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Husks

by Marion Harland · English · Gutenberg #48461 · 422,628 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Husks

Author: Marion Harland


        
Release date: March 11, 2015 [eBook #48461]
                Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUSKS ***

  Price,
  Ten Cents.      THE ARM CHAIR LIBRARY.       No. 141.



  [Illustration: _HUSKS_


  _By Marion Harland_]



  F. M. LUPTON, - PUBLISHER, - NEW YORK.




HUSKS.

BY MARION HARLAND.




CHAPTER I.


It was a decided uncompromising rainy day. There were no showers,
coquetted with by veering winds or dubious mists, that at times grew
brighter, as if the sun were burning away their lining; but a uniform
expanse of iron-gray clouds--kept in close, grim column by a steady,
although not violent east wind--sent straight lines of heavy rain upon
the earth. The naked trees, that, during the earlier hours of the
deluge had seemed to shiver for the immature leaf-buds, so unfit to
endure the rough handling of the storm, now held out still, patient
arms, the rising sap curdled within their hearts. The gutters were
brimming streams, and the sidewalks were glazed with thin sheets of
water.

The block of buildings before which our story pauses, was, as a glance
would have showed the initiated in the grades of Gotham life, highly
respectable, even in the rain. On a clear day when the half-folded
blinds revealed the lace, silken and damask draperies within, when
young misses and masters--galvanized show-blocks of purple and fine
linen, that would have passed muster behind the plate-glass of Genin
or Madame Demorest--tripped after hoops or promenaded the smooth
pavement; when pretty, jaunty one-horse carriages, and more pretentious
equipages, each with a pair of prancing steeds, and two "outside
passengers" in broadcloth and tinsel hatbands, received and discharged
their loads before the brown-stone fronts--had the afore-mentioned
spectator chanced to perambulate this not spacious street, he would
have conceded to it some degree of the fashion claimed for it by its
inhabitants. There were larger houses and wider pavements to be had for
the same price a few blocks further on, in more than one direction,
but these were unanimously voted "less eligible" and "deficient in
style," in spite of the fact that as good and better materials were
employed in their construction, and they were in all respects equal in
external show and inside finish to those in this model quarter. "But
our block has a certain air--well--I don't know what; but it is just
the thing, you know, and so convenient! So near the avenue!" would be
the concluding argument.

The nameless, indescribable charm of the locality lay in the last
clause. "Just step around the corner and you are in the avenue," said
the favored dwellers in this vicinity, as the climax in the description
of their abode, and "that way fashion lies" to every right-minded New
Yorker of the feminine gender.

But the aristocratic quiet of the neighborhood, rendered oppressive
and depressing by the gloom of the day, was disturbed by a discordant
sound--a child's cry, and what was especially martyrizing to refined
auriculars, the lament had the unmistakable plebeian accent. The
passionate scream with which the pampered darling of the nursery
resents interference with his rights and liberty of tyranny or the
angry remonstrance of his injured playmates, would have been quite
another species of natural eloquence, as regards both quality and
force, from the weak, broken wail that sobbed along the wet streets.
Moreover, what respectable child could be abroad on foot in this
weather? So, the disrespectable juvenile pursued her melancholy way
unnoticed and unquestioned until she reached the middle of the square.
There a face appeared at a window in the second story of a house--which
only differed from those to its right, left and opposite in the number
upon the door--vanished and in half a minute more a young lady appeared
in the sheltered vestibule.

"What is the matter, little girl?"

The tone was not winning, yet the sobs ceased, and the child looked
up, as to a friendly questioner. She was about eleven years of age, if
one had judged from her size and form; but her features were pinched
into unnatural maturity. Her attire was wretched, at its best estate;
now, soaked by the rain, the dingy hood drooped over her eyes; the dark
cotton shawl retained not one of its original colors, and the muddy
dress flapped and dripped about her ankles. Upon one foot she wore an
old cloth gaiter, probably picked up from an ash heap; the remains of a
more sorry slipper were tied around the other.

"I am so cold and wet, and my matches is all sp'ilt," she answered in
a dolorous tone, lifting the corner of a scrap of oil-cloth, which
covered a basket, tucked for further security under her shawl.

"No wonder! What else could you expect, if you would go out to sell
them on a day like this? Go down into the area, there, and wait until I
let you in."

The precaution was a wise one. No servant in that well-regulated
household would have admitted so questionable a figure as that which
crept after their young mistress into the comfortable kitchen. The cook
paused in the act of dissecting a chicken; the butler--on carriage
days the footman--checked his flirtation with the plump and laughing
chambermaid, to stare at the wretched apparition. The scrutiny of the
first named functionary was speedily diverted to the dirty trail left
by the intruder upon the carpet. A scowl puckered her red face, and
her wrathful glance included both of the visitants as alike guilty of
this desecration of her premises. The housemaid rolled up her eyes and
clasped her hands in dumb show of horror and contempt to her gallant,
who replied with a shrug and a grin. But not a word of remonstrance or
inquiry was spoken. It was rather a habit of this young lady's to have
her own way whenever she could, and that she was bent upon doing this
now was clear.

"Sit down," she said, bringing up a chair to the fire.

The storm beaten wanderer obeyed, and eagerly held up her sodden feet
to the red grate.

"Have you no better shoes than those?"

"No, ma'am."

"Humph! Nor dress, nor shawl?"

"No, ma'am."

"Are you hungry?"

A ray shot from the swollen eyes. "Yes, ma'am."

The lady disappeared in the pantry and presently returned with five or
six slices of bread and butter hastily cut and thickly spread, with
cheese and cold meat between them.

"Eat!" She thrust them into the match-girl's fingers. "Wait here, while
I go and look for some clothes for you."

As may be supposed, the insulted oracle of kitchen mysteries improved
the time of the benefactress's absence by a very plain expression of
her sentiments towards beggars in general, and this one in particular;
which harangue was received with applause by her fellow-servants and
perfect equanimity by its object. She munched her sandwiches with
greedy satisfaction, watching, the while, the little clouds of steam
that ascended from her heated toes. She was, to all appearances,
neither a sensitive nor intelligent child, and had known too much of
animal want and suffering to allow trifles to spoil her enjoyment of
whatever physical comfort fell to her lot. Her mother at home could
scold quite as violently as the cook was now doing, and she was more
afraid of her anger, because she beat while she berated her. She was
convinced that she stood in no such peril here, for her protectress was
one in power.

"Have you eaten enough?" said the clear, abrupt voice behind her, as
she held two sandwiches in her fingers, without offering to put them to
her lips.

"Yes, ma'am. May I take 'em home?"

"Certainly, if you like. Stand up and take off your shawl."

She put around the forlorn figure a thick cloak, rusty and obsolete
in fashion, but which was a warm and ample covering for the child,
extending to the hem of her dress. The damp elf-locks were hidden by
a knitted hood, and for the feet there were stockings and shoes and a
pair of India-rubbers to protect these last from the water.

"Now," said the Humane Society of One, when the refitting was at an
end, "where do you live? Never mind--I don't care to know that yet!
Here is a small umbrella--a good one--which belongs to me. I have no
other for myself when I go out in bad weather. I mean to lend it to
you, to-day, upon the condition that you will bring it back to-morrow,
or the first clear day. Will you do it?"

The promise was readily given.

"Here's an old thing, Miss Sarah," ventured the butler, respectfully,
producing a bulky, ragged cotton umbrella from a corner of the kitchen
closet. "It's risky--trusting such as that with your nice silk one."

"That will let in the rain, and it is entirely too large for her to
carry. You understand, child? You are to bring this safely back to me,
the first time the sun shines. Can you find your way to this house
again?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am, easy. Thank you, ma'am!"

She dropped an awkward curtsey as Miss Sarah held open the door for her
to pass, and went out into the rain--warm, dry and shielded against
further damage from the storm.

Unheeding the significant looks of the culinary cabinet, Sarah Hunt
turned away and ascended the stairs. She was a striking-looking girl,
although her features, when in repose, could claim neither beauty of
form nor expression. Her complexion was dark and pale, with a slight
tinge of olive, and her hair a deep brown, lips whose compression was
habitual, an aquiline nose, and eyes that changed from dreamy hazel
to midnight blackness at the call of mind or feeling, gave marked
character to her countenance. Her sententious style of address to the
child she had just dismissed was natural, and usual to her in ordinary
conversation, as was also the gravity, verging upon sombreness, which
had not once during the interview relaxed into a smile.

The family sitting-room, her destination at present, and to which we
will take the liberty of preceding her, was furnished elegantly and
substantially, and there, leaning back in lounging chairs, were Miss
Lucy Hunt, the eldest daughter of the household, and her bosom friend,
Miss Victoria West. Each held and wielded a crochet needle, and had
upon her lap a basket of many-hued balls of double or single zephyr
worsted, or Shetland or Saxony wool, or whatever was the fashionable
article for such pretty trifling at that date. Miss West had completed
one-quarter of a shawl for herself, white and scarlet, and her friend
had made precisely the same progress in the arduous manufacture of one
whose centre was white and its border blue.

"Yours will be the prettiest," remarked Lucy regretfully. "Blue never
looks well in worsteds. Why, I can't say, I'm sure. It is too bad that
I can wear so few other colors. But I am such a fright in pink or
scarlet or any shade of red!"

"As if you could be a fright in anything," returned her companion, with
seeming indignation.

Lucy smiled, showing a set of faultless teeth that, to a stranger's
first glance, would have appeared by far the most attractive point of
her physiognomy. If closer examination discovered that her skin was
pearly in whiteness and transparency, that her form was exquisite, with
a sort of voluptuous grace; her hands worthy, in shape and hue, to
become a sculptor's model; still, in the cold, unflattering light of
this rainy afternoon her want of color, her light gray eyes, her yellow
hair, drawn straight back from the broad, low brow, precluded the idea
that she could ever, with all the accessories of artificial glare,
dress and animation, be more than a merely pretty girl. Miss West knew
better, and Lucy realized the power of her own charms with full and
complete complacency. Secure in this pleasant self-appreciation, she
could afford to be careless as to her every-day looks and home people.
She saw and enjoyed the manifest surprise of those who, having seen
her once in morning deshabille, beheld her afterwards in elaborate
evening toilet. Then the abundant hair waved in golden ripples about
the classic head, the most artfully simple of tasteful ornaments--a
camellia, a rosebud, or a pearl hairpin, its sole adornment; her eyes,
large, full and soft, were blue instead of gray, while the heat of
the assembly-room, the excitement of the crowd, or the exultation of
gratified vanity supplied the rounded cheek with rich bloom and dewy
vermillion to the lips. But nature's rarest gift to her was her voice,
a mellow contralto, whose skillful modulations stole refreshingly to
the senses amid the sharp clash of strained and higher tones, the
castanet-like jingle which most American belles ring unmercifully
into the ears of their auditors. Lucy Hunt was not "a great talker,"
still less was she profound or brilliant when she did speak; yet she
invariably conveyed the impression to the mind of a new acquaintance of
a thoroughly cultivated woman, one whose acquirements were far beyond
her modest exhibition of thought and sentiment. The most commonplace
phrase came smoothly and roundly from her tongue, and he was censorious
indeed who was willing to lose the pleasure afforded by its musical
utterance in weighing its meaning. At school she had never been
diligent, except in the study of music, and her painstaking in this
respect was rewarded by the reputation, justly earned, of being the
finest vocalist in her circle of associates. In society she shone as
a rising star of the first magnitude; at home she was happy, cheerful
and indolently amiable. Why should she be otherwise? From her babyhood
she had been petted and admired by her family, and the world--her
world--was as ready with its meed of the adulation which was her
element.

There were, besides the two sisters already introduced to the reader,
three other children in the Hunt household--a couple of sturdy lads,
twelve and fourteen years of age, and little Jeannie, a delicate child
of six, whom Lucy caressed with pet titles and sugar-plums of flattery,
and Sarah served in secret and idolatrous fondness. This family it was
Mrs. Hunt's care and pride to rear and maintain, not only in comfort,
but apparent luxury, upon the salary which her husband received as
cashier of a prominent city bank, an income sufficient to support
them in modest elegance, but which few besides Mrs. Hunt could have
stretched to cover the expense of their ostensible style of living.
But this notable manager had learned economy in excellent schools,
primarily as a country girl, whose holiday finery was purchased with
the proceeds of her own butter-making and poultry-yard; then as the
brisk, lively wife of the young clerk, whose slender salary had, up
to the time of his marriage, barely sufficed to pay for his own board
and clothes, and whose only vested capital was his pen, his good
character and perfect knowledge of book-keeping. But if his help-meet
was a clever housewife, she was likewise ambitious. With the exception
of the sum requisite for the yearly payment of the premium upon Mr.
Hunt's life insurance policy, their annual expenses devoured every cent
of their receipts. Indeed, it was currently believed among outsiders
that they had other resources than the cashier's wages, and Mrs. Hunt
indirectly encouraged the report that she held property in her own
right. They lived "as their neighbors did," as "everybody in their
position in society was bound to do," and "everybody" else was too
intent upon his personal affairs, too busy with his private train
of plans and operations to examine closely the cogs and levers and
boilers of the locomotive Hunt. If it went ahead, and kept upon the
track assigned it, was always "up to time," and avoided unpleasant
collisions, it was nobody's business how the steam was gotten up.

Every human plant of note has its parasite, and Miss Lucy Hunt was not
without hers. There existed no reason in the outward circumstances of
the two girls why Miss Hunt should not court Miss West rather than Miss
West toady Miss Hunt. In a business--that is, a pecuniary--point of
view, the former appeared the more likely state of the case, inasmuch
as Victoria's father was a stock-broker of reputed wealth, and with a
probable millionaireship in prospective, if his future good fortune
equalled his past, while Mr. Hunt, as has been stated, depended
entirely upon a certain and not an extravagant stipend. But the girls
became intimate at school, "came out" the same winter at the same
party, where Lucy created a "sensation," and Victoria would have been
overlooked but for the sentimental connection between the debutantes.
Since then, although the confidante would have scouted the imputation
of interested motives with virtuous indignation of wounded affection,
she had nevertheless "made a good thing of it," as her respected
father would have phrased it, by playing hanger-on, second fiddle, and
trumpeter general to the belle.

"As if you could be a fright in anything," she had said, naturally and
perhaps sincerely.

Lucy's smile was succeeded by a serious look. "I am sadly tempted
sometimes! Those lovely peach-blossom hats that you and Sarah wore this
past winter were absolute trials to my sense of right. And no longer
ago than Mrs. Crossman's party I was guilty of the sin of coveting the
complexion that enabled Maria Johnston to wear that sweet rose-colored
silk, with the lace skirt looped with rosebuds."

"You envy Maria Johnston's complexion? Why don't you go further and
fall in love with her small eyes and pug nose?" inquired Victoria,
severely ironical. "I have heard that people were never contented with
their own gifts, but such a case of blindness as this has never before
come under my observation."

"No, no! I am not quite so humble with regard to my personal appearance
as you would make out. Yet"--and the plaintive voice might have been
the murmur of a grieving angel--"I think that there are compensations
in the lot of plain people that we know nothing about. They escape the
censure and unkind remarks that uncharitable and envious women heap
upon those who happen to be attractive. Now, there is Sarah, who never
cares a button about her looks, so long as her hair is smooth and her
dress clean and whole. She hates parties and is glad of any excuse to
stay out of the parlor when gentlemen call. Give her her books and that
'snuggery,' as she calls it, of a room upstairs, and she is happier
than if she were in the gayest company in the world. Who criticises
her? Nobody is jealous of her face or manners or conversation. And she
would not mind it if they were."

"She has a more independent nature than yours, my dear. I, for one, am
rejoiced that you two are unlike. I could not endure to lose my darling
friend, and somehow I never could understand Sarah; never could get
near to her, you know."

"I do not wonder at that. It is just so with me, sisters though we are.
However, Sarah means well, if her manner is blunt and sometimes cold."

The entrance of the person under discussion checked the conversation
at this point, and both young ladies began to count their stitches
aloud, to avoid the appearance of the foolish embarrassment that ever
overtakes a brace of gossips at being thus interrupted.

Sarah's work lay on her stand near the window, where she had thrown it
when the crying child attracted her notice, and she resumed it now. It
was a dress for Jeannie. It was a rare occurrence for the second sister
to fashion anything so pretty and gay for her own wear.

"Have you taken to fancy work at last?" asked Victoria, seeing that the
unmade skirt was stamped with a rich, heavy pattern for embroidery.

"No!" Sarah did not affect her sister's friend, and did not trouble
herself to disguise her feelings towards her.

Lucy explained: "She is making it for Jeannie. She does everything for
that child."

"You are very sisterly and kind, I am sure," Victoria continued,
patronizingly. "You must quite despise Lucy and myself for thinking
of and doing so much for ourselves, while you are such a pattern of
self-denial."

A blaze shot up in Sarah's eye; then she said, coldly: "I am not
self-denying. Have I ever found fault with you or Lucy for doing as you
like?"

"Oh, no, my dear. But you take no interest in what we enjoy. I dare
say, now, you would think it a dull business to work day after day for
three or four weeks together, crocheting a shawl which may go out of
fashion before one has a chance to sport it at a watering-place."

"I certainly should!" The curl of the thin upper lip would have
answered for her had she not spoken.

"And you hate the very sight of shellwork and cone-frames, and Grecian
painting, and all such vanities?"

"If I must speak the truth, I do--most heartily."

Victoria was not easily turned from her purpose.

"Come, Sarah! Tell us what you would have us, poor trifling, silly
things, do to kill the time."

"If you must be a murderer, do it in your own way. I have nothing to
say in the matter."

"Do you mean that time never hangs upon your hands--that you are never
ennuyee--blasee?"

"Speak English, and I will answer you."

"I want to know," said the persevering tormentor, "if the hum-drum
books upstairs, your paint-box and your easel are such good company
that you are contented and happy always when you are with them--if you
never get cross with yourself and everybody else, and wonder what you
were put into the world for, and why the world itself was made, and
wish that you could sleep until doomsday. Do you ever feel like this?"

Sarah lifted her eyes with a wondering, incredulous stare at the
flippant inquisitor.

"I have felt thus, but I did not suppose that you had."

"Oh, I have a 'blue' turn now and then, but the disease is always more
dangerous with girls of your sort--the reading, thinking, strong-minded
kind. And the older you grow, the worse you will get. I haven't as
much book knowledge as you have, but I know more of the world we live
in. Take my advice and settle down to woman's right sphere. Drive away
the vapors with beaux and fancy-work now. By-and-by a husband and an
establishment will give you something else to think about."

Sarah would have replied, but Lucy broke in with a laugh, light and
sweet.

"You two are always at cross-questions! Why can't you be satisfied to
let one another alone? Sarah and I never quarrel, Vic.. We agree to
disagree. She gives me my way, and I don't meddle with her. If she
likes the blues (they say some people enjoy them), where's the harm of
her having them? They never come near me. If I get stupid, I go to bed
and sleep it off. Don't you think I have done ten rows since breakfast?
What a godsend a rainy day is, when one has a fascinating piece of work
on hand!"

Too proud to seem to abandon the field, Sarah sat for half an hour
longer, stitching steadily away at the complicated tracery upon the
ground to be worked; then, as the dimmer daylight caused the others to
draw near to the windows, she pushed aside her table and put by her
sewing.

"Don't let us drive you away!" said Victoria's mock-polite tones, and
Lucy added, kindly, "We do not mean to disturb you, Sarah, dear."

"You do not disturb me!" was the reply to the latter. The other had
neither glance nor word.

Up another flight she mounted to a room, much smaller than that she had
left and far plainer in its appointments. The higher one went in Mrs.
Hunt's house the less splendid everything became. In the state spare
chamber--a story below--nothing of comfort and luxury was wanting,
from the carved rosewood bedstead, with the regal-looking canopy
overshadowing its pillows, down to the Bohemian and cut-glass scent
bottles upon the marble of the dressing-cabinet. Sarah's carpet was
common ingrain, neither pretty nor new; a cottage bedstead of painted
wood; bureau and washstand of the same material; two chairs and a small
table were all the furniture her mother adjudged needful. To these the
girl had added, from her pittance of pocket-money, a set of hanging
bookshelves, a portable desk, an easel and two or three good engravings
that adorned the walls.

She locked the door after her, with a kind of angry satisfaction in
her face, and going straight to the window leaned upon the sash and
looked down into the flooded street. Her eyes were dry, but there was
a heaving in her throat, a tightening of the muscles about the mouth
that would have made most women weep for very relief. Sarah Hunt would
have scorned the ease purchased by such weakness. She did not despise
the sad loneliness that girt her around, any more than the captive
warrior does his cell of iron or stone, but she held that it would be
a cowardly succumbing to Fate to wound herself by dashing against the
grim walls, or bring out their sleeping echoes by womanish wailings.
So, presently, her throat ached and throbbed no longer, the rigid
muscles compressed the lips no more than was their wont, the hands
loosened their vise-like grasp of one another--the brain was free to
think.

