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“If you please, marm, the man from York State is
comin' afoot. Too stingy to ride, I'll warrant,” and Janet,
the housekeeper, disappeared from the parlor, just as the
sound of the gate was heard, and an unusually fine-looking
middle-aged man was seen coming up the box-lined
walk which led to the cottage door.

The person thus addressed was a lady, whose face,
though young and handsome, wore a look which told of
early sorrow. Matilda Remington had been a happy, loving
wife, but the old church-yard in Vernon contained a
grass-grown grave, where rested the noble heart which
had won her girlish love. And she was a widow now, a
fair-haired, blue-eyed widow, and the stranger who had
so excited Janet's wrath by walking from the depot, a
distance of three miles, would claim her as his bride ere
the morrow's sun was midway in the heavens. How the

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engagement happened she could not exactly tell, but happened
it had, and she was pledged to leave the vinewreathed
cottage which Harry had built for her, and go
with one of whom she knew comparatively little.

Six months before our story opens, she had spent a few
days with him at the house of a mutual friend in an adjoining
state, and since that time they had written to each
other regularly, the correspondence resulting at last in an
engagement, which he had now come to fulfil. He had
never visited her before in her own home, consequently
she was wholly unacquainted with his disposition or peculiarities.
He was intelligent and refined, commanding in
appearance, and agreeable in manner, whenever he chose
to be, and when he wrote to her of his home, which he
said would be a second Paradise were she its mistress,
when he spoke of the little curly-headed girl who so much
needed a mother's care, and when, more than all, he hinted
that his was no beggar's fortune, she yielded; for Matilda
Remington did not dislike the luxuries which money alone
can purchase. Her own fortune was small, and as there
was now no hand save her own to provide, she often found
it necessary to economize more than she wished to do.
But Dr. Kennedy was rich, and if she married him she
would escape a multitude of annoyances, so she made herself
believe that she loved him; and when she heard, as
she more than once hid hear, rumors of a sad, white-faced
woman, to whom the grave was a welcome rest, she said
the story was false, and, shaking her pretty head, refused
to believe that there was aught in the doctor of evil.

“To be sure, he was not at all like Harry—she could
never find one who was—but he was so tall, so dignified,
so grand, so particular, that it seemed almost like stooping,

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for one in his position to think of her, and she liked him
all the better for his condescension.”

Thus she ever reasoned, and when Janet said that he
was coming, and she, too, heard his step upon the piazza,
the bright blushes broke over her youthful face, and casting
a hurried glance at the mirror, she hastened out to meet
him.

“Matty, my dear!” he said, and his thin lips touched her
glowing cheek, but in his cold gray eye, there shone no
love,—no feeling,—no heart.

He was too supremely selfish to esteem another higher
than himself, and though it flattered him to know that the
young creature was so glad to meet him, it awoke no answering
chord, and he merely thought that with her to
minister to him he should possibly be happier than he had
been with her predecessor.

“You must be very tired,” she said, as she led the way
into the cozy parlor. Then, seating him in the easy chair
near to the open window, she continued. “How warm
you are. What made you walk this sultry afternoon?”

“It is a maxim of mine never to ride when I can walk,”
said he, “for I don't believe in humoring those omnibus
drivers by paying their exorbitant prices.”

“Two shillings surely, is not an exorbitant price,”
trembled on Mrs. Remington's lips, but she was prevented
from saying so, by his asking “if every thing were in
readiness for the morrow.”

“Yes, every thing,” she replied. “The cottage is sold,
and”—

“Ah, indeed, sold!” said he, interrupting her. “If I
mistake not you told me, when I met you in Rome, that
it was left by will to you. May I, as your to-morrow's

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husband, ask how much you received for it?” and he unbent
his dignity so far as to wind his arm around her
waist.

But the arm was involuntarily withdrawn, when, with
her usual frankness, Matty replied; “I received a thousand
dollars, but there were debts to be paid, so that I
had only five hundred left, and this I made over to my
daughter to be used for her education.”

Dr. Kennedy did not say that he was disappointed, and
as Matty was not much of a physiognomist, she did not
read it in his face, and she continued: “Janet will remain
here awhile, to arrange matters, before joining me
in my new home. She wished me to leave my little girl to
come with her, but I can't do that. I must have my
child with me. You've never seen her, have you? I'll
call her at once,” and stepping to the door she bade Janet
bring Maude into the parlor.

