CHAPTER I.

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HE stood and measured the earth: and the ever
lasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual
hills did bow.”

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

A slender girl of twelve years' growth steadied a pail of
water on her head, with both dimpled arms thrown up, in
ancient classic Caryatides attitude; and, pausing a moment
beside the spring, stood fronting the great golden dawn—
watching for the first level ray of the coming sun, and
chanting the prayer of Habakkuk. Behind her in silent
grandeur towered the huge outline of Lookout Mountain,
shrouded at summit in gray mist; while centre and base
showed dense masses of foliage, dim and purplish in the
distance—a stern cowled monk of the Cumberland brotherhood.
Low hills clustered on either side, but immediately
in front stretched a wooded plain, and across this the
child looked at the flushed sky, rapidly brightening into
fiery and blinding radiance. Until her wild song waked
echoes among the far-off rocks, the holy hush of early morning
had rested like a benediction upon the scene, as though

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nature laid her broad finger over her great lips, and waited
in reverent silence the advent of the sun. Morning among
the mountains possessed witchery and glories which filled
the heart of the girl with adoration, and called from her
lips rude but exultant anthems of praise. The young face,
lifted toward the cloudless east, might have served as a
model for a pictured Syriac priestess—one of Baalbec's vestals,
ministering in the olden time in that wondrous and
grand temple at Heliopolis.

The large black eyes held a singular fascination in their
mild sparkling depths, now full of tender loving light and
childish gladness; and the flexible red lips curled in lines of
orthodox Greek perfection, showing remarkable versatility
of expression; while the broad, full, polished forehead with
its prominent, swelling brows, could not fail to recall, to
even casual observers, the calm, powerful face of Lorenzo
de' Medicis, which, if once looked on, fastens itself upon
heart and brain, to be forgotten no more. Her hair, black,
straight, waveless as an Indian's, hung around her shoulders,
and glistened as the water from the dripping bucket
trickled through the wreath of purple morning-glories and
scarlet cypress, which she had twined about her head, ere
lifting the cedar pail to its resting-place. She wore a shortsleeved
dress of yellow striped homespun, which fell nearly
to her ankles, and her little bare feet gleamed pearly white
on the green grass and rank dewy creepers that clustered
along the margin of the bubbling spring. Her complexion
was unusually transparent, and early exercise and mountain
air had rouged her cheeks till they matched the brilliant
hue of her scarlet crown. A few steps in advance of her
stood a large, fierce yellow dog, with black scowling face,
and ears cut close to his head; a savage, repulsive creature,
who looked as if he rejoiced in an opportunity of making
good his name, “Grip.” In the solemn beauty of that summer
morning the girl seemed to have forgotten the mission
upon which she came; but as she loitered, the sun flashed

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up, kindling diamond fringes on every dew-beaded chestnut
leaf and oak-bough, and silvering the misty mantle which
enveloped Lookout. A moment longer that pure-hearted
Tennessee child stood watching the gorgeous spectacle,
drinking draughts of joy, which mingled no drop of sin or
selfishness in its crystal waves; for she had grown up
alone with nature—utterly ignorant of the roar and strife,
the burning hate and cunning intrigue of the great world
of men and women, where “like an Egyptian pitcher of
tamed vipers, each struggles to get its head above the
other.” To her, earth seemed very lovely; life stretched
before her like the sun's path in that clear sky, and, as free
from care or foreboding as the fair June day, she walked
on, preceded by her dog—and the chant burst once more
from her lips:

“He stood and measured the earth: and the everlasting
mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills—”

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

“Fire! One!—two!—three!”

The flash and ringing report mingled with the command,

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

“Murderer!”

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

“Who are you? What business have you here?”

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

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

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

“Aye! Take my word for that, and put the Atlantic
between you and Dick Dent,” added the surgeon, smiling

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grimly, as if the anticipation of retributive justice afforded
him pleasure.

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

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

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

“O sir! will you let him get away? will you let him
go unpunished?”

“He can not be punished,” answered the surgeon, looking
at her with mingled curiosity and admiration.

“I thought men were hung for murder.”

“Yes—but this is not murder.”

“Not murder? He shot him dead! What is it?”

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

“A duel?”

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

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

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

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

“What is your name?” asked the surgeon.

“Edna Earl.”

“Do you live near this place?”

“Yes, sir, very near.”

“Is your father at home?”

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

“Will you show me the way to the house?”

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

“Yes, I want some assistance from your grandfather.”

“I will show you the way, sir.”

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

“O grandpa! there is a murdered man lying in the
grass, under the chestnut-trees, down by the spring.”

“Why! how do you know he was murdered?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Dent's body was brought up on a rude litter of
boards, and temporarily placed on Edna's bed, and toward
evening, when a coffin arrived from Chattanooga, the remains
were removed, and the coffin rested on two chairs in
the middle of the same room. The surgeon insisted upon
an immediate interment near the scene of combat; but the
gentleman who had officiated as second for the deceased expressed
his determination to carry the unfortunate man's
body back to his home and family, and the earliest train on

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the following day was appointed as the time for their de
parture. Late in the afternoon Edna cautiously opened
the door of the room which she had hitherto avoided, and
with her apron full of lilies, white poppies, and sprigs of
rosemary, approached the coffin, and looked at the rigid
sleeper. Judging from his appearance, not more than
thirty years had gone over his handsome head; his placid
features were unusually regular, and a soft, silky brown
beard fell upon his pulseless breast. Fearful lest she should
touch the icy form, the girl timidly strewed her flowers in
the coffin, and tears gathered and dropped with the blossoms,
as she noticed a plain gold ring on the little finger,
and wondered if he were married—if his death would leave
wailing orphans in his home, and a broken-hearted widow
at the desolate hearthstone. Absorbed in her melancholy
task, she heard neither the sound of strange voices in the
passage, nor the faint creak of the door as it swung back
on its rusty hinges; but a shrill scream, a wild, despairing
shriek terrified her, and her heart seemed to stand still as
she bounded away from the side of the coffin. The light of
the setting sun streamed through the window, and over the
white, convulsed face of a feeble but beautiful woman, who
was supported on the threshold by a venerable gray-haired
man, down whose furrowed cheeks tears coursed rapidly.
Struggling to free herself from his restraining grasp, the
stranger tottered into the middle of the room.

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

They bore her into the adjoining apartment, where the
surgeon administered the usual restoratives, and though
finally the pulses stirred and throbbed feebly, no symptom
of returning consciousness greeted the anxious friends who
bent over her. Hour after hour passed, during which she
lay as motionless as her husband's body, and at length the
physician sighed, and pressing his fingers to his eyes, said

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sorrowfully to the grief-stricken old man beside him: “It
is paralysis, Mr. Dent, and there is no hope. She may
linger twelve or twenty-four hours, but her sorrows are
ended; she and Harry will soon be reünited. Knowing her
constitution, I feared as much. You should not have suffered
her to come; you might have known that the shock
would kill her. For this reason I wished his body buried
here.”

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

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

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

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

“Man, that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to

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

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

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Edna Earl had lost both her parents before she was old
enough to remember either. Her mother was the only
daughter of Aaron Hunt, the village blacksmith, and her
father, who was an intelligent, promising young carpenter,
accidentally fell from the roof of the house which he was
shingling, and died from the injuries sustained. Thus Mr.
Hunt, who had been a widower for nearly ten years, found
himself burdened with the care of an infant only six
months old. His daughter had never left him, and after
her death the loneliness of the house oppressed him painfully,
and for the sake of his grandchild he resolved to
marry again. The middle-aged widow whom he selected
was a kind-hearted and generous woman, but indolent, ignorant,
and exceedingly high-tempered; and while she
really loved the little orphan committed to her care, she
contrived to alienate her affection, and to tighten the bonds
of union between her husband and the child. Possessing
a remarkably amiable and equable disposition, Edna rarely
vexed Mrs. Hunt, who gradually left her more and more to
the indulgence of her own views and caprices, and contented
herself with exacting a certain amount of daily work,
after the accomplishment of which she allowed her to
amuse herself as childish whims dictated. There chanced
to be no children of her own age in the neighborhood, consequently
she grew up without companionship, save that
furnished by her grandfather; who was dotingly fond of
her, and would have utterly spoiled her, had not her
temperament fortunately been one not easily injured by unrestrained
liberty of action. Before she was able to walk,
he would take her to the forge, and keep her for hours on a
sheepskin in one corner, whence she watched, with infantine
delight, the blast of the furnace, and the shower of
sparks that fell from the anvil, and where she often slept,
lulled by the monotonous chorus of trip and sledge. As
she grew older, the mystery of bellows and slack-tub engaged
her attention, and at one end of the shop, on a pile

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of shavings, she collected a mass of curiously shaped bits
of iron and steel, and blocks of wood, from which a miniature
shop threatened to rise in rivalry; and finally, when
strong enough to grasp the handle of the bellows, her
greatest pleasure consisted in rendering the feeble assistance
which her grandfather was always so proud to accept
at her hands. Although ignorant and uncultivated, Mr.
Hunt was a man of warm, tender feelings, and rare nobility
of soul. He regretted the absence of early advantages
which poverty had denied him; and in teaching Edna to
read, to write, and to cipher, he never failed to impress
upon her the vast superiority which a thorough education
confers. Whether his exhortations first kindled
her ambition, or whether her aspiration for knowledge was
spontaneous and irrepressible, he knew not; but she manifested
very early a fondness for study and thirst for learning,
which he gratified to the fullest extent of his limited
ability. The blacksmith's library consisted of the family
Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, a copy of Irving's Sermons
on Parables, Guy Mannering, a few tracts, and two
books which had belonged to an itinerant minister who
preached occasionally in the neighborhood, and who having
died rather suddenly at Mr. Hunt's house, left the volumes
in his saddle-bags, which were never claimed by his family,
residing in a distant State. Those books were Plutarch's
Lives and a worn school copy of Anthon's Classical Dictionary;
and to Edna they proved a literary Ophir of inestimable
value and exhaustless interest. Plutarch especially
was a Pisgah of letters, whence the vast domain of learning,
the Canaan of human wisdom, stretched alluringly before
her; and as often as she climbed this height, and viewed
the wondrous scene beyond, it seemed indeed

In after years she sometimes questioned if this mount

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

CHAPTER II.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“O grandpa!” whispered Edna deprecatingly, as she
saw the traveller come rapidly forward and throw his shawl
down on the grass. Mr. Hunt pushed back his old battered

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woolen hat, and looked steadily at the master of the horse—
saying gravely and resolutely:

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

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

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

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

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

“I charge nothing for `such trifles' as that.”

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

“It is not worth talking about. Good day, sir.”

Mr. Hunt turned and walked into his shop.

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

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

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

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

“Why do you think him wicked?”

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

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

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

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

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

“What does this mean, Grandpa?” She held up the
book and pointed out the words of the dread inscription.

“Indeed, Pearl, how should I know? It is Greek, or Latin,
or Dutch, like the other outlandish gibberish he talked to
that devilish horse. He must have spent his life among the
heathens, to judge from his talk; for he has neither

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

manners nor religion. Honey, better put the book there in the
furnace; it is not fit for your eyes.”

“He may come back for it, if he misses it, pretty soon.”

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

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

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

for the neighborhood, which would confer most honorable
distinction upon the family. Laying his brawny hand fondly
on her head, he said tenderly: “Let her alone, wife! let
her alone! You will make us proud of you, won't you,
little Pearl, when you are smart enough to teach a school?
I shall be too old to work by that time, and you will take
care of me, won't you, my little mocking-bird?”

“O Grandy! that I will. But do you really think I
ever shall have sense enough to be a teacher? You know
I ought to learn every thing, and I have so few books.”

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

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

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

It was a bright day in January, and the old man sat in a
large rocking-chair on the porch, smoking his pipe, and sunning
himself in the last rays of the sinking sun. He had
complained all day of not feeling well, and failed to go to
his work as usual; and now as his grandchild tied her pink
calico bonnet under her chin, and wrapped herself in her
faded plaid shawl, he watched her with a tender loving
light in his keen gray eyes. She kissed him, buttoned his
shirt-collar, which had become unfastened, drew his homespun
coat closer to his throat, and springing down the steps
bounded away in search of the cow, who often strayed so
far off that she was dispatched to drive her home. In the
grand, peaceful, solemn woods, through which the wintry
wind now sighed in a soothing monotone, the child's spirit
reached an exaltation which, had she lived two thousand
years earlier, and roamed amid the vales and fastnesses of

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

classic Arcadia, would have vented itself in dithyrambics
to the great “Lord of the Hyle,” the Greek “All,” the
horned and hoofed god, Pan. In every age, and among all
people—from the Parsee devotees and the Gosains of India
to the Pantheism of Bruno, Spinoza, and New-England's
“Illuminati”—nature has been apotheosized; and the heart
of the blacksmith's untutored darling stirred with the same
emotions of awe and adoration which thrilled the worshipers
of Hertha, when the vailed chariot stood in Helgeland,
and which made the groves and grottoes of Phrygia sacred
to Dindymene. Edna loved trees and flowers, stars and
clouds, with a warm clinging affection, as she loved those
of her own race; and that solace and amusement which
most children find in the society of children and the sports
of childhood this girl derived from the solitude and serenity
of nature. To her woods and fields were indeed
vocal, and every flitting bird and gurgling brook, every
passing cloud and whispering breeze, brought messages of
God's eternal love and wisdom, and drew her tender yearning
heart more closely to Jehovah, the Lord God Omnipotent.
To-day, in the boundless reverence and religious
enthusiasm of her character, she directed her steps to a
large spreading oak, now leafless, where in summer she
often came to read and pray; and here falling on her knees
she thanked God for the blessings showered upon her.
Entirely free from discontent and querulousness, she was
thoroughly happy in her poor humble home, and over all,
like a consecration, shone the devoted love for her grandfather,
which more than compensated for any want of which
she might otherwise have been conscious. Accustomed
always to ask special favor for him, his name now passed
her lips in earnest supplication, and she fervently thanked
the Father that his threatened illness had been arrested
without serious consequences. The sun had gone down
when she rose and hurried on in search of the cow. The
shadows of a winter evening gathered in the forest and

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

climbed like trooping spirits up the rocky mountain side;
and as she plunged deeper and deeper into the woods, the
child began a wild cattle call which she was wont to use
on such occasions. The echoes rang out a weird Brocken
chorus, and at last, when she was growing impatient of the
fruitless search, she paused to listen, and heard the welcome
sound of the familiar lowing, by which the old cow recognized
her summons. Following the sound, Edna soon saw
the missing favorite coming slowly toward her, and ere
many moments both were running homeward. As she
approached the house, driving Brindle before her, and
merrily singing her rude Ranz des vaches, the moon rose
full and round, and threw a flood of light over the porch
where the blacksmith still sat. Edna took off her bonnet
and waved it at him, but he did not seem to notice the
signal, and driving the cow into the yard, she called out as
she latched the gate:

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

Edna fell on her knees and grasped the icy hands. “Grandpa,
wake up! O Grandpa! speak to me, your little pearl!
Wake up, dear Grandy! I have come back! My Grandpa!
Oh!—”

A wild, despairing cry rent the still evening air, and

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

shrieked dismally back from the distant hills and the gray
ghostly mountain—and the child fell on her face at the dead
man's feet.

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

For the first time in her life she could not pray; she
wanted to turn away from the thought of God and heaven,
for it seemed that she had nothing left to pray for.
That silver-haired, wrinkled old man was the only
father she had ever known; he had cradled her in his
sinewy arms, and slept clasping her to his heart; had
taught her to walk, and surrounded her with his warm,
pitying love, making a home of peace and blessedness
for her young life. Giving him, in return, the whole wealth
of her affection, he had become the centre of all her hopes,
joys, and aspirations; now what remained? Bitter rebellious
feelings hardened her heart when she remembered
that even while she was kneeling, thanking God for his preservation
from illness, he had already passed away; nay,
his sanctified spirit probably poised its wings close to the
Eternal Throne, and listened to the prayer which she sent
up to God for his welfare and happiness and protection
while on earth. The souls of our dead need not the aid of
Sandalphon to interpret the whispers that rise tremulously
from the world of sin and wrestling, that float up among
the stars, through the gates of pearl, down the golden
streets of the New Jerusalem. So we all trust, and prate
of our faith, and deceive ourselves with the fond hope that
we are resigned to the Heavenly Will; and we go on with
a show of Christian reliance, while the morning sun smiles
in gladness and plenty, and the hymn of happy days and
the dear voices of our loved ones make music in our ears;

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

and lo! God puts us in the crucible. The light of life—
the hope of all future years is blotted out; clouds of despair
and the grim night of an unbroken and unlifting desolation
fall like a pall on heart and brain; we dare not look heavenward,
dreading another blow; our anchor drags, we drift
out into a hideous Dead Sea, where our idol has gone down
forever—and boasted faith and trust and patience are
swept like straws from our grasp in the tempest of woe;
while our human love cries wolfishly for its lost darling,
and the language of fierce rebellion is, “I care not what is
left or taken! What is there in earth or heaven to hope
or to pray for now?” Ah! we build grand and gloomy
mausoleums for our precious dead hopes, but, like Artemisia,
we refuse to sepulchre—we devour the bitter ashes of the
lost, and grimly and audaciously challenge Jehovah to take
the worthless, mutilated life that his wisdom reserves for
other aims and future toils! Job's wife is immortal and
ubiquitous, haunting the sorrow-shrouded chamber of every
stricken human soul, and fiendishly prompting the bleeding,
crushed spirit to “curse God and die.” Edna had never
contemplated the possibility of her grandfather's death—it
was a horror she had never forced herself to front; and now
that he was cut down in an instant, without even the
mournful consolation of parting words and farewell kisses,
she asked herself again and again: “What have I done,
that God should punish me so? I thought I was grateful,
I thought I was doing my duty; but oh! what dreadful
sin have I committed, to deserve this awful affliction?”
During the long ghostly watches of that winter night, she
recalled her past life, gilded by the old man's love, and
could remember no happiness with which he was not intimately
connected, and no sorrow that his hand had not
soothed and lightened. The future was now a blank, crossed
by no projected paths, lit with no ray of hope; and at
daylight, when the cold pale morning showed the stony
face of the corpse at her side, her unnatural composure

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

broke up in a storm of passionate woe, and she sprang to
her feet, almost frantic with the sense of her loss:

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

CHAPTER III.

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

OF all that transpired during many ensuing weeks
Edna knew little. She retained, in after years,
only a vague, confused remembrance of keen
anguish and utter prostration, and an abiding
sense of irreparable loss. In delirious visions she saw her
grandfather now struggling in the grasp of Phlegyas, and
now writhing in the fiery tomb of Uberti, with jets of
flame leaping through his white hair, and his shrunken
hands stretched appealingly toward her, as she had seen
those of the doomed Ghibelline leader, in the hideous Dante
picture. All the appalling images evoked by the sombre
and embittered imagination of the gloomy Tuscan had
seized upon her fancy, even in happy hours, and were now
reproduced by her disordered brain in multitudinous and
aggravated forms. Her wails of agony, her passionate
prayers to God to release the beloved spirit from the tortures
which her delirium painted, were painful beyond expression
to those who watched her ravings; and it was with
a feeling of relief that they finally saw her sink into apathy—
into a quiet mental stupor—from which nothing seemed to
rouse her. She did not remark Mrs. Hunt's absence, or the
presence of the neighbors at her bedside. And one morning,
when she was wrapped up and placed by the fire, Mrs.
Wood told her as gently as possible that her grandmother
had died from a disease which was ravaging the country,
and supposed to be cholera. The intelligence produced no
emotion; she merely looked up an instant, glanced

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

mournfully around the dreary room, and, shivering slightly, drooped
her head again on her hand. Week after week went slowly
by, and she was removed to Mrs. Wood's house, but no improvement
was discernible, and the belief became general
that the child's mind had sunk into hopeless imbecility.
The kind-hearted miller and his wife endeavored to coax
her out of her chair by the chimney-corner, but she crouched
there, a wan, mute figure of woe, pitiable to contemplate;
asking no questions, causing no trouble, receiving no consolation.
One bright March morning she sat, as usual, with
her face bowed on her thin hand, and her vacant gaze fixed
on the blazing fire, when, through the open window, came
the impatient lowing of a cow. Mrs. Wood saw a change
pass swiftly over the girl's face, and a quiver cross the lips
so long frozen. She lifted her head, rose, and followed the
sound, and soon stood at the side of Brindle, who now furnished
milk for the miller's family. As the gentle cow recognized
and looked at her, with an expression almost human
in the mild, liquid eyes, all the events of that last
serene evening swept back to Edna's deadened memory,
and, leaning her head on Brindle's horns, she shed the first
tears that had flowed for her great loss, while sobs, thick
and suffocating, shook her feeble, emaciated frame.

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

Mrs. Wood wiped her own eyes, and went back to her
weaving; and Edna turned away from the mill and walked
to her deserted home, while the tears poured ceaselessly
over her white cheeks. As she approached the old house
she saw that it was shut up and neglected; but when she
opened the gate, Grip, the fierce yellow terror of the
whole neighborhood, sprang from the door-step, where he

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

kept guard as tirelessly as Maida, and, with a dismal whine
of welcome, leaped up and put his paws on her shoulders.
This had been the blacksmith's pet, fed by his hand, chained
when he went to the shop, and released at his return; and
grim and repulsively ugly though he was, he was the only
playmate Edna had ever known; had gamboled around
her cradle, slept with her on the sheepskin, and frolicked
with her through the woods, in many a long search for
Brindle. He alone remained of all the happy past; and as
precious memories crowded mournfully up, she sat upon the
steps of the dreary homestead, with her arms around his
neck, and wept bitterly. After an hour she left the house,
and, followed by the dog, crossed the woods in the direction
of the neighborhood graveyard. In order to reach it
she was forced to pass by the spring and the green hillock
where Mr. and Mrs. Dent slept side by side, but no nervous
terror seized her now as formerly; the great present horror
swallowed up all others, and, though she trembled from
physical debility, she dragged herself on till the rude, rough
paling of the burying-ground stood before her. O dreary
desolation! thy name is country graveyard! Here no
polished sculptured stela pointed to the Eternal Rest beyond;
no classic marbles told, in gilded characters, the virtues
of the dead; no flowery-fringed gravel-walks wound
from murmuring waterfalls and rippling fountains to crystal
lakes, where trailing willows threw their flickering
shadows over silver-dusted lilies; no spicy perfume of purple
heliotrope and starry jasmine burdened the silent air;
none of the solemn beauties and soothing charms of Greenwood
or Mount Auburn wooed the mourner from her
weight of woe. But decaying head-boards, green with the
lichen-fingered touch of time, leaned over neglected mounds,
where last year's weeds shivered in the sighing breeze, and
autumn winds and winter rains had drifted a brown shroud
of shriveled leaves; while here and there meek-eyed sheep
lay sunning themselves upon the trampled graves, and the

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

slow-measured sound of a bell dirged now and then as cattle
browsed on the scanty herbage in this most neglected
of God's Acres. Could Charles Lamb have turned from the
pompous epitaphs and high-flown panegyrics of that English
cemetery, to the rudely-lettered boards which here
briefly told the names and ages of the sleepers in these narrow
beds, he had never asked the question which now
stands as a melancholy epigram on family favoritism and
human frailty. Gold gilds even the lineaments and haunts
of Death, making Père la Chaise a favored spot for fêtes
champêtres; while poverty hangs neither vail nor mask
over the grinning ghoul, and flees, superstition-spurred,
from the hideous precincts.

