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LOTTIE met De Forrest on the stairs, and he
was about to apologize for his long sleep, but
she rushed by him like a summer gust. A moment
later she burst into her room and startled indolent
Bel out of her last luxurious doze, by dropping into
a chair by the fire and indulging in what girls call
a “good cry.”

“What is the matter?” asked Bel, anxiously.

Lottie's tears were the only answer.

“What has happened?” cried Bel, rising hastily.
“Let me call Auntie or Julian.”

“If you call either you are no friend of mine,”
said Lottie, springing to the door, locking it, and
taking the key.

“Why Lottie, I don't understand—”

“There is no need that you should. Nothing is
the matter—only I'm blue—I've been thinking of
awful things. I was in one of my moods this afternoon,
now I'm in one of my tenses.”

“Unusually intense, I should think. I have not
seen you so moved since Tom Wellesly threatened
to blow out his brains for you.”

“He hadn't any to blow out,” snapped Lottie,

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“or he wouldn't have thought of doing it for such a
girl as I am.”

“Well,” sighed Bel, who at times was one of Job's
comforters, “I've heard he has never been the same
since.”

“I hope he has been wiser, then. How can men
be such stupid owls as to fall in love with me! Can't
they see I'm a wicked little heathen?”

“That is just the kind men like,” sneered Bel,
misanthropically. “You expect to captivate (and
of course you will) this sincere and saintly young
minister. He already thinks that you are by far the
best of our party, and has some of the first symptoms
that your victims usually manifest.”

Lottie sprang up, dashed away her tears, and
commenced restlessly pacing the room.

“Bother on the men!” she exclaimed. “Why
will they be so silly! The world's a perfect jumble,
and we are all lunatics and fools, crying for what is
not good for us, and turning our backs upon what is.
I'm disgusted with everybody, and myself in particular.
Now if this great overgrown student makes a
fool of himself, like the others, I shall lose faith in
mankind, and I know there is nothing to hope from
woman-kind.”

“I should think you were having a mood and a
tense at the same time this evening,” said Bel, looking
with some surprise at her friend. “What has
stirred you up so? Have you and Julian had a
quarrel?”

“We shall have plenty more, I foresee,” said

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Lottie, seizing on the suggestion to hide the truth.
Bel smiled satirically. All these harsh words were
but the harmless lightnings of a summer gust that
was passing away.

“It's only a lover's tiff,” she thought, “and now
the billing and cooing are to come.”

“Oh, well,” said Bel, soothingly, “you and Julian
will soon make up, and then you and all the world
will change for the better.”

“We have made up,” said Lottie faintly finding,
like many another sinner in this line, that the first fib
requires the second to cover it up.

“Well, well, get over your mood quickly, for the
supper bell will ring in a moment, and you are not
ready to come down.”

What emergency of life can obliterate from the
mind of a pretty woman the necessity of a toilet, and
to Bel, Lottie seemed to come to her senses at once
as she sped to her bureau and commenced brushing
her rumpled hair. But the languid maiden was quite
startled as Lottie wheeled suddenly upon her, declaring,
while she brandished the hair-brush in the most
tragic and impressive manner:

“If that Hemstead makes a fool of himself he
may, but he shall do it with his eyes open; I will not
deceive him any more.”

Thus conscience, that had been skirmishing all
day, appeared to gain one point of advantage, and
Lottie, having made this virtuous resolve, gained in
mental sereneness, while the mirror that reflected
her fair face helped to bring back her complacency.

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“Bel,” said Lottie, as they were leaving their
room, “not a whisper of all this to anyone, as you
value my friendship.”

But before they reached the supper-room, her
resolution failed, as is often the case when one acts
from impulse rather than principle. She found that
she could not so lightly throw away Hemstead's
good opinion. She had been admired, loved, and
flattered to her heart's content, but the respect,
esteem, and trust of a sincere true man formed a
new offering, and it was so attractive that she could
not bring herself to turn from it at once. Then her
strong pride cast its weight into the scale, and she
thought:

“He talks to me and treats me as if I were a
woman of heart and mind, and I'm going down to
show him I'm a wicked fool. I shall not do it, at
least not now. Little fear but that the disagreeable
truth will come out soon enough.”

“But it is wrong to deceive him,” whispered
conscience.

“Suppose it is,” answered the wayward will, “I
am all wrong myself and always have been.”

“You promised to show him your real self,” still
urged conscience.

