven the keenest punishment
+within the range of vengeance, it seems to me none could exceed the
+wretchedness of the man who, owning my darling for his child, is yet
+debarred from her love, her reverence, her confidence, and the
+precious charm of her continual presence. My sweet, tender, perfect
+daughter! The one true heart in all the wide world that loves and
+clings to me. You forsook and disowned me, repudiated your vows,
+offered them elsewhere, making unto yourself strange new gods;
+profaning the altar, where other images should have stood. The
+banker's daughter, and the Laurance heiress she bore you, are
+entitled to what remains of your fickle selfish heart, and I trust
+that the two who supplanted my baby and me will suffice for your
+happiness in the future as in the past. Into my own and my darling's
+life you can enter no more. 'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
+reap. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?' You deem
+me relentless and vindictive? Think of all the grey, sunless, woeful
+existence I showed you behind the footlights not many nights since,
+and censure me if you can. There is no pious resignation in my proud
+soul for indeed 'there are chastisements that do not chasten; there
+are trials that do not purify, and sorrows that do not elevate; there
+are pains and privations that harden the tender heart, without
+softening the stubborn will.' Of such are the sombre wrap and woof of
+my ill-starred life. When you reach New York Mr. Erle Palma, who is
+my counsel, will acquaint you with the course he deems it best to
+pursue."
+
+She looked calm and stately as the Ludovisian Juno, and quite as
+lovely, in her pale pride.
+
+"Minnie, do not part from me in anger. Oh, my wife, let me fold you
+in my arms once more! And once, just once, I pray you, let me kiss
+you! Are you not my own?"
+
+She recoiled a step, her brown eyes lightened, and her words fell
+crisp as icicles:
+
+"Since I was a bride, three weeks a wife, since you pressed them
+last, no man's lips have touched mine. I hold them too sacred to that
+dear buried past to be submitted to a pressure less holy--to be
+profaned by those of another woman's husband. Only my daughter kisses
+my lips. Yours are soiled with perjury, and belong to the wife and
+child of your choice. Go, pay your vows, be true at last to
+something. Good-bye."
+
+He came closer, but her pitiless chill face repulsed him. Seizing her
+beautiful hand, white and cold as marble, he lifted it, but the flash
+of the diamonds smote his heart like a heavy flail.
+
+"The death's head that you gave me as a bridal token! Is there not a
+fatality even in symbols? Upon my wedding ring stands the cinerary
+urn that soon sepulchred my peace, my hopes. A mockery so exquisite
+could not have been accidental, and faithfully that grinning skeleton
+has walked with me. The ghastly coat of arms of Laurance."
+
+She had thrown off his clasp, raised her hand, and turned the ring
+over, till the jewels glowed, then it fell back nerveless at her
+side.
+
+"Minnie."
+
+His voice was broken, but her lustrous eyes betrayed no hint of pity.
+
+"My wife has no pardon for her erring husband. I have merited none,
+still I hoped for one kind farewell word from lips that are strangely
+dear to me. So be it. Tell my daughter, if her unhappy father dared
+to pray, he would invoke Heaven's choicest blessings on her young
+innocent head. And, Minnie love, let our baby's eyes and lips
+successfully plead pardon for her father's unintentional sins against
+the wife he never ceased to love."
+
+He caught the  hand once more, kissed the ring he had placed there
+eighteen years before, and, feeling his hot trembling lips upon her
+icy fingers, she shut her eyes. When she opened them--she was alone.
+
+        "We twain have met like ships upon the sea,
+         Who hold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet;--
+         One little hour! and then, away they speed,
+         On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud and foam--
+         To meet no more!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+
+From the window of one of those beautiful villas that encrust the
+shores of Como, nestling like white birds at the base of the laurel
+and vine-clad hills that lave their verdant feet in the blue waters,
+Regina watched the sunshine falling across the placid bosom of the
+lake. Far away, on the sky-line opposite, and towering above the
+intervening mountains, glittered the white fire of the snowy Alps, as
+if they longed to quench their dazzling lustre in the peaceful blue
+sleeping beneath.
+
+Luxuriant vines clambered along the hillsides, and where the latter
+had been cut in terraces, and seemed swinging like the gardens of
+Semiramis, orange, lemon, myrtle, and olive trees showed all their
+tender green and soft grey tints, and longhaired acacias waved in the
+evening air, that was redolent of the faint delicious vesper incense
+swung from the pink chalices of climbing roses.
+
+     "No tree cumbered with creepers let the sunshine through,
+      But it was caught in scarlet cups, and poured
+      From these on amber tufts of bloom, and dropped
+      Lower on azure stars."
+
+Never weary of studying the wonderful beauty of the surrounding
+scenery, Regina surrendered herself to an enjoyment that would have
+been unalloyed had not a lurking shadow cast its unwelcome chill on
+all. Mr. and Mrs. Waul had returned to America, and for a month Mrs.
+Laurance, accompanied by Mr. Chesley and Regina, had been quietly
+ensconced in this lovely villa, whose terraces and balconies
+projected almost into the water, and commanded some of the finest
+views of the lake.
+
+But anxiety had followed, taking up its dreary watch in the midst of
+that witchery which might have exorcised the haunting grey ghost of
+care; and though shrouded by every imaginable veil and garland of
+beauty, its grim presence was as fully felt as that of the
+byssus-clad mummy that played its allotted part at ancient Coptic
+feasts.
+
+The steamer in which Mr. Laurance embarked with his family for
+America had been lost in mid Atlantic; and only one boat filled with
+a portion of the passengers and crew had been rescued by a West
+Indian ship bound for Liverpool. Among the published names of the few
+survivors that of Laurance did not appear.
+
+Had old ocean mercifully opened its crystal bosom and gathered to
+coral caves and shrouding purple algae the unfortunate man, who had
+quaffed all the rosy foam beading the goblet of life, and for whom it
+only remained to drain the bitter lees of public humiliation and
+social disgrace?
+
+When Mrs. Laurance received the first intimation that Cuthbert had
+probably perished, with his wife and child, she vehemently and
+stubbornly refused her credence. It seemed impossible that envious
+death could have so utterly snatched from her grasp the triumph upon
+which her eager fingers were already closing.
+
+Causing advertisements to be inserted in various journals, and
+offering therein a reward for information of the missing passengers,
+she forbade the topic broached in her presence, and quitting Paris
+retired for a season to Lake Como, vainly seeking that coveted
+tranquillity which everywhere her own harrowing thoughts and
+ceaseless forebodings effectually murdered.
+
+As time wore on she grew gloomy, taciturn, almost morose, and a
+restlessness beyond the remedy of medicine robbed her of the power of
+sleep. To-day she clung convulsively to her daughter, unwilling that
+she should leave her even for an instant; to-morrow she would lock
+herself in, and for hours refuse admittance to any human being. The
+rich bloom forsook her cheek, deep shadows underlined her large
+melancholy eyes, and her dimpled hands became so diaphanous, so
+thin, that the black agate ring with difficulty held its place upon
+the wasted fingers.