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

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

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

Conscious of her complete helplessness and physical prostration,
she ventured no allusion to the future, but waited

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

patiently until renewed strength permitted the execution
of designs now fully mapped out. Notwithstanding her
feebleness, she rendered herself invaluable to Mrs. Wood,
who praised her dexterity and neatness as a seamstress,
and predicted that she would make a model housekeeper.

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

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

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

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

Here the voice faltered and she paused.

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

“I hear that in the town of Columbus, Georgia, even
little children get wages to work in the factory, and I know

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

I can earn enough to pay my board among the factory
people.”

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

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

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

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

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

“I take an interest in you, Edna Earl, because I loved
your mother, who was the only sweet-tempered beauty
that ever I knew. I think I never set my eyes on a prettier
face, with big brown eyes as meek as a partridge's; and

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

then her hands and feet were as small as a queen's. Now,
as long as you are satisfied to stay here I shall be glad to
have you, and I will do as well for you as for my own
Tabitha; but, if you are bent on factory work and schooling,
I have got no more to say; for I have no right to say
where you shall go or where you shall stay. But one thing
I do want to tell you: it is a serious thing for a poor, motherless
girl to be all alone among strangers.”

There was a brief silence, and Edna answered slowly:

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

“But you are not ready to start to-morrow.”

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

“Don't you think you will get dreadfully home-sick in
about a month, and write to me to come and fetch you
back?”

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

Feeling that they had no right to dictate her future
course, neither the miller nor his wife offered any further
opposition, and very early the next morning, after Mrs.

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

Wood had given the girl what she called “some good
motherly advice,” and provided her with a basket containing
food for the journey, she kissed her heartily several
times and saw her stowed away in the miller's covered cart,
which was to convey her to the depot. The road ran by
the old blacksmith's shop, and Mr. Wood's eyes filled as he
noticed the wistful, lingering, loving gaze which the girl
fixed upon it, until a grove of trees shut out the view;
then the head bowed itself and a stifled moan reached his
ears.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hold on to your ticket, and don't put your head out of
the window. I told the conductor he must look after you
and your box when you left the cars; said he would

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

Good-by, Edna; take care of yourself, and may God bless
you, child.”

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

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

In the shadow of that solitary sentinel peak her life had
been passed; she had gathered chestnuts and chincapins
among its wooded clefts, and clambered over its gray
boulders as fearlessly as the young llamas of the Parimé;
and now, as it rapidly receded and finally vanished, she
felt as if the last link that bound her to the past had suddenly
snapped; the last friendly face which had daily looked
down on her for twelve years was shut out forever, and she
and Grip were indeed alone, in a great struggling world of
selfishness and sin. The sun shone dazzlingly over wide
fields of grain, whose green billows swelled and surged
under the freshening breeze; golden butterflies fluttered
over the pink and blue morning-glories that festooned the
rail-fences; a brakeman whistled merrily on the platform,
and children inside the car prattled and played, while at
one end a slender little girlish figure, in homespun dress
and pink calico bonnet, crouched in a corner of the seat,
staring back in the direction of hooded Lookout, feeling that
each instant bore her farther from the dear graves of her
dead; and oppressed with an intolerable sense of desolation
and utter isolation in the midst of hundreds of her own race,
who were too entirely absorbed in their individual speculations,
fears, and aims, to spare even a glance at that solitary
young mariner, who saw the last headland fade from view,
and found herself, with no pilot but ambition, drifting rapidly
out on the great, unknown, treacherous Sea of Life, strewn

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

with mournful human wrecks, whom the charts and buoys
of six thousand years of navigation could not guide to a
haven of usefulness and peace. Interminable seemed the
dreary day, which finally drew to a close, and Edna, who
was weary of her cramped position, laid her aching head on
the window-sill, and watched the red light of day die in the
west, where a young moon hung her silvery crescent among
the dusky tree-tops, and the stars flashed out thick and fast.
Far away among strangers, uncared for and unnoticed, come
what might, she felt that God's changeless stars smiled down
as lovingly upon her face as on her grandfather's grave;
and that the cosmopolitan language of nature knew neither
the modifications of time and space, the distinctions of social
caste, nor the limitations of national dialects.

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

Diamond-powdered “lilies of the field” folded their perfumed
petals under the Syrian dew, wherewith God nightly
baptized them in token of His ceaseless guardianship, and
the sinless world of birds, the “fowls of the air,” those

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

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

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

CHAPTER IV.

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

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

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

Edna watched her approaching deliverers as they cut their
way through the wreck and lifted out the wretched sufferers.
Finally two men, with axes in their hands, bent down
and looked into her face.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“They both died when I was a baby.”

“Who was with you?”

“Nobody but Grip-my dog.”

“Had you no relatives or friends on the train?”

“I have none. I am all alone in the world.”

“Where did you come from?”

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

“Chattanooga.”

“Where were you going?”

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

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

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

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

The physician smiled, and looked around inquiringly:

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

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

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

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

“Ah my brave little soldier! Tell us your name?”

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

“Edna Earl.”

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

“No, ma'am.”

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

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

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

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

Edna was soon undressed and placed within the snowy
sheets of a heavily-carved bedstead, whose crimson canopy
shed a ruby light down on the laced and ruffled pillows.
Mrs. Murray administered a dose of medicine given to her
by Dr. Rodney, and after closing the blinds to exclude the
light, she felt the girl's pulse, found that she had fallen into
a heavy sleep, and then, with a sigh, went down to take
her breakfast. It was several hours before Edna awoke,
and when she opened her eyes, and looked around the
elegantly furnished and beautiful room, she felt bewildered.

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

Mrs. Murray sat in a cushioned chair, near one of the windows,
with a book in her hand, and Edna had an opportunity
of studying her face. It was fair, proud, and handsome,
but wore an expression of habitual anxiety; and
gray hairs showed themselves under the costly lace that
bordered her morning head-dress, while lines of care marked
her brow and mouth. Children instinctively decipher the
hieroglyphics which time carves on human faces, and, in
reading the countenance of her hostess, Edna felt that she
was a haughty, ambitious woman, with a kind but not very
warm heart, who would be scrupulously attentive to the
wants of a sick child, but would probably never dream of
caressing or fondling such a charge. Chancing to glance
towards the bed as she turned a leaf, Mrs. Murray met the
curious gaze fastened upon her, and, rising, approached the
sufferer.

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

“Thank you, my head is better, but I am very thirsty.”

The lady of the house gave her some ice-water in a silver
goblet, and ordered a servant to bring up the refreshments
she had directed prepared. As she felt the girl's pulse,
Edna noticed how white and soft her hands were, and how
dazzlingly the jewels flashed on her fingers, and she longed
for the touch of those aristocratic hands on her hot brow
where the hair clustered so heavily.

“How old are you, Edna?”

“Almost thirteen.”

“Had you any baggage on the train?”

“I had a small box of clothes.”

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

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

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

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

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

Mrs. Murray looked at her and said gravely:

“What is the matter, child?”

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

“How so?”

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

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

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

“Grandpa.”

“How long since you lost him?”

“Four months.”

“Can you read?”

“Oh! yes, ma'am.”

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

As the hostess left the room a staid-looking, elderly negro
woman took a seat at the window and sewed silently,
now and then glancing toward the bed. Exhausted with
pain and fatigue, Edna slept again, and it was night when

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

she opened her eyes and found Dr. Rodney and Mrs. Murray
at her pillow. The kind surgeon talked pleasantly for
some time, and, after giving ample instructions, took his
leave, exhorting his patient to keep up her fortitude and
all would soon be well. So passed the first day of her sojourn
under the hospitable roof which appeared so fortuitously
to shelter her; and the child thanked God fervently
for the kind hands into which she had fallen. Day after
day wore wearily away, and at the end of a fortnight,
though much prostrated by fever and suffering, she was
propped up in bed by pillows while Hagar, the servant,
combed and plaited the long, thick, matted hair. Mrs.
Murray came often to the room, but her visits were short,
and though invariably kind and considerate, Edna felt an
involuntary awe of her, which rendered her manner exceedingly
constrained when they were together. Hagar
was almost as taciturn as her mistress, and as the girl asked
few questions, she remained in complete ignorance of the
household affairs, and had never seen any one but Mrs.
Murray, Hagar, and the doctor. She was well supplied
with books, which the former brought from the library,
and thus the invalid contrived to amuse herself during the
long tedious summer days. One afternoon in June Edna
persuaded Hagar to lift her to a large cushioned chair close
to the open window which looked out on the lawn; and
here, with a book on her lap, she sat gazing out at the soft
blue sky, the waving elm boughs, and the glittering plum
age of a beautiful Himalayan pheasant, which seemed in
that golden sunshine to have forgotten the rosy glow of his
native snows. Leaning her elbows on the window-sill,
Edna rested her face in her palms, and after a few minutes
a tide of tender memories rose and swept over her heart,
bringing a touching expression of patient sorrow to her sweet,
wan face, and giving a far-off wistful look to the beautiful
eyes where tears often gathered but very rarely fell. Hagar
had dressed her in a new white muslin wrapper, with fluted

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

ruffles at the wrists and throat; and the fair young face,
with its delicate features, and glossy folds of soft hair, was
a pleasant picture, which the nurse loved to contemplate.
Standing with her work-basket in her hand, she watched
the graceful little figure for two or three moments, and a
warm, loving light shone out over her black features; then
nodding her head resolutely, she muttered:

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

“Child, of what are you thinking?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Child, will you trust your future and your education

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

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

“O Mrs. Murray! You are very generous and good,
but I have no claim on you—no right to impose such an expense
and trouble upon you! I am—”

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

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

“What is that?”

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

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

“Where did you get such proud notions? Pay me, indeed!
You poor little beggar! Ha! ha! ha! Well,
yes, you may do as you please, when you are able; but that
time is rather too distant to be considered now. Meanwhile,
quit grieving over the past, and think only of improving
yourself. I do not like doleful faces, and shall expect you

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

to be a cheerful, contented, and obedient girl. Hagar is
making you an entire set of new clothes, and I hope to see
you always neat. I shall give you a smaller room than this—
the one across the hall; you will keep your books there,
and remain there during study hours. At other times you
can come to my room, or amuse yourself as you like; and
when there is company here, remember, I shall always expect
you to sit quietly, and listen to the conversation, as it
is very improving to young girls to be in really good society.
You will have a music teacher, and practice on the
upright piano in the library, instead of the large one in the
parlor. One thing more if you want any thing, come to
me, and ask for it, and I shall be very much displeased if
you talk to the servants, or encourage them to talk to you.
Now every thing is understood, and I hope you will be
happy, and properly improve the advantages I shall give
you.”

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

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

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

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

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

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

“What the d—l does this mean?”

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

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

A painful thrill shot along Edna's nerves, and an indescribable
sensation of dread, a presentiment of coming ill,
overshadowed her heart. This was the son of her friend,
and the first glimpse of him filled her with instantaneous repugnance;
there was an innate and powerful repulsion which
she could not analyze. He was a tall, athletic man, not exactly
young, yet certainly not elderly; one of anomalous
appearance, prematurely old, and, though not one white
thread silvered his thick, waving, brown hair, the heavy
and habitual scowl on his high full brow had plowed
deep furrows such as age claims for its monogram. His
features were bold but very regular; the piercing, steel-gray
eyes were unusually large, and beautifully shaded with long,
heavy, black lashes, but repelled by their cynical glare;
and the finely-formed mouth, which might have imparted a
wonderful charm to the countenance, wore a chronic, savage
sneer, as if it only opened to utter jeers and curses. Evidently
the face had once been singularly handsome, in the
dawn of his earthly career, when his mother's good-night
kiss rested like a blessing on his smooth, boyish forehead,
and the prayer learned in the nursery still crept across his
pure lips; but now the fair chiseled lineaments were
blotted by dissipation, and blackened and distorted by the
baleful fires of a fierce, passionate nature, and a restless,
powerful, and unhallowed intellect. Symmetrical and
grand as that temple of Juno, in shrouded Pompeii, whose
polished shafts gleamed centuries ago in the morning

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

sunshine of a day of woe, whose untimely night has endured
for nineteen hundred years; so, in the glorious flush of his
youth, this man had stood facing a noble and possibly a
sanctified future; but the ungovernable flames of sin had reduced
him, like that darkened and desecrated fane, to a
melancholy mass of ashy arches and blackened columns,
where ministering priests, all holy aspirations, slumbered
in the dust. His dress was costly but negligent, and the
red stain on his jacket told that his hunt had not been fruitless.
He wore a straw hat, belted with broad black ribbon,
and his spurred boots were damp and muddy.

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

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

Edna felt the indignant blood burning in her cheeks, and
as she could not walk without assistance, and shrank from

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

listening to a conversation which was not intended for her
ears, she coughed several times to arrest the attention of
the speakers, but apparently without effect, for the son's
voice again rose above the low tones of the mother.

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

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

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

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

yourself easy on the score of my `contaminating' the sanctified
vagrant!”

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, Mrs. Murray's son.”

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

“Did Miss Ellen—that is, my mistress—tell you that you
were to live here, and get your education?”

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

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

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

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

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

up; and God knows I wish he had died when he was a baby,
instead of living to grow up the sinful, swearing, raging
devil he is! Now mind what I say. I am not given to
talking, but this time it is for your good. Mind what I tell
you, child; and if you want to have peace, keep out of his
way.”

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

CHAPTER V.

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

AT length, by the aid of crutches, Edna was
able to leave the room where she had been so
long confined, and explore the house in which
every day discovered some new charm. The
parlors and sitting-room opened on a long, arched verandah,
which extended around two sides of the building,
and was paved with variegated tiles; while the stainedglass
doors of the dining-room, with its lofty frescoed ceiling
and deep bow-windows, led by two white marble steps
out on the terrace, whence two more steps showed the beginning
of a serpentine gravel walk winding down to an
octagonal hot-house, surmounted by a richly carved pagodaroof.
Two sentinel statues—a Bacchus and Bacchante—
placed on the terrace, guarded the entrance to the dining-room;
and in front of the house, where a sculptured Triton
threw jets of water into a gleaming circular basin, a pair
of crouching monsters glared from the steps. When Edna
first found herself before these grim doorkeepers, she
started back in unfeigned terror, and could scarcely repress
a cry of alarm, for the howling rage and despair of the
distorted hideous heads seemed fearfully real, and years
elapsed before she comprehended their significance, or the
sombre mood which impelled their creation. They were
imitations of that monumental lion's head, raised on the
battle-field of Chæroneia, to commemorate the Bœotians
slain. In the rear of and adjoining the library, a narrow,
vaulted passage with high Gothic windows of stained

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

glass, opened into a beautifully proportioned rotunda; and
beyond this circular apartment with its ruby-tinted sky-light
and Moresque frescoes, extended two other rooms, of
whose shape or contents Edna knew nothing, save the tall
arched windows that looked down on the terrace. The
door of the rotunda was generally closed, but accidentally
it stood open one morning, and she caught a glimpse of the
circular form and the springing dome. Evidently this portion
of the mansion had been recently built, while the remainder
of the house had been constructed many years
earlier; but all desire to explore it was extinguished when
Mrs. Murray remarked one day:

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

Thenceforth Edna avoided it as if the plagues of Pharaoh
were pent therein. To her dazzled eyes this luxurious home
was a fairy palace, an enchanted region, and, with eager
curiosity and boundless admiration, she gazed upon beautiful
articles whose use she could not even conjecture. The
furniture throughout the mansion was elegant and costly;
pictures, statues, bronzes, marble, silver, rosewood, ebony,
mosaics, satin, velvet—naught that the most fastidious and
cultivated taste or dilettanteism could suggest, or lavish
expenditure supply, was wanting; while the elaborate and
beautiful arrangement of the extensive grounds showed with
how prodigal a hand the owner squandered a princely
fortune. The flower-garden and lawn comprised fifteen
acres, and the subdivisions were formed entirely by hedges,
save that portion of the park, surrounded by a tall iron
railing, where congregated a motley menagerie of deer,
bison, a Lapland reindeer, a Peruvian llama, some Cashmere
goats, a chamois, wounded and caught on the Jungfrau,
and a large white cow from Ava. This part of the
inclosure was thickly studded with large oaks, groups of
beech and elm, and a few enormous cedars which would
not have shamed their sacred prototypes sighing in Syrian

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

breezes along the rocky gorges of Lebanon. The branches
were low and spreading, and even at mid-day the sunshine
barely freckled the cool, mossy knolls where the animals
sought refuge from the summer heat of the open and
smoothly-shaven lawn. Here and there, on the soft, green
sward, was presented that vegetable antithesis, a circlet
of martinet poplars standing vis-a-vis to a clump of willows,
whose long hair threw quivering, fringy shadows when the
slanting rays of dying sunlight burnished the white and
purple petals nestling among the clover tufts. Rustic
seats of bark, cane, and metal were scattered through the
grounds, and where the well-trimmed numerous hedges
divided the parterre, china, marble, and iron vases of varied
mould held rare creepers and lovely exotics; and rich
masses of roses swung their fragrant chalices of crimson and
gold, rivaling the glory of Pæstum and of Bendemeer. The
elevation upon which the house was placed commanded an
extensive view of the surrounding country. Far away to
the north-east purplish gray waves along the sky showed
the range of lofty hills, whose rocky battlements were not
yet scarred and branded by the red hand of fratricidal war;
and in an easterly direction, scarcely two miles distant,
glittering spires told where the village clung to the railroad,
and to a deep rushing creek, whose sinuous course
was distinctly marked by the dense growth that clothed
its steep banks. Now and then luxuriant fields of corn
covered the level lands with an emerald mantle, while
sheep and cattle roamed through the adjacent champaign;
and in the calm, cool morning air, a black smoke-serpent
crawled above the tree-tops, mapping out the track over
which the long train of cars darted and thundered. Mr.
Paul Murray, the first proprietor of the estate, and father of
the present owner, had early in life spent much time in
France, where, espousing the royalist cause, his sympathies
were fully enlisted by the desperate daring of Charette,
Stofflet, and Cathelineau. On his return to his native land

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

his admiration of the heroism of those who dwelt upon the
Loire, found expression in one of their sobriquets, “Le
Bocage,” which he gave to his country residence; and certainly
the venerable groves that surrounded it justified the
application. While his own fortune was handsome and
abundant, he married the orphan of a rich banker, who survived
her father only a short time, and died leaving Mr.
Murray childless. After a few years, when the frosts of
age fell upon his head, he married a handsome and very
wealthy widow; but, unfortunately, having lost their first
child, a daughter, he lived only long enough to hear the
infantile prattle of his son, St. Elmo, to whom he bequeathed
an immense fortune, which many succeeding
years of reckless expenditure had failed to materially impair.
Such was “Le Bocage,” naturally a beautiful situation,
improved and embellished with every thing which
refined taste and world-wide travel could suggest to the
fastidious owner. But not withstanding the countless charms
of the home so benevolently offered to her, the blacksmith's
granddaughter was conscious of a great need, scarcely to
be explained, yet fully felt—the dreary lack of that which
she had yet to learn could not be purchased by the treasures
of Oude—the priceless peace and genial glow which
only the contented, happy hearts of its inmates can diffuse
over even a palatial homestead. She also realized, without
analyzing the fact, that the majestic repose and boundless
spontaneity of nature yielded a sense of companionship almost
of tender, dumb sympathy, which all the polished artificialities
and recherché arrangements of man utterly failed
to furnish. While dazzled by the glitter and splendor of “Le
Bocage,” she shivered in its silent dreariness, its cold, aristocratic
formalism, and she yearned for the soft, musical
babble of the spring-branch, where, standing ankle-deep in
water under the friendly shadow of Lookout, she had spent
long, blissful July days in striving to build a wall of rounded
pebbles down which the crystal ripples would fall, a

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

miniature Talulah or Tuccoa. The chrism of nature had anointed
her early life and consecrated her heart, but fate brought
her to the vestibule of the temple of Mammon, and its defiling
incense floated about her. How long would the consecration
last? As she slowly limped about the house and
grounds, acquainting herself with the details, she was impressed
with the belief that happiness had once held her
court here, had been dethroned, exiled, and now waited beyond
the confines of the park, anxious but unable to renew
her reign and expel usurping gloom. For some weeks after
her arrival she took her meals in her own room, and having
learned to recognize the hasty, heavy tread of the dreaded
master of the house, she invariably fled from the sound of
his steps as she would have shunned an ogre; consequently
her knowledge of him was limited to the brief inspection
and uncomplimentary conversation which introduced him
to her acquaintance on the day of his return. Her habitual
avoidance and desire of continued concealment was, however,
summarily thwarted when Mrs. Murray came into her
room late one night, and asked:

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

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

“Did the experiment cause you any pain?”

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

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

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

“Ma'am!”

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

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

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

“Pray what possible objection can you have to the
dining-room?”

Edna averted her head, but wrung her fingers nervously.

Mrs. Murray frowned, and continued gravely:

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

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

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

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

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

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

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

“St. Elmo, let me introduce you to Edna Earl.”

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

“Good morning, Mr. Murray.”

“Good morning, Miss Earl.”

“No, I protest! `Miss Earl,' indeed! Call the child
Edna.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A moment after he passed the window on horseback,

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

and with a heavy sigh Mrs. Murray dropped her head on
her hand, compressing her lips, and toying abstractedly
with the sugar-tongs.

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

“Shall I dress the flower-pots?”

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

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

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

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

book, and her cheeks flushed almost to a vermilion hue.
From that brief summer dream she was aroused by some
sudden noise, and starting up, saw the sheep bounding far
away, while a large, gaunt, wolfish, gray dog snuffed at
her hands and face. Once before she had seen him chained
near the stables, and Hagar told her he was “very dangerous,”
and was never loosed except at night; consequently,
the expression of his fierce, red eyes, as he stood over her,
was well calculated to alarm her; but at that instant Mr.
Murray's voice thundered:

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

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

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

“Bring me that stick, yonder.”

