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St. Elmo

by Augusta J. Evans · English · Gutenberg #4553 · 1,022,200 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: St. Elmo

Author: Augusta J. Evans


        
Release date: October 1, 2003 [eBook #4553]
                Most recently updated: August 22, 2014

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4553

Credits: Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ST. ELMO ***




Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.










ST. ELMO

BY

AUGUSTA J. EVANS

Author of "Beulah," "Macaria," "At the Mercy of Tiberius" "Infelice"
Etc., Etc.


"Ah! the true rule is--a true wife in her husband's house is his
servant; it is in his heart that she is queen. Whatever of the best he
can conceive, it is her part to be; whatever of the highest he can
hope, it is hers to promise; all that is dark in him she must purge
into purity, all that is failing in him she must strengthen into truth;
from her, through all the world's clamor, he must win his praise; in
her, through all the world's warfare, he must find his peace."--JOHN
RUSKIN.





TO

J. C. DERBY,

IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF MANY YEARS OF KIND AND FAITHFUL FRIENDSHIP, THESE
PAGES ARE

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.



"Ah! the true rule is--a true wife in her husband's house is his
servant; it is in his heart that she is queen. Whatever of the best he
can conceive, it is her part to be; whatever of the highest he can
hope, it is hers to promise; all that is dark in him she must purge
into purity; all that is failing in him she must strengthen into truth;
from her, through all the world's clamor, he must win his praise; in
her, through all the world's warfare, he must find his peace."--JOHN
RUSKIN.






ST. ELMO.




CHAPTER I.


"He stood and measured the earth: and the everlasting mountains were
scattered, the perpetual hills did bow."

These words of the prophet upon Shigionoth were sung by a sweet, happy,
childish voice, and to a strange, wild, anomalous tune--solemn as the
Hebrew chant of Deborah, and fully as triumphant.

A slender girl of twelve years' growth steadied a pail of water on her
head, with both dimpled arms thrown up, in ancient classic Caryatides
attitude; and, pausing a moment beside the spring, stood fronting the
great golden dawn--watching for the first level ray of the coming sun,
and chanting the prayer of Habakkuk. Behind her in silent grandeur
towered the huge outline of Lookout Mountain, shrouded at summit in
gray mist; while centre and base showed dense masses of foliage, dim
and purplish in the distance--a stern cowled monk of the Cumberland
brotherhood. Low hills clustered on either side, but immediately in
front stretched a wooded plain, and across this the child looked at the
flushed sky, rapidly brightening into fiery and blinding radiance.
Until her wild song waked echoes among the far-off rocks, the holy hush
of early morning had rested like a benediction upon the scene, as
though nature laid her broad finger over her great lips, and waited in
reverent silence the advent of the sun. Morning among the mountains
possessed witchery and glories which filled the heart of the girl with
adoration, and called from her lips rude but exultant anthems of
praise. The young face, lifted toward the cloudless east, might have
served as a model for a pictured Syriac priestess--one of Baalbec's
vestals, ministering in the olden time in that wondrous and grand
temple at Heliopolis.

The large black eyes held a singular fascination in their mild,
sparkling depths, now full of tender, loving light and childish
gladness; and the flexible red lips curled in lines of orthodox Greek
perfection, showing remarkable versatility of expression; while the
broad, full, polished forehead with its prominent, swelling brows,
could not fail to recall, to even casual observers, the calm, powerful
face of Lorenzo de' Medicis, which, if once looked on, fastens itself
upon heart and brain, to be forgotten no more. Her hair, black,
straight, waveless as an Indian's, hung around her shoulders, and
glistened as the water from the dripping bucket trickled through the
wreath of purple morning-glories and scarlet cypress, which she had
twined about her head, ere lifting the cedar pail to its resting-place.
She wore a short-sleeved dress of yellow striped homespun, which fell
nearly to her ankles, and her little bare feet gleamed pearly white on
the green grass and rank dewy creepers that clustered along the margin
of the bubbling spring. Her complexion was unusually transparent, and
early exercise and mountain air had rouged her cheeks till they matched
the brilliant hue of her scarlet crown. A few steps in advance of her
stood a large, fierce yellow dog, with black, scowling face, and ears
cut close to his head; a savage, repulsive creature, who looked as if
he rejoiced in an opportunity of making good his name, "Grip." In the
solemn beauty of that summer morning the girl seemed to have forgotten
the mission upon which she came; but as she loitered, the sun flashed
up, kindling diamond fringes on every dew-beaded chestnut leaf and
oak-bough, and silvering the misty mantle which enveloped Lookout. A
moment longer that pure-hearted Tennessee child stood watching the
gorgeous spectacle, drinking draughts of joy, which mingled no drop of
sin or selfishness in its crystal waves; for she had grown up alone
with nature--utterly ignorant of the roar and strife, the burning hate
and cunning intrigue of the great world of men and women, where, "like
an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers, each struggles to get its head
above the other." To her, earth seemed very lovely; life stretched
before her like the sun's path in that clear sky, and, as free from
care or foreboding as the fair June day, she walked on, preceded by her
dog--and the chant burst once more from her lips:

"He stood and measured the earth: and the everlasting mountains were
scattered, the perpetual hills--"

The sudden, almost simultaneous report of two pistol-shots rang out
sharply on the cool, calm air, and startled the child so violently that
she sprang forward and dropped the bucket. The sound of voices reached
her from the thick wood bordering the path, and, without reflection,
she followed the dog, who bounded off toward the point whence it
issued. Upon the verge of the forest she paused, and, looking down a
dewy green glade where the rising sun darted the earliest arrowy rays,
beheld a spectacle which burned itself indelibly upon her memory. A
group of five gentlemen stood beneath the dripping chestnut and
sweet-gum arches; one leaned against the trunk of a tree, two were
conversing eagerly in undertones, and two faced each other fifteen
paces apart, with pistols in their hands. Ere she could comprehend the
scene, the brief conference ended, the seconds resumed their places to
witness another fire, and like the peal of a trumpet echoed the words:

"Fire! One!--two!--three!"

The flash and ringing report mingled with the command and one of the
principals threw up his arm and fell. When with horror in her
wide-strained eyes and pallor on her lips, the child staggered to the
spot, and looked on the prostrate form, he was dead. The hazel eyes
stared blankly at the sky, and the hue of life and exuberant health
still glowed on the full cheek; but the ball had entered the heart, and
the warm blood, bubbling from his breast, dripped on the glistening
grass. The surgeon who knelt beside him took the pistol from his
clenched fingers, and gently pressed the lids over his glazing eyes.
Not a word was uttered, but while the seconds sadly regarded the
stiffening form, the surviving principal coolly drew out a cigar,
lighted and placed it between his lips. The child's eyes had wandered
to the latter from the pool of blood, and now in a shuddering cry she
broke the silence:

"Murderer!"

The party looked around instantly, and for the first time perceived her
standing there in their midst, with loathing and horror in the gaze she
fixed on the perpetrator of the awful deed. In great surprise he drew
back a step or two, and asked gruffly:

"Who are you? What business have you here?"

"Oh! how dared you murder him? Do you think God will forgive you on the
gallows?"

He was a man probably twenty-seven years of age--singularly fair,
handsome, and hardened in iniquity, but he cowered before the blanched
and accusing face of the appalled child; and ere a reply could be
framed, his friend came close to him.

"Clinton, you had better be off; you have barely time to catch the
Knoxville train, which leaves Chattanooga in half an hour. I would
advise you to make a long stay in New York, for there will be trouble
when Dent's brother hears of this morning's work."

"Aye! Take my word for that, and put the Atlantic between you and Dick
Dent," added the surgeon, smiling grimly, as if the anticipation of
retributive justice afforded him pleasure.

"I will simply put this between us," replied the homicide, fitting his
pistol to the palm of his hand; and as he did so, a heavy antique
diamond ring flashed on his little finger.

"Come, Clinton, delay may cause you more trouble than we bargained
for," urged his second.

Without even glancing toward the body of his antagonist, Clinton
scowled at the child, and, turning away, was soon out of sight.

"Oh, sir! will you let him get away? will you let him go unpunished?"

"He cannot be punished," answered the surgeon, looking at her with
mingled curiosity and admiration.

"I thought men were hung for murder."

"Yes--but this is not murder."

"Not murder? He shot him dead! What is it?"

"He killed him in a duel, which is considered quite right and
altogether proper."

"A duel?"

She had never heard the word before, and pondered an instant.

"To take a man's life is murder. Is there no law to punish 'a duel'?"

"None strong enough to prohibit the practice. It is regarded as the
only method of honorable satisfaction open to gentlemen."

"Honorable satisfaction?" she repeated--weighing the new phraseology as
cautiously and fearfully as she would have handled the bloody garments
of the victim.

"What is your name?" asked the surgeon.

"Edna Earl."

"Do you live near this place?"

"Yes, sir, very near."

"Is your father at home?"

"I have no father, but grandpa has not gone to the shop yet."

"Will you show me the way to the house?"

"Do you wish to carry him there?" she asked, glancing at the corpse,
and shuddering violently.

"Yes, I want some assistance from your grandfather."

"I will show you the way, sir."

The surgeon spoke hurriedly to the two remaining gentlemen, and
followed his guide. Slowly she retraced her steps, refilled her bucket
at the spring, and walked on before the stranger. But the glory of the
morning had passed away; a bloody mantle hung between the splendor of
summer sunshine and the chilled heart of the awe-struck girl. The
forehead of the radiant, holy June day had been suddenly red-branded
like Cain, to be henceforth an occasion of hideous reminiscences; and
with a blanched face and trembling limbs the child followed a narrow,
beaten path, which soon terminated at the gate of a rude, unwhitewashed
paling. A low, comfortless looking three-roomed house stood within, and
on the steps sat an elderly man, smoking a pipe, and busily engaged in
mending a bridle. The creaking of the gate attracted his attention, and
he looked up wonderingly at the advancing stranger.

"Oh, grandpa! there is a murdered man lying in the grass, under the
chestnut trees, down by the spring."

"Why! how do you know he was murdered?"

"Good morning, sir. Your granddaughter happened to witness a very
unfortunate and distressing affair. A duel was fought at sunrise, in
the edge of the woods yonder, and the challenged party, Mr. Dent, of
Georgia, was killed. I came to ask permission to bring the body here,
until arrangements can be made for its interment; and also to beg your
assistance in obtaining a coffin."

Edna passed on to the kitchen, and as she deposited the bucket on the
table, a tall, muscular, red-haired woman, who was stooping over the
fire, raised her flushed face, and exclaimed angrily:

"What upon earth have you been doing? I have been halfway to the spring
to call you, and hadn't a drop of water in the kitchen to make coffee!
A pretty time of day Aaron Hunt will get his breakfast! What do you
mean by such idleness?"

She advanced with threatening mien and gesture, but stopped suddenly.

"Edna, what ails you? Have you got an ague? You are as white as that
pan of flour. Are you scared or sick?"

"There was a man killed this morning, and the body will be brought here
directly. If you want to hear about it, you had better go out on the
porch. One of the gentlemen is talking to grandpa."

Stunned by what she had seen, and indisposed to narrate the horrid
details, the girl went to her own room, and seating herself in the
window, tried to collect her thoughts. She was tempted to believe the
whole affair a hideous dream, which would pass away with vigorous
rubbing of her eyes; but the crushed purple and scarlet flowers she
took from her forehead, her dripping hair and damp feet assured her of
the vivid reality of the vision. Every fibre of her frame had received
a terrible shock, and when noisy, bustling Mrs. Hunt ran from room to
room, ejaculating her astonishment, and calling on the child to assist
in putting the house in order, the latter obeyed silently,
mechanically, as if in a state of somnambulism.

Mr. Dent's body was brought up on a rude litter of boards, and
temporarily placed on Edna's bed, and toward evening when a coffin
arrived from Chattanooga, the remains were removed, and the coffin
rested on two chairs in the middle of the same room. The surgeon
insisted upon an immediate interment near the scene of combat; but the
gentleman who had officiated as second for the deceased expressed his
determination to carry the unfortunate man's body back to his home and
family, and the earliest train on the following day was appointed as
the time for their departure. Late in the afternoon Edna cautiously
opened the door of the room which she had hitherto avoided, and with
her apron full of lilies, while poppies and sprigs of rosemary,
approached the coffin, and looked at the rigid sleeper. Judging from
his appearance, not more than thirty years had gone over his handsome
head; his placid features were unusually regular, and a soft, silky
brown beard fell upon his pulseless breast. Fearful lest she should
touch the icy form, the girl timidly strewed her flowers in the coffin,
and tears gathered and dropped with the blossoms, as she noticed a
plain gold ring on the little finger, and wondered if he were
married--if his death would leave wailing orphans in his home, and a
broken-hearted widow at the desolate hearthstone. Absorbed in her
melancholy task, she heard neither the sound of strange voices in the
passage, nor the faint creak of the door as it swung back on its rusty
hinges; but a shrill scream, a wild, despairing shriek terrified her,
and her heart seemed to stand still as she bounded away from the side
of the coffin. The light of the setting sun streamed through the
window, and over the white, convulsed face of a feeble but beautiful
woman, who was supported on the threshold by a venerable, gray-haired
man, down whose furrowed cheeks tears coursed rapidly. Struggling to
free herself from his restraining grasp, the stranger tottered into the
middle of the room.

"O Harry! My husband! my husband!" She threw up her wasted arms, and
fell forward senseless on the corpse.

They bore her into the adjoining apartment, where the surgeon
administered the usual restoratives, and though finally the pulses
stirred and throbbed feebly, no symptom of returning consciousness
greeted the anxious friends who bent over her. Hour after hour passed,
during which she lay as motionless as her husband's body, and at length
the physician sighed, and pressing his fingers to his eyes, said
sorrowfully to the grief-stricken old man beside her: "It is paralysis,
Mr. Dent, and there is no hope. She may linger twelve or twenty-four
hours, but her sorrows are ended; she and Harry will soon be reunited.
Knowing her constitution, I feared as much. You should not have
suffered her to come; you might have known that the shock would kill
her. For this reason I wished his body buried here."

"I could not restrain her. Some meddling gossip told her that my poor
boy had gone to fight a duel, and she rose from her bed and started to
the railroad depot. I pleaded, I reasoned with her that she could not
bear the journey, but I might as well have talked to the winds, I never
knew her obstinate before, but she seemed to have a presentiment of the
truth. God pity her two sweet babes!"

The old man bowed his head upon her pillow, and sobbed aloud.

Throughout the night Edna crouched beside the bed, watching the wan but
lovely face of the young widow, and tenderly chafing the numb, fair
hands which lay so motionless on the coverlet. Children are always
sanguine, because of their ignorance of the stern, inexorable realities
of the untried future, and Edna could not believe that death would
snatch from the world one so beautiful and so necessary to her
prattling, fatherless infants. But morning showed no encouraging
symptoms, the stupor was unbroken, and at noon the wife's spirit passed
gently to the everlasting reunion.

Before sunrise on the ensuing day, a sad group clustered once more
under the dripping chestnuts, and where a pool of blood had dyed the
sod, a wide grave yawned. The coffins were lowered, the bodies of Henry
and Helen Dent rested side by side, and, as the mound rose slowly above
them, the solemn silence was broken by the faltering voice of the
surgeon, who read the burial service.

"Man, that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live, and is
full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth
as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. Yet, O Lord God
most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour,
deliver us not into the pains of eternal death!"

The melancholy rite ended, the party dispersed, the strangers took
their departure for their distant homes, and quiet reigned once more in
the small, dark cottage. But days and weeks brought to Edna no oblivion
of the tragic events which constituted the first great epoch of her
monotonous life. A nervous restlessness took possession of her, she
refused to occupy her old room, and insisted upon sleeping on a pallet
at the foot of her grandfather's bed. She forsook her whilom haunts
about the spring and forest, and started up in terror at every sudden
sound; while from each opening between the chestnut trees the hazel
eyes of the dead man, and the wan, thin face of the golden-haired wife,
looked out beseechingly at her. Frequently, in the warm light of day,
ere shadows stalked to and fro in the thick woods, she would steal,
with an apronful of wild flowers, to the solitary grave, scatter her
treasures in the rank grass that waved above it, and hurry away with
hushed breath and quivering limbs. Summer waned, autumn passed, and
winter came, but the girl recovered in no degree from the shock which
had cut short her chant of praise on that bloody June day. In her
morning visit to the spring, she had stumbled upon a monster which
custom had adopted and petted--which the passions and sin fulness of
men had adroitly draped and fondled, and called Honorable Satisfaction;
but her pure, unperverted, Ithuriel nature pierced the conventional
mask, recognized the loathsome lineaments of crime, and recoiled in
horror and amazement, wondering at the wickedness of her race and the
forbearance of outraged Jehovah. Innocent childhood had for the first
time stood face to face with Sin and Death, and could not forget the
vision.

Edna Earl had lost both her parents before she was old enough to
remember either. Her mother was the only daughter of Aaron Hunt, the
village blacksmith, and her father, who was an intelligent, promising
young carpenter, accidentally fell from the roof of the house which he
was shingling, and died from the injuries sustained. Thus Mr. Hunt, who
had been a widower for nearly ten years, found himself burdened with
the care of an infant only six months old. His daughter had never left
him, and after her death the loneliness of the house oppressed him
painfully, and for the sake of his grandchild he resolved to marry
again. The middle-aged widow whom he selected was a kind-hearted and
generous woman, but indolent, ignorant, and exceedingly high-tempered;
and while she really loved the little orphan committed to her care, she
contrived to alienate her affection, and to tighten the bonds of union
between her husband and the child. Possessing a remarkably amiable and
equable disposition, Edna rarely vexed Mrs. Hunt, who gradually left
her more and more to the indulgence of her own views and caprices, and
contented herself with exacting a certain amount of daily work, after
the accomplishment of which she allowed her to amuse herself as
childish whims dictated. There chanced to be no children of her own age
in the neighborhood, consequently she grew up without companionship,
save that furnished by her grandfather, who was dotingly fond of her,
and would have utterly spoiled her, had not her temperament fortunately
been one not easily injured by unrestrained liberty of action. Before
she was able to walk, he would take her to the forge, and keep her for
hours on a sheepskin in one corner, whence she watched, with infantile
delight, the blast of the furnace, and the shower of sparks that fell
from the anvil, and where she often slept, lulled by the monotonous
chorus of trip and sledge. As she grew older, the mystery of bellows
and slack-tub engaged her attention, and at one end of the shop, on a
pile of shavings, she collected a mass of curiously shaped bits of iron
and steel, and blocks of wood, from which a miniature shop threatened
to rise in rivalry; and finally, when strong enough to grasp the
handles of the bellows, her greatest pleasure consisted in rendering
the feeble assistance which her grandfather was always so proud to
accept at her hands. Although ignorant and uncultivated, Mr. Hunt was a
man of warm, tender feelings, and rare nobility of soul. He regretted
the absence of early advantages which poverty had denied him; and in
teaching Edna to read and to write, and to cipher, he never failed to
impress upon her the vast superiority which a thorough education
confers. Whether his exhortations first kindled her ambition, or
whether her aspiration for knowledge was spontaneous and irrepressible,
he knew not; but she manifested very early a fondness for study and
thirst for learning which he gratified to the fullest extent of his
limited ability. The blacksmith's library consisted of the family
Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, a copy of Irving's Sermons on Parables, Guy
Mannering, a few tracts, and two books which had belonged to an
itinerant minister who preached occasionally in the neighborhood, and
who, having died rather suddenly at Mr. Hunt's house, left the volumes
in his saddle-bags, which were never claimed by his family, residing in
a distant State. Those books were Plutarch's Lives and a worn school
copy of Anthon's Classical Dictionary; and to Edna they proved a
literary Ophir of inestimable value and exhaustless interest. Plutarch
especially was a Pisgah of letters, whence the vast domain of learning,
the Canaan of human wisdom, stretched alluringly before her; and as
often as she climbed this height, and viewed the wondrous scene beyond,
it seemed, indeed,

  ...... "an arch where through
   Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades
   Forever and forever when we move."

In after years she sometimes questioned if this mount of observation
was also that of temptation, to which ambition had led her spirit, and
there bargained for and bought her future. Love of nature, love of
books, an earnest piety and deep religious enthusiasm were the
characteristics of a noble young soul, left to stray through the
devious, checkered paths of life without other guidance than that which
she received from communion with Greek sages and Hebrew prophets. An
utter stranger to fashionable conventionality and latitudinarian
ethics, it was no marvel that the child stared and shivered when she
saw the laws of God vetoed, and was blandly introduced to murder as
Honorable Satisfaction.




CHAPTER II.