The rain fell still with a solemn stateliness that befitted the coming
twilight. It was a silent storm for one so heavy. The faint hum of the
city, the tinkle of the car-bell, three blocks off, arose to her window
above its plashing fall upon the pavement, and the trickle of the drops
from sash to sill. A stream of light from the lamp-post at the corner
flashed athwart the sidewalk, glittered upon the swollen gutter, made
gold and silver blocks of the paving stones. As if they had waited for
this signal, other lights now shone out from the windows across the
way, and from time to time a broad, transient gleam from opening doors
told of the return of fathers, brothers, husbands from their day's
employment.

    "In happy homes he sees the light."

What was there in the line that should make the watcher catch her
breath in sudden pain and lay her hand, with stifled moan, over her
heart, as she repeated it aloud?

Witness with me, ye maternal Hunts, who read this page--you, the
careful and solicitous about many things--in nothing more ambitious
than for the advancement and success in life of your offspring--add
your testimony to mine that this girl had all that was desirable for
one of her age and in her circumstances. A house as handsome as her
neighbors, an education unsurpassed by any of her late school-fellows,
a "position in society;" a reasonable share of good looks, which only
required care and cultivation on her part to become really distingue;
indulgent parents and peaceably inclined brothers and sisters--read
the list, and solve me, if you can, the enigma of this perturbed
spirit--this hungering and thirsting after contraband or unattainable
pleasures.

"Some girls will do so!" Mrs. Hunt assured her husband when he "thought
that Sarah did not seem so happy as Lucy. He hoped nothing ailed the
child. Perhaps the doctor had better drop in to see her. Could she be
fretting for anything, or had her feelings been hurt?"

"Bless your soul, Mr. H. There's nothing the matter with her. She
always was kind o' queer!" (Mrs. Hunt did not use her company grammar
every day.) "And she's jest eighteen year old. That's the whole of it!
She'll come 'round in good time, 'specially if Lucy should marry off
pretty soon. When Sarah is 'Miss Hunt,' she'll be as crazy for beaux
and company and as ready to jump at a prime offer as any of 'em. I know
girls' ways!"

Nor am I prepared to say that Sarah, as she quitted her look-out at the
high window at the sound of the dinner bell, could have given a more
satisfactory reason for her discontent and want of spirits.




CHAPTER II.


Mrs. Hunt's china, like her grammar, was of two sorts. When her duty
to "society" or the necessity of circumstances forced her to be
hospitable, she "did the thing" well. At a notice of moderate length
she could get up a handsome, if not a bountiful, entertainment, to
which no man need have been ashamed to seat his friends, and when the
occasion warranted the display she grudged not the "other" china, the
other silver, nor the other table-linen.

She did, however, set her face, like a broad flint, against the
irregularity of inviting chance visitors to partake of the family
bread and salt. Intimate as Victoria West was with Lucy, she met only
a civil show of regretful acquiescence in her proposal to go home as
the dinner hour approached, and Robbie or Richard Hunt was promptly
offered to escort her to her abode upon the next block. If she remained
to luncheon, as she would do occasionally, Lucy, in her hearing, begged
her mother to excuse them from going down, and to send up two cups
of tea and a few sandwiches to the sitting-room. This slight repast
was served by the butler upon a neat little tray, in a tete-a-tete
service--a Christmas gift to Lucy "from her ever-loving Victoria," and
sentimentally dedicated to the use of the pair of adopted sisters.

Therefore, Sarah was not surprised to find Victoria gone, despite the
storm, when she entered the dining-room. An immense crumb-cloth covered
the carpet; a row of shrouded chairs, packed elbow to elbow, stood
against the further end of the apartment, and a set of very ordinary
ones were around the table. The cloth was of whity-brown material, and
the dishes a motley collection of halt and maimed--for all Mrs. Hunt's
vigilance could not make servants miraculously careful. There was no
propriety, however, according to her system of economy, in condemning
a plate or cup as past service because it had come off second best, to
the extent of a crack or nick or an amputated handle, in an encounter
with some other member of the crockery tribe. "While there is life
there is hope," was, in these cases, paraphrased by her to the effect
that while a utensil would hold water it was too good to be thrown away.

It was not a sumptuous repast to which Sarah sat down after she had
placed Jeannie in her high chair and tied the great gingham bib around
her neck. On the contrary, it came near being a scant provision for
the healthy appetites of seven people. Before Mr. Hunt, a mild, quiet
little man, was a dish of stew, which was, in its peculiar line, a
thing--not of beauty, but wonder.

Only a few days since, as I stood near the stall of a poultry vender in
market, a lady inquired for chickens.

"Yes, ma'am. Roasting size, ma'am?"

"No. I want them for a fricassee."

"Ah"--with a look of shrewd intelligence. "Then, ma'am, I take it, you
don't care to have 'em overly tender. Most ladies prefers the old ones
for fricassee. They come cheaper and very often bile tender."

"Thank you," was the amused rejoinder. "The difference in the price is
no consideration where the safety of our teeth is concerned."

Mrs. Hunt suffered not these scruples to hinder her negotiations with
knowing poultry merchants. A cent less per pound would be three cents
saved upon the chicken, and three cents would buy enough turnips for
dinner. It is an ignorant housekeeper who needs to be informed that
stewed chicken "goes further" than the same fowl made into any other
savory combination. Mrs. Hunt's stews were concocted after a recipe of
her own invention. Imprimis, one chicken, weight varying from two and a
half to three pounds; salt pork, a quarter of a pound; gravy abundant;
dumplings innumerable. It was all "stew," and if Jeannie's share was
but a bare drumstick, swimming in gravy and buried in boiled dough,
there was the chicken flavor through the portion.

For classic antecedent the reader is referred to the fable of the
rose-scented clay.

To leave the principal dish, which justice to Mrs. Hunt's genius would
not permit me to pass with briefer mention, there were, besides,
potatoes, served whole (mashed ones required butter and cream), turnips
and bread, and Mrs. Hunt presided over a shallow platter of pork and
beans. What was left of that dish would be warmed over to piece out
breakfast next morning. The children behaved well, and the most minute
by-law of table etiquette was observed with a strictness that imparted
an air of ceremonious restraint to the meal. If Mrs. Hunt's young
people were not in time finished ladies and gentlemen, it was not her
fault, nor was it for the lack of drilling.

"Do as I tell you; not as I do," were her orders in these matters.
Since Lucy had completed her education, the mother added, "Look at
your sister; she is never awkward." This was true. Lucy was born the
fine lady. Refinement of manner and grace of movement, an instinctive
avoidance of whatever looked common or underbred were a part of her
nature. Only the usage of years had accustomed her to her mother's
somewhat "fussy" ways.

Had she met her in company as Mrs. Anybody else, she would have yielded
her the right of way with a feeling of amazement and amiable pity that
one who meant so well should so often overdo the thing she aimed to
accomplish easily and gracefully. Following out her excellent system
of training, the worthy dame demanded as diligent and alert watching
from her butler as if she were having a dinner party. The eggless rice
pudding was brought on with a state that was absolutely ludicrous; but
the family were used to the unsubstantial show and took it as a matter
of course.

After the meal was over Mrs. Hunt withdrew to the kitchen for a short
conference with the cook and a sharp glance through the closets. It was
impossible that the abstraction of six slices of bread from the baking
of the preceding day, three thick pieces of cheese and more than half
of the cold meat she had decided would, in the form of hash, supply the
other piece of the breakfast at which the beans were to assist, should
escape her notice.

Mr. Hunt was reading the evening paper by the droplight in the
sitting-room, Lucy was busy with her shawl, and Sarah told a simple
tale in a low voice to Jeannie as she leaned upon her lap, when the
wife and mother entered, with something like a bluster. All present
looked up, and each one remarked the cloud upon her brow.

"What is the matter, mother?" said Mr. Hunt, in a tone not free from
alarm.

"I am worried! That's the whole of it. I am downright vexed with you,
Sarah, and surprised, too! What upon earth possessed you, child, to
take that beggar into my kitchen to-day? After all I have told you and
tried to learn you about these shameful impostors! I declare I was beat
out when I heard it. And to throw away provisions and clothes upon such
a brat!"

Lucy opened her great eyes at her sister, and Mr. Hunt looked
perplexedly towards his favorite, for at heart he was partial to his
second child.

"I took the poor creature to the fire, mother, because she was wet
and cold; I fed her because she was hungry; I gave her some old, warm
clothes of mine because hers were thin and soaked with rain."

"Poor little girl!" murmured Jeannie compassionately.

Sarah's hand closed instantly over the little fingers. The
simple-hearted babe understood and sympathized with her motive and act
better than did her wiser elders.

"Oh, I have no doubt she told a pitiful story, and shed enough tears
to wet her through, if the rain had not done it already. If you listen
to what these wretches say, and undertake to relieve their wants, you
will soon have not a dress to your back nor a house over your head. Why
didn't you send her to some society for the relief of the poor?"

"I did not know where to find one, ma'am."

This plain truth, respectfully uttered, confounded Mrs. Hunt for a
second.

"Mrs. James is one of the managers in a benevolent association," she
said, recovering herself. "You had ought to have given your beggar her
address."

"Even if I had known that fact, mother, the girl would have been
obliged to walk half a mile in the storm to find this one manager. What
do you suppose Mrs. James would have done for her that was not in my
power to perform?"

"She would have asked the child whereabouts she lived, and to-morrow
she would have gone to hunt her up. If she found all as she had been
told, which is not likely--these creatures don't give a right direction
once in ten times--why, she would have brought the case before the
board at their next meeting, and they would help them, if neither of
her parents was a drinking character."

"God help the poor!" ejaculated Sarah, energetically. "God help the
poor, if this is man's style of relieving his starving brother! Mother,
do you think that hunger pinches any the less when the famished being
is told that next week or next month may bring him one good meal? Will
the promise of a bushel of coal or a blanket, to be given ten days
hence, warm the limbs that are freezing to-night? Is present help for
present need, then always unsafe, imprudent, insane?"

"That all sounds very fine, my dear." Mrs. Hunt grew cool as her
daughter waxed warm. "But when you have seen as much of the world as
I have you will understand how necessary it is to be careful about
believing all that we hear. Another thing you must not forget, and
that is that we are not able to give freely, no matter how much
disposed we may be to do so. It's pretty hard for a generous person
to say 'No,' but it can't be helped. People in our circumstances must
learn this lesson." Mrs. Hunt sighed at thought of the curb put upon
her benevolent desires by bitter necessity. "And, after all, very
few--you've no idea how few--of these pretended sufferers are really in
want."

This preluded a recital of sundry barefaced impositions and successful
swindles practiced upon herself and acquaintances, to which Mr. Hunt
subjoined certain of his personal experiences, all tending to establish
the principle that in a vast majority of cases of seeming destitution
the supplicant was an accomplished rogue and the giver of alms the
victim of his own soft heart and a villain's wiles. Jeannie drank in
every syllable, until her ideal beggar quite equalled the ogre who
would have made a light supper off of Hop-o'-my-Thumb and brothers.

"You gave this match-girl no money, I hope?" said Mrs. Hunt, at length.

"I did not, madam. I had none to give her." Impelled by her
straightforward sense of honesty that would not allow her to receive
commendation for prudence she had not shown, she said, bravely: "But I
lent her my umbrella upon her promise to return it to-morrow."

"Well!"

Mrs. Hunt dropped her hands in her lap, and stared in speechless dismay
at her daughter. Even her husband felt it his duty to express his
disapprobation.

"That was very unwise, my daughter. You will never see it again."

"I think differently, father."

"You are too easily imposed upon, Sarah. There is not the least
probability that your property will be returned. Was it a good
umbrella?"

"It was the one I always use."

"Black silk, the best make, with a carved ivory handle--cost six
dollars a month ago!" gasped Mrs. Hunt. "I never heard of such a piece
of shameful imprudence in all my born days. And I shouldn't wonder if
you never once thought to ask her where she lived, that you might send
a police officer after it, if the little thief didn't bring it back to
you?"

"I did think of it." Sarah paused, then forced out the confession she
foresaw would subject her to the charge of yet more ridiculous folly.
"I did think of it, but concluded to throw the girl upon her honor, not
to suggest the theft to her by insinuating a doubt of her integrity."

Mr. Hunt was annoyed with and sorry for the culprit, yet he could not
help smiling at this high-flown generosity of confidence. "You are
certainly the most unsophisticated girl of your age I ever met with,
my daughter. I shall not mind the loss of the umbrella if it prove to
be the means of giving you a lesson in human nature. In this world,
dear, it will not do to wear your heart upon your sleeve. Never believe
a pretty story until you have had the opportunity to ascertain for
yourself whether it is true or false." And with these titbits of wordly
wisdom, the cashier picked up his paper.

"Six dollars! I declare I don't know what to say to you, Sarah!"
persisted the ruffled mother. "You cannot expect me to buy you another
umbrella this season. You must give up your walks in damp weather after
this. I can't say that I'm very sorry for that, though. I never did
fancy your traipsing off two or three miles, rain or shine, like a
sewing girl."

"Very well, madam!"

But, steadied by pride as was her voice, her heart sank at the
possibility of resigning the exercise upon which she deemed that so
much of her health, physical and mental, depended. These long, solitary
walks were one of the un-American habits that earned for Sarah Hunt the
reputation of eccentricity. They were usually taken immediately after
breakfast, and few in the neighborhood who were abroad or happened
to look out at that hour, were not familiar with the straight, proud
figure, habited in its walking dress of gray and black, stout boots,
and gray hat with black plume. It was a uniform selected by herself,
and which her mother permitted her to assume, because it "looked
genteel," and became the wearer. Especially did she enjoy these tramps
when the threatening storm, in its early stages, kept others of her
class and sex at home. The untamed spirit found a fierce pleasure in
wrestling with the wind; the hail that ushered in the snow-storm, as
it beat in her face, called up lustre to the eye and warm color to the
cheek. To a soul sickening of the glare and perfume of the artificial
life to which she was confined, the roughest and wildest aspects of
nature were a welcome change.

I remember laughing heartily, as I doubt not you did also, dear reader,
if you saw it, at a cut which appeared several years ago in the Punch
department of "Harper's Magazine." A "wee toddler," perhaps four years
old, with a most lack-a-daisical expression upon her chubby visage,
accosts her grandmother after this fashion: "I am tired of life,
grandmamma! The world is hollow, and my doll is stuffed with sawdust,
and if you please, ma'am, I should like to go to a nunnery!"

Yet, that there are natures upon which the feeling of emptiness and
longing herein burlesqued seizes in mere babyhood is sadly true. And
what wonder? From their cradles, hundreds of children, in our so-called
better classes, are fed upon husks. A superficial education, in which
all that is not showy accomplishment is so dry and uninviting that the
student has little disposition to seek further for the rich kernel,
the strong meat of knowledge, is the preparatory course to a premature
introduction into the world, to many the only phase of life they are
permitted to see, a scene where all is flash and froth, empty bubbles
of prizes, chased by men and women with empty heads, and oh, how often
empty, aching hearts! Outside principles, outside affections, outside
smiles, and most pitiable of all, outside piety! Penury of heart
and stomach at home; abroad a parade of reckless extravagance and
ostentatious profession of fine feeling and liberal sentiments!

"Woe," cried the preacher, "to them that make haste to be rich!" If he
had lived in our day, in what biting terms of reprobation and contempt
would he have declaimed against the insane ambition of those who forego
the solid comforts of judicious expenditure of a moderate income would
afford; spurn the holy quiet of domestic joys--neglect soul with heart
culture--in their haste to seem rich, when Providence has seen that
wealth is not to be desired for them! Out upon the disgusting, indecent
race and scramble! The worship of the golden calf is bad enough, but
when this bestial idolatry rises to such a pitch of fanaticism, that in
thousands of households copies in pinchbeck and plated-ware are set up
and served, the spectacle is too monstrous in its abomination! This it
is that crowds our counting-rooms with bankrupts and our state-prisons
with defaulters; that is fast turning our ball-rooms and other places
of fashionable rendezvous into vile caricatures of foreign courts,
foreign manners, and foreign vices; while the people we ape--our
chosen models and exemplars--hold their side in inextinguishable
laughter at the grave absurdity of our laborious imitation. It is no
cause for marvel that, in just retribution, there should be sent a
panic-earthquake, every three years, to shake men to their senses.

Such was the atmosphere in which Sarah Hunt had always lived. In the
code subscribed to by her mother, and the many who lived and felt and
panted and pushed as she did for social distinction, nothing was of
real, absolute value except the hard cash. Gold and silver were facts.
All things else were comparative in use and worth. The garment which,
last winter, no lady felt dressed without, was an obsolete horror this
season. The pattern of curtains and furniture that nearly drove the
fortunate purchaser wild with delight, three years back, was now only
fit for the auction room. In vain might the poor depleted husband plead
for and extol their beauties. The fiat of fashion had gone forth, and
his better half seasoned his food with lamentations, and moistened her
pillow with tears until she carried her point. We have intimated that
Sarah was a peculiar girl. Whence she derived her vigorous intellect;
her strong, original turn of thought; her deep heart, was a puzzle
to those who knew her parents. The mother was energetic, the father
sensible, but both were commonplace, and followed, like industrious
puppets, in the wake of others. They were pleased that Sarah brought
home all the prizes offered at school, and both considered that she
gained a right, by these victories, to pursue her studies at home,
provided she did not obtrude her singular views and tastes upon other
people. Mrs. Hunt sighed, frequently and loudly, in her presence, that
her genius had not been for shell, or bead, or worsted work, instead of
for reading volumes, that did not even decorate the show book-case in
the library.

"If you must have so many books, why don't you pick out them with the
tasty bindings?" she had asked her daughter more than once. "And I wish
you would paint some bright, lively pictures, that would look handsome
on the walls, instead of those queer men and women and cloudy things
you have got upstairs. I'd have 'em framed right away, and be real
proud to tell who done them."

Sarah remained proof against such hints and temptation, and, shrinking
more and more from the uncongenial whirl around her, she turned her
eager, restless spirit into her secret, inner life, where, at times,
it was flattered into content by the idealities upon which it was fed;
at others, ramped and raved, like any other chained wild thing. The
sweetest drop of pleasure she had tasted for many a day was the thrill
she experienced when the forlorn object she had rescued from the power
of the storm stood before her, decently and comfortably clad. The rash
confidence she had reposed in so suspicious a stranger was the outgoing
of a heart too noble and true in every impulse to pause, for a moment,
to speculate upon the chances of another's good or bad faith. The great
world of the confessedly poor was an unknown field to her--one she
longed to explore. Her footsteps loitered more often near the entrance
of some narrow, reeking street or alley, down which she had promised
her mother not to go, than on the spacious pave, where over-dressed
women and foppish men halted at, and hung around bewitching shop
windows. She wondered how such throngs of breathing beings contrived to
exist in those fetid, cramped quarters; how they lived, spoke, acted,
felt. The great tie of human brotherhood became daily more tense, as
she pondered these things in her heart.

On this particular day, as she sat, silent and thoughtful, at her
needle, the chit-chat of her companions less heeded than the continual
dropping of the rain without, the wail of the shivering wanderer
caused a painful vibration through every nerve. The deed was done! the
experiment was tried. She was ashamed that an event so trivial held
her eyes waking, far into the night. At least, she said to herself,
she would not be without a lesson of some kind; would learn whether
deceit and falsehood prevailed in the lowest, as well as the higher
ranks of society. If, as she still strove to believe would be the case,
the child returned the borrowed property, she would make use of her,
as the means of entering upon a new sphere of research and action.
After so complete a refutation of her theories respecting the utter
corruption of all people, who had not enough to eat and to wear, her
mother could not withhold her consent to her petition that she might
become a lay-missionary--a present relief committee to a small portion
of the suffering, toiling, ill-paid masses. She would then have a work
to do--something to call out energy and engage feeling in healthy
exercise--and soothed by the romantic vision, she fell asleep with a
smile upon her lips.

The morning dawned between breaking clouds, that soon left the sky
clear and bright. All through the day Sarah watched for her visitor
of the preceding day--watched with nervousness she could not wholly
conceal, from morn to night, for two, three days--for a week. Then she
looked no longer while at home; her question, at entering the house,
after a drive or walk, ceased to be, "Has any thing been left for me?"
So palpable was her disappointment that her father forbore to make
any allusion to her loss, and Lucy, albeit she was somewhat obtuse to
the finer points of her sister's character, good-naturedly interposed
to change the subject when her mother sought to improve the incident
to her daughter's edification and future profit. Mr. Hunt was right
in supposing that the "unsophisticated girl" had learned something.
Whether she were happier or better for the lesson thus acquired was
another thing.

Once again Sarah had an opportunity for speech with her delinquent
protege. Two months later she was passing through a by-street in a
mean neighborhood, very far up town, in her morning ramble, when her
progress was arrested, for an instant, by two boys, who ran out of an
alley across the walk. One overtook the other just in front of the
lady, and catching him by his ragged collar, threw him down.