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

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

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

Probably he did not hear her, and the blows fell thicker
than before. She drew near, and, as the merciless arm was
raised to strike, she seized it with both hands, and swung
on with her whole weight, repeating her words. If one of
his meek, frightened sheep had sprung at his throat to
throttle him, Mr. Murray would not have been more astounded.
He shook her off, threw her from him, but she carried
the stick in her grasp.

“D—n you! how dare you interfere! What is it to
you if I cut his throat, which I mean to do!”

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

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

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

“He knows no better,” she answered firmly.

“Then, by G—d, I will teach him! Hand me that
stick!”

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

“Give me the stick, I tell you, or I—”

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

Edna gave one swift glance around, saw that there were
no other branches within reach, saw too that the dog's face
was swelling and bleeding from its bruises, and, bending
the stick across her knee, she snapped it into three pieces,
which she threw as far as her strength would permit.
There was a brief pause, broken only by the piteous howling
of the suffering creature, and, as she began to realize
what she had done, Edna's face reddened, and she put her

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

hands over her eyes to shut out the vision of the enraged
man, who was absolutely dumb with indignant astonishment.
Presently a sneering laugh caused her to look
through her fingers, and she saw “Ali,” the dog, now released,
fawning and whining at his master's feet.

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

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

“How dare you defy and disobey me?”

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

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

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

He read all her aversion in her eyes, which strove to
avoid his, and smiling grimly, he continued: “You evidently
think that I am the very devil himself, walking the
earth like a roaring lion. Mind your own affairs hereafter,

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

and when I give you a positive order obey it, for I am
master here, and my word is law. Meddling or disobedience
I neither tolerate nor forgive. Do you understand
me?”

“I shall not meddle, sir.”

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

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

“Answer me!”

“I have nothing to say that you would like to hear.”

“What? Out with it!”

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

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

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

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

He took his own handkerchief and wiped away the tears.

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

He threw his head back and laughed derisively.

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

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

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

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

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

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

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

“I did not say that, sir.”

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

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

“What book is that?”

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

“Malice prepense! or the devil!”

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

In reflecting upon what had occurred, she felt her repugnance
increase, and began to think that they could not live
in the same house without continual conflicts, which would

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

force her to abandon the numerous advantages now within her
grasp. The only ray of hope that darted through her mind
when she recalled his allusion to a contemplated visit to
the South Sea Islands, and the possibility of his long absence.
Insensibly her dislike of the owner extended to every thing
he handled, and much as she had enjoyed the perusal of
Dante, she determined to lose no time in restoring the lost
volume, which she felt well assured his keen eyes would
recognize the first time she inadvertently left it in the
library or the greenhouse. The doubt of her honesty,
which he had expressed to his mother, rankled in the orphan's
memory, and for some days she had been nerving
herself to anticipate a discovery of the book by voluntarily
restoring it. The rencontre in the park by no means diminished
her dread of addressing him on this subject; but
she resolved that the rendition of Cæsar's things to Cæsar
should take place that evening before she slept.

CHAPTER VI.

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

THE narrow, vaulted passage leading to Mr. Murray's
suit of rooms was dim and gloomy when
Edna approached the partially opened door of
the rotunda, whence issued a stream of light.
Timidly she crossed the threshold and stood within on the
checkered floor, whose polished tiles glistened under the
glare of gas from bronze brackets representing Telamones,
that stood at regular intervals around the apartment. The
walls were painted in Saracenic style, and here and there
hung specimens of Oriental armor—Turcoman cimeters
Damascus swords, Bedouin lances, and a crimson silk flag,
with heavy gold fringe, surmounted by a crescent. The
cornice of the lofty arched ceiling was elaborately arabesque,
and as Edna looked up she saw through the glass
roof the flickering of stars in the summer sky. In the
centre of the room, immediately under the dome, stretched
a billiard-table, and near it was a circular one of black
marble, inlaid with red onyx and lapis lazuli, which formed
a miniature zodiac similar to that at Denderah, while in the
middle of this table sat a small Murano hour-glass, filled
with sand from the dreary valley of El Ghor. A huge
plaster Trimurti stood close to the wall, on a triangular pedestal
of black rock, and the Siva-face and the writhing
cobra confronted all who entered. Just opposite grinned a
red granite slab with a quaint basso-relievo taken from the
ruins of Elora. Near the door were two silken divans, and
a richly carved urn, three feet high, which had once

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

ornamented the façade of a tomb in the royal days of Petra, ere
the curse fell on Edom, now stood an in memoriam of the
original Necropolis. For what purpose this room was designed
or used Edna could not imagine, and after a hasty
survey of its singular furniture, she crossed the rotundo,
and knocked at the door that stood slightly ajar. All was
silent; but the smell of a cigar told her that the owner was
within, and she knocked once more.

“Come in.”

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

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

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

“Come to the window and take a seat.”

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

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

Without raising her eyes she held the book toward him.

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

“What is it?”

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

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

“I found it where you left it—on the grass near a blacksmith's
shop.”

“A blacksmith's shop! where?”

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

“No; but who was Aaron Hunt?”

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

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

“Well, go on.”

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

“Humph!”

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

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

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

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

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, sir, all of it. Good-night, sir.”

“Wait a moment. When did Aaron Hunt die?”

“Two months after you saw him.”

“You have no relatives? No cousins, uncles, aunts?”

“None that I ever heard of. I must go, sir.”

“Good night, child. For the present, when you go out

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

in the grounds, be sure that wolf, Ali, is chaired up, or you
may be sorry that I did not cut his throat, as I am still in
clined to do.”

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

When the echo of her retreating steps died away, St.
Elmo threw his cigar out of the window, and walked up
and down the quaint and elegant rooms, whose costly
bizarrerie would more appropriately have adorned a villa
of Parthenope or Lucanian Sybaris, than a country-house in
soi-disant “republican” America. The floor, covered in
winter with velvet carpet, was of white and black marble
now bare and polished as a mirror, reflecting the figure of
the owner as he crossed it. Oval ormolu tables, buhl chairs,
and oaken and marquetrie cabinets, loaded with cameos,
intaglios, Abraxoids, whose “erudition” would have filled
Mnesarchus with envy, and challenged the admiration of
the Samian lapidary who engraved the ring of Polycrates
these and numberless articles of virtu testified to the universality
of what St. Elmo called his “world scrapings,”
and to the reckless extravagance and archaistic taste of the
collector. On a verd-antique table lay a satin cushion,
holding a vellum MS., bound in blue velvet, whose uncial
letters were written in purple ink, powdered with gold-dust,
while the margins were stiff with gilded illuminations; and
near the cushion, as if prepared to shed light on the curious
cryptography, stood an exquisite white glass lamp, shaped
like a vase and richly ornamented with Arabic inscriptions
in ultra-marine blue—a precious relic of some ruined Laura
in the Nitrian desert, by the aid of whose rays the hoary
hermits, whom St. Macarius ruled, broke the midnight
gloom chanting, “Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison,” fourteen

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

hundred years before St. Elmo's birth. Immediately opposite,
on an embossed ivory-stand, and protected from air and
dust by a glass case, were two antique goblets, one of greenveined
agate, one of blood-red onyx; and into the coating
of wax, spread along the ivory slab, were inserted
amphoræ, one dry and empty, the other a third full of
Falernian, whose topaz drops had grown strangely mellow
and golden in the ashy cellars of Herculaneum, and had
doubtless been destined for some luxurious triclinium in the
days of Titus. A small Byzantine picture, painted on wood,
with a silver frame ornamented with cornelian stars, and
the background heavily gilded, hung over an etagère, where
lay a leaf from Nebuchadnezzar's diary, one of those Baby-lonish
bricks on which his royal name was stamped. Near
it stood a pair of Bohemian vases representing the two varieties
of lotus—one velvety white with rose-colored veins,
the other with delicate blue petals. This latter whim had
cost a vast amount of time, trouble, and money, it having
been found difficult to carefully preserve, sketch, and paint
them for the manufacturer in Bohemia, who had never seen
the holy lotus, and required specimens. But the indomitable
will of the man, to whose wishes neither oceans nor
deserts opposed successful barriers, finally triumphed, and
the coveted treasures fully repaid their price as they glistened
in the gaslight, perfect as their prototypes slumbering
on the bosom of the Nile, under the blazing midnight
stars of rainless Egypt. Several handsome rosewood cases
were filled with rare books—two in Pali—centuries old;
and moth-eaten volumes and valuable MSS.—some in parchment,
some bound in boards—recalled the days of astrology
and alchemy, and the sombre mysteries of Rosicrucianism.
Side by side, on an ebony stand, lay an Elzevir Terence,
printed in red letters, and a curious Birman book, whose
pages consisted of thin leaves of ivory, gilded at the edges;
and here too were black rhyta from Chiusi, and a cylix
from Vulci, and one of those quaint Peruvian jars, which

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

was so constructed that, when filled with water the air
escaped in sounds that resembled that of the song or cry of
the animal represented on the vase or jar. In the space between
the tall windows that fronted the lawn hung a weird,
life-size picture that took strange hold on the imagination
of all who looked at it. A gray-haired Cimbrian Prophetess,
in white vestments and brazen girdle, with canvas mantle
fastened on the shoulder by a broad brazen clasp, stood
with bare feet, on a low, rude scaffolding, leaning upon her
sword, and eagerly watching, with divining eyes, the stream
of blood which trickled from the throat of the slaughtered
human victim down into the large brazen kettle beneath the
scaffold. The snowy locks and white mantle seemed to
flutter in the wind; and those who gazed on the stony, inexorable
face of the Prophetess, and into the glittering blue
eyes, shuddered and almost fancied they heard the pattering
of the gory stream against the sides of the brass caldron.
But expensive and rare as were these relics of bygone
dynasties and mouldering epochs, there was one other
object for which the master would have given every thing
else in this museum of curiosities, and the secret of which
no eyes but his own had yet explored. On a sculptured
slab, that once formed a portion of the architrave of the
Cave Temple at Elephanta, was a splendid marble miniature,
four feet high, of that miracle of Saracenic architecture,
the Taj Mahal at Agra. The elaborate carving resembled
lace-work, and the beauty of the airy dome and
slender, glittering minarets of this mimic tomb of Noor-Mahal
could find no parallel, save in the superb and matchless
original. The richly-carved door that closed the arch of the
tomb swung back on golden hinges, and opened only by a
curiously-shaped golden key, which never left Mr. Murray's
watch-chain; consequently what filled the penetralia was
left for the conjectures of the imaginative; and when his
mother expressed a desire to examine it, he merely frowned
and said hastily:

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

“That is Pandora's box, minus imprisoned hope. I prefer
it should not be opened.”

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

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

A stranger looking upon St. Elmo Murray for the first
time, as he paced the floor, would have found it difficult to
realize that only thirty-four years had plowed those deep,
rugged lines in his swarthy and colorless but still handsome
face; where midnight orgies and habitual excesses had left
their unmistakable plague-spot, and Mephistopheles had
stamped his signet. Blasé, cynical, scoffing, and hopeless, he
had stranded his life, and was recklessly striding to his
grave, trampling upon the feelings of all with whom he
associated, and at war with a world, in which his lordly,

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

brilliant intellect would have lifted him to any eminence he
desired, and which, properly directed, would have made him
the benefactor and ornament of the society he snubbed and
derided. Like all strong though misguided natures, the
power and activity of his mind enhanced his wretchedness,
and drove him farther and farther from the path of rectitude;
while the consciousness that he was originally capable
of loftier, purer aims, and nobler pursuits than those that
now engrossed his perverted thoughts, rendered him savagely
morose. For nearly fifteen dreary years, nothing but
jeers and oaths and sarcasms had crossed his finely sculptured
lips, which had forgotten how to smile; and it was
only when the mocking demon of the wine-cup looked out
from his gloomy gray eyes that his ringing, sneering laugh
struck like a dagger to the heart that loved him, that of his
proud but anxious and miserable mother. To-night, for the
first time since his desperate plunge into the abyss of vice,
conscience, which he had believed effectually strangled,
stirred feebly, startling him with a faint moan, as unexpected
as the echo from Morella's tomb, or the resurrection of
Ligeia; and down the murdered years came wailing ghostly
memories, which even his iron will could no longer scourge
to silence. Clamorous as the avenging Erinnys, they refused
to be exorcised, and goaded him almost to frenzy.

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

For some time after Edna's departure he pondered all
that had passed between them, and at length he muttered.

“How thoroughly she abhors me! If I touch her, the
flesh absolutely writhes away from my hand, as if I were
plague-stricken or a leper. Her very eyelids shudder,
when she looks at me—and I believe she would more

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

willingly confront Apollyon himself. Strange! Low she detests
me. I have half a mind to make her love me, even
despite herself. What a steady, brave look of scorn there
was in her splendid eyes when she told me to my face I
was sinful and cruel!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER VII.

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

MRS. MURRAY had informed Edna that the gentleman
whom she had engaged to instruct her
resided in the neighboring town of —, and
one Monday morning in August she carried her
to see him, telling her, as they drove along, that he was the
minister of the largest church in the country, was an old friend
of her family, and that she considered herself exceedingly
fortunate in having prevailed upon him to consent to undertake
her education. The parsonage stood on the skirts of
the village, in a square immediately opposite the church,
and was separated from it by a wide handsome street, lined
on either side with elm trees. The old-fashioned house was
of brick, with a wooden portico jutting out over the front-door,
and around the slender pillars twined honeysuckle
and clematis tendrils, purple with clustering bells; while
the brick walls were draped with luxuriant ivy, that hung
in festoons from the eaves, and clambered up the chimneys
and in at the windows. The daily-swept walk leading to
the gate was bordered with white and purple lilies—“flags,”
as the villagers dubbed them—and over the little gate
sprang an arch of lattice-work loaded with Belgian and English
honeysuckle, whose fragrant wreaths drooped till they
touched the heads of all who entered. When Mrs. Murray
and Edna ascended the steps and knocked at the open door,
bearing the name “Allan Hammond,” no living thing
was visible, save a thrush that looked out shyly from the
clematis vines; and after waiting a moment, Mrs. Murray

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

entered unannounced. They looked into the parlor, with
its cool matting and white curtains and polished old-fashioned
mahogany furniture, but the room was unoccupied;
then passing on to the library or study, where tiers of
books rose to the ceiling, they saw, through the open window,
the form of the pastor, who was stooping to gather
the violets blooming in the little shaded garden at the rear
of the house. A large white cat sunned herself on the
strawberry bed, and a mocking-bird sang in the myrtle-tree
that overshadowed the study-window. Mrs. Murray called
to the minister, and taking off his straw hat he bowed, and
came to meet them.

“Mr. Hammond, I hope I do not interrupt you?”

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

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

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

As he led the way to the library, talking the while to
Mrs. Murray, Edna's eyes followed him with an expression
of intense veneration, for he appeared to her a living original
of the pictured prophets—the Samuel, Isaiah, and Ezekiel,
whose faces she had studied in the large illustrated
Bible that lay on a satin cushion in the sitting-room at
Le Bocage. Sixty-five years of wrestling and conquests
on the “Quarantina” of life had set upon his noble and
benignant countenance the seal of holiness, and shed over
his placid features the mild, sweet light of a pure, serene
heart, of a lofty, trusting, sanctified soul. His white hair
and beard had the silvery sheen which seems peculiar to

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

prematurely gray heads, and the snowy mass wonderfully
softened the outline of the face; while the pleasant smile on
his lips, the warm, cheering light in his bright blue eyes,
won the perfect trust, the profound respect, the lasting love
and veneration of those who entered the charmed circle of
his influence. Learned without pedantry, dignified but not
pompous, genial and urbane; never forgetting the sanctity
of his mission, though never thrusting its credentials into
notice; judging the actions of all with a leniency which he
denied to his own; zealous without bigotry, charitable yet
rigidly just, as free from austerity as levity, his heart
throbbed with warm, tender sympathy for his race; and
while none felt his or her happiness complete until his cordial
congratulations sealed it, every sad mourner realized
that her burden of woe was lightened when poured into
his sympathizing ears. The sage counselor of the aged
among his flock, he was the loved companion of the
younger members, in whose juvenile sports and sorrows he
was never too busy to interest himself; and it was not surprising
that over all classes and denominations he wielded
an influence incalculable for good. The limits of one
church could not contain his great heart, which went forth
in yearning love and fellowship to his Christian brethren
and co-laborers throughout the world, while the refrain of
his daily work was, “Bear ye one another's burdens.” So
in the evening of a life blessed with the bounteous fruitage
of good deeds, he walked to and fro, in the wide vineyard
of God, with the light of peace, of faith, and hope, and
hallowed resignation shining over his worn and aged face.

Drawing Edna to a seat beside him on the sofa, Mr. Hammond
said:

“Mrs. Murray has intrusted your education entirely to
me; but before I decide positively what books you will require
I should like to know what particular branches of
study you love best. Do you feel disposed to take up
Latin?”

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

“Yes, sir—and—”

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

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

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

Mr. Hammond smiled and shook his head.

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

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

“Why, what do you know about those men?”

“Only what Plutarch says.”

“What kind of books do you read with most pleasure?”

“History and travels.”

“Are you fond of arithmetic?”

“No, sir.”

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

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

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

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

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

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

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

“I am happy to be able to say that I never was so unfortunate!”

“You consider yourself lucky, then, in not having known
De Staël, Hannah More, Charlotte Brontë, and Mrs. Browning?”

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

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

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

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

Mr. Hammond smiled, and replied:

“A `blue-stocking,' my dear, is generally supposed to be
a lady, neither young, pleasant, nor pretty, (and in most
instances unmarried;) who is unamiable, ungraceful, and
untidy; ignorant of all domestic accomplishments and truly
feminine acquirements, and ambitious of appearing very
learned; a woman whose fingers are more frequently
adorned with ink-spots than thimble; who holds

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

housekeeping in detestation, and talks loudly about politics, science,
and philosophy; who is ugly, and learned, and cross; whose
hair is never smooth and whose ruffles are never fluted. Is
that a correct likeness, Ellen?”

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

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

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

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

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

As they rode homeward, Edna asked:

“Has Mr. Hammond a family?”

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

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

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

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

The comprehensive and very thorough curriculum of
studies now eagerly commenced by Edna, and along which
she was gently and skillfully guided by the kind hand of
the teacher, furnished the mental aliment for which she
hungered, gave constant and judicious exercise to her
active intellect, and induced her to visit the quiet parsonage
library as assiduously as did Horace, Valgius, and Virgil
the gardens on the Esquiline where Mæcenas held his literary
assize. Instead of skimming a few text-books that
cram the brain with unwieldy scientific technicalities and
pompous philosophic terminology, her range of thought and
study gradually stretched out into a broader, grander cycle,
embracing, as she grew older, the application of those great
principles that underlie modern science and crop out in
ever-varying phenomena and empirical classifications. Edna's
tutor seemed impressed with the fallacy of the popular
system of acquiring one branch of learning at a time, locking
it away as in drawers of rubbish, never to be opened,
where it moulders in shapeless confusion till swept out
ultimately to make room for more recent scientific invoices.
Thus in lieu of the educational plan of “finishing natural
philosophy and chemistry this session, and geology and

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

astronomy next term, and taking up moral science and criticism
the year we graduate,” Mr. Hammond allowed his
pupil to finish and lay aside none of her studies; but sought
to impress upon her the great value of Blackstone's aphorism:
“For sciences are of a sociable disposition, and flourish
best in the neighborhood of each other; nor is there
any branch of learning but may be helped and improved by
assistance drawn from other arts.”

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

His favorite plea in such instances was, “If Humboldt
and Cuvier, and Linnæus, and Ehrenberg have made mankind
their debtors by scouring the physical cosmos for
scientific data, which every living savant devours, assimilates,
and reproduces in dynamic, physiologic, or entomologic
theories, is it not equally laudable in scholars, orators,
and authors—nay, is it not obligatory on them, to subsidize
the vast cosmos of literature, to circumnavigate the
world of belles-lettres, in search of new hemispheres of

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

thought, and spice islands of illustrations; bringing their
rich gleanings to the great public mart, where men barter
their intellectual merchandise? Wide as the universe, and
free as its winds, should be the range of human mind.”

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

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

The noble catholicity of spirit that distinguished Mr.
Hammond's character encouraged her to discuss freely the
ethical and psychological problems that arrested her attention
as she grew older, and facilitated her appreciation and
acceptance of the great fact, that all bigotry springs from
narrow minds and partial knowledge. He taught her that
truth, scorning monopolies and deriding patents, lends some
valuable element to almost every human system; that ignorance,
superstition, and intolerance are the red-handed Huns
that ravage society, immolating the pioneers of progress
upon the shrine of prejudice—fettering science—blindly

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

bent on divorcing natural and revealed truth, which God
“hath joined together” in holy and eternal wedlock; and
while they battle à l'outrance with every innovation, lock
the wheels of human advancement, turning a deaf ear to
the thrilling cry:

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

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

CHAPTER VIII.

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

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

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

passed between him and Edna, who regarded him with increasing
detestation; but on one occasion, when the conversation
was general, and he sat silent at the foot of the
table, she looked up at him and found his eyes fixed on her
face. Inclining his head slightly to arrest her attention, he
handed a decanter of sherry to one of the servants, with
some brief direction, and a moment after her glass was
filled, and the waiter said:

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

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

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

Instantly the answer sprang to her lips:

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

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

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you coming to say good-by? Or do you reserve
such courtesies for your `good friends'?”

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

“Good-by, sir. I hope you will enjoy your travels.”

“And prolong them indefinitely? Ah! you offer a flag
of truce? I warned you I should not respect it. You
know my motto, `Nemo me impune lacessit!' Thank you

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

for this lovely peace-offering. Since you are willing to negotiate,
run and open the gate for me. I may never pass
through it again except as a ghost.”

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

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

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

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

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

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

He frowned and muttered an oath; then exclaimed,

“I tell you, I do not choose to leave it in any hands but
yours. Will you promise or will you not?”

The dreary wretchedness, the savage hopelessness of his
countenance awed and pained the girl, and after a moment's
silence, and a short struggle with her heart, she extended
her hand, saying with evident reluctance:

“Give me the key, I will not betray your trust.”

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

“Yes, sir; I promise most solemnly.”

He laid the key in her palm and continued:

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

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

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

She would have stolen away to her own room to secrete

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

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

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

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

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

“Why do you think so?”

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

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

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

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

“You are my only comfort! If I had your faith I should
not be so unhappy. My dear child, promise me one thing

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

that every time you pray you will remember my son, and
ask God to preserve him in his wanderings, and bring him
safely back to his mother! I know you do not like him
but for my sake will you not do this?”