Nearly a mile from the small, straggling village of Chattanooga stood
Aaron Hunt's shop, shaded by a grove of oak and chestnut trees, which
grew upon the knoll, where two roads intersected. Like the majority of
blacksmith's shops at country cross-roads, it was a low, narrow shed,
filled with dust and rubbish, with old wheels and new single-trees,
broken plows and dilapidated wagons awaiting repairs, and at the rear
of the shop stood a smaller shed, where an old gray horse quietly ate
his corn and fodder, waiting to carry the master to his home, two miles
distant, as soon as the sun had set beyond the neighboring mountain.
Early in winter, having an unusual amount of work on hand, Mr. Hunt
hurried away from home one morning, neglecting to take the bucket which
contained his dinner, and Edna was sent to repair the oversight.
Accustomed to ramble about the woods without companionship, she walked
leisurely along the rocky road, swinging the tin bucket in one hand,
and pausing now and then to watch the shy red-birds that flitted like
flame-jets in and out of the trees as she passed. The unbroken repose
of earth and sky, the cold, still atmosphere and peaceful sunshine,
touched her heart with a sense of quiet but pure happiness, and half
unconsciously she began a hymn which her grandfather often sang over
his anvil:

  "Lord, in the morning Thou shalt hear
    My voice ascending high;
   To Thee will I direct my prayer,
    To Thee lift up mine eye."

Ere the first verse was ended, the clatter of a horse's hoofs hushed
her song, and she glanced up as a harsh voice asked impatiently:

"Are you stone deaf? I say, is there a blacksmith's shop near?"

The rider reined in his horse, a spirited, beautiful animal, and waited
for an answer.

"Yes, sir. There is a shop about half a mile ahead, on the right hand
side, where the road forks."

He just touched his hat with the end of his gloved fingers and galloped
on. When Edna reached the shop she saw her grandfather examining the
horse's shoes, while the stranger walked up and down the road before
the forge. He was a very tall, strong man, with a gray shawl thrown
over one shoulder, and a black fur hat drawn so far over his face that
only the lower portion was visible; and this, swarthy and harsh, left a
most disagreeable impression on the child's mind as she passed him and
went up to the spot where Mr. Hunt was at work. Putting the bucket
behind her, she stooped, kissed him on his furrowed forehead, and said:

"Grandpa, guess what brought me to see you to-day?"

"I forgot my dinner, and you have trudged over here to bring it. Ain't
I right, Pearl? Stand back, honey, or this Satan of a horse may kick
your brains out. I can hardly manage him."

Here the stranger uttered an oath, and called out, "How much longer do
you intend to keep me waiting?"

"No longer, sir, than I can help, as I like the company of polite
people."

"Oh, grandpa!" whispered Edna, deprecatingly, as she saw the traveller
come rapidly forward and throw his shawl down on the grass. Mr. Hunt
pushed back his old battered woolen hat, and looked steadily at the
master of the horse--saying gravely and resolutely:

"I'll finish the job as soon as I can, and that is as much as any
reasonable man would ask. Now, sir, if that doesn't suit you, you can
take your horse and put out, and swear at somebody else, for I won't
stand it."

"It is a cursed nuisance to be detained here for such a trifle as one
shoe, and you might hurry yourself."

"Your horse is very restless and vicious, and I could shoe two gentle
ones while I am trying to quiet him."

The man muttered something indistinctly, and laying his hand heavily on
the horse's mane, said very sternly a few words, which were utterly
unintelligible to his human listeners, though they certainly exerted a
magical influence over the fiery creature, who, savage as the pampered
pets of Diomedes, soon stood tranquil and contented, rubbing his head
against his master's shoulder. Repelled by the rude harshness of this
man, Edna walked into the shop, and watched the silent group outside,
until the work was finished and Mr. Hunt threw down his tools and wiped
his face.

"What do I owe you?" said the impatient rider, springing to his saddle,
and putting his hand into his vest pocket.

"I charge nothing for 'such trifles' as that."

"But I am in the habit of paying for my work."

"It is not worth talking about. Good day, sir."

Mr. Hunt turned and walked into his shop.

"There is a dollar, it is the only small change I have." He rode up to
the door of the shed, threw the small gold coin toward the blacksmith,
and was riding rapidly away, when Edna darted after him, exclaiming,
"Stop, sir! you have left your shawl!"

He turned in the saddle, and even under the screen of her calico bonnet
she felt the fiery gleam of his eyes, as he stooped to take the shawl
from her hand. Once more his fingers touched his hat, he bowed and said
hastily:

"I thank you, child." Then spurring his horse, he was out of sight in a
moment.

"He is a rude, blasphemous, wicked man," said Mr. Hunt as Edna
reentered the shop, and picked up the coin, which lay glistening amid
the cinders around the anvil.

"Why do you think him wicked?"

"No good man swears as he did, before you came; and didn't you notice
the vicious, wicked expression of his eyes?"

"No, sir, I did not see much of his face, he never looked at me but
once. I should not like to meet him again; I am afraid of him."

"Never fear, Pearl, he is a stranger here, and there's little chance of
your ever setting your eyes on his ugly, savage face again. Keep the
money, dear; I won't have it after all the airs he put on. If, instead
of shoeing his wild brute, I had knocked the fellow down for his
insolence in cursing me, it would have served him right. Politeness is
a cheap thing; and a poor man, if he behaves himself, and does his work
well, is as much entitled to it as the President."

"I will give the dollar to grandma, to buy a new coffee-pot; for she
said to-day the old one was burnt out, and she could not use it any
longer. But what is that yonder on the grass? That man left something
after all."

She picked up from the spot where he had thrown his shawl a handsome
morocco-bound pocket copy of Dante, and opening it to discover the name
of the owner, she saw written on the fly-leaf in a bold and beautiful
hand, "S. E. M., Boboli Gardens, Florence. Lasciate ogni speranza voi
ch' entrate."

"What does this mean, grandpa?"

She held up the book and pointed out the words of the dread inscription.

"Indeed, Pearl, how should I know? It is Greek, or Latin, or Dutch,
like the other outlandish gibberish he talked to that devilish horse.
He must have spent his life among the heathens, to judge from his talk;
for he has neither manner nor religion. Honey, better put the book
there in the furnace; it is not fit for your eyes."

"He may come back for it if he misses it pretty soon."

"Not he. One might almost believe that he was running from the law. He
would not turn back for it if it was bound in gold instead of leather.
It is no account, I'll warrant, or he would not have been reading it,
the ill-mannered heathen!"

Weeks passed, and as the owner was not heard of again, Edna felt that
she might justly claim as her own this most marvellous of books, which,
though beyond her comprehension, furnished a source of endless wonder
and delight. The copy was Gary's translation, with illustrations
designed by Flaxman; and many of the grand, gloomy passages were
underlined by pencil and annotated in the unknown tongue, which so
completely baffled her curiosity. Night and day she pored over this new
treasure; sometimes dreaming of the hideous faces that scowled at her
from the solemn, mournful pages; and anon, when startled from sleep by
these awful visions, she would soothe herself to rest by murmuring the
metrical version of the Lord's Prayer contained in the "Purgatory."
Most emphatically did Mrs. Hunt disapprove of the studious and
contemplative habits of the ambitious child, who she averred was
indulging dreams and aspirations far above her station in life, and
well calculated to dissatisfy her with her humble, unpretending home
and uninviting future. Education, she contended, was useless to poor
people, who could not feed and clothe themselves with "book learning;"
and experience had taught her that those who lounged about with books
in their hands generally came to want, and invariably to harm. It was
in vain that she endeavored to convince her husband of the impropriety
of permitting the girl to spend so much time over her books; he finally
put the matter at rest by declaring that, in his opinion, Edna was a
remarkable child; and if well educated, might even rise to the position
of teacher for the neighborhood, which would confer most honorable
distinction upon the family. Laying his brawny hand fondly on her head,
he said, tenderly:

"Let her alone, wife! let her alone! You will make us proud of you,
won't you, little Pearl, when you are smart enough to teach a school? I
shall be too old to work by that time, and you will take care of me,
won't you, my little mocking-bird?"

"Oh, Grandy; that I will. But do you really think I ever shall have
sense enough to be a teacher? You know I ought to learn everything, and
I have so few books."

"To be sure you will. Remember there is always a way where there's a
will. When I pay off the debt I owe Peter Wood, I will see what we can
do about some new books. Put on your shawl now, Pearl, and hunt up old
Brindle, it is milking time, and she is not in sight."

"Grandpa, are you sure you feel better this evening?" She plunged her
fingers in his thick white hair, and rubbed her round, rosy cheek
softly against his.

"Oh! yes, I am better. Hurry back, Pearl, I want you to read to me."

It was a bright day in January, and the old man sat in a large
rocking-chair on the porch, smoking his pipe, and sunning himself in
the last rays of the sinking sun. He had complained all day of not
feeling well, and failed to go to his work as usual; and now, as his
grandchild tied her pink calico bonnet under her chin, and wrapped
herself in her faded plaid shawl, he watched her with a tender, loving
light in his keen gray eyes. She kissed him, buttoned his shirt collar,
which had become unfastened, drew his homespun coat closer to his
throat, and springing down the steps bounded away in search of the cow,
who often strayed so far off that she was dispatched to drive her home.
In the grand, peaceful, solemn woods, through which the wintry wind now
sighed in a soothing monotone, the child's spirit reached an exaltation
which, had she lived two thousand years earlier, and roamed amid the
vales and fastnesses of classic Arcadia, would have vented itself in
dithyrambics to the great "Lord of the Hyle," the Greek "All," the
horned and hoofed god, Pan. In every age, and among all people--from
the Parsee devotees and the Gosains of India to the Pantheism of Bruno,
Spinoza, and New England's "Illuminati"--nature has been apotheosized;
and the heart of the blacksmith's untutored darling stirred with the
same emotions of awe and adoration which thrilled the worshipers of
Hertha, when the veiled chariot stood in Helgeland, and which made the
groves and grottoes of Phrygia sacred to Dindymene. Edna loved trees
and flowers, stars and clouds, with a warm, clinging affection, as she
loved those of her own race; and that solace and amusement which most
children find in the society of children and the sports of childhood
this girl derived from the solitude and serenity of nature. To her
woods and fields were indeed vocal, and every flitting bird and
gurgling brook, every passing cloud and whispering breeze, brought
messages of God's eternal love and wisdom, and drew her tender,
yearning heart more closely to Jehovah, the Lord God Omnipotent.
To-day, in the boundless reverence and religious enthusiasm of her
character, she directed her steps to a large spreading oak, now
leafless, where in summer she often came to read and pray; and here
falling on her knees she thanked God for the blessings showered upon
her. Entirely free from discontent and querulousness, she was
thoroughly happy in her poor humble home, and over all, like a
consecration, shone the devoted love for her grandfather, which more
than compensated for any want of which she might otherwise have been
conscious. Accustomed always to ask special favor for him, his name now
passed her lips in earnest supplication, and she fervently thanked the
Father that his threatened illness had been arrested without serious
consequences. The sun had gone down when she rose and hurried on in
search of the cow. The shadows of a winter evening gathered in the
forest and climbed like trooping spirits up the rocky mountain side,
and as she plunged deeper and deeper into the woods, the child began a
wild cattle call that she was wont to use on such occasions. The echoes
rang out a weird Brocken chorus, and at last, when she was growing
impatient of the fruitless search, she paused to listen, and heard the
welcome sound of the familiar lowing, by which the old cow recognized
her summons. Following the sound, Edna soon saw the missing favorite
coming slowly toward her, and ere many moments both were running
homeward. As she approached the house, driving Brindle before her, and
merrily singing her rude 'Ranz des vaches', the moon rose full and
round, and threw a flood of light over the porch where the blacksmith
still sat. Edna took off her bonnet and waved it at him, but he did not
seem to notice the signal, and driving the cow into the yard, she
called out as she latched the gate:

"Grandy, dear, why don't you go in to the fire? Are you waiting for me,
out here in the cold? I think Brindle certainly must have been cropping
grass around the old walls of Jericho, as that is the farthest off of
any place I know. If she is half as tired and hungry as I am, she ought
to be glad to get home." He did not answer, and running up the steps
she thought he had fallen asleep. The old woolen hat shaded his face,
but when she crept on tiptoe to the chair, stooped, put her arms around
him, and kissed his wrinkled cheek, she started back in terror. The
eyes stared at the moon, the stiff fingers clutched the pipe from which
the ashes had not been shaken, and the face was cold and rigid. Aaron
Hunt had indeed fallen asleep, to wake no more amid the storms and woes
and tears of time.

Edna fell on her knees and grasped the icy hands. "Grandpa! wake up!
Oh, grandpa! speak to me, your little Pearl! Wake up! dear Grandy! I
have come back! My grandpa! Oh!--"

A wild, despairing cry rent the still evening air, and shrieked
dismally back from the distant hills and the gray, ghostly
mountain--and the child fell on her face at the dead man's feet.

Throughout that dreary night of agony, Edna lay on the bed where her
grandfather's body had been placed, holding one of the stiffened hands
folded in both hers, and pressed against her lips. She neither wept nor
moaned, the shock was too terrible to admit of noisy grief; but
completely stunned, she lay mute and desolate.

For the first time in her life she could not pray; she wanted to turn
away from the thought of God and heaven, for it seemed that she had
nothing left to pray for. That silver-haired, wrinkled old man was the
only father she had ever known; he had cradled her in his sinewy arms,
and slept clasping her to his heart; had taught her to walk, and
surrounded her with his warm, pitying love, making a home of peace and
blessedness for her young life. Giving him, in return, the whole wealth
of her affection, he had become the centre of all her hopes, joys and
aspirations; now what remained? Bitter, rebellious feelings hardened
her heart when she remembered that even while she was kneeling,
thanking God for his preservation from illness, he had already passed
away; nay, his sanctified spirit probably poised its wings close to the
Eternal Throne, and listened to the prayer which she sent up to God for
his welfare and happiness and protection while on earth. The souls of
our dead need not the aid of Sandalphon to interpret the whispers that
rise tremulously from the world of sin and wrestling, that float up
among the stars, through the gates of pearl, down the golden streets of
the New Jerusalem. So we all trust, and prate of our faith, and deceive
ourselves with the fond hope that we are resigned to the Heavenly Will;
and we go on with a show of Christian reliance, while the morning sun
smiles in gladness and plenty, and the hymn of happy days and the dear
voices of our loved ones make music in our ears; and lo! God puts us in
the crucible. The light of life--the hope of all future years is
blotted out; clouds of despair and the grim night of an unbroken and
unlifting desolation fall like a pall on heart and brain; we dare not
look heavenward, dreading another blow; our anchor drags, we drift out
into a hideous Dead Sea, where our idol has gone down forever--and
boasted faith and trust and patience are swept like straws from our
grasp in the tempest of woe; while our human love cries wolfishly for
its lost darling. Ah! we build grand and gloomy mausoleums for our
precious dead hopes, but, like Artemisia, we refuse to sepulchre--we
devour the bitter ashes of the lost, and grimly and audaciously
challenge Jehovah to take the worthless, mutilated life that his wisdom
reserves for other aims and future toils. Job's wife is immortal and
ubiquitous, haunting the sorrow-shrouded chamber of every stricken
human soul, and fiendishly prompting the bleeding, crushed spirit to
"curse God and die." Edna had never contemplated the possibility of her
grandfather's death--it was a horror she had never forced herself to
front; and now that he was cut down in an instant, without even the
mournful consolation of parting words and farewell kisses, she asked
herself again and again: "What have I done, that God should punish me
so? I thought I was grateful, I thought I was doing my duty; but oh!
what dreadful sin have I committed, to deserve this awful affliction?"
During the long, ghostly watches of that winter night, she recalled her
past life, gilded by the old man's love, and could remember no
happiness with which he was not intimately connected, and no sorrow
that his hand had not soothed and lightened. The future was now a
blank, crossed by no projected paths, lit with no ray of hope; and at
daylight, when the cold, pale morning showed the stony face of the
corpse at her side, her unnatural composure broke up in a storm of
passionate woe, and she sprang to her feet, almost frantic with the
sense of her loss:

"All alone! nobody to love me; nothing to look forward to! Oh. grandpa!
did you hear me praying for you yesterday? Dear Grandy--my own dear
Grandy! I did pray for you while you were dying--here alone! Oh, my
God! what have I done, that you should take him away from me? Was not I
on my knees when he died? Oh! what will become of me now? Nobody to
care for Edna now! Oh, grandpa! grandpa! beg Jesus to ask God to take
me too!" And throwing up her clasped hands, she sank back insensible on
the shrouded form of the dead.

  "When some beloved voice that was to you
   Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,
   And silence against which you dare not cry,
   Aches round you like a strong disease and new--
   What hope? what help? what music will undo
   That silence to your senses? Not friendship's sigh,
   Not reason's subtle count. Nay, none of these!
   Speak Thou, availing Christ! and fill this pause."




CHAPTER III.


Of all that occurred during many ensuing weeks Edna knew little. She
retained, in after years, only a vague, confused remembrance of keen
anguish and utter prostration, and an abiding sense of irreparable
loss. In delirious visions she saw her grandfather now struggling in
the grasp of Phlegyas, and now writhing in the fiery tomb of Uberti,
with jets of flame leaping through his white hair, and his shrunken
hands stretched appealingly toward her, as she had seen those of the
doomed Ghibelline leader, in the hideous Dante picture. All the
appalling images evoked by the sombre and embittered imagination of the
gloomy Tuscan had seized upon her fancy, even in happy hours, and were
now reproduced by her disordered brain in multitudinous and aggravated
forms. Her wails of agony, her passionate prayers to God to release the
beloved spirit from the tortures which her delirium painted, were
painful beyond expression to those who watched her ravings; and it was
with a feeling of relief that they finally saw her sink into
apathy--into a quiet mental stupor--from which nothing seemed to rouse
her. She did not remark Mrs. Hunt's absence, or the presence of the
neighbors at her bedside. And one morning, when she was wrapped up and
placed by the fire, Mrs. Wood told her as gently as possible that her
grandmother had died from a disease which was ravaging the country and
supposed to be cholera. The intelligence produced no emotion; she
merely looked up an instant, glanced mournfully around the dreary room,
and, shivering slightly, drooped her head again on her hand. Week after
week went slowly by, and she was removed to Mrs. Wood's house, but no
improvement was discernible, and the belief became general that the
child's mind had sunk into hopeless imbecility. The kind-hearted miller
and his wife endeavored to coax her out of her chair by the
chimney-corner, but she crouched there, a wan, mute figure of woe,
pitiable to contemplate; asking no questions, causing no trouble,
receiving no consolation. One bright March morning she sat, as usual,
with her face bowed on her thin hand, and her vacant gaze fixed on the
blazing fire, when, through the open window, came the impatient lowing
of a cow. Mrs. Wood saw a change pass swiftly over the girl's face, and
a quiver cross the lips so long frozen. She lifted her head, rose, and
followed the sound, and soon stood at the side of Brindle, who now
furnished milk for the miller's family. As the gentle cow recognized
and looked at her, with an expression almost human in the mild, liquid
eyes, all the events of that last serene evening swept back to Edna's
deadened memory, and, leaning her head on Brindle's horns, she shed the
first tears that had flowed for her great loss, while sobs, thick and
suffocating, shook her feeble, emaciated frame.

"Bless the poor little outcast, she will get well now. That is just
exactly what she needs. I tell you, Peter, one good cry like that is
worth a wagon-load of physic. Don't go near her; let her have her cry
out. Poor thing! It ain't often you see a child love her granddaddy as
she loved Aaron Hunt. Poor lamb!"

Mrs. Wood wiped her own eyes, and went back to her weaving; and Edna
turned away from the mill and walked to her deserted home, while the
tears poured ceaselessly over her white cheeks. As she approached the
old house she saw that it was shut up and neglected; but when she
opened the gate, Grip, the fierce yellow terror of the whole
neighborhood, sprang from the door-step, where he kept guard as
tirelessly as Maida, and, with a dismal whine of welcome, leaped up and
put his paws on her shoulders. This had been the blacksmith's pet, fed
by his hand, chained when he went to the shop, and released at his
return; and grim and repulsively ugly though he was, the only playmate
Edna had ever known; had gamboled around her cradle, slept with her on
the sheepskin, and frolicked with her through the woods, in many a long
search for Brindle. He alone remained of all the happy past; and as
precious memories crowded mournfully up, she sat upon the steps of the
dreary homestead, with her arms around his neck, and wept bitterly.
After an hour she left the house, and, followed by the dog, crossed the
woods in the direction of the neighborhood graveyard. In order to reach
it she was forced to pass by the spring and the green hillock where Mr.
and Mrs. Dent slept side by side, but no nervous terror seized her now
as formerly; the great present horror swallowed up all others, and,
though she trembled from physical debility, she dragged herself on till
the rude, rough paling of the burying-ground stood before her. Oh,
dreary desolation; thy name is country graveyard! Here no polished
sculptured stela pointed to the Eternal Rest beyond; no classic marbles
told, in gilded characters, the virtues of the dead; no flowery-fringed
gravel-walks wound from murmuring waterfalls and rippling fountains to
crystal lakes, where trailing willows threw their flickering shadows
over silver-dusted lilies; no spicy perfume of purple heliotrope and
starry jasmine burdened the silent air; none of the solemn beauties and
soothing charms of Greenwood or Mount Auburn wooed the mourner from her
weight of woe. Decaying head-boards, green with the lichen-fingered
touch of time, leaned over neglected mounds, where last year's weeds
shivered in the sighing breeze, and autumn winds and winter rains had
drifted a brown shroud of shriveled leaves; while here and there
meek-eyed sheep lay sunning themselves upon the trampled graves, and
the slow-measured sound of a bell dinged now and then as cattle browsed
on the scanty herbage in this most neglected of God's Acres. Could
Charles Lamb have turned from the pompous epitaphs and high-flown
panegyrics of that English cemetery, to the rudely-lettered boards
which here briefly told the names and ages of the sleepers in these
narrow beds, he had never asked the question which now stands as a
melancholy epigram on family favoritism and human frailty. Gold gilds
even the lineaments and haunts of Death, making Pere la Chaise a
favored spot for fetes champetres; while poverty hangs neither veil nor
mask over the grinning ghoul, and flees, superstition-spurred, from the
hideous precincts.

