[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

“P. S. Of course, you will make suitable acknowledgments
to H. C.”

“Very gracious! my dear brother-in-law,” thought Grace,
as she refolded the letter, feeling an implication with her
lover as an injured party, when she perceived that Eleanor
had filled the inner pages of the sheet. “Ah, sweet sister,”
thought she, “you will make all smooth—you were made to
pick the thorns out of life.”

“Don't set it down against Frank, dear sister,” said the
letter, “that his answer is a little crusty. You know how
these bilious attacks of his turn all sweet juices to acid for
the time. The harassing trials attending his resignation,
followed too close upon our boy's death, and quite knocked
him up. It seems to me that the afflictions God appoints
are sanctifying, while those of men's infliction stir up the
evil in our nature. Frank has suffered terribly from the
uncharitable denunciations of some of his brethren. It is
through their intervention that he has failed of his election to
the presidency of — College. I rather rejoice in this
failure, as giving my husband the opportunity for entire
rest. Teach he will, for to this service he holds himself
pledged by his clerical vow.

“I am sure that his perplexities will excuse to you, my
dear sister, his discourtesy to Mr. Copley. Pray make the
best of it to him. Give him my grateful acknowledgments;
and, dear Grace, do let your friend know how much I felt
his kindness to little Herbert. Apologize for my not writing
a note to him. I have been so absorbed in nursing and
cheering my husband, that I have neglected minor duties.

“Dear sister, I did not know, till trial and, in some sort,
disappointment, came, the full blessedness of the marriage
tie. Not in the days of `young love,' not in our hours of
ease, but now, when the strain of life has come, do we

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

realize the worth of our bonds; storms and adverse winds
prove the ship. May your marriage, dear sister, whenever
it comes, be as happy as ours!” Grace paused, read over
the last paragraph, smiled—sighed—and then finished the
letter. “Pray, Grace, look in upon Cousin Effie, and see
that she does not over-fatigue herself with little Nel. Tell
dear old Di' we hope to be at home next week. My dearest
love to Uncle Walter, and kind remembrance to Mrs. Herbert;
and please tell Anne, that if I go to B. I will execute
her commission with pleasure.

“Oh, dear, perfect sister!” exclaimed Grace, “your heart
compasses sea and land—even takes in Anne Carlton! Well,
there can be but one normal character in a family—and but
one normal marriage!”

CHAPTER II.

—“beyond reach
His children can not wander
Of the sweep of his white raiment.”

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

On the banks of the Hudson river, on one of the old
roads not yet absorbed into a broad and numbered avenue,
was a farm-house on a property called “Blossom Farm.”
The house stood under a bluff overlooking the river and the
Palisades. It was completely screened, winter and summer,
by tall old pines. The road that ran between it and the
river, scarcely more than a bridle path, was particularly attractive
for horsemen who liked lonely and romantic rides.
There, in a well-aired apartment of the house, bolstered by
piles of pillows, lay a young woman in the last stage of consumption,
as her emaciated frame, her hectic cheek, her
glowing eye, her moist temples and her whistling breath too
surely indicated. Her fair long tresses were turned off her
face and lay over the pillow with that lifeless languor which
marks even the hair in this disease. Her small transparent
hands were tightly clasped, betraying the effort to which her
spirit was strained. Her faithful little spaniel lay at her feet,
looking up wistfully, moving at her slightest movement, and
wagging his tail at every sound of her husky feeble voice—
that voice lately so sweet and clear. Miss Travers stood
behind her, dropping heavy tears on her pillow, and bathing

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

her temples, while a middle-aged woman knelt beside her,
her whole frame quivering with emotion, and her face crimsoned
and convulsed with grief. “Why, in the world, my
poor child,” she said (it was Jessie's mother), “did you
not tell his mother? Did the villain buy your silence?”

“No, mother. But when I felt what it was to be miserable—
oh, most miserable—I could not bear to make another
so—he was her only child.”

“And you—you were mine! Oh God, rain down curses
on him!”

“Oh, mother, don't say that. You promised to be still
and hear me. I can not speak if you say such words—don't,
mother dear.”

