[figure description] Page 219.[end figure description]

At last he reached his home. A violent ring of the
bell brought Southard himself to the door.

“You frighten us,” said he; “we did not know what
had happened.”

“How so?”

“By ringing so hard.”

“I was not aware of it,” said he, coming in, and putting
down his hat. “Has White been here?”

“No.”

“Nor sent?”

“No.”

He sunk into a chair with folded arms, in dark and
moody silence. He looked like a demon thus breaking
in from the lower world, gnawed by fierce thoughts of
murder and hate, upon a scene full of very different influences.

Mrs. Southard had been engaged in their neat, humble
drawing-room washing and dressing her little girl
for bed. The carpet was strewed with flowers, mutilated
dogs, sadly misused nine-pins, and the fragments of
a broken tin carriage, which, now thrown aside and
neglected, showed that the child had finished another
innocent and happy day. Bright, clean, as fresh as a
morning rose-bud, her lips and cheeks not at all unlike
one, and her large eyes of tender blue as full of light
and soul as they could be, she sat on her mother's knee,
her silken hair only half covered by the small, snowy
cap, but peeping out here and there in soft, rebellious
curls, half auburn, half gold. Southard, who had been
reading Milton, had laid down the volume, and was looking
at the group with the delight of an artist mingled
with the tenderness of a father, and watching to see its
effects upon their friend.

Glendenning had a sould for such a picture, and was
arrested by it. It struck strangely on his thoughts.
He was one of those who feel the singular refreshment

[figure description] Page 220.[end figure description]

of being with children, and with this one he had long
formed a tender intimacy.

“There,” said Southard, “is the most beautiful object
in creation—a child just fresh from the hands of
God.”

“The most beautiful,” said Mrs. Southard, “at least
in the eyes of a father. But Kate has a remarkable
face.”

“She has, indeed,” said Glendenning.

“Do you know,” said the mother, charmed to find
that he appeared enlivened by the sight, “do you know
she can sing, and dance, and play horse, and run like a
robin-redbreast, and repeat twenty pieces of poetry?
Come, Katy, tell Captain Glendenning about `Reason, and
Folly, and Beauty, they say'—come—`Went on a party of
pleasure one day.' ”

“No, no,” said Kate, with a side-long, blushing look
at Glendenning.

“Naughty girl,” said the mother. “Come!”

But Katy only put her finger to her lip, and turned
bashfully towards her friend a fat little snowy shoulder,
so beautiful that the desire to touch and kiss it drove
even Nicholson out of his mind.

“And do you believe how the little toad is learning
to talk?” resumed Mrs. Southard. “I can't do a thing
that she does not imitate. I told her to-day she must
not have something which she wanted, and she replied,
`She could not possibly do without it!' and this afternoon
she wanted to go out, saying `I had no notion how extremely
delightful it was.' ”

“Mothers are the same all over the world,” said
Southard, apologetically.

“And what have you been doing to-day, my little
dear?” asked Glendenning, taking her on his knee, for
a moment forgetting his troubles, and looking with delight
at her beauty, thus set off beyond the power of
jewels, or the toilet of Pope's Belinda, by the little nightgown
and snowy cap.

“I watered my ikle wose-bush.” said the child.

“Your ikle wose-bush! Ah! did you ever hear the
story of the silver trout?”

“No.”

“Once there was a little silver trout, and her mamma

[figure description] Page 221.[end figure description]

told her she might go off and swim about, but she
mustn't eat anything she should see, without first asking
her. So the little trout went off, and at length came to
a nice little worm, and, being very hungry, you know,
she forgot what her mamma had told her, ate up the
worm, and, oh dreadful, don't you think there was a
hook, like a naughty pin, in it, and a string to it, and a
naughty boy had hold of the string, and he drew the
poor little trout out of the water and killed him, and
had him fried for supper.”

“Tell more!” said the child, fixing her blue eyes on
him with a kind of hushed and beautiful awe.

“That's deep tragedy to her,” remarked her father,
smiling at her profoundly serious countenance.

“Once there was a little girl,” continued Glendenning,
“who was very naughty, and wouldn't mind her
mamma.”

A shadow came over Kate's face.

“And then her mamma died, and she had no home,
and then she had no dinner, and no coat, and no hat,
and no nice little shoes, and, don't you think, she had
to stand by the roadside alone in the cold winter, and
to beg for some bread, and the first man she asked said,
`No, go away, naughty, naughty little girl;' and then—”

But the quivering lip, and the two great tears forcing
themselves from the blue eyes of his little listener, and
rolling down her cheeks, warned the narrator not to
deal too largely in the pathetic.

“Oh!” said the mamma, delighted, and herself rather
touched by the idea of the little girl on the roadside
without any mamma, “she's very tender-hearted, my little
Kate.”

“And, I vow, I believe Julia's eyes were wet too!”
said Southard, laughing.

“Come, now, to bed!” said Mrs. Southard; “but first
say `Twinkle, twinkle, little star,' for Captain Glendenning.”

“No,” said the child.

“Yes.”

“No, no, mamma, not to him.”

“Then tell him about,

`Oh, ladies, beware of the gay young knight,
For he loves and he rides away!' ”

[figure description] Page 222.[end figure description]

“Oh, no! mamma, not to him.”

“And why not to him?”

“Because he's a coward,” replied the child, with her
b oken accent.

“A what?” said Glendenning.

“Colonel Nicholson says so, you know,” said the
child.

“A what, my dear little girl?” asked Glendenning,
gently, the expression of repose and pleasure which had
gradually come into his face, however, entirely disappearing.