In one corner of the inclosure, where Edna's parents slept, she found
the new mounds that covered the remains of those who had nurtured and
guarded her young life; and on an unpainted board was written in large
letters:

"To the memory of Aaron Hunt: an honest blacksmith, and true Christian;
aged sixty-eight years and six months."

Here, with her head on her grandfather's grave, and the faithful dog
crouched at her feet, lay the orphan, wrestling with grief and
loneliness, striving to face a future that loomed before her
spectre-thronged; and here Mr. Wood found her when anxiety at her long
absence induced his wife to search for the missing invalid. The storm
of sobs and tears had spent itself, fortitude took the measure of the
burden imposed, shouldered the galling weight, and henceforth, with
undimmed vision, walked steadily to the appointed goal. The miller was
surprised to find her so calm, and as they went homeward she asked the
particulars of all that had occurred, and thanked him gravely but
cordially for the kind care bestowed upon her, and for the last
friendly offices performed for her grandfather.

Conscious of her complete helplessness and physical prostration, she
ventured no allusion to the future, but waited patiently until renewed
strength permitted the execution of designs now fully mapped out.
Notwithstanding her feebleness, she rendered herself invaluable to Mrs.
Wood, who praised her dexterity and neatness as a seamstress, and
predicted that she would make a model housekeeper.

Late one Sunday evening in May, as the miller and his wife sat upon the
steps of their humble and comfortless looking home, they saw Edna
slowly approaching, and surmised where she had spent the afternoon.
Instead of going into the house she seated herself beside them, and,
removing her bonnet, traces of tears were visible on her sad but
patient face.

"You ought not to go over yonder so often, child. It is not good for
you," said the miller, knocking the ashes from his pipe.

She shaded her countenance with her hand, and after a moment said, in a
low but steady tone:

"I shall never go there again. I have said good-bye to everything, and
have nothing now to keep me here. You and Mrs. Wood have been very kind
to me, and I thank you heartily; but you have a family of children, and
have your hands full to support them without taking care of me. I know
that our house must go to you to pay that old debt, and even the horse
and cow; and there will be nothing left when you are paid. You are very
good, indeed, to offer me a home here, and I never can forget your
kindness; but I should not be willing to live on anybody's charity; and
besides, all the world is alike to me now, and I want to get out of
sight of--of--what shows my sorrow to me every day. I don't love this
place now; it won't let me forget, even for a minute, and--and--"

Here the voice faltered and she paused.

"But where could you go, and how could you make your bread, you poor
little ailing thing?"

"I hear that in the town of Columbus, Georgia, even little children get
wages to work in the factory, and I know I can earn enough to pay my
board among the factory people."

"But you are too young to be straying about in a strange place. If you
will stay here, and help my wife about the house and the weaving, I
will take good care of you, and clothe you till you are grown and
married."

"I would rather go away, because I want to be educated, and I can't be
if I stay here."

"Fiddlestick! you will know as much as the balance of us, and that's
all you will ever have any use for. I notice you have a hankering after
books, but the quicker you get that foolishness out of your head the
better; for books won't put bread in your mouth and clothes on your
back; and folks that want to be better than their neighbors generally
turn out worse. The less book-learning you women have the better."

"I don't see that it is any of your business, Peter Wood, how much
learning we women choose to get, provided your bread is baked and your
socks darned when you want 'em. A woman has as good a right as a man to
get book-learning, if she wants it; and as for sense, I'll thank you,
mine is as good as yours any day; and folks have said it was a blessed
thing for the neighborhood when the rheumatiz laid Peter Wood up, and
his wife, Dorothy Elmira Wood, run the mill. Now, it's of no earthly
use to cut at us women over that child's shoulders; if she wants an
education she has as much right to it as anybody, if she can pay for
it. My doctrine is, everybody has a right to whatever they can pay for,
whether it is schooling or a satin frock!"

Mrs. Wood seized her snuff-bottle and plunged a stick vigorously into
the contents, and, as the miller showed no disposition to skirmish, she
continued:

"I take an interest in you, Edna Earl, because I loved your mother, who
was the only sweet-tempered beauty that ever I knew. I think I never
set my eyes on a prettier face, with big brown eyes as meek as a
partridge's; and then her hands and feet were as small as a queen's.
Now as long as you are satisfied to stay here I shall be glad to have
you, and I will do as well for you as for my own Tabitha; but, if you
are bent on factory work and schooling, I have got no more to say; for
I have no right to say where you shall go or where you shall stay. But
one thing I do want to tell you, it is a serious thing for a poor,
motherless girl to be all alone among strangers."

There was a brief silence, and Edna answered slowly:

"Yes, Mrs. Wood, I know it is; but God can protect me there as well as
here, and I have none now but Him. I have made up my mind to go,
because I think it is the best for me, and I hope Mr. Wood will carry
me to the Chattanooga depot to-morrow morning, as the train leaves
early. I have a little money--seven dollars--that--that grandpa gave me
at different times, and both Brindle's calves belong to me--he gave
them to me--and I thought may be you would pay me a few dollars for
them."

"But you are not ready to start to-morrow."

"Yes, sir, I washed and ironed my clothes yesterday, and what few I
have are all packed in my box. Everything is ready now, and, as I have
to go, I might as well start to-morrow."

"Don't you think you will get dreadfully homesick in about a month, and
write to me to come and fetch you back?"

"I have no home and nobody to love me, how then can I ever be homesick?
Grandpa's grave is all the home I have, and--and--God would not take me
there when I was so sick, and--and--" The quiver of her face showed
that she was losing her self-control, and turning away, she took the
cedar piggin, and went out to milk Brindle for the last time.

Feeling that they had no right to dictate her future course, neither
the miller nor his wife offered any further opposition, and very early
the next morning, after Mrs. Wood had given the girl what she called
"some good motherly advice," and provided her with a basket containing
food for the journey, she kissed her heartily several times, and saw
her stowed away in the miller's covered cart, which was to convey her
to the railway station. The road ran by the old blacksmith's shop, and
Mr. Wood's eyes filled as he noticed the wistful, lingering, loving
gaze which the girl fixed upon it, until a grove of trees shut out the
view; then the head bowed itself, and a stifled moan reached his ears.

The engine whistled as they approached the station, and Edna was
hurried aboard the train, while her companion busied himself in
transferring her box of clothing to the baggage car. She had insisted
on taking her grandfather's dog with her, and, notwithstanding the
horrified looks of the passengers and the scowl of the conductor, he
followed her into the car and threw himself under the seat, glaring at
all who passed, and looking as hideously savage as the Norse Managarmar.

"You can't have a whole seat to yourself, and nobody wants to sit near
that ugly brute," said the surly conductor.

Edna glanced down the aisle, and saw two young gentlemen stretched at
full length on separate seats, eyeing her curiously.

Observing that the small seat next to the door was partially filled
with the luggage of the parties who sat in front of it, she rose and
called to the dog, saying to the conductor as she did so:

"I will take that half of a seat yonder, where I shall be in nobody's
way."

Here Mr. Wood came forward, thrust her ticket into her fingers, and
shook her hand warmly, saying hurriedly:

"Hold on to your ticket, and don't put your head out of the window. I
told the conductor he must look after you and your box when you left
the cars; said he would. Good-by, Edna; take care of yourself, and may
God bless you, child."

The locomotive whistled, the train moved slowly on, and the miller
hastened back to his cart.

As the engine got fully under way, and dashed around a curve, the
small, straggling village disappeared, trees and hills seemed to the
orphan to fly past the window; and when she leaned out and looked back,
only the mist-mantled rocks of Lookout, and the dim, purplish outline
of the Sequatchie heights were familiar.

In the shadow of that solitary sentinel peak her life had been passed;
she had gathered chestnuts and chincapins among its wooded clefts, and
clambered over its gray boulders as fearlessly as the young llamas of
the Parime; and now, as it rapidly receded and finally vanished, she
felt as if the last link that bound her to the past had suddenly
snapped; the last friendly face which had daily looked down on her for
twelve years was shut out forever, and she and Grip were indeed alone,
in a great, struggling world of selfishness and sin. The sun shone
dazzlingly over wide fields of grain, whose green billows swelled and
surged under the freshening breeze; golden butterflies fluttered over
the pink and blue morning-glories that festooned the rail-fences; a
brakeman whistled merrily on the platform, and children inside the car
prattled and played, while at one end a slender little girlish figure,
in homespun dress and pink calico bonnet, crouched in a corner of the
seat, staring back in the direction of hooded Lookout, feeling that
each instant bore her farther from the dear graves of her dead; and
oppressed with an intolerable sense of desolation and utter isolation
in the midst of hundreds of her own race, who were too entirely
absorbed in their individual speculations, fears and aims, to spare
even a glance at that solitary young mariner, who saw the last headland
fade from view, and found herself, with no pilot but ambition, drifting
rapidly out on the great, unknown, treacherous Sea of Life, strewn with
mournful human wrecks, whom the charts and buoys of six thousand years
of navigation could not guide to a haven of usefulness and peace.
Interminable seemed the dreary day, which finally drew to a close, and
Edna, who was weary of her cramped position, laid her aching head on
the window-sill, and watched the red light of day die in the west,
where a young moon hung her silvery crescent among the dusky tree-tops,
and the stars flashed out thick and fast. Far away among strangers,
uncared for and unnoticed, come what might, she felt that God's
changeless stars smiled down as lovingly upon her face as on her
grandfather's grave; and that the cosmopolitan language of nature knew
neither the modifications of time and space, the distinctions of social
caste, nor the limitations of national dialects.

As the night wore on, she opened the cherished copy of Dante and tried
to read, but the print was too fine for the dim lamp which hung at some
distance from her corner. Her head ached violently, and, as sleep was
impossible, she put the book back in her pocket, and watched the
flitting trees and fences, rocky banks, and occasional houses, which
seemed weird in the darkness. As silence deepened in the car, her sense
of loneliness became more and more painful, and finally she turned and
pressed her cheek against the fair, chubby hand of a baby, who slept
with its curly head on its mother's shoulder, and its little dimpled
arm and hand hanging over the back of the seat. There was comfort and a
soothing sensation of human companionship in the touch of that baby's
hand; it seemed a link in the electric chain of sympathy, and, after a
time, the orphan's eyes closed--fatigue conquered memory and sorrow,
and she fell asleep with her lips pressed to those mesmeric baby
fingers, and Grip's head resting against her knee.

Diamond-powdered "lilies of the field" folded their perfumed petals
under the Syrian dew, wherewith God nightly baptized them in token of
his ceaseless guardianship, and the sinless world of birds, the "fowls
of the air," those secure and blithe, yet improvident, little gleaners
in God's granary, nestled serenely under the shadow of the Almighty
wing; but was the all-seeing, all-directing Eye likewise upon that
desolate and destitute young mourner who sank to rest with "Our Father
which art in heaven" upon her trembling lips? Was it a decree in the
will and wisdom of our God, or a fiat from the blind fumbling of
Atheistic Chance, or was it in accordance with the rigid edict of
Pantheistic Necessity, that at that instant the cherubim of death
swooped down, on the sleeping passengers, and silver cords and golden
bowls were rudely snapped and crushed, amid the crash of timbers, the
screams of women and children, and the groans of tortured men, that
made night hideous? Over the holy hills of Judea, out of crumbling
Jerusalem, the message of Messiah has floated on the wings of eighteen
centuries: "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know
hereafter."

Edna was awakened by a succession of shrill sounds, which indicated
that the engineer was either frightened or frantic; the conductor
rushed bare-headed through the car; people sprang to their feet; there
was a scramble on the platform; then a shock and crash as if the day of
doom had dawned--and all was chaos.




CHAPTER IV.


Viewed by the aid of lanterns and the lurid, flickering light of
torches, the scene of disaster presented a ghastly debris of dead and
dying, of crushed cars and wounded men and women, who writhed and
groaned among the shattered timbers from which they found it impossible
to extricate themselves. The cries of those who recognized relatives in
the mutilated corpses that were dragged out from the wreck increased
the horrors of the occasion; and when Edna opened her eyes amid the
flaring of torches and the piercing wails of the bereaved passengers,
the first impression was, that she had died and gone to Dante's "Hell;"
but the pangs that seized her when she attempted to move soon dispelled
this frightful illusion, and by degrees the truth presented itself to
her blunted faculties. She was held fast between timbers, one of which
seemed to have fallen across her feet and crushed them, as she was
unable to move them, and was conscious of a horrible sensation of
numbness; one arm, too, was pinioned at her side, and something heavy
and cold lay upon her throat and chest. Lifting this weight with her
uninjured hand, she uttered an exclamation of horror as the white face
of the little baby whose fingers she had clasped now met her astonished
gaze; and she saw that the sweet coral lips were pinched and purple,
the waxen lids lay rigid over the blue eyes, and the dimpled hand was
stiff and icy. The confusion increased as day dawned and a large crowd
collected to offer assistance, and Edna watched her approaching
deliverers as they cut their way through the wreck and lifted out the
wretched sufferers. Finally two men, with axes in their hands, bent
down and looked into her face.

"Here is a live child and a dead baby wedged in between these beams.
Are you much hurt, little one?"

"Yes, I believe I am. Please take this log off my feet."

It was a difficult matter, but at length strong arms raised her,
carried her some distance from the ruins, and placed her on the grass,
where several other persons were writhing and groaning. The collision
which precipitated the train from trestle-work over a deep ravine, had
occurred near a village station, and two physicians were busily engaged
in examining the wounded. The sun had risen, and shone full on Edna's
pale, suffering face, when one of the surgeons, with a countenance that
indexed earnest sympathy and compassion, came to investigate the extent
of her injuries, and sat down on the grass beside her. Very tenderly he
handled her, and after a few moments said gently:

"I am obliged to hurt you a little, my child, for your shoulder is
dislocated, and some of the bones are broken in your feet; but I will
be as tender as possible. Here, Lennox! help me."

The pain was so intense that she fainted, and after a short time, when
she recovered her consciousness, her feet and ankles were tightly
bandaged, and the doctor was chafing her hands and bathing her face
with some powerful extract. Smoothing back her hair, he said:

"Were your parents on the cars? Do you know whether they are hurt?"

"They both died when I was a baby."

"Who was with you?"

"Nobody but Grip--my dog."

"Had you no relatives or friends on the train?"

"I have none. I am all alone in the world."

"Where did you come from?"

"Chattanooga."

"Where were you going?"

"My grandpa died, and as I had nobody to take care of me, I was going
to Columbus to work in the cotton factory."

"Humph! Much work you will do for many a long day."

He stroked his grayish beard, and mused a moment, and Edna said timidly:

"If you please, sir, I would like to know if my dog is hurt?"

The physician smiled, and looked round inquiringly.

"Has any one seen a dog that was on the train?"

One of the brakemen, a stout Irishman, took his pipe from his mouth,
and answered:

"Aye, aye, sir! and as vicious a brute as ever I set eyes on. Both his
hind legs were smashed--dragged so--and I tapped him on the head with
an axe to put him out of his misery. Yonder he now lies on the track."

Edna put her hand over her eyes, and turned her face down on the grass
to hide tears that would not be driven back. Here the surgeon was
called away, and for a half hour the child lay there, wondering what
would become of her, in her present crippled and helpless condition,
and questioning in her heart why God did not take her instead of that
dimpled darling, whose parents were now weeping so bitterly for the
untimely death that mowed their blossom ere its petals were expanded.
The chilling belief was fast gaining ground that God had cursed and
forsaken her; that misfortune and bereavement would dog her steps
through life; and a hard, bitter expression settled about her mouth,
and looked out gloomily from the sad eyes. Her painful reverie was
interrupted by the cheery voice of Dr. Rodney, who came back,
accompanied by an elegantly-dressed middle-aged lady.

"Ah, my brave little soldier! Tell us your name."

"Edna Earl."

"Have you no relatives?" asked the lady, stooping to scrutinize her
face.

"No, ma'am."

"She is a very pretty child, Mrs. Murray, and if you can take care of
her, even for a few weeks, until she is able to walk about, it will be
a real charity. I never saw so much fortitude displayed by one so
young; but her fever is increasing, and she needs immediate attention.
Will it be convenient for you to carry her to your house at once?"

"Certainly, doctor; order the carriage driven up as close as possible.
I brought a small mattress, and think the ride will not be very
painful. What splendid eyes she has! Poor little thing! Of course you
will come and prescribe for her, and I will see that she is carefully
nursed until she is quite well again. Here, Henry, you and Richard must
lift this child, and put her on the mattress in the carriage. Mind you
do not stumble and hurt her."

During the drive neither spoke, and Edna was in so much pain that she
lay with her eyes closed. As they entered a long avenue, the rattle of
the wheels on the gravel aroused the child's attention, and when the
carriage stopped, and she was carried up a flight of broad marble
steps, she saw that the house was very large and handsome.

"Bring her into the room next to mine," said Mrs. Murray, leading the
way.

Edna was soon undressed and placed within the snowy sheets of a
heavily-carved bedstead, whose crimson canopy shed a ruby light down on
the laced and ruffled pillows. Mrs. Murray administered a dose of
medicine given to her by Dr. Rodney, and after closing the blinds to
exclude the light, she felt the girl's pulse, found that she had fallen
into a heavy sleep, and then, with a sigh, went down to take her
breakfast. It was several hours before Edna awoke, and when she opened
her eyes, and looked around the elegantly furnished and beautiful room,
she felt bewildered. Mrs. Murray sat in a cushioned chair, near one of
the windows, with a book in her hand, and Edna had an opportunity of
studying her face. It was fair, proud, and handsome, but wore an
expression of habitual anxiety; and gray hairs showed themselves under
the costly lace that bordered her morning head-dress, while lines of
care marked her brow and mouth. Children instinctively decipher the
hieroglyphics which time carves on human faces, and, in reading the
countenance of her hostess, Edna felt that she was a haughty, ambitious
woman, with a kind but not very warm heart, who would be scrupulously
attentive to the wants of a sick child, but would probably never dream
of caressing or fondling such a charge. Chancing to glance towards the
bed as she turned a leaf, Mrs. Murray met the curious gaze fastened
upon her, and, rising, approached the sufferer.

"How do you feel, Edna? I believe that is your name."

"Thank you, my head is better, but I am very thirsty." The lady of the
house gave her some iced water in a silver goblet, and ordered a
servant to bring up the refreshments she had directed prepared. As she
felt the girl's pulse, Edna noticed how white and soft her hands were,
and how dazzlingly the jewels flashed on her fingers, and she longed
for the touch of those aristocratic hands on her hot brow, where the
hair clustered so heavily.

"How old are you, Edna?"

"Almost thirteen."

"Had you any luggage on the train?"

"I had a small box of clothes."

"I will send a servant for it." She rang the bell as she spoke.

"When do you think I shall be able to walk about?"

"Probably not for many weeks. If you need or wish anything you must not
hesitate to ask for it. A servant will sit here, and you have only to
tell her what you want."

"You are very kind, ma'am, and I thank you very much--" She paused, and
her eyes filled with tears.

Mrs. Murray looked at her and said gravely:

"What is the matter, child?"

"I am only sorry I was so ungrateful and wicked this morning."

"How so?"

"Oh! everything that I love dies; and when I lay there on the grass,
unable to move, among strangers who knew and cared nothing about me, I
was wicked, and would not try to pray, and thought God wanted to make
me suffer all my life, and I wished that I had been killed instead of
that dear little baby, who had a father and mother to kiss and love it.
It was all wrong to feel so, but I was so wretched. And then God raised
up friends even among strangers, and shows me I am not forsaken if I am
desolate. I begin to think He took everybody away from me, that I might
see how He could take care of me without them. I know 'He doeth all
things well,' but I feel it now; and I am so sorry I could not trust
Him without seeing it."

Edna wiped away her tears, and Mrs. Murray's voice faltered slightly as
she said:

"You are a good little girl, I have no doubt. Who taught you to be so
religious?"

"Grandpa."

"How long since you lost him?"

"Four months."

"Can you read?"

"Oh! yes, ma'am."

"Well, I shall send you a Bible, and you must make yourself as
contented as possible. I shall take good care of you."