"That's right! beat him well! I'll help!" screeched a girl, rushing out
of the court whence they had come.

Grinning with delight, she flung herself upon the prostrate form and
commenced a vigorous assault, accompanied by language alike foul and
profane.

Sarah recognized her instantly, and while she paused in mingled
amazement and anger, the child looked up and saw her. In a twinkling
she relinquished her grip of the boy's hair--jumped up and sped back
into the dirty alley, with the blind haste of guilty fear.

Yes! Mr. Hunt was a wise man, who knew the world, and trebly sage in
her generation was his spouse. If their daughter had never acknowledged
this before, she did now, in her disgust and dismay at this utter
overthrow of her dreams of the virtuous simplicity to be found in lowly
homes, where riches and fashions were things unknown.




CHAPTER III.


Summer had come to the country with its bloom and its beauty, its
harvests and its holidays. In town, its fever heat drew noisome smells
from overcharged sewers, and the black, oily paste to which the shower
that should have been refreshing had changed the dust of crowded
thoroughfares. Cleaner pavements, in the higher portions of the city,
burned through shoe-soles; glass radiated heat to polished stone, and
stone radiated, in its turn, to brick, that waited until the evening
to throw off its surplus caloric in hot, suffocating waves that made
yet more oppressive the close nights. The gay procession of fashionable
humming birds had commenced their migrations, steamboats and excursion
craft multiplied at the wharves, and the iron steed put forth all his
tremendous might to bear onward the long train of self-exiled travelers.

The Hunts, too, must leave town; Lucy must, at all events, have a
full season, and a brilliant one, if possible, for it was her second
summer, and much might depend upon it. Her mother would accompany her,
of course; and equally of course her father could not; that is, he
must return after escorting them to Saratoga, and spend the remainder
of the warm months at home. His business would not allow him to take
an extended vacation. The boys were easily disposed of, being boarded
every summer at the farmhouse of an early friend of Mr. Hunt, where
they were acceptable inmates, their clothes as well cared for as they
were at home, and their morals more diligently cultivated. The younger
girls caused that excellent manager, their mother, more perplexity.
This was not the first time she had repented her indiscretion in
allowing Sarah to "come out" before her elder sister had "gone off."
But "Sarah was so tall and so womanly in her appearance that it looked
queer, and would set people to talking if I kept her back," she was
accustomed to excuse her impolitic move to her friends. This summer she
realized, as she had not done before, the inconvenience of having two
full-fledged young ladies upon the carpet at once. Lucy's elegant and
varied wardrobe, and the certain expenses in prospect for her and her
chaperon at Spa, seaside, and en route, left a balance in hand of the
sum allotted for the season's expenditure that was startling in its
meagerness. Mrs. Hunt was a capital financier, a peerless economist,
but the exigency taxed her resources to the utmost.

One morning she arose with a lightened heart and a smoother brow.
"I've settled it!" she exclaimed to her husband, shaking him from his
matutinal doze.

The "Eureka!" of the Syracusan mathematician was not more lofty in its
exultation. Forthwith she unfolded to him her scheme. She was a native
of New Jersey, "the Jarseys" she had heard it called in her father's
house--had probably thus denominated the gallant little state herself
in her girlhood. In and around the pretty, quiet village of Shrewsbury
there were still resident scores of her relatives whose very names she
had sedulously forgotten. One alone she could not, in conscience or in
nature, dismiss to such oblivion. This was her elder and only sister,
long married to a respectable and worthy farmer, and living within a
mile of "the old place," where both sisters had drawn the first breath
of life. Twice since Mrs. Hunt had lived in the city had this kind
friend been summoned on account of the dangerous illness of the former,
and her presence and nursing had restored peace, order, and health to
the household. The earlier of these occasions was that of the second
child's birth, and in the softened mood of her convalescence Mrs. Hunt
had bestowed upon the babe her sister's name--Sarah Benson--a homely
appellative she had ofttimes regretted since. At distant and irregular
intervals, one, two, three years, Mr. or Mrs. Benson visited their
connections in "York;" but the intercourse grew more difficult and
broken as time rolled on and the distance widened between the plain
country folk and their rising relations. Then, again, death had been
busy in the farmhouse; coffin after coffin, of varying lengths, but
all short, was lifted over the threshold and laid away in the village
graveyard, until but one was left to the parents of the seven little
ones that had been given to them, and to that one nature had denied the
gifts of speech and hearing. Grief and the infirmities of approaching
old age disinclined the worthy pair to stir from home, and their
ambitious sister was too busy in building up a "set" of her own, and
paving the way for her daughters' distinction, to hide her light for
ever so short a period in so obscure a corner as her former home.

Aunt Sarah, however, could not forget her nurseling. Every few months
there arrived some simple token of affectionate remembrance to "the
child" she had not seen since she wore short frocks and pinafores. The
reception of a basket of fruit, thus despatched, was the suggestive
power to Mrs. Hunt's present plan. She had made up her mind, so she
informed her husband straightway, to write that very day--yes! that
very forenoon, to "Sister Benson," and inquire whether she would board
Sarah and Jeannie for a couple of months.

"I don't s'pose she will let me pay board for them, but she will be
pleased to have 'em as long as they like to stay. It's never been
exactly convenient for me to let any of the children go there for so
many years, and it's so fur off. But dear me! sometimes I feel real bad
about seeing so little of my only sister!"--a heavy sigh. "And there'll
be the expenses of two saved, out and out, for they won't need a great
variety of clothes in that out-of-the-way place."

"But how will the girls, Sarah and Jeannie, fancy being sent off so?"
inquired Mr. Hunt.

"Oh, as to that, it is late in the day for my children to dispute what
I say shall be done; and Sarah's jest that odd that she'll like this
notion twenty times better than going to Newport or Saratoga. I know
her! As to Jeannie, she is satisfied to be with her sister anywhere.
She is getting thin, too; she looks real peaked, and there's nothing in
creation so good for ailing children as the salt-water bath. They have
first-rate still-water bathing not a quarter of a mile from sister's.
It's jest the thing, I tell you! The wonder is it never came into my
head before."

Mr. Hunt had his sigh now. "Somehow or other he was always down in the
mouth when the family broke up for the summer," his wife frequently
complained, and his lack of sympathy now excited her just ire.

"Upon my word, Mr. H.! anybody would think that I was the poorest
wife in the world to you to see and hear you whenever I talk to you
of my plans and household affairs. You look as if you was about to be
hanged, instead of feeling obliged to me for turning, and twisting,
and contriving, and studying, day and night, how to save your money,
and spend what we must lay out to the best advantage. I can tell you
what--there's few women would make your income go as far as I do."

"I know that, my dear. The question is"--Mr. Hunt paused, cleared his
throat and strained his nerves for a mighty effort, an unprecedented
exercise of moral courage--"the question is, Betsy, whether our income
is stretched in the right direction!" Mistaking the stare of petrified
incredulity he received for fixed attention, the infatuated man went
on: "This doubt is always forced upon me when we separate in July,
some to go to one place, some to another, a broken, wandering family
for months together. I am growing old, and I love to have my children
about me; I begin to feel the want of a home. There is Johnson, in
the ---- Bank, gets five hundred less per annum than I do; yet, after
living quietly here a few years, he bought himself a snug cottage up
the river, and has his family there in their own house, everything
handsome and comfortable about them. I have been in the harness for a
long while; I expect to die in it. I don't mind work--hard work! but
it seems to me sometimes that we would all be better satisfied if we
had more to show, or to hold, for our money; if there were less of this
straining after appearances, this constant study to make both ends
meet."

"And it has come to this!" Mrs. Hunt sank into a chair and began to
cry. "This is my thanks for slaving and toiling for better than twenty
years to get you and your children a stand in the world! It isn't for
myself that I care. I can work my fingers to the bone, and live upon
a crust! I can scrape and save five dollars or so a month! I can bury
myself in the country! But your children! those dear, sweet girls, that
have had the best education money can buy, and that to-day visit such
people as the Murrays, and Sandersons, and Hoopers, and Baylors, and
meet the Castors and Crinnalls at parties--millionaires, all of 'em,
the cream of the upper crust! I don't deny that I have been ambitious
for them, and I did hope that you had something of the same spirit; and
now to think of your complaining, and moping, and groaning over the
money you say I've been and wasted; oh! oh! oh!"

"You misunderstand me, my dear; I merely questioned whether we were
acting wisely in making so much display upon so little substance. We
are not millionaires, whatever may be said of the girls' visiting
acquaintances, and I tremble sometimes to think how all this false show
may end."

Mr. Hunt's borrowed courage had not evaporated entirely.

"That's distrusting Providence, Mr. H.! It's downright sinful, and what
I shouldn't have looked for from you. I can tell you how it will end.
If both of us live ten years longer, you will see your daughters riding
in their own carriages, and leaders of the tong, and your sons among
the first gentlemen of the city. If this does not turn out true, you
needn't ever trust my word again. I've set my head upon getting Lucy
off my hands this summer, and well off; and mark my words, Mr. H., it
shall be done."

One part of her mother's prophecy was fulfilled in Sarah's manner of
receiving the proposition so nearly affecting her comfort during the
summer. Lucy wondered at the cheerful alacrity with which she consented
to be "hidden away in that horrid bore of a farmhouse," and Jeannie
cried as her elder sister "supposed that they would eat in Aunt Sarah's
kitchen, along with the servant men."

"Lucy, be quiet!" interposed her mother. "Your aunt is not a common
poor person. Mr. Benson is a man of independent means, quite rich for
the country. They live very nicely, and I have no doubt but that your
sisters will be happy there."

Sarah had drawn Jeannie to her, and was telling her of the rides and
walks they would take together, the ducks and chickens they would feed,
and the merry plunges in the salt water that were to be daily luxuries.
Ere the recital was concluded, the child was impatient for the hour of
departure, and indignant when she heard that Aunt Sarah must be heard
from before they could venture to present themselves, bag and baggage,
at her door. There was nothing feigned in Sarah's satisfaction; her
preparations were made with far more pleasure than if she were to
accompany Lucy. The seclusion that would have been slow death to the
latter was full of charms for the book-loving sister. Aunt Sarah would
be kind; the novel phases of human nature she would meet would amuse
and interest her; and, besides these, there was Jeannie to love and
pet, and river, field, and grove for studies and society. She panted
for the country and liberty from the tyrannous shackles of city customs.

Aunt Sarah wrote promptly and cordially, rejecting the offered
compensation, and begging for her nieces' company as long as they
could content themselves in so retired a place. Simple-minded as she
was, she knew enough to be sure that the belles and beaux of the
neighborhood would be very unsuitable mates for her expected visitors.
If her own girls had lived, she would have asked nothing higher for
them in this world than to have them grow up respected, beloved, and
happy, among the acquaintances and friends of their parents; but
"Sister Betsy's children had been raised so differently!" she said to
her husband. "I don't know what we will do to amuse them."

"They will find amusement--never fear," was the farmer's response. "Let
city folks alone for seeing wonders where those that have lived among
them all their lives never found anything uncommon. They are welcome
to the pony whenever they've a mind to ride, and Jim or I will find
time to drive them around a'most every day; and what with riding, and
boating, and bathing, I guess they can get rid of the time."

Before the day set for the coming of the guests there appeared upon the
stage an unexpected and welcome ally to Aunt Sarah's benevolent design
of making her nieces' sojourn agreeable. This personage we will let the
good woman herself describe.

"You needn't trouble yourself to fix up for tea, dear," she said to
Sarah, the afternoon of her arrival, as she prepared to remove her
traveling dress. "There's nobody here besides husband, and me, and
Charley, except husband's nephew, Philip Benson, from the South. He
comes North 'most every summer, and never goes back without paying us a
visit. He's been here three days now. But he is just as easy as an old
shoe, and sociable as can be, so you won't mind him."

"Uncle Benson has relatives at the South, then?" said Sarah, seeing
herself called upon to say something.

"One brother--James. He went to Georgy when he wasn't more than sixteen
years old, and has lived there ever since. He married a rich wife, I
believe"--sinking her voice--"and has made money fast, I've heard.
Philip never says a word about their wealth, but his father owns a
great plantation, for husband asked him how many acres they worked.
Then the children--there are four of them--have had fine educations,
and always spend money freely. Philip is not the sort to boast of
anything that belongs to him or his. He is a good-hearted boy. He was
here the August my last daughter--my Betsy--died, and I shall never
forget how kind and tender he was then. I can't look at him without
thinking how my Alick would have been just his age if he had lived. One
was born on the fourth and the other the fifth of the same April."

Keeping up a decent show of interest in these family details, Sarah
divested Jeannie of her sacque and dress, and substituted a cool blue
gingham and a muslin apron. Then, as the child was wild to run out of
doors, she suffered her to go, charging her not to pass the boundary of
the yard fence. Aunt Sarah was dressed in a second mourning delaine,
with a very plain cap, and while the heat obliged Sarah to lay aside
the thick and dusty garment she had worn all day, she had too much
tact to offer a strong contrast in her own attire to her unpretending
surroundings. A neat sprigged lawn, modest and inexpensive, was not
out of place among the old-fashioned furniture of her chamber, nor in
the "best room," to which they presently descended.

Aunt Sarah ushered her into the apartment with some stiffness of
ceremony. In truth, she was not herself there often, or long enough to
feel quite at ease, her property though it was. Alleging the necessity
of "seeing to the tea," she bade her niece "make herself at home,"
threw open a blind that she "might see the river," and left her.

First, Sarah looked around the room. It was large and square, and
had four windows, two in front and two in the rear. The floor was
covered by a well-saved carpet, of a pattern so antique that it was in
itself a curiosity; heavy tables of a mahogany dark with age; upright
chairs, with slippery leathern seats; a ponderous sofa, covered with
haircloth; small mirrors, with twisted frames, between the windows; two
black profiles, of life-size, over the mantel, and in the fireplace a
jar of asparagus boughs, were appointments that might have repelled
the looker-on, but for the scrupulous, shining cleanliness of every
article. It was a scene so strange to Sarah that she could not but
smile as she withdrew her eyes and turned to the landscape commanded by
her window.

The sight changed the gleam of good-humored amusement to one of more
heartfelt pleasure. Beyond the grassy walks and flower-borders of the
garden behind the house lay green meadows, sloping down to the river,
broad and smooth at this point, so placid now that it mirrored every
rope and seam of the sails resting quietly upon its surface, and the
white cottages along the banks, while the banks themselves, with their
tufts and crowns of foliage, drooping willows and lofty elms, found
a faithful yet a beautified counterpart in the stream. The reflected
blush of the crimson west upon its bosom was shot with flickers of
golden light, and faded in the distance into the blue-gray twilight.
The air seemed to grow more deliciously cool as the gazer thought of
the hot, pent-up city, and the beds of thyme and lavender added their
evening incense.

The hum of cheerful voices joined pleasantly with the soothing
influences of the hour, and, changing her position slightly, Sarah
beheld the speakers. Upon a turfy mound, at the foot of an apple tree,
sat Jeannie beside a gentleman, whose hands she watched with pleased
interest, as did also a boy of fifteen or thereabouts, who knelt on the
grass before them. Sarah divined at once that this was her aunt's deaf
and dumb son. The gentleman was apparently interpreting to Jeannie all
that passed between himself and the lad, and her gleeful laugh showed
it to be a lively dialogue. Could this be Mr. Benson's nephew, the
beardless youth Sarah had pictured him to herself from Aunt Sarah's
description? He could not have been less than six-and-twenty, had
dark hair and a close curling beard, an intelligent, handsome face,
and notwithstanding his loose summer sack and lounging attitude, one
discerned plainly traces of uncommon grace and strength in his form.

"What is he, I wonder? A gallant, professional beau, who will entangle
me in my speech, and be an inevitable appendage in the excursions?
I flattered myself I would be safe from all such drawbacks," thought
Sarah, in genuine vexation, as she obeyed her aunt's summons to tea.

Perhaps Mr. Benson read as much in her countenance, for, beyond a few
polite, very unremarkable observations, addressed to her when his hosts
made it necessary for him to do so, he paid her no visible attention
during the whole of the evening. The next day he set off, the minute
breakfast was over, with his gun and game-bag, and was gone until
sunset.

Sarah sat at her chamber window as he came up to the back door; and,
screened by the vine trained over the sash, she watched him as he
tossed his game-bag to Charley and shook hands with Jeannie, who ran up
to him with the familiarity of an old acquaintance.

"What luck?" questioned his uncle.

"Nothing to boast of, sir; yet enough to repay me for my tramp. I have
been down to the shore."

"Philip Benson! Well, you beat everything! I suppose you have walked
as much as ten miles in all!" exclaimed Aunt Sarah, with a sort of
reproachful admiration.

"I dare say, madam, and am none the worse for it to-night. I am getting
used to your sand, uncle; it used to tire me, I confess."

He disappeared into the kitchen, probably to perform the ablutions
needful after his day's walk and work, for it was several minutes
before he returned. Charley had carried the game-bag to the mound under
the tree, and was exhibiting its contents--mostly snipe and red-winged
black birds--to his little cousin.

"It is refreshing to see something in the shape of man that is neither
an effeminate dandy nor a business machine," soliloquized Sarah.
"Ten miles on foot! I would like to set that task for certain of our
Broadway exquisites!"

"She isn't a bit like a city girl!" Aunt Sarah was saying, as she
followed Philip into the outer air.

"I am glad to hear that she is likely to be a nice companion for you,
madam. I thought, from her appearance, that you would suit each other,"
was the reply, certainly respectful enough, but whose lurking accent of
dry indifference sent the blood to Sarah's face.

Hastily withdrawing from the open window, and beyond the reach of
the voices that discussed her merits, she waited to recover her
equanimity before going downstairs. In vain she chided herself for
her sudden heat. Mortified she was, and even more ashamed of herself
than angry with the cool young man who had pronounced her to be a
fitting associate for her excellent but unpolished aunt. While his
every look and intonation bespoke the educated gentleman, a being as
different in mental as in physical muscle from the fops who formed her
sister's train, had he weighed her against the refined woman of his
own class and clime, and adjudged her this place? At heart she felt
the injustice, and, stimulated by the sting, arose the resolve that
he should learn and confess his error. Not tamely or willingly would
she accept an ignoble station at the hands of one whom she inwardly
recognized as capable of a true valuation of what she esteemed worthy.

She looked haughty, not humbled, when she took her seat opposite her
critic at the tea-table. "A nice companion," she was saying over
to herself. The very phrase, borrowed, as it was, from Aunt Sarah's
vocabulary, seemed to her seasoned with contempt. She kept down fire
and scorn, however, when Mr. Benson accosted her with the tritest
of remarks upon the probable heat of the day in town as contrasted
with the invigorating breeze, with its faint, delicious sea flavor,
that rustled the grapevines and fluttered the white curtains at the
dining-room door and windows. Her answer was not exactly gracious, but
it advanced the one tempting step beyond a mere reply.

Thus was the ice broken, and for the rest of the meal, Aunt Sarah and
"Uncle Nathan"--as he requested his nieces to style him--had respite
from the duty of active entertainment, so far as conversation went. To
Sarah's surprise, Mr. Benson talked to her almost as he would have done
to another man. He spoke of notable persons, places, and books--things
of which she had heard and read--without affectation of reserve or a
shade of pretension; and to her rejoinders--brief and constrained for
awhile--then, as she forgot herself in her subject, pertinent, earnest,
salient, he gave more than courteous heed. It was the unaffected
interest of an inquirer; the entire attention of one who felt that he
received more than he gave.

They parted for the night with a bow and a smile that was with each
a mute acknowledgment of pleasure derived from the companionship of
the other; and if neither looked forward to the meeting of the morrow
as a renewal of congenial intercourse, both carried to their rest the
effects of an agreeable surprise in the events of the evening.




CHAPTER IV.


A week had passed since the arrival of the city nieces at the
farmhouse. An early tea, one of Aunt Sarah's generous and appetizing
repasts, was over; and through the garden, out at the gate that
terminated the middle walk, and across the strip of meadow-land, danced
Charley and Jeannie, followed at a more sedate pace by Philip Benson
and Sarah. Seven days' rustication had wrought a marked change in the
town-bred girl. There was a lighter bound in her step, and in her
cheek a clear, pink glow, while her eyes looked softly, yet brightly,
from out the shadow of her gypsy hat, a look of half surprise, half
confidence in her companion's face.

"One week ago," he was saying, "how firmly I made up my mind that
you and I could never be anything but strangers to each other! How I
disliked you for coming down here to interfere with my liberty and
leisure!"

"But even then you thought that I would prove a 'nice companion for
Aunt Sarah'--perceived my suitableness to her society," was the demure
reply.

"Who told you that I said so?"

"Not Aunt Sarah herself, although she considered it honest praise. I
overheard it accidentally from my window, and I can assure you properly
appreciated the compliment, which, by the way, was more in the tone
than the words."