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

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

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

There was a second pause, and finally she said:

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

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

“That will suit my purpose much better than trying to
compose them myself. You must get the book for me.
But, Edna, don't go to school to-day, stay at home with
me; I am so lonely and low-spirited. I will tell Mr. Hammond
that I could not spare you. Beside, I want you to
help me arrange some valuable relics belonging to my son;
and, now that I think of it, he told me he wished you to use

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

any of his books or MSS. that you might like to examine.
This is a great honor, child, for he has refused many grown
people admission to his rooms. Come with me, I want to
lock up his curiosities.”

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

“St. Elmo has forgotten to leave the key with me.”

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

“What is that marble temple intended to hold?”

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

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

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

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

Escaping to her own room, she proceeded to secrete the
troublesome key, and to reflect upon the unexpected circumstances
which not only rendered it her duty to pray for
the wanderer, but necessitated her keeping always about

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

her a souvenir of the man whom she could not avoid detesting,
and was yet forced to remember continually.

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

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

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

“Did he not stop to tell you good-by?”

“No, my dear, he never comes to the parsonage now.
When he was a boy, I taught him here in this room, as I
now teach you. But for fifteen years he has not crossed my
threshold, and yet I never sleep until I have prayed for
him.”

“Oh! I am so glad to hear that! Now I know he will
be saved.”

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

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

“What changed him so sadly?”

“Some melancholy circumstances that occurred early in
his life. Edna, he planned and built that beautiful church
where you come on Sabbath to hear me preach, and about
the time it was finished he went off to college. When he

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

returned he avoided me, and has never yet been inside of
the costly church which his taste and his money constructed.
Still, while I live, I shall not sease to pray for him,
hoping that in God's own good time he will bring him back
to the pure faith of his boyhood.”

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

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

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

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

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

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

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

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

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

As Edna's reasoning powers strengthened, Mr. Hammond
led her gradually to the contemplation of some of the gravest
problems that have from time immemorial perplexed
and maddened humanity, plunging one half into blind, bigoted
traditionalism, and scourging the other into the dreary,
sombre, starless wastes of Pyrrhonism. Knowing full well
that of every earnest soul and honest, profound thinker
these ontologic questions would sooner or later demand
audience, he wisely placed her in the philosophic palœstra,
encouraged her wrestlings, cheered her on, handed her
from time to time the instruments and aids she needed,

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

and then, when satisfied that the intellectual gymnastics
had properly trained and developed her, he invited her—
where he felt assured the spirit of the age would inevitably
drive her — to the great Pythian games of speculation,
where the lordly intellects of the nineteenth century gather
to test their ratiocinative skill, and bear off the crown of
bay on the point of a syllogism or the wings of an audacious
hypothesis.

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

CHAPTER IX.

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DURING the first year of Mr. Murray's absence,
his brief letters to his mother were written at
long intervals; in the second, they were rarer
and briefer still; but toward the close of the
third he wrote more frequently, and announced his intention
of revisiting Egypt before his return to the land of his
birth. Although no allusion was ever made to Edna, Mrs.
Murray sometimes read aloud descriptions of beautiful scenery,
written now among the scoriæ of Mauna Roa or
Mauna Kea, and now from the pinnacle of Mount Ophir,
whence, through waving forests of nutmeg and clove,
flashed the blue waters of the Indian Ocean, or the silver
ripples of Malacca; and, on such occasions, the orphan listened
eagerly, entranced by the tropical luxuriance and
grandeur of his imagery, by his gorgeous word-painting,
which to her charmed ears seemed scarcely inferior to the
wonderful pen-portraits of Ruskin. Those letters seemed
flecked with the purple and gold, the amber and rose, the
opaline and beryline tints, of which he spoke in telling
the glories of Polynesian and Malaysian skies, and the
matchless verdure and floral splendors of their serene spicy
dells. For many days after the receipt of each, Mrs. Murray
was graver and sadder, but the spectre that had disquieted
Edna was thoroughly exorcised, and only when the
cold touch of the golden key startled her was she conscious
of a vague dread of some far-off but slowly and surely approaching
evil. In the fourth year of her pupilage she was

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

possessed by an unconquerable desire to read the Talmud,
and in order to penetrate the mysteries and seize the treasures
hidden in that exhaustless mine of Oriental myths,
legends, and symbolisms, she prevailed upon Mr. Hammond
to teach her Hebrew and the rudiments of Chaldee. Very
reluctantly and disapprovingly he consented, and subsequently
informed her that, as he had another pupil who
was also commencing Hebrew, he would class them, and
hear their recitations together. This new student was
Mr. Gordon Leigh, a lawyer in the town, and a gentleman
of wealth and high social position. Although quite young,
he gave promise of eminence in his profession, and was a
great favorite of the minister, who pronounced him the
most upright and exemplary young man of his acquaintance.
Edna had seen him several times at Mrs. Murray's
dinners, but while she thought him exceedingly handsome,
polite, and agreeable, she regarded him as a stranger, until
the lessons at the Parsonage brought them every two days
around the little table in the study. They began the language
simultaneously; but Edna, knowing the flattering estimation
in which he was held, could not resist the temptation
to measure her intellect with his, and soon threatened
to outrun him in the Talmud race. Piqued pride and a
manly resolution to conquer spurred him on, and the venerable
instructor looked on and laughed at the generous
emulation thus excited. He saw an earnest friendship daily
strengthening between the rivals, and knew that in Gordon
Leigh's magnanimous nature there was no element which
could cause an objection to the companionship to which he
had paved the way.

Four months after the commencement of the new study,
Edna rose at daylight to complete some exercises, which
she had neglected to write out on the previous evening,
and as soon as she concluded the task, went down stairs to
gather the flowers. It was the cloudless morning of her
seventeenth birthday, and as she stood clipping geraniums

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

and jasmine and verbena, memory flew back to the tender
years in which the grisly blacksmith had watched her career
with such fond pride and loving words of encouragement,
and painted the white-haired old man smoking on the porch
that fronted Lookout, while from his lips, tremulous with
a tender smile, seemed to float the last words he had
spoken to her on that calm afternoon when, in the fiery
light of a dying day, he was gathered to his forefathers:

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

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

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

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

To-day, life stretched before her like the untried universe
spread out to Phaeton's wondering vision, as he stood in the
dazzling palace of the sun, extending his eager hands for
the reins of the immortal car, aspiring to light the world, and,
until scathed by fatal experience, utterly incapable of appreciating
the perils and sufferings that awaited his daring
scheme. According to the granitic and crystal oracles of
geology, Rosaceæ flushed, rouged the wrinkled face of this
sibylline earth before the advent of man, the garden-tender
and keeper; and thus for untold and possibly unimagined
centuries, fresh pearly rose-buds have opened each year, at
the magic breath of spring, expanded into bloom and symmetry
perfect as Sharon's proverb; and while the dew still
glistened and the perfume rose like incense, ere the noon
of their brief reign, have blackened and crumbled as the
worm gnawed its way, or have blanched and shivered and
died in the fierce storms that swept over their blushing but
stately heads, and bowed them for ever. If earth keeps
not good faith with her sinless floral children, how dare
frail, erring man hope or demand that his fleeting June-day
existence should be shrouded by no clouds, scorched by no
lightnings, overtaken by no cold shades of early night?
But the gilding glamour of childlike hope softens and
shields from view the rough inequalities and murderous
quicksands of futurity, mellowing all, like the silvery lustre
of Kensett's “Ullswater,” or the rich purple haze that
brims far-off yawning chasms, and tenderly tapestries the
bleak, bald crags that pile themselves up into vast mountain
chains, with huge shining shrines, draped with crystal palls
of snow. Edna had endeavored to realize and remember
what her Bible first taught her, and what moralists of all
creeds, climes, and ages, had reïterated—that human life
was at best but “vanity and vexation of spirit,” that “man
is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward;” yet as she
stood on the line, narrow and thin as Al-Sirat, that divides
girlhood and womanhood, all seemed to her fresh, pure

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

heart as inviting and bewitching as the magnificent panorama
upon which enraptured lotophagi gazed from the ancient
acropolis of Cyrene.

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

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

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

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

“No, sir; upon what score?”

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

“Thank you; but I never go out to parties.”

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

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

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

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

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


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

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

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

As Edna bent forward to examine it Mr. Leigh continued:

“I do not quite comprehend the symbolism of the ram's
head and the star; the crescent is clear enough.”

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

“Tell me your conjecture; my own does not satisfy me,

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

as the Arabic love of mutton is the only solution at which
I have arrived.”

“O Mr. Leigh! look at it and think a moment.”

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

“Think of the second chapter of St. Luke.”

He pondered a moment, and answered gravely:

“I am sorry to say that I do not remember that particular
chapter well enough to appreciate your clew.”

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

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

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

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

“You forget, Mr. Leigh, that Mohammedanism is nothing
but a huge eclecticism, and that its founder stole its
elements from surrounding systems. The symbolism of the
crescent he took from the mysteries of Isis and Astarte,
the ethical code of Christ he engrafted on the monotheism
of Judasism; his typical forms are drawn from the Old

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

Testament or the more modern Mishna; and his pretended miracles
are mere repetitions of the wonders performed by our
Saviour—for instance, the basket of dates, the roasted lamb,
the loaf of barley bread, in the siege of Medina. Even the
Moslem Jehennam is a palpable imitation of the Hebrew
Gehenna. Beside, sir, you know that Sabeanism reigned in
Arabia just before the advent of Mohammed, and if you
refuse to believe that the Star of Bethlehem was signified
by this one shining here on the ram's horn, at least you
must admit that it refers to stars studied by the shepherds
who watched their flocks on the Chaldean plains. In a
cabinet of coins and medals, belonging to Mr. Murray, I
have examined one of silver, representing Astaroth, with
the head of a woman adorned with horns and a crescent,
and another of brass, containing an image of Baal—a human
face on the head of an ox, with the horns surrounded by stars.
However, I am very ignorant of these things, and you must
refer the riddle of the ring to some one more astute and
learned in such matters than your humble `yokefellow' in
Hebrew. `Peace be with thee.'”

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

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

“Thank you, Mr. Leigh, I appreciate the honor, but indeed
you must excuse me, I can not accept the ring.”

“Why not, Miss Edna?”

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

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

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

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

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

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

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

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

“Well, Gordon, what is it?”

“First, do you grant my sister's petition?”

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

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

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

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

The ring was slipped on the slender finger, and as she

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

released her hand, Mrs. Murray bent down and kissed her
forehead.

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

“Twenty-five — I grieve to say! You need not tell
me—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

“To what work do you allude?”

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

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

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

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

Mrs. Murray's brow clouded, and her lips contracted, as
was their habit, when any thing displeased her; consequently,
after a quick glance, Edna followed her to the
room where Hagar was at work. It was the first time the
orphan had been invited to a large party, and she shrank
from meeting people whose standard of gentility was confined
to high birth and handsome fortunes. Mrs. Inge came
frequently to Le Bocage, but Edna's acquaintance with her
was comparatively slight, and in addition to her repugnance
to meeting strangers she dreaded seeing Mr. Leigh
again so soon, for she felt that an undefinable barrier had
suddenly risen between them; the frank, fearless freedom
of the old friendship at the parsonage table had vanished.
She began to wish that she had never studied Hebrew, that
she had never heard of Basilides, and that the sheik's ring
was back among the ruins of Chilminar. Mrs. Murray saw

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

her discomposure, but chose to take no notice of it, and
superintended her toilet that night with almost as much interest
as if she had been her own daughter.

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

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

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

Edna's slender, graceful figure was robed in white Swiss
muslin, with a bertha of rich lace; and rose-colored ribbons
formed the sash, and floated from her shoulders. Her beautiful
glossy hair was simply coiled in a large roll at the back
of the head, and fastened with an ivory comb. Scrutinizing
the face lifted toward Mr. Leigh's, while he talked to
her, the pastor thought he had never seen a countenance
half so eloquent and lovely. Turning his gaze upon her
partner, he was compelled to confess that though Gordon
Leigh was the handsomest man in the room, no acute observer
could look at the two and fail to discover that the

[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]

blacksmith's grand-daughter was far superior to the petted
brother of the aristocratic Mrs. Inge. He was so much interested
in watching the couple that he did not observe
Mrs. Murray's approach until she sat down beside him and
whispered:

“Are they not a handsome couple?”

“Gordon and Edna?”

“Yes.”

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

“Child! Why, she is seventeen to-day.”

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

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

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

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

“If he could only forget her obscure birth—if he could

[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]

only consent to marry her—what a splendid match it would
be for her!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“My child, are you tired of Hebrew?”

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

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

She raised her eyes to his, and said frankly:

[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]

“Yes, sir, I have.”

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

“I wish I could go now with you.”

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

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

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

“Something troubles you, Edna. Will you confide in
me?”

“I feel as if I were occupying a false position here,
and yet I do not see how I can extricate myself without
displeasing Mrs. Murray, whom I can not bear to offend—
she is so very kind and generous.”

“Explain yourself, my dear.”

“You know that I have not a cent in the world except
what Mrs. Murray gives me. I shall have to make my
bread by my own work just as soon as you think me competent
to teach; and notwithstanding, she thinks I ought
to visit and associate as she does with these people, who
tolerate me now, simply because they know that while I am
under her roof she will exact it of them. To-night,
during the dance, I heard two of her fashionable friends
criticising and sneering at me; ridiculing her for `attempting
to smuggle that spoiled creature of unknown
parentage and doubtless low origin into really first
circles.' Other things were said which I can not repeat,
that showed me plainly how I am regarded here, and I will
not remain in a position which subjects me to such remarks.
Mrs. Murray thought it best for me to come; but it was a
mistaken kindness. I thought so before I came—now I
have irrefragable proof that I was right in my forebodings.”

“Can you not tell me all that was said?”

“I shrink sir, from repeating it, even to you.”

[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]

“Did Mr. Leigh hear it?”

“I hope not.”

“My dear child, I am very much pained to learn that
you have been so cruelly wounded; but do not let your
mind dwell upon it; those weak, heartless, giddy people
are to be pitied, are beneath your notice. Try to fix your
thoughts on nobler themes, and waste no reflection on the
idle words of those poor gilded moths of fashion and folly,
who are incapable of realizing their own degraded and
deplorable condition.”

“I do not care particularly what they think of me, but I
am anxious to avoid hearing their comments upon me, and
therefore I am determined to keep as much out of sight as
possible. I shall try to do my duty in all things, and
poverty is no stigma, thank God! My grandfather was
very poor, but he was noble and honest, and as courteous as
a nobleman; and I honor his dear, dear memory as tenderly
as if he had been reared in a palace. I am not
ashamed of my parentage, for my father was as honest and
industrious as he was poor, and my mother was as gentle
and good as she was beautiful.”

There was no faltering in the sweet voice, and no bitterness
poisoning it. Mr. Hammond could not see the face,
but the tone indexed all, and he was satisfied.

“I am glad, my dear little Edna, that you look at the
truth so bravely, and give no more importance to this gossip
than your future peace of mind demands. If you have
any difficulty in convincing Mrs. Murray of the correctness
of your views, let me know, and I will speak to her on the
subject. Good night! May God watch over and bless
you!”

When the orphan reëntered the parlor, Mrs. Inge presented
her to several gentlemen who had requested an introduction;
and though her heart was heavy, and her cheeks
burned painfully, she exerted herself, and danced and talked
constantly until Mrs. Murray announced herself ready to
depart.

[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]

Joyfully Edna ran up-stairs for her wrappings, bade
adieu to her hostess, who complimented her on the sensation
her beauty had created; and felt relieved and comparatively
happy when the carriage-door closed and she found
herself alone with her benefactress.

“Well, Edna, notwithstanding your repugnance to going,
you acquitted yourself admirably, and seemed to have a
delightful time.”

“I thank you, ma'am, for doing all in your power to
make the evening agreeable to me. I think your kind desire
to see me enjoy the party made me happier than every
thing else.”

Gratefully she drew Mrs. Murray's hand to her lips, and
the latter little dreamed that at that instant tears were rolling
swiftly over the flushed face, while the words of the
conversation which she had overheard rang mockingly in
her ears:

“Mrs. Murray and even Mr. Hammond are scheming to
make a match between her and Gordon Leigh. Studying
Hebrew indeed! A likely story! She had better go back
to her wash-tub and spinning-wheel! Much Hebrew she
will learn! Her eyes are set on Gordon's fortune, and Mrs.
Murray is silly enough to think he will step into the trap.
She will have to bait it with something better than Hebrew
and black eyes, or she will miss her game. Gordon will
make a fool of her, I dare say, for, like all other young
men, he can be flattered into paying her some little attention
at first. I am surprised at Mrs. Inge to countenance
the girl at all.”

Such was the orphan's initiation into the charmed circle
of fashionable society; such her welcome to le beau monde.

As she laid her head on her pillow, she could not avoid
exclaiming:

“Heaven save me from such aristocrats! and commit me
rather to the horny but outstretched hands, the brawny
arms, the untutored minds, the simple but kindly-throbbing
hearts of proletaire!”

CHAPTER X.

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WHEN Mr. Hammond mentioned Edna's determination
to discontinue Hebrew, Mr. Leigh expressed
no surprise, asked no explanation, but the
minister noticed that he bit his lip, and beat a
hurried tattoo with the heel of his boot on the stony hearth;
and as he studiously avoided all allusion to her, he felt assured
that the conversation which she had overheard must
have reached the ears of her partner also, and supplied him
with a satisfactory solution of her change of purpose. For
several weeks Edna saw nothing of her quondam schoolmate;
and fixing her thoughts more firmly than ever on her
studies, the painful recollection of the birthday fête was
slowly fading from her mind, when one morning, as she
was returning from the parsonage, Mr. Leigh joined her,
and asked permission to attend her home. The sound of
his voice, the touch of his hand, brought back all the embarrassment
and constraint, and called up the flush of confusion
so often attributed to other sources than that from
which it really springs.

After a few commonplace remarks, he asked:

“When is Mr. Murray coming home?”

“I have no idea. Even his mother is ignorant of his
plans.”

“How long has he been absent?”

“Four years to-day.”

“Indeed! so long? Where is he?”

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“I believe his last letter was written at Edfu, and he said
nothing about returning.”

“What do you think of his singular character?”

“I know almost nothing about him, as I was too young
when I saw him to form an estimate of him.”

“Do you not correspond?”

Edna looked up with unfeigned astonishment, and could
not avoid smiling at the inquiry.

“Certainly not.”

A short silence followed, and then Mr. Leigh said:

“Do you not frequently ride on horseback?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Will you permit me to accompany you to-morrow afternoon?”

“I have promised to make a visit with Mr. Hammond.”

“To-morrow morning then, before breakfast?”

She hesitated—the blush deepened, and after a brief
struggle eshe said hurriedly:

“Please excuse me, Mr. Leigh; I prefer to ride alone.”

He bowed, and was silent for a minute, but she saw a
smile lurking about the corners of his handsome mouth,
threatening to run riot over his features.

“By the by, Miss Edna, I am coming to-night to ask
your assistance in a Chaldee quandary. For several days I
have been engaged in a controversy with Mr. Hammond on
the old battle-field of ethnology, and, in order to establish
my position of diversity of origin, have been comparing the
Septuagint with some passages from the Talmud. I heard
you say that there was a Rabbinical Targum in the library
at Le Bocage, and I must beg you to examine it for me, and
ascertain whether it contains any comments on the first
chapter of Genesis. Somewhere in my most desultory
reading I have seen it stated that in some of those early
Targums was the declaration, that `God originally created
men red, white, and black.' Mr. Hammond is charitable
enough to say that I must have smoked an extra cigar, and

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dreamed the predicate I am so anxious to authenticate.
Will you oblige me by searching for the passage?”

“Certainly, Mr. Leigh, with great pleasure; though perhaps
you would prefer to take the book and look through it
yourself? My knowledge of Chaldee is very limited.”

“Pardon me! my mental vis inertiœ vetoes the bare suggestion.
I study by proxy whenever an opportunity offers,
for laziness is the only hereditary taint in the Leigh blood.”

“As I am very much interested in this ethnological question,
I shall enter into the search with great eagerness.”

“Thank you. Do you take the unity or diversity side of
the discussion?”

Her merry laugh rang out through the forest that bordered
the road.

“O Mr. Leigh! what a ridiculous question! I do not
presume to take any side, for I do not pretend to understand
or appreciate all the arguments advanced; but I am anxious
to acquaint myself with the bearings of the controversy.
The idea of my `taking sides' on a subject which gray-haired
savans have spent their laborious lives in striving to
elucidate seems extremely ludicrous.”

“Still, you are entitled to an idea, either pro or con, even
at the outset.”

“I have an idea that neither you nor I know any thing
about the matter; and the per saltum plan of `taking sides'
will only add the prop of prejudice to my ignorance. If,
with all his erudition, Mr. Hammond still abstains from
dogmatizing on this subject, I can well afford to hold my
crude opinions in abeyance. I must stop here, Mr. Leigh,
at Mrs. Carter's, on an errand for Mrs. Murray. Good
morning, sir; I will hunt the passage you require.”

“How have I offended you, Miss Edna?”

He took her hand and detained her.

“I am not offended, Mr. Leigh,” and she drew back.

“Why do you dismiss me in such a cold, unfriendly
way?”

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“If I sometimes appear rude, pardon my unfortunate
manner, and believe that it results from no unfriendliness.”

“You will be at home this evening?”

“Yes, sir, unless something very unusual occurs.”

They parted, and during the remainder of the walk Edna
could think of nothing but the revelation written in Gordon
Leigh's eyes; the immemorial, yet ever new and startling
truth, that opened a new vista in life, that told her she was
no longer an isolated child, but a woman, regnant over the
generous heart of one of the pets of society.

She saw that he intended her to believe he loved her, and
suspicious as gossips had made her with reference to his conduct,
she could not suppose he was guilty of heartless and
contemptible trifling. She trusted his honor; yet the discovery
of his affection brought a sensation of regret—of
vague self-reproach, and she felt that in future he would
prove a source of endless disquiet. Hitherto she had
enjoyed his society, henceforth she felt that she must
shun it.

She endeavored to banish the recollection of that strange
expression in his generally laughing eyes, and bent over the
Targum, hoping to cheat her thoughts into other channels;
but the face would not “down at her bidding,” and as the
day drew near its close she grew nervous and restless.

The chandelier had been lighted, and Mrs. Murray was
standing at the window of the sitting-room, watching for
the return of a servant whom she had sent to the post-office,
when Edna said:

“I believe Mr. Leigh is coming here to tea; he told me so
this morning.”