As the hostess left the room a staid-looking, elderly negro woman took
a seat at the window and sewed silently, now and then glancing toward
the bed. Exhausted with pain and fatigue, Edna slept again, and it was
night when she opened her eyes and found Dr. Rodney and Mrs. Murray at
her pillow. The kind surgeon talked pleasantly for some time, and,
after giving ample instructions, took his leave, exhorting his patient
to keep up her fortitude and all would soon be well. So passed the
first day of her sojourn under the hospitable roof which appeared so
fortuitously to shelter her; and the child thanked God fervently for
the kind hands into which she had fallen. Day after day wore wearily
away, and at the end of a fortnight, though much prostrated by fever
and suffering, she was propped up in bed by pillows, while Hagar, the
servant, combed and plaited the long, thick, matted hair. Mrs. Murray
came often to the room, but her visits were short, and though
invariably kind and considerate, Edna felt an involuntary awe of her,
which rendered her manner exceedingly constrained when they were
together. Hagar was almost as taciturn as her mistress, and as the girl
asked few questions, she remained in complete ignorance of the
household affairs, and had never seen any one but Mrs. Murray, Hagar,
and the doctor. She was well supplied with books, which the former
brought from the library, and thus the invalid contrived to amuse
herself during the long, tedious summer days. One afternoon in June,
Edna persuaded Hagar to lift her to a large, cushioned chair close to
the open window which looked out on the lawn; and here, with a book on
her lap, she sat gazing out at the soft blue sky, the waving elm
boughs, and the glittering plumage of a beautiful Himalayan pheasant,
which seemed in the golden sunshine to have forgotten the rosy glow of
his native snows. Leaning her elbows on the window-sill, Edna rested
her face in her palms, and after a few minutes a tide of tender
memories rose and swept over her heart, bringing a touching expression
of patient sorrow to her sweet, wan face, and giving a far-off wistful
look to the beautiful eyes where tears often gathered but very rarely
fell. Hagar had dressed her in a new white muslin wrapper, with fluted
ruffles at the wrists and throat; and the fair young face, with its
delicate features, and glossy folds of soft hair, was a pleasant
picture, which the nurse loved to contemplate. Standing with her
work-basket in her hand, she watched the graceful little figure for two
or three moments, and a warm, loving light shone out over her black
features; then nodding her head resolutely, she muttered:

"I will have my way this once; she shall stay," and passed out of the
room, closing the door behind her. Edna did not remark her departure,
for memory was busy among the ashes of other days, exhuming a thousand
precious reminiscences of mountain home, chestnut groves, showers of
sparks fringing an anvil with fire, and an old man's unpainted
head-board in the deserted burying-ground. She started nervously when,
a half hour later, Mrs. Murray laid her hand gently on her shoulder,
and said:

"Child, of what are you thinking?"

For an instant she could not command her voice, which faltered; but
making a strong effort, she answered in a low tone:

"Of all that I have lost, and what I am to do in future."

"Would you be willing to work all your life in a factory?"

"No, ma'am; only long enough to educate myself, so that I could teach."

"You could not obtain a suitable education in that way, and beside, I
do not think that the factory you spoke of would be an agreeable place
for you. I have made some inquiries about it since you came here."

"I know it will not be pleasant, but then I am obliged to work in some
way, and I don't see what else I can do. I am not able to pay for an
education now, and I am determined to have one."

Mrs. Murray's eyes wandered out toward the velvety lawn, and she mused
for some minutes; then laying her hands on the orphan's head, she said:

"Child, will you trust your future and your education to me? I do not
mean that I will teach you--oh! no--but I will have you thoroughly
educated, so that when you are grown you can support yourself by
teaching. I have no daughter--I lost mine when she was a babe; but I
could not have seen her enter a factory, and as you remind me of my own
child, I will not allow you to go there. I will take care of and
educate you--will see that you have everything you require, if you are
willing to be directed and advised by me Understand me, I do not adopt
you; nor shall I consider you exactly as one of my family; but I shall
prove a good friend and protector till you are eighteen, and capable of
providing for yourself. You will live in my house and look upon it as
your home, at least for the present. What do you say to this plan? Is
it not much better and more pleasant than a wild-goose chase after an
education through the dust and din of a factory?"

"Oh, Mrs. Murray! You are very generous and good, but I have no claim
on you--no right to impose such expense and trouble upon you. I am--"

"Hush, child! you have that claim which poverty always has on wealth.
As for the expense, that is a mere trifle, and I do not expect you to
give me any trouble; perhaps you may even make yourself useful to me."

"Thank you! oh! thank you, ma'am! I am very grateful! I can not tell
you how much I thank you; but I shall try to prove it, if you will let
me stay here--on one condition."

"What is that?"

"That when I am able to pay you, you will receive the money that my
education and clothes will cost you."

Mrs. Murray laughed, and stroked the silky black hair.

"Where did you get such proud notions? Pay me, indeed! You poor little
beggar! Ha! ha! ha! Well, yes, you may do as you please, when you are
able; that time is rather too distant to be considered now. Meanwhile,
quit grieving over the past, and think only of improving yourself. I do
not like doleful faces, and shall expect you to be a cheerful,
contented, and obedient girl. Hagar is making you an entire set of new
clothes, and I hope to see you always neat. I shall give you a smaller
room than this--the one across the hall; you will keep your books
there, and remain there during study hours. At other times you can come
to my room, or amuse yourself as you like; and when there is company
here, remember, I shall always expect you to sit quietly, and listen to
the conversation, as it is very improving to young girls to be in
really good society. You will have a music teacher, and practice on the
upright piano in the library, instead of the large one in the parlor.
One thing more, if you want anything, come to me, and ask for it, and I
shall be very much displeased if you talk to the servants, or encourage
them to talk to you. Now, everything is understood, and I hope you will
be happy, and properly improve the advantages I shall give you."

Edna drew one of the white hands down to her lips and murmured:

"Thank you--thank you! You shall never have cause to regret your
goodness; and your wishes shall always guide me."

"Well, well; I shall remember this promise, and trust I may never find
it necessary to remind you of it. I dare say we shall get on very
happily together. Don't thank me any more, and hereafter we need not
speak of the matter."

Mrs. Murray stooped, and for the first time kissed the child's white
forehead; and Edna longed to throw her arms about the stately form, but
the polished hauteur awed and repelled her.

Before she could reply, and just as Mrs. Murray was moving toward the
door, it was thrown open, and a gentleman strode into the room. At
sight of Edna he stopped suddenly, and dropping a bag of game on the
floor, exclaimed harshly:

"What the d--l does this mean?"

"My son! I am so glad you are at home again. I was getting quite uneasy
at your long absence. This is one of the victims of that terrible
railroad disaster; the neighborhood is full of the sufferers. Come to
my room. When did you arrive?"

She linked her arm in his, picked up the game-bag, and led him to the
adjoining room, the door of which she closed and locked.

A painful thrill shot along Edna's nerves, and an indescribable
sensation of dread, a presentiment of coming ill, overshadowed her
heart. This was the son of her friend, and the first glimpse of him
filled her with instantaneous repugnance; there was an innate and
powerful repulsion which she could not analyze. He was a tall, athletic
man, not exactly young, yet certainly not elderly; one of anomalous
appearance, prematurely old, and, though not one white thread silvered
his thick, waving, brown hair, the heavy and habitual scowl on his
high, full brow had plowed deep furrows such as age claims for its
monogram. His features were bold but very regular; the piercing,
steel-gray eyes were unusually large, and beautifully shaded with long
heavy, black lashes, but repelled by their cynical glare; and the
finely formed mouth, which might have imparted a wonderful charm to the
countenance, wore a chronic, savage sneer, as if it only opened to
utter jeers and curses. Evidently the face had once been singularly
handsome, in the dawn of his earthly career, when his mother's
good-night kiss rested like a blessing on his smooth, boyish forehead,
and the prayer learned in the nursery still crept across his pure lips;
but now the fair, chiseled lineaments were blotted by dissipation, and
blackened and distorted by the baleful fires of a fierce, passionate
nature, and a restless, powerful, and unhallowed intellect. Symmetrical
and grand as that temple of Juno, in shrouded Pompeii, whose polished
shafts gleamed centuries ago in the morning sunshine of a day of woe,
whose untimely night has endured for nineteen hundred years, so, in the
glorious flush of his youth, this man had stood facing a noble and
possibly a sanctified future; but the ungovernable flames of sin had
reduced him, like that darkened and desecrated fane, to a melancholy
mass of ashy arches and blackened columns, where ministering priests,
all holy aspirations, slumbered in the dust. His dress was costly but
negligent, and the red stain on his jacket told that his hunt had not
been fruitless. He wore a straw hat, belted with broad black ribbon,
and his spurred boots were damp and muddy.

What was there about this surly son of her hostess which recalled to
Edna's mind her grandfather's words, "He is a rude, wicked, blasphemous
man." She had not distinctly seen the face of the visitor at the shop;
but something in the impatient, querulous tone, in the hasty, haughty
step, and the proud lifting of the regal head, reminded her painfully
of him whose overbearing insolence had so unwontedly stirred the ire of
Aaron Hunt's genial and generally equable nature. While she pondered
this inexplicable coincidence, voices startled her from the next room,
whence the sound floated through the window.

"If you were not my mother, I should say you were a candidate for a
straight-jacket and a lunatic asylum; but as those amiable proclivities
are considered hereditary, I do not favor that comparison. 'Sorry for
her,' indeed! I'll bet my right arm it will not be six weeks before she
makes you infinitely sorrier for your deluded self; and you will treat
me to a new version of 'je me regrette!' With your knowledge of this
precious world and its holy crew, I confess it seems farcical in the
extreme that open-eyed you can venture another experiment on human
nature. Some fine morning you will rub your eyes and find your acolyte
non est; ditto, your silver forks, diamonds, and gold spoons."

Edna felt the indignant blood burning in her cheeks, and as she could
not walk without assistance, and shrank from listening to a
conversation which was not intended for her ears, she coughed several
times to arrest the attention of the speakers, but apparently without
effect, for the son's voice again rose above the low tones of the
mother.

"Oh, carnival of shams! She is 'pious' you say? Then, I'll swear my
watch is not safe in my pocket, and I shall sleep with the key of my
cameo cabinet tied around my neck. A Paris police would not insure your
valuables or mine. The facts forbid that your pen-feathered saint
should decamp with some of my costly travel-scrapings! 'Pious' indeed!
'Edna,' forsooth! No doubt her origin and morals are quite as
apocryphal as her name. Don't talk to me about 'her being
providentially thrown into your hands,' unless you desire to hear me
say things which you have frequently taken occasion to inform me
'deeply grieved' you. I dare say the little vagrant whines in what she
considers orthodox phraseology, that 'God tempers the wind to the shorn
lamb!' and, like some other pious people whom I have heard canting,
will saddle some Jewish prophet or fisherman with the dictum, thinking
that it sounds like the Bible, whereas Sterne said it. Shorn lamb,
forsooth! We, or rather you, madame, ma mere, will be shorn--thoroughly
fleeced! Pious! Ha! ha! ha!"

Here followed an earnest expostulation from Mrs. Murray, only a few
words of which were audible, and once more the deep, strong, bitter
tones rejoined:

"Interfere! Pardon me, I am only too happy to stand aloof and watch the
little wretch play out her game. Most certainly it is your own affair,
but you will permit me to be amused, will you not? And with your
accustomed suavity forgive me, if I chance inadvertently to whisper
above my breath, 'Le jeu n'en vaut pas la chandelle?' What the deuce do
you suppose I care about her 'faith?' She may run through the whole
catalogue from the mustard-seed size up, as far as I am concerned, and
you may make yourself easy on the score of my 'contaminating' the
sanctified vagrant!"

"St. Elmo! my son! promise me that you will not scoff and sneer at her
religion; at least in her presence," pleaded the mother.

A ringing, mirthless laugh was the only reply that reached the girl, as
she put her fingers in her ears and hid her face on the window-sill.

It was no longer possible to doubt the identity of the stranger; the
initials on the fly-leaf meant St. Elmo Murray; and she knew that in
the son of her friend and protectress, she had found the owner of her
Dante and the man who had cursed her grandfather for his tardiness. If
she had only known this one hour earlier, she would have declined the
offer, which once accepted, she knew not how to reject, without
acquainting Mrs. Murray with the fact that she had overheard the
conversation; and yet she could not endure the prospect of living under
the same roof with a man whom she loathed and feared. The memory of the
blacksmith's aversion of this stranger intensified her own; and as she
pondered in shame and indignation the scornful and opprobrious epithets
which he had bestowed on herself, she muttered through her set teeth:

"Yes, Grandy! he is cruel and wicked; and I never can bear to look at
or speak to him! How dared he curse my dear, dear, good grandpa! How
can I ever be respectful to him, when he is not even respectful to his
own mother! Oh! I wish I had never come here! I shall always hate him!"
At this juncture, Hagar entered, and lifted her back to her couch; and,
remarking the agitation of her manner, the nurse said gravely, as she
put her fingers on the girl's pulse:

"What has flushed you so? Your face is hot; you have tired yourself
sitting up too long. Did a gentleman come into the room a while ago?"

"Yes, Mrs. Murray's son."

"Did Miss Ellen--that is, my mistress--tell you that you were to live
here, and get your education?"

"Yes, she offered to take care of me for a few years."

"Well, I am glad it is fixed, so--you can stay; for you can be a great
comfort to Miss Ellen, if you try to please her."

She paused, and busied herself about the room, and remembering Mrs.
Murray's injunction that she should discourage conversation on the part
of the servants, Edna turned her face to the wall and shut her eyes.
But for once Hagar's habitual silence and non-committalism were laid
aside; and, stooping over the couch, she said hurriedly:

"Listen to me, child, for I like your patient ways, and want to give
you a friendly warning; you are a stranger in this house, and might
stumble into trouble. Whatever else you do, be sure not to cross Mass'
Elmo's path! Keep out of his way, and he will keep out of yours; for he
is shy enough of strangers, and would walk a mile to keep from meeting
anybody; but if he finds you in his way, he will walk roughshod right
over you--trample you. Nothing ever stops him one minute when he makes
up his mind. He does not even wait to listen to his mother, and she is
about the only person who dares to talk to him. He hates everybody and
everything; but he doesn't tread on folks' toes unless they are where
they don't belong. He is like a rattlesnake that crawls in his own
track, and bites everything that meddles or crosses his trail. Above
everything, child, for the love of peace and heaven, don't argue with
him! If he says black is white, don't contradict him; and if he swears
water runs up stream, let him swear, and don't know it runs down. Keep
out of his sight, and you will do well enough, but once make him mad
and you had better fight Satan hand to hand with red-hot pitchforks!
Everybody is afraid of him, and gives way to him, and you must do like
the balance that have to deal with him. I nursed him; but I would
rather put my head in a wolf's jaws than stir him up; and God knows I
wish he had died when he was a baby, instead of living to grow up the
sinful, swearing, raging devil he is! Now mind what I say. I am not
given to talking, but this time it is for your good. Mind what I tell
you, child; and if you want to have peace, keep out of his way."

She left the room abruptly, and the orphan lay in the gathering gloom
of twilight, perplexed, distressed, and wondering how she could avoid
all the angularities of this amiable character, under whose roof fate
seemed to have deposited her.




CHAPTER V.


At length, by the aid of crutches, Edna was able to leave the room
where she had been so long confined, and explore the house in which
every day discovered some new charm. The parlors and sitting-room
opened on a long, arched veranda, which extended around two sides of
the building, and was paved with variegated tiles; while the
stained-glass doors of the dining-room, with its lofty frescoed ceiling
and deep bow-windows, led by two white marble steps out on the terrace,
whence two more steps showed the beginning of a serpentine gravel walk
winding down to an octagonal hot-house, surmounted by a richly carved
pagoda-roof. Two sentinel statues--a Bacchus and Bacchante--placed on
the terrace, guarded the entrance to the dining-room; and in front of
the house, where a sculptured Triton threw jets of water into a
gleaming circular basin, a pair of crouching monsters glared from the
steps. When Edna first found herself before these grim doorkeepers, she
started back in unfeigned terror, and could scarcely repress a cry of
alarm, for the howling rage and despair of the distorted hideous heads
seemed fearfully real, and years elapsed before she comprehended their
significance, or the sombre mood which impelled their creation. They
were imitations of that monumental lion's head, raised on the
battle-field of Chaeroneia, to commemorate the Boeotians slain. In the
rear of and adjoining the library, a narrow, vaulted passage with high
Gothic windows of stained-glass, opened into a beautifully proportioned
rotunda, and beyond this circular apartment with its ruby-tinted
skylight and Moresque frescoes, extended two other rooms, of whose
shape or contents Edna knew nothing, save the tall arched windows that
looked down on the terrace. The door of the rotunda was generally
closed, but accidentally it stood open one morning, and she caught a
glimpse of the circular form and the springing dome. Evidently this
portion of the mansion had been recently built, while the remainder of
the house had been constructed many years earlier; but all desire to
explore it was extinguished when Mrs. Murray remarked one day:

"That passage leads to my son's apartments, and he dislikes noise or
intrusion."

Thenceforth Edna avoided it as if the plagues of Pharaoh were pent
therein. To her dazzled eyes this luxurious home was a fairy palace, an
enchanted region, and, with eager curiosity and boundless admiration,
she gazed upon beautiful articles whose use she could not even
conjecture. The furniture throughout the mansion was elegant and
costly; pictures, statues, bronzes, marble, silver, rosewood, ebony,
mosaics, satin, velvet--naught that the most fastidious and cultivated
taste or dilettanteism could suggest, or lavish expenditure supply, was
wanting; while the elaborate and beautiful arrangement of the extensive
grounds showed with how prodigal a hand the owner squandered a princely
fortune. The flower garden and lawn comprised fifteen acres, and the
subdivisions were formed entirely by hedges, save that portion of the
park surrounded by a tall iron railing, where congregated a motley
menagerie of deer, bison, a Lapland reindeer, a Peruvian llama, some
Cashmere goats, a chamois, wounded and caught on the Jungfrau, and a
large white cow from Ava. This part of the inclosure was thickly
studded with large oaks, groups of beech and elm, and a few enormous
cedars which would not have shamed their sacred prototypes sighing in
Syrian breezes along the rocky gorges of Lebanon. The branches were low
and spreading, and even at mid-day the sunshine barely freckled the
cool, mossy knolls where the animals sought refuge from the summer heat
of the open and smoothly-shaven lawn. Here and there, on the soft,
green sward, was presented that vegetable antithesis, a circlet of
martinet poplars standing vis-a-vis to a clump of willows whose long
hair threw quivering, fringy shadows when the slanting rays of dying
sunlight burnished the white and purple petals nestling among the
clover tufts. Rustic seats of bark, cane and metal were scattered
through the grounds, and where the well-trimmed numerous hedges divided
the parterre, china, marble and iron vases of varied mould, held rare
creepers and lovely exotics; and rich masses of roses swung their
fragrant chalices of crimson and gold, rivaling the glory of Paestum
and of Bendemer. The elevation upon which the house was placed
commanded an extensive view of the surrounding country. Far away to the
northeast purplish gray waves along the sky showed a range of lofty
hills, and in an easterly direction, scarcely two miles distant,
glittering spires told where the village clung to the railroad, and to
a deep rushing creek, whose sinuous course was distinctly marked by the
dense growth that clothed its steep banks. Now and then luxuriant
fields of corn covered the level lands with an emerald mantle, while
sheep and cattle roamed through the adjacent champaign; and in the
calm, cool morning air, a black smoke-serpent crawled above the
tree-tops, mapping out the track over which the long train of cars
darted and thundered. Mr. Paul Murray, the first proprietor of the
estate, and father of the present owner, had early in life spent much
time in France, where, espousing the royalist cause, his sympathies
were fully enlisted by the desperate daring of Charette, Stofflet, and
Cathelineau. On his return to his native land, his admiration of the
heroism of those who dwelt upon the Loire, found expression in one of
their sobriquets, "Le Bocage," which he gave to his country residence;
and certainly the venerable groves that surrounded it justified the
application. While his own fortune was handsome and abundant, he
married the orphan of a rich banker, who survived her father only a
short time and died leaving Mr. Murray childless. After a few years,
when the frosts of age fell upon his head, he married a handsome and
very wealthy widow; but, unfortunately, having lost their first child,
a daughter, he lived only long enough to hear the infantile prattle of
his son, St. Elmo, to whom he bequeathed an immense fortune, which many
succeeding years of reckless expenditure had failed to materially
impair. Such was "Le Bocage," naturally a beautiful situation, improved
and embellished with everything which refined taste and world-wide
travel could suggest to the fastidious owner. Notwithstanding the
countless charms of the home so benevolently offered to her, the
blacksmith's granddaughter was conscious of a great need, scarcely to
be explained, yet fully felt--the dreary lack of that which she had yet
to learn could not be purchased by the treasures of Oude--the priceless
peace and genial glow which only the contented, happy hearts of its
inmates can diffuse over even a palatial homestead. She also realized,
without analyzing the fact, that the majestic repose and boundless
spontaneity of nature yielded a sense of companionship almost of
tender, dumb sympathy, which all the polished artificialities and
recherche arrangements of man utterly failed to supply. While dazzled
by the glitter and splendor of "Le Bocage," she shivered in its silent
dreariness, its cold, aristocratic formalism, and she yearned for the
soft, musical babble of the spring-branch, where, standing ankle-deep
in water under the friendly shadow of Lookout, she had spent long,
blissful July days in striving to build a wall of rounded pebbles down
which the crystal ripples would fall, a miniature Talulah or Tuccoa.
The chrism of nature had anointed her early life and consecrated her
heart, but fate brought her to the vestibule of the temple of Mammon,
and its defiling incense floated about her. How long would the
consecration last? As she slowly limped about the house and grounds,
acquainting herself with the details, she was impressed with the belief
that happiness had once held her court here, had been dethroned, exiled
and now waited beyond the confines of the park, anxious but unable to
renew her reign and expel usurping gloom. For some weeks after her
arrival she took her meals in her own room, and having learned to
recognize the hasty, heavy tread of the dreaded master of the house,
she invariably fled from the sound of his steps as she would have
shunned an ogre; consequently her knowledge of him was limited to the
brief inspection and uncomplimentary conversation which introduced him
to her acquaintance on the day of his return. Her habitual avoidance
and desire of continued concealment was, however, summarily thwarted
when Mrs. Murray came into her room late one night, and asked:

"Did not I see you walking this afternoon without your crutches?"