"And you were thereby piqued to a different style of behavior. Bravo!
did ever another seed so worthless bring forth so rich a harvest? I am
glad I said it! Here is the boat."

It was a pretty little affair--Charley's property and care, and he was
already in his seat at the bow, oar in hand. Philip helped Sarah in,
placed Jeannie beside her, and stationing himself upon the middle bench
took up a second pair of oars. A noiseless dip of the four, and the
craft glided out into the stream, then up against the tide, the water
rippling into a foamy wake on either side of the sharp bow. A row was
now the regular sequel to the day's enjoyments, and to Jeannie, at
least, the climax of its pleasures.

"Pull that way, please, Mr. Benson!" she cried. "There! right through
that beautiful red water!"

A skilful sweep brought them to the spot designated, but the crimson
deserted the wave as they neared it, and left dull gray in its stead.

"It is too bad!" complained the child, pointing back to the track
of their boat, quivering amidst the fickle radiance she had thought
to reach by this change of course. "It is behind us and before
us--everywhere but where we are!"

"Is there a moral in that?" questioned Philip, smiling at Sarah.

"Perhaps so."

A fortnight before, how assured would have been her reply! How gloomy
her recognition of the analogy! Changed as was her mood, a shade fell
over her countenance. Was it of apprehension, and did Philip thus
interpret it?

"I could not love life and this fair world as I do, if I conceded this
to be universally true," he said. "That there comes, sometimes, a glory
to the present, besides which the hues of past and future fade and are
forgotten, I must and will believe. Such, it seems to me, must be the
rapture of reciprocal and acknowledged affection; the joy of reunion
after long separation from the beloved one; the bliss of reconciliation
after estrangement. Have you ever thought how much happier we would be
if we were to live only in the Now we have, and never strain our eyes
with searching for, the lights and shades of what may be before us, or
with 'mournful looking' after what is gone?"

"Yet is this possible?" asked Sarah, earnestly. "Does not the very
constitution of our natures forbid it? To me that would be a miserably
tame, dead-level existence over which Hope sheds no enchanting
illusions; like this river, as we saw it three days ago, cold and
sombre as the rain-clouds that hung above it. Oh, no! give me anything
but the chill, neutral tint of such a life as thousands are content to
lead--people who expect nothing, fear nothing--I had almost said, feel
nothing!"

"That is because every principle of your being is at war with
common-places. Tell me frankly, Miss Sarah, did you ever meet another
woman who had as much character as yourself?"

"I do not know that I understand the full bearing of your question."
She leaned on the side of the boat, her hand playing in the water, her
lips working in an irresolute timidity that was oddly at variance with
their habitual firmness.

"I am aware," she began slowly and gravely, "that I express myself too
strongly at times; that I am more abrupt in language and action than
most other girls. I have always been told so; but it is natural to me.
My character has many rough and sharp edges that need softening and
rounding"--

"In order to render you one of the pretty automatons, the well-draped,
thoroughly-oiled pieces of human clockwork that decorates men's
homes--falsely so called--in these days of gloss and humbug!"
interrupted Philip with energy. "I am sick to death of the dollish
'sweet creatures' every boarding-school turns out by the score. I
understand all the wires that work the dear puppets--flatter myself
that I can put them through their paces (excuse the slang!) in as
short a time as any other man of my age in the country. The delightful
divinities! A little music, and a little less French; a skimming of
the arts and sciences; and it is a rare thing to meet one who can tell
an art from a science ten days after she has graduated--a stock of pet
phrases--all hyperbolical, consequently unmeaning--a glib utterance
of the same; a steady devotion to balls, beau-catching, gossip, and
fancy-work; voila the modern fine lady--the stuff we are expected to
make wives of! Wives! save the mark! I never think of the possibility
of being thus ensnared without an involuntary repetition of a portion
of the Litany--'From all such, etc., etc.!'"

He plied his oars with renewed activity for a moment, then suspended
them to continue, in a softer tone: "And this is the representative
woman of your Utopia, Miss Sarah?"

"Did I intimate, much less assert, such a heresy?" responded she,
laughing. "But there is a golden mean somewhere--a union of gentleness
and energy; of domestic and literary taste; of independence and
submission. I have seen such in my day dreams. She is my ideal."

"Which you will one day embody. No reproachful looks! This is the
sincerity of a friend. I have promised never to flatter you again, and
do not violate the pledge in speaking thus. From my boyhood, I have
made human nature my study, and it would be hard to convince me that I
err in this case."

"You do! indeed you do!" exclaimed Sarah, with a look of real pain. "I
lack the first characteristic of the portrait I have drawn. I am not
gentle! I never was. I fear that I never will be!"

"Let us hear a competent witness on that head. Jeannie!" to the child,
who was busy spelling on her fingers to Charley; his nods and smiles to
her, from the far end of the boat, being more intelligible to her than
were her attempts to signal her meaning to him. "Jeannie!" repeated
Philip, as he caught her eye. "Come, and whisper in my ear which of
your sisters you love the best. Maybe I won't tell tales out of school
to the one you care least for."

"I don't care who knows!" said the saucy, but affectionate child. "Sis'
Lucy is the prettiest, and she never scolds me either; but she doesn't
make my clothes, and tell me nice stories, and help me with my lessons,
and all that, you know. She isn't my dear, best sister!" And, springing
up suddenly, she threw her arms around Sarah's neck, with a kiss that
answered the question with emphasis.

Sarah's lip trembled. The share of affection she had hitherto dared to
claim as her own had barely sufficed to keep her heart from starving
outright. She had often dreamed of fulness of love as a stay and
comfort, as solace and nutriment in a world whose wrong side was ever
turned to her. Now there dawned upon her the sweetness and beauty of
a new revelation, the bliss of loving and being beloved. Over life
floated a warm, purple tinge, like the sunset light upon the river. For
the first time within the reach of her memory her heart rested!

In the smile whose overflowing gave a tender loveliness to her
features, Philip saw the effect he had wished and anticipated, and,
motioning to Charley to let the boat drift with the current, he picked
up the guitar, that by Sarah's request was always taken along in these
excursions.

    "The dew is on the blossom,
      And the young moon on the sea;
    It is the twilight hour--
      The hour for you and me;
    The time when memory lingers
      Across life's dreary track,
    When the past floats up before us,
      And the lost comes stealing back."

It was a love song, inimitable in its purity and tenderness, with just
the touch of sadness that insured its passage to the heart. Sarah's
smile was softer, but it was a smile still, as the melody arose on the
quiet air. When the ballad was concluded, she only said, "Another,
please!"

Philip sang more than well. Without extraordinary power, his voice had
a rich and flexible quality of tone and a delicacy of expression that
never failed to fascinate. To the rapt and listening girl it seemed
as if time could bring no more delicious fate than thus to glide on
ever upon this empurpled, enchanted stream, the summer heavens above
her, and, thrilling ear and soul, the witching lullaby that rocked her
spirit to dreams of the youth she had never had, the love for which she
had longed with all the wild intensity, the fervent yearning, her deep
heart could feel.

Still they floated on with the receding tide, its low washing against
the sides of their boat filling up the pauses of the music. The burning
red and gold of the sky cooled into the mellower tints of twilight,
and the pale curve of the young moon shone with increasing lustre.
Jeannie fell asleep, her head upon her sister's lap; the dumb boy sat
motionless as stone, his dark eyes fixed on the moon; there seemed
some spell upon the little party. Boat after boat passed them, almost
noiselessly, for far into the clear evening went the tones of the
singer's voice, and the dullest hearer could not withhold the tribute
of admiring silence until beyond its reach.

And Sarah, happy in the strange, restful languor that locked her senses
to all except the blessed present, dreamed on, the music but a part of
her ideal world, this new and beautiful life. Into it stole presently
a theme of sadness, a strain of grief, a heart-cry, that, ere she was
aware, wrung her own heart-strings with anguish.

        "The long, long weary day
        Is passed in tears away,
    And still at evening I am weeping.
        When from my window's height
        I look out on the night,
        I am still weeping,
        My lone watch keeping.

        "When I, his truth to prove,
        Would trifle with my love,
    He'd say, 'For me thou wilt be weeping,
        When, at some future day,
        I shall be far away;
        Thou wilt be weeping,
        Thy lone watch keeping.'

        "Alas! if land or sea
        Had parted him from me,
    I would not these sad tears be weeping;
        But hope he'd come once more,
        And love me as before;
        And say, 'Cease weeping,
        Thy lone watch keeping.'

        "But he is dead and gone,
        Whose heart was mine alone,
    And now for him I'm sadly weeping.
        His face I ne'er shall see,
        And naught is left to me
        But bitter weeping,
        My lone watch keeping."

If ever a pierced and utterly hopeless soul poured forth its plaint
in musical measure, it was in the wondrously simple and unspeakably
plaintive air to which these words are set. There breathes in it a
spirit wail so mournfully sincere that one recognizes its sob in the
very chords of the accompaniment. The mere murmur of the melody, were
no words uttered, tells the story of grieving desolation.

Sarah did not move or speak, yet upon her enchanted ground a cloud had
fallen. She saw the high casement and its tearful gazer into the night,
a night not of music, and moonlight, and love, but chill, and wet, and
dreary. Rain dripped from eaves and trees; stone steps and pavements
caught a ghastly gleam from street lamps; save that sorrowful watcher,
there was no living creature abroad or awake. She grew cold and sick
with looking into those despairing eyes; the gloom, the loneliness, the
woe of that vigil became her own, and her heart sank swooning beneath
the burden.

As he ceased the song, Philip looked up for some comment or request.
To his surprise, she only clasped her hands in a gesture that might
have been either relief from or abandonment to woe, and bowed her head
upon them. Puzzled, yet flattered by her emotion, he refrained from
interrupting her; and, resuming his oars, lent the impetus of their
stroke to that of the tide. Nothing was said until the keel grated upon
the shelly beach opposite the farmhouse. Then, as Philip stooped to
lift the unconscious Jeannie, he imagined that he discerned the gleam
of the sinking moon upon Sarah's dripping eyelashes.

The fancy pursued him after he had gone up to his room. Seated at his
window, looking out upon the now starlit sky, he smoked more than one
cigar before his musing fit was ended. It was not the love-reverie
of a smitten boy. He believed that he had passed that stage of
sentimentalism ten years before. That Southerner of the male gender
who has not been consumed by the fires and risen as good as new from
the ashes of half a dozen never-dying passions before he is eighteen,
who has not offered the heart and hand, which as often as otherwise
constitute his chiefest earthly possessions, to some elect fair one by
the time he is one-and-twenty, is voted "slow" invulnerable. If these
susceptible sons of a fervid clime did not take to love-making as
naturally as does a duckling to the pond by the time the eggshell is
fairly off its head, they would certainly be initiated while in the
callow state by the rules and customs of society. Courtship is at first
a pastime, then an art, then when the earnestness of a real attachment
takes hold of their impassioned natures, it is the one all-absorbing,
eager pursuit of existence, until rewarded by the acquisition of its
object or thwarted by the decided refusal of the hard-hearted Dulcinea.

This state of things, this code of Cupid, every Southern girl
understands, and shapes her conduct accordingly. Sportively, yet
warily, she plays around the hook, and he is a very fortunate angler
who does not in the moment of fancied success discover that she has
carried off the bait as a trophy upon which to feed her vanity, and
left him to be the laughing-stock of the curious spectators of this
double game. She is imperturbable to meaning equivoques, receives
pretty speeches and tender glances at their current value, and not
until the suit becomes close and ardent, the attachment palpable to
every one else, and is confessed in so many words, does she allow
herself to be persuaded that her adorer is "in earnest," and really
desires to awaken a sympathetic emotion in her bosom.

Philip Benson was no wanton trifler with woman's feelings. On the
contrary, he had gained the reputation in his circle of an invincible,
indifferent looker-on of the pseudo and real combats, in Love's name,
that were continually transpiring around him. Chivalrous in tone,
gallant in action, as he was, the girls feared while they liked and
admired him. They called him critical, fastidious, cold; and mockingly
wondered why he persisted in going into company that, judging the
future by the past, was so unlikely to furnish him with the consort
he must be seeking. In reality, he was what he had avowed himself to
Sarah--a student of human nature; an amateur in this species of social
research--than which no other so frequently results in the complete
deception of the inquirer. Certainly no other is so apt to find its
culmination of devotion in a cold-blooded dissection of motive, morals,
and sentiment; an unprincipled, reckless application of trial and test
to the hearts and lives of its victims and final infidelity in all
human good, except what is concentrated in the inspector's individual,
personal self. Grown dainty amid the abundant supply of ordinary
material, he comes at length to disdain common "subjects." Still less
would he touch one already loathsome in the popular estimation, through
excess of known and actual crime. But a character fresh and noble from
the Creator's hand; a soul that dares to think and feel according to
its innate sense of right; an intellect unhackneyed, not vitiated
by worldly policy or the dogmas of the schools; a heart, tender and
delicate--yet passionate in love or abhorrence; what an opportunity is
here presented for the scalpel, the detective acid, the crucible, the
microscope! It is not in fallible mortality to resist the temptation,
and even professors of this ennobling pursuit, whose motto is, "The
proper study of mankind is Man," are, as they allow with shame and
confusion of face, themselves mortal. Of all the dignified humbugs of
the solemn farce of life, deliver me from that creature self-styled "a
student and judge of character!"

In Sarah Hunt, Philip discovered, to his surprise, a rare "specimen;"
a volume, each leaf of which revealed new matter of interest. The
attentions he had considered himself bound to pay her, in order to
avoid wounding their kind hosts, were soon rendered from a widely
different motive. It did not occur to him that he was transcending the
limits of merely friendly courtesy, as prescribed by the etiquette
of the region in which he was now a sojourner. He was by no means
deficient in appreciation of his personal gifts; rated his powers of
pleasing quite as highly as did his warmest admirers, although he had
the common sense and tact to conceal this; but he would have repelled,
as an aspersion upon his honor, the charge that he was endeavoring to
win this young girl's affections, his heart being as yet untouched.

"Was it then altogether whole?" he asked himself to-night, with a
coolness that should have been an immediate reply to the suggestion.

Side by side, he set two mental portraits, and strove deliberately,
impartially, to discern any traces of resemblance between the two. The
future Mrs. Benson was a personage that engrossed much of his thoughts,
and by long practice in the portrayal of her lineaments, he had brought
his fancy sketch very nearly to perfection. A tall, Juno-like figure,
with raven locks, and large, melting eyes, unfathomable as clear;
features of classic mould; an elastic, yet stately form; a disposition
in which amiability tempered natural impetuosity, and generous impulse
gave direction to gentle word and deed; a mind profoundly imbued with
the love of learning, and in cultivation, if not strength, equal to his
own; discretion, penetration, and docility combined in such proportions
as should render her her husband's safest counsellor, yet willing
follower; and controlling and toning the harmonious whole, a devotion
to himself only second in degree, not inferior in quality, to worship
of her Creator. This was the ideal for whose embodiment our reasonable,
modest Coelebs was patiently waiting. Answer, oh ye expectant,
incipient Griseldas! who, from your beauteous ranks, will step into the
prepared niche, and make the goddess a reality?

And how appeared the rival picture in comparison?

"No, no!" he ejaculated, tossing the remnant of his third cigar into
the garden. "I must seek further for the 'golden mean.' Intellect and
heart are here, undoubtedly. I must have beauty and grace as well.
Yet," he continued, relentingly, "there are times when she would be
quite handsome if she dressed better. It is a pity her love for the
beautiful does not enter into her choice of wearing apparel!"

In ten minutes more he was asleep, and dreamed that he stood at the
altar with his long sought ideal, when, as the last binding words were
spoken, she changed to Sarah Hunt, arrayed in a light blue lawn of last
year's fashion, that made her look as sallow as a lemon, and, to his
taste, as little to be desired for "human nature's daily food."

Poor Sarah! The visionary robe was a faithful reflection upon the
dreamer's mental retina of a certain organdie which had formed a part
of Lucy's wardrobe the previous summer, and having become antiquated
in six months' time, was altogether inadmissible in the belle's outfit
of this season.

"Yet it cost an awful sum when it was new!" reasoned Mrs. Hunt, "and
will make you a very useful dress while you are with your Aunt Sarah.
It's too good to cut up for Jeannie!"

"But the color, mother?" objected the unwilling recipient.

"Pooh! who will notice that? Besides, if you had a good complexion, you
could wear blue as well as anybody."

Sarah's stock of thin dresses was not plentiful, and, recalling this
observation, she coupled it with the fact that she was growing rosy,
and dared to equip herself in the azure garment, with what effect she
did not dream and Mr. Philip Benson did!




CHAPTER V.


On a pleasant, although rather cloudy forenoon in July, our young
pleasure-seekers carried into execution a long-talked-of expedition to
the Deal Beach, distant about ten miles from Shrewsbury.

By Aunt Sarah's arrangement, Charley and Jeannie occupied the back
seat of the light wagon, and Sarah was to sit by Philip in front,
that she "might see the country." Having accomplished this apparently
artless manoeuvre, the good woman handed up to them a portly basket of
luncheon, and two or three additional shawls, in case of rain or change
of weather, and bade the gay party "good-bye" with a satisfied glow in
heart and face. To her guileless apprehension there was no question how
affairs were progressing between her niece and her nephew-in-law; and
in sundry conferences on the subject between "husband" and herself, it
had been agreed that a matrimonial alliance would be the best thing
that could happen to either of the supposed lovers. In her simple,
pious soul, the dear old lady already blessed the Providence that had
accomplished the meeting and intercourse under her roof, while she
wondered at "the strange things that come about in this world."

Philip had been aware of her innocent attempts to facilitate his suit
for several days past, and Sarah's blush, as she hesitated before
accepting the proffered seat by the driver, showed that this move
was so transparent as to convey the alarm to her also. For a full
half mile Philip did not speak, except a word now and then to the
pair of stout grays, who were Uncle Nathan's greatest earthly boast.
He appeared thoughtful, perhaps perturbed--so Sarah's single stolen
glance at him showed--and in the eyes that looked straight onward to
the horizon, there was a hardness she had never seen there before. She
was surprised, therefore, when he broke the silence by an unimportant
observation, uttered in his usual friendly tone, and for the remainder
of the ride was gay and kind, with a show of light-heartedness that was
not surpassed by the merry children behind them.

There was hardly enough variety in the unpicturesque country bordering
their route to give the shadow of reasonableness to Aunt Sarah's
pretext in selecting her namesake's seat, and, despite her escort's
considerate attentions, Sarah had an uncomfortable ride; while her
manner evinced more of the haughty reserve of their introduction than
she had shown at any subsequent stage of their acquaintance. The grays
traveled well, and a little after noon they were detached from the
carriage, and tied in the grove of scrub-oaks skirting the beach.

While Philip was busied with them, the others continued their course
down to the shore; the children, hand-in-hand, skipping over the
sand-hills, and stopping to pick up stones; Sarah strolling slowly
after them. She had seen the ocean surf before, but never aught like
this, with its huge swells of water, a mile in length, gathering
blackness and height on their landward career; as they struck the
invisible barriers that commanded, "Thus far and no farther!"
breaking in white fury, with the leap of a baffled fiend, and a roar
like thunder, against their resistless opponent, then recoiling,
sullenly, to gather new force for another, and as useless an attack.
The beach was wide and uneven, of sand, whose whiteness would have
glared intolerably had the day been sunny, drifted into hillocks and
undulating ridges, like the waves of the sea. Here and there the hardy
heather found a foothold amid the otherwise blank sterility, the green
patches adding to, rather than lessening the wild, desolate aspect
of the tract. Fragments of timber were strewn in all directions, and
Sarah's quick eye perceived that it was not formless, chance driftwood.
There were hewn beams and shapely spars, and planks in which great iron
bolts were still fast. When Philip overtook her, she was standing by an
immense piece of solid wood, lying far beyond the reach of the highest
summer tides. One end was buried in the sand; the other, bleached by
sun and wind, and seamed with cracks, was curved like the extremity of
a bow. Her late embarrassment or hauteur was forgotten in the direct
earnestness of her appealing look.

"Am I mistaken?" she said, in a low, awed tone. "Is not this the keel
of a ship?"

"It is. There have been many wrecked on this coast."

"Here!" She glanced from the fierce, bellowing breakers to the
melancholy testimonials of their destructive might. "I have never heard
that this was esteemed a dangerous point."