“Oh hush, Katy, naughty girl,” said Mrs. Southard,
exchanging a look of such meaning with her husband,
and giving such other evidences of alarm, that Glendenning
needed no farther explanation to convince him the
child had overheard and was repeating some real conversation.
He seized her gently by the hand, and said,

“Do you mean a coward, my dear?”

“Yes! yes! a coward!” said she, delighted to be
understood.

“For Heaven's sake!” exclaimed Southard.

“Dear Captain Glendenning!” interrupted Mrs.
Southard.

“I understand—I partly know,” said Glendenning;
“but you will, of course, explain this to me, Southard?”

“Certainly I will. It's a stupid and a painful thing.
But I intended to reveal to you what I heard this afternoon,
and the child has, perhaps, broached the subject
opportunely.”

“It's the greatest nonsense in the world, Captain
Glendenning,” said Mrs. Southard, rising with the child.
“Don't be angry or rash! It will pass over, if you are
prudent and patient. Good-night! good-night! I shall
not be able to leave Katy for at least half an hour. I
always sit by her till she falls asleep.”

“Now, then,” said Glendenning, when they were
alone, “if you are my friend, tell me frankly, fully, all
the calumny that has been hatched against me by that
man.”

“The circumstance to me,” said Southard, “would
not, could not wear such a serious aspect as I confess
others find in it. I hope you will treat it with the contempt
it merits.”

[figure description] Page 223.[end figure description]

“Let me hear it first.”

“You had an affair of honour in New-York this summer
with Mr. Lennox?”

“I had.”

“A lieutenant of the United States army?”

“Yes.”

“You were insulted in the theatre, and received a
blow?”

“I did.”

“You went out with him, and settled the matter amicably?”

“I did.”

“Dined with the young man, and spent a week at his
country seat?”

“I did. All this I did; and now your story. The
rest, the rest!”

“You have it. It is this that I have told you. Colonel
Nicholson has, informally, unofficially, revived the affair,
and expressed an unfavourable opinion of it. He
does not seem a friend of yours, and, in his way, has
chosen to view the matter as an evidence of your—now
be calm—”

“Go on!” said Glendenning.

“You have his words. My little Kate heard an officer,
who is sitting for his head to me, tell my wife—”

“I'm a coward?”

“These were the words, as reported to us, of Colonel
Nicholson, who declares that he has some intention of
ordering an official investigation. He has, 'tis useless
to deny it, for the moment seriously injured your reputation.”

Glendenning made no reply, but paced thoughtfully
backward and forward, with a tranquillity which surprised
his informant. At length he said,

“Thank you for explaining this to me. I see it all.”

“And, I trust, treat it with contempt.”

“Not exactly with contempt, but nothing can be done
with it. I can't undo the past; I can't fight the duel
over again. If my brother officers have the stupidity
to be led away by the opinion of a person they despise
as much as they do this Colonel Nicholson, let them.
I will resign my commission, and meet Colonel

[figure description] Page 224.[end figure description]

Nicholson himself. Should he refuse to meet me, I'll horsewhip
him, if he were twenty Colonel Nicholsons.”

“Tut! tut! tut!” cried Southard: “horsewhip your
lieutenant-colonel?”

There was a ring at the door, and the servant announced
Captain White, who immediately entered with
his usual undisturbed and indifferent manner. He was
one of those natures which nothing lashes into phrensy.
Deep emotion only stilled him, and gave him more perfect
mastery over his reason and passions.

“How are you, Southard? How are you, ma'am?”
said he to Mrs. Southard, as she entered hastily and affrighted,
for the voice of Glendenning had reached her
while watching her child to sleep.

“How are you, Glendenning?”

“Where have you been?” inquired Glendenning.
“Why did you not return to me? Why are you not
at the ball?”

“I have been looking into matters a little, and, as for
my absence from the ball, if you mean Colonel Nicholson's
ball, I have not been invited. I wish you'd give
me a cup of tea, Mrs. Southard, will you?”

“We are just going to have some,” said she, as she
rang. “Oh, what is all this to end in?”

There was a pause, which no one seemed inclined to
break.

“You take it coolly, Captain White,” at length said
Glendenning.

“Coolly! why not?”

“You are just in time with your coolness now,” said
Southard; “Captain Glendenning is likely to have use
for it.”

“It is at his service, and therefore I sought him. A
little sugar, if you please! your tea has positively the
flavour of Caravan, Mrs. Southard.”

“It is but common tea,” said the lady.

“Then, perhaps, I am thirsty. What a day we've had.
Rome and Naples have few more delightful.”

“If it would but last the year through,” said Mrs.
Southard, who perceived he desired to change the conversation.

“It wouldn't be so pleasant.” answered White. “I
remember once spending a winter at Rome, and I

[figure description] Page 225.[end figure description]

positively surfeited on the beauty of the climate. No wind,
no cloud; a sky of the most transparent clearness and
exquisite hues; week after week, month after month,
nothing but that everlasting bright heaven and still air.
I got monstrously sick of it, to be sure, and was as glad
to see a dull day as I am here to see a fine one.”

“What a climate for art, for architecture, statues,
temples, columns, and triumphal arches!” said Southard.

“Yes, famous place! interesting things! good buildings!
and devilish nice people they must have been!”

“Unchristian, bloody, and barbarous, though!”

“But immensely clever,” said White, finishing his
second cup. “Now, then, Glendenning, a word to you.”

His friend silently rose and followed him into his
room, where the servant had placed lights.