+
+With patient loving care, Regina anticipated her wishes, indulged
+all her varying caprices, devoted herself assiduously to the task of
+diverting her mind, and comforting her heart by the tender
+ministrations of her own intense filial affection. By day she read,
+talked, sang to her. When in the tormenting still hours of night her
+mother refused the thorns of a sleepless pillow, the daughter drew
+her out upon the terrace against which the wavelets broke in a
+silvery monologue, and directed her thoughts to the glowing stars
+that clustered in the blue dome above, and shimmered in the azure
+beneath; or with an arm around the mother's waist, led her into the
+flowery garden, and up the winding walks that climbed the eminence
+behind the villa, where oleanders whitened the gloom, and passionate
+jasmines broke their rich hearts upon the dewy air; so, pacing to and
+fro, until the moon went down behind myrtle groves, and the bald brow
+of distant Alps flushed under the first kiss of day.
+
+For Mrs. Laurance, nepenthe was indeed a fable, and while she
+abstained from even an indirect allusion to the subject that absorbed
+her, the nameless anxiety that seemed consuming her, Regina and her
+uncle watched her with increasing apprehension.
+
+This afternoon she had complained of headache, and, throwing herself
+on a couch in the recess of the window that overlooked the lake,
+desired to be left alone, in the hope of falling asleep.
+
+Stooping to kiss her, Regina said:
+
+"Mother, let me sit by you, and while I fan you gently read the
+'Lotos Eaters.' The drowsy rhythm will lull you into that realm of
+rest,--
+
+            'In which it seemed always afternoon.'
+
+May I?"
+
+"No. To-day your blue eyes would stab my sleep. I will ring when I
+want you."
+
+Dropping the filmy lace curtains, in order to lessen the reflection
+from the water, Regina softly stole away, and sat down at the window
+of the salon, where satin-leaved arums and dainty pearly orchids
+embellished the consoles, and fragrant heliotrope and geraniums were
+blooming in pots clustered upon the stone balcony outside.
+
+Each day the favourite view of the lake and bending shore line, upon
+which she gazed from this spot, developed some new beauty, hidden
+hitherto under leafy laurel shadows, or behind the snowy soil of some
+fishing-boat, rocking idly upon the azure waves.
+
+Now the burden of her reflections was:
+
+"If we could only spend our lives in this marble haven, away from the
+turmoil and feverish confusion of the outside world--forgetting the
+past, contented with the society of each other--and shut in with God
+and nature, how peaceful the future would be! nay, how happy all
+might yet become!"
+
+Sympathy with her mother had forced her to put temporarily aside the
+contemplation of her own sorrow, but in secret it preyed upon her
+heart; and whenever a letter arrived, she dreaded the announcement of
+Mr. Palma's marriage.
+
+His parting allusion to a brief European visit she had by the aid of
+her fears interpreted to mean a bridal tour, curtailed by his
+business engagements; and though she never mentioned his name when it
+could be avoided, she could not hear it casually pronounced by her
+uncle or mother, without feeling her heart bound suddenly.
+
+Once, soon after her arrival in Paris, her mother, in reading a
+letter from Mr. Palma, glanced at her, and said:
+
+"Your guardian desires me to say, that in your undisguised devotion
+to Uncle Orme he presumes he is completely forgotten; but consoles
+himself with the reflection, that from time immemorial wards have
+been like the Carthaginians--proverbially ungrateful."
+
+Regina made no response, and since then she had received no message.
+
+While she sat gazing over Como, a mirage rose glistening between her
+eyes, and the emerald shore beyond: the dear familiar outlines of
+that Fifth Avenue library, the frescoed walls, polished floor, mellow
+gas lamps; and above all, the stately form, massive head, high brow,
+so like a slab of marble, and blight black eyes of the dear master.
+
+She was glad when Mr. Chesley came in, with an open book in his hand,
+and stood near her.
+
+"Is your mother asleep?"
+
+"I hope so. She sent me away that she might get a nap."
+
+"Just now I stumbled upon a passage which reminded me so vividly of
+the imaginary home you last week painted for us, somewhere along the
+Pacific shore, that I thought I would show it to you. That home,
+where you hope to indulge your bucolic tastes, your childish fondness
+for pets--doves, rabbits, pheasants--and similar rustic appendages to
+our cottage--in--the--air. Here, read it, aloud if you will."
+
+She glanced over the lines, smiled, and read:
+
+        "'Mong the green lanes of Kent stood an antique home
+         Within its orchard, rich with ruddy fruits;
+         For the full year was laughing in his prime.
+         Wealth of all flowers grew in that garden green,
+         And the old porch with its great oaken door
+         Was smothered in rose-blooms, while o'er the walls
+         The honeysuckle clung deliciously.
+         Before the door there lay a plot of grass
+         Snowed o'er with daisies,--flower by all beloved,
+         And famousest in song,--and in the midst
+         A carved fountain stood,...
+         On which a peacock perched and sunned itself;
+         Beneath, two petted rabbits, snowy white,
+         Squatted upon the sward.
+         A row of poplars darkly rose behind,
+         Around whose tops, and the old-fashioned vanes,
+         White pigeons fluttered; and over all was bent
+         The mighty sky, with sailing, sunny clouds."
+
+"Thank you, Uncle Orme. The picture is as sweet as its honeysuckle
+blooms, and some day we will frame it with California mountains, and
+call it Home. I shall only want to add a gently sloping field,
+wherein pearly short-horns stand ankle deep in clover, while my dear
+old dog Hero basks upon the doorstep; and upon the lawn,--
+
+                               'An almond tree
+         Pink with her blossom and alive with bees,
+         Standing against the azure.'"
+
+"Yonder come the letters."
+
+As he spoke, Mr. Chesley left the room, and soon after a servant
+entered with a letter addressed to Regina.
+
+It was from Olga, dated Baden-baden; and the vein of subdued yet
+hopeless melancholy that wandered through its contents, now and then
+intertwined strangely with a thread of her old grim humour.
+
+"Do you ever hear from that legal sphinx--Erle Palma? Mamma only now
+and then receives epistles fashioned after those once in vogue in
+Laconia. (I wonder if even the old toothless gossips in Sparta were
+ever laconic?) I am truly sorry for Erle Palma. That beautifully
+crystallized quartz heart of his is no doubt being ground between the
+upper and nether millstones of his love and his pride; and Hymen
+ought to charge him heavy mill-toll. My dear, _have_ you seen Elliott
+Roscoe's little tinted-paper poem? Of course his apostrophe to
+'violet eyes, overlaced with jet!' will sound quite Tennysonian to a
+certain little shy girl, now hiding at Como, and who 'inspired the
+strain.' But aside from the pleasant association that links you with
+the verses, they are--pardon me, dear--as thin and flavourless
+as--well, as the soup dished out at pauper restaurants. You are at
+liberty to consider me consumed by envy, green with jealousy, when I
+here spitefully record that Elliott's ambitious poem reminds me of M.
+de Bonald's biting criticism on Madame de Kruedener: 'I make bold to
+declare, with the Bible in my hand, that the poor we shall always
+have with us, were it only the poor in intellect.' Coke and Story
+will befriend poor Elliott much more effectually than the Muses, who
+have most ingloriously snubbed him. Are you really happy, little
+snowbird, nestling in the down of mother-love, which--like the
+veritable baby you are--you so pined for?