"You can form an imperfect idea of what this beach is in winter,"
remarked Philip, signing to her to seat herself upon the sand and
throwing himself down beside her. "I was here once, late in the autumn,
and saw a vessel go to pieces, scarcely a stone's throw from where we
are now sitting. The sea was high, the wind blowing a perfect gale,
and this schooner, having lost one of her most important sails, was at
the mercy of the elements. She was cast upon the shore, and her crew,
watching their opportunity, sprang overboard as the waves receded and
reached firm ground in safety. Then came a monster billow, and lifting
the vessel farther upon the sand, left her careened towards the land.
It was pitiful to see the poor thing! So like life were her shudders
and groans as the cruel surf beat against her, that my heart fairly
ached. The spray at every dash rose nearly as high as her mast-head,
and a cataract of water swept over her deck. Piece by piece she broke
up, and we could only stand and look on, while the scattered portions
were thrown to our feet. I shall never forget the sight. It taught me
the truth of man's impotence and nature's strength as I had never read
it before."

"But there were no lives lost! You were spared the spectacle of that
most terrible scene in the tragedy of shipwreck?"

"Yes. But the light of many a life has been quenched in that raging
caldron. A young man, a resident of Shrewsbury, with whom I hunted last
year, described to me a catalogue of horrors which he had beheld here,
that has visited me in dreams often since. An emigrant ship was cast
away on this coast in midwinter. High above the roar of the wind and
the booming surf was heard the cry of the doomed wretches, perishing
within hail of the crowd of fellow-beings who had collected at news
of the catastrophe. The cold was intense; mast and sail and rope were
coated with ice, and the benumbed, freezing wretches were exposed every
instant to the torrents of brine that swept over them like sleet. The
agony was horrible beyond description, but it was soon over. Before the
vessel parted, the accent of mortal woe was hushed. Not a man survived
to tell the tale."

For an hour they sat thus and talked. The subject had, for Sarah, a
fearful fascination, and, led on by her absorbed attention, Philip
rehearsed to her wonders and stories of the mysterious old ocean, that
to-day stretched before them, blanched and angry, under the veil of
summer cloud, until to his auditor there were bitter wailings blent
with the surge's roar; arms, strained and bare, were tossed above the
dark, serpent-like swell of water, in unavailing supplication, and
livid, dead faces stared upon her from beneath the curling crests of
the breakers.

That day on the Deal Beach! How quietly happy was its seeming! How full
of event, emotion, fate--was its reality! Charley and Jeannie wandered
up and down the coast, filling their baskets with shells and pebbles;
chasing the retiring waves as far as they dared, and scampering back,
with shrieks of laughter, as the succeeding billow rolled rapidly after
them; building sand-houses, and digging wells to be filled by salt
water; exulting greatly when a rough coralline fragment or a jelly-fish
of unusual dimensions was thrown in their way. They all lunched
together, seated upon the heather-clumps, around Aunt Sarah's liberal
hamper.

"Sister," said Jeannie, when the edge of her seaside appetite was
somewhat blunted by her repast, "I like living here better than in New
York--don't you?"

"It is more pleasant in summer, my dear."

"But I mean that I am happier here. I wish you would write to mother
and ask her to let us live here always."

"But what would she do without her baby?" asked Philip, emphasizing the
last word.

The little lady bridled instantly.

"Cousin Philip, I do wish you would never call me a 'baby' again. I
am seven years and two weeks old. I could get along very well without
mother for awhile. Of course, I would go over sometimes and pay her
a visit and get new dresses. Shrewsbury is a nice place; I would
like to buy that pretty white house next to Uncle Nathan's, and live
there--sister and Charley and I--and you--if you would promise not to
tease me ever."

"Thank you!" said Philip, with admirable gravity, seeming not to notice
Sarah's heightened color at this proposal of co-partnership. "You are
very kind to include me in your household arrangements, and nothing
would please me better, if I could stay here. But you know, Jeannie,
my dear little cousin, that my home is far away from this quarter of
the world. I have remained here too long already." There was a touch
of feeling or nervousness in his voice. "I had a letter last night,
reminding me that I ought to have left a week ago to join a party of
friends, whom I promised to meet in New York and travel with them until
the time for our return to the South."

He did not look at Sarah, but she felt that the explanation was
intended for her--that, whether intentionally or not, he was preparing
her for a blow to heart and hope.

"I shall be obliged to leave Shrewsbury and all my friends there
to-morrow morning, Jeannie."

The child's exclamation of dismay, and Charley's quick, mute
remonstrance to his cousin, as his playfellow communicated the news to
him, gave Sarah time to rally firmness and words.

"This is unexpected intelligence," she said, calmly. "We shall miss
you. Your kindness has, directly and indirectly, been the means of
affording us much pleasure during our visit to our good aunt. It will
seem dull when you are gone."

There was a flash in Philip's eye that looked like pleasure--a mixture
of relief and surprise, as he turned to her.

"I am selfish enough to hope that you will miss me for a time, at
least. I shall not then be so soon forgotten. We have had some pleasant
days and weeks together, have we not?"

"I have enjoyed them, assuredly."

She was a little pale, Philip thought, but that might be the effect of
fatigue. Her cheek was seldom blooming, unless when flushed in animated
speech, or by brisk exercise. She spoke of his going with politeness,
that seemed scarce one remove from carelessness; and, man-like, his
pleasure at the thought that their association in the country house
had not been followed by the results Aunt Sarah wished and predicted,
gave way to a feeling of wounded vanity and vexation, that his summer's
companion could relinquish him so easily. While he repeated to himself
his congratulations that his friendly and gallant attentions had not
been misconstrued, had not awakened any inconvenient because futile
"expectations," he wondered if it were a possibility for a girl of
so much sense and feeling, such genuine appreciation of his talents
and tastes, to know him well--even intimately--without experiencing a
warmer sentiment than mere approval of an agreeable associate's mind
and manners, and Platonic liking for him on these accounts.

With the respectful familiarity of a privileged acquaintance, he
drew her hand within his arm as they arose at the conclusion of the
collation.

"We have yet two hours and more to spend here, before we set out for
home. We can have one more walk and talk together."

They took but one turn on the beach, and returning to their morning's
seat beside the half-buried keel tried to talk as they had done then.
It was hard work, even to the man of the world, the heart-free student
of human nature. Gradually the conversation languished and died away,
and for awhile both sat silent, looking out upon the sea. Then Philip's
gaze came back to his companion--stealthily at first, and, as she
remained unconscious of his scrutiny, it lingered long and searchingly
upon features, form and attire.

There were white, tight lines about her mouth, and a slight knitting of
the brow, that imparted a care-worn look to the young face it pained
him to see. Her hands were clasped upon her knee, and the fingers were
bloodless where they interlaced one another. Was she suffering? Was the
threatened parting the cause of her disquiet? If this were so, what was
his duty as a man of honor--of common humanity? And if he were forced
to admit that he held her happiness in his power, and to accept the
consequences that must ensue from his idle gallantry and her mistaken
reading of the same, was the thought really repulsive? Would it be a
total sacrifice of feeling to a sense of right? It was a repetition,
grave and careful, of the revery of that July night two weeks ago.

Sarah's hat--a broad-brimmed "flat" of brown straw--had fallen back
upon her shoulders, and the sea breeze played in her hair, raising
the short and loose strands and giving to the whole a rough, "frowzy"
look. Her plain linen collar and undersleeves showed her complexion
and hands to the worst possible advantage. Upon her cheeks, this same
unfriendly wind had bestowed a coat of tan and a few freckles, that
were all the more conspicuous from her pallor, while her fingers were
as brown as a gypsy's. Her gray poplin dress had lost most of its
original gloss, and being one of Mrs. Hunt's bargains--"a cheap thing,
but plenty good for that outlandish Shrewsbury"--already betrayed
its cotton warp by creases that would not be smoothed, and an aspect
of general limpness--a prophecy of speedy, irremediable shabbiness.
Cast loosely about her shoulders was a light shawl, green, with black
sprigs--another bargain; and beyond the skirt of her robe appeared
the toe and instep of a thick-soled gaiter, very suitable for a tramp
through damp sand, yet anything but becoming to the foot it protected.

With an impatient shake of the head, involuntary and positive, Philip
closed his final observation. And cutting off a large splinter from the
weather-beaten timber against which he leaned, set about trimming it,
wearing a serious, settled face, that said his mind was fully made up.

What had Sarah seen all this while?

Heavens, over which the films of the forenoon had thickened into dun
cloud-curtains, stretching above and enwrapping the world; a wild,
dreary expanse of troubled waters, whose horizon line was lost in the
misty blending of sea and sky, ever hurrying and heaving to moan out
their unrest upon the barren beach. In the distance was a solitary
sail; nearer to the land, a large sea-bird flew heavily against the
wind. In such mateless, weary night must her life be passed; that lone,
frail craft was not so hopelessly forlorn upon a gloomy sea, beneath
a sky that gloomed yet more darkly--as was her heart, torn suddenly
from its moorings--anchor and rudder and compass gone. Yet who could
syllable the mighty sorrow of the complaining sea? And were there words
in human language that could tell the anguish of the swelling flood
beating within her breast?

"Going away! To-morrow!" For a little space this was all the lament
she kept repeating over to herself. Pregnant with woe she knew it to
be, yet it was not until she was allowed to meditate in silence upon
the meaning of the words that she realized what had truly come upon
her. She had thrown away all her hope of earthly happiness--risked
it as madly, lost it as surely, as if she had tossed it--a tangible
pearl--into the yawning ocean. Her instinct assured her that, were it
otherwise, the tidings of Philip's intended departure, his suddenly
formed resolution to leave her, would have been conveyed to her in a
far different manner. Her keen backward glance penetrated Aunt Sarah's
simple wiles; his obvious annoyance thereat; his determination to
save himself from suspicion; his honorable fear lest she, too, should
imagine him loving, where he was only civil and kind. Yes, it was all
over! The best thing she could hope to do, the brightest prospect life
had now for her, was that her secret should remain hers alone, until
the troubled heart moaned itself into rest which knows no waking.
She was used to concealment. All her existence, excepting the sweet
delusive dream of the past three weeks, had been a stern preparation
for this trial. But she was already weary and faint--fit to lie down
and die, so intense had been the throe of this one struggle.

"How long is this to last? How long?"

The exclamation actually broke, in an inarticulate murmur, from her
lips.

"Did you speak?" inquired Philip.

"I think not. I am not sure. I did not intend to do so."

"Grant me credit for my forebearance in not obtruding my prosaic
talk upon your musings," he went on, playfully. "It was a powerful
temptation--for I remember, constantly, that this is our last
opportunity for a genuine heart and head confabulation, such as I shall
often linger for after I leave you--and sincerity! You have done me
good, Miss Sarah; taught me Faith, Hope, Charity--a blessed sisterhood!"

"May they ever attend you!"

"Amen! and thank you! And what wish shall I make in return for your
beautiful benediction?"

"Whatever you like. My desires are not many or extravagant."

"You are wrong. You have a craving heart and a craving mind. May both
be fed to the full, with food convenient for them--in measures pressed
down, shaken together and running over."

"Of what? Husks?" was Sarah's unspoken and bitter reply. She could not
thank him, as he had done her. She only bowed, and, bending forward,
took up a handful of the fine white sand that formed the shore. Slowly
sifting it through her fingers, she waited for him to speak again.

Was this careless equanimity real or feigned? The judge of character,
the harpist upon heart-chords, made the next move--not the candid,
manly friend.

"I am going to ask a favor of you--a bold one."

"Say on."

"By the time I am ready to retrace my steps southward you will be
again settled in New York. Will you think me presumptuous if I call at
your father's house to continue an acquaintance which has been, to me,
at once agreeable and profitable?"

The fingers were still, suddenly. A warm glow, like sunrise, swept over
cheek and forehead. A smile, slight but sweet, quivered upon her lips.
Drowning in the depths, she heard across the billow a hail that spoke
of hope, life, happiness.

"We will all be glad to see you," she said, with affected composure.

"Not half so glad as I shall be to come. Will you now, while you think
of it, give me your address?"

He handed her a card and a pencil. She wrote the required direction
and received in exchange for it the now smooth bit of wood, which had
afforded occupation to Philip for half an hour past. It was tendered
in mock ceremony, and accepted smilingly. Upon the gray tablet was
inscribed "Philip Benson, Deal Beach, July 27th, 1856." A playful or
thoughtless impulse caused him to extend his hand for it, after she had
read it, and to add a motto, stale as innocent in his eyes: "Pensez a
moi!"

"I shall preserve it as a souvenir of the day and place," observed
Sarah, slipping it into her pocket.

Twilight overtook them before they reached home, and the night was too
cloudy and damp for a promenade, such as they often had in the garden
walks and lane, or for the customary family gathering in the long
porch. Yet Aunt Sarah was surprised that Philip was apparently content
to spend the evening in the sitting-room, with herself and husband by
to spoil the tete-a-tete he must be longing for.

Still more confounded was she, when, after her clever strategy of
coaxing Uncle Nathan into the kitchen, that the coast might be clear,
she heard Philip's step close behind them.

"I must clean my gun to-night, aunt," he said, taking it from the
corner. "I shall not have time to do it to-morrow."

With the utmost nonchalance he began the operation, whistling softly
a lively air over his work. Aunt Sarah gave her partner a look of
bewildered despair, which he returned by a confirmatory nod, and a
smile, half comic, half regretful.

After breakfast next morning the nephew-guest said affectionate
farewells to his relatives and Jeannie; a grave, gentle adieu to Sarah,
accompanied by a momentary pressure of the hand, that may have meant
much or little, and upon the snug homestead settled a quiet that was
dreariness itself to one of its inmates.




CHAPTER VI.


Meanwhile, how had the time sped to the nominal head of the Hunt
household--the solitary, toiling father and husband? The servants were
dismissed when "the family" left town, although Mr. Hunt continued
to sleep at home. A peripatetic maid-of-all-work--what the English
denominate a charwoman--was engaged to come early every morning to
clear up the only room in the establishment that was used before the
cashier went out for his breakfast, which he procured at a restaurant
pretty far down town. The same quiet coffee-house furnished him with
dinner and an early tea, after which last refreshment he was at
liberty to pass the evening in whatever manner he liked best. There
was nothing in the city worth seeing at this season, even if he had
not lost all taste for shows and gayety. Those of his acquaintances
who were not absent with their wives and daughters were living like
himself, furniture in overalls, carpets covered, apartments closed,
with the exception, perhaps, of one bedroom, and had no place in which
to receive him if he had been in the habit of visiting, which he was
not. He was very tired, moreover, by the time night came on, and as the
heat increased and the days grew longer, his strength waned more and
more, and his spirits with it. Meekly and uncomplainingly he plodded
through his routine of bank duties, so steady and so faithful that
his fellow-workers and customers had come to regard him as a reliable
fixture, a piece of machinery, whose winding up was self-performed and
whose accuracy was infallible.

When, therefore, on a sultry August afternoon, he turned to leave his
desk at the close of business hours, grew terribly pale and dropped
upon the floor in a fit of death-like faintness, there was great
consternation, and as much wonder as if no human clock-work had ever
given out before, under a like process of exhausting demands.

Clumsily, but with the best of intentions, they brought him to his
senses, and in half an hour or so he was sufficiently recovered to be
taken home. There was a twitching of the lips that might have passed
for a sarcastic smile, as he heard the proposal to convey him to his
house; but he only gave his street and number, and lay silently back
in the carriage, supported by his friends, two of whom insisted upon
seeing him safely to his own abode.

"Is this the place? Why, it is all shut up!" exclaimed one of these
gentlemen as the driver drew up before the dusty steps.

Mrs. Hunt's orders were that the entrance to her mansion should
present the most desolate air possible during her absence. It had "an
aristocratical look in the summer time, when everybody but nobodies was
rusticating."

Again that singular contortion of the mouth, and the master (?) of the
forlorn-looking habitation prepared to descend, fumbling in his pocket
for his pass-key.

"I am obliged to you, gentlemen, for your great kindness, and
will--not--trouble--you--longer."

In trying to raise his hand to his hat for a bow, the ghastly hue again
overspread his face, and he staggered. Without further parley his two
aids laid hold of him, one on each side, and supported him into the
house, up one, two flights of linen-draped stairs, to a back bedroom.

Mrs. Hunt would have let her husband faint on the sidewalk before she
would have received company in that chamber in its present condition;
for the handsomest articles of furniture stood covered up in another
apartment, and their place was supplied by a plain bureau, wash-stand
and bed belonging to the boys' room, a story higher up. The wisdom of
this precaution was manifest in the signs of neglect and slovenliness
displayed on all sides. One could have written his name in the dust
upon the glass; there was dirt in every corner and under each chair and
table; the wash-basin was partly full of dirty suds, and the towels
and counterpane shockingly dingy.

These things were not remarked by the intruders until they had got
their charge to bed, resisted no longer by him, for he began to
comprehend his inability to help himself.

"There is no one besides ourselves on the premises, not even a
servant," one of them said apart to his associate, after a brief
absence from the room. "If you will stay with him until I come back I
will go for a doctor."

The invalid caught the last word.

"Indeed, Mr. Hammond, there is no need for you to do anything more--no
necessity for calling in a physician. I am quite comfortable now, and
shall be well by morning."

Mr. Hammond, who was a director in the bank, and sincerely honored the
honest veteran now prostrated by his devoted performance of duty, took
the hot, tremulous hand in his.

"I cannot allow you to peril your valuable health, my dear sir. Unless
you positively forbid it, I shall not only call your physician, but
drop in again myself this evening, and satisfy my mind as to whether
you require my presence through the night."

He was as good as his word; but no amount of persuasion could induce
Mr. Hunt to accept his offered watch. He would be "uneasy, unhappy,
if his young friend sacrificed his own rest so uselessly," and loath
as he was to leave him to solitude and suffering, Mr. Hammond had to
yield. At his morning visit, he found the patient more tractable. After
tedious hours of fevered wakefulness, he had endeavored to rise, only
to sink back again upon his pillow--dizzy, sick, and now thoroughly
alarmed at the state of his system. He did not combat his friend's
proposal to obtain a competent nurse, and to look in on him in person
as often as practicable; still, utterly refused to allow his wife to be
written to on the subject of his indisposition.

"I shall be better in a day or two, probably before she could reach me.
I have never had a spell of illness. It is not likely that this will
be anything of consequence. I greatly prefer that she should not be
apprised of this attack."

Mr. Hammond was resolute on his part--the more determined, when the
physician had paid another visit, and pronounced the malady a low
fever, that would, doubtless, confine the sick man to his bed for
several days, if not weeks.

"It is not just to your wife and children, Mr. Hunt, to keep them in
ignorance of so important a matter!" he urged. "They will have cause to
feel themselves aggrieved by you, and ill-treated by me, if we practice
this deception upon them."

Mr. Hunt lay quiet for some minutes.

"Perhaps you are in the right," he said. "Sarah would be wounded, I
know. I will send for her!" he concluded, with more animation. "She
will come as soon as she receives the letter."

"Of course she will!" rejoined Mr. Hammond, confidently; "you are not
able to write. Suffer me to be your amanuensis." He sat down at a
stand, and took out his pen. "Where is Mrs. Hunt at present?"

"I am not sure. Either at Saratoga or Newport."

Mr. Hammond looked surprised. "But it is necessary, sir, that we should
know with some degree of certainty, or the letter may miscarry. Perhaps
it would be well to write to both places."

"The letter! Both places!" repeated Mr. Hunt, with perplexity. "I
alluded to my daughter Sarah, sir, my second child, who is spending the
summer with her aunt in Shrewsbury, New Jersey. May I take the liberty
of asking you to write her a short note, mentioning my sickness in as
guarded terms as you can use, and requesting her to come up to the city
for a few days? She has my youngest child--a little girl--with her. If
she can be contented to remain with her aunt, Sarah had better leave
her there. She would be an additional burden to her sister if she were
here."

Whatever Mr. Hammond thought of the marked preference shown to the
daughter above the wife, he said nothing, but proceeded to indite the
desired epistle, adding, in a postscript, on his own account, that he
would take pleasure in meeting Miss Hunt at the wharf, on her arrival,
and for this purpose would be at the boat each day, until she made her
appearance in New York.

He went, accordingly, the next afternoon, although very confident that
she could not have received his letter in season to take that boat. Mr.
Hunt had proved to him and to himself the utter impossibility of her
coming, yet his eyes brightened with expectancy as his friend entered,
and faded into sadness as he reported the ill-success of his errand.

"He is evidently extremely partial to this one of his children,"
thought Mr. Hammond, as he paced the wharf on the second evening,
watching, amid noisy hack-drivers and expressmen, for the steamer. "I
have seen the girls at parties, but do not remember their names. One of
them is very pretty. I wonder if she is 'Sarah!'"

It was growing dusk as the boat touched the pier. So dim was the light,
that Mr. Hammond was obliged to station himself close beside the
gangway, and inspect the features of each lady passenger more narrowly
than politeness would, in other circumstances, have warranted. They
hurried across, men and women, tall and short, stout and slender, until
there tripped towards him the figure of a young girl, attired in a gray
dress and mantle, and carrying a small traveling bag in her hand. She
would have passed him, had he not stepped forward and spoken.

"Miss Hunt, I believe!"

In the uncertain twilight, he could see that she grew very pale.

"How is my father?"