“I will try not, my darling,” said the poor woman eagerly,
and she pressed her hand firmly over her mouth.

“He sent me to the city,” resumed Jessie, “to a decent-looking
place; he gave me plenty of money, and every way
provided for me. Oh, how I lived on his promise to come
and see me—he never came—I thank God now, but then I
did not feel so. I saw only a woman and a servant that
tended on me. I soon found out they were the worst of
people.”

“Oh, my innocent child!”

“Hush, dear mother. I wrote again to you—was it that
letter you got?”

“It was, thank God.”

“I can't remember how many weeks I was there, it seemed
forever. I had cried till I had no more tears left; but I
sobbed, and sobbed night and day, I had got so into the
way of it. One horrid night the house seemed full; there
was rioting, and drunkenness, and thundering knocks at my
locked door. I was in such terror. The next day I stole
away, and went to Miss Martha Young's. She was dead.
Oh, when I found it so, I was so sick and faint. But,

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

mother, God did not forsake me. A kind Irish woman took
me into her own little room, and got such plenty of work
for me, that I earned more than I spent. I made my baby-things;
they were so pretty!” A smile gleamed over Jessie's
face at this one pleasant memory. “I loved to look at
them; I could not help it—I hope it was not wrong; I
knew I was disgraced, but I did not feel wicked, mother.
It seemed to me that my Father in heaven looked down on
me in pity, not in anger. I had burned up the bank-notes
Mr. Copley gave me. I had cast away all the fine things he
decked me with. I had tried to do all the right I could,
and I was patient and somehow at peace. It was last May
my baby was born—the baby that I had so longed to
hold in my arms! to feel its breath on my cheek, and its
little lips on mine, but, oh mother, it was dead—it was
dead! I never saw it!” The poor girl's voice here sank
away and a shiver passed over her, but after an interval of
ten minutes, and taking some restoratives, she was able
again to speak. “It was better so, I suppose; I had on
right to the sweet feelings of a mother. I was very, very
ill, and that good soul staid from her day's work to nurse
me. A cough came on, and I went down, down, down,
month after month, worse and worse. About a month ago,
it may be two, my mind began to wander, and one night, I
think, I got up in my sleep—I don't know—it was all confused—”
She rose in the bed, and rested on her elbow, and
seemed piercing into the intricate obscurities of her memory,
but it was in vain; she shook her head and sank back. “It
seemed to me I met him—I can not say if I did. I can not
separate what was real from what was a dream. My mind
was so bewildered—could it have been a dream? I remember
it all so well. The streets were still and empty, and I
walked on and on—I was so tired. I looked up to the stars,
and they looked cold and far away, and I tried to pray, and

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

God seemed far away too. Then I heard footsteps—I stood
under a lamp. Mr. Copley came close to me—he was walking
with a tall lady. It could not have been a dream, and
yet when I laid my hand on him, and stopped him, and spoke
to him, he seemed not to know me—just as people do seem
in a dream—and he shook me off, and I fell on the pavement,
and then I don't remember any more till I waked in the
hospital on Blackwell's Island. You know, dear Miss
Travers, what that place is? It's the place, mother, where
they send wretched women from wretched places. I was
mistaken for one of them! Oh, dear! dear! dear!”

“You, Jessie, my child! and you ask me not to curse
him?”

“You must not, mother. I am just gone, and I want to
hear blessing and not cursing. Mother, say that blessed
prayer with me I used to say at home, when I knelt down
before you. I have prayed it many a time when it seemed
to fold me round like wings and lift me above my sin and
my sorrows. Pray it with me, dear mother, and you won't
feel like cursing.”