"Yes, ma'am, I was trying to see if I could not do without them
entirely."

"Did the experiment cause you any pain?"

"No pain exactly, but I find my ankle still weak."



 "Be careful not to overstrain it; by degrees it will strengthen if
you use it moderately. By the by, you are now well enough to come to
the table; and from breakfast to-morrow you will take your meals with
us in the dining-room."

A shiver of apprehension seized Edna, and in a frightened tone she
ejaculated:

"Ma'am!"

"I say, in future you will eat at the table instead of here in this
room."

"If you please, Mrs. Murray, I would rather stay here."

"Pray, what possible objection can you have to the dining-room?"

Edna averted her head, but wrung her fingers nervously.

Mrs. Murray frowned, and continued gravely:

"Don't be silly, Edna. It is proper that you should go to the table,
and learn to eat with a fork instead of a knife. You need not be
ashamed to meet people; there is nothing clownish about you unless you
affect it. Good-night; I shall see you at breakfast; the bell rings at
eight o'clock."

There was no escape, and she awoke next morning oppressed with the
thought of the ordeal that awaited her. She dressed herself even more
carefully than usual, despite the trembling of her hands; and when the
ringing of the little silver bell summoned her to the dining-room, her
heart seemed to stand still. But though exceedingly sensitive and shy,
Edna was brave, and even self-possessed, and she promptly advanced to
meet the trial.

Entering the room, she saw that her benefactress had not yet come in,
but was approaching the house with a basket of flowers in her hand; and
one swift glance around discovered Mr. Murray standing at the window.
Unobserved, she scanned the tall, powerful figure clad in a suit of
white linen, and saw that he wore no beard save the heavy but
closely-trimmed moustache, which now, in some degree, concealed the
harshness about the handsome mouth. Only his profile was turned toward
her, and she noticed that, while his forehead was singularly white, his
cheeks and chin were thoroughly bronzed from exposure.

As Mrs. Murray came in, she nodded to her young protegee, and
approached the table, saying:

"Good morning! It seems I am the laggard to-day, but Nicholas had
mislaid the flower shears, and detained me. Hereafter I shall turn over
this work of dressing vases to you, child. My son, this is your
birthday, and here is your button-hole souvenir."

She fastened a few sprigs of white jasmine in his linen coat, and, as
he thanked her briefly, and turned to the table, she said, with marked
emphasis:

"St. Elmo, let me introduce you to Edna Earl."

He looked around, and fixed his keen eyes on the orphan, whose cheeks
crimsoned as she looked down and said, quite distinctly:

"Good morning, Mr. Murray."

"Good morning, Miss Earl."

"No, I protest! 'Miss Earl,' indeed! Call the child Edna."

"As you please, mother, provided you do not let the coffee and
chocolate get cold while you decide the momentous question."

Neither spoke again for some time, and in the embarrassing silence Edna
kept her eyes on the china, wondering if all their breakfasts would be
like this. At last Mr. Murray pushed away his large coffee-cup, and
said abruptly:

"After all, it is only one year to-day since I came back to America,
though it seems much longer. It will soon be time to prepare for my
trip to the South Sea Islands. The stagnation here is intolerable."

An expression of painful surprise flitted across the mother's
countenance, but she answered quickly:

"It has been an exceedingly short, happy year to me. You are such a
confirmed absentee, that when you are at home, time slips by unnoticed."

"But few and far between as my visits are, they certainly never
approach the angelic. 'Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest,'
must frequently recur to you."

Before his mother could reply he rose, ordered his horse, and as he
drew on his gloves, and left the room, looked over his shoulder, saying
indifferently, "That box of pictures from Munich is at the warehouse; I
directed Henry to go after it this morning. I will open it when I come
home."

A moment after he passed the window on horseback, and with a heavy sigh
Mrs. Murray dropped her head on her hand, compressing her lips, and
toying abstractedly with the sugar-tongs.

Edna watched the grave, troubled countenance for some seconds, and then
putting her hand on the flower-basket, she asked softly:

"Shall I dress the flower-pots?"

"Yes, child, in four rooms; this, the parlors, and the library. Always
cut the flowers very early, while the dew is on them."

Her eyes went back to the sugar-tongs, and Edna joyfully escaped from a
room whose restraints and associations were irksome.

Impressed by Hagar's vehement adjuration to keep out of Mr. Murray's
path, she avoided those portions of the house to which he seemed most
partial, and thus although they continued to meet at meals, no words
passed between them, after that brief salutation on the morning of
presentation. Very often she was painfully conscious that his searching
eyes scrutinized her; but though the blood mounted instantly to her
cheeks at such times, she never looked up--dreading his gaze as she
would that of a basilisk. One sultry afternoon she went into the park,
and threw herself down on the long grass, under a clump of cedars, near
which the deer and bison were quietly browsing, while the large white
merinoes huddled in the shade and blinked at the sun. Opening a
pictorial history of England, which she had selected from the library,
she spread it on the grass, and leaning her face in her palms, rested
her elbows on the ground, and began to read. Now and then she paused as
she turned a leaf, to look around at the beautiful animals, each one of
which might have served as a model for Landseer or Rosa Bonheur.
Gradually the languor of the atmosphere stole into her busy brain; as
the sun crept down the sky, her eyelids sunk with it, and very soon she
was fast asleep, with her head on the book, and her cheeks flushed
almost to a vermilion hue. From that brief summer dream she was aroused
by some sudden noise, and starting up, she saw the sheep bounding far
away, while a large, gaunt, wolfish, grey dog snuffed at her hands and
face.

Once before she had seen him chained near the stables, and Hagar told
her he was "very dangerous," and was never loosed except at night;
consequently, the expression of his fierce, red eyes, as he stood over
her, was well calculated to alarm her; but at that instant Mr. Murray's
voice thundered:

"Keep still! don't move! or you will be torn to pieces!" Then followed
some rapid interjections and vehement words in the same unintelligible
dialect which had so puzzled her once before, when her grandfather
could not control the horse he was attempting to shoe. The dog was
sullen and unmanageable, keeping his black muzzle close to her face,
and she grew pale with terror as she noticed that his shaggy breast and
snarling jaws were dripping with blood.

Leaping from his horse, Mr. Murray strode up, and with a quick movement
seized the heavy brass collar of the savage creature, hurled him back
on his haunches, and held him thus, giving vent the while to a volley
of oaths.

Pointing to a large, half-decayed elm branch, lying at a little
distance, he tightened his grasp on the collar, and said to the still
trembling girl:

"Bring me that stick, yonder."

Edna complied, and there ensued a scene of cursing, thrashing, and
howling, that absolutely sickened her. The dog writhed, leaped, whined,
and snarled; but the iron hold was not relaxed, and the face of the
master rivaled in rage that of the brute, which seemed as ferocious as
the hounds of Gian Maria Visconti, fed with human flesh, by Squarcia
Giramo. Distressed by the severity and duration of the punishment, and
without pausing to reflect, or to remember Hagar's warning, Edna
interposed:

"Oh! please don't whip him any more! It is cruel to beat him so!"

Probably he did not hear her, and the blows fell thicker than before.
She drew near, and, as the merciless arm was raised to strike, she
seized it with both hands, and swung on with her whole weight,
repeating her words. If one of his meek, frightened sheep had sprung at
his throat to throttle him, Mr. Murray would not have been more
astounded. He shook her off, threw her from him, but she carried the
stick in her grasp. "D--n you! how dare you interfere! What is it to
you if I cut his throat, which I mean to do!"

"That will be cruel and sinful, for he does not know it is wrong; and
besides, he did not bite me."

She spoke resolutely, and for the first time ventured to look straight
into his flashing eyes.

"Did not bite you! Did not he worry down and mangle one of my finest
Southdowns? It would serve you right for your impertinent meddling, if
I let him tear you limb from limb!"

"He knows no better," she answered, firmly.

"Then, by G-d, I will teach him! Hand me that stick!"

"Oh! please, Mr. Murray! You have nearly put out one of his eyes
already!"

"Give me the stick, I tell you, or I--"

He did not finish the threat, but held out his hand with a peremptory
gesture.

Edna gave one swift glance around, saw that there were no other
branches within reach, saw too that the dog's face was swelling and
bleeding from its bruises, and, bending the stick across her knee, she
snapped it into three pieces, which she threw as far as her strength
would permit. There was a brief pause, broken only by the piteous
howling of the suffering creature, and, as she began to realize what
she had done, Edna's face reddened, and she put her hands over her eyes
to shut out the vision of the enraged man, who was absolutely dumb with
indignant astonishment. Presently a sneering laugh caused her to look
through her fingers, and she saw "Ali," the dog, now released, fawning
and whining at his master's feet.

"Aha! The way of all natures, human as well as brute. Pet and fondle
and pamper them, they turn under your caressing hand and bite you; but
bruise and trample them, and instantly they are on their knees licking
the feet that kicked them. Begone! you bloodthirsty devil! I'll settle
the account at the kennel. Buffon is a fool, and Pennant was right
after all. The blood of the jackal pricks up your ears."

He spurned the crouching culprit, and as it slunk away in the direction
of the house, Edna found herself alone, face to face with the object of
her aversion, and she almost wished that the earth would open and
swallow her. Mr. Murray came close to her, held her hands down with one
of his, and placing the other under her chin, forced her to look at him.

"How dare you defy and disobey me?"

"I did not defy you, sir, but I could not help you to do what was wrong
and cruel."

"I am the judge of my actions, and neither ask your help nor intend to
permit your interference with what does not concern you."

"God is the judge of mine, sir, and if I had obeyed you, I should have
been guilty of all you wished to do with that stick. I don't want to
interfere, sir. I try to keep out of your way, and I am very sorry I
happened to come here this evening. I did not dream of meeting you; I
thought you had gone to town."

He read all her aversion in her eyes, which strove to avoid his, and
smiling gently, he continued: "You evidently think that I am the very
devil himself, walking the earth like a roaring lion. Mind your own
affairs hereafter, and when I give you a positive order, obey it, for I
am master here, and my word is law. Meddling or disobedience I neither
tolerate nor forgive. Do you understand me?"

"I shall not meddle, sir."

"That means that you will not obey me unless you think proper?"

She was silent, and her beautiful soft eyes filled with tears.

"Answer me!"

"I have nothing to say that you would like to hear."

"What? Out with it!"

"You would have a right to think me impertinent if I said any more."

"No, I swear I will not devour you, say what you may."

She shook her head, and the motion brought two tears down on her cheeks.

"Oh, you are one of the stubborn sweet saints, whose lips even
Torquemada's red-hot steel fingers could not open. Child, do you hate
or dread me most? Answer that question."

He took his own handkerchief and wiped away the tears.

"I am sorry for you, sir," she said in a low voice.

He threw his head back and laughed heartily.

"Sorry for me! For me! Me? The owner of as many thousands as there are
hairs on your head! Keep your pity for your poverty-stricken vagrant
self! Why the deuce are you sorry for me?"

She withdrew her hands, which he seemed to hold unconsciously, and
answered:

"Because, with all your money, you never will be happy."

"And what the d--l do I care for happiness? I am not such a fool as to
expect it; and yet after all, 'Out of the mouths of babes and
sucklings.' Pshaw! I am a fool nevertheless to waste words on you.
Stop! What do you think of my park, and the animals? I notice you often
come here."

"The first time I saw it I thought of Noah and the ark, with two of
every living thing; but an hour ago it seemed to me more like the
garden of Eden, where the animals all lay down together in peace,
before sin came into it."

"And Ali and I entered, like Satan, and completed the vision? Thank
you, considering the fact that you are on my premises, and know
something of my angelic, sanctified temper, I must say you indulge in
bold flights of imagery."

"I did not say that, sir."

"You thought it nevertheless. Don't be hypocritical! Is not that what
you thought of?"

She made no reply, and anxious to terminate an interview painfully
embarrassing to her, stepped forward to pick up the history which lay
on the grass.

"What book is that?"

She handed it to him, and the leaves happened to open at a picture
representing the murder of Becket. A scowl blackened his face as he
glanced at it, and turned away, muttering:

"Malice prepense! or the devil!"

At a little distance, leisurely cropping the long grass, stood his
favorite horse, whose arched forehead and peculiar mouse-color
proclaimed his unmistakable descent from the swift hordes that scour
the Kirghise steppes, and sanctioned the whim which induced his master
to call him "Tamerlane." As Mr. Murray approached his horse, Edna
walked away toward the house, fearing that he might overtake her; but
no sound of hoofs reached her ears, and looking back as she crossed the
avenue and entered the flower-garden, she saw horse and rider standing
where she left them, and wondered why Mr. Murray was so still, with one
arm on the neck of his Tartar pet, and his own head bent down on his
hand.

In reflecting upon what had occurred, she felt her repugnance increase,
and began to think that they could not live in the same house without
continual conflicts, which would force her to abandon the numerous
advantages now within her grasp. The only ray of hope darted through
her mind when she recalled his allusion to a contemplated visit to the
South Sea Islands, and the possibility of his long absence. Insensibly
her dislike of the owner extended to everything he handled, and much as
she had enjoyed the perusal of Dante, she determined to lose no time in
restoring the lost volume, which she felt well assured his keen eyes
would recognize the first time she inadvertently left it in the library
or the greenhouse. The doubt of her honesty, which he had expressed to
his mother, rankled in the orphan's memory, and for some days she had
been nerving herself to anticipate a discovery of the book by
voluntarily restoring it. The rencontre in the park by no means
diminished her dread of addressing him on this subject; but she
resolved that the rendition of Caesar's things to Caesar should take
place that evening before she slept.




CHAPTER VI.


The narrow, vaulted passage leading to Mr. Murray's suit of rooms was
dim and gloomy when Edna approached the partly opened door of the
rotunda, whence issued a stream of light. Timidly she crossed the
threshold and stood within on the checkered floor, whose polished tiles
glistened under the glare of gas from bronze brackets representing
Telamones, that stood at regular intervals around the apartment. The
walls were painted in Saracenic style, and here and there hung
specimens of Oriental armor--Turcoman cimeters, Damascus swords,
Bedouin lances, and a crimson silk flag, with heavy gold fringe,
surmounted by a crescent. The cornice of the lofty arched ceiling was
elaborately arabesque, and as Edna looked up she saw through the glass
roof the flickering of stars in the summer sky. In the centre of the
room, immediately under the dome, stretched a billiard-table, and near
it was a circular one of black marble, inlaid with red onyx and lapis
lazuli, which formed a miniature zodiac similar to that at Denderah,
while in the middle of this table sat a small Murano hour-glass, filled
with sand from the dreary valley of El Ghor. A huge plaster Trimurti
stood close to the wall, on a triangular pedestal of black rock, and
the Siva-face and the writhing cobra confronted all who entered. Just
opposite grinned a red granite slab with a quaint basso-relievo taken
from the ruins of Elora. Near the door were two silken divans, and a
richly carved urn, three feet high, which had once ornamented the
facade of a tomb in the royal days of Petra, ere the curse fell on
Edom, now stood an in memoriam of the original Necropolis. For what
purpose this room was designed or used Edna could not imagine, and
after a hasty survey of its singular furniture, she crossed the
rotunda, and knocked at the door that stood slightly ajar. All was
silent; but the smell of a cigar told her that the owner was within,
and she knocked once more.

"Come in."

"I don't wish to come in; I only want to hand you something."

"Oh! the deuce you don't! But I never meet people even half-way, so
come in you must, if you have anything to say to me. I have neither
blue blazes nor pitchforks about me, and you will be safe inside. I
give you my word there are no small devils shut up here, to fly away
with whomsoever peeps in! Either enter, I say, or be off."

The temptation was powerful to accept the alternative; but as he had
evidently recognized her voice, she pushed open the door and
reluctantly entered. It was a long room, and at the end were two
beautiful fluted white marble pillars, supporting a handsome arch,
where hung heavy curtains of crimson Persian silk, that were now partly
looped back, showing the furniture of the sleeping apartment beyond the
richly carved arch. For a moment the bright light dazzled the orphan,
and she shaded her eyes; but the next instant Mr. Murray rose from a
sofa near the window, and advanced a step or two, taking the cigar from
his lips.

"Come to the window and take a seat."

He pointed to the sofa; but she shook her head, and said quickly:

"I have something which belongs to you, Mr. Murray, which I think you
must value very much, and therefore I wanted to see it safe in your own
hands."

Without raising her eyes she held the book toward him.

"What is it?"

He took it mechanically, and with his gaze fixed on the girl's face;
but as she made no reply, he glanced down at it, and his stern, swarthy
face lighted up joyfully.

"Is it possible? my Dante! my lost Dante! The copy that has travelled
round the world in my pocket, and that I lost a year ago, somewhere in
the mountains of Tennessee! Girl, where did you get it?"

"I found it where you left it--on the grass near a blacksmith's shop."

"A blacksmith's shop! where?"

"Near Chattanooga. Don't you remember the sign, under the horse-shoe,
over the door, 'Aaron Hunt'?"

"No; but who was Aaron Hunt?"

For nearly a minute Edna struggled for composure, and looking suddenly
up, said falteringly:

"He was my grandfather--the only person in the world I had to care for,
or to love me--and--sir--"

"Well, go on."

"You cursed him because your horse fretted, and he could not shoe him
in five minutes."

"Humph!"

There was an awkward silence; St. Elmo Murray bit his lip and scowled,
and, recovering her self-control, the orphan added:

"You put your shawl and book on the ground, and when you started you
forgot them. I called you back and gave you your shawl; but I did not
see the book for some time after you rode out of sight."

"Yes, yes, I remember now about the shawl and the shop. Strange I did
not recognize you before. But how did you learn that the book was mine?"

"I did not know it was yours until I came here by accident, and heard
Mrs. Murray call your name; then I knew that the initials written in
the book spelt your name. And besides, I remembered your figure and
your voice."

Again there was a pause, and her mission ended, Edna turned to go.

"Stop! Why did you not give it to me when you first came?"

She made no reply, and putting his hand on her shoulder to detain her,
he said, more gently than she had ever heard him speak to any one:

"Was it because you loved my book and disliked to part with it, or was
it because you feared to come and speak to a man whom you hate? Be
truthful."

Still she was silent, and raising her face with his palm, as he had
done in the park, he continued in the same low, sweet voice, which she
could scarcely believe belonged to him:

"I am waiting for your answer, and I intend to have it."

Her large, sad eyes were brimming with precious memories, as she lifted
them steadily to meet his, and answered:

"My grandfather was noble and good, and he was all I had in this world."

"And you can not forgive a man who happened to be rude to him?"

"If you please, Mr. Murray, I would rather go now. I have given you
your book, and that is all I came for."

"Which means that you are afraid of me, and want to get out of my
sight?"

She did not deny it, but her face flushed painfully.

"Edna Earl, you are at least honest and truthful, and those are rare
traits at the present day. I thank you for preserving and returning my
Dante. Did you read any of it?"

"Yes, sir, all of it. Good-night, sir."

"Wait a moment. When did Aaron Hunt die?"

"Two months after you saw him."

"You have no relatives? No cousins, uncles, aunts?"

"None that I ever heard of. I must go, sir."

"Good-night, child. For the present, when you go out in the grounds, be
sure that wolf, Ali, is chained up, or you may be sorry that I did not
cut his throat, as I am still inclined to do."

She closed the door, ran lightly across the rotunda, and regaining her
own room, felt inexpressibly relieved that the ordeal was over--that in
future there remained no necessity for her to address one whose very
tones made her shudder, and the touch of whose hand filled her with
vague dread and loathing.