There was no preamble of civility or diffidence; no reserve in
addressing him, a mere stranger; no trembling, preparatory queries; but
a point-blank question, in a tone whose impatient anguish moved his
kind heart; a piercing look, that would know the truth then and there!

"He is better, to-day"--and he led her out of the press of the onward
stream. "He has not been dangerously ill. We hope and believe that he
will not be."

"Is that true?" Her fingers tightened upon his arm.

"It is! I would not, for the world, deceive you in such a matter."

"I believe you! Thank Heaven! I feared the worst!" She covered her
face with her hands, and burst into tears.

Hammond beckoned a hackman, close by, and when the short-lived reaction
of overwrought feeling subsided so far as to allow Sarah to notice
surrounding objects, she was seated in the carriage, screened from
curious or impertinent gazers, and her escort was nowhere to be seen.
Several minutes elapsed before he again showed himself at the window.

"I must trouble you for your checks, Miss Hunt, in order to get your
baggage."

Already ashamed of her emotion, she obeyed his demand without speaking.

"You have given me but one," he said, turning it over in his hand.

"That is all, sir."

"Indeed! You are a model traveler! I thought no young lady, in these
days, ever stirred from home without half a dozen trunks." To himself
he added, "A sensible girl! An exception to most of her sex, in one
thing, at any rate!"

Sarah sat well back into her corner, as they drove up lighted Broadway,
and was almost rudely taciturn, while her companion related the
particulars of her father's seizure and subsequent confinement to his
room. Yet, that she listened with intense interest, the narrator knew
by her irregular breathing and immovable attitude. As they neared their
destination, this fixedness of attention and posture was exchanged for
an eager restlessness. She leaned forward to look out of the window,
and when they turned into the last street, quick as was Mr. Hammond's
motion to unfasten the door of the vehicle, her hand was first upon
the lock. It was cold as ice, and trembled so much as to be powerless.
Gently removing it, he undid the catch, and assisted her to alight.

The hired nurse answered their ring, and while Sarah brushed past
her, and flew up the stairway, Mr. Hammond detained the woman to make
inquiries and issue directions.

"It is all very dreary-like, sir," she complained. "Everything is
packed away and locked up. There's no getting at a lump of sugar
without a hunt for the key, and all he's seemed to care for this
blessed day, was that his daughter should be made comfortable. He sent
me out this afternoon to buy biscuits, and sardines, and peaches for
her tea, and told me where I'd find silver and china. It is not at all
the thing for him to be worrying at such a rate. He'll be worse for it
to-morrow, and so I've told him, Mr. Hammond."

"Perhaps not, Mrs. Kerr. His daughter's coming will cheer him and quiet
him, too, I doubt not. I will not go up now. Please present my regards
to Mr. Hunt, and say that I will call to-morrow."

He purposely deferred his visit until the afternoon, supposing that
Miss Hunt might object to his early and unceremonious appearance in
the realms now under her control; nor when he went did he ascend at
once to the sick-chamber, as was his custom before the transfer of its
superintendence. Sending up his name by the nurse, he awaited a formal
invitation, among the shrouded sofas and chairs of the sitting-room.

"You'll please to walk up, sir!" was the message he received; and the
woman subjoined, confidentially, "Things is brighter to-day, sir."

They certainly were. With wonderfully little noise and confusion,
Sarah, assisted by the nurse, had wrought an utter change in the
desolate apartment. With the exception of the bureau, which had
been drawn out of sight into the adjoining dressing-room, and the
bedstead, the common, defaced furniture had disappeared, and its place
was supplied by more comfortable and elegant articles. The windows
were shaded, without giving an aspect of gloom to the chamber; the
bed-coverings were clean and fresh; and the sick man, supported by
larger and plumper pillows than those among which he had tossed for
many a weary night, greeted his visitor with a cordial smile and
outstretched hand.

"I thank you for your kind care of my daughter last evening, sir.
Sarah, my dear, this is my friend, Mr. Hammond, to whose goodness I am
so much indebted."

"The debt is mine no less," was the frank reply, as she shook hands
with her new acquaintance. "We can never thank you sufficiently, Mr.
Hammond, for all you have done for us, in taking care of him."

"A genuine woman! a dutiful, affectionate daughter!" was now Hammond's
comment, as he disclaimed all right to her gratitude. "None of your
sentimental, affected absurdities, with nothing in either head or
heart!"

This impression was confirmed by daily observation; for politeness
first, then inclination, induced him to continue his "professional"
calls, as Sarah styled them. He seemed to divide with her the
responsibility of her position. Its duties were onerous; but for this
she did not care. She was strong and active, and love made labor
light--even welcome to her. A competent cook was inducted into office
below stairs, and household matters went forward with system and
despatch. The eye of the mistress, pro tem., was over all; her hand
ever ready to lift her share of the load, yet her attendance at her
father's bedside appeared unremitting. His disease, without being
violent, was distressing and wearing, destroying sleep and appetite,
and preying constantly upon the nerves. To soothe these, Sarah read and
talked cheerfully, and often, at his request, sang old-time ballads and
childish lullabys to court diversion and slumber.

Occasionally Lewis Hammond paused without the door until the strain was
concluded, drinking in the notes with more pleasure than he was wont to
feel in listening to the bravuras and startling, astonishing cadenzas
that were warbled in his ears by the amateur cantatrices of the "best
circles;" then, when the sounds from within ceased, he delayed his
entrance some moments longer, lest the songstress should suspect his
eavesdropping. He ceased to speculate upon the reasons of Mrs. Hunt's
protracted absence at a time when no true-hearted wife could, from
choice, remain away from her rightful post. When, at the expiration
of a fortnight from the day of the attack, the physician declared his
patient feebly, but surely convalescent, his young friend had decided,
to his entire satisfaction, that things were best as they were. Mr.
Hunt had made a most judicious selection from the female portion of his
family, and what need of more nurses when this one was so efficient
and willing? He caught himself hoping that the fussy dame he had met
in society would not abridge her summer's recreation on account of
an ailing husband. He had designed going to Saratoga himself, for ten
days or two weeks; but he was very well. It was difficult to get away
from business, and this affair of Mr. Hunt's enlisted his sympathies
so deeply, that he could not resolve upon leaving him. If he had never
before enjoyed the bliss that flows from a disinterested action, he
tasted it now.

Mrs. Hunt was not kept in total ignorance of what was transpiring at
home. Sarah had written, cautiously and hopefully, of her father's
sickness and her recall; repeating Mr. Hunt's wish that his consort
should not hurry back through mistaken solicitude for his health and
comfort; and they were taken at their word. A week elapsed before an
answer arrived--a lengthy missive, that had cost the writer more pains
and time than the preparation for her annual "crush" generally did. She
was an indifferent penman, and sadly out of practice; but there was
much to be said, and "Lucy, of course, circumstanced as she was, could
not spare time to be her scribe."

This significant phrase quickened Sarah's inborn curiosity; but there
was nothing for the next three pages that fed or quieted it. They were
filled with minute directions about housewifery--economical details,
that would have served as capital illustrations of "Poor Richard's"
maxims; injunctions, warnings, and receipts sufficient in quantity to
last a young, frugally-disposed housekeeper for the remainder of her
natural existence. It was a trial to this exemplary wife and mother,
she confessed, to absent herself so long from her home duties; but
circumstances had compelled her to stay at Saratoga. Of their nature,
Sarah had already been informed in her sister's last letter.

"Which I cannot have received, then"--Sarah interrupted herself to say,
as she read to her father: "I have not heard from Lucy in four weeks. I
have thought hard of her for not writing."

 "But," concluded Mrs. Hunt, "matters looks well just now, and I know
 your father will aggree, when he heers all about our season's work,
 that our labor and Money has been a good investment. Take care of the
 keys yourself, Sarah. Be pruedent, keep a sharp Lookout on the cook,
 and don't negleck your poor father.

     "Your Affectionate mother,

     "E. Hunt."

 "P. S. Your kitchen Girl must have a Great deel of spair Time. Set her
 to work cleening the House, for you may expeckt us home in two weeks,
 or maybe Less.

     "E. H."

Lucy had slipped a note in the same envelope--a thin, satiny sheet,
hardly larger than the little hand that had moved over its perfumed
page. Her chirography was very running, very light, very ladylike, and,
we need not say, very italical.

 "Mamma tells me, Sarah dear, that she has given you a hint of how
 matters are progressing between your humble servant and our particular
 friend, of whom I wrote in my last. The poor, dear woman flatters
 herself that it is all her work; but somebody else may have his
 own opinion, and I certainly have mine. I have had to caution her
 repeatedly, to prevent her from showing her delight too plainly to my
 'Goldfinch,' as Vic. and I have dubbed him. Don't be in a hurry with
 your congratulations, ma chere. 'There's many a slip 'twixt the cup
 and the lip;' and although the season is so near over, I may yet see
 some one whom I like better than His Highness. Vic. has a beau, too--a
 rich widower, less fascinating than my devoted; but a very agreeable
 man, without encumbrance, and very much smitten. So we pair off nicely
 in our rides and promenades, and, entre nous, are quite the talk. You
 are a good little thing to nurse papa so sweetly--a great deal better
 than I am. I told my knight of this proof of your excellence the other
 day, and he said it was only what might have been expected from my
 sister! Don't you feel flattered? Poor fellow! Love is blind, you know.

 "Love to papa. I am sorry he has been so unwell. I do not imagine
 that I shall have time to write again before we leave this paradise.
 We will telegraph you when to expect us. Perhaps I may have an escort
 home--some one who would like to have a private conference with my
 respected father. Nous verrons!

     "Lovingly,

     "Lucie."

Mr. Hunt twisted himself uneasily in his arm-chair as his daughter,
by his desire, reluctantly read aloud the double letter. A shade of
dissatisfaction and shame clouded his countenance when she finished,
and he sighed heavily.

"I am glad they are still enjoying themselves," said Sarah, forcing a
smile. "Lucy has secured a captive too, it appears--one whom she is
likely to bring home at her chariot wheels."

"In my day daughters were in the habit of consulting their fathers
before giving decided encouragement to any admirers, strangers
especially," said Mr. Hunt, with displeasure. "In these times there are
no parents! There is the 'old man' and 'the Governor,' who makes the
money his children honor him by wasting, and the 'poor, dear woman,'
who plays propriety in the belle's flirtations, and helps, or hinders,
in snaring some booby 'Goldfinch.' It is a lying, cheating, hollow
world! I have been sick of it for twenty years!"

"Father! my dear father," exclaimed Sarah, kneeling beside him, and
winding her arms about his neck. "You misjudge your children, and their
love for you!"

"I believe in you, child! I cannot understand how you have contrived
to grow up so unlike your sister and your"--The recollection of the
respect his daughter owed her mother, checked the word.

"You do not deal fairly with Lucy's character, father. She has one of
the kindest hearts and most amiable dispositions in the world. I wish
I had caused you as little anxiety as she has. Remember her obedience
and my wilfulness; her gentleness and my obstinacy, and blush at your
verdict, Sir Judge!"

She seated herself upon his foot-cushion and rested her chin upon his
knee, looking archly up in his face. She was surprised and troubled at
this degree of acrimony in one whose habitual manner was so placid, and
his judgment so mild; but, for his sake, she was resolute not to show
her feeling. He laid his hand caressingly upon her shoulder, and sank
into a revery, profound, and seemingly not pleasant.

Sarah took advantage of his abstraction to remove the wrapper of a
newspaper received by the same mail that had brought her letters.
The operation was carefully performed, so as not to invite notice,
and the envelope laid away in her work-box. She knew well who had
traced the clear, bold superscription, and what initials composed the
mysterious cipher in one corner of the cover; nor was this the only
token of recollection she had from this source. The article marked in
the number of the literary journal he had selected as the medium of
correspondence, was an exquisite little poem from an author whose works
Philip had read to her in the vine-covered porch at Shrewsbury. Slowly,
longingly she perused it; gathering sweetness from every word, and
fancying how his intonations would bring out beauties she could not of
herself discover. Then she took out the wrapper again, and studied the
postmark. On the former papers he had sent the stamp was illegible, but
this was easily deciphered--"Albany."

"So near! He is returning homewards!" was the glad reflection that
flooded her face with joy.

"Sarah!" said her father, abruptly. "Do you ever think of marriage?"

"Sir?" stammered the girl, confused beyond measure.

"I mean, have you imbibed your sister's ideas on this subject? the
notions of ninety-nine hundredths of girls in your walk of life.
Do you intend to seek a husband, boldly and unblushingly, in all
public places? to degrade yourself by practising the arts they
understand so well to catch an 'eligible' partner, who may repay your
insincerity and mercenary views by insult and infidelity--at best by
indifference! Child! you do not know the risk match-making mothers
and husband-hunting daughters run; the terrible retribution that
may be--that often is in store for such! I had rather see you and
your sister dead, than the victims of that most hateful of heartless
shows--a fashionable marriage! Poor Lucy! poor Lucy!"

"I hope you are distressing yourself without reason, sir. Mother is
not the person to surrender her child to one whose character and
respectability are not indisputable. Nor is Lucy sentimental. I do not
fear her suffering very acutely from any cause."

"I grant that. You would be more to be pitied as an unloved or unloving
wife, than she. I tremble for you sometimes, when I think of this
chance. My daughter, when you marry, look beyond the outside show. Seek
for moral worth and a true heart, instead of dollars and cents!"

"I will! I promise!" said Sarah, her amazement at his earnestness and
choice of topics combining to shake her voice and constrain her smile.
"But there is time enough for that, father dear. When the man of heart
and worth sues for my poor hand, I will refer him to you, and abide
entirely by your decision."

"Mr. Hammond is downstairs," said the servant at the door. And Sarah,
gathering up her papers, escaped from the room before he entered.




CHAPTER VII.


Mr. Hunt was able to resume his place in the bank several days before
his wife returned. Uncle Nathan had brought Jeannie home as soon as her
father could leave his room, and the boys had likewise been written
for; so that the family reunion was apparently near at hand.

Weak as he was, Mr. Hunt met his spouse and daughter at the depot, and
the noise of their entrance in the lower hall first apprised Sarah of
their arrival. To the bound of pleasurable excitement her heart gave at
the certainty that they had come, succeeded a sigh at the termination
of the free, yet busy life she had led of late--the probability that
she would be compelled to resume her old habits of feeling and action.
Driving back the selfish regret, she ran down to welcome the travellers.

"How well you're looking, Sarah!" said Mrs. Hunt, after kissing her. "I
declare, if you was to arrange your hair different, and study dress a
bit, you would come near being right down handsome."

"'Handsome is as handsome does!'" quoted Mr. Hunt, stoutly. "According
to that rule, she is a beauty."

"Thank you, sir!" said Sarah, bowing low. And she tried to forget,
in her sister's affectionate greeting, the chill and heart-sickness
produced by her mother's business-like manner and compliment.

"Having disposed of one daughter, she means to work the other into
merchantable shape!" was her cynical deduction from the dubious praise
bestowed upon herself.

Mrs. Hunt pursued her way up the steps, examining and remarking upon
everything she saw.

"Them stair-rods ain't so clean as they had ought to be, Sarah. I'm
afraid your girls are careless, or shirks. When did you uncover the
carpet?"

"Some time ago, mother, while father was sick. There were gentlemen
calling constantly, and the cover looked shabby, I thought."

"It couldn't be helped, I s'pose; but the carpet is more worn than I
expected to see it. With the heavy expenses that will be crowding on
us this fall and winter, we can't afford to get any new things for the
house."

Lucy, who preceded her sister, glanced back and laughed meaningly. And
Sarah was very glad that her father had not overheard the observation,
which confirmed her belief that the beauty's hand was disposed of
without the form of consultation with her natural and legal guardian.

Dinner was announced by the time the traveling habiliments and dust
were removed. Sarah had spared no pains to provide a bountiful and
tasteful repast, at the risk of incurring her mother's reproof for her
extravagant proclivities. But the dame was in high good-humor, and the
youthful purveyor received but a single sentence of deprecation.

"I hope you have not been living as high as this all the time, Sarah!"

"No, ma'am. Father's wants and mine were very few. I foresaw that you
would need substantial refreshment after your journey."

"You was very thoughtful. We both have good appetites, I guess. I know
that I have."

"Mine will speak for itself," said Lucy.

"You have no idea how that girl has enjoyed everything since she has
been away," observed Mrs. Hunt to her husband. "There was Vic. West,
who took it into her head that she ought to look die-away and peaking,
and refuse food, when her beau was by; but Lu., she just went right
along and behaved natural, and I'm sure that somebody thought more of
her for it."

Mr. Hunt's face darkened for a moment; but he could not find fault with
his eldest child on her first evening at home.

"So you have been quite a belle, Lucy," he said, pleasantly.

"Better than that, Mr. H.!" Mrs. Hunt checked her triumphant
announcement as the butler re-entered the room. "I shouldn't wonder,"
she resumed, rather mysteriously, "if Lucy was disposed to settle down
into a steady, sedate matron after her holiday."

"Don't deceive yourself with that hope!" laughed Lucy.

She was evidently pleased by these not over-delicate allusions to her
love-affairs, and, like her mother, extremely complacent over the
result of her recent campaign. Sarah felt that, were she in her place,
she would shrink from this open jesting upon a sacred subject; still
she had not expected that her sister would behave differently. Lucy's
nature was gentle without being fine; affectionate but shallow. She
would have had no difficulty in attaching herself to any man whom her
friends recommended as "a good match," provided he were pleasing in
exterior, and her most devoted servitor.

The sisters had no opportunity of private converse until they adjourned
to the parlor for the evening. Lucy was very beautiful in a blue silk,
whose low corsage and short sleeves revealed her superb shoulders and
rounded arms. Her complexion was a rich carmine, deepening or softening
with every motion--one would have said, with every breath. Her blue
eyes fairly danced in a sort of subdued glee, very charming and very
becoming but altogether unlike the tender, dewy light of "Love's first
young dream."

"How lovely you have grown, sister!" said Sarah, earnestly. "Oh, Lucy,
I don't believe you rightly value the gift of beauty--as I would do if
it were mine!"

"Nonsense!" The dimples, that made her smile so bewitching, broke her
blushes into rosy waves as the conscious fair one turned her face
towards the mirror. "I am pleased to hear that I am passable to-night.
We may have visitors. A friend of ours has expressed a great desire to
see me in my home--'in the bosom of my family.' Ahem!"

She smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle in her bodice, an excuse for
tarrying longer before the glass.

"He came to town with you, then?" ventured Sarah.

Lucy nodded.

"And promised to call this evening?"

"Right again, my dear!"

She was graver now, for she had conceived the happy notion of
appropriating to her own use a cluster of white roses and buds she
discovered in the vase on the marble slab under the mirror. If anything
could have enhanced the elegance of her figure and toilet, it was
the coiffure she immediately set about arranging. The flowers were a
present to Sarah from Lewis Hammond; but she thought little of him or
of them, as Lucy laid them first on one, then on the other side of
head, to try the effect.

"And you really care for him, sister?" came forth in such a timid,
anxious tone, that Lucy burst into a fit of laughter.

"You dear little modest piece of romantic simplicity! One would suppose
that you were popping the question yourself, from your behavior. Care
for him? Why shouldn't I? I need not say 'yes' unless I do, need I?"

"But you take it so coolly! A betrothal is, to me, such a solemn thing."

"And to most other girls, perhaps. (There! if I only had a hair-pin.
Don't rob yourself! thank you! Isn't that an improvement?) As I was
saying, why should I pretend to be pensive and doleful, when I am as
merry as a lark? or lovesick, when I have never lost a meal or an
hour's sleep from the commencement of the courtship until now? That
is not my style, Sarah. I am very practical in my views and feelings.
Not that I don't play talking sentiment in our genuine lovescenes, and
I really like unbounded devotion on the other side. It is decidedly
pleasant to be adored. I was surprised to find how I enjoyed it."

"Oh, sister! sister!" Sarah leaned her forehead on the mantel, repelled
and well-nigh disgusted by this heartless trifling--this avowed
counterfeit--so abhorrent to her feelings. But Lucy was as much in
earnest as she could be on such a theme. She went on, unheeding her
sister's ejaculation.

"You must understand, of course, that we are not positively engaged.
I gave him--Goldfinch--a good scolding for violating the rules of
etiquette by addressing me while I was away from home; but it was just
like him. He is as impulsive as he can live. To punish him I refused to
answer him until after our return to New York, and his interview with
father. He would have written to him on the spot, had I not forbidden
him. He behaved so beautifully, that I consented to his taking charge
of us to the city, and I suppose the rest must follow in good time. How
melancholy your face is! Are you very much afflicted at the thought of
losing me? Why, Sarah! my dear child, are those tears in your eyes? If
she isn't crying in good earnest!"

And Lucy's musical laugh rolled through the rooms in her enjoyment
of the joke. What else could it be to her, elate with her success in
achieving the chief end of woman--the capture of a rich and handsome,
in every respect an unexceptionable lover?