Mother and child repeated together that divine petition,
whose few words expand to every want of humanity. The
mother's voice was soft and steady. Jessie's such as one
might imagine a spirit's to be, hovering at the opening gate
of immortality. When it was finished, she drew her mother
down to her bosom, gave her a long protracted kiss, and
murmured, so low that Miss Travers bent her head to the
pillow to hear her, “Now all my trouble is over, mother.
God has forgiven us both. We shall meet in heaven.” She
gasped for breath. Miss Travers gave her a cordial, and
wiped away the cold dews on her forehead. After a little
while her breath was less obstructed; nature roused its last
energies, and she proceeded: “You want to know all,
mother; there's not much more to tell. I was three weeks

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

in the hospital. Oh, what racking pains of body, and pangs
of conscience, and far worse, what hardened wickedness I
saw there! For the most part they were victims of vanity
and love of dress. I thought good women should gather
up friendless children, and teach weak ignorant girls what
snares fine clothes and flattery may be to them. But God's
witnesses were there too—a good doctor, and a kind matron;
and there came there every week, a woman—one of God's
messengers she surely was—she looks after all forsaken and
forgotten ones—love and hope shone in her face. The sun
broke on my black night when she took my hand and kissed
me, and told me to be of good cheer. She it was that
brought me to this quiet place, and brought Miss Travers to
me.”

All that we have here written down in continuous sentences,
was broken into fragments by faintness, gasping, and
sometimes utter loss of breath. Now her eye was becoming
glazed, and her utterance so painful that Miss Travers said,
“Don't try to speak any more, dear child, it is too hard.”

“Only one word more—mother, say you forgive him.”

“I do—I do forgive him—God forgive us all!”

A heavenly smile lighted Jessie's face.

“Just like the first smile I ever saw on my baby's lips!”
exclaimed the mother.

“Thanks,” whispered Jessie, her feeble hand groping for
Miss Travers; “poor little Beau, good-bye—kiss me, mother—
how dark it's getting! Good-night—good-night!”

The low whisper ceased, the breathing became fainter and
fainter. In one hour more Jessie's heart ceased to beat.

Miss Travers sank on her knees in silent prayer. The
mother seemed totally changed. God had spoken to the
waves of resistance and resentment, “Peace—be still!”
and they were still. She sat down on the bedside, and

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

calmly putting aside the pillows, laid Jessie's head on her
bosom, and folded her arms around her, saying in a subdued
tone, “My own little girl in my arms again!”

Here, in the deep shadows of obscurity, lay this victim of
a man of the world, degraded—not corrupted—a beautiful
flower ruthlessly crushed, God's gracious gifts thrown away,
and the good purposes of his providence contravened. Here,
her life taken away, her pure name blighted, never to be
spoken, but with scorn or sighs; here she lay—dead—on
the bosom of a broken-hearted mother!

Where was he who was to answer for her fate? Lapped
in luxury—seeking a fresh pleasure for every passing hour—
received among “respectable men,” who knew his course of
life, as if untainted, and—God help us!—by mothers as a fit
associate, a coveted husband for their daughters, for he belonged
to the “best society,” he was “high-bred,” and
“very elegant,” and “so fascinating”—we quote, not invent
the current phrases—and “he had thirty thousand a year!”
This is the stale old world complaisance repeated here.
Pass the threshold to another life—“A ministering angel
shall my sister be when thou liest howling.”*

“Dear Sam,

“I have been passing the evening alone with my mother.
I do that dutiful act now and then. My mother is regularly
pious, straight-laced, but she discreetly avoids meddling
with my affairs. I fancied she had her suspicions after
Jessie's sudden demise, but she said nothing—wise in her
generation is my mother. `Apropos des bottes,' I met