+
+"Regina, I am going to tell you something. Bar the windows, lock the
+doors, shut it up for ever, close in your own heart. A few nights
+ago, I went with an English friend to the _Conversationshaus_. When
+we had leaned awhile against one of the columns, and watched the
+dancers in the magnificent saloon, he proposed to show me the grand
+gambling-room.
+
+"As we walked slowly along, listening to the click of the gold that
+pattered down from trembling hands, I saw, sitting at a _Roulette_
+table, deeply immersed in the game (never tell it!) Belmont
+Eggleston. Not the same classic, god-like face that I would once have
+followed straight to Hades--not the man upon whom I wasted all the
+love that God gives a woman to glorify her life and home; but a
+flushed, bloated creature, as unlike the Belmont of my hopes and
+dreams as 'Hyperion to a Satyr!' I watched him till my very soul
+turned sick, and all Pandemonium seemed to have joined in a jeer at
+my former infatuation. Next day, I saw him reel from a saloon to the
+steps of his wife's carriage. Years ago, when Erle Palma told me that
+my darling drank and gambled, I denied it; and in return for the
+warning, emptied more wrath upon my informer than all the Apocalyptic
+vials held. Ah! for poor Belmont, I fought as fiercely as a tawny
+tigress, when her youngest cub is captured by the hunters. Ashes!
+Bitter ashes of love and trust! Truly 'there is no pardon for
+desecrated ideals.' I have lived to learn that--
+
+                    'Man trusts in God;
+        He is eternal. Woman trusts in man,
+        And he is shifting sand.'"
+
+"Regina!"
+
+The girl looked up, and saw her uncle with an open letter in his
+hand.
+
+"What is it? Some bad news!"
+
+"Dear little girl, you are indeed fatherless now."
+
+She bent her head upon the ledge of the window, and after a moment
+Mr. Chesley sighed, and smoothed her hair.
+
+"With all his faults, he was still your father; and having had
+several interviews with him in Paris, I was convinced he was more
+'sinned against than sinning,' though of course he knew that he could
+never have legally married again while Minnie lived. God help us to
+forgive, even as we need and hope to be forgiven."
+
+"He knows I forgave him. I told him so the night he held me to his
+heart and kissed me; and you never can know how that thought comforts
+me now. But mother! Uncle----"
+
+She sprang up pale and tearful, but he detained her.
+
+"Mr. Palma writes me that there remains no longer a doubt that
+Laurance perished in the wreck. He encloses a detailed account of the
+disaster, from an American naval surgeon, who was returning home on
+furlough, when the storm overtook them, and who was one of the few
+picked up by the West Indian vessel. Mr. Palma wrote to him, relative
+to your father, and it appears from his reply--in my hand--that he
+knew the Laurances quite well. He says that during the gale, he was
+called to prescribe for Maud, who was really ill, and rendered worse
+by terror. When it was evident the steamer could not outlive the
+storm, he saw Cuthbert Laurance place his wife in one of the boats,
+and return to the cabin for his sick child. Hastening back with the
+little cripple in his arms, he found the boats were beyond reach, and
+too crowded to admit another passenger. He shouted the nearest to
+take his child, only his child; but the violence of the gale rendered
+it impossible to do more than keep the boat from swamping, and with
+many others, he was left upon the doomed vessel. There was no
+remaining boat; night came swiftly on, the storm increased, and next
+day there was no vestige of boat or ship visible. Mrs. Laurance was
+in the second boat, the largest and strongest, but it was overladen,
+and about twilight it capsized in the fury of the gale, and _all went
+down_. The surgeon who heard the wild screams of the women knows that
+the wife perished, and says he cannot indulge the faintest hope that
+the father and child escaped. Cuthbert was a remarkably skilful
+swimmer; he had once contended for a wager off Brighton, with a party
+of naval officers, and Laurance won it; but none could live in the
+sea that boiled and bellowed around that sinking ship, and encumbered
+as he was with the helpless child, it was impossible that he would
+have survived. I would rather not tell Minnie now, but Mr. Palma
+writes that the sister and nephew of General Laurance will force a
+suit to secure the remnants of the property, and he wishes to
+anticipate their action. Come with me, dear. Minnie is not asleep. As
+I passed her door, I heard her walk across the floor."
+
+"Uncle Orme, can't you wait till to-morrow? I do not know how this
+news will affect her, and I dread it."
+
+"My dear child, her suspense is destroying her. After all, delay will
+do no good. Poor Minnie! There is her bell. She knows the hour our
+mail is due, and she will ask for letters."
+
+Opening the door, both paused at the threshold, and neither could
+ever forget the picture she represented.
+
+In a snowy _peignoir_, she sat on the side of the couch, with her
+long waving hair falling in disorder to the marble floor, and seemed
+indeed like Japhet's "Amarant":
+
+        "She in her locks is like the travelling sun,
+         Setting, all clad in coifing clouds of gold."
+
+The wan Phidian face was turned toward them, and was breathless in
+its anxious eagerly questioning expression. Her brown eyes widened,
+searching theirs; and reading all, in her daughter's tearful pitying
+gaze, what a wild look crossed her face!
+
+Regina pushed her uncle back, closed the door and sprang to the
+couch, holding out the letters.
+
+Sitting as still as stone, Mrs. Laurance did not appear to notice
+them.
+
+"Darling mother, God knows what is best for us all."
+
+Slowly the strained eyes turned to the appealing face of her
+kneeling child, and something there broke up the frozen deeps of her
+heart.
+
+"Are you sure? Is there no hope?"
+
+"No hope; except to meet him in heaven."
+
+Throwing her hands above her head, the wretched woman wrung them
+despairingly, and the pain of all the bitter past wailed in her
+passionate cry:
+
+"Lost for ever! And I would not forgive him! My husband! My own
+husband! When he begged for pardon I spurned, and derided, and
+taunted him! Oh! I meant sometime to forgive him; after I had
+accomplished all I planned. After he was beggared, and humiliated in
+the eyes of the world, and that woman occupied the position where
+they all sought to keep me, a mother and yet no lawful wife, after I
+had enjoyed my triumph a little while, I fully intended to listen to
+my heart long enough to tell him that I forgave him because he was
+your father! And now, where is my revenge? Where is my triumph? God
+has turned His back upon me; has struck from my hands all that I have
+toiled for fifteen years to accomplish. They all triumph over me now,
+in their quiet graves, resting in peace; and I live, only to regret!
+To regret!"
+
+Her eyes were dry, and shone like jewels, and when her arms fell, her
+clenched hands rested unintentionally on her daughter's head.
+
+"Mother, he knows now that you forgive him. Remember that for him all
+grief is ended; and try to be comforted."
+
+"And for me? What remains for me?"
+
+Her voice was so deep, so sepulchral, so despairing, that Regina
+clung closer to her.
+
+"Your child, who loves you so devotedly; and the hope of that blessed
+rest in heaven, where marriages are unknown, where at last we shall
+all dwell together in peace."
+
+For some time Mrs. Laurance remained motionless; then her lips moved
+inaudibly. At length she said:
+
+"Yes, my child, our child is all that is left. When he asked to kiss
+me once more, I denied him so harshly, so bitterly! When he tried to
+draw me for the last time to his bosom, I hurled away his arms, would
+not let him touch me. Now I shall never see him again. My husband!