“Maude!” How Dr. Kennedy started at the mention
of a name, which drove all thoughts of the five hundred
dollars from his mind. There was feeling—passion—
every thing, now, in his cold gray eye, but quickly recovering
his composure, he said calmly: “Maude, Matty—
Maude, is that your child's name?”

“Why, yes,” she answered, laughingly. “Didn't you
know it before?”

“How should I,” he replied, “when in your letters you
have always called her daughter? But has she no other
name? She surely was not baptised Maude?”

Ere Mrs. Remington could speak, the sound of little
pattering feet was heard in the hall without, and in a
moment Maude Remington stood before her father-in-law,
erect, looking, as that rather fastidious gentleman thought,

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more like a wild gipsy than the child of a civilized
mother. She was a fat, chubby creature, scarcely yet five
years old; black-eyed, black-haired, and black-faced, too,
with short, thick curls, which, damp with perspiration,
stood up all over her head, giving her a singular appearance.
She had been playing in the brook, her favorite
companion, and now, with little spatters of mud ornamenting
both face and pantalets, her sun-bonnet hanging down
her back, and her hands full of pebble-stones, she stood
furtively eying the stranger, whose mental exclamation
was: “Mercy, what a fright!”

“Maude!” exclaimed the distressed Mrs. Remington,
“where have you been? Go at once to Janet, and have
your dress changed; then come back to me.”

Nothing loth to join Janet, whose company was preferable
to that of the stranger, Maude left the room, while
Dr. Kennedy, turning to Mrs. Remington, said: “She is
not at all like you, my dear.”

“No,” answered the lady; “she is like her father in
every thing; the same eyes, the same hair, and”—

She was going on to say more, when the expression of
Dr. Kennedy's face stopped her, and she began to wonder
if she had displeased him. Dr. Kennedy could talk
for hours of “the late Mrs. Kennedy,” accompanying his
words with long-drawn sighs, and enumerating her many
virtues, all of which he expected to be improved upon by
her successor; but he could not bear to hear the name
of Harry Remington spoken by one who was to be his
wife, and he at once changed the subject of Maude's looks
to her name, which he learned was really Matilda. She
had been called Maude, Matty said, after one who was once
a very dear friend both of herself and her husband.

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“Then we will call her Matilda,” said he, “as it is a
maxim of mine never to spoil children by giving them
pet-names.”

“But you call your daughter Nellie,” suggested the
little widow, and in her soft, blue eye there shone a mischievous
twinkle, as if she fancied she had beaten him
with his own argument.

But if she thought to convince that most unreasonable
man, she was mistaken. What he did was no criterion
for others, unless he chose that it should be so, and he
answered, “That is sister Kelsey's idea, and as she is very
fond of Nellie, I do not interfere. But, seriously, Mattie,
darling”—and he drew her to his side, with an uncommon
show of fondness—“I cannot call your daughter
Maude; I do not like the name, and it is a maxim of
mine, that if a person dislikes a name, 'tis an easy matter
to dislike the one who bears it.”

Had Mrs. Remington cared less for him than she did,
she might have wondered how many more disagreeable
maxims he had in store. But love is blind, or nearly so;
and when, as if to make amends for his remarks, he caressed
her with an unusual degree of tenderness, the impulsive
woman felt that she would call her daughter any
thing which suited him. Accordingly, when at last Maude
returned to the parlor, with her dress changed, her curls
arranged, and her dimpled cheeks shining with the suds
in which they had been washed, she was prepared to say
Matilda or whatever else pleased his capricious fancy.

“Little girl,” he said, extending his hand toward her,
“little girl, come here. I wish to talk with you.”

But the little girl hung back, and when her mother insisted
upon her going to the gentleman, asking if she did

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not like him, she answered decidedly, “No, I don't like
him, and he shan't be my pa, either!”

“Maude, daughter!” exclaimed Mrs. Remington, while
Dr. Kennedy, turning slightly pale, thought “wretch!”
but said, “Matilda, come here, wont you?”

“I ain't Matilda,” she answered. “I wont be Matilda—
I'm Maude,” and her large black eyes flashed defiantly
upon him.

It was in vain that Dr. Kennedy coaxed and Mrs. Remington
threatened. Maude had taken a dislike to the
stranger, and as he persisted in calling her Matilda, she
persisted in refusing to answer, until at last, hearing Janet
pass through the hall, she ran out to her, sure of finding
comfort and sympathy there.