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

that girl Jessy in the street not long ago—she is shockingly
changed—gone like the rest of them. She stopped me, and
spoke to me, and who of all the world do you think was with
me!—G. H. By Jupiter, Sam, I thought my game was up—
but bless these fine young ladies!—bless their voluntary
and involuntary blindness! To return to my tête-à-tête
with my mother. After a preliminary fidgeting she began:
`I have long wished, my son, to speak to you on an interesting
subject. The town, you know, Horace, is giving
you to Miss Herbert.' I bowed and looked, I'll answer for
it, as blank as white paper. `I have no objection to make,'
she continued (that is, revered mother, you will not oppose
a will you can't control) `I must confess I should have preferred
another selection. Your dear father in his life-time
tried hard to purchase the beautiful Carlton property next
ours, and when I think of what I know to have been his
wish, of course it seems to me a pity that you do not prefer
Miss Anne Carlton, who is quite as handsome and as superior
as Miss Herbert, and more—(I wondered what my
mother stumbled at), and more—docile—more like to make
a pliant wife. But of course it is for you to decide—it is
nothing to me in a worldly point of view.'—Humbug, Sam,
she would give her right hand to see me married to Anne—
and her `beautiful property.' `It is a trial,' she continued,
`when an only son comes to marry; daughters-in-law are
not daughters, but mothers are always mothers.' She wiped
her eyes, perhaps tears from them, for it is a tremendous
struggle to ungrapple her hopes from the Carlton estate. I
assured my venerable parent that I felt deeply grateful for
her generosity, but I only nibbled at the bait;—it is too soon
to pour my confidence into the maternal bosom. The balances
are still quivering. They shall not turn against me.
I know, Sam, you think me a fool for this dogged pursuit,
when, as you say, there are scores of pretty women—Anne

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

Carltons—that I might marry for the asking, or, better still,
have without the cost, and risks, and tedium of marriage; or,
I may enjoy the swing of youth, you tell me, and at forty,
fifty, or sixty buy a pretty young wife. Wives have their
price in our pure young republic, and if not quite as cheap
as in a Turkish market, they are as surely to be bought. But,
my boy, I can not give up the chase now. Like other men,
perhaps I `prize the thing ungained more than it is.' Six
years since I made a bet with you and recorded it, that I
would marry Grace Herbert. When I was a boy, if I set
my wishes on a particular apple, on a particular tree, I
would break my neck but I got it. My temper is not yet
changed!

“She cares not a fig for my fortune, or my position—this
gratifies my pride; for, if she marries me, it will be for what
I am, or what she fancies I am. Laugh at my vanity, if you
will, I have it in common with the world; it is the universal
motive-passion; it impels the florist to produce the prize
rose, and leads the martyr to the stake; we are all on one
level there.

“I have made lucky hits of late. The Esterlys have lost
one of their progeny, and while they were in the ferment of
hopes and fears, I rained down toys and flowers upon them.
Trifles light as air tell, when the heart is soft. I wrote a
masterly note, and sent it, with a bouquet, to solace Miss H.
when she came home from her nephew's funeral. It was
non-committal, and yet significant enough. I could turn
Augusta Tallis' head off her shoulders, with half the pains
I took to compose that note.

“But my master-stroke, my coup-de-grace, was this very
morning. There has been a hue and cry after a mulatto
runaway slave, a devilish fine creature, connected with an
old family servant of the Esterlys. Miss H., as one might
predicate of her, partakes the furor for fugitive slaves in

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

general, and for this one she had a particular interest. I
seized the occasion, and ransomed the woman and her boy,
paying to the tune of $1,400!!

“I see but one breaker ahead—that cousin of mine, Julia
Travers, saint and vestal; would she were trimming her
own fires, instead of watching mine! Setting aside feminine
decency, she had the boldness, not long ago, to speak to
me of that little fille-de-joie, Jessie, who has turned up somewhere
in Miss Julia's harvest-field, and `della qualle é bella il
tacere,' and so I told my cousin in pretty plain English, and
we parted—daggers drawn.

“Rolla is at the door, I am going out for a gallop—au
revoir—”

“11, P.M.—I think it was the devil, or a spell like that
which is said to bring a murderer back to the precise scene
of his crime, that made me turn Rolla's head out of the
avenue into an obscure road, which you may remember,
where, on turning an angle by a copse of pines, you come
upon an old farm-house. As I came round the corner, Rolla
was in full headway. I saw a hearse standing before the
farm-house door, and two or three officials about it. I think
from a premonitory impulse to escape the place, I must have
given a sudden jerk to Rolla's bit; he never before served
me such a knave's trick—he stumbled, and threw me over
his head; mine struck the ground. I was stunned, and taken
into the farm-house unconscious. When I came to my
senses, I was stretched on a sofa, and my cousin Julia was
bathing my temples. My perceptions were dim, but I think
there was another person beside my cousin in the room, for
I have an impression of a ghostly pale face, and a long
mourning veil floating through a door into a back-parlor,
and of my cousin leaving my side to close the door. She
gave me a glass of wine—her hand shook; so, I think, did

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

mine. After a while she said, `Your color is returning—are
you better?'