+The one only love of my miserable and accursed life! Oh, my beloved!
+do you know at last, that the Minnie of your youth, the bride of your
+boyhood has never, never ceased to love her faithless, erring
+husband?"
+
+Her voice grew tremulous, husky, and suddenly bending back her
+daughter's head, she looked long at the grieved countenance.
+
+"His last words were: 'Minnie love, let our baby's eyes and lips
+plead pardon for her father's unintentional sins.' They do; they
+always shall. Cuthbert's own wonderful eyes shining in his
+daughter's. My husband's own proud beautiful lips that kiss me so
+fondly every time I press his child's mouth! At last I can thank God
+that our baby is indeed her father's image; and because in death
+Cuthbert is my own again, I can cherish the memory, and pray for the
+soul of my husband! Kiss me, kiss me--oh, my darling!"
+
+She kissed the girl's eyes and lips, held her off, gazing into her
+face through gathering mist, then drew her again to her bosom, and
+the long hoarded bitterness and agony found vent in a storm of sobs
+and tears.
+
+        "I must sit joyless in my place; bereft
+         As trees that suddenly have dropped their leaves,
+         And dark as nights that have no moon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+
+"Uncle Orme, are you awake?"
+
+"My dear girl, what is the matter? Is Minnie ill?"
+
+"No, sir; but this is mother's birthday, and, if you please, I want
+you. There are a few late peaches hanging too high for my arms, and
+such grape-clusters! just beyond my finger tips. Will you be so kind
+as to gather them for me? I intended to ask you yesterday afternoon,
+but mother kept me on the terrace until it was too late. I have not
+heard you moving about? Do get up; the morning air is so delicious,
+and the lake lies like a huge rose with crimped petals."
+
+"You are a tormentingly early lark, chanting your hymns to sunrise,
+when you should be sound asleep. You waked me in the midst of a
+lovelier rose-coloured dream than your tiresome, stupid lake, and I
+shall not excuse you for disturbing me. Where is that worthless,
+black-eyed chattering monkey Giulio? Am I a boy to climb peach trees
+this time of the day, for your amusement? Oh, the irreverence of
+American youth!"
+
+"Giulio has gone on a different errand, and I never should insult
+your venerable years by asking you to climb trees, even in honour of
+mother's birthday breakfast. You can easily reach all I want, and
+then you may come back and finish your dream, and I will keep
+breakfast waiting until you declare yourself ready. Here is the
+basket, I am going out to the garden."
+
+Regina ran down into the flower-plot at the rear of the house, and
+after a little while she saw her uncle unencumbered by his coat,
+bearing the basket on his arm and ascending one of the winding walks
+that terraced the hill.
+
+To her lifelong custom of early rising she still adhered, and in the
+dewy hours spent alone in watching the sun rise over Como she
+indulged precious recollections that found audience and favour at no
+other season.
+
+It was her habit to place each morning a fresh bouquet upon her
+mother's plate, and also to arrange the flower stand, that since
+their residence at the villa had never failed to grace the centre of
+the breakfast-table.
+
+It was a parsonage custom, and had always been associated in her mind
+with the pastor's solemn benediction at each meal.
+
+To-day, while filling her basket with blossoms, some stray waft of
+perfume, or perhaps the rich scarlet lips of a geranium glowing
+against the grey stone of the wall, prattled of Fifth Avenue, and
+recalled a gay _boutonniere_ she once saw Mrs. Carew fasten in Mr.
+Palma's coat.
+
+Like a serpent this thought trailed over all, and the beauty of the
+morning suddenly vanished. Was that grey-eyed Cleopatra with
+burnished hair, low smooth brow, and lips like Lamia's, resting in
+her guardian's arms--his wife?
+
+Three months had elapsed since the day on which Mr. Chesley received
+his last letter, containing tidings that bowed and broke the haughty
+spirit of Mrs. Laurance; and if Mr. Palma had written again, Regina
+had not been informed of the fact.
+
+Was he married, and in his happiness as a husband had he for a time
+forgotten the existence of the friends in Europe?
+
+A shadowy hopelessness settled in the girl's eyes when she reflected
+that this was probably the correct explanation of his long silence,
+and a deep yearning to see him once more rose in her sad heart. She
+knew that it was better so, with the Atlantic between them; and yet
+it seemed hard, bitter, to think of living out the coming years, and
+never looking upon him again.
+
+A heavy sigh crossed her lips that were beginning to wear the patient
+lines of resignation, and turning from the red geranium which had
+aroused the memory coiled in her heart she stepped upon the terrace,
+leaned over the marble balustrade, and looked out.
+
+The sun was up, and in the verdant setting of its shore the lake
+seemed a huge sapphire, girdled with emerald.
+
+In the distance a fishing boat glided slowly, its taut sails gleaming
+as the sunlight smote them, like the snowy pinions of some vast bird
+brooding over the quiet water; and high in the air, just beneath a
+strip of orange cloud as filmy as lace, a couple of happy pigeons
+circled round and round, each time nearing the sun, that was rapidly
+paving the lake with quivering gold.
+
+Solemn and serene the distant Alps lifted their glittering domes,
+which cut sharply like crystal against the sky that was as deeply,
+darkly blue as lapis-lazuli; and behind the white villas dotting the
+shore, vineyards bowed in amber and purple fruitage, plentiful as
+Eshcol, luscious as Schiraz.
+
+The cool air was burdened with mysterious hints of acacias and roses,
+which the dew had stolen from drowsy gardens, and over the gently
+rippling waters floated the holy sound of the sweet-tongued bell,
+from
+
+                    ..."Where yonder church
+        Stands up to heaven, as if to intercede
+        For sinful hamlets scattered at its feet."
+
+Into the house Regina passed slowly, a trifle paler from her matin
+reverie; and when she entered the pretty breakfast-room, Mr. Chesley
+had just deposited his fruity burden upon the floor.
+
+"Thank you, dear Uncle Orme. Mother will enjoy her peaches when she
+knows you gathered them with the dew still upon their down. Go,
+finish your dream; Heaven grant it be sweet! No one shall even pass
+your door for the next hour, unless shod with velvet, or with
+silence. This is the first of mother's birthdays I have had an
+opportunity to celebrate, and I wish to surprise her pleasantly. Go
+back to sleep."
+
+She stood on tiptoe and lightly kissed his swarthy cheek.
+
+"Unfortunately my brain is not sufficiently vassal to my will, to
+implicitly obey its mandates; and dropping on my pillow and falling
+into slumber are quite different things. Beside (you need not arch
+your eyebrows any higher, when I assure you that), despite my
+honourable years, my hearing is as painfully acute as that of the
+giant fabled to watch 'Bifrost,' and who 'heard the grass growing in
+the fields, and the wool on the backs of young lambs.' Last night,
+just as I was lapsing into a preliminary doze, two vagrant
+nightingales undertook an opera that brought them to the large myrtle
+under my window, where I hoped they had reached the _finale_. But one
+of them--the female, I warrant you, from the clatter of her small
+tongue (if female nightingales can sing)--audaciously perched on the
+stone balcony in front of my open window, and such a tirade of
+hemi-demi-semi-quavers never before insulted a sleepy  man. I clapped
+my hands, but they trilled as if all Persia had sent them a
+challenge. Now I am going to take a bath, and since you persisted in
+making me get up, I intend to punish you with my society, just as
+soon as I finish my toilette. If you see a brace of birds smothered
+in truffles on the dinner-table, you may suspect the fate of all who
+violate my dreams. Even feathered lovers are a pest. My little girl,
+before you begin your reign in my California home, I shall remind you
+of your promise, that no lover of yours will ever dare to darken my
+doors."