"Hist!" she said, raising her finger. "He has come! Your eyes are red!
Run, and make yourself presentable!"

The door opening from the hall into the front parlor, swung on its
hinges as Sarah gained the comparative obscurity of the third and rear
room. A strong impulse of interest or curiosity there arrested her
flight to enable her to get a glimpse of her destined brother-in-law.
Lucy had not mentioned his proper name, since her earliest letter from
Newport had eulogized a certain George Finch, a Bostonian, wealthy, and
attentive to herself. Sarah's backward glance fell upon the visitor as
he met his queenly bride-elect directly under the blazing chandelier.

It was Philip Benson!

Chained to the spot by weakness or horror, the looker-on stood
motionless, while the suitor raised the lily fingers he held to his
lips, and then led Lucy to a seat. His voice broke the spell. As the
familiar cadences smote her ear, the sharp pain that ran through every
fiber of her frame awakened Sarah from her stupor.

How she gained her room she never knew; but she had sense enough left
to direct her flight to this refuge--and, when within, to lock the
door. Then she threw up her arms with a piteous, wailing cry, and fell
across the bed, dead for the time to further woe.

Alone and painfully she struggled back to consciousness. Sitting
upright, she stared wonderingly around her, unable to recollect what
had stricken her down. The chamber was imperfectly lighted by the rays
of the street lamp opposite, and with the recognition of objects within
its narrow limits there crept back to her all that had preceded her
retreat thither. For the next hour she sat still--her head bowed upon
her knees, amid the wrecks of her dream world.

Dreary and loveless as had been most of her previous life, she had
never endured anything like this, unless one miserable hour upon the
Deal Beach, when Philip broke the tidings of his intended departure,
were a slight foretaste of the agony, the utter despair, that claimed
her now for its victim. Since then, she had been hopeful. His promise
of a visit, the tokens of remembrance he had transmitted to her
every week, had kept alive memory and expectation, and this was his
coming! this the occasion she had pictured so fondly, painted with
the brightest hues Love could borrow from imagination! She had heard
again the voice that had haunted her dreams, from their parting until
now--heard it in deeper, softer tones than it had ever taken in speech
with her; heart-music which told that his seekings and yearnings for
the one and only beloved were over. And was not her quest of years
ended likewise? Truly, there are two senses in which every search,
every combat may be said to be closed; one when the victor grasps his
prize, or waves aloft his sword in the moment of triumph; the other,
when, bleeding, maimed, or dying, the vanquished sinks to the earth
without power to rise!

A tap at her door startled Sarah. She did not stir until it was
repeated, and her father called her name. A stream of light from the
hall fell upon her face as she admitted him.

"Daughter, what ails you?" was his exclamation.

"I am not very well, father."

"I should think not, indeed! Come in here and lie down!" He led her to
the bed, and, lighting the gas in the chamber, came back to her and
felt her pulse.

She knew what was the direction of his fears; but to correct his
misapprehension was to subject herself to further questioning.
Passively she received the pressure of his hand upon her head, the
gentle stroking of the disordered hair; but when he stooped to kiss
her, he felt that she trembled.

"Dear child! I shall never forgive myself if you have taken the fever
from me!"

"I do not fear that, father. My head aches, and I am very tired. I have
been so busy all day, you know."

"Yes, and for many other days. You are, without doubt, overworked. I
hope this may prove to be all the matter with you. A night's rest may
quite cure you."

"Yes sir," she answered, chokingly. "You will excuse me to ----,
downstairs?"

"Certainly. Would you like to have your mother come up to you?"

"Oh, no, sir! Please tell her there is no need of it. I shall be better
to-morrow."

"Your sister"--and he looked more serious, instead of smiling--"has a
visitor. Her friend is an acquaintance of yours, also, it appears--the
Mr. Benson whom you met at your aunt's in July."

"Yes, sir. I know it."

"I understood you to say that Lucy had never said positively who her
lover was; but this was not the name you told me of, as the person whom
you imagined him to be."

"I was misled for a time myself, sir," replied the poor girl, pressing
her temples between her palms.

"I see that I am tiring you. Forgive me! but it is so natural to
consult you in everything. I must trouble you with some questions,
which it is important should be answered to-night, before this
gentleman and myself have any conversation. Is Mr. Benson a man
whom you consider worthy of trust? Your mother represents him to be
enormously wealthy--a reputation I had concluded he possessed, from
Lucy's pet name for him. It is well that your sister has a prospect
of marrying advantageously in this respect, for she would never be
happy in an humble sphere; but antiquated people like myself regard
other things as of greater consequence in concluding a bargain for a
lifetime. Is your opinion of Mr. Benson favorable as to disposition,
principles, and conduct?"

Sarah's head rested on the foot-board of her couch, in weariness or
pain, as she rejoined: "I saw and heard nothing of him, during our
intercourse in the country, that was not creditable. His uncle and aunt
are very partial to him, and speak of his character in high terms.
Their testimony ought to have weight with you, for they have known him
from his boyhood up."

"It ought and does. I am relieved to hear all this! very much pleased!"
said Mr. Hunt, enthusiastically. "I have all confidence in Nathan
Benson's judgment and integrity. I hope his nephew is as sterling a
man. Thus far," he continued, playfully, "I have learned but one thing
to his discredit, and that is, having seen this one of my daughters, he
could afterwards fall in love with the other."

"I am not beautiful and good like Lucy, father."

"Very dear and lovely in my eyes, my child! Again forgive me for having
worried your poor head with my inquiries. I was unwilling to decide
a matter where Lucy's happiness was involved, without obtaining your
evidence in the case. A last good-night! and God bless you, my dearest,
best daughter!"

Sarah held up her face for his kiss without attempting to speak. This
burning ordeal, the harder to endure because unexpected, was over. She
was as weak as a child with conflicting passions when she arose and
endeavored to undress. After stooping several times to regain breath
and strength, she was at last ready to creep into bed, there to lie
until morning broke, sleepless and suffering.

Her sharpened senses could discern her father's and mother's voices
in the sitting-room, in confidential talk--interrupted, by-and-by, by
Lucy's pure, mellow tones, apparently conveying some message to the
former. Its import was easily surmised, for his step was then heard in
the hall and on the stairs, until he reached the parlor where Philip
awaited him. Their conference did not occupy more than twenty minutes,
which time Lucy spent with her mother--how gayly, Sarah could judge by
the laugh that, again and again, reached her room. Mr. Hunt returned,
spoke a few sentences in his calm, grave way, and the closing door was
followed by a flutter of silk and fall of gliding footsteps, as Lucy
went down to her now formally and fully betrothed husband.

"Husband!" Yes! it was even so! Henceforth the lives of the pair
were to be as one in interest, in aims, in affection. Ere long, they
would have no separate outward existence in the eyes of the world.
Was his chosen love, then, in a truer and higher sense, his other
self--the being sought so long and carefully? The pretty fiancee
would have stretched her cerulean orbs in amazed wonder at the
ridiculous doubt, and asked, in her matter-of-fact way, how the thing
could have happened, if it had not been intended? Philip's indignant
affirmative would have gained fervor from his exultant consciousness of
possession--so novel and sweet. But one above stairs, taught sagacity
by the depth of her grief, looked further into the future than did
they, and read there a different reply.

She heard the clang of the front door as it shut after the young
lover, and in the still midnight, the echoes, faint and fainter, of
his retreating footsteps--the same free, light tread she used to
hearken for in porch and hall of that riverside farm house; and as the
remembrance came over her she turned her face to the wall, murmuring
passionately: "Oh! if I could never, never see him again!"

This feeling, whether born of cowardice or desperation, was the ruling
one, when her mother looked in upon her before breakfast, and expressed
her concern at finding her still in bed.

"I am not well enough to get up, mother," Sarah said sincerely, and
Mrs. Hunt, reading in the parched lips and bloodshot eyes proof of the
justice of the fears her husband had expressed to her the preceding
evening, resolved that the doctor should see her "before she was two
hours older."

In vain Sarah entreated that this should not be done, and prophesied
her recovery without his assistance. For once her parents were a unit
in sentiment and action, and the physician was summoned to his second
patient.

"All febrile symptoms were to some extent contagious," he affirmed;
"and while Mr. Hunt's malady was not generally classed with such,
it was very possible that his daughter had contracted an analogous
affection, in her constant attendance upon him."

This decision Sarah dared not overthrow, much as she wished to do so,
when she saw how it afflicted her father.

Undaunted by any fears of infection, Lucy repaired to her sister's
chamber when she had despatched her breakfast.

"Isn't it too provoking that you should be sick just at this time?"
she began, perching herself, school-girl fashion on the foot of the
bed. "I really admired your staying upstairs last night; but I did not
dream that you really were not well. I promise you that I made capital
of your absence. I told Philip (how odd it sounds, doesn't it?) that
you ran away when he rang the bell, because you had made a fright of
yourself by crying over the prospect of my leaving you, and that I had
no doubt that you had grieved yourself into a headache. He wanted to
know forthwith if you objected to my marrying him; but I said 'No';
that you were charmed with the match, and preferred him to any other
admirer I had ever had; but that we--you and I--were so devoted to one
another, that it was acute agony to us to think of parting. About ten
o'clock he asked to see father, and they soon settled affairs. When I
went down again, he tried a little ring on my finger that he always
wears, and it fitted nicely. So I knew what it meant when he put it
back upon his own hand, and that with that for a measure he could
not go wrong in getting the engagement ring. I do hope it will be a
diamond. Vic. West declares that she would not accept anything else.
I considered for a while whether I couldn't give him a delicate hint
on the subject, but I did not see how I could manage it. And don't you
think, while I was studying about this, he fancied I was sober over
'the irrevocable step I had taken,' and became miserable and eloquent
at the suspicion! I wish I could remember all he said! It was more in
your line than mine! But he is a good, sensible fellow, with all his
romantic notions. He has a handsome fortune, independent of his father,
left him by his grandfather, and we are to live in Georgia part of the
year only, and travel every summer. Mother says his account of his
prospects and so forth to father was very satisfactory, but she has
not got at all the particulars yet. Father is so worried about your
sickness that he cannot spare a thought for anything or anybody else.
The light from that window hurts your eyes--doesn't it? I will let down
the shade."

But Sarah lay with her hand protecting her eyes, when her sister
resumed her position and narration.

"We are to be married in December. He begged hard for an earlier day,
but I was sure that I could not be ready before then. As it is, we
shall have to hurry when it comes to the dresses, for, in order to
get the latest fashions, we must wait until the eleventh hour. Won't
I 'astonish the natives' down South? I couldn't state this to Philip,
you know; so I referred him to mother, who is to say, when he asks
her, that her preference would be to keep me just as long as she
possibly can. Entre nous, my dear, our good mamma has said truer things
than this bit of sentiment--but n'importe! These embellishments are
necessary to such transactions."

Miss West's friendship or curiosity could not endure longer suspense,
and the intelligence that she was below checked the monologue.

"I will run up again whenever I can," promised Lucy, by way of
compensation for her abrupt departure, "and keep up your spirits by
telling you all that I can about our concerns. But Philip is to take me
to ride this afternoon. I forbade him to come here before then, but I
don't much think he can stay away. Don't be vexed if you don't see me
again in some hours. Vic. and I are about to settle our trousseaux. If
you believe me, we have never been able yet to decide upon the wedding
dresses!"

And she vanished, warbling delicious roulades from a duet she had
engaged to sing that evening with her betrothed. She showed herself
upstairs again, when she was ready for her ride, and the carriage at
the door--very fair, very bright, and very happy. She was exquisitely
dressed, and called on her sister to admire her toilet and envy her her
escort.

Sarah listened to the cheerful exchange of cautions and promises
between her mother and Philip, at the door beneath her open window, and
to the rolling wheels that bore them away.

Mrs. Hunt received none of her friends that day, being busy "getting
things to rights"; and for a like reason she absented herself from
her child's sickroom, content with sending up Jeannie, now and then,
to inquire how she was getting on. In the abject loneliness that
oppressed her, when the first violence of passions had spent itself,
Sarah would have been relieved in some measure by the society of this
pet sister, the sole object upon earth, besides her father, that had
ever repaid her love with anything like equal attachment. But the child
shrank, like most others of her age, from the quiet dark chamber of
illness, and longed to follow her mother through the house, in her tour
of observation and renovation. Sarah detected her restlessness and
ill-concealed dislike of the confinement imposed upon her by compliance
with her humble petition--

"Please, Jeannie, stay a little while with your poor sister!" And her
sensitive spirit turned upon itself, as a final stroke of torture, the
conviction that here, also, love and care had been wasted.

"Go, then!" she said, rather roughly, as Jeannie wavered, "and you need
not come up again to-day. I know it is not pleasant for you to be here.
Tell mother I want nothing but quiet."

"I have had a splendid drive!" said Lucy, rustling her many flounces
into the door at dusk.

The figure upon the bed made no response by motion or word.

"I do believe she is asleep!" added the intruder, lowering her voice.
"I suppose she is tired and needs rest." And she went out on tiptoe.

Sarah was awake a minute later, when her father came in to see her.
She smiled at him, as he "hoped she was better," and asked whether she
might not get up on the morrow. Mr. Hunt thought not. The doctor's
opinion was that perfect repose might ward off the worse features of
the disease. She had better keep to her bed for a couple of days yet,
even should she feel well enough to be about. He sent up her dinner to
her room with his own hands; and when she learned this, she strove to
do some feeble justice to the viands, but without success.

Philip dined with the family that day by special appointment; and,
shortly after his arrival, Lucy again presented herself in that small
third-story bedroom.

"Choose! which hand will you take?" she cried, hiding both behind her.

Sarah would make no selection; and, after a little more trifling, the
elder sister brought into sight two elegant bouquets, and laid them
beside the invalid.

"This is Philip's present--'a fraternal remembrance,' he told me to
say. Here is his card. Doesn't he write a lovely hand? The other is
from your admirer, Mr. Hammond. What a sly puss you were to make such
a catch as he is, without dropping us a hint! He is rather too sober
for my notions; but he is getting rich fast, they say. He left those
flowers at the door himself, and insisted upon seeing father for a
moment, to know exactly how you were. Cannot you hurry up somewhat, and
let us have a double wedding? I showed the bouquet to Philip, and told
him of your conquest, and he was as much pleased at your prospects as
I was. Did you ever see such magnificent roses? your beau paid five
dollars, at the lowest computation, for these flowers. I congratulate
you upon these signs of liberality."

Sarah had heard only a portion of this speech. Her eyes were fixed upon
the card her sister had put into her hand: "Will Miss Sarah accept this
trifling token of regard from one who is her stanch friend, and hopes,
in time, to have a nearer claim upon her esteem?"

"Very neatly turned, is it not?" said Lucy, satisfiedly. She had read
it on her way upstairs. "What shall I say to him from you?"

"Thank him, and explain that I am not able to write a reply."

This meagre return of compliments assumed a tone both grateful and
sisterly as Lucy rehearsed it to the donor of the fragrant offering.
The barest phrase of civility came gracefully and meaningly from her
tongue. Serene in mind and countenance, she seated herself at the
piano, and, as Philip took his stand at her side, he wondered if the
world held another couple more entirely adapted each to the peculiar
soul-needs of the other, more perfectly happy in the knowledge of
mutual affection. Like the generality of theorists, your student of
human nature is prone to grievous error when he reduces his flawless
system to practice.

In one respect, the two certainly harmonized well. Both loved music;
both sang finely, and their voices accorded without a jarring note.

Mr. Hunt read the evening papers in Sarah's room; turning and folding
them with great circumspection, lest their rattling might annoy her,
and detract from her enjoyment of the music. How could he guess the
infatuation that caused her to listen greedily to sounds, under whose
potent spell feeling was writhing and brain reeling? In every pause
between the songs there arose in her memory two lines of a poem read
long ago, when or where she knew not:

    "Seek not to soothe that proud, forsaken heart
    With strains whose sweetness maddens as they fall!"

The performers had just completed a duet, in which each voice supported
and developed, while blending with the other, when Lucy took up
the prelude to a simpler lay; repeating it twice over with skilful
variations, as if she were, meantime, carrying on a colloquy with her
companion, that delayed the vocal part. This was ended by Philip's
raising alone the burden of the plaintive German air Sarah remembered
so truly--"The long, long, weary day."

As his voice, full and strong, with its indescribable and
irresistible undercurrent of pathos--flowing out here into passionate
melancholy--swelled and floated through the quiet house, Sarah sat
upright.

"Father! father!" she whispered, huskily, "I cannot bear that! Shut the
doors!--all of them, or I shall go mad!"

She was obeyed; Mr. Hunt hurrying down to the parlor to silence the
lovers, with the representation that Sarah was too nervous to endure
the excitement of music. For the remainder of the evening, a profound
stillness pervaded the upper part of the mansion--a silence that,
to Sarah, throbbed with the melody she had tried to hush; and look
where she might, she gazed into that rainy, ghastly night--the pale,
comfortless watcher, the shadowy type of her deeper, more blighting
sorrow.




CHAPTER VIII.


For three days Philip Benson lingered near his beautiful enslaver; on
the fourth, he carried a sad, yet trustful heart upon his Southern
journey. Sarah had not seen him once since the evening of his coming.
Through Lucy, she received his adieux and wishes for her speedy
recovery. On the next day but one she left her room, and appeared again
in the family circle--now complete in all its parts.

In that short season of bodily prostration, the work of years had been
wrought upon her inner life. Outwardly there was little alteration
save that effected by physical weakness; but in her views of existence
and character, of affections and motives, the doubter had become the
skeptic; the dreamer the misanthrope. To the gentle and more womanly
aspirations that had for a season supplanted the somewhat masculine
tendencies of her mind and tastes had succeeded a stoicism, like the
frozen calm of a winter's day, uniform as relentless. This was the
surface that locked and concealed the lower depths she had sworn should
be forever covered. Others could and did live without hearts. She could
thrive as well upon the husks and Sodom apples of this world's goods as
did they; holding as Life's chief good, complete and final subjugation
of all genuine emotion, which, at the best, was but the rough ore--fit
for nothing until purged, refined, and polished in its glitter. She
found no other creed that suited her present desperate mood so well as
the heartless code of the thorough worldling--the devotee to show, and
fashion, and wealth.

Such was her mother, whose domestic virtues were extolled by all who
knew her; such, behind her mask of tender grace and amiability, the
sister who had won, by these factitious attractions, the heart for
which Sarah would have perilled life, sacrificed ease and inclination,
bowed her proud spirit to the estate of bond-servant to his every
caprice, become the willing slave to his tyrannical behest. Yet Philip
Benson was a professed judge of character; a man of sense, education,
and experience, and, knowing both girls as he did, he had made his
choice; set the stamp of his approval upon the shining, rather than the
solid metal. The world, as its young would-be disciple believed she had
at length learned, was made up of two classes; those who floated, and
those who sank. To the latter she determined that she would not belong.

These and kindred thoughts were rife in her mind, and stirring up many
a spring of gall within her bosom, one morning as she lay back in
an armchair in the sitting-room, listening with secret scorn to the
prattle of the pair of betrothed maidens--Lucy and her friend. Lucy's
engagement ring was a diamond, or, rather, a modest cluster of these
precious stones, whose extreme beauty did not strike the casual eye
with the startling effect of Victoria's more showy gage d'amour. This
apparent difference in the value of the two was the source of many
discussions and considerable heart-burning, disguised, of course, and
threatened in time to produce a decided coolness between the attached
wearers of the articles under debate.

On this particular day, Victoria, after some adroit skirmishing,
brought out as a "poser" the fact that, to lay the question to rest
without more ado, she had, since their last interview, been to
Tiffany's, and had her ring valued. Lucy's face was all aglow as her
soul-sister named the price of her treasure. She clapped her hands
joyously.

"Isn't that the joke of the season, mother?"--as that personage
entered. "Don't you think that Vic. was as cunning as we were? She
carried her ring to Tiffany's yesterday, too. Wouldn't it have been too
funny if we had met there? Mine came from there, they said, and it cost
a cool fifty dollars more than yours did, dear!"

Victoria flashed hotly; but further controversy being useless and
dangerous to her, she acquiesced with assumed carelessness in Lucy's
proposal that, since both were suited, the rival brilliants should not
be again referred to as a disputed matter. They accordingly turned to
the safer and endless conferences upon the trousseaux, whose purchase
must be commenced immediately.

Their incomplete lists were produced, compared, and lengthened--Mrs.
Hunt suggesting and amending; Sarah surveying the busy group with the
same intense disdain she had experienced throughout the conversation.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you! Margaret Hauton called on me yesterday!"
exclaimed Victoria. "Did she come here, too?"

"Yes; but we were out. What did she say?" queried Lucy, breathlessly.