When the echo of her retreating footsteps died away, St. Elmo threw his
cigar out of the window, and walked up and down the quaint and elegant
rooms, whose costly bizarrerie would more appropriately have adorned a
villa of Parthenope or Lucanian Sybaris, than a country-house in
soi-disant "republican" America. The floor, covered in winter with
velvet carpet, was of white and black marble, now bare and polished as
a mirror, reflecting the figure of the owner as he crossed it. Oval
ormolu tables, buhl chairs, and oaken and marquetrie cabinets, loaded
with cameos, intaglios, Abraxoids, whose "erudition" would have filled
Mnesarchus with envy, and challenged the admiration of the Samian
lapidary who engraved the ring of Polycrates; these and numberless
articles of vertu testified to the universality of what St. Elmo called
his "world-scrapings," and to the reckless extravagance and archaistic
taste of the collector. On a verd-antique table lay a satin cushion
holding a vellum MS., bound in blue velvet, whose uncial letters were
written in purple ink, powdered with gold-dust, while the margins were
stiff with gilded illuminations; and near the cushion, as if prepared
to shed light on the curious cryptography, stood an exquisite white
glass lamp, shaped like a vase, and richly ornamented with Arabic
inscriptions in ultra-marine blue--a precious relic of some ruined
Laura in the Nitrian desert, by the aid of whose rays the hoary
hermits, whom St. Macarius ruled, broke the midnight gloom chanting,
"Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison," fourteen hundred years before St.
Elmo's birth. Immediately opposite, on an embossed ivory stand, and
protected from air and dust by a glass case, were two antique goblets,
one of green-veined agate, one of blood-red onyx; and into the coating
of wax, spread along the ivory slab, were inserted amphorae, one dry
and empty, the other a third full of Falerian, whose topaz drops had
grown strangely mellow and golden in the ashy cellars of Herculaneum,
and had doubtless been destined for some luxurious triclinium in the
days of Titus. A small Byzantine picture, painted on wood, with a
silver frame ornamented with cornelian stars, and the background
heavily gilded, hung over an etagere, where lay a leaf from
Nebuchadnezzar's diary, one of those Babylonish bricks on which his
royal name was stamped. Near it stood a pair of Bohemian vases
representing the two varieties of lotus--one velvety white with
rose-colored veins, the other with delicate blue petals. This latter
whim had cost a vast amount of time, trouble, and money, it having been
found difficult to carefully preserve, sketch, and paint them for the
manufacturer in Bohemia, who had never seen the holy lotus, and
required specimens. But the indomitable will of the man, to whose
wishes neither oceans nor deserts opposed successful barriers, finally
triumphed, and the coveted treasures fully repaid their price as they
glistened in the gaslight, perfect as their prototypes slumbering on
the bosom of the Nile, under the blazing midnight stars of rainless
Egypt. Several handsome rosewood cases were filled with rare books--two
in Pali--centuries old; and moth-eaten volumes and valuable MSS.--some
in parchment, some bound in boards--recalled the days of astrology and
alchemy, and the sombre mysteries of Rosicrucianism. Side by side, on
an ebony stand, lay an Elzevir Terence, printed in red letters, and a
curious Birman book, whose pages consisted of thin leaves of ivory,
gilded at the edges; and here too were black rhyta from Chiusi, and a
cylix from Vulci, and one of those quaint Peruvian jars, which was so
constructed that, when filled with water, the air escaped in sounds
that resembled that of the song or cry of the animal represented on the
vase or jar. In the space between the tall windows that fronted the
lawn hung a weird, life-size picture that took strange hold on the
imagination of all who looked at it. A gray-haired Cimbrian Prophetess,
in white vestments and brazen girdle, with canvas mantle fastened on
the shoulder by a broad brazen clasp, stood, with bare feet, on a low,
rude scaffolding, leaning upon her sword, and eagerly watching, with
divining eyes, the stream of blood which trickled from the throat of
the slaughtered human victim down into the large brazen kettle beneath
the scaffold. The snowy locks and white mantle seemed to flutter in the
wind; and those who gazed on the stony, inexorable face of the
Prophetess, and into the glittering blue eyes, shuddered and almost
fancied they heard the pattering of the gory stream against the sides
of the brass caldron. But expensive and rare as were these relics of
bygone dynasties and mouldering epochs, there was one other object for
which the master would have given everything else in this museum of
curiosities, and the secret of which no eyes but his own had yet
explored. On a sculptured slab, that once formed a portion of the
architrave of the Cave Temple at Elephanta, was a splendid marble
miniature, four feet high, of that miracle of Saracenic architecture,
the Taj Mahal at Agra. The elaborate carving resembled lacework, and
the beauty of the airy dome and slender, glittering minarets of this
mimic tomb of Noor-Mahal could find no parallel, save in the superb and
matchless original. The richly-carved door that closed the arch of the
tomb swung back on golden hinges, and opened only by a curiously-shaped
golden key, which never left Mr. Murray's watch-chain; consequently
what filled the penetralia was left for the conjecture of the
imaginative; and when his mother expressed a desire to examine it, he
merely frowned and said hastily:

"That is Pandora's box, MINUS imprisoned hope. I prefer it should not
be opened."

Immediately in front of the tomb he had posted a grim sentinel--a black
marble statuette of Mors, modeled from that hideous little brass figure
which Spence saw at Florence, representing a skeleton sitting on the
ground, resting one arm on an urn.

Filled though it was with sparkling bijouterie that would have graced
the Barberini or Strozzi cabinets, the glitter of the room was cold and
cheerless. No light, childish feet had ever pattered down the long rows
of shining tiles; no gushing, mirthful laughter had ever echoed through
those lofty windows; everything pointed to the past--a classic, storied
past, but dead as the mummies of Karnac, and treacherously, repulsively
lustrous as the waves that break in silver circles over the buried
battlements, and rustling palms and defiled altars of the proud cities
of the plain. No rosy memories of early, happy manhood lingered here;
no dewy gleam of the merry morning of life, when hope painted and
peopled a smiling world; no magic trifles that prattled of the
springtime of a heart, that in wandering to and fro through the earth,
had fed itself with dust and ashes, acrid and bitter; had studiously
collected only the melancholy symbols of mouldering ruin, desolation,
and death, and which found its best type in the Taj Mahal, that
glistened so mockingly as the gas-light flickered over it.

A stranger looking upon St. Elmo Murray for the first time, as he paced
the floor, would have found it difficult to realize that only
thirty-four years had plowed those deep, rugged lines in his swarthy
and colorless but still handsome face; where midnight orgies and
habitual excesses had left their unmistakable plague-spot, and
Mephistopheles had stamped his signet. Blase, cynical, scoffing, and
hopeless, he had stranded his life, and was recklessly striding to his
grave, trampling upon the feelings of all with whom he associated, and
at war with a world, in which his lordly brilliant intellect would have
lifted him to any eminence he desired, and which, properly directed,
would have made him the benefactor and ornament of the society he
snubbed and derided. Like all strong though misguided natures, the
power and activity of his mind enhanced his wretchedness, and drove him
farther and farther from the path of rectitude; while the consciousness
that he was originally capable of loftier, purer aims, and nobler
pursuits than those that now engrossed his perverted thoughts, rendered
him savagely morose. For nearly fifteen dreary years, nothing but jeers
and oaths and sarcasms had crossed his finely sculptured lips, which
had forgotten how to smile; and it was only when the mocking demon of
the wine-cup looked out from his gloomy gray eyes that his ringing,
sneering laugh struck like a dagger to the heart that loved him, that
of his proud but anxious and miserable mother. To-night, for the first
time since his desperate plunge into the abyss of vice, conscience,
which he had believed effectually strangled, stirred feebly, startling
him with a faint moan, as unexpected as the echo from Morella's tomb,
or the resurrection of Ligeia; and down the murdered years came wailing
ghostly memories, which even his iron will could no longer scourge to
silence. Clamorous as the avenging Erinnys, they refused to be
exorcised, and goaded him almost to frenzy.

Those sweet, low, timid tones, "I am sorry for you," had astonished and
mortified him. To be hated and dreaded was not at all unusual or
surprising, but to be pitied and despised was a sensation as novel as
humiliating; and the fact that all his ferocity failed to intimidate
the "little vagrant" was unpleasantly puzzling.

For some time after Edna's departure he pondered all that had passed
between them, and at length he muttered: "How thoroughly she abhors me!
If I touch her, the flesh absolutely writhes away from my hand, as if I
were plague-stricken or a leper. Her very eyelids shudder when she
looks at me--and I believe she would more willingly confront Apollyon
himself. Strange! how she detests me. I have half a mind to make her
love me, even despite herself. What a steady, brave look of scorn there
was in her splendid eyes when she told me to my face I was sinful and
cruel!"

He set his teeth hard, and his fingers clinched as if longing to crush
something; and then came a great revulsion, a fierce spasm of remorse,
and his features writhed.

"Sinful? Ay! Cruel? O my lost youth! my cursed and wrecked manhood! If
there be a hell blacker than my miserable soul, man has not dreamed of
nor language painted it. What would I not give for a fresh, pure, and
untrampled heart, such as slumbers peacefully in yonder room, with no
damning recollections to scare sleep from her pillow? Innocent
childhood!"

He threw himself into a chair, and hid his face in his hands; and thus
an hour went by, during which he neither moved nor sighed.

Tearing the veil from the past, he reviewed it calmly, relentlessly,
vindictively, and at last, rising, he threw his head back, with his
wonted defiant air, and his face hardened and darkened as he approached
the marble mausoleum, and laid his hand upon the golden key.

"Too late! too late! I can not afford to reflect. The devil himself
would shirk the reading of such a record."

He fitted the key in the lock, but paused and laughed scornfully as he
slung it back on his chain.

"Pshaw! I am a fool! After all, I shall not need to see them, the
silly, childish mood has passed."

He filled a silver goblet with some strong spicy wine, drank it, and
taking down Candide, brightened the gas jets, lighted a fresh cigar,
and began to read as he resumed his walk:

"Lord of himself; that heritage of woe--That fearful empire which the
human breast But holds to rob the heart within of rest."




CHAPTER VII.


Mrs. Murray had informed Edna that the gentleman whom she had engaged
to instruct her resided in the neighboring town of--, and one Monday
morning in August she carried her to see him, telling her, as they
drove along, that he was the minister of the largest church in the
county, was an old friend of her family, and that she considered
herself exceedingly fortunate in having prevailed upon him to consent
to undertake her education. The parsonage stood on the skirts of the
village, in a square immediately opposite the church, and was separated
from it by a wide handsome street, lined on either side with elm trees.
The old-fashioned house was of brick, with a wooden portico jutting out
over the front door, and around the slender pillars twined honeysuckle
and clematis tendrils, purple with clustering bells; while the brick
walls were draped with luxuriant ivy, that hung in festoons from the
eaves, and clambered up the chimneys and in at the windows. The
daily-swept walk leading to the gate was bordered with white and purple
lilies--"flags," as the villagers dubbed them--and over the little gate
sprang an arch of lattice-work loaded with Belgian and English
honeysuckle, whose fragrant wreaths drooped till they touched the heads
of all who entered. When Mrs. Murray and Edna ascended the steps and
knocked at the open door, bearing the name "Allan Hammond," no living
thing was visible, save a thrush that looked out shyly from the
clematis vines; and after waiting a moment, Mrs. Murray entered
unannounced. They looked into the parlor, with its cool matting and
white curtains and polished old-fashioned mahogany furniture, but the
room was unoccupied; then passing on to the library or study, where
tiers of books rose to the ceiling, they saw, through the open window,
the form of the pastor, who was stooping to gather the violets blooming
in the little shaded garden at the rear of the house. A large white cat
sunned herself on the strawberry bed, and a mocking-bird sang in the
myrtle-tree that overshadowed the study-window. Mrs. Murray called to
the minister, and taking off his straw hat he bowed, and came to meet
them.

"Mr. Hammond, I hope I do not interrupt you?"

"No, Ellen, you never interrupt me. I was merely gathering some violets
to strew in a child's coffin. Susan Archer, poor thing! lost her little
Winnie last night, and I knew she would like some flowers to sprinkle
over her baby."

He shook hands with Mrs. Murray, and turning to her companion offered
his hand saying kindly:

"This is my pupil, Edna, I presume? I expected you several days ago,
and am very glad to see you at last. Come into the house and let us
become acquainted at once."

As he led the way to the library, talking the while to Mrs. Murray,
Edna's eyes followed him with an expression of intense veneration, for
he appeared to her a living original of the pictured prophets--the
Samuel, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, whose faces she had studied in the large
illustrated Bible that lay on a satin cushion in the sitting-room at Le
Bocage. Sixty-five years of wrestling and conquests on the "Quarantma"
of life had set upon his noble and benignant countenance the seal of
holiness, and shed over his placid features the mild, sweet light of a
pure, serene heart, of a lofty, trusting, sanctified soul. His white
hair and beard had the silvery sheen which seems peculiar to
prematurely gray heads, and the snowy mass wonderfully softened the
outline of the face; while the pleasant smile on his lips, the warm,
cheering light in his bright blue eyes, won the perfect trust, the
profound respect, the lasting love and veneration of those who entered
the charmed circle of his influence. Learned without pedantry,
dignified but not pompous, genial and urbane; never forgetting the
sanctity of his mission, though never thrusting its credentials into
notice; judging the actions of all with a leniency which he denied to
his own; zealous without bigotry, charitable yet rigidly just, as free
from austerity as levity, his heart throbbed with warm, tender sympathy
for his race; and while none felt his or her happiness complete until
his cordial congratulations sealed it, every sad mourner realized that
her burden of woe was lightened when poured into his sympathizing ears.
The sage counselor of the aged among his flock, he was the loved
companion of younger members, in whose juvenile sports and sorrows he
was never too busy to interest himself; and it was not surprising that
over all classes and denominations he wielded an influence incalculable
for good.

The limits of one church could not contain his great heart, which went
forth in yearning love and fellowship to his Christian brethren and
co-laborers throughout the world, while the refrain of his daily work
was, "Bear ye one another's burdens." So in the evening of a life
blessed with the bounteous fruitage of good deeds, he walked to and
fro, in the wide vineyard of God, with the light of peace, of faith,
and hope, and hallowed resignation shining over his worn and aged face.

Drawing Edna to a seat beside him on the sofa, Mr. Hammond said: "Mrs.
Murray has intrusted your education entirely to me; but before I decide
positively what books you will require I should like to know what
particular branches of study you love best. Do you feel disposed to
take up Latin?"

"Yes, sir--and--"

"Well, go on, my dear. Do not hesitate to speak freely."

"If you please, sir, I should like to study Greek also."

"Oh, nonsense, Edna! women never have any use for Greek; it would only
be a waste of your time," interrupted Mrs. Murray.

Mr. Hammond smiled and shook his head.

"Why do you wish to study Greek? You will scarcely be called upon to
teach it."

"I should not think that I was well or thoroughly educated if I did not
understand Greek and Latin; and beside, I want to read what Solon and
Pericles and Demosthenes wrote in their own language."

"Why, what do you know about those men?"

"Only what Plutarch says."

"What kind of books do you read with most pleasure?"

"History and travels."

"Are you fond of arithmetic?"

"No, sir."

"But as a teacher you will have much more use for mathematics than for
Greek."

"I should think that, with all my life before me, I might study both;
and even if I should have no use for it, it would do me no harm to
understand it. Knowledge is never in the way, is it?"

"Certainly not half so often as ignorance. Very well; you shall learn
Greek as fast as you please. I should like to hear you read something.
Here is Goldsmith's Deserted Village; suppose you try a few lines;
begin here at 'Sweet was the sound.'"

She read aloud the passage designated, and as he expressed himself
satisfied, and took the book from her hand, Mrs. Murray said:

"I think the child is as inveterate a bookworm as I ever knew; but for
heaven's sake, Mr. Hammond, do not make her a blue-stocking."

"Ellen, did you ever see a genuine blue-stocking?"

"I am happy to be able to say that I never was so unfortunate."

"You consider yourself lucky then, in not having known De Stael, Hannah
More, Charlotte Bronte, and Mrs. Browning?"

"To be consistent, of course, I must answer yes; but you know we women
are never supposed to understand that term, much less possess the jewel
itself; and beside, sir, you take undue advantage of me, for the women
you mention were truly great geniuses. I was not objecting to genius in
women."

"Without those auxiliaries and adjuncts which you deprecate so
earnestly, would their native genius ever have distinguished them, or
charmed and benefited the world? Brilliant success makes blue-stockings
autocratic, and the world flatters and crowns them; but unsuccessful
aspirants are strangled with an offensive sobriquet, than which it were
better that they had mill-stones tied about their necks. After all,
Ellen, it is rather ludicrous, and seems very unfair, that the whole
class of literary ladies should be sneered at on account of the color
of Stillingfleet's stockings, eighty years ago."

"If you please, sir, I should like to know the meaning of
'blue-stocking?'" said Edna.

"You are in a fair way to understand it if you study Greek," answered
Mrs. Murray, laughing at the puzzled expression of the child's
countenance.

Mr. Hammond smiled, and replied: "A 'blue-stocking,' my dear, is
generally supposed to be a lady, neither young, pleasant, nor pretty
(and in most instances unmarried); who is unamiable, ungraceful, and
untidy; ignorant of all domestic accomplishments and truly feminine
acquirements, and ambitious of appearing very learned; a woman whose
fingers are more frequently adorned with ink-spots than thimble; who
holds housekeeping in detestation, and talks loudly about politics,
science, and philosophy; who is ugly, and learned, and cross; whose
hair is never smooth and whose ruffles are never fluted. Is that a
correct likeness, Ellen?"

"As good as one of Brady's photographs. Take warning, Edna."

"The title of 'blue-stocking,'" continued the pastor, "originated in a
jest, many, many years ago, when a circle of very brilliant, witty, and
elegant ladies in London, met at the house of Mrs. Vesey, to listen to
and take part in the conversation of some of the most gifted and
learned men England has ever produced. One of those gentlemen,
Stillingfleet, who always wore blue stockings, was so exceedingly
agreeable and instructive, that when he chanced to be absent the
company declared the party was a failure without the blue stockings,'
as he was familiarly called. A Frenchman, who heard of the
circumstance, gave to these conversational gatherings the name of 'bas
bleu,' which means blue stocking; and hence, you see, that in popular
acceptation, I mean in public opinion, the humorous title, which was
given in compliment to a very charming gentleman, is now supposed to
belong to very tiresome, pedantic, and disagreeable ladies. Do you
understand the matter now?"

"I do not quite understand why ladies have not as good a right to be
learned and wise as gentlemen."

"To satisfy you on that point would involve more historical discussion
than we have time for this morning; some day we will look into the past
and find a solution of the question. Meanwhile you may study as hard as
you please, and remember, my dear, that where one woman is considered a
blue-stocking, and tiresomely learned, twenty are more tiresome still
because they know nothing. I will obtain all the books you need, and
hereafter you must come to me every morning at nine o'clock. When the
weather is good, you can easily walk over from Mrs. Murray's."

As they drove homeward, Edna asked:

"Has Mr. Hammond a family?"

"No; he lost his family years ago. But why do you ask that question?"

"I saw no lady, and I wondered who kept the house in such nice order."

"He has a very faithful servant who attends to his household affairs.
In your intercourse with Mr. Hammond be careful not to allude to his
domestic afflictions."

Mrs. Murray looked earnestly, searchingly at the girl, as if striving
to fathom her thoughts; then throwing her head back, with the haughty
air which Edna had remarked in St. Elmo, she compressed her lips,
lowered her veil, and remained silent and abstracted until they reached
home.

The comprehensive and very thorough curriculum of studies now eagerly
commenced by Edna, and along which she was gently and skilfully guided
by the kind hand of the teacher, furnished the mental aliment for which
she hungered, gave constant and judicious exercise to her active
intellect, and induced her to visit the quiet parsonage library as
assiduously as did Horace, Valgius, and Virgil the gardens on the
Esquiline where Maecenas held his literary assize. Instead of skimming
a few text-books that cram the brain with unwieldy scientific
technicalities and pompous philosophic terminology, her range of
thought and study gradually stretched out into a broader, grander
cycle, embracing, as she grew older, the application of those great
principles that underlie modern science and crop out in ever-varying
phenomena and empirical classifications. Edna's tutor seemed impressed
with the fallacy of the popular system of acquiring one branch of
learning at a time, locking it away as in drawers of rubbish, never to
be opened, where it moulders in shapeless confusion till swept out
ultimately to make room for more recent scientific invoices. Thus in
lieu of the educational plan of "finishing natural philosophy and
chemistry this session, and geology and astronomy next term, and taking
up moral science and criticism the year we graduate," Mr. Hammond
allowed his pupil to finish and lay aside none of her studies; but
sought to impress upon her the great value of Blackstone's aphorism:
"For sciences are of a sociable disposition, and flourish best in the
neighborhood of each other; nor is there any branch of learning but may
be helped and improved by assistance drawn from other arts."

Finding that her imagination was remarkably fertile, he required her,
as she advanced in years, to compose essays, letters, dialogues, and
sometimes orations, all of which were not only written and handed in
for correction, but he frequently directed her to recite them from
memory, and invited her to assist him, while he dissected and
criticised either her diction, line of argument, choice of metaphors,
or intonation of voice. In these compositions he encouraged her to seek
illustrations from every department of letters, and convert her theme
into a focus, upon which to pour all the concentrated light which
research could reflect, assuring her that what is often denominated
"far-fetchedness," in metaphors, furnished not only evidence of the
laborious industry of the writer, but is an implied compliment to the
cultured taste and general knowledge of those for whose entertainment
or edification they are employed--provided always said metaphors and
similes really illustrate, elucidate, and adorn the theme
discussed--when properly understood.