+
+With a smile lingering about her lip, after her uncle's departure,
+Regina filled the _epergne_ on the table with a mass of rose-coloured
+oleanders--her mother's favourite flowers, and fringed the edge with
+geraniums and fuchsias. On her plate she laid a cluster of tuberoses,
+grouped and tied in the shape of a heart, with spicy apple geranium
+leaves girdling the waxen petals. The breath of the oleanders
+perfumed the room, and when quite satisfied with the arrangement of
+the flowers, Regina piled the crimson peaches and golden grapes in a
+pyramid on the silver stand in the centre.
+
+Drawing from her pocket a slender roll of sheet music fastened with
+rose ribbon, and a tiny envelope addressed to her mother, she placed
+them upon Mrs. Laurance's plate, crowning all with the white heart of
+tuberoses.
+
+For some days she had been haunted by a musical idea, which gradually
+developed as she improvised into a _Nocturne_, full of plaintive
+minor passages; and this first complete musical composition, written
+out by her own hand, she had dedicated to her mother. It was called:
+"Dreams of my mother."
+
+Standing beside the table, her hands folded before her, and her head
+slightly drooped, she fell into a brief reverie, wondering how she
+could endure to live without the society of this beloved mother,
+which imparted such a daily charm to her own existence, and as she
+reflected on the past an expression of quiet sadness stole over her
+countenance, and into--
+
+        "The eyes of passionless, peaceful blue
+         Like twilight which faint stars gaze through."
+
+In the doorway fronting the east, Mr. Palma had stood for some
+seconds unobserved, studying the pretty room and its fair young
+queen.
+
+In honour of her mother's birthday, she wore a white India muslin,
+with a blue sash girding her slender waist, and only a knot of blue
+ribbon at her throat, where the soft lace was gathered. Her silky
+hair rolled in a heavy coil low at the back of her head, and was
+secured by a gold comb; and close to one small ear she had fastened
+a cluster of snowy velvet pansies, which contrasted daintily with the
+glossy blackness of her hair.
+
+To the man who had crossed the ocean solely to feast his hungry eyes
+upon that delicate cameo face, it seemed as pure as an angel's.
+Although continual heart-ache, and patient uncomplaining need of
+something that she knew and felt God had removed for ever beyond her
+reach, had worn the cheek to a thinner oval, and left darker shadows
+in her calm eyes, Mr. Palma who had so long and carefully
+scrutinized her features, acknowledged now, that indeed--
+
+        "She grew fairer than her peers;
+         Still her gentle forehead wears
+         Holy lights of infant years."
+
+Nearly eight years before, as he watched her asleep in the railway
+car, he had wondered whether it were possible that she could carry
+her tender loving heart, straightforward white soul, and saintly
+young face untarnished and unbruised into the checkered and feverish
+realm of womanhood?
+
+To-day she stood as fair and pure as in her early childhood, a gentle
+image of renunciation, "all unspotted from the world," whose
+withering breath he had so dreaded for his flower.
+
+Watching her, a sudden splendour of hope lighted his fine eyes, and a
+glow of intense happiness fired his usually pale cheek.
+
+Slowly she turned away from the table, and against the glory of the
+sunlight streaming through the open door, she saw her guardian's tall
+figure outlined.
+
+Was it a mere blessed vision, born of her recent reverie on the
+terrace; or had he died, and his spirit, reading the secret of her
+soul, had mercifully flown to comfort her by one farewell appearance?
+
+He opened his arms and his whole face was radiant with passionate and
+tender love. She did not move, but her eyes gazed into his, like one
+in a happy dream, who fears to awake.
+
+He came swiftly forward, and holding out his arms, exclaimed in a
+voice that trembled with the excess of his joy:
+
+"My Lily! My darling!"
+
+But she did not spring to meet him, as he hoped and expected, and
+thrilled by the music of his tone she grew paler standing quite
+still, with trembling lips and eyes that shone like stars when autumn
+mists begin to gather.
+
+"My Lily, come to me, of your own dear will."
+
+"Mr. Palma, I am glad, very glad, to see my guardian once more."
+
+She put out her hand, which shook, despite her efforts to keep it
+steady, and her own voice sounded far, far off, like an echo lost
+among strange hills.
+
+He came a step nearer, but did not take her hand, and when he leaned
+toward her, she suddenly clasped her hands and rested her chin upon
+them, in the old childish fashion he remembered so well.
+
+"Does my Lily know why I crossed the Atlantic?"
+
+A spasm of pain quivered over her features, and though he saw how
+white her lips turned at that instant, her answer was clear, cold,
+and distinct.
+
+"Yes, sir. You came on your bridal tour. Is not your wife at Como?"
+
+"I hope so. I believe so; I certainly expected to see her here."
+
+He was smiling very proudly just then, but beginning to suspect that
+he had tortured her cruelly by the tacit imposture to which he had
+assented, his eyes dimmed at the thought of her suffering.
+
+She misinterpreted the smile, and quickly rallied.
+
+"Mr. Palma, I hope you brought Llora also with you?"
+
+"No. Why should I? She is much better off at home with her mother."
+
+"But, sir, I thought--I understood----"
+
+She caught her breath, and a perplexed expression came into her
+wistful deep eyes, as she met those, fixed laughingly upon her.
+
+"You thought, you understood what? That after living single all these
+years, I am at last foolish enough to want a wife? One to kiss, to
+hold in my arms, to love even better than I love myself? Well, what
+then? I do not deny it."
+
+"And I hope, Mr. Palma, that she will make you very happy."
+
+She spoke with the startling energy of desperation.
+
+"Thank you, so do I. I believe, I know she will; I swear she shall!
+Can you tell me my darling's name?"
+
+"Yes, sir, it is no secret. All the world knows it is Mrs. Carew."
+
+She was leaning heavily upon her womanly pride; how long would it
+sustain her? Would it snap presently, and let her down for ever into
+the dust of humiliation?
+
+Mr. Palma laughed, and putting his hand under her chin, lifted the
+face.
+
+"All the world is very wise, and my ward quite readily accepted its
+teachings. None but Olga suspected the truth. I would not marry
+Brunella Carew, if she were the last woman left living on the wide
+earth. I do not want a fashion-moth. I would not have the residue of
+what once belonged to another. I want a tender, pure, sweet, fresh
+white flower that I know, and have long watched expanding from its
+pretty bud. I want my darling, whom no other man has kissed, who
+never loved any one but me; who will come like the lily she is, and
+shelter herself in my strong arms, and bloom out all her fragrant
+loveliness in my heart only. Will she come?"
+
+Once more he opened his arms, and in his brilliant eyes she read his
+meaning.
+
+The revelation burst upon her like the unexpected blinding glow of
+sunshine smiting one who approaches the mouth of a cavern, in whose
+chill gloom, after weary groping, all hope had died. She felt giddy,
+faint, and the world seemed dissolving in a rosy mist.