“`Yes, quite well.'

“`Your horse is at the door; are you able to remount him?'

“Her voice was steady, and her manner not unkind. I
can not tell why I was irritated. Are there unseen demons
that beset us? I felt as if I were in a place of torment, and
she there to scourge me. I replied, `Yes, perfectly able,'
and threw from me a handkerchief steeped in some infernal
stuff which she had laid on my forehead. As I rose to my
feet—the room turned dark; I reeled, and caught by the
first thing I could reach. The confusion passed like a driving
cloud, and directly, with the full power and acuteness of
my senses, I perceived that my hand had seized the open lid
of a coffin, and under my eye was the face of that girl—
Jessie. Good God! Her image, as she was a little more than
a year ago, rose before me; the bloom and roundness; the
rich and shining tresses that her little childish fingers played
with, as in her confusion she parried my love-making; those
bright dewy lips, now blue—blue, and cold—bah! they
haunt me. I was weakened by my fall, and this shocking
sight smote me: my nerves were shaken—my blood curdled
at my heart. I should have been prepared for this sorry
sight by the looks of the girl when I met her in the street,
but I was not; I was unmanned. I paced up and down the
room, and again I stood over the dead girl. Just at that
moment the door opened, and in sprang another acquaintance
of mine, Jessie's only friend, a little spaniel that had come
with her from her English home; she called him Beau. I
had fed and petted him; he flew up to me, fawned on me,
and licked my hands. Sam, I confess it, I felt at the moment
as if it would be sacrilege to touch him. He turned from
me, and leaped to the coffin, and lay there as still as the clod
within it. I was weak as a child. I wrung my hands—I

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

cried like a boy! I saw a tear in the hollow of Jessie's
cheek; I started, and looked to my cousin. `Her mother
dropped it there,' she said.

“`Her mother! Has she a mother?' I asked.

“`Yes, a broken-hearted mother. Oh, Horace! who can
say where a great wrong shall stop? Dear little Jessie's
sorrows are ended. She forgave all, and I doubt not is forgiven.
Do not let her dying prayer for you be lost! There
is mercy for the sinner; though his sins be as scarlet, they
shall become white as wool.' She went on multiplying trite
quotations. Her exhortation was a thought too long; it
brought me back to the old track. Had she left me to the
scourging of that horrid sight—to the rebuke of that fond
little animal, I might have passed by remorse to penitence,
and perchance come out upon the highway of reformation,
but I was not to be bridled and ridden by a canting girl,
so I broke away, mounted Rolla, and came home. I swallowed
a glass of brandy, and went to the opera, but I heard
nothing but the ringing in my ears, saw nothing, but that
coffin, and the wreck within it. I rushed into the street,
and found myself before Miss Herbert's door. Miss Herbert
heard me as I entered, and came into the hall to thank me
for my part in the fugitive-slave affair. She sent a flood of
healing from her starry eyes into my soul. When we came
into the drawing-room, her step-mother—old women are
always asking about one's health—remarked my paleness,
and inquired if I were ill, and followed up her inquiry
with an exclamation at a patch on my forehead which I believed
my hair covered. I stammered, and finally confessed
that my horse had thrown me.

“`Your horse stumbled!' exclaimed old Herbert, who
never lets an opportunity pass of annoying me; `I think I
heard you boast that a horse well broken like your's never
stumbled.'

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

“`Rolla bowed to destiny, Uncle Walter,' said Grace;
`pride must have its fall! But I hope you are not much
hurt,' she added, turning on me a look full of earnest interest.
Uncle Walter, Rolla, may go to the devil—that look
pays all. Lisle was there. That old loafer, Walter Herbert,
affects him greatly. I meet him hobbling along at the
young man's side every day. I believe in my soul, the old
fool would rather give his niece to him than to me! I am
not jealous of him, Sam, but we are antagonistic. He looks
at me with a cold contempt that irritates me.