His favorite plea in such instances was, "If Humboldt and Cuvier, and
Linnaeus, and Ehrenberg have made mankind their debtors by scouring the
physical cosmos for scientific data, which every living savant devours,
assimilates, and reproduces in dynamic, physiologic, or entomologic
theories, is it not equally laudable in scholars, orators, and
authors--nay, is it not obligatory on them, to subsidize the vast
cosmos of literature, to circumnavigate the world of belles-lettres, in
search of new hemispheres of thought, and spice islands of
illustrations; bringing their rich gleanings to the great public mart,
where men barter their intellectual merchandise? Wide as the universe
and free as its winds should be the range of human mind."

Yielding allegiance to the axiom that "the proper study of mankind is
man," and recognizing the fact that history faithfully epitomizes the
magnificent triumphs and stupendous failures, the grand capacities and
innate frailties of the races, he fostered and stimulated his pupil's
fondness for historic investigation; while in impressing upon her
memory the chronologic sequence of events he not only grouped into
great epochs the principal dramas, over which Clio holds august
critical tribunal, but so carefully selected her miscellaneous reading,
that poetry, novels, biography, and essays reflected light upon the
actors of the particular epoch which she was studying; and thus through
the subtle but imperishable links of association of ideas, chained them
in her mind.

The extensive library at Le Bocage, and the valuable collection of
books at the parsonage, challenged research, and, with a boundless
ambition, equalled only by her patient, persevering application, Edna
devoted herself to the acquisition of knowledge, and astonished and
delighted her teacher by the rapidity of her progress and the vigor and
originality of her restless intellect.

The noble catholicity of spirit that distinguished Mr. Hammond's
character encouraged her to discuss freely the ethical and
psychological problems that arrested her attention as she grew older,
and facilitated her appreciation and acceptance of the great fact, that
all bigotry springs from narrow minds and partial knowledge. He taught
her that truth, scorning monopolies and deriding patents, lends some
valuable element to almost every human system; that ignorance,
superstition, and intolerance are the red-handed Huns that ravage
society, immolating the pioneers of progress upon the shrine of
prejudice--fettering science--blindly bent on divorcing natural and
revealed truth, which "God hath joined together" in holy and eternal
wedlock; and while they battle a l'outrance with every innovation, lock
the wheels of human advancement, turning a deaf ear to the thrilling
cry;

"Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, and the
thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns."

If Carlyle be correct in his declaration that "Truly a thinking man is
the worst enemy the prince of darkness can have, and every time such a
one announces himself there runs a shudder through the nether empire,
where new emissaries are trained with new tactics, to hoodwink and
handcuff him," who can doubt that the long dynasty of Eblis will
instantly terminate, when every pulpit in Christendom, from the frozen
shores of Spitzbergen to the green dells of Owhyhee, from the shining
spires of Europe to the rocky battlements that front the Pacific, shall
be filled with meek and holy men of ripe scholarship and resistless
eloquence, whose scientific erudition keeps pace with their evangelical
piety, and whose irreproachable lives attest that their hearts are
indeed hallowed temples of that loving charity "that suffereth long and
is kind; that vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up; thinketh no evil;
beareth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things?"

While Christ walked to and fro among the palms and poppies of
Palestine, glorifying anew an accursed and degraded human nature,
unlettered fishermen, who mended their nets and trimmed their sails
along the blue waves of Galilee, were fit instruments, in his guiding
hands, for the dissemination of his Gospel; but when the days of the
Incarnation ended, and Jesus returned to the Father, all the learning
and the mighty genius of Saul of Tarsus were required to confront and
refute the scoffing sophists who, replete with philhellenic lore, and
within sight of the marvellous triglyphs and metopes of the Parthenon,
gathered on Mars Hill to defend their marble altars to the Unknown God.




CHAPTER VIII.


During the months of September and October Mrs. Murray filled the house
with company, and parties of gentlemen came from time to time to enjoy
the game season and take part in the hunts to which St. Elmo devoted
himself. There were elegant dinners and petits soupers that would not
have disgraced Tusculum, or made Lucullus blush when Pompey and Cicero
sought to surprise him in the "Apollo"; there were billiard-matches and
horse-races, and merry gatherings at the ten-pin alley; and laughter,
and music, and dancing usurped the dominions where silence and gloom
had so long reigned. Naturally shy and unaccustomed to companionship,
Edna felt no desire to participate in these festivities, but became
more and more absorbed in her studies, and her knowledge of the company
was limited to the brief intercourse of the table, where she observed
the deference yielded to the opinions of the master of the house, and
the dread that all manifested lest they should fall under the lash of
his merciless sarcasm. An Ishmael in society, his uplifted hand smote
all conventionalities and shams, spared neither age nor sex, nor
sanctuaries, and acknowledged sanctity nowhere. The punctilious
courtesy of his manner polished and pointed his satire, and when a
personal application of his remarks was possible, he would bow
gracefully to the lady indicated, and fill her glass with wine, while
he filled her heart with chagrin and rankling hate. Since the
restoration of the Dante, not a word had passed between him and Edna,
who regarded him with increasing detestation; but on one occasion, when
the conversation was general, and he sat silent at the foot of the
table, she looked up at him and found his eyes fixed on her face.
Inclining his head slightly to arrest her attention, he handed a
decanter of sherry to one of the servants, with some brief direction,
and a moment after her glass was filled, and the waiter said:

"Mr. Murray's compliments to Aaron Hunt's granddaughter." Observation
had taught her what was customary on such occasions, and she knew that
he had once noticed her taking wine with the gentleman who sat next to
her; but now repugnance conquered politeness, the mention of her
grandfather's name seemed an insult from his lips, and putting her hand
over her glass, she looked him full in the face and shook her head.
Nevertheless he lifted his wine, bowed, and drank the last drop in the
crystal goblet; then turned to a gentleman on his right hand, and
instantly entered into a learned discussion on the superiority of the
wines of the Levant over those of Germany, quoting triumphantly the
lines of M. de Nevers:

"Sur la membrane de leur sens, Font des sillons charmans."

When the ladies withdrew to the parlor he rose, as was his custom, and
held the door open for them. Edna was the last of the party, and as she
passed him he smiled mockingly and said:

"It was unfortunate that my mother omitted to enumerate etiquette in
the catalogue of studies prosecuted at the parsonage."

Instantly the answer sprang to her lips:

"She knew I had a teacher for that branch nearer home"; but her
conscience smote her, she repressed the words, and said gravely:

"My reason was, that I think only good friends should take wine
together."

"This is your declaration of war? Very well, only remember I raise a
black flag and show no quarter. Woe to the conquered."

She hurried away to the library, and thenceforth "kept out of his way"
more assiduously than ever; while the fact that he scrutinized her
closely, rendered her constrained and uncomfortable, when forced to
enter his presence. Mrs. Murray well understood her hostile feeling
toward her son, but she never alluded to it, and his name was not
mentioned by either.

One by one the guests departed; autumn passed, winter was ushered in by
wailing winds and drizzling rains; and one morning as Edna came out of
the hot-house, with a basketful of camellias, she saw St. Elmo bidding
his mother good-bye, as he started on his long journey to Oceanica.
They stood on the steps, Mrs. Murray's head rested on his shoulder, and
bitter tears were falling on her cheeks as she talked eagerly and
rapidly to him. Edna heard him say impatiently:

"You ask what is impossible; it is worse than useless to urge me.
Better pray that I may find a peaceful grave in the cinnamon groves and
under the 'plumy palms' of the far south."

He kissed his mother's cheek and sprang into the saddle, but checked
his horse at sight of the orphan, who stood a few yards distant.

"Are you coming to say good-bye? Or do you reserve such courtesies for
your 'good friends'?"

Regret for her former rudeness, and sympathy for Mrs. Murray's
uncontrollable distress, softened her heart toward him; she selected
the finest white camellia in the basket, walked close to the horse,
and, tendering the flower, said:

"Good-bye, sir. I hope you will enjoy your travels."

"And prolong them indefinitely? Ah, you offer a flag of truce? I warned
you I should not respect it. You know my motto, 'Nemo me impune
lacessit!' Thank you, for this lovely peace-offering. Since you are
willing to negotiate, run and open the gate for me. I may never pass
through it again except as a ghost."

She placed her basket on the steps and ran down the avenue, while he
paused to say something to his mother. Edna knew that he expected to be
absent, possibly, several years, and while she regretted the pain which
his departure gave her benefactress, she could not avoid rejoicing at
the relief she promised herself during his sojourn in foreign lands.

Slowly he rode along the venerable aisle of elms that had overarched
his childish head in the sunny morning of a quickly clouded life, and
as he reached the gate, which Edna held open, he dismounted.

"Edna, if you are as truthful in all matters as you have proved in your
dislikes, I may safely intrust this key to jour keeping. It belongs to
that marble temple in my sitting-room, and opens a vault that contains
my will and a box of papers, and--some other things that I value. There
is no possibility of entering it, except with this key, and no one but
myself knows the contents. I wish to leave the key with you, on two
conditions: first, that you never mention it to any one--not even my
mother, or allow her to suspect that you have it; secondly, that you
promise me solemnly you will not open the tomb or temple unless I fail
to return at the close of four years. This is the tenth of
December--four years from to-day, if I am not here, AND IF YOU HAVE
GOOD REASON TO CONSIDER ME DEAD, take this key (which I wish you to
wear about your person) to my mother, inform her of this conversation,
and then open the vault. Can you resist the temptation to look into it?
Think well before you answer."

He had disengaged the golden key from his watch-chain and held it in
his hand.

"I should not like to take charge of it, Mr. Murray. You can certainly
trust your own mother sooner than an utter stranger like myself."

He frowned and muttered an oath; then exclaimed: "I tell you I do not
choose to leave it in any hands but yours. Will you promise or will you
not?"

The dreary wretchedness, the savage hopelessness of his countenance
awed and pained the girl, and after a moment's silence, and a short
struggle with her heart, she extended her hand, saying with evident
reluctance: "Give me the key, I will not betray your trust."

"Do you promise me solemnly that you will never open that vault, except
in accordance with my directions? Weigh the promise well before you
give it."

"Yes, sir; I promise most solemnly."

He laid the key in her palm and continued:

"My mother loves you--try to make her happy while I am away; and if you
succeed, you will be the first person to whom I have ever been
indebted. I have left directions concerning my books and the various
articles in my rooms. Feel no hesitation in examining any that may
interest you, and see that the dust does not ruin them. Good-bye,
child; take care of my mother."

He held out his hand, she gave him hers for an instant only, and he
mounted, lifted his cap, and rode away.

Closing the ponderous gate, Edna leaned her face against the iron bars,
and watched the lessening form. Gradually trees intervened, then at a
bend in the road she saw him wheel his horse as if to return. For some
moments he remained stationary, looking back, but suddenly disappeared,
and, with a sigh of indescribable relief, she retraced her steps to the
house. As she approached the spot where Mrs. Murray still sat, with her
face hidden in her handkerchief, the touch of the little key, tightly
folded in her palm, brought a painful consciousness of concealment and
a tinge of shame to her cheeks; for it seemed in her eyes an insult to
her benefactress that the guardianship of the papers should have been
withheld from her.

She would have stolen away to her own room to secrete the key; but Mrs.
Murray called her, and as she sat down beside her the miserable mother
threw her arms around the orphan, and resting her cheek on her head
wept bitterly. Timidly, but very gently and tenderly, the latter strove
to comfort her, caressing the white hands that were clasped in almost
despairing anguish.

"Dear Mrs. Murray, do not grieve so deeply; he may come back much
earlier than you expect. He will get tired of travelling, and come back
to his own beautiful home, and to you, who love him so devotedly."

"No, no! he will stay away as long as possible. It is not beautiful to
him. He hates his home and forgets me! My loneliness, my anxiety are
nothing in comparison to his morbid love of change. I shall never see
him again."

"But he loves you very much, and that will bring him to you."

"Why do you think so?"

"He pointed to you, a few moments ago, and his face was full of
wretchedness when he told me, 'Make my mother happy while I am gone,
and you will be the first person to whom I have ever been indebted.' Do
not weep so, dear Mrs. Murray; God can preserve him as well on sea as
here at home."

"Oh! but he will not pray for himself!" sobbed the mother.

"Then you must pray all the more for him; and go where he will, he
cannot get beyond God's sight, or out of His merciful hands. You know
Christ said, 'Whatsoever you ask in my name, I will do it'; and if the
Syrophenician's daughter was saved not by her own prayers but by her
mother's faith, why should not God save your son if you pray and
believe?"

Mrs. Murray clasped Edna closer to her heart, and kissed her warmly.

"You are my only comfort! If I had your faith I should not be so
unhappy. My dear child, promise me one thing, that every time you pray
you will remember my son, and ask God to preserve him in his
wanderings, and bring him safely back to his mother. I know you do not
like him, but for my sake will you not do this?"

"My prayers are not worth much, but I will always remember to pray for
him; and, Mrs. Murray, while he is away, suppose you have family
prayer, and let all the household join in praying for the absent
master. I think it would be such a blessing and comfort to you. Grandpa
always had prayer night and morning, and it made every day seem almost
as holy as Sunday."

Mrs. Murray was silent a little while, and answered hesitatingly:

"But, my dear, I should not know how to offer up prayers before the
family. I can pray for myself, but I should not like to pray aloud."

There was a second pause, and finally she said:

"Edna, would you be willing to conduct prayers for me?"

"It is your house, and God expects the head of every family to set an
example. Even the pagans offered sacrifices every day for the good of
the household, and you know the Jews had morning and evening
sacrifices; so it seems to me family prayer is such a beautiful
offering on the altar of the hearthstone. If you do not wish to pray
yourself, you could read a prayer; there is a book called Family
Prayer, with selections for every day in the week. I saw a copy at the
parsonage, and I can get one like it at the book store if you desire
it."

"That will suit my purpose much better than trying to compose them
myself. You must get the book for me. But, Edna, don't go to school
to-day, stay at home with me; I am so lonely and low-spirited. I will
tell Mr. Hammond that I could not spare you. Beside, I want you to help
me arrange some valuable relics belonging to my son, and now that I
think of it, he told me he wished you to use any of his books or MSS.
that you might like to examine. This is a great honor, child, for he
has refused many grown people admission to his rooms. Come with me, I
want to lock up his curiosities."

They went through the rotunda and into the rooms together; and Mrs.
Murray busied herself in carefully removing the cameos, intaglios,
antique vases, goblets, etc., etc., from the tables, and placing them
in the drawers of the cabinets. As she crossed the room tears fell on
the costly trifles, and finally she approached the beautiful miniature
temple and stooped to look at the fastening. She selected the smallest
key on the bunch, that contained a dozen, and attempted to fit it in
the small opening, but it was too large; then she tried her watch-key,
but without success, and a look of chagrin crossed her sad,
tear-stained face.

"St. Elmo has forgotten to leave the key with me."

Edna's face grew scarlet, and stooping to pick up a heavy cornelian
seal that had fallen on the carpet, she said, hastily:

"What is that marble temple intended to hold?"

"I have no idea; it is one of my son's oriental fancies. I presume he
uses it as a private desk for his papers."

"Does he leave the key with you when he goes from home?"

"This is the first time he has left home for more than a few weeks
since he brought this gem from the East. I must write to him about the
key before he sails. He has it on his watch-chain."

The same curiosity which, in ages long past, prompted the discovery of
the Eleusinian or Cabiri mysteries now suddenly took possession of
Edna, as she looked wonderingly at the shining fagade of the exquisite
Taj Mahal, and felt that only a promise stood between her and its
contents.

Escaping to her own room, she proceeded to secrete the troublesome key,
and to reflect upon the unexpected circumstances which not only
rendered it her duty to pray for the wanderer but necessitated her
keeping always about her a SOUVENIR of the man whom she could not avoid
detesting, and was yet forced to remember continually.

On the following day, when she went to her usual morning recitation,
and gave the reason for her absence, she noticed that Mr. Hammond's
hand trembled, and a look of keen sorrow settled on his face.

"Gone again! and so soon! So far, far away from all good influences!"

He put down the Latin grammar and walked to the window, where he stood
for some time, and when he returned to his armchair Edna saw that the
muscles of his face were unsteady.

"Did he not stop to tell you good-bye?"

"No, my dear, he never comes to the parsonage now. When he was a boy, I
taught him here in this room, as I now teach you. But for fifteen years
he has not crossed my threshold, and yet I never sleep until I have
prayed for him." "Oh! I am so glad to hear that! Now I know he will be
saved."

The minister shook his gray head, and Edna saw tears in his mild blue
eyes as he answered:

"A man's repentance and faith can not be offered by proxy to God. So
long as St. Elmo Murray persists in insulting his Maker, I shudder for
his final end. He has the finest intellect I have ever met among living
men; but it is unsanctified--worse still, it is dedicated to the work
of scoffing at and blaspheming the truths of religion. In his youth he
promised to prove a blessing to his race and an ornament to
Christianity; now he is a curse to the world and a dreary burden to
himself."

"What changed him so sadly?"

"Some melancholy circumstances that occurred early in his life. Edna,
he planned and built that beautiful church where you come on Sabbath to
hear me preach, and about the time it was finished he went off to
college. When he returned he avoided me, and has never yet been inside
of the costly church which his taste and his money constructed. Still,
while I live, I shall not cease to pray for him, hoping that in God's
good time he will bring him back to the pure faith of his boyhood."

"Mr. Hammond, is he not a very wicked man?"

"He had originally the noblest heart I ever knew, and was as tender in
his sympathies as a woman, while he was almost reckless in his
munificent charities. But in his present irreligious state I hear that
he has grown bitter and sour and illiberal. Yet, however repulsive his
manner may be, I can not believe that his nature is utterly perverted.
He is dissipated but not unprincipled. Let him rest, my child, in the
hands of his God, who alone can judge him. We can but pray and hope. Go
on with your lesson."

The recitation was resumed and ended; but Edna was well aware that for
the first time her teacher was inattentive, and the heavy sighs that
passed his lips almost unconsciously told her how sorely he was
distressed by the erratic course of his quondam pupil.

When she rose to go home she asked the name of the author of the Family
Prayers which she wished to purchase for Mrs. Murray, and the pastor's
face flushed with pleasure as he heard of her cherished scheme.

"My dear child, be circumspect, be prudent; above all things, be
consistent. Search your own heart; try to make your life an exposition
of your faith; let profession and practice go hand in hand; ask God's
special guidance in the difficult position in which you are placed, and
your influence for good in Mrs. Murray's family may be beyond all
computation." Laying his hands on her head, he continued tremulously:
"O my God! if it be thy will, make her the instrument of rescuing, ere
it be indeed too late. Help me to teach her aright; and let her pure
life atone for all the inconsistencies and wrongs that have well-nigh
wrought eternal ruin."

Turning quickly away, he left the room, before she could even catch a
glimpse of his countenance.

The strong and lasting affection that sprang up between instructor and
pupil--the sense of dependence on each other's society--rarely occurs
among persons in whose ages so great a disparity exists. Spring and
autumn have no affinities--age has generally no sympathy for the
gushing sprightliness, the eager questioning, the rose-hued dreams and
aspirations of young people; and youth shrinks chilled and constrained
from the austere companionship of those who, with snowy locks gilded by
the fading rays of a setting sun, totter down the hill of life,
journeying to the dark and silent valley of the shadow of death.

Preferring Mr. Hammond's society to that of the comparative strangers
who visited Mrs. Murray, Edna spent half of her time at the quiet
parsonage, and the remainder with her books and music. That under
auspices so favorable her progress was almost unprecedentedly rapid,
furnished matter of surprise to no one who was capable of estimating
the results of native genius and vigorous application. Mrs. Murray
watched the expansion of her mind, and the development of her beauty,
with emotions of pride and pleasure, which, had she analyzed them,
would have told her how dear and necessary to her happiness the orphan
had become.

As Edna's reasoning powers strengthened, Mr. Hammond led her gradually
to the contemplation of some of the gravest problems that have from
time immemorial perplexed and maddened humanity, plunging one half into
blind, bigoted traditionalism, and scourging the other into the dreary
sombre, starless wastes of Pyrrhonism. Knowing full well that of every
earnest soul and honest, profound thinker these ontologic questions
would sooner or later demand audience, he wisely placed her in the
philosophic palaestra, encouraged her wrestlings, cheered her on,
handed her from time to time the instruments and aids she needed, and
then, when satisfied that the intellectual gymnastics had properly
trained and developed her, he invited her--where he felt assured the
spirit of the age would inevitably drive her--to the great Pythian
games of speculation, where the lordly intellects of the nineteenth
century gather to test their ratiocinative skill, and bear off the
crown of bay on the point of a syllogism or the wings of an audacious
hypothesis.

Thus immersed in study, weeks, months, and years glided by, bearing her
young life swiftly across the Enna meads of girlhood, nearer and nearer
to the portals of that mystic temple of womanhood, on whose fair
fretted shrine was to be offered a heart either consumed by the baleful
fires of Baal, or purified and consecrated by the Shekinah, promised
through Messiah.