+
+"My Lily, my proud little flower! You will not come? Then Erle Palma
+must take his own, and hold it, and wear it for ever!"
+
+He folded his arms around her, strained her to his bosom, and laid
+his warm trembling lips on hers. What a long passionate kiss, as
+though the hunger of a lifetime could never be satisfied.
+
+After his stern self-control and patient waiting, the proud man who
+had never loved any one but the fair young girl in his arms,
+abandoned himself to the ecstasy of possession. He kissed the
+eyebrows that were so lovely in his sight, the waving hair on her
+white temples, and again and again the soft sweet trembling lips that
+glowed under his pressure.
+
+"My precious violet eyes, so tender and holy. My silver Lily, mine
+for ever. Erle Palma's first and last and only love!"
+
+When, with his cheek resting on hers, he told her why his sense of
+honour had sealed his lips while she was a ward beneath his roof,
+entrusted by her mother to his guardianship, and dwelt upon the
+suffering it had cost him to know that others were suing for her
+hand, trying to win away the love, which his regard for duty
+prevented him from soliciting, she began to realize the strength
+and fervour of the affection that was now shining so deliciously
+upon her heart. She learned the fate of the glove he had found on
+his desk and locked up; of the two faded white hyacinths he had
+begged and worn in his breast pocket because they had rested on her
+hair; of the songs he wanted simply for the reason that he had heard
+them on the night when she fainted and he had first kissed her cold
+unconscious lips.
+
+Would the brilliant New York Bar have recognized their cool,
+inflexible, haughty favourite in the man who was pouring such fervid
+passionate declarations into the small pearly ear that felt his lips
+more than once?
+
+Erle Palma had much to tell to the woman of his love, much to explain
+concerning the events of the day when Elliott Roscoe witnessed her
+first interview with Peleg Peterson, and subsequently aided in his
+arrest, but this morning long audience was denied him.
+
+In the midst of his happy whispers a step which he did not hear came
+down the stairs, a form for whom he had no eyes, stood awhile
+perplexed, and amazed on the threshold. Then a very stately figure
+swept across the marble tiles, and laid a firm hand on Regina's
+shoulder.
+
+"My daughter!"
+
+The girl looked up, startled, confused; but the encircling arms would
+not release her.
+
+"My dear madam, do not take her away."
+
+Mrs. Laurance did not heed him, her eyes were riveted on her child.
+
+"My little girl, have you too deceived and forsaken your unfortunate
+mother?"
+
+She broke away from her lover's clasp, and threw her arms around her
+mother's neck.
+
+Pressing her tightly to her heart, Mrs. Laurance turned to Mr. Palma,
+and said sternly:
+
+"Is there indeed no such thing as honour left among men? You who knew
+so well my loneliness and affliction--you, sir, to whom I trusted my
+little lamb--have tried to rob me of the only treasure I thought I
+possessed, the only comfort left to gladden my sunless life! You have
+tried to steal my child's heart, to win her from me."
+
+"No, mother, he never let me know, and I never dreamed that--that he
+cared at all for me until this morning. He did not betray your trust,
+even for----"
+
+"Let Mr. Palma plead his own defence, if he can; look you to yours,"
+answered her mother, coldly.
+
+"It is much sweeter from her lips, and you, my dear madam, are very
+cruel to deny me the pleasure of hearing it. Lily, my darling, go
+away a little while, not far, where I can easily find you, and let me
+talk to your mother. If I fail to satisfy her fully on all points, I
+shall never ask at her hands the precious boon I came here solely to
+solicit."
+
+He took her hand, drew her from the arms that reluctantly relaxed,
+and when they reached the threshold smiled down into her eyes.
+Lifting her fingers, he kissed them lightly, and closed the door.
+
+What ailed the birds that trilled their passionate strains so
+joyously as she ran down the garden walk, and into the rose-arbour?
+Had clouds and shadows flown for ever from the world, leaving only
+heavenly sunshine and Mr. Palma?
+
+"I wonder if there be indeed a quiet spot on earth where I can hide;
+a sacred refuge, where neither nightingale nor human lovers will vex
+my soul, or again disturb my peace with their eternal madrigals?"
+
+She had not seen her uncle, who was sitting in one corner, clumsily
+tying up some roses which he intended for a birthday offering to his
+niece.
+
+At the sound of his quiet voice, Regina started up.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Orme! I did not see you. Pray excuse me. I will not
+disturb you."
+
+She was hurrying away, but he caught her dress.
+
+"My dear, are you threatened with ophthalmia, that you cannot see a
+man three yards distant, who measures six feet two inches? Certainly
+I excuse you. A man who is kept awake all night by one set of love
+ditties, dragged out of his bed before sunrise, and after taking
+exercise and a bath that render him as hungry as a Modoc cut off from
+his lava-beds, is expected and forced to hold his famished frame in
+peace, while a pair of human lovers exhaust the vocabulary of cooing
+that man can patiently excuse much. Sit down, my dear girl. Because
+my beard is grey, and crow-feet gather about my eyes, do you suppose
+the old man's heart cannot sympathize with the happiness that throbs
+in yours, and that renews very sacredly the one sweet love-dream of
+his own long-buried youth? I know, dear; you need not try to tell me,
+need not blush so painfully. Mr. Palma reached Como last evening; I
+knew he was coming, and saw him early this morning. I can guess it
+all, and I am very glad. God bless you, dear child. Only be sure you
+tell Palma that we allow no lovers in our ideal home."
+
+He put his hand on her drooping head, and drawing it down, she
+silently pressed it in her own. So they sat; how long, neither knew.
+She dreaming of that golden future that had opened so unexpectedly
+before her; he listening to memory's echoes of a beloved tone long
+since hushed in the grave.
+
+When approaching voices were heard, he rose to steal away and tears
+moistened his mild brown eyes.
+
+"Stay with me, please," she whispered, clinging to his sleeve.
+
+Through the arched doorway of the arbour, she saw two walking slowly.
+
+Mrs. Laurance leaned upon Mr. Palma's arm, and as he bent his
+uncovered, head, in earnest conversation, his noble brow was placid
+and his haughty mouth relaxed in a half-smile. They reached the
+arbour, and paused.
+
+In her morning robe of delicate lilac tint, Mrs. Laurance's sad
+tear-stained face seemed in its glory of golden locks, almost as
+fair as her child's. But one was just preparing to launch her frail
+argosy of loving hopes upon the sunny sea that stretched in liquid
+splendour before her dazzled eyes; the other had seen the wreck of
+all her heart's most precious freight, in the storm of varied griefs,
+that none but Christ could hush with His divine "Be still."
+
+The repressed sorrow in the countenance of the mother was more
+touching than any outbreak could have been, and after a strong
+effort, she held out her hand, and said:
+
+"My daughter."
+
+Regina sprang up, and hid her face on her mother's neck.
+
+"When I began to hope in a blind dumb way that nothing more could
+happen to wring my heart, because I had my daughter safe, owned her
+entire undivided love, and we were all in all to each other; just
+when I dared to pray that my sky might be blue for a little while,
+because my baby's eyes mirrored it, even then the last, the dearest
+is stolen away, and by my best friend too! Child of my love, I would
+almost as soon see you in your shroud as under a bridal veil, for you
+will love your husband best, and oh! I want all of your dear heart
+for my own. How can I ever give you away, my one star-eyed angel of
+comfort!"