“Well, I will, some other time.”

With conscience thwarted and unsatisfied, sereneness
vanished again, and instead of being reckless
and trivial at the table, as she intended, she was
rather silent, and a trifle sullen, as one often is even
when vexed with one's self.

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Hemstead was expecting a subdued and thoughtful
young lady to appear, whose pensive manner
would indicate a nature softened and receptive.
While her bearing was not what he anticipated, it
was somewhat akin, and showed, he thought, that
the truth was not without effect.

De Forrest was still more puzzled; but soon concluded
that Lottie was provoked that he had slept
so long instead of devoting himself to her. True,
she had just come from the parlor, where he found
Hemstead standing by the window, looking out into
the gloom, but she had found him, no doubt, so
heavy and stupid, that she had rushed to her room
in a fit of vexation. This theory was entirely reconcilable
with his vanity, and therefore conclusive; and
he tried to make amends by excessive gallantry,
which only annoyed Lottie. This he ascribed to her
resentment for his neglect, and only redoubled his
unwelcome attentions.

While Hemstead's heart was in a tumult of joy
and thankfulness that so early in his acquaintance,
and so unexpectedly, he had been able to speak to
her as he wished and with such seeming effectiveness,
he had the good taste and tact to indicate by
no words or sign that anything unusual had occurred
between them. He sought to draw the others, and
even De Forrest, into general conversation, so that
Lottie might be left more to herself.

With a mingled smile and frown, she recognized
his purpose, and with a reckless laugh in her own
soul, thought:

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“He imagines I am near conversion, when I never
felt so wicked before in my life.”

But catching a glimpse of Bel's surprised face, and
seeing that her abstraction was noted by the others,
she speedily rallied, and assumed the manner that
she had maintained throughout the day.

“It is so delightful to see his large gray eyes turn
toward me wistfully and trustingly, that I cannot undeceive
him yet;” and so conscience was dismissed,
as history records was often the case with some honest
old counsellor in a foolish and reckless court.

The prospective sleigh-ride and donation party
were the prominent themes, and they hastened
through the meal that they might start early.

Upon this occasion De Forrest managed to get
the seat by Lottie, in his eagerness to make amends,
and Hemstead sat opposite with Bel. As far as he
could gather in the uncertain moonlight, Hemstead
thought that De Forrest's attentions were not particularly
welcome, and though he scarcely knew why,
was glad. He would probably explain by saying that
De Forrest was not worthy of her.

Lottie's periods of depression never lasted long,
and again the frosty air and quick motion set her blood
tingling with life. In order to escape De Forrest's
whispered sentimentalities, she commenced singing.
Her naturally good voice had been somewhat injured
by straining at difficult music, under superficial
instruction, instead of thorough training for it, but
within a moderate compass and in simple music, was
sweet and strong.

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De Forrest was enthusiastic in his encores of
selections that were beyond her abilities. Though
most of the airs were unfamiliar to Hemstead, he was
satisfied that they were incorrect, and certain that
the music was not over good. Therefore he was
silent. This piqued Lottie, for one of her purposes
in the choice of what she sang, was to impress him,
from the barbarous West, with the idea of her superior
culture. At last she said:

“I fear you do not like operatic and classical
music very much, Mr. Hemstead?”

“We do not often hear such music very perfectly
rendered, in our part of the West. There are airs
from the opera that are very pretty,” and he suggested
one that was simple.

The truth began to dawn on the quick-witted
girl, but De Forrest said, patronizingly:

“It requires a cultivated taste to appreciate such
music as you were singing, Miss Lottie.”

“It is not with the music probably, but my rendering
of it, that Mr. Hemstead finds fault.”

“Two of the airs were new to me, and the other
I have heard but seldom,” said Hemstead evasively.

“How about that one?” asked De Forrest.

“Well, in sincerity then, I think Miss Marsden
does herself injustice by attempting music that would
tax the powers of a prima donna.”

“The boor!” whispered De Forrest to Lottie.

After a moment she said firmly, “Mr. Hemstead
has only said plainly what you thought, Julian.”

“Oh, Miss Lottie—” he began to protest.