“Where did you see him?”

“He walked with me as far as Mrs. Carter's gate, and
asked me to look out a reference which he thought I might
find in one of Mr. Murray's books.”

Mrs. Murray smiled, and said:

“Do you intend to receive him in that calico dress?”

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“Why not? I am sure it looks very nicely; it is perfectly
new, and fits me well.”

“And is very suitable to wear to the Parsonage, but not
quite appropriate when Gordon Leigh takes tea here. You
will oblige me by changing your dress and reärranging
your hair, which is twisted too loosely.”

When she reëntered the room, a half-hour later, Mrs. Murray
leaned against the mantelpiece, with an open letter in
her hand and dreary disappointment printed on her face.

“I hope you have no unpleasant tidings from Mr. Murray.
May I ask why you seem so much depressed?”

The mother's features twitched painfully as she restored
the letter to its envelope, and answered:

“My son's letter is dated Philoe, just two months ago,
and he says he intended starting next day to the interior
of Persia. He says, too, that he did not expect to remain
away so long, but finds that he will probably be in Central
Asia for another year. The only comforting thing in the
letter is the assurance that he weighs more, and is in better
health, than when he left home.”

The ringing of the door-bell announced Mr. Leigh's arrival,
and as she led the way to the parlor, Mrs. Murray
hastily fastened a drooping spray of coral berries in Edna's
hair.

Before tea was ended, other visitors came in, and the
orphan found relief from her confusion in the general conversation.

While Dr. Rodney, the family physician, was talking to
her about some discoveries of Ehrenberg, concerning which
she was very curious, Mr. Leigh engrossed Mrs. Murray's
attention, and for some time their conversation was exceedingly
earnest; then the latter rose and approached the sofa
where Edna sat, saying gravely:

“Edna, give me this seat, I want to have a little chat
with the doctor; and, by the way, my dear, I believe Mr.
Leigh is waiting for you to show him some book you

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promised to find for him. Go into the library—there is a good
fire there.”

The room was tempting indeed to students, and as the
two sat down before the glowing grate, and Mr. Leigh
glanced at the warm, rich curtains sweeping from ceiling
to carpet, the black-walnut bookcases girding the walls on
all sides, and the sentinel bronze busts keeping watch over
the musty tomes within, he rubbed his fingers and exclaimed:

“Certainly this is the most delightful library in the
world, and offers a premium for recluse life and studious
habits. How incomprehensible it is that Murray should
prefer to pass his years roaming over deserts and wandering
about neglected, comfortless khans, when he might
spend them in such an elysium as this! The man must be
demented! How do you explain the mystery?”

“Chacun à son gout! I consider it none of my business,
and as I suppose he is the best judge of what contributes
to his happiness, I do not meddle with the mystery.”

“Poor Murray! his wretched disposition is a great curse.
I pity him most sincerely.”

“From what I remember of him, I am afraid he would
not thank you for your pity, or admit that he needed or
merited it. Here is the Targum, Mr. Leigh, and here is
the very passage you want.”

She opened an ancient Chaldee MS., and spreading it on
the library table, they examined it together, spelling out
the words, and turning frequently to a dictionary which
lay near. Neither knew much about the language; now
and then they differed in the interpretation, and more than
once Edna referred to the rules of her grammar, to establish
the construction of the sentences.

Engrossed in the translation, she forgot all her apprehensions
of the morning, and the old ease of manner came
back. Her eyes met his fearlessly, her smile greeted him
cheerily as in the early months of their acquaintance; and

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while she bent over the pages she was deciphering, his eyes
dwelt on her beaming countenance with a fond, tender look,
that most girls of her age would have found it hard to resist,
and pleasant to recall in after days.

Neither suspected that an hour had passed, until Dr.
Rodney peeped into the room and called them back to the
parlor, to make up a game of whist.

It was quite late when Mr. Leigh rose to say good-night;
and as he drew on his gloves he looked earnestly at Edna,
and said:

“I am coming again in a day or two, to show you some
plans I have drawn for a new house which I intend to build
before long. Clara differs with me about the arrangement
of some columns and arches, and I shall claim you and Mrs.
Murray for my allies in this architectural war.”

The orphan was silent, but the lady of the house replied
promptly:

“Yes, come as often as you can, Gordon, and cheer us
up; for it is terribly dull here without St. Elmo.”

“Suppose you repudiate that incorrigible Vandal and
adopt me in his place? I would prove a model son.”

“Very well. I shall acquaint him with your proposition,
and threaten an immediate compliance with it if he does
not come home soon.”

Mrs. Murray rang the bell for the servant to lock up the
house, and said sotto voce:

“What a noble fellow Gordon is! If I had a daughter
I would select him for her husband. Where are you going,
Edna?”

“I left a MS. on the library table, and as it is very rare
and valuable, I want to replace it in the glass box where it
belongs before I go to sleep.”

Lighting a candle, she lifted the heavy Targum, and
slowly approached the suite of rooms, which she was now in
the habit of visiting almost daily.

Earlier in the day she had bolted the door, but left the

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key in the lock, expecting to bring the Targum back as
soon as she had shown Mr. Leigh the controverted passage.
Now, as she crossed the rotunda, an unexpected sound, as
of a chair sliding on the marble floor, seemed to issue from
the inner room, and she paused to listen. Under the flare
of the candle the vindictive face of Siva, and the hooded
viper twined about his arm, looked more hideous than ever,
warning her not to approach, yet all was silent, save the
tinkling of a bell far down in the park, where the sheep
clustered under the cedars. Opening the door, which was
ajar, she entered, held the light high over her head, and
peered a little nervously around the room; but here, too,
all was quiet as the grave, and quite as dreary, and the
only moving thing seemed her shadow, that flitted slightly
as the candle-light flickered over the cold, gleaming white
tiles. The carpets and curtains — even the rich silk hangings
of the arch—were all packed away, and Edna shivered
as she looked through both rooms, satisfied herself that she
had mistaken the source of the sound, and opened the box
where the MSS. were kept.

At sight of them her mind reverted to the theme she
had been investigating, and happening to remember the
importance attached by ethnologists to the early Coptic
inscriptions, she took from the book-shelves a volume containing
copies of many of these characters, and drawings
of the triumphal processions carved on granite, and representing
the captives of various nations torn from their
homes to swell the pompous retinue of some barbaric
Rhamses or Sesostris.

Drifting back over the gray, waveless, tideless sea of
centuries, she stood, in imagination, upon the steps of the
Serapeum at Memphis; and when the wild chant of the
priests had died away under the huge propylæum, she listened
to the sighing of the tamarinds and cassias, and the
low babble of the sacred Nile, as it rocked the lotus-leaves,
under the glowing purple sky, whence a full moon flooded

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the ancient city with light, and kindled like a beacon the
vast placid face of the Sphinx — rising solemn and lonely
and weird from its desert lair — and staring blankly, hopelessly
across arid, yellow sands at the dim colossi of old
Misraim.

Following the sinuous stream of Coptic civilization to its
inexplicable source in the date-groves of Meroe, the girl's
thoughts were borne away to the Golden Fountain of the
Sun, where Ammon's black doves fluttered and cooed, over
the shining altars and amid the mystic symbols of the marvelous
friezes.

As Edna bent over the drawings in the book, oblivious
for a time of every thing else, she suddenly became aware
of the presence of some one in the room, for though perfect
stillness reigned, there was a consciousness of companionship,
of the proximity of some human being, and with a
start she looked up, expecting to meet a pair of eyes fastened
upon her. But no living thing confronted her — the
tall, bent figure of the Cimbri Prophetess gleamed ghostly
white upon the wall, and the bright blue augurous eyes
seemed to count the dripping blood-drops; and the unbroken,
solemn silence of night brooded over all things,
hushing even the chime of sheep-bells, that had died away
among the elm arches. Knowing that no superstitious
terrors had ever seized her heretofore, the young student
rose, took up the candle, and proceeded to search the two
rooms, but as unsuccessfully as before.

“There certainly is somebody here, but I can not find out
where.”

These words were uttered aloud, and the echo of her
own voice seemed sepulchral; then the chill silence again
fell upon her. She smiled at her own folly, and thought
her imagination had been unduly excited by the pictures
she had been examining, and that the nervous shiver that
crept over her was the result of the cold. Just then the
candle-light flashed over the black marble statuette,

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grinning horribly as it kept guard over the Taj Mahal. Edna
walked up to it, placed the candle on the slab that supported
the tomb, and, stooping, scrutinized the lock. A spider
had ensconced himself in the golden receptacle, and spun a
fine web across the front of the temple, and Edna swept
the airy drapery away, and tried to drive the little weaver
from his den; but he shrank further and further, and finally
she took the key from her pocket, and put it far enough
into the opening to eject the intruder, who slung himself
down one of the silken threads, and crawled sullenly out
of sight. Withdrawing the key, she toyed with it, and
glanced curiously at the mausoleum. Taking her handkerchief,
she carefully brushed off the cobwebs that festooned
the minarets, and murmured that fragment of Persian
poetry which she once heard the absent master repeat to
his mother, and which she had found, only a few days
before, quoted by an Eastern traveller: “The spider hath
woven his web in the imperial palaces; and the owl hath
sung her watch-song on the towers of Afrasiab.”

“It is exactly four years to-night since Mr. Murray gave
me this key, but he charged me not to open the Taj unless
I had reason to believe that he was dead. His letter states
that he is alive and well; consequently, the time has not
come for me to unseal the mystery. It is strange that he
trusted me with this secret; strange that he, who doubts all
of his race, could trust a child of whom he really knew so
little. Certainly it must have been a singular freak which
gave this affair into my keeping, but at least I will not betray
the confidence he reposed in me. With the contents
of that vault I can have no concern, and yet I wish the key
was safely back in his hands; it annoys me to conceal it,
and I feel all the while as if I were deceiving his mother.”

These words were uttered half unconsciously as she fingered
the key, and for a few seconds she stood there, thinking
of the master of the house, wondering what luckless
influence had so early blackened and distorted his life, and

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whether he would probably return to Le Bocage before she
left it to go out and carve her fortune in the world's noisy
quarry. The light danced over her countenance and form,
showing the rich folds of her crimson merino dress, with
the gossamer lace surrounding her white throat and dimpled
wrists; and it seemed to linger caressingly on the
shining mass of black hair, on the beautiful, polished forehead,
the firm, delicate, scarlet lips, and made the large
eyes look elfish under their heavy jet lashes.

Again the girl started and glanced over her shoulder,
impressed with the same tantalizing conviction of a human
presence; of some powerful influence which baffled analysis.
Snatching the candle, she put the gold key in her pocket,
and turned to leave the room, but stopped, for this time an
unmistakable sound, like the shivering of a glass or the
snapping of a musical string, fell on her strained ears. She
could trace it to no particular spot, and conjectured that
perhaps a mouse had taken up his abode somewhere in the
room, and, frightened by her presence, had run against
some of the numerous glass and china ornaments on the
étagère, jostling them until they jingled. Replacing the
book which she had taken from the shelves, and fastening
the box that contained the MSS., she examined the cabinets,
found them securely closed, and then hurried out of the
room, locked the door, took the key, and went to her own
apartment with nerves more unsettled than she felt disposed
to confess.

For some time after she laid her head on her pillow, she
racked her brain for an explanation of the singular sensation
she had experienced, and at last, annoyed by her restlessness
and silly superstition, she was just sinking into
dreams of Ammon and Serapis, when the fierce barking of
Ali caused her to start up in terror. The dog seemed almost
wild, running frantically to and fro, howling and whining;
but finally the sounds receded, gradually quiet was restored,
and Edna fell asleep soon after the scream of the

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locomotive and the rumble of the cars told her that the four
o'clock train had just started to Chattanooga.

Modern zoölogic science explodes the popular fal acy that
chameleons assume, and reflect at will, the color of the substance
on which they rest or feed; but, with a profound
salaam to savans, it is respectfully submitted that the
mental saurian—human thought—certainly takes its changing
hues, day by day, from the books through which it
crawls devouringly.

Is there not ground for plausible doubt that, if the workbench
of Mezzofanti had not stood just beneath the teacher's
window, whence the ears of the young carpenter were regaled
from morning till night with the rudiments of Latin
and Greek, he would never have forsworn planing for
parsing, mastered forty dialects, proved a walking scarletcapped
polyglot, and attained the distinction of an honorary
nomination for the office of interpreter-general at the
Tower of Babel?

The hoary associations and typical significance of the
numerous relics that crowded Mr. Murray's rooms seized
upon Edna's fancy, linked her sympathies with the huge
pantheistic systems of the Orient, and filled her mind with
waifs from the dusky realm of a mythology that seemed to
antedate all the authentic chronological computations of
man. To the East, the mighty alma mater of the human
races—of letters, religions, arts, and politics, her thoughts
wandered in wondering awe; and Belzoni, Burckhardt, Layard,
and Champollion were hierophants of whose teachings
she never wearied. As day by day she yielded more
and more to this fascinating nepenthe influence, and bent
over the granite sarcophagus in one corner of Mr. Murray's
museum, where lay a shrunken mummy shrouded in gilded
byssus, the wish strengthened to understand the symbols in
which subtle Egyptian priests masked their theogony.

While morning and afternoon hours were given to those
branches of study in which Mr. Hammond guided her, she

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generally spent the evening in Mr. Murray's sitting-room,
and sometimes the clock in the rotundo struck midnight
before she locked up the MSS. and illuminated papyri.

Two nights after the examination of the Targum, she was
seated near the bookcase looking over the plates in that
rare but very valuable volume, Spence's Polymetis, when
the idea flashed across her mind that a rigid analysis and
comparison of all the mythologies of the world would throw
some light on the problem of ethnology, and in conjunction
with philology settle the vexed question.

Pushing the Polymetis aside, she sprang up and paced
the long room, and gradually her eyes kindled, her cheeks
burned, as ambition pointed to a possible future, of which,
till this hour, she had not dared to dream; and hope, o'erleaping
all barriers, grasped a victory that would make her
name imperishable.

In her miscellaneous reading she had stumbled upon
singular correspondences in the customs and religions of
nations separated by surging oceans and by ages; nations
whose aboriginal records appeared to prove them distinct,
and certainly furnished no hint of an ethnological bridge
over which traditions traveled and symbolisms crept in satin
sandals. During the past week several of these coïncidences
had attracted her attention.

The Druidic rites and the festival of Beltein in Scotland
and Ireland, she found traced to their source in the worship
of Phrygian Baal. The figure of the Scandinavian Disa, at
Upsal, enveloped in a net precisely like that which surrounds
some statues of Isis in Egypt. The mat or rush sails
used by the Peruvians on Lake Titicaca, and their mode of
handling them, pronounced identical with that which is
seen upon the sepulchre of Ramses III. at Thebes. The
head of a Mexican priestess ornamented with a vail similar
to that carved on Eastern sphinxes, while the robes resembled
those of a Jewish high-priest. A very quaint and puzzling
pictorial chart of the chronology of the Aztecs

[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]

contained an image of Coxcox in his ark, surrounded by rushes
similar to those that overshadowed Moses, and also a likeness
of a dove distributing tongues to those born after the
deluge.

Now, the thought of carefully gathering up these vague
mythologic links, and establishing a chain of unity that
would girdle the world, seized and mastered her, as if veritably
clothed with all the power of a bath kol.

To firmly grasp the Bible for a talisman, as Ulysses did
the sprig of moly, and to stand in the Pantheon of the universe,
examining every shattered idol and crumbling defiled
altar, where worshipping humanity had bowed; to
tear the vail from oracles and sybils, and show the world
that the true, good, and beautiful of all theogonies and cosmogonies,
of every system of religion that had waxed and
waned since the gray dawn of time, could be traced to
Moses and to Jesus, seemed to her a mission grander far
than the conquest of empires, and infinitely more to be desired
than the crown and heritage of Solomon.

The night wore on as she planned the work of coming
years; but she still walked up and down the floor, with
slow uncertain steps, like one who, peering at distant objects,
sees nothing close at hand. Flush and tremor passed
from her countenance, leaving the features pale and fixed;
for the first gush of enthusiasm, like the jets of violet flame
flickering over the simmering mass in alchemic crucibles,
had vanished—the thought was a crystallized and consecrated
purpose.

At last, when the feeble light admonished her that she
would soon be in darkness, she retreated to her own room,
and the first glimmer of day struggled in at her window as
she knelt at her bedside praying:

“Be pleased, O Lord! to make me a fit instrument for
thy work; sanctify my heart; quicken and enlighten my
mind; grant me patience and perseverance and unwavering
faith; guide me into paths that lead to truth; enable me in

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all things to labor with an eye single to thy glory, caring
less for the applause of the world than for the advancement
of the cause of Christ. O my Father and my God! bless
the work on which I am about to enter, crown it with success,
accept me as an humble tool for the benefit of my
race, and when the days of my earthly pilgrimage are
ended, receive my soul into that eternal rest which thou
hast prepared from the foundations of the world, for the
sake of Jesus Christ.”

CHAPTER XI.

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ONE afternoon, about a week after Mr. Leigh's
last visit, as Edna returned from the parsonage,
where she had been detained beyond the usual
time, Mrs. Murray placed in her hand a note
from Mrs. Inge, inviting both to dine with her that day, and
meet some distinguished friends from a distant State. Mrs.
Murray had already completed an elaborate toilet, and desired
Edna to lose no time in making the requisite changes
in her own dress. The latter took off her hat, laid her books
down on a table, and said:

“Please offer my excuses to Mrs. Inge. I can not accept
the invitation, and hope you will not urge me.”

“Nonsense! Let me hear no more such childish stuff,
and get ready at once; we shall be too late, I am afraid.”

The orphan leaned against the mantel-piece and shook
her head.

Mrs. Murray colored angrily and drew herself up haughtily.

“Edna Earl, did you hear what I said?”

“Yes, madam, but this time I can not obey you. Allow
me to give you my reasons, and I am sure you will forgive
what may now seem mere obstinacy. On the night of the
party given by Mrs. Inge I determined, under no circumstances,
to accept any future invitations to her house, for I
overheard a conversation between Mrs. Hill and Mrs. Montgomery
which I believe was intended to reach my ears,
and consequently wounded and mortified me very much.

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I was ridiculed and denounced as a `poor upstart and interloper,
' who was being smuggled into society far above my
position in life, and pronounced an avaricious schemer, intent
on thrusting myself upon Mr. Leigh's notice, and ambitious
of marrying him for his fortune. They sneered at
the idea that we should study Hebrew with Mr. Hammond,
and declared it a mere trap to catch Mr. Leigh. Now,
Mrs. Murray, you know that I never had such a thought,
and the bare mention of a motive so sordid, contemptible,
and unwomanly surprised and disgusted me; but I resolved
to study Hebrew by myself, and to avoid meeting Mr.
Leigh at the parsonage; for if his sister's friends entertain
such an opinion of me, I know not what other people, and
even Mrs. Inge, may think. Those two ladies added some
other things equally unpleasant and untrue, and as I see
that they are also invited to dine to-day, it would be very
disagreeable for me to meet them in Mr. Leigh's presence.”

Mrs. Murray frowned, and her lips curled, as she clasped
a diamond bracelet on her arm.

“I have long since ceased to be surprised by any mani
festation of Mrs. Montgomery's insolence. She doubtless
judges your motives by those of her snub-nosed and excruciatingly
fashionable daughter, Maud, who, rumor says,
is paying most devoted attention to that same fortune of
Gordon's. I shall avail myself of the first suitable occasion
to suggest to her that it is rather unbecoming in persons
whose fathers were convicted of forgery, and hunted out of
the State, to lay such stress on the mere poverty of young
aspirants for admission into society. I have always noticed
that people (women especially) whose lineage is enveloped
in a certain twilight haze, constitute themselves guardians
of the inviolability of their pretentious cliques, and fly at
the throats of those who, they imagine, desire to enter their
fashionable set—their `mutual admiration association.'
As for Mrs. Hill, whose parents were positively respectable,
even genteel, I expected less nervousness from her on

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

the subject of genealogy, and should have given her credit
for more courtesy and less malice; but, poor thing, nature
denied her any individuality, and she serves `her circle'
in the same capacity as one of those tin reflectors fastened
on locomotives. All that you heard was excessively ill-bred,
and in really good society ill-breeding is more iniquitous
than ill-nature; but, however annoying, it is beneath your
notice, and unworthy of consideration. I would not gratify
them by withdrawing from a position which you can so
gracefully occupy.”

“It is no privation to me to stay at home; on the contrary,
I prefer it, for I would not exchange the companionship
of the books in this house for all the dinners that ever
were given.”

“There is no necessity for you to make a recluse of yourself
simply because two rude, silly gossips disgrace themselves.
You have time enough to read and study, and still
go out with me when I consider it advisable.”

“But, my dear Mrs. Murray, my position in your family,
as an unknown dependent on your charity, subjects me
to—”

“Is a matter which does not concern Mesdames Hill and
Montgomery, as I shall most unequivocally intimate to
them. I insist upon the dismissal of the whole affair from
your mind. How much longer do you intend to keep me
waiting?”

“I am very sorry you can not view the subject from my
standpoint, but hereafter I can not accompany you to
dinners and parties. Whenever you desire me to see company
in your own house, I shall be glad to comply with
your wishes and commands; but my self-respect will not
permit me to go out to meet people who barely tolerate
me through fear of offending you. It is exceedingly painful,
dear Mrs. Murray, for me to have to appear disrespectful
and stubborn toward you, but in this instance I can not
comply with your wishes.”

[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]

They looked at each other steadily, and Mrs. Murray's
brow cleared and her lip unbent.

“What do you expect me to tell Mrs. Inge?”

“That I return my thanks for her very kind remembrance,
but am closely occupied in preparing myself to teach, and
have no time for gayeties.”

Mrs. Murray smiled significantly.

“Do you suppose that excuse will satisfy your friend
Gordon? He will fly for consolation to the stereotyped
smile and delicious flattery of simpering Miss Maud.”

“I care not where he flies, provided I am left in peace.”

“Stop, my dear child; you do not mean what you say.
You know very well that you earnestly hope Gordon will
escape the tender mercies of silly Maud and the machinations
of her most amiable mamma; if you don't, I do. Understand
that you are not to visit Susan Montgomery's sins
on Gordon's head. I shall come home early, and make you
go to bed at nine o'clock, to punish you for your obstinacy.
By the by, Edna, Hagar tells me that you frequently sit up
till three or four o'clock, poring over those heathenish documents
in my son's cabinet. This is absurd, and will ruin
your health; and beside, I doubt if what you learn is worth
your trouble. You must not sit up longer than ten o'clock.
Give me my furs.”