+
+Her white hand caressed the head upon her bosom, and clasping her
+mother's waist, the girl said distinctly:
+
+"Let it be as you wish. My mother's happiness is far dearer to me
+than my own."
+
+"Oh, my darling! Do you mean it? Would you give up your lover, for
+the sake of your poor desolate mother?"
+
+She bent back the fair face and gazed eagerly into the girl's eyes.
+
+"Mother, I should never cease to love him. Life would not be so sweet
+as it looked this morning, when I first learned he had given me his
+heart; but duty is better than joy, and I owe more to my suffering
+mother than to him, or to myself. If it adds to the cup of your many
+sorrows to give me even to him, I will try to take the bitter for my
+portion, and then sweeten as best I may the life that hitherto you
+have devoted to me. Mother, do with your child as seems best to your
+dear heart."
+
+She was very white, but her face was firm, and the fidelity of her
+purpose was printed in her sad eyes.
+
+"God bless my sweet, faithful, trusting child!"
+
+Mrs. Laurance could not restrain her tears, and Mr. Palma shaded his
+eyes with his hand.
+
+"My little girl, make your choice. Decide between us."
+
+She moved a few steps, as if to free herself, but in rain; Regina's
+arms tightened around her.
+
+"Between you? Oh no, I cannot. Both are too dear."
+
+"To whom does your heart cling most closely?"
+
+"Mother, ask me no more. There is my hand. If you can consent to give
+it to him. I shall be--oh, how happy! If it would grieve you too
+much, then, mother, hold it, keep it. I will never murmur or
+complain, for now, knowing that he loves me, I can bear almost
+anything."
+
+Tears were streaming down the mother's cheeks, and pressing her lips
+to the white mournful face of her daughter she beckoned Mr. Palma to
+her side. For a moment she hesitated, held up the fair fingers and
+kissed them, then as if distrusting herself, quickly laid the little
+hand in his.
+
+"Take my darling; and remember that she is the most precious gift a
+miserable mother ever yielded up."
+
+After a moment Mrs. Laurance whispered something, and very won the
+lovely face flushed a brilliant rose, the soft tender eyes were
+lifted timidly to Mr. Palma's face, and as he drew her to aim, she
+glided from her mother's arms into his, feeling his lips rest like a
+blessing from God on her pure brow.
+
+"Does my Lily love me best?"
+
+Only the white arms answered his whisper, clasping his neck; and Mrs.
+Laurance and Mr. Chesley left them, with the dewy roses overhead
+swinging like censers in the glorious autumn morning and the sacred
+chimes of church bells dying in silvery echoes, among the olive and
+myrtle that clothed the distant hills.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+
+In consenting to bestow Regina's hand on Mr. Palma, Mrs. Laurance had
+stipulated that the marriage should be deferred for one year,
+alleging that her daughter was yet very young, and having been so
+long separated she wished her to remain with her at least for some
+months. Mr. Palma reluctantly assented to conditions which compelled
+him to return to America without Regina, and in November Mrs.
+Laurance removed to Milan, where she desired that her child's fine
+voice and musical talent should be trained and developed by the most
+superior instruction.
+
+Swiftly the twelve months sped away, and in revisiting the
+Mediterranean shores, linked by so many painful reminiscences with
+the period of her former sojourn, Mrs. Laurance, despite the efforts
+of her faithful and fond companion, seemed to sink into a confirmed
+melancholy.
+
+By tacit agreement no reference was ever made to her past life, but a
+shadow chill and unlifting brooded over her, and the sleeplessness
+that no opiate could conquer--a sleeplessness born of heart-ache
+which no spell could narcotize--robbed her cheek of its bloom, and
+left weary lines on her patient, hopeless face.
+
+Mr. Chesley had returned with Mr. Palma to the United States, and
+late in the following autumn Mrs. Laurance and Regina sailed for New
+York.
+
+The associations of the voyage were peculiarly painful to the unhappy
+wife, whose lips never unclosed upon the topic that engrossed her
+thoughts, and soon after their arrival her physician advised a trip
+to Florida or Cuba, until the rigour of the winter had ended, as an
+obstinate cough again aroused fears of consumption.
+
+To accompany her mother, Regina postponed her marriage until June,
+and notwithstanding Mr. Palma's avowed dissatisfaction and earnest
+protest, spent the winter and spring in the West Indies. Mrs.
+Laurance gradually regained health, but not cheerfulness, and in May,
+when they returned to New York, preparations were made for the
+wedding, which in deference to her mother's feelings, Regina desired
+should be very quiet.
+
+Her husband's estate had long been in Mrs. Laurance's possession, and
+the stately mansion had been repaired and refurnished, awaiting its
+owner; but she shrank with a shiver from the mention of the place,
+announcing her intention to visit it no more, until she was laid to
+rest in the proud family tomb, whither the remains of General Rene
+Laurance had already been removed.
+
+In accordance with her daughter's wishes, she had taken for the
+summer a villa on the Hudson, only a short distance from the city,
+and a week before the day appointed for the marriage they took
+possession of their country home.
+
+As the time rapidly approached, Mrs. Laurance's depression of spirits
+seemed to increase; she jealously counted the hours that remained,
+and her sad eyes rested with fateful foreboding on her daughter's
+happy countenance.
+
+On the afternoon previous to the wedding, the mother sat on the
+verandah overlooking the velvet lawn that stretched between the house
+and the river. The sun was setting, and the rich red glow rested upon
+the crest of distant hills, and smote the sails of two vessels
+gliding close to the opposite shore.
+
+On the stone step sat Regina, her head leaning against her mother's
+knee, her hand half buried in the snowy locks of Hero, who crouched
+at her side.
+
+"Mrs. Palma and Uncle Orme will not arrive until noon; but Olga comes
+early to-morrow; and, mother, I know you will be glad to learn that
+at last her brother has persuaded her to abandon her intention of
+joining the----"
+
+She did not complete the sentence, for glancing up, she saw that Mrs.
+Laurance's melancholy eyes were fixed on the crimson sky and purpling
+hills far away, and she knew that her thoughts were haunting grey,
+ashy crypts of the Bygone.
+
+For some moments silence prevailed, and mother and child presented a
+singular contrast. The former was clad in some violet-coloured
+fabric, and her wealth of golden hair was brushed smoothly back and
+twisted into a loose knot, where her daughter's fingers had inserted
+a moss rose with clustering buds and glossy leaves.
+
+The girl wore a simple white muslin, high in the throat, where a
+quilling of soft lace was secured by a bunch of lemon blooms and
+violets; and around her coil of jet hair twined a long spray of
+Arabian jasmine that drooped almost to her shoulder.
+
+One face star-eyed and beaming as Hope, with rosy dreams lurking
+about the curves of her perfect mouth; the other pale, dejected, yet
+uncomplaining, a lovely statue of Regret.
+
+Very soon the white hand that wore the black agate, wandered across
+the daughter's silky hair.
+
+"Yonder goes the train; and Mr. Palma will be here in a few minutes.