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“I'm not a fool,” she continued, “so please don't
waste your breath. You have heard all the prima
donnas, and know how ridiculously far beneath them
I fall, when I try to sing their music. I think you
might have told me. It would have been truer kindness
than your hollow applause. Why our teachers
make us the laughing-stock of society, by keeping
us upon these absurd attempts at music beyond us,
to the exclusion of everything else, is something
that I can't understand. My ear is not over nice,
but I have always had a suspicion that I was executing
in the sense of murder, the difficult arias that
the old weazened-faced Italian professor kept me at
till brother Dan said in truth, that I was turning
into a screech-owl. But no one, save he and Mr.
Hemstead, has been honest enough to tell me the
truth. Thus, on many occasions, I have taxed the
politeness of people to the utmost, no doubt, and
been the cause of innumerable complimentary fibs,
like those you have just been guilty of, Julian. Perhaps,
Mr. Hemstead, you think a style of music like
this more suited to my powers;” and she struck into
a well-known plantation song.

“No,” said he, laughing, “I think you do yourself
still greater injustice.”

“You probably think I cannot sing at all.”

“On the contrary, I think you have an unusually
good voice. I wish you would sing that air that you
were humming when you came into the parlor this
afternoon. I liked that, and imagine it is suited to
your voice.”

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“What was it? Oh, I remember. An air from
Faust, that Marguerite sings at her spinning-wheel
I think I can give that pretty decently.”

She sang it sweetly, with taste and some power.
Hemstead's encore was hearty, and she knew it was
sincere.

“Now that you have done me such good service,”
she said laughing, and shown that mediocrity is my
musical position, let us have some old-fashioned ballads,
and all sing them together in sleigh-riding style.”

“Pardon me, Miss Marsden, I assign you to mediocrity
in nothing.”

“Oh, no, not you—my own abilities place me
there. But come, each one sing;” and she commenced
a ballad, well known to the others, but not
to him.

It sounded very well indeed, only Harcourt's bass
was much too light for the other voices.

“Why don't you sing?” asked Lottie of
Hemstead.

“I do not know the air or words.”

“Shall we try Old Hundred?” asked De Forrest.
“Ahem! The long metre doxology.

“`Praise God from whom all blessings flow.'”

Addie and Harcourt joined in laughingly. Bel
commenced with them, but stopped when she saw
that Lottie did not sing.

“Do you believe that `all blessings flow' from
God?” asked Hemstead of De Forrest.

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“I suppose so, according to Old Hundred,” he
said lightly.

“You don't `suppose so' at all, Julian. You
know it, as we all do, however we may act,” said
Lottie with emphasis.

“With such a belief, I would at least treat Him
with respect,” said Hemstead quietly. “I should
be sorry to be under deep and continued obligations
to One toward whom I failed in ordinary courtesy.”

“I knew it was wrong,” muttered Bel, “but—”

“I have no such belief,” said Harcourt, “so your
sharp homily does not apply to me.

“Where do your blessings come from?” asked
Hemstead.

“Well, those I don't get out of my clients, from
where this snow does—the laws and forces of nature.”

“Your faith is like the snow, I think, very
cold.”

“If it's cold in winter, it's warm in summer,”
retorted he, flippantly; and Addie giggled approvingly,
for the reason that it sounded flippant and
smart.

They had now reached the hamlet of Scrub
Oaks, in the centre of which was a small house that
seemed bursting with light and noise. Whenever
the door opened it appeared to fly open from a
pressure within.

De Forrest acted as escort to the ladies, while
Hemstead accompanied Harcourt in his effort to find
a sheltered place for the horses. This pleased the
young lawyer, and he said, good-naturedly.

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“Don't think, Mr. Hemstead, that I do not
respect your honest convictions, and I meant no slur
upon them. You take things too seriously.”

“I suppose we all ought to make more allowance
for what is said in mere sport and repartee,”
said Hemstead. “But what to you is law and force,
is to me a personal God and Friend. You know that
there are some names—like that of mother and wife—
that are too sacred for jest.”

“Thus people misjudge and misunderstand each
other, simply because they see things from different
points of view,” replied Harcourt. “De Forrest
provokes me, however. He has no doubts worthy
of the name, for he reads nothing save the sporting
news and fashionable literature of the day, and yet
he likes to give the impression that he is in with us,
who read books and think.”

“If you will only read fairly, Mr. Harcourt, I
have no fears but that in time you will think rightly.
An honest jury must hear both sides and have no
prejudices.”

The young men now sought the rest of the party,
who had squeezed their way into the little parsonage
that seemed so replete with life and bustle, that
it appeared like a social bomb-shell, with effervescing
human nature as an explosive material, and might
burst into fragments any moment.

p668-136

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