"Why, the stupid creature never alluded to my engagement; and when I
mentioned yours, pretended not to have heard of it before. I took care
she should not go away as ignorant on the subject as she had come,
and--I know it was wicked in me, but she deserved it--all the time I
was praising your Goldfinch, and telling how handsome and liberal he
was, I sat looking at my new ring, slipping it up and down my finger,
as if I were not thinking of it, but of the giver. She could not help
seeing it, and, to save her life, she could not keep from changing
countenance."

"Good!" said Lucy. "Do tell me how she is looking now?"

"Common enough! She had on that everlasting lilac silk, with the
embroidered flounces, although the style is as old as the hills--and
that black lace mantle, which, happening to be real, she never leaves
off until near Christmas. But her hat! black and corn-color. Think
of it! corn-color against her saffron skin. When I pretend to lead
society, I hope to dress decently. But I had my revenge for her
supercilious airs. Mr. Bond--George--called in the afternoon to take
me to ride. I told you of the handsome span of fast horses he has been
buying. Well! we concluded to try the Bloomingdale road, and just as
we were sailing along, like the wind, whom should we overtake but my
Lady Hauton, lounging her lazy way (she thinks it aristocratic!) on
the back seat of her father's heavy, clumsy barouche--not a soul in it
but her mother and herself. Didn't I bow graciously to her as we flew
by! and again, as we met them creeping along, when we were coming back?
I wouldn't have missed the chance of mortifying her for a thousand
dollars."

Lucy laughed, with no sign of disapprobation at the coarse, vindictive
spirit displayed in this petty triumph of a small soul.

"How many evening dresses have you put down on your paper, Vic.?"

"Half a dozen only. I will get others as I need them. The styles in
these change so often that I do not care to have too many at a time."

"There you will have the advantage of me," said Lucy, ingenuously. "It
will not be so easy a matter to replenish my stock of wearable dresses.
I wish I had asked Philip about the Savannah stores. I wonder if he
knows anything about them?"

"He ought to--being such a connoisseur in ladies' dress. I declare
I have been absolutely afraid of him since I heard him say that he
considered a lady's apparel a criterion of her character."

"He has exquisite taste!" said Lucy, with pardonable pride in her
lover. "It is a positive pleasure to dress for him. He sees and
appreciates everything that I could wish to have him notice. He has
often described to me what I wore, and how I looked and acted the
evening he fell in love. How little we can guess what is before us! I
did not care to go to the hop that night, for Mr. Finch was to wait
on me, and he was so stupid, you know, after we discovered that it
was a mistake about his being rich. I think I see him now, with his
red face and short neck! Oh, dear! the fun we had over that poor man!
I told you--didn't I, Sarah--that we named him Bullfinch, because
he looked so much like one? When Phil came we called him Goldfinch,
and the two went by these names among us girls. The Bullfinch heard
of it, and he was ridiculously angry! So I put on a white tarlatan,
that one with the double jupe, you know, Vic., festooned with white
moss rosebuds, and I had nothing but a tea-rose in my hair. I danced
once with the Bullfinch--one of those solemn quadrilles that are only
fit for grandmothers--and vowed to myself that I would not stand up
again, except for a polka or the lancers. While I was sitting down by
the window, saying 'Yes' and 'No,' when Bullfinch spoke, Mr. Newman
introduced 'Mr. Benson' to 'Miss Hunt,' and the work was done!"

"No more waltzing, then!" was Victoria's slyly malicious sequel.

"I did not care so much for that as I thought I should!" replied
easy-tempered Lucy. "You cannot find a man who has not some drawback.
Before I had a chance for another round, mother there managed to
telegraph me that my fresh acquaintance was worth catching. She had
gotten his whole story out of Mrs. Newman. He let me know pretty soon,
that he had some queer scruples about fancy dances, and I thought it
best to humor him for one evening, or until I should ascertain whether
he was really 'taken' or not. I have never repented my self-denial,
although I grant that it cost me a struggle to give up 'the german.'"

"George lets me waltz to my heart's content," said Victoria. "He is
the very soul of indulgence. As to laces--I have not a thing fit to
wear. I must get everything new. I am glad of it! I enjoy shopping for
them. If I have a passion, it is for laces!"

A sneer curled Sarah's lips, and Victoria happening to glance that way,
could not mistake its application, whatever she might surmise as to its
origin.

"I suppose you despise us as a couple of lovesick girls, Sarah?" she
said, with a simper designed to be sentimental, whereas it was spiteful
instead.

"I think love the least dangerous of your complaints," was the
rejoinder.

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said."

"She means that people do not die of love in these days," exclaimed
Lucy, whose pleasure-loving nature always shuddered at the idea of
altercation in her presence; her sensations, during the occasional
sparrings of her sister and her friend, bearing a strong resemblance
to those of an innocent white rabbit, into whose burrow a couple of
belligerent hedgehogs have forced their way.

"You will understand us better one day, when your turn comes," said
Victoria, with magnanimous condescension. "I shall remind you then of
your good opinion of us."

"You may."

"I would give anything to have you engaged, just to see how you would
behave. Would not you, Lucy?"

"Yes; if she were likely to do as well as we are doing. Philip says
that you have many fine qualities, Sarah. He quite admires you."

The complacent betrothed had none but the most amiable intentions in
making this patronizing speech; therefore, the angry blood that surged
over her sister's face at hearing it would have been to her but the
blush of gratified vanity, had not the sparkle of her eye and the
contemptuous contortion of her mouth undeceived her.

"Indeed he did say so!" she hastened to repeat. "And he was in earnest!
He said something else which I don't mind telling, now that he belongs
to me fast and sure. He said that he sat up until twelve o'clock one
night after you had been out boating deliberating whether he should be
smitten with you or not. There!"

The color retreated as quickly as it had come. But for the
consciousness of Victoria's malicious scrutiny, Sarah could not have
summoned strength to utter a word.

"An equivocal compliment, I must say!" she retorted, sarcastically.
"Your gallant Georgian's confessions must have been ample and minute
indeed, if they comprised such distant approaches to love affairs as
the one you honor me by mentioning. I do not think that I have ever
heard of another case where a gentleman considered it necessary to
enumerate to his fiancee, not merely the ladies he had loved, but those
whom he had not!" She arose and left the room.

Poor Lucy, rebuffed and overwhelmed, caught her astonished breath with
a sigh. "Can anybody tell me what I have done now to fret Sarah? She is
so cross since she was sick!"

"And before, too!" mutely added Victoria's shrug and lifted eyebrows.

"We must bear with her, my dear!" said the prudent mother. "Her nerves
are affected, the doctor says."

Victoria made random pencillings upon the important list--her thoughts
in fast pursuit of a notion that had just struck her. She was neither
witty nor intelligent; but she possessed some natural shrewdness and
a great deal more acquired cunning. She detested Sarah Hunt, and
the prospect of obtaining an engine that should humble her arrogant
spirit was scarcely less tempting than her own chance of effecting an
advantageous matrimonial settlement.

While she was engaged in defining her suspicion to herself, and
concerting measures for gathering information with regard to it, Mrs.
Hunt went out on some household errand, and Lucy was obliged to descend
to the parlor to see callers.

"Don't go until I come back, Vic.. It is the Dunhams, and they never
stay long," she said, at quitting her associate.

"Oh, I always make myself at home here, you know, my dear!" was the
reply.

Jeannie was sitting on a cushion near the chair Sarah had occupied,
dressing her doll.

"It won't fit!" she cried, fretfully, snatching off a velvet basque she
had been endeavoring to adjust to the lay-figure.

"Bring it to me! I can fix it!" offered Victoria, winningly. "It's too
tight just here, you see. I will rip open the seam and alter it. Who
makes your dolly's clothes?"

She was well aware that but one member of the family ever had leisure
to bestow upon such follies; but it suited her plan for Jeannie to
introduce the name.

"Sister Sarah."

"This is a pretty basque. When did she make it?"

"Yesterday."

"Oh! I thought perhaps she did it while you were in the country, and
that the doll had fattened as much as you did there."

Jeannie laughed heartily.

"You had a nice time there, I suppose?" pursued Victoria.

"I guess we did!" Her eyes danced at the recollection. "A splendid
time! I wish we lived at Aunt Sarah's! There isn't room for me to move
in this narrow house."

"Mr. Benson was there a day or two, was he not?"

"Yes, ma'am--a great many days! He took us all around the country in
Uncle Nathan's carriage. I love him very dearly."

"Did you ever go sailing with him?"

"Every evening, when it was clear, in a pretty rowboat. He used to take
his guitar along, and sing for us. He sings beautifully! Did you ever
hear him?"

"Oh, yes! Did your sister always go boating with you?"

The spy, with all her hardihood, lowered her voice, and felt her face
warm as she put this leading question.

"Yes, ma'am, always. Mr. Benson would not have gone without her, I
guess."

"Why do you guess so?"

The little girl smiled knowingly. "Because--you won't tell, will you?"

"Why no! Of course I will not."

"Charley said it was a secret, and that I mustn't say anything to
sister or Mr. Benson about it, for they would be angry."

"Who is Charley?"

"Don't you know? He is Aunt Sarah's son. He is deaf and dumb; but he
showed me how to spell on my fingers. He is a nice boy"--

"Yes; but what was the secret?"

"He said that Mr. Benson--Cousin Phil I call him when I am talking to
him--was sister's beau; and he would take me off with him when we went
to drive or walk, because, you know, they might not like to have me
hear what they were talking about. They used to talk, and talk, and
talk! and sister had a great deal more to say, and looked prettier than
she does at home. I will tell you something else, if you won't ever let
anybody know it. I never told Aunt Sarah even, only Charley. Sister
cried ever so long the night after Cousin Phil went away. She woke me
up sobbing; but I made believe that I was asleep; and in the morning
her pillow was right wet. Charley said that all ladies that he had read
about in his books did so when their beaux left them."

"See here, my little lady!" said the dissembler, with a startling
change of tone. "You are altogether mistaken--you and Charley both!
Mr. Benson is going to marry your sister Lucy, and never was a beau
of Sarah's. Be very careful not to talk about Charley's wicked story
to your father, or mother, or sisters, for they would be very much
displeased, and maybe punish you for repeating such fibs. Little girls
ought never to hear or know anything about courting or beaux--it's
naughty! I won't tell on you, if you will promise never to do so again.
I am shocked at you! Now take your doll and go!"

The frightened child encountered Lucy at the door. Miss West had
calculated her time to a minute. Her eyes swimming in tears, her
features convulsed with the effort to keep back sob and outcry, Jeannie
started up to her attic playroom. Sarah's door was ajar, and engaged
as she was with thoughts of her own troubles and insults, she could
not but remark the expression of her darling's face, in the momentary
glimpse she had as it passed.

"Jeannie! come back!" she called.

The child hesitated, half way up the next flight. Sarah repeated the
summons, and seeing that it was not obeyed, went up and took the rebel
by the hand.

"What is the matter with you?"

A reddening and distortion of visage, and no reply. Her sister led her
back to her chamber, shut the door, and put her arms around her.

"Tell me what ails you, dear!"

Jeannie fell upon her comforter's neck--the repressed torrent breaking
through all restraint. "Oh, sister, I can't help crying! Miss Vic. West
has been scolding me!"

"Scolding you! She! I will go down and speak to her this instant! How
dared she?"

"No, no! please don't! She told me not to say anything about it."

"The contemptible coward!" said Sarah, between her teeth. "How came you
to have anything to do with her?"

"Mother and sister Lucy went downstairs, and she said she would alter
my doll's basque and--and--and"--a fresh burst of lamentation.

"There, that will do, pet! I see that she only made it worse!" soothed
Sarah, believing that, in the unfinished state of dolly's wardrobe, she
had discovered the root of the trouble. "Never mind, dear! I will set
all that to rights directly. Now wipe your eyes, and let me tell you
something. This afternoon father is to take me to ride, and you shall
go, too. As for Miss Victoria, we will let her pass, and keep out of
her way, hereafter."

Secretly, she was very angry--far more so than she was willing to
have the child suspect. As the patient fingers repaired the effects
of the original bad fit, and Miss West's meddling, Jeannie stood by,
thankful and interested, yet ashamed to look her wronged sister in the
eyes. Not that she had the remotest conception of the mischief that
might grow out of her imprudent disclosures; but she had broken faith
with Charley, been accused of tattling and indelicacy, and warned too
stringently against repeating the offence to suffer her to relieve her
conscience by a full confession to the being she most loved and honored.

At four o'clock Sarah and her charge were ready, according to Mr.
Hunt's appointment. The carriage was likewise punctual; but from it
stepped, not the parent of the expectant girls, but a younger and
taller man--in short, Mr. Hunt's particular favorite--Lewis Hammond.
Jeannie, who had stationed herself at an upper window to watch for her
father's appearance, was still exclaiming over this disappointment, and
wondering why "Mr. Hammond must call just now to keep sister at home,"
when the footman brought up a note to Sarah.

It was from Mr. Hunt, explaining the cause of his unlooked-for
detention at the bank, and stating that Mr. Hammond, whom he had
met earlier in the day, and acquainted with his design of giving
his daughter this ride, happened to drop in, and seeing him engaged
with business, had asked leave to officiate as his substitute in the
proposed airing. He urged Sarah to take Jeannie along, and not hesitate
to accept Mr. Hammond's polite attendance, adding, in phrase brief, but
sincere, how lightly he should esteem his hour of extra labor, if he
knew that she was not a sufferer by it.

Sarah passed the note to her mother, and drew her shawl about her
shoulders.

"Of course you'll go!" said Mrs. Hunt, radiant with gratification. "It
is perfectly proper, and Mr. Hammond is very kind, I'm sure."

She was hurrying towards the door to convey in person her thanks for
his gallantry, when Sarah spoke firmly and very coolly:

"I will say whatever is necessary to Mr. Hammond, if you please,
mother. I shall go because father wishes it, and for no other reason.
Come, Jeannie!"

"Won't she be in your way?" asked Mrs. Hunt, awed, but not extinguished.

"No, madam."

Sarah suffered Mr. Hammond to place her in the carriage, and himself
opposite to her; and keeping before her mind carefully the fact that he
was her father's friend, perhaps the savior of his life, she unbent,
as much as she could, from her distant, ungracious bearing, to sustain
her part of the conversation. She must have been purblind not to see
through her mother's wishes, and manoeuvres for their accomplishment;
but to these views she was persuaded that Mr. Hammond was no party.
She saw in him a sedate, rather reserved gentleman of thirty-two or
three, who had passed the heyday of youthful loves and joy; sensible
and cultivated to an uncommon degree for a man of business--for such he
emphatically was.

A poor boy in the beginning, he had fortunately attracted the regard
of a thriving New York merchant, and retained that favor through the
years that had elevated him from the lowest clerkship to a partnership
in the now opulent firm. For probity and punctuality no man in the city
had a higher reputation; but his virtues were of that quiet nature
which, while they inevitably retain regard once won, are slow to gain
admiration. To matrimonial speculators, as in financial circles, he
was known as a "safe chance," and many a prudent mamma on his list
of acquaintances would have rejoiced had he selected her daughter as
mistress of his heart and fortune. Whether he was aware of this or not
could not have been determined by his modest, but dignified deportment.
He did not avoid company; went whither he was invited, and, when there,
comported himself like a conscientious member of society, talking,
dancing, or listening, with as due regard to law and order as he
manifested in his daily business life. Fast girls called him "awfully
matter-of-fact," and "terribly sensible"; fast youths of the other sex
put him down among the "old fogies," and wondered what he did with his
money. "Could it be possible that he saved it!" He was intimate nowhere
except in the household of his whilom employer and present partner,
whose daughters were all married and settled in houses of their own. If
he had ever cared to look twice at the same lady, the watchful world
had not yet laid hold of this marvellous departure from his fixed
habits.

His intercourse with Mr. Hunt's family was, as we know, purely
accidental in its commencement, and in its earlier stages might have
been induced by humanity or friendship for the sick father. In Sarah's
brain there had never arisen a suspicion of any ulterior motives in the
pointed attentions directed of late to herself. Before Lucy's return,
the care of her invalid parent and her day-dreams had engrossed heart
and thought to an extent that precluded much inquiry into other themes.
Since that memorable night, inward torture had abstracted her mind
still more from outward impressions.

This afternoon she talked calmly and indifferently to Mr. Hammond,
without an idea that he made any greater effort to please her. To
Jeannie she was tender beyond her usual showing, in remembrance of the
wrong done the sensitive child in the forenoon. Mr. Hammond emulated
her in kindness to the third member of their party; and in the course
of their ride, raised himself unwittingly to the rank of rivalship with
"Cousin Philip," her model gentleman.

Mr. Hunt came out to assist his daughter to alight, upon their
return. There was a heartiness in his acknowledgment of his deputy's
politeness, and invitation to enter the house and pass the evening with
them, which Sarah had seldom heard him employ towards any visitor.
Mr. Hammond may have remarked it likewise, for his declinature was
evidently against his inclination, and coupled with a promise to
call at an early day. His visits were not altogether so agreeable as
formerly, for he was received in the spacious parlors on a footing
with other callers, and in the presence of several members of the
family; still he came repeatedly, with pretext and without, until his
sentiments and design were a secret to no one except their object.

Wrapped in the sad thoughts that isolated her from the rest of the
world, even while she made a part of its show, Sarah omitted to mark
many things that should have been significant signs of undercurrents,
and tokens of important issues to her and those about her. Lucy had
ceased to harp perpetually upon her lover's perfections and idolatrous
flattery to herself, and while the wedding arrangements went vigorously
forward, the disengaged sister was rarely annoyed by references to
her taste and demands for her sympathy. There had never existed
much congeniality between the two, and their common ground was now
exceedingly narrow. Lucy was gentle and pleasant, peacefully egotistic
as ever, and Sarah understood her too well to expect active affection
or disinterestedness. The only part of her behavior to herself to
which she took mental exception was a certain pitying forbearance, a
compassionate leniency with respect to her faults and foibles, that had
grown upon her of late. Once or twice the younger sister had become
so restive under this gratuitous charity as to reply sharply to the
whey-like speeches of the mild elder, and, without any appearance of
wounded feeling, yet with not a word of apology or reason for so doing,
Lucy had left the apartment, and never hinted at the circumstances
afterwards.

Lucy was certainly the soul, the very cream of amiability. It
was unaccountable to her admirers--and they included most of her
associates--that Lewis Hammond, with his peculiar habits and tastes,
should prefer that severe-looking, strong-minded Sarah. But, be
it remembered, that he had learned this love under far different
influences; in circumstances wholly unlike those in which he now beheld
its object. His respect for unobtrusive intent and feeling; his longing
for a home which should be the abode of sacred domestic virtues; and
the sweet peace that had fled from the habitations frequented only by
the frivolous, heartless, and vain--these found in the sick-room of
the father, and the affectionate fidelity of the daughter, something
so like the embodiment of his fancy of earthly happiness, that he
accepted as a benignant fate the accident which had admitted him to the
arcana of their private life. Sarah's temporary illness had taught him
the meaning of his dreams, by seeming to peril the chances of their
fulfilment; and from that hour he strove patiently and sedulously, as
it was his habit, to seek all great ends for the acquisition of the
heart whose depth he perhaps, of all who knew her, best understood.

The most impatient person of those directly or indirectly concerned
in the progress of this wooing was Mrs. Hunt. Her husband, with
unwonted firmness, had forbidden that anyone of the household should
speak a word in raillery or otherwise to Sarah touching Mr. Hammond's
intentions. "However earnestly I may desire his success," he said to
his wife--"and there is no man living whom I would rather call 'son'--I
would not influence her by the weight of a single syllable. Hers is the
happiness or the misery of a life with her husband--whomsoever she may
choose, and hers shall be the entire choice. If she can love and marry
Lewis Hammond, I shall be gratified; if not, she shall never guess at
my disappointment."

"La, Mr. H.! you are as foolish and sentimental as the girl herself!
For my part, I ain't such a saint, and I do say, that if Sarah Hunt
allows such a catch as this to slip through her fingers, she shall hear
a piece of my mind!"

"I insist," said Mr. Hunt, with immovable resolution, "that Sarah shall
be allowed to follow the guidance of her own will in this matter. It is
not often that I interfere with your plans; but in this one instance I
must be obeyed!"

With which astounding declaration of equal rights, if not of
sovereignty, he left his consort to her reflections.

Ignorant of the delicate watchfulness maintained over her by this
best of friends, Sarah walked on her beclouded way--without hope,
without one anticipation of any future dissimilar to her present,
until awakened with a shock by a formal declaration of love from Lewis
Hammond.




CHAPTER IX.


It was at the close of an evening party which both the Hunts attended,
and where Mr. Hammond's devotion was as marked as anything so modest
could be, that Sarah felt him slip an envelope into her hand, as he
put her into the carriage. Surprised as she was at the singularity of
the occurrence, and disposed to take offence at the familiarity it
implied, she had yet the presence of mind to conceal the missive from
Lucy, and talk about other things, until they were set down at home. In
the privacy of her chamber, she broke t

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