+How little I dreamed that cold, undemonstrative, selfish man would
+prove such a patient, tender lover! Truly--
+
+        'Beauty hath made our greatest manhoods weak.'
+
+Kiss me, my darling, before you go to meet him. My blue-eyed baby!
+after to-morrow you will be mine no longer. In the hearts of wives
+husbands supplant mothers, and reign supreme. Do not speak, my love.
+Only kiss me, and go."
+
+She bent over the face resting on her knee, and a moment after
+Regina, followed by the noble old dog, went down the circuitous walk
+leading to the iron gate. On either side stood deodar cedars, and
+behind one of these she sat down on a rustic seat.
+
+She had not waited long when footsteps approached, and Mr. Palma's
+tall, handsome figure passed through the gate, accompanied by one who
+followed slowly.
+
+"Lily!"
+
+The lawyer passed his arm around her, drew her to his side, and
+whispered:
+
+"I bring you glad tidings. I bring my darling a very precious bridal
+present--her father."
+
+Turning quickly, he put her in Mr. Laurance's arms.
+
+"Can my daughter cordially welcome her unhappy and unworthy father?"
+
+"Oh! how merciful God has been to me! My father alive and
+safe--really folding me to his heart? Now my mother can rest, for now
+she can utter the forgiveness which her heart long ago pronounced;
+but which, having withheld at your painful parting interview, has so
+sorely weighed down her spirits. Oh, how bright the world looks!
+Thank God! at last mother can find peace."
+
+Looking fondly at her radiant face, Mr. Laurance asked in an unsteady
+voice:
+
+"Will my Minnie's child plead with her, for the long-lost husband of
+her youth?"
+
+"Oh, father! there is no need. Her love must have triumphed long ago
+over the sense of cruel wrong and the memory of the past, for since
+we learned that you were among those who perished she has silently
+mourned as only a wife can for the husband she loves. Because she
+sees in my face the reflex of yours, it has of late grown doubly dear
+to her; and sometimes at night when she believes me asleep, she
+touches me softly, and whispers, 'My Cuthbert's baby.' But why have
+you so long allowed us to believe you were lost on that vessel?"
+
+Briefly Mr. Laurance outlined the facts of his escape upon a raft,
+which was hastily constructed by several of the crew when the boats
+were beyond their reach. Upon this he had placed Maud, and on the
+morning after the wreck of the vessel they succeeded in getting into
+one of the boats which was floating bottom upward, and providentially
+drifted quite near the raft. For several days they were tossed
+helplessly from wave to wave, exposed to heavy rains, and on the
+third evening, poor little Maud who had been unconscious for some
+hours, died in her father's arms. At midnight when the moon shone
+full and bright, he had wrapped the little form in his coat, and
+consigned her to a final resting-place beneath the blue billows,
+where her mother had already gone down amid the fury of the gale. He
+knew from the colour and lettering of the boat, that it was the same
+in which he had placed his terrified wife, and when it floated to
+their raft he could not doubt her melancholy fate. A few hours after
+Maud's burial, a Danish brig bound for Valparaiso discovered the
+boat and its signals of distress, and taking on board the four
+survivors, sailed away on its destined track. Mr. Laurance bad made
+his way to Rio Janeiro, and subsequently to Havana, but learning from
+the published accounts that his wife had indeed perished, and that he
+also was numbered among the lost, he determined not to reveal the
+fact of his existence to any one. Financially beggared, his ancestral
+home covered by mortgages which Mrs. Laurance held, and utterly
+hopeless of arousing her compassion or obtaining her pardon, he was
+too proud to endure the humiliation that would overwhelm him in the
+divorce suit he knew she intended to institute; and resolved never to
+return to the United States, where he could expect only disgrace and
+sorrow.
+
+While in Liverpool, preparing to go to Melbourne, he accidentally
+found and read Mrs. Laurance's advertisement in the London _Times_,
+offering a reward for any definite information concerning Cuthbert
+Laurance, reported lost on Steamer ----. Had she relented, would she
+pardon him now? He was lonely, desolate; his heart yearned for the
+sight of his fair young daughter, doubly dear since the loss of poor
+Maud, and he longed inexpressibly to see once more the love of his
+early and his later life.
+
+If still implacably vindictive, would she have continued the
+advertisement, which so powerfully tempted him to reveal himself? He
+was fully conscious of his own unworthiness, and of the magnitude of
+the wrongs inflicted upon her, but after a long struggle with his
+pride, which bled sorely at thought of the scornful repulse that
+might await him, he had written confidentially to Mr. Palma, and in
+accordance with his advice, returned to New York.
+
+Only the day previous he had arrived, and now came to test the power
+of memory over his wife's heart.
+
+"Father, she is sitting alone on the verandah, with such a world of
+sadness in her eyes, which have lost the blessed power of weeping. Go
+to her. I believe you need no ally to reach my mother's heart."
+
+Mr. Laurance kissed her fair forehead, and walked away; and passing
+his arm around Regina, Mr. Palma drew her forward across the lawn
+till they reached a branching lilac near the verandah.
+
+Here he paused, took off his glasses, and looked proudly and
+tenderly down into the violet eyes that even now met his so shyly.
+
+"My Lily, to-morrow at this hour you will be my wife."
+
+His haughty lips were smiling as they sought hers, and with her
+lovely flushed face half hidden on his shoulder, and one small hand
+clinging to his, she watched her father's figure approaching the
+steps.
+
+Mrs. Laurance sat with her folded hands resting on the rail of the
+balustrade, her head slightly drooped upon her bosom; and the
+beautiful face was lighted by the dying sunset splendour, that
+seemed to kindle a nimbus around the golden head, and rendered her
+in her violet drapery like some haloed _Mater Dolorosa_, treading
+alone the _Via Crucis_.
+
+Dusky shadows under the melancholy brown eyes made them appear
+darker, deeper, almost prophetic, and over her lips drifted a
+fragment from "Regret"
+
+                           "Oh that word Regret!
+        There have been nights and morns, when we have sighed,
+        'Let us alone Regret! We are content
+        To throw thee all our past, so thou wilt sleep
+        For aye.' But it is patient, and it wakes;
+        It hath not learned to cry itself to sleep,
+        But plaineth on the bed that it is bard."...
+
+"Ahyes. In the room of revenge reigns regret. Where is my revenge? It
+gleamed like nectar, and when I drained it consuming poison clung to
+my lips. To revenge is to regret--for ever! To-day how utterly
+widowed; to-morrow--childless. Oh, stranded life! Infelice!
+Infelice!"
+
+Upon the stone steps stood the man whom her eyes, turned toward the
+distant hill-tops, had not yet seen, but when the passionate pathos
+of that voice which had so often charmed and swayed its audiences
+died away in a sob, a musical yet very tremulous tone fell on the
+evening air:
+
+"Minnie,--my wife! After almost twenty years of neglect, injustice,
+and wrong, can the husband of your youth, and the father of your
+child, hope for pardon?"
+
+        "There is no ruined life beyond the smile of heaven,
+         And compensating grace for every loss is given,
+         The Coliseum's shell is loved of flower and vine,
+         And through its shattered rents the peaceful planets shine."
+
+
+
+
+
+Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co London & Edinburg
+
+
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