“And now what?” asked Mr. Livingstone, as the party rose from breakfast.

“A ride,” said Fergus, decisively. “Neria and Franc, get on your habits,
and I will order the horses; Claudia, I suppose you don't care to ride?”

“No, it tires me too much. I am going to drive, by-and-by, with Mr. Livingstone,”
said the bride, languidly.

“But I should be very happy to ride,” exclaimed Francia, with a brilliant
smile.

Fergus silently looked at Neria, who had not spoken.

“I cannot go this morning,” said she, “I have something to do.”

“Pshaw! Put by your something, and come. There is not such a day once
a month,” expostulated Fergus, in a low voice.

Neria smiled, but shook her head.

“You and Franc must enjoy it enough for me too.”

“What is your something? What are you going to do?” asked Fergus,
pettishly.

“O, something.”

“Something you won't tell me?”

“Not just now,” said Neria, beginning to look a little troubled.

“You will spoil my ride—in fact, I won't go.”

“That would be unkind to Francia, who wishes to go,” said Neria, quietly.

“It will be your fault if she is disappointed.”

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

“As it was my fault that the squirrel bit me?” asked Neria, smiling meaningly.

Fergus colored indignantly.

“I did not think it was in you to be so ungenerous, Neria,” said he, rising
and walking to the other end of the room, where the others were gathered in the
breezy bay window.

“Shall we go, Fergus?” asked Francia, timidly; for she had learned to read
her cousin's face, and now saw displeasure and disappointment in it.

“Yes, if you please,” said he, coldly; and, as Franc moved slowly toward
the door, he stepped out of the window, without glancing toward Neria, and
went to order the horses.

Half an hour later, Claudia, lounging in a great Indian chair, saw Neria
coming down the stairs in her walking dress, and, with a sudden impulse, advanced
to join her.

“Stop a minute,” called she, “I will go a little way with you, if you are for
a walk.”

Neria hesitated, and then said:

“Come, then, a little way.”

“How far are you going?”

“I will tell you as we walk along.”

“Charming little mystery! Where is my veil? O, here; tie it behind for
me, please. This sea air is so trying to one's complexion, and it's quite a mistake
to suppose brunettes don't tan. Goodness, child, you are never going to
wear that little hat and no veil? You will be a squaw by the time you come
home.”

“I never tan or burn, and I never wear a veil,” said Neria, quietly, as she
put the little bat, with its drooping white plume, upon the top of her airily-folded,
shining hair.

“Yes, it is very becoming, I admit,” said Claudia, half envious; adding, as
she glanced at Neria's stainless skin, “and such a complexion as yours is heaven's
last, best gift to man.”

“Not to man, exactly,” retorted Neria, putting aside, as ill-judged, an impulse
to suggest to her companion some better cause for thankfulness to heaven.

“And now, where are we going?” asked Claudia, as they walked under the
rustling lindens in the avenue, amid whose golden blossoms innumerable bees
hummed with a murmur like surf breaking on the distant shore.

“I will tell you now. You remember Mr. Gillies?”

“Yes, indeed! The charming old hermit who infected me with his own music-madness
that summer, five years ago. Do he and his old tower with the
glorious organ still exist?”

“Yes; but, Claudia, I think he never has been just the same since that he
was that summer,” said Neria, dubiously. “When I used to go with you to
take your lessons, you know how animated and enthusiastic he was about music—
how dry and reserved on everything else?”

“Yes, I know,” said Claudia, with a cunning smile.

“Well, after you went away, Francia and I used to go sometimes and listen
from the beach to his playing, just as we did the first night; and after a while
he found us out, and one night he asked us in. So we went, and, though Franc
thought it rather fearful to sit in that old library in the dark and listen to such
solemn music, I enjoyed it; and, when he asked us to come again, we got leave
from Miss Boardman, and used to go often. Sometimes he would ask a few

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questions about you, but generally he said very little, unless we spoke to him.
At last, one evening, I don't know how it was, but I found myself standing close
beside him, and crying as hard as I could. He was playing something of his
own, then, and I never heard such sorrow and loneliness as he conveyed in that
music; he never could have said it in words—”

“No,” interrupted Claudia, softly; “like dumb people, he expresses himself
through his fingers.”

“Well, he turned suddenly and saw me, and caught my two hands in his,
and looked at me! Claudia! there is a picture of Landseer's—of a stag hunted
to death, and turning to look at the hunters, who come crowding up the hill toward
him—he looked just like that; so piteous, and so dumb.”

“You romantic child,” said Claudia, adding, a little uneasily,

“Well, what did he say?”

“Not a word; and, after a minute, he closed the organ and left the room.
But the next time we went he asked me if I would learn of him to play. I said
that nothing could make me happier. So he began at once.”

“But it did not succeed, I imagine,” said Claudia, with another smile.

“What, the teaching? O, yes, I learned quite easily.”

“No; I don't mean the teaching. The poor old hermit did not find his
homœopathic idea of curing the disease by reproducing its cause, successful?”

“I don't understand,” said Neria, with a puzzled look.

“Well, never mind. So you took lessons? For how long?”

“Three or four years—till Miss Boardman, who used to go with me, left us,
and Mrs. Rhee said it was improper for me to go alone; so, as Franc wouldn't
go, and there was no one else, I left off.”

“But you are going now?”

“Yes; within a few months Mr. Gillies has been quite ill and very dull. We
heard of it through his housekeeper, and one day Francia and I called to see if
he needed anything that we could send him. He asked to have us come in, and
said if I would sit down and play for him, it would do more good than anything
else. I did it, of course, and, when I was going, he thanked me with so much
feeling that I asked if I should not come again. He said so much in reply that
I was quite ashamed to hear him; and ever since I have been over, at intervals,
and am going now. Now you are all here, I am more occupied at home, and
have only been once in three weeks; but this morning (on the terrace) I resolved
to go before dinner, let what would stand in the way. I have done
wrong not to do so sooner.”

The two girls walked on in silence. Presently Claudia stopped, and, looking
far away to the point where, beneath a silvery shimmer, the sea seemed to melt
into the sky, she said in a low voice,

“It was like me.”

“What?” asked Neria.

“Why, child, you were too young and too innocent to see what went on beneath
your eyes that summer. I was curious to know if that hard, cold man,
with his one passion, had any heart. I searched till I found it, and—I broke it.”

Neria looked at her, with a slow horror gathering in her eyes.

“O Claudia!” was all she said; but as she turned and walked on alone, the
remorseful woman who had met those eyes and heard that tone, sank down upon
the beach and wept as she had not wept since the fatal day that first saw her
glide beneath John Gillies's roof.

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