CHAPTER IX.


During the first year of Mr. Murray's absence his brief letters to his
mother were written at long intervals; in the second, they were rarer
and briefer still; but toward the close of the third he wrote more
frequently, and announced his intention of revisiting Egypt before his
return to the land of his birth. Although no allusion was ever made to
Edna, Mrs. Murray sometimes read aloud descriptions of beautiful
scenery, written now among the scoriae of Mauna Roa or Mauna Kea, and
now from the pinnacle of Mount Ophir, whence, through waving forests of
nutmeg and clove, flashed the blue waters of the Indian Ocean, or the
silver ripples of Malacca; and, on such occasions, the orphan listened
eagerly, entranced by the tropical luxuriance and grandeur of his
imagery, by his gorgeous word-painting, which to her charmed ears
seemed scarcely inferior to the wonderful pen-portraits of Ruskin.
Those letters seemed flecked with the purple and gold, the amber and
rose, the opaline and beryline tints, of which he spoke in telling the
glories of Polynesian and Malaysian skies, and the matchless verdure
and floral splendors of their serene spicy dells. For many days after
the receipt of each, Mrs. Murray was graver and sadder, but the spectre
that had disquieted Edna was thoroughly exorcised, and only when the
cold touch of the golden key startled her was she conscious of a vague
dread of some far-off but slowly and surely approaching evil. In the
fourth year of her pupilage she was possessed by an unconquerable
desire to read the Talmud, and in order to penetrate the mysteries and
seize the treasures hidden in that exhaustless mine of Oriental myths,
legends, and symbolisms, she prevailed upon Mr. Hammond to teach her
Hebrew and the rudiments of Chaldee. Very reluctantly and
disapprovingly he consented, and subsequently informed her that, as he
had another pupil who was also commencing Hebrew, he would class them,
and hear their recitations together. This new student was Mr. Gordon
Leigh, a lawyer in the town, and a gentleman of wealth and high social
position. Although quite young, he gave promise of eminence in his
profession, and was a great favorite of the minister, who pronounced
him the most upright and exemplary young man of his acquaintance. Edna
had seen him several times at Mrs. Murray's dinners, but while she
thought him exceedingly handsome, polite, and agreeable, she regarded
him as a stranger, until the lessons at the Parsonage brought them
every two days around the little table in the study. They began the
language simultaneously; but Edna, knowing the flattering estimation in
which he was held, could not resist the temptation to measure her
intellect with his, and soon threatened to outrun him in the Talmud
race. Piqued pride and a manly resolution to conquer spurred him on,
and the venerable instructor looked on and laughed at the generous
emulation thus excited. He saw an earnest friendship daily
strengthening between the rivals, and knew that in Gordon Leigh's
magnanimous nature there was no element which could cause an objection
to the companionship to which he had paved the way.

Four months after the commencement of the new study, Edna rorse at
daylight to complete some exercises, which she had neglected to write
out on the previous evening, and as soon as she concluded the task,
went down stairs to gather the flowers. It was the cloudless morning of
her seventeenth birthday and as she stood clipping geraniums and
jasmine and verbena, memory flew back to the tender years in which the
grisly blacksmith had watched her career with such fond pride and
loving words of encouragement, and painted the white-haired old man
smoking on the porch that fronted Lookout, while from his lips,
tremulous with a tender smile, seemed to float the last words he had
spoken to her on that calm afternoon when, in the fiery light of a
dying day, he was gathered to his forefathers:

"You will make me proud of you, my little Pearl, when you are smart
enough to teach a school and take care of me, for I shall be too old to
work by that time."

Now, after the lapse of years, when her educational course was almost
finished, she recalled every word and look and gesture; even the thrill
of horror that shook her limbs when she kissed the lips that death had
sealed an hour before. Mournfully vivid was her recollection of her
tenth birthday, for then he had bought her a blue ribbon for her hair,
and a little china cup and saucer; and now tears sprang to her eyes as
she murmured: "I have studied hard and the triumph is at hand, but I
have nobody to be proud of me now! Ah Grandpa! if you could only come
back to me, your little Pearl! It is so desolate to be alone in this
great world; so hard to have to know that nobody cares specially
whether I live or die, whether I succeed or fail ignominiously. I have
only myself to live for; only my own heart and will to sustain and
stimulate me."

Through the fringy acacias that waved their long hair across the
hothouse windows, the golden sunshine flickered over the graceful,
rounded, lithe figure of the orphan--over the fair young face with its
delicate cameo features, warm, healthful coloring, and brave, hopeful
expression. Four years had developed the pretty, sad-eyed child into a
lovely woman, with a pure heart filled with humble unostentatious
piety, and a clear, vigorous intellect inured to study, and ambitious
of every honorable eminence within the grasp of true womanhood.

Edna had endeavored to realize and remember what her Bible first taught
her, and what moralists of all creeds, climes and ages, had
reiterated--that human life was at best but "vanity and vexation of
spirit," that "man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward"; yet as
she stood on the line, narrow and thin as Al-Sirat, that divides
girlhood and womanhood, all seemed to her fresh, pure heart as inviting
and bewitching as the magnificent panorama upon which enraptured
lotophagi gazed from the ancient acropolis of Cyrene.

As Edna turned to leave the hothouse, the ring of horse's hoofs on the
rocky walk attracted her attention, and a moment after, Mr. Leigh gave
his horse to the gardener and came to meet her.

"Good morning, Miss Edna. As I am bearer of dispatches from my sister
to Mrs. Murray, I have invited myself to breakfast with you."

"You are an earlier riser than I had supposed, Mr. Leigh, from your
lamentations over your exercises."

"I do not deny that I love my morning nap, and generally indulge
myself; for, like Sydney Smith, 'I can easily make up my mind to rise
early, but I cannot make up my body.' In one respect I certainly claim
equality with Thorwaldsen, my 'talent for sleeping' is inferior neither
to his nor Goethe's. Do you know that we are both to have a holiday
to-day?"

"No, sir; upon what score?"

"It happens to be my birthday as well as yours, and as my sister, Mrs.
Inge, gives a party to-night in honor of the event, I have come to
insist that my classmate shall enjoy the same reprieve that I promise
myself. Mrs. Inge commissioned me to insure your presence at her party."

"Thank you; but I never go out to parties."

"But bad precedents must not guide you any longer. If you persist in
staying at home, I shall not enjoy the evening, for in every dance I
shall fancy my vis-a-vis your spectre, with an exercise in one hand and
a Hebrew grammar in the other. A propos! Mr. Hammond told me to say
that he would not expect you to-day, but would meet you to-night at
Mrs. Inge's. You need not trouble yourself to decline, for I shall
arrange matters with Mrs. Murray. In honor of my birthday will you not
give me a sprig of something sweet from your basket?"

They sat down on the steps of the dining-room, and Edna selected some
delicate oxalis cups and nutmeg geranium leaves, which she tied up, and
handed to her companion.

Fastening them in the button-hole of his coat, he drew a small box from
his pocket, and said:

"I noticed last week, when Mr. Hammond was explaining the Basilidian
tenets, you manifested some curiosity concerning their amulets and
mythical stones. Many years ago, while an uncle of mine was missionary
in Arabia, he saved the life of a son of a wealthy sheik, and received
from him, in token of his gratitude, a curious ring, which tradition
said once belonged to a caliph, and had been found near the ruins of
Chilminar. The ring was bequeathed to me, and is probably the best
authenticated antique in this country. Presto! we are in Bagdad! in the
blessed reign--

  '... in the golden prime
   Of good Haroun Alraschid!'

I am versed in neither Cufic nor Neskhi lore, but the characters
engraved on this ring are said to belong to the former dialect, and to
mean 'Peace be with thee,' which is, and I believe has been, from time
immemorial, the national salutation of the Arabs."

He unwound the cotton that enveloped the gem, and held it before Edna's
eyes.

A broad band of dusky, tarnished gold was surmounted by a large
crescent-shaped emerald, set with beautiful pearls, and underneath the
Arabic inscription was engraved a ram's head, bearing on one horn a
small crescent, on the other a star.

As Edna bent forward to examine it Mr. Leigh continued: "I do not quite
comprehend the symbolism of the ram's head and the star; the crescent
is clear enough."

"I think I can guess the meaning." Edna's eyes kindled.

"Tell me your conjecture; my own does not satisfy me, as the Arabic
love of mutton is the only solution at which I have arrived."

"Oh, Mr. Leigh! look at it and think a moment."

"Well, I have looked at it and thought a great deal, and I tell you
mutton-broth sherbet is the only idea suggested to my mind. You need
not look so shocked, for, when cooled with the snows of Caucasus, I am
told it makes a beverage fit for Greek gods."

"Think of the second chapter of St. Luke."

He pondered a moment, and answered, gravely: "I am sorry to say that I
do not remember that particular chapter well enough to appreciate your
clew."

She hesitated, and the color deepened on her cheek as she repeated, in
a low voice:

"'And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field,
keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord
came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them. And
suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host
praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace, good will toward men.'

"Mr. Leigh, the star on the ram's horn may be the Star of Bethlehem
that shone over the manger, and the Arabic inscription is certainly the
salutation of the angel to the shepherds. 'Peace, good will toward
men,' says St. Luke; 'Peace be with thee,' said Islamism."

"Your solution seems plausible, but, pardon me, is totally
inadmissible, from the fact that it blends crescent and cross, and
ignores antagonisms that deluged centuries with blood."

"You forget, Mr. Leigh, that Mohammedanism is nothing but a huge
eclecticism, and that its founder stole its elements from surrounding
systems. The symbolism of the crescent he took from the mysteries of
Isis and Astarte; the ethical code of Christ he engrafted on the
monotheism of Judaism; his typical forms are drawn from the Old
Testament or the more modern Mishma; and his pretended miracles are
mere repetitions of the wonders performed by our Saviour--for instance,
the basket of dates, the roasted lamb, the loaf of barley bread, in the
siege of Medina. Even the Moslem Jehennam is a palpable imitation of
the Hebrew Gehenna. Beside, sir, you know that Sabeanism reigned in
Arabia just before the advent of Mohammed, and if you refuse to believe
that the Star of Bethlehem was signified by this one shining here on
the ram's horn, at least you must admit that it refers to stars studied
by the shepherds who watched their flocks on the Chaldean plains. In a
cabinet of coins and medals, belonging to Mr. Murray, I have examined
one of silver, representing Astaroth, with the head of a woman adorned
with horns and a crescent, and another of brass, containing an image of
Baal--a human face on the head of an ox, with the horns surrounded by
stars. However, I am very ignorant of these things, and you must refer
the riddle of the ring to some one more astute and learned in such
matters than your humble 'yokefellow' in Hebrew. 'Peace be with you.'"

"I repeat 'Peace be with thee,' during the new year on which we are
both entering, and, as you have at least attempted to read the riddle,
let me beg that you will do me the honor to accept and wear the ring in
memory of our friendship and our student life."

He took her hand, and would have placed the ring on her finger, but she
resisted.

"Thank you, Mr. Leigh, I appreciate the honor, but indeed you must
excuse me, I cannot accept the ring."

"Why not, Miss Edna?"

"In the first place, because it is very valuable and beautiful, and I
am not willing to deprive you of it; in the second, I do not think it
proper to accept presents from--any one but relatives or dear friends."

"I thought we were dear friends? Why can we not be such?"

At this moment Mrs. Murray came into the dining-room, and as she looked
at the two sitting there in the early sunshine, with the basket of
flowers between them; as she marked the heightened color and
embarrassed expression on one fair, sweet face, and the eager pleading
written on the other, so full of manly beauty, so frank and bright and
genial, a possible destiny for both flashed before her; and pleased
surprise warmed her own countenance as she hurried forward.

"Good-morning, Gordon. I am very glad to see you. How is Clara?"

"Quite well, thank you, and entirely absorbed in preparations for her
party, as you will infer from this note, which she charged me to
deliver in person, and for which I here pray your most favorable
consideration."

As Mrs. Murray glanced over the note Edna turned to leave the room; but
Mr. Leigh exclaimed:

"Do not go just yet, I wish Mrs. Murray to decide a matter for me."

"Well, Gordon, what is it?"

"First, do you grant my sister's petition?"

"Certainly, I will bring Edna with me to-night, unless she prefers
staying at home with her books. You know I let her do pretty much as
she pleases."

"Now then for my little quarrel! Here is a curious old ring, which she
will appreciate more highly than any one else whom I happen to know,
and I want her to accept it as a birthday memento from me, but a few
minutes ago she refused to wear it. Can you not come to my assistance,
my dear Mrs. Murray?"

She took the ring, examined it, and said, after a pause:

"I think, Gordon, that she did exactly right; but I also think that
now, with my approval and advice, she need not hesitate to wear it
henceforth, as a token of your friendship. Edna, hold out your hand, my
dear."

The ring was slipped on the slender finger, and as she released her
hand, Mrs. Murray bent down and kissed her forehead.

"Seventeen to-day! My child, I can scarcely believe it! And
you--Gordon? May I ask how old you are?"

"Twenty-five--I grieve to say! You need not tell me--"

The conversation was interrupted by the ringing of the breakfast bell,
and soon after, Mr. Leigh took his departure.

Edna felt puzzled and annoyed, and as she looked down at the ring she
thought that instead of "Peace be with thee," the Semitic characters
must surely mean, "Disquiet seize thee!" for they had shivered the
beautiful calm of her girlish nature, and thrust into her mind ideas
unknown until that day. Going to her own room, she opened her books,
but ere she could fix her wandering thoughts Mrs. Murray entered.

"Edna, I came to speak to you about your dress for to-night."

"Please do not say that you wish me to go, my dear Mrs. Murray, for I
dread the very thought."

"But I must tell you that I insist upon your conforming to the usages
of good society. Mrs. Inge belongs to one of the very first families in
the State; at her house you will meet the best people, and you could
not possibly make your debut under more favorable circumstances.
Beside, it is very unnatural that a young girl should not enjoy parties
and the society of gay young people. You are very unnecessarily making
a recluse of yourself, and I shall not permit you to refuse such an
invitation as Mrs. Inge has sent. It would be rude in the extreme."

"Dear Mrs. Murray, you speak of my debut, as if, like other girls, I
had nothing else to do but fit myself for society. These people care
nothing for me, and I am as little interested in them. I have no desire
to move for a short time in a circle from which my work in life must
soon separate me."

"To what work do you allude?"

"The support which I must make by teaching. In a few months I hope to
be able to earn all I need, and then--"

"Then it will be quite time enough to determine what necessity demands;
in the meanwhile, as long as you are in my house you must allow me to
judge what is proper for you. Clara Inge is my friend, and I can not
allow you to be rude to her. I have sent the carriage to town for Miss
O'Riley, my mantua-maker, and Hagar will make the skirt of your dress.
Come into my room and let her take the measure."

"Thank you for your kind thoughtfulness, but indeed I do not want to
go. Please let me stay at home! You can frame some polite excuse, and
Mrs. Inge cares not whether I go or stay. I will write my regrets and--"

"Don't be childish, Edna; I care whether you go or stay, and that fact
should weigh with you much more than Mrs. Inge's wishes, for you are
quite right in supposing that it is a matter of indifference to her. Do
not keep Hagar waiting."

Mrs. Murray's brow clouded, and her lips contracted, as was their
habit, when anything displeased her; consequently after a quick glance,
Edna followed her to the room where Hagar was at work. It was the first
time the orphan had been invited to a large party, and she shrank from
meeting people whose standard of gentility was confined to high birth
and handsome fortunes. Mrs. Inge came frequently to Le Bocage, but
Edna's acquaintance with her was comparatively slight, and in addition
to her repugnance to meeting strangers she dreaded seeing Mr. Leigh
again so soon, for she felt that an undefinable barrier had suddenly
risen between them; the frank, fearless freedom of the old friendship
at the parsonage table had vanished. She began to wish that she had
never studied Hebrew, that she had never heard of Basilides, and that
the sheik's ring was back among the ruins of Chilminar. Mrs. Murray saw
her discomposure, but chose to take no notice of it, and superintended
her toilet that night with almost as much interest as if she had been
her own daughter.

During the drive she talked on indifferent subjects, and as they went
up to the dressing-room had the satisfaction of seeing that her
protegee manifested no trepidation. They arrived rather late, the
company had assembled, and the rooms were quite full as Mrs. Murray
entered; but Mrs. Inge met them at the threshold, and Mr. Leigh, who
seemed on the watch, came forward at the same instant, and offered Edna
his arm.

"Ah, Mrs. Murray! I had almost abandoned the hope of seeing you. Miss
Edna, the set is just forming, and we must celebrate our birthday by
having the first dance together. Excuse you, indeed! You presume upon
my well-known good nature and generosity, but this evening I am
privileged to be selfish."

As he drew her into the middle of the room she noticed that he wore the
flowers she had given him in the morning, and this, in conjunction with
the curious scrutiny to which she was subjected, brought a sudden surge
of color to her cheeks. The dance commenced, and from one corner of the
room Mr. Hammond looked eagerly at his two pupils, contrasting them
with the gay groups that filled the brilliant apartment.

Edna's slender, graceful figure was robed in white Swiss muslin, with a
bertha of rich lace; and rose-colored ribbons formed the sash, and
floated from her shoulders. Her beautiful glossy hair was simply coiled
in a large roll at the back of the head, and fastened with an ivory
comb. Scrutinizing the face lifted toward Mr. Leigh's, while he talked
to her, the pastor thought he had never seen a countenance half so
eloquent and lovely. Turning his gaze upon her partner, he was
compelled to confess that though Gordon Leigh was the handsomest man in
the room, no acute observer could look at the two and fail to discover
that the blacksmith's granddaughter was far superior to the petted
brother of the aristocratic Mrs. Inge. He was so much interested in
watching the couple that he did not observe Mrs. Murray's approach
until she sat down beside him and whispered:

"Are they not a handsome couple?"

"Gordon and Edna?"

"Yes."

"Indeed they are! I think that child's face is the most attractive, the
most fascinating I ever looked at. There is such a rare combination of
intelligence, holiness, strength and serenity in her countenance; such
a calm, pure light shining in her splendid eyes; such a tender, loving
look far down in their soft depths."

"Child! Why she is seventeen to-day." "No matter, Ellen; to me she will
always seem a gentle, clinging, questioning child. I look at her often
when she is intent on her studies, and wonder how long her pure heart
will reject the vanities and baubles that engross most women; how long
mere abstract study will continue to charm her; and I tremble when I
think of the future to which I know she is looking so eagerly. Now, her
emotional nature sleeps, her heart is at rest--slumbering also, she is
all intellect at present--giving her brain no relaxation. Ah! if it
could always be so. But it will not! There will come a time, I fear,
when her fine mind and pure, warm heart will be arrayed against each
other, will battle desperately, and one or the other must be
subordinated."

"Gordon seems to admire her very much," said Mrs. Murray.

Mr. Hammond sighed, and a shadow crept over his placid features, as he
answered:

"Do you wonder at it, Ellen? Can any one know the child well, and fail
to admire and love her?"

"If he could only forget her obscure birth--if he could only consent to
marry her--what a splendid match it would be for her?"

"Ellen! Ellen Murray! I am surprised at you! Let me beg of you for her
sake, for yours, for all parties concerned, not to raise your little
finger in this matter; not to utter one word to Edna that might arouse
her suspicions; not to hint to Gordon that you dream such an alliance
possible; for there is more at stake than you imagine--"

He was unable to conclude the sentence, for the dance had ended, and as
Edna caught a glimpse of the beloved countenance of her teacher, she
drew her fingers from Mr. Leigh's arm, and hastened to the pastor's
side, taking his hand between both hers:

"O, sir! I am glad to see you. I have looked around so often; hoping to
catch sight of you. Mrs. Murray, I heard Mrs. Inge asking for you."

When the lady walked away, Edna glided into the seat next the minister,
and continued:

"I want to talk to you about a change in some of my studies."

"Wait till to-morrow, my dear. I came here to-night only for a few
moments, to gratify Gordon and now I must slip away."

"But, sir, I only want to say, that as you objected at the outset to my
studying Hebrew, I will not waste any more time on it just now, but
take it up again after a while, when I have plenty of leisure. Don't
you think that would be the best plan?"

"My child, are you tired of Hebrew?"

"No, sir; on the contrary, it possesses a singular fascination for me;
but I think, if you are willing, I shall discontinue it--at least, for
the present. I shall take care to forget nothing that I have already
learned."

"You have some special reason for this change, I presume?"

She raised her eyes to his, and said frankly:

"Yes, sir, I have."

"Very well, my dear, do as you like. Good-night."

"I wish I could go now with you."

"Why? I thought you appeared to enjoy your dance very much. Edna, look
at me."

She hesitated--then obeyed him, and he saw tears glistening on her long
lashes.

Very quietly the old man drew her arm through his, and led her out on
the dim veranda, where only an occasional couple promenaded.

"Something troubles you, Edna. Will you confide in me?"

"I feel as if I were occupying a false position here, and yet I do not
see how I can extricate myself without displeasing Mrs. Mur

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