Edna ate her dinner alone, and went into the library to
practise a difficult music lesson; but the spell of her new
project was stronger than the witchery of music, and
closing the piano, she ran into the “Egyptian Museum,” as
Mrs. Murray termed her son's sitting-room.

The previous night she had been reading an account of
the doctrines of Zoroaster, in which there was an attempt
to trace all the chief features of the Zendavesta to the Old
Testament and the Jews, and now she returned to the subject
with unflagging interest.

Pushing a cushioned chair close to the window, she
wrapped her shawl around her, put her feet on the round

[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]

of a neighboring chair, to keep them from the icy floor
and gave herself up to the perusal of the volume.

The sun went down in a wintry sky; the solemn red
light burning on the funeral pyre of day streamed through
the undraped windows, flushed the fretted façade of the
Taj Mahal, glowed on the marble floor, and warmed and
brightened the serene, lovely face of the earnest young student.
As the flame faded in the west, where two stars
leaped from the pearly ashes, the fine print of Edna's book
grew dim, and she turned the page to catch the mellow, silvery
radiance of the full moon, which, shining low in the
east, threw a ghastly lustre on the awful form and floating
white hair of the Cimbrian woman on the wall. But between
the orphan and the light, close beside her chair, stood
a tall, dark figure, with uncovered head and outstretched
hands.

She sprang to her feet, uttering a cry of mingled alarm
and delight, for she knew that erect, stately form and regal
head could belong to but one person.

“O Mr. Murray! Can it be possible that you have indeed
come home to your sad, desolate mother? Oh! for
her sake I am so glad!”

She had clasped her hands tightly in the first instant of
surprise, and stood looking at him, with fear and pleasure
struggling for mastery in her eloquent countenance.

“Edna, have you no word of welcome, no friendly hand,
to offer a man who has been wandering for four long
years among strangers in distant lands?”

It was not the harsh, bitter voice whose mocking echoes
had haunted her ears during his absence, but a tone so
low and deep and mournful, so inexplicably sweet, that she
could not recognize it as his, and, unable to utter a word,
she put her hand in his outstretched palm. His fingers
closed over it with a pressure that was painful, and her eyes
fell beneath the steady, searching gaze he fixed on her
face.

[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]

For fully a minute they stood motionless; then he took
a match from his pocket, lighted a gas globe that hung over
the Taj, and locked the door leading into the rotundo.

“My mother is dining out, Hagar informed me. Tell me
is she well? And have you made her happy while I was
far away?”

He came back, leaned his elbow on the carved top of
the cushioned chair, and partially shading his eyes with his
hand, looked down into the girl's face.

“Your mother is very well indeed, but anxious and unhappy
on your account, and I think you will find her thinner
and paler than when you saw her last.”

“Then you have not done your duty, as I requested?”

“I could not take your place, sir, and your last letter led
her to believe that you would be absent for another year.
She thinks that at this instant you are in the heart of Persia.
Last night, when the servant came from the post-office
without the letter which she confidently expected, her eyes
filled with tears, and she said, `He has ceased to think of
his home, and loves the excitement of travel better than his
mother's peace of mind.' Why did you deceive her?
Why did you rob her of all the joy of anticipating your
speedy return?”

As she glanced at him, she saw the old scowl settling
heavily between his eyes, and the harshness had crept back
to the voice that answered:

“I did not deceive her. It was a sudden and unexpected
circumstance that determined my return. Moreover, she
should long since have accustomed herself to find happiness
from other sources than my society; for no one knows better
my detestation of settling down in any fixed habitation.”

Edna felt all her childish repugnance sweeping over her
as she saw the swift hardening of his features, and she
turned toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To send a messenger to your mother, acquainting her

[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]

with your arrival. She would not forgive me if I failed to
give her such good tidings at the very earliest moment.”

“You will do no such thing. I forbid any message. She
thinks me in the midst of Persian ruins, and can afford to
wait an hour longer among her friends. How happened it
that you also are not at Mrs. Inge's?”

Either the suddenness of the question, or the intentness
of his scrutiny, or the painful consciousness of the true
cause of her failure to accept the invitation, brought back
the blood which surprise had driven from her cheeks.

“I preferred remaining at home.”

“Home! home!” he repeated, and continued vehemently:
“Do you really expect me to believe that a girl of your
age, with the choice of a dinner-party among the élite, with
lace, silk, and feathers, champagne, bon-mot, and scandal,
flattering speeches and soft looks from young gentlemen,
biting words and hard looks from old ladies, or the alternative
of a dull, lonely evening in this cold, dreary den of
mine, shut up with mummies, MSS., and musty books, could
deliberately decline the former and voluntarily select the
latter? Such an anomaly in sociology, such a lusus naturœ,
might occur in Bacon's `Bensalem,' or in some undiscovered
and unimagined realm, where the men are all brave,
honest, and true, and the women conscientious and constant!
But here! and now? Ah! pardon me! Impossible!”

Edna felt as if Momus' suggestion to Vulcan, of a window
in the human breast, whereby one's thoughts might be
rendered visible, had been adopted; for, under the empaling
eye bent upon her, the secret motives of her conduct seemed
spread out as on a scroll, which he read at will.

“I was invited to Mrs. Inge's, yet you find me here, because
I preferred a quiet evening at home to a noisy one
elsewhere. How do you explain the contradiction if you
disbelieve my words?”

“I am not so inexperienced as to tax my ingenuity with
any such burden. With the Penelope web of female

[figure description] Page 143.[end figure description]

motives may fates and furies forbid rash meddling! Unless
human nature here in America has undergone a radical
change, nay, a most complete transmogrification, since I
abjured it some years ago; unless this year is to be chronicled
as an Avatar of truth and unselfishness, I will stake
all my possessions on the assertion that some very peculiar
and cogent reason, something beyond the desire to prosecute
archæological researches, has driven you to decline
the invitation.”

She made no reply, but opened the bookcase and replaced
the volume which she had been reading; and he saw
that she glanced uneasily toward the door, as if longing to
escape.

“Are you insulted at my presumption in thus catechising
you?”

“I am sorry, sir, to find that you have lost none of your
cynicism in your travels.”

“Do you regard travelling as a panacea for minds diseased?”

She looked up and smiled in his face—a smile so bright
and arch and merry, that even a stone might have caught
the glow.

“Certainly not, Mr. Murray, as you are the most incorrigible
traveller I have ever known.”

But there was no answering gleam on his darkening
countenance as he watched her, and the brief silence that
ensued was annoying to his companion, who felt less at
ease every moment, and convinced that with such antagonisms
of character existing between them, all her peaceful,
happy days at Le Bocage were drawing to a close.

“Mr. Murray, I am cold, and I should like to go to the
fire if you have no more questions to ask, and will be so
kind as to unlock the door.”

He glanced round the room, and taking his grey traveling
shawl from a chair where he had thrown it, laid it in a
heap on the marble tiles, and said:

[figure description] Page 144.[end figure description]

“Yes, this floor is icy. Stand on the shawl, though I
am well aware you are more tired of me than of the
room.”

Another long pause followed, and then St. Elmo Murray
came close to his companion, saying:

“For four long years I have been making an experiment—
one of those experiments which men frequently attempt,
believing all the time that it is worse than child's play, and
half hoping that it will prove so and sanction the wisdom
of their skepticism concerning the result. When I left
home I placed in your charge the key of my private desk
or cabinet, exacting the promise that only upon certain
conditions would you venture to open it. Those contingencies
have not arisen, consequently there can be no justification
for your having made yourself acquainted with
the contents of the vault. I told you I trusted the key in
your hands; I did not. I felt assured you would betray
the confidence. It was not a trust—it was a temptation,
which I believed no girl or woman would successfully resist.
I am here to receive an account of your stewardship, and
I tell you now I doubt you. Where is the key?”

She took from her pocket a small ivory box, and opening
it drew out the little key and handed it to him.

“Mr. Murray, it was a confidence which I never solicited,
which has caused me much pain, because it necessitated
concealment from your mother, but which—God is my witness—
I have not betrayed. There is the key, but of the
contents of the tomb I know nothing. It was ungenerous
in you to tempt a child as you did; to offer a premium as
it were for a violation of secrecy, by whetting my curiosity
and then placing in my own hands the means of gratifying
it. Of course I have wondered what the mystery was, and
why you selected me for its custodian; and I have often
wished to inspect the interior of that marble cabinet; but
child though I was, I think I would have gone to the stake
sooner than violate my promise.”

[figure description] Page 145.[end figure description]

As he took the key she observed that his hand trembled
and that a sudden pallor overspread his face.

“Edna Earl, I give you one last chance to be truthful
with me. If you yielded to the temptation—and what
woman, what girl, would not?—it would be no more than I
really expected, and you will scarcely have disappointed
me; for as I told you, I put no faith in you. But even if
you succumbed to a natural curiosity, be honest and confess
it!”

She looked up steadily into his inquisitorial eyes, and
answered:

“I have nothing to confess.”

He laid his hand heavily on her shoulder, and his tone
was eager, vehement, pleading, tremulous:

“Can you look me in the eye — so — and say that you
never put this key in yonder lock? Edna! more hangs on
your words than you dream of. Be truthful! as if you
were indeed in the presence of the God you worship. I
can forgive you for prying into my affairs, but I can not
and will not pardon you for trifling with me now.”

“I never unlocked the vault; I never had the key near it
but once—about a week ago—when I found the tomb covered
with cobwebs, and twisted the key partially into the
hole to drive out the spider. I give you my most solemn
assurance that I never unlocked it, never saw the interior.
Your suspicions are ungenerous and unjust—derogatory to
you and insulting to me.”

“The proof is at hand, and if I have indeed unjustly
suspected you, atonement full and ample shall be made.”

Clasping one of her hands so firmly that she could not
extricate it, he drew her before the Taj Mahal, and stooping,
fitted the key to the lock. There was a dull click as
he turned it, but even then he paused and scrutinized her
face. It was flushed, and wore a proud, defiant, grieved
look; his own was colorless as the marble that reflected it,
and she felt the heavy, rapid beating of his blood, and saw
the cords thickening on his brow.

[figure description] Page 146.[end figure description]

“If you have faithfully observed your promise, there will
be an explosion when I open the vault.”

Slowly he turned the key a second time; and as the
arched door opened and swung back on its golden hinges,
there was a flash and sharp report from a pistol within.

Edna started involuntarily notwithstanding the warning,
and clung to his arm an instant, but he took no notice of
her whatever. His fingers relaxed their iron grasp of hers,
his hand dropped to his side, and leaning forward, he bowed
his head on the marble dome of the little temple. How
long he stood there she knew not; but the few moments
seemed to her interminable as she silently watched his
motionless figure.

He was so still, that finally she conjectured he might
possibly have fainted from some cause unknown to her;
and averse though she was to addressing him, she said
timidly:

“Mr. Murray, are you ill? Give me the key of the door
and I will bring you some wine.”

There was no answer, and in alarm she put her hand on
his.

Tightly he clasped it, and drawing her suddenly close to
his side, said without raising his face:

“Edna Earl, I have been ill—for years—but I shall be
better henceforth. O child! child! your calm, pure, guileless
soul can not comprehend the blackness and dreariness
of mine. Better that you should lie down now in death,
with all the unfolded freshness of your life gathered in your
grave, than live to know the world as I have proved it.
For many years I have lived without hope or trust or faith
in any thing—in any body. To-night I stand here lacking
sympathy with or respect for my race, and my confidence
in human nature was dead; but, child, you have galvanized
the corpse.”

Again the mournful music of his voice touched her heart,
and she felt her tears rising as she answered in a low, hesitating
tone:

[figure description] Page 147.[end figure description]

“It was not death, Mr. Murray, it was merely syncope
and this is a healthful reäction from disease.”

“No, it will not last. It is but an ignis fatuus that will
decoy to deeper gloom and darker morasses. I have swept
and garnished, and the seven other devils will dwell with
me forever! My child, I have tempted you, and you stood
firm. Forgive my suspicions. Twenty years hence, if you
are so luckless as to live that long, you will not wonder
that I doubted you, but that my doubt proved unjust.
This little vault contains no skeleton, no state secrets; only
a picture and a few jewels, my will, and the history of a
wrecked, worthless, utterly ruined life. Perhaps if you
continue true, and make my mother happy, I may put all
in your hands some day, when I die; and then you will
not wonder at my aimless, hopeless, useless life. One thing
I wish to say now, if at any time you need assistance of any
kind—if you are troubled—come to me. I am not quite so
selfish as the world paints me, and even if I seem rude and
harsh, do not fear to come to me. You have conferred a
favor on me, and I do not like to remain in any body's debt.
Make me repay you as soon as possible.”

“I am afraid, sir, we never can be friends.”

“Why not?”

“Because you have no confidence in me, and I would
much sooner go for sympathy to one of your bronze monsters
yonder on the doorsteps, than to you. Neither of us
likes the other, and consequently a sham cordiality would
be intolerably irksome. I shall not be here much longer;
but while we are in the same house, I trust no bitter or
unkind feelings will be entertained. I thank you, sir, for
your polite offer of assistance, but hope I shall soon be able
to maintain myself without burdening your mother any
longer.”

“How long have you burdened her?”

“Ever since that night when I was picked up lame and
helpless, and placed in her kind hands.”

[figure description] Page 148.[end figure description]

“I should like to know whether you really love my
mother?”

“Next to the memory of my grandfather, I love her and
Mr. Hammond; and I feel that my gratitude is beyond
expression. There, your mother is coming! I hear the
carriage. Shall I tell her you are here?”

Without raising his face, he took the key of the door
from his pocket, and held it toward her. “No; I will meet
her in her own room.”

Edna hastened to the library, and throwing herself into
a chair, tried to collect her thoughts and reflect upon what
had passed in the “Egyptian Museum.”

Very soon Mrs. Murray's cry of joyful surprise rang
through the house, and tears of sympathy rose to Edna's
eyes as fancy pictured the happy meeting in the neighboring
room. Notwithstanding the strong antipathy to Mr.
Murray which she had assiduously cultivated, and despite
her conviction that he held in derision the religious faith
to which she clung so tenaciously, she was now disquieted
and pained to discover that his bronzed face possessed an
attraction—an indescribable fascination—which she had
found nowhere else. In striving to analyze the interest
she was for the first time conscious of feeling, she soothed
herself with the belief that it arose from curiosity concerning
his past life, and sympathy for his evident misanthropy.
It was in vain that she endeavored to fix her thoughts on
a book; his eyes met hers on every page, and when the bell
summoned her to a late supper, she was glad to escape
from her own confused reflections.

Mrs. Murray and her son were standing on the rug
before the grate, and as Edna entered, the former held out
her hand.

“Have you seen my son? Come and congratulate me.”
She kissed the girl's forehead, and continued:

“St. Elmo, has she not changed astonishingly? Would
you have known her had you met her away from home?”

[figure description] Page 149.[end figure description]

“I should certainly have known her under all circumstances.”

He did not look at her, but resumed the conversation
with his mother which her entrance had interrupted, and
during supper Edna could scarcely realize that the cold, distant
man who took no more notice of her, than of one of the
salt cellars, was the same whom she had left leaning over the
Taj. Not the faintest trace of emotion lingered on the
dark, stony features, over which occasionally flickered the
light of a sarcastic smile, as he briefly outlined the course
of his wanderings; and now that she could, without being
observed, study his countenance, she saw that he looked
much older, more worn and haggard and hopeless, than
when last at home, and that the thick curling hair that
clung in glossy rings to his temples was turning grey.

When they rose from the table, Mrs. Murray took an elegant
bouquet from the mantlepiece and said:

“Edna, I was requested to place this in your hands, as a
token of the regard and remembrance of your friend and
admirer, Gordon Leigh, who charged me to assure you
that your absence spoiled his enjoyment of the day. As he
seemed quite inconsolable because of your non-attendance,
I promised that you should ride with him to-morrow
afternoon.”

As Edna glanced up to receive the flowers, she met the
merciless gaze she so much dreaded, and in her confusion
let the bouquet fall on the carpet. Mr. Murray picked it
up, inhaled the fragrance, reärranged some of the geranium
leaves that had been crushed, and, smiling bitterly all
the while, bowed, and put it securely in her hand.

“Edna, you have no other engagement for to-morrow?”

“Yes, madam, I have promised to spend it with Mr.
Hammond.”

“Then you must excuse yourself, for I will not have
Gordon disappointed again.”

Too much annoyed to answer, Edna left the room, but

[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]

paused in the hall and beckoned to Mrs. Murray who instantly
joined her.

“Of course you will not have prayers to-night, as Mr.
Murray has returned?”

“For that very reason I want to have them, to make a
public acknowledgment of my gratitude that my son has
been restored to me. Oh! if he would only consent to be
present!”

“It is late, and he will probably plead fatigue.”

“Leave that with me, and when I ring the bell, come to
the library.”

The orphan went to her room and diligently copied an
essay which she intended to submit to Mr. Hammond for
criticism on the following day; and as the comparative
merits of the Solonian and Lycurgian codes constituted her
theme, she soon became absorbed by Grecian politics, and
was only reminded of the events of the evening, when the
muezzin bell sounded, calling the household to prayer.

She laid down her pen and hurried to the library, whither
Mrs. Murray had enticed her son, who was standing before
one of the bookcases, looking over the table of contents of
a new scientific work. The servants came in and ranged
themselves near the door, and suddenly Mrs. Murray said:

“You must take my place to-night, Edna; I can not read
aloud.”

The orphan looked up appealingly, but an imperative
gesture silenced her, and she sat down before the table, bewildered
and frightened. Mr. Murray glanced around the
room, and with a look of wrath and scorn threw down the
book and turned toward the door; but his mother's hands
seized his—

“My son, for my sake, do not go! Out of respect for
me, remain this first evening of your return. For my sake,
St. Elmo!”

He frowned, shook off her hands, and strode to the door;
then reconsidered the matter, came back, and stood at the

[figure description] Page 151.[end figure description]

fireplace, leaning his elbow on the mantel, looking gloomily
at the coals.

Although painfully embarrassed as she took her seat and
prepared to conduct the services in his presence, Edna felt
a great calm steal over her spirit when she opened the
Bible and read her favorite chapter, the fourteenth of St.
John.

Her sweet, flexible voice, gradually losing its tremor,
rolled soothingly through the room; and when she knelt
and repeated the prayer selected for the occasion—a prayer
of thanks for the safe return of a traveller to the haven of
home—her tone was full of pathos and an earnestness that
strangely stirred the proud heart of the wanderer as he
stood there, looking through his fingers at her uplifted face,
and listening to the first prayer that had reached his ears
for nearly nineteen weary years of sin and scoffing.

When Edna rose from her knees he had left the room,
and she heard his swift steps echoing drearily through the
rotundo.

CHAPTER XII.

[figure description] Page 152.[end figure description]

I DO not wish to interrupt you. There is certainly
room enough in this library for both, and my
entrance need not prove the signal for your departure.”

Mr. Murray closed the door as he came in, and walking
up to the bookcases, stood carefully examining the titles
of the numerous volumes. It was a cold, dismal morning,
and sobbing wintry winds and the ceaseless pattering of rain
made the outer world seem dreary in comparison with the
genial atmosphere and the ruddy glow of the cosy, luxurious
library, where choice exotics breathed their fragrance
and early hyacinths exhaled their rich perfume. In the
centre of the morocco-covered table stood a tall glass bowl,
filled with white camellias, and from its scalloped edges
drooped a fringe of scarlet fuchsias; while near the window
was a china statuette, in whose daily adornment Edna took
unwearied interest. It was a lovely Flora, whose slender
fingers held aloft small tulip-shaped vases, into which fresh
blossoms were inserted every morning. The head was so
arranged as to contain water, and thus preserve the wreath
of natural flowers which crowned the goddess. To-day
golden crocuses nestled down on the streaming hair, and
purple pansies filled the fairy hands, while the tiny, rosy
feet sank deep in the cushion of fine, green mosses, studded
with double violets.

Edna had risen to leave the room when the master of the

[figure description] Page 153.[end figure description]

nouse entered, but at his request resumed her seat and continued
reading.

After searching the shelves unavailingly, he glanced over
his shoulder and asked:

“Have you seen my copy of De Guérin's Centaur
anywhere about the house? I had it a week ago.”

“I beg your pardon, sir, for causing such a fruitless
search; here is the book. I picked it up on the front steps,
where you were reading a few afternoons since, and it
opened at a passage that attracted my attention.”

She closed the volume and held it toward him, but he
waved it back.

“Keep it if it interests you. I have read it once, and
merely wished to refer to a particular passage. Can you
guess what sentence most frequently recurs to me? If so,
read it to me.”

He drew a chair close to the hearth and lighted his cigar.

Hesitatingly Edna turned the leaves.

“I am afraid, sir, that my selection would displease you.”

“I will risk it, as, notwithstanding your flattering opinion
to the contrary, I am not altogether so unreasonable as to
take offense at a compliance with my own request.”

Still she shrank from the task he imposed, and her fingers
toyed with the scarlet fuchsias; but after eyeing her for
a while, he leaned forward and pushed the glass bowl beyond
her reach.

“Edna, I am waiting.”

“Well then, Mr. Murray, I should think that these two
passages would impress you with peculiar force.”

Raising the book she read with much emphasis:

“Thou pursuest after wisdom, O Melampus! which is
the science of the will of the gods; and thou roamest from
people to people, like a mortal driven by the destinies. In the
times when I kept my night-watches before the caverns, I
have sometimes believed that I was about to surprise the
thoughts of the sleeping Cybele, and that the mother of the

[figure description] Page 154.[end figure description]

gods, betrayed by her dreams, would let fall some of her
secrets. But I have never yet made out more than sounds
which faded away in the murmur of night, or words inarticulate
as the bubbling of the rivers.

“Seekest thou to know the gods, O Macareus! and from
what source men, animals, and the elements of the universal
fire have their origin? The aged ocean, the father of all
things, keeps locked within his own breast these secrets;
and the nymphs who stand around sing as they weave their
eternal dance before him, to cover any sound which might
escape from his lips, half opened by slumber. Mortals dear
to the gods for their virtue have received from their hands
lyres to give delight to man, or the seeds of new plants to
make him rich, but from their inexorable lips—nothing!”

“Mr. Murray, am I correct in my conjecture?”

“Quite correct,” he answered, smiling grimly.

Taking the book from her hand he threw it on the table,
and tossed his cigar into the grate, adding in a defiant, challenging
tone:

“The mantle of Solomon did not fall at Le Cayla on the
shoulders of Maurice de Guérin. After all, he was a
wretched hypochondriac, and a tinge of le cahier vert
doubtless crept into his eyes.”