“I am afraid I have suffered Maude to have her own
way too much, and for the future I must be more strict
with her,” said Mrs. Remington, apologetically; while the
Doctor replied, “I think, myself, a little wholesome discipline
would not be amiss. 'Tis a maxim of mine, spare
the rod and spoil the child; but, of course, I shall not interfere
in the matter.”

This last he said because he saw a shadow flit over the
fair face of the widow, who, like most indulgent mothers,
did not wholly believe in Solomon. The sight of Janet in
the hall suggested a fresh subject to the doctor's mind,
and, after coughing a little, he said, “Did I understand
that your domestic was intending to join you at Laurel
Hill?”

“Yes;” returned Mrs. Remington, “Janet came to live
with my mother when I was a little girl no larger than
Maude. Since my marriage she has lived with me, and I
would not part with her for any thing.”

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“But do you not think two kinds of servants are apt to
make trouble, particularly if one is black and the other
white?” and in the speaker's face there was an expression
which puzzled Mrs. Remington, who could scarce refrain
from crying at the thoughts of parting with Janet, and
who began to have a foretaste of the dreary homesickness
which was to wear her life away.

“I can't do without Janet,” she said, “she knows all
my ways, and I trust her with every thing.”

“The very reason why she should not go,” returned the
doctor. “She and old Hannah would quarrel at once. You
would take sides with Janet, I with Hannah, and that might
produce a feeling which ought never to exist between man
and wife. No, my dear, listen to me in this matter, and
let Janet remain in Vernon. Old Hannah has been in my
family a long time. She was formerly a slave, and belonged
to my uncle, who lived in Virginia, and who, at
his death, gave her to me. Of course I set her free, for I
pride myself on being a man of humanity, and since that
time she has lived with us, superintending the household
entirely since Mrs. Kennedy's death. She is very peculiar,
and would never suffer Janet to dictate, as I am sure, from
what you say, she would do. So, my dear, try and think
all is for the best. You need not tell her she is not to
come, for it is a maxim of mine to avoid all unnecessary
scenes, and you can easily write it in a letter.”

Poor Mrs. Remington! she knew intuitively that the
matter was decided, and was she not to be forgiven, if at
that moment she thought of the grass-grown grave, whose
occupant had in life been only too happy granting her
slightest wish. But Harry was gone, and the man with
whom she now had to deal was an exacting, tyrannical

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master, to whose will her own must ever be subservient.
This, however, she did not then understand. She knew
he was not at all like Harry, but she fancied that the difference
consisted in his being so much older, graver, and
wiser than her husband had been, and so with a sigh, she
yielded the point, thinking that Janet would be the greater
sufferer of the two.

That evening several of her acquaintance called to see
the bridegroom elect, whom, in Mrs. Remington's hearing,
they pronounced very fine-looking, and quite agreeable in
manner; compliments which tended in a measure to soothe
her irritated feelings and quiet the rapid beatings of her
heart, which for hours after she retired to rest would occasionally
whisper to her that the path she was about to
tread was far from being strewn with flowers.

“He loves me, I know,” she thought, “though his
manner of showing it is so different from Harry, but I
shall become accustomed to that after a while, and be very,
very happy,” and comforted with this assurance she fell
asleep, encircling within her arms the little Maude, whose
name had awakened bitter memories in the heart of him
who in an adjoining chamber battled with thoughts of
the dark past, which now, on the eve of his second marriage
passed in sad review before his mind.

Memories there were of a gentle, pale-faced woman,
who, when her blue eyes were dim with coming death,
had shudderingly turned away from him, as if his presence
brought her more of pain than joy. Memories, too,
there were of another—a peerlessly beautiful creature who
ere he had sought the white-faced woman for his wife,
had trampled on his affections, and spurned as a useless
gift, his offered love. He hated her now, he thought;

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and the little black-haired child, sleeping so sweetly in its
mother's arms, was hateful in his sight, because it bore
that woman's name. One, two, three—sounded the
clock, and then he fell asleep, dreaming that underneath
the willows which grew in the church-yard, far off on
Laurel Hill, there were two graves instead of one; that
in the house across the common there was a sound of
rioting and mirth, unusual in that silent mansion. For
she was there, the woman whom he had so madly loved,
and wherever she went, crowds gathered about her as in
the olden time.

“Maude Glendower, why are you here?” he attempted
to say, when a clear, silvery voice aroused him from his
sleep, and starting up, he listened half in anger, half in
disappointment, to the song which little Maude Remington
sang, as she sat in the open door awaiting the return of
her mother, who had gone for the last time to see the sunshine
fall on Harry's grave.

p592-026

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