“Do you forget, sir, that he said, `When one is a wan
derer, one feels that one fulfils the true condition of humanity'?
and that among his last words are these, `The
stream of travel is full of delight. Oh! who will set me
adrift on this Nile?'”

“Pardon me if I remind you, par parenthèse, of the preliminary
and courteous En garde! which should be pronounced
before a thrust. De Guérin felt starved in Languedoc,
and no wonder! But had he penetrated every
nook and cranny of the habitable globe, and traversed the
vast zaarahs which science accords the universe, he would
have died at last as hungry as Ugolino. I speak advisedly,

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for the true Io gad-fly, ennui, has stung me from hemisphere
to hemisphere, across tempestuous oceans, scorching deserts,
and icy mountain ranges. I have faced alike the
bourrans of the steppes and the Samieli of Shamo, and the
result of my vandal life is best epitomized in those grand
but grim words of Bossuet: `On trouve au fond de tout le
vide et le néant.' Nineteen years ago, to satisfy my hunger,
I set out to hunt the daintiest food this world could furnish,
and, like other fools, have learned finally, that life is
but a huge mellow golden Ösher, that mockingly sifts its
bitter dust upon our eager lips. Ah! truly, on trouve au
fond de tout le vide et le néant!”

“Mr. Murray, if you insist upon your bitter Ösher simile,
why shut your eyes to the palpable analogy suggested?
Naturalists assert that the Solanum, or apple of Sodom,
contains in its normal state neither dust nor ashes; unless
it is punctured by an insect, (the Tenthredo,) which converts
the whole of the inside into dust, leaving nothing but
the rind entire, without any loss of color. Human life is
as fair and tempting as the fruit of `Ain Jidy,' till stung
and poisoned by the Tenthredo of sin.”

All conceivable suaviter in modo characterized his mocking
countenance and tone, as he inclined his haughty head
and asked:

“Will you favor me by lifting on the point of your dissecting-knife
this stinging sin of mine to which you refer?
The noxious brood swarm so teasingly about my ears that
they deprive me of your cool, clear, philosophic discrimination.
Which particular Tenthredo of the buzzing swarm
around my spoiled apple of life would you advise me to
select for my anathema maranatha?”

“Of your history, sir, I am entirely ignorant; and even
if I were not, I should not presume to levy a tax upon it in
discussions with you; for, however vulnerable you may
possibly be, I regard an argumentum ad hominem as the
weakest weapon in the armory of dialectics—a weapon too

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often dipped in the venom of personal malevolence. I
merely gave expression to my belief that miserable, useless
lives are sinful lives; that when God framed the world,
and called the human race into it, he made most munificent
provision for all healthful hunger, whether physical, intellectual,
or moral; and that it is a morbid, diseased, distorted
nature that wears out its allotted years on earth in
bitter carping and blasphemous dissatisfaction. The Greeks
recognized this immemorial truth—wrapped it in classic
traditions, and the myth of Tantalus constituted its swaddling-clothes.
You are a scholar, Mr. Murray; look back
and analyze the derivation and significance of that fable.
Tantalus, the son of Pluto, or Wealth, was, according to
Pindar, `a wanderer from happiness,' and the name represents
a man abounding in wealth, but whose appetite was
so insatiable, even at the ambrosial feast of the gods, that
it ultimately doomed him to eternal, unsatisfied thirst and
hunger in Tartarus. The same truth crops out in the legend
of Midas, who found himself starving while his touch converted
all things to gold.”

“Doubtless you have arrived at the charitable conclusion
that, as I am endowed with all the amiable idiosyncrasies
of ancient cynics, I shall inevitably join the snarling Dives
Club in Hades, and swell the howling chorus. Probably I
shall not disappoint your kind and eminently Christian expectations;
nor will I deprive you of the gentle satisfaction
of hissing across the gulf of perdition, which will then
divide us, that summum bonum of feminine felicity, `I
told you so!'”

The reckless mockery of his manner made Edna shiver,
and a tremor crept across her beautiful lips as she answered
sadly:

“You torture my words into an interpretation of which
I never dreamed, and look upon all things through the distorting
lenses of your own moodiness. It is worse than
useless for us to attempt an amicable discussion, for your

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bitterness never slumbers, your suspicions are ever on the
qui vive.'

She rose, but he quickly laid his hand on her shoulder,
and pressed her back into the chair.

“You will be so good as to sit still, and hear me out. I
have a right to all my charming, rose-colored views of this
world. I have gone to and fro on the earth, and life has
proved a Barmecide's banquet of just thirty-eight years'
duration.”

“But, sir, you lacked the patience and resolution of Shacabac,
or, like him, you would have finally grasped the splendid
realities. The world must be conquered, held in bondage
to God's law and man's reason, before we can hope to
levy tribute that will support our moral and mental natures;
and it is only when humanity finds itself in the inverted
order of serfdom to the world, that it dwarfs its
capacities, and even then dies of famine.”

The scornful gleam died out of his eyes, and mournful
compassion stole in.

“Ah! how impetuously youth springs to the battle-field
of life! Hope exorcises the gaunt spectre of defeat, and
fancy fingers unwon trophies and fadeless bays; but slowstepping
experience, pallid blood-stained, spent with toil,
lays her icy hand on the rosy vail that floats before bright,
brave, young eyes, and lo! the hideous wreck, the bleaching
bones, the grinning, ghastly horrors that strew the
scene of combat! No burnished eagles nor streaming
banners, neither spoils of victory nor peans of triumph,
only silence and gloom and death—slow-sailing vultures—
and a voiceless desolation! O child! if you would find a
suitable type of that torn and trampled battle-field—the
human heart—when vice and virtue, love and hate, revenge
and remorse, have wrestled fiercely for the mastery—go
back to your Tacitus, and study there the dismal picture of
that lonely Teutoburgium, where Varus and his legions went
down in the red burial of battle! You talk of `

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conquering the world—holding it in bondage!' What do you
know of its perils and subtle temptations—of the glistening
quicksands whose smooth lips already gape to engulf you?
The very vilest fiend in hell might afford to pause and pity
your delusion ere turning to machinations destined to
rouse you rudely from your silly dreams. Ah! you remind
me of a little innocent, happy child, playing on some shining
beach, when the sky is quiet, the winds are hushed, and
all things wrapped in rest, save


`The water lapping on the crag,
And the long ripple washing in the reeds'—
a fair fearless child, gathering polished pearly shells with
which to build fairy palaces, and suddenly, as she catches
the mournful murmur of the immemorial sea, that echoes
in the flushed and folded chambers of the stranded shells,
her face pales with awe and wonder—the childish lips part,
the childish eyes are strained to discover the mystery; and
while the whispering monotone admonishes of howling
storms and sinking argosies, she smiles and listens, sees
only the glowing carmine of the fluted cells, hears only
the magic music of the sea sibyls—and the sky blackens,
the winds leap to their track of ruin, the great deep rises
wrathful and murderous, bellowing for victims, and Cyclone
reigns! Thundering waves sweep over and bear away the
frail palaces that decked the strand, and even while the
shell symphony still charms the ear, the child's rosy feet
are washed from their sandy resting-place; she is borne on
howling billows far out to a lashed and maddened main,
strewn with human drift; and numb with horror she sinks
swiftly to a long and final rest among purple algæ! Even
so, Edna, you stop your ears with shells, and my warning
falls like snow-flakes that melt and vanish on the bosom of
a stream.”

“No, sir, I am willing to be advised. Against what
would you warn me?”

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“The hollowness of life, the fatuity of your hopes, the
treachery of that human nature of which you speak so
tenderly and reverently. So surely as you put faith in the
truth and nobility of humanity, you will find it as softlipped
and vicious as Paolo Orsini, who folded his wife,
Isabella de Medici, most lovingly in his arms, and while he
tenderly pressed her to his heart, slipped a cord around
her neck and strangled her.”

“I know, sir, that human nature is weak, selfish, sinful—
that such treacherous monsters as Ezzolino and the Visconti
have stained the annals of our race with blood-blotches,
which the stream of time will never efface; but the law of
compensation operates here as well as in other departments,
and brings to light a “fidus Achates' and Antoninus. I
believe that human nature is a curious amalgam of meanness,
malice, and magnanimity, and that an earnest, loving
Christian charity is the only safe touchstone, and furnishes
(if you will tolerate the simile) the only elective affinity in
moral chemistry. Because ingots are not dug out of the
earth, is it not equally unwise and ungrateful to ridicule
and denounce the hopeful, patient, tireless laborers who
handle the alloy and ultimately disintegrate the precious
metal? Even if the world were bankrupt in morality and
religion—which, thank God, it is not—one grand shining
example, like Mr. Hammond, whose unswerving consistency,
noble charity, and sublime unselfishness all concede and
revere, ought to leaven the mass of sneering cynics, and
win them to a belief in their capacity for rising to pure,
holy, almost perfect lives.”

“Spare me a repetition of the rhapsodies of Madame
Guyon! I am not surprised that such a novice as you
prove yourself should, in the stereotyped style of orthodoxy,
swear by that hoary Tartuffe, that hypocritical wolf, Allan
Hammond—”

“Stop, Mr. Murray! You must not, shall not use such
language in my presence concerning one whom I love and

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revere above all other human beings! How dare you
malign that noble Christian, whose lips daily lift your name
to God, praying for pardon and for peace? Oh! how ungrateful,
how unworthy you are of his affection and his
prayers!”

She had interrupted him with an imperious wave of her
hand, and stood regarding him with an expression of indignation
and detestation.

“I neither possess nor desire his affection or his prayers.”

“Sir, you know that you do not deserve, but you most
certainly have both.”

“How did you obtain your information?”

“Accidentally, when he was so surprised and grieved to
hear that you had started on your long voyage to Oceanica.”

“He availed himself of that occasion to acquaint you
with all my heinous sins, my youthful crimes and follies,
my—”

“No, sir! he told me nothing, except that you no longer
loved him as in your boyhood; that you had become estranged
from him; and then he wept, and added, `I love
him still; I shall pray for him as long as I live.'”

“Impossible! You can not deceive me! In the depths
of his heart he hates and curses me. Even a brooding
dove—pshaw! Allan Hammond is but a man, and it would
be unnatural—utterly impossible that he could still think
kindly of his old pupil. Impossible!”

Mr. Murray rose and stood before the grate with his face
averted, and his companion seized the opportunity to say in
a low, determined tone:

“Of the causes that induced your estrangement I am
absolutely ignorant. Nothing has been told me, and it is
a matter about which I have conjectured little. But, sir, I
have seen Mr. Hammond every day for four years, and I
know what I say when I tell you that he loves you as well
as if you were his own son. Moreover, he—”

[figure description] Page 161.[end figure description]

“Hush! you talk of what you do not understand. Believe
in him if you will, but be careful not to chant his
praises in my presence; not to parade your credulity before
my eyes, if you do not desire that I shall disenchant you.
Just now you are duped — so was I at your age. Your
judgment slumbers, experience is in its swaddling-clothes;
but I shall bide my time, and the day will come ere long
when these hymns of hero-worship shall be hushed, and
you stand clearer-eyed, darker-hearted, before the mouldering
altar of your god of clay.”

“From such an awakening may God preserve me! Even
if our religion were not divine, I should clasp to my heart
the system and the faith that make Mr. Hammond's life
serene and sublime. Oh! that I may be `duped' into that
perfection of character which makes his example beckon me
ever onward and upward. If you have no gratitude, no
reverence left, at least remember the veneration with which
I regard him, and do not in my hearing couple his name
with sneers and insults.”

“`Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone!'” muttered
the master of the house, with one of those graceful, mocking
bows that always disconcerted the orphan.

She was nervously twisting Mr. Leigh's ring around her
finger, and as it was too large, it slipped off, rung on the
hearth, and rolled to Mr. Murray's feet.

Picking it up he examined the emerald, and repeating
the inscription, asked:

“Do you understand these words?”

“I only know that they have been translated, `Peace be
with thee, or upon thee.'”

“How came Gordon Leigh's ring on your hand? Has
Tartuffe's Hebrew scheme succeeded so soon and so thoroughly?”

“I do not understand you, Mr. Murray.”

“Madame ma mère proves an admirable ally in this clerical
match-maker's deft hands, and Gordon's pathway is

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widened and weeded. Happy Gordon! blessed with such
able coädjutors!”

The cold, sarcastic glitter of his eyes wounded and humiliated
the girl, and her tone was haughty and defiant—

“You deal in innuendoes which I can not condescend to
notice. Mr. Leigh is my friend, and gave me this ring as
a birthday present. As your mother advised me to accept
it, and indeed placed it on my finger, her sanction should
certainly exempt me from your censure.”

“Censure! Pardon me! It is no part of my business;
but I happen to know something of gem symbols, and must
be allowed to suggest that this selection is scarcely comme
il faut for a betrothal ring.”

Edna's face crimsoned, and the blood tingled to her fingers'
ends.

“As it was never intended as such, your carping criticism
loses its point.”

He stood with the jewel between his thumb and forefinger,
eyeing her fixedly, and on his handsome features
shone a smile, treacherous and chilling as arctic snowblink.

“Pliny's injunction to lapidaries to spare the smooth
surface of emeralds seems to have been forgotten when
this ring was fashioned. It was particularly unkind, nay,
cruel to put it on the hand of a woman, who of course must
and will follow the example of all her sex, and go out fishing
most diligently in the matrimonial sea; for if you have
chanced to look into gem history, you will remember what
befell the fish on the coast of Cyprus, where the emerald
eyes of the marble lion glared down so mercilessly through
the nets, that the fishermen could catch nothing until they
removed the jewels that constituted the eyes of the lion.
Do you recollect the account?”

“No, sir, I never read it.”

“Indeed! How deplorably your education has been neglected!
I thought your adored Dominie Sampson down

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yonder at the parsonage was teaching you a prodigious'
amount?”

“Give me my ring, Mr. Murray, and I will leave you.”

“Shall I not enlighten you on the subject of emeralds?”

“Thank you, sir, I believe not, as what I have already
heard does not tempt me to prosecute the subject.”

“You think me insufferably presumptuous?”

“That is a word which I should scarcely be justified in
applying to you.”

“You regard me as meddlesome and tyrannical?”

She shook her head.

“I generally prefer to receive answers to my questions.
Pray, what do you consider me?”

She hesitated a moment, and said sadly and gently:

“Mr. Murray, is it generous in you to question me thus
in your own house?”

“I do not claim to be generous, and the world would indignantly
defend me from such an imputation! Generous?
On the contrary, I declare explicitly that, unlike some
`whited sepulchres' of my acquaintance, I do not intend to
stand labeled with patent virtues! Neither do I parade
mezuzoth on my doors. I humbly beg you to recollect that
I am not a carefully-printed perambulating advertisement
of Christianity.”

Raising her face, Edna looked steadfastly at him, and
pain, compassion, shuddering dread filled her soft, sad
eyes.

“Well, you are reading me. What is the verdict?”

A long, heavily-drawn sigh was the only response.

“Will you be good enough to reply to my questions?”

“No, Mr. Murray. In lieu of perpetual strife and biting
words, let there be silence between us. We can not be
friends, and it would be painful to wage war here under
your roof; consequently, I hope to disarm your hostility by
assuring you that in future I shall not attempt to argue
with you, shall not pick up the verbal gauntlets you seem

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disposed to throw down to me. Surely, sir, if not generous,
you are at least sufficiently courteous to abstain from attacks
which you have been notified will not be resisted?”

“You wish me to understand that hereafter I, the owner
and ruler of this establishment, shall on no account presume
to address any remarks to Aaron Hunt's grandchild?”

“My words were very clear, Mr. Murray, and I meant
what I said, and said what I meant. But one thing I wish
to add: while I remain here, if at any time I can aid or
serve you, Aaron Hunt's grandchild will most gladly do so.
I do not flatter myself that you will ever require or accept
my assistance in any thing, nevertheless I would cheerfully
render it should occasion arise.”

He bowed, and returned the emerald, and Edna turned to
leave the library.

“Before you go, examine this bauble.”

He took from his vest pocket a velvet case containing a
large ring, which he laid in the palm of her hand.

It was composed of an oval jacinth, with a splendid scarlet
fire leaping out as the light shone on it, and the diamonds
that clustered around it were very costly and brilliant.
There was no inscription, but upon the surface of the
jacinth was engraved a female head crowned with oak
leaves, among which serpents writhed and hissed, and just
beneath the face grinned a dog's head. The small but exquisitely
carved human face was savage, sullen, sinister,
and fiery rays seemed to dart from the relentless eyes.

“Is it a Medusa?”

“No.”

“It is certainly very beautiful, but I do not recognize the
face. Interpret for me.”

“It is Hecate, Brimo, Empusa—all phases of the same
malignant power; and it remains a mere matter of taste
which of the titles you select. I call it Hecate.”

“I have never seen you wear it.”

“You never will.”

[figure description] Page 165.[end figure description]

“It is exceedingly beautiful.”

Edna held it toward the grate, flashed the flame now on
this side, now on that, and handed it back to the owner.

“Edna, I bought this ring in Naples, intending to ask
your acceptance of it, in token of my appreciation of your
care of that little gold key, provided I found you trust
worthy. After your pronunciamiento uttered a few minutes
since, I presume I may save myself the trouble of offering
it to you. Beside, Gordon might object to having his
emerald overshadowed by my matchless jacinth. Of course
your tender conscience will veto the thought of your wearing
it?”

“I thank you, Mr. Murray; the ring is, by far, the most
elegant I have ever seen, but I certainly can not accept it.”

“Bithus contra Bacchium!” exclaimed Mr. Murray, with
a short, mirthless laugh that made his companion shrink
back a few steps.

Holding the ring at arm's length above his head, he continued:

“To the `infernal flames,' your fit type, I devote you, my
costly Queen of Samothrace!”

Leaning over the grate, he dropped the jewel in the
glowing coals.

“O Mr. Murray! save it from destruction!”

She seized the tongs and sprang forward, but he put out
his arm and held her back.

“Stand aside, if you please. Cleopatra quaffed liquid
pearl in honor of Antony, Nero shivered his precious crystal
goblets, and Suger pounded up sapphires to color the
windows of old St. Denis! Chacun à son gout! If I choose
to indulge myself in a diamond cremation in honor of my
tutelary goddess Brimo, who has the right to expostulate?
True, such costly amusements have been rare since the days
of the `Cyranides' and the `Seven Seals' of Hermes Trismegistus.
See what a tawny, angry glare leaps from my
royal jacinth! Old Hecate holds high carnival down there
in her congenial flames.”

[figure description] Page 166.[end figure description]

He stood with one arm extended to bar Edna's approacin,
the other rested on the mantel; and a laughing, reckless
demon looked out of his eyes, which were fastened on the
fire.

Before the orphan could recover from her sorrowful
amazement the library door opened, and Henry looked in.

“Mr. Leigh is in the parlor, and asked for Miss Edna.”

Perplexed, irresolute, and annoyed, Edna stood still,
watching the red coals; and after a brief silence, Mr. Murray
smiled, and turned to look at her.

“Pray, do not let me detain you, and rest assured that I
understand your decree. You have intrenched yourself in
impenetrable silence, and hung out your banner, inscribed
`noli me tangere.' Withdraw your pickets; I shall attempt
neither siege nor escalade. Good morning. Leave my De
Guérin on the table; it will be at your disposal after to-day.”

He stooped to light a cigar, and she walked away to her
own room.

As the door closed behind her, he laughed and reïterated
the favorite proverb that often crossed his lips, “Bithus
contra Bacchium!”

CHAPTER XIII.

[figure description] Page 167.[end figure description]

THE daring scheme of authorship had seized upon
Edna's mind with a tenacity that conquered
and expelled all other purposes, and though
timidity and a haunting dread of the failure of
the experiment prompted her to conceal the matter, even
from her beloved pastor, she pondered it in secret, and
bent every faculty to its successful accomplishment. Her
veneration for books—the great eleemosynary granaries of
human knowledge to which the world resorts—extended
to those who created them; and her imagination invested
authors with peculiar sanctity, as the real hierophants
anointed with the chrism of truth. The glittering pinnacle
of consecrated and successful authorship seemed to her
longing gaze as sublime, and well-nigh as inaccessible, as
the everlasting and untrodden Himalayan solitudes appear
to some curious child of Thibet or Nepaul; who, gamboling
among pheasants and rhododendrons, shades her dazzled
eyes with her hand, and looks up awe-stricken and wondering
at the ice-domes and snow-minarets of lonely Deodunga,
earth's loftiest and purest altar, nimbused with the dawning
and the dying light of the day. There were times
when the thought of presenting herself as a candidate for
admission into the band of literary exoterics seemed to
Edna unpardonably presumptuous, almost sacrilegious, and
she shrank back, humbled and abashed; for writers were
teachers, interpreters, expounders, discoverers, or creators—

[figure description] Page 168.[end figure description]

and what could she, just stumbling through the alphabet
of science and art, hope to donate to her race that would
ennoble human motives or elevate aspirations? Was she,
an unknown and inexperienced girl, worthy to be girded
with the ephod that draped so royally the Levites of literature?
Had God's own hand set the Urim and Thummim
of Genius in her soul? Above all, was she mitred with the
plate of pure gold—“Holiness unto the Lord?”

Solemnly and prayerfully she weighed the subject, and
having finally resolved to make one attempt, she looked
trustingly to heaven for aid, and went vigorously to work.

To write currente calamo for the mere pastime of author
and readers, without aiming to inculcate some regenerative
principle, or to photograph some valuable phase of protean
truth, was in her estimation ignoble; for her high standard
demanded that all books should be to a certain extent didactic,
wandering like evangels among the people, and making
some man, woman, or child happier, or wiser, or better—
more patient or more hopeful—by their utterances. Believing
that every earnest author's mind should prove a
mint, where all valuable ores are collected from the rich
veins of a universe — are cautiously coined, and thence
munificently circulated—she applied herself diligently to
the task of gathering from various sources the data required
for her projected work: a vindication of the unity
of mythologies. The vastness of the cosmic field she was
now compelled to traverse, the innumerable ramifications
of polytheistic and monotheistic creeds, necessitated unwearied
research, as she rent asunder the superstitious vails
which various nations and successive epochs had woven before
the shining features of truth. To-day peering into the
golden Gardens of the Sun at Cuzco; to-morrow clambering
over Thibet glaciers, to find the mystic lake of Yamuna;
now delighted to recognize in Teoyamiqui (the wife
of the Aztec God of War) the unmistakable features of
Scandinavian Valkyrias; and now surprised to discover the

[figure description] Page 169.[end figure description]

Greek Fates sitting under the Norse tree Ygdrasil, deciding
the destinies of mortals, and calling themselves Nornas; she
spent her days in pilgrimages to mouldering shrines, and
midnight often found her groping in the classic dust of extinct
systems. Having once grappled with her theme, she
wrestled as obstinately as Jacob for the blessing of a successful
solution, and in order to popularize a subject bristling
with recondite archaisms and philologic problems, she
cast it in the mould of fiction. The information and pleasure
which she had derived from the perusal of Vaughan's
delightful Hours with the Mystics, suggested the idea
of adopting a similar plan for her own book, and investing
it with the additional interest of a complicated plot and
more numerous characters. To avoid anachronisms, she
endeavored to treat the religions of the world in their chronologic
sequence, and resorted to the expedient of introducing
pagan personages. A fair young priestess of the temple
of Neith, in the sacred city of Sais—where people of all
climes collected to witness the festival of lamps—becoming
skeptical of the miraculous attributes of the statues she had
been trained to serve and worship, and impelled by an earnest
love of truth to seek a faith that would satisfy her reason and
purify her heart, is induced to question minutely the religious
tenets of travellers who visited the temple, and thus
familiarized herself with all existing creeds and hierarchies.
The lore so carefully garnered is finally analyzed, classified,
and inscribed on papyrus. The delineation of scenes and
sanctuaries in different latitudes, from Lhasa to Copan,
gave full exercise to Edna's descriptive power, but imposed
much labor in the departments of physical geography and
architecture.

Verily! an ambitious literary programme for a girl over
whose head scarcely eighteen years had hung their dripping
drab wintry skies, and pearly summer clouds.

One March morning, as Edna entered the breakfast-room,
she saw unusual gravity printed on Mrs. Murray's face; and

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observing an open letter on the table, conjectured the cause
of her changed countenance. A moment after the master
came in, and as he seated himself his mother said:

“St Elmo, your cousin Estelle's letter contains bad news.
Her father is dead; the estate is wretchedly insolvent; and
she is coming to reside with us.”

“Then I am off for Hammerfest and the midnight sun!
Who the deuce invited her I should like to know?”

“Remember she is my sister's child; she has no other
home, and I am sure it is very natural that she should come
to me, her nearest relative, for sympathy and protection.”

“Write to her by return mail that you will gladly allow
her three thousand a year, provided she ensconces herself
under some other roof than this.”

“Impossible! I could not wound her so deeply.”

“You imagine that she entertains a most tender and profound
regard for both of us?”

“Certainly, my son; we have every reason to believe
that she does.”

Leaning back in his chair, St. Elmo laughed derisively.

“I should really enjoy stumbling upon something that
would overtax your most marvellous and indefinitely extensible
credulity! When Estelle Harding becomes an inmate
of this house I shall pack my valise, and start to
Tromso! She approaches like Discord, uninvited, armed
with an apple or a dagger. I am perfectly willing to share
my fortune with her, but I'll swear I would rather prowl
for a month through the plague-stricken district of Constantinople
than see her domesticated here! You tried the
experiment when she was a child, and we fought and
scratched as indefatigably as those two amiable young
Theban bullies, who are so often cited as scarecrows for
quarrelsome juveniles. Of course we shall renew the
battle at sight.”

“But my dear son, there are claims urged by natural
affection which it is impossible to ignore. Poor Estelle

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is very desolate, and has a right to our sympathy and
love.”

“Poor Estelle! Hœredipetœ! The frailties of old
Rome survive her virtues and her ruins!”

Mr. Murray laughed again, beat a tattoo with his fork on
the edge of his plate, and, rising, left the room.

Mrs. Murray looked puzzled and said:

“Edna, do you know what he meant? He often amuses
himself by mystifying me, and I will not gratify him by
asking an explanation.”

“Hœredipetœ were legacy-hunters in Rome, where their
sycophantic devotion to people of wealth furnished a constant
theme for satire.”

Mrs. Murray sighed heavily, and the orphan asked:

“When do you expect your niece?”

“Day after to-morrow. I have not seen her for many
years, but report says she is very fascinating, and even St.
Elmo, who met her in Europe, admits that she is handsome.
As you heard him say just now, they formerly quarrelled
most outrageously and shamefully, and he took an unaccountable
aversion to her; but I trust all juvenile reminiscences
will vanish when they know each other better. My
dear, I have several engagements for to-day, and I must
rely upon you to superintend the arrangement of Estelle's
room. She will occupy the one next to yours. See that
every thing is in order. You know Hagar is sick, and the
other servants are careless.”

Sympathy for Miss Harding's recent and severe affliction
prepared Edna's heart to receive her cordially, and the fact
that an irreconcilable feud existed between the stranger and
St. Elmo, induced the orphan to hope that she might find a
congenial companion in the expected visitor.

On the afternoon of her arrival Edna leaned eagerly forward
to catch a glimpse of her countenance, and as she
threw back her long mourning-vail and received her aunt's
affectionate greeting, the first impression was, “How

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exceedingly handsome—how commanding she is!” But a few
minutes later, when Mrs. Murray introduced them, and
the stranger's keen, bright, restless eyes fell upon the orphan's
face, the latter drew back, involuntarily repelled,
and a slight shiver crept over her, for an unerring instinctive
repulsion told her they could never be friends.

Estelle Harding was no longer young; years had hardened
the outline of her features, and imparted a certain
staidness or fixedness to her calm countenance, where
strong feeling or passionate impulse was never permitted to
slip the elegant mask of polished suavity. She was surprisingly
like Mrs. Murray, but not one line of her face resembled
her cousin's. Fixing her eyes on Edna, with a cold,
almost stern scrutiny more searching than courteous, she
said:

“I was not aware, Aunt Ellen, that you had company in
the house.”

“I have no company at present, my dear. Edna resides
here. Do you not remember one of my letters in which I
mentioned the child, who was injured by the railroad accident?”

“True. I expected to see a child, certainly not a woman.”

“She seems merely a child to me. But come up to your
room; you must be very much fatigued by your journey.”

When they left the sitting-room Edna sat down in one
corner of the sofa, disappointed and perplexed.

“She does not like me, that is patent; and I certainly do
not like her. She is handsome and very graceful, and quite
heartless. There is no inner light from her soul shining in
her eyes; nothing tender and loving and kind in their
clear depths; they are cold, bright eyes, but not soft, winning,
womanly eyes. They might, and doubtless would,
hold an angry dog in check, but never draw a tired, fretful
child to lean its drooping head on her lap. If she really
has any feeling, her eyes should be indicted for slander. I

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am sorry I don't like her, and I am afraid we never shall
be nearer each other than touching our finger-tips.”

Such was Edna's unsatisfactory conclusion, and dismissing
the subject, she picked up a book, and read until the
ladies returned and seated themselves around the fire.

To Mrs. Murray's great chagrin and mortification her son
had positively declined going to the depot to meet his
cousin, had been absent since breakfast, and proved himself
shamefully derelict in the courtesy demanded of him.
It was almost dark when the quick gallop of his horse announced
his return, and, as he passed the window on his
way to the stables, Edna noticed a sudden change in Estelle's
countenance. During the quarter of an hour that
succeeded, her eyes never wandered from the door, though
her head was turned to listen to Mrs. Murray's remarks.
Soon after, Mr. Murray's rapid footsteps sounded in the hall,
and as he entered she rose and advanced to meet him.
He held out his hand, shook hers vigorously, and said, as
he dropped it:

“Mine ancient enemy declare a truce, and quiet my apprehensions;
for I dreamed last night that, on sight, we
flew at each other's throats, and renewed the sanguinary
scuffles of our juvenile acquaintance. Most appallingly
vivid is my recollection of a certain scar here on my left
arm, where you set your pearly teeth some years ago.”

“My dear cousin, as I have had no provocation since I
was separated from you, I believe I have grown harmless
and amiable. How very well you look, St. Elmo.”

“Thank you. I should like to return the compliment, but
facts forbid. You are thinner than when we dined together
in Paris. Are you really in love with that excruciating
Brummell of a Count who danced such indefatigable attendance
upon you?”

“To whom do you allude?”

“That youth with languishing brown eyes, who parted
his `hyacinthine tresses' in the middle of his head; whose

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moustache required Ehrenberg's strongest glasses—and who
absolutely believed that Ristori singled him out of her
vast audiences as the most appreciative of her listeners;
who was eternally humming `Ernani' and raving about
`Traviata.' Your memory is treacherous—as your conscience?
Well, then, that man, who I once told you reminded
me of what Guilleragues is reported to have said
about Pelisson, `that he abused the permission men have to
be ugly.'”

“Ah! you mean poor Victor! He spent the winter in
Seville. I had a letter last week.”

“When do you propose to make him my cousin?”

“Not until I become an inmate of a lunatic asylum.”

“Poor wretch! If he only had courage to sue you for
breach of promise, I would, with pleasure, furnish sufficient
testimony to convict you and secure him heavy damages;
for I will swear you played fiancée to perfection. You
lavish expenditure of affection seemed to me altogether uncalled
for, considering the fact that the fish already floundered
at your feet.”

The reminiscence evidently annoyed her, though her lips
smiled, and Edna saw that, while his words were pointed
with a sarcasm lost upon herself, it was fully appreciated by
his cousin.

“St. Elmo, I am sorry to see that you have not improved
one iota; that all your wickedness clings to you like Sinbad's
burden.”

Standing at his side, she put her hand on his shoulder.

As he looked down at her, his lips curled.

“Nevertheless, Estelle, I find a pale ghost of pity for you
wandering up and down what was once my heart. After
the glorious intoxication of Parisian life, how can you endure
the tedium of this dullest of hum-drum—this most
moral and stupid of all country towns? Little gossip, few
flirtations, neither beaux esprits nor bons vivants—what will
become of you? Now, whatever amusement, edification, or

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warning you may be able to extract from my society, I
here beg permission to express the hope that you will appropriate
unsparingly. I shall, with exemplary hospitality,
dedicate myself to your service—shall try to make amends
for votre cher Victor's absence, and solemnly promise to do
every thing in my power to assist you in strangling time,
except parting my hair in the middle of my head, and making
love to you. With these stipulated reservations, command
me ad libitum.”

Her face flushed slightly, she withdrew her hand and sat
down.

Taking his favorite position on the rug, with one hand
thrust into his pocket and the other dallying with his
watch-chain, Mr. Murray continued:

“Entire honesty on my part, and a pardonable and amiable
weakness for descanting on the charms of my native village,
compel me to assure you, that notwithstanding the
deprivation of opera and theatre, bal masqué and the Bois
de Boulogne, I believe you will be surprised to find that
the tone of society here is quite up to the lofty standard of
the `Society of Arcueil,' or even the requirements of the
Academy of Sciences. Our pastors are erudite as Abelard,
and rigid as Trappists; our young ladies are learned as
that ancient blue-stocking daughter of Pythagoras, and as
pious as St. Salvia, who never washed her face. For instance,
girls yet in their teens are much better acquainted
with Hebrew than Miriam was, when she sung it on the
shore of the Red Sea, (where, by the by, Talmudic tradition
says Pharaoh was not drowned,) and they will vehemently
contend for the superiority of the Targum of Onkelos
over that on the Hagiographa, ascribed to one-eyed
Joseph of Sora! You look incredulous, my fair cousin.
Nay, permit me to complete the inventory of the acquirements
of your future companions. They quote fluently
from the Megilloth, and will entertain you by fighting over
again the battle of the school of Hillel versus the school of

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Shammai! Their attainments in philology reflect discredit
on the superficiality of Max Müller; and if an incidental
allusion is made to archæology, lo! they bombard
you with a broadside of authorities,and recondite terminology
that would absolutely make the hair of Lepsius and
Champollion stand on end. I assure you the savants of
the Old World would catch their breath with envious
amazement, if they could only enjoy the advantage of the
conversation of these orthodox and erudite refugees from
the nursery! The unfortunate men of this community are
kept in pitiable terror lest they commit an anachronism,
and if, after a careful reconnoissance of the slippery ground,
they tremblingly venture an anecdote of Selwyn or Hood,
or Beaumarchais, they are invariably driven back in confusion
by the inquiry, if they remember this or that bon mot
uttered at the court of Aurungzebe or of one of the early
Incas! Ah! would I were Molière to repaint Les Precieuses
Ridicules!”

Although his eyes had never once wandered from his
cousin's face,toward the corner where Edna sat embroidering
some mats, she felt the blood burning in her cheeks, and
forced herself to look up. At that moment, as he stood in
the soft glow of the firelight, he was handsomer than she
had ever seen him; and when he glanced swiftly over his
shoulder to mark the effect of his words, their eyes met,
and she smiled involuntarily.

“For shame, St. Elmo! I will have you presented by
the grand-jury of this county for wholesale defamation of
the inhabitants thereof,” said his mother, shaking her finger
at him.

Estelle laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

“My poor cousin! how I pity you, and the remainder of
the men here, surrounded by such a formidable coterie of
blues.”

“Believe me, even their shadows are as blue as those
which I have seen thrown upon the snow of Eyriks Jökull,

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in Iceland, where I would have sworn that every shade cast
on the mountain was a blot of indigo. Sometimes I
seriously contemplate erecting an observatory and telescope,
in order to sweep our sky and render visible what I am
convinced exist there undiscovered—some of those deep
blue nebulæ which Sir John Herschel found in the southern
hemisphere! If the astronomical conjecture be correct,
concerning the possibility of a galaxy of blue stars, a huge
cluster hangs in this neighborhood and furnishes an explanation
of the color of the women.”

“Henceforth, St. Elmo, the sole study of my life shall
be to forget my alphabet. Miss Earl, do you understand
Hebrew?”

“Oh! no; I have only begun to study it.”

“Estelle, it is the popular and fashionable amusement
here. Young ladies and young gentlemen form classes for
mutual aid and `mutual admiration,' while they clasp
hands over the Masora. If Lord Brougham, and other
members of the `Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,
' could only have been induced to investigate the
intellectual status of the `rising generation' of our village,
there is little room to doubt that, as they are not deemed
advocates for works of supererogation, they would long
ago have appreciated the expediency of disbanding said
society. I imagine Tennyson is a clairvoyant, and was
looking at the young people of this vicinage, when he
wrote:

`Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.'

“Your random firing seems to produce no confusion on
the part of your game,” answered his cousin, withdrawing
her gaze from Edna's tranquil features, over which a
half smile still lingered.

He did not seem to hear her words, but his eyebrows

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thickened, as he drew a couple of letters from his pocket
and looked at the superscription.

Giving one to his mother, who sat looking over a newspaper,
he crossed the room and silently laid the other on
Edna's lap.

It was post-marked in a distant city and directed in a
gentleman's large, round business hand-writing. The girl's
face flushed with pleasure as she broke the seal, glanced at
the signature, and without pausing for a perusal hastily put
the letter into her pocket.

“Who can be writing to you, Edna?” asked Mrs. Murray,
when she had finished reading her own letter.

“Oh! doubtless some Syrian scribe has indited a Chaldee
billet-doux, which she can not spell out without the friendly
aid of dictionary and grammar. Permit her to withdraw
and decipher it. Meantime here comes Henry to announce
dinner, and a plate of soup will strengthen her for her task.”

Mr. Murray offered his arm to his cousin, and during dinner
he talked constantly, rapidly, brilliantly of men and
things abroad; now hurling a sarcasm at Estelle's head,
now laughing at his mother's expostulations, and studiously
avoiding any further notice of Edna, who was never so
thoroughly at ease as when he seemed to forget her
presence.

Estelle sat at his right hand, and suddenly refilling his
glass with bubbling champagne, he leaned over and whispered
a few words in her ear that brought a look of surprise
and pleasure into her eyes. Edna only saw the expression
of his face, and the tenderness, the pleading written there
astonished and puzzled her. The next moment they rose
from the table, and as Mr. Murray drew his cousin's hand
under his arm, Edna hurried away to her own room.

Among the numerous magazines to which St. Elmo subscribed,
was one renowned for the lofty tone of its articles
and the asperity of its carping criticisms, and this periodical
Edna always singled out and read with avidity.

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The name of the editor swung in terrorum in the imagination
of all humble authorlings, and had become a synonym
for merciless critical excoriation.

To this literary Fouquier Tinville, the orphan had daringly
written some weeks before, stating her determination to
attempt a book, and asking permission to submit the first
chapter to his searching inspection. She wrote that she
expected him to find faults—he always did; and she preferred
that her work should be roughly handled by him,
rather than patted and smeared with faint praise by men of
inferior critical astuteness.

The anxiously expected reply had come at last, and as
she locked her door and sat down to read it, she trembled
from head to foot. In the centre of a handsome sheet of
tinted paper she found these lines.

“Madam: In reply to your very extraordinary request
I have the honor to inform you, that my time is so entirely
consumed by necessary and important claims, that I find no
leisure at my command for the examination of the embryonic
chapter of a contemplated book. I am, madam,

Tears of disappointment filled her eyes and for a moment
she bit her, lip with uncontrolled vexation; then refolding
the letter, she put it in a drawer of her desk,and said sorrowfully:

“I certainly had no right to expect any thing more polite
from him. He snubs even his popular contributors, and of
course he would not be particularly courteous to an unknown
scribbler. Perhaps some day I may make him regret
that letter; and such a triumph will more than compensate
for this mortification. One might think that all
literary people, editors, authors, reviewers, would sympathize
with each other, and stretch out their hands to aid
one another; but it seems there is less free-masonry among

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literati than other guilds. They wage an internecine war
among themselves, though it certainly can not be termed
`civil strife,' judging from Mr. Douglass Manning's letter.”

Chagrined and perplexed she walked up and down the
room, wondering what step would be most expedient in the
present state of affairs; and trying to persuade herself that
she ought to consult Mr. Hammond. But she wished to
surprise him, to hear his impartial opinion of a printed
article which he could not suspect that she had written,
and finally she resolved to say nothing to any one, to work
on in silence, relying only upon herself. With this determination
she sat down before her desk, opened the MS. of
her book, and very soon became absorbed in writing the
second chapter. Before she had finished even the first sentence
a hasty rap summoned her to the door.

She opened it, and found Mr. Murray standing in the hall,
with a candle in his hand.

“Where is that volume of chess problems which you had
last week?”

“It is here, sir.”

She took it from the table, and as she approached him,
Mr. Murray held the light close to her countenance, and
gave her one of those keen looks, which always reminded
her of the descriptions of the scrutiny of the Council of Ten,
in the days when “lions' mouths” grinned at the street-corners
in Venice.

Something in the curious expression of his face, and the
evident satisfaction which he derived from his hasty investigation,
told Edna that the book was a mere pretext. She
drew back and asked:

“Have I any other book that you need?”

“No; I have all I came for.”

Smiling half mischievously, half maliciously, he turned
and left her.

“I wonder what he saw in my face that amused him?'

She walked up to the bureau and examined her own

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image in the mirror; and there, on her cheeks, were the
unmistakable traces of the tears of vexation and disappointment.

“At least he can have no idea of the cause, and that is
some comfort, for he is too honorable to open my letters.”

But just here a doubt flashed into her mind, and rendered
her restless.

“How do I know that he is honorable? Can any man
be worthy of trust who holds nothing sacred, and sneers at
all religions? No; he has no conscience; and yet—”

She sighed and went back to her MS., and though for
a while St. Elmo Murray's mocking eyes seemed to glitter
on the pages, her thoughts ere long were anchored once
more, with the olive-crowned priestess in the temple at
Sais.

CHAPTER XIV.

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IF the seers of geology are correct in assuming
that the age of the human race is coïncident
with that of the alluvial stratum, from eighty to
one hundred centuries, are not domestic traditions
and household customs the great arteries in which beats
the social life of humanity, and which veining all epochs,
link the race in homogeneity? Roman women suffered no
first day of May to pass without celebrating the festival
of Bona Dea; and two thousand years later, girls who
know as little of the manners and customs of ancient Italy,
as of the municipal regulations of fabulous “Manoa,” lie
down to sleep on the last day of April, and kissing the fond,
maternal face that bends above their pillows, eagerly repeat:

For a fortnight Edna had been busily engaged in writing
colloquies and speeches for the Sabbath-school children of
the village, and in attending the rehearsals for the perfection
of the various parts. Assisted by Mr. Hammond and
the ladies of his congregation, she had prepared a varied
programme, and was almost as much interested in the success
of the youthful orators, as the superintendent of the
school, or the parents of the children. The day was propitious—
clear, balmy, all that could be asked of the

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blue-eyed month—and as the festival was to be celebrated in a
beautiful grove of elms and chestnuts, almost in sight of Le
Bocage, Edna went over very early to aid in arranging
the tables, decking the platforms with flowers, and training
one juvenile Demosthenes, whose elocution was as unpromising
as that of his Greek model.

Despite her patient teachings, this boy's awkwardness
threatened to spoil every thing, and as she watched the
nervous wringing of his hands and desperate shuffling of
his feet, she was tempted to give him up in despair. The
dew hung heavily on grass and foliage, and the matin
carol of the birds still swelled through the leafy aisles of the
grove, when she took the trembling boy to a secluded spot,
directed him to stand on a mossy log, where two lizards
lay blinking, and repeat his speech.

He stammered most unsatisfactorily through it, and, intent
on his improvement, Edna climbed upon a stump and
delivered the speech for him, gesticulating and emphasizing
just as she wished him to do. As the last words of the
peroration passed her lips, and while she stood on the
stump, a sudden clapping of hands startled her, and Gordon
Leigh's cheerful voice exclaimed, “Encore! Encore!
Since the days of Hypatia you have not had your equal
among female elocutionists. I would not have missed it for
any consideration, so pray forgive me for eavesdropping.”

He came forward, held out his hand, and added: “Allow
me to assist you in dismounting from your temporary rostrum,
whence you bear your `blushing honors thick upon
you.' Jamie, do you think you can do as well as Miss
Edna when your time comes?”

“Oh! no, sir; but I will try not to make her ashamed of
me.”

He snatched his hat from the log and ran off, leaving the
friends to walk back more leisurely to the spot selected for the
tables. Edna had been too much disconcerted by his unexpected
appearance, to utter a word until now, and her tone

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expressed annoyance as she said, “I am very sorry you
interrupted me, for Jamie will make an ignominious
failure. Have you nothing better to do than stray about
the woods like a satyr?”

“I am quite willing to be satyrized even by you on this
occasion; for what man, whose blood is not curdled by cynicism,
can prefer to spend May-day among musty law books
and red tape, when he has the alternative of listening to
such declamation as you favored me with just now, or of
participating in the sports of one hundred happy children?
Beside, my good `familiar,' or rather my sortes Prœnestin
œ, told me that I should find you here, and I wanted to
see you before the company assembled; why have you so
pertinaciously avoided me of late?”