“Good-night—the clock strikes two—I am tired, out and
out, but there is no sleep in me—phantoms haunt me. Twice
I have rushed into the street, and walked round the square.
I can not get beyond that coffin! that dead girl! I am not
worse than other men, nor old, nor sick—why should these
phantoms pursue me? Good-night.

The good man meditates and prays in the silent watches
of the night, and “the peace that passeth understanding”
takes possession of him. But to all, save the good, what
are these “silent watches,” when nature with its thousand
assuaging voices is stilled, when the clamors of the world
are hushed, the flatteries of friends are forgotten, the officiousness
of incessant vanity is subdued, and even the soothing
whisperings of self-love have died away? Crimes, sorrows,
levities—that which “has been done that ought not to
have been done,” and “that which has been left undone”—
haunt the memory. The soul is alone in the sun-light of
truth, before the tribunal of conscience! before God!

The veriest wretch of our city, unfed, unhoused, needed
not to envy Horace Copley, the rich, the exquisite, the “fascinating”
Horace Copley, during the silent watches of that
night.

No besieging general ever more anxiously calculated the

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

chances of success, and provided against intervening and
opposing forces, than did Copley. The nearer he approached
the hour of victory, the more eager and vigilant he became.

He had now to manage his cousin Julia, and to that end
he elaborately penned the following epistle:

“My Dear Cousin Julia:—

“After the melo-dramatic scene which we shared yesterday,
I feel bound to make an appeal to you, not wholly to
justify myself, but to state some extenuating circumstances.
This is not a fitting subject to discuss with a young lady,
but it is thrust upon me, and you must pardon me. A recurrence
to the circumstances of my early life will perhaps
distill from your kind heart some drops of pity for me. Remember,
that I was left at nineteen, when the appetites are
keenest, and the love of pleasure uncontrollable, heir of a
large fortune, and master of myself. My father, it is too
well known, had not been over-strict in his life. With his
example, I inherited his constitution. Pardon me, Julia;
you are a sensible woman, and will allow their due weight
to the grounds of my defence. At nineteen, then, I began
my career; I had intimates older than myself, who were
deep in the world. I plunged in with them, and I have no
great satisfaction in the retrospect of the two years that followed.

“At that period, viz., when I was twenty-one, `a change
came o'er the spirit of my dream'—the love of my childhood
for Grace Herbert revived, with all the force of manhood,
and from that hour, with more or less hope, I have
loved and followed her. From that period I have been getting
rid of my old companions, and habits, and, on my soul,
they have now no charm for me, or influence over me.

“`And yet,' you will say, `this poor girl's tragedy has
been enacted within the last year!' True, my dear cousin,

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

true! But I could not turn anchorite at once. Miss Herbert
had been unusually cold to me; and disheartened, I
shut myself up at Elm Grove. My mother brought this
pretty young person there, and imprudently left us alone
together. I can not enter into details to you; but, for
heaven's sake, dear Julia, let by-gones be by-gones. Your
imagination is naturally excited by the illness and death of
this young person—God knows, no fault of mine—but look
at the facts I have stated reasonably. I did all in my power
to atone for my fault; I sent the girl to the care of a person
in whom I had implicit confidence, and, as perhaps she told
you, provided ample means for every exigency.

“But, my dear cousin, as it is impossible we should view
this subject quite in the same light, let me turn to another,
on which we must have one judgment. I have but one
chance for happiness, perhaps for virtue, for I am not
stronger than other men, and disappointment might throw
me back into the whirlpool which I have escaped by the
force of a pure and constant passion. You know, by your
own experience, the omnipotence of such a love. You will
not assume the responsibility of depriving me of its motives
and security? The future opens two paths to me—one of
married love and honorable aspiration, the other, the `facilis
descensus;' which I shall take, depends on you.

“You love my mother? Her heart is garnered up in my
unworthy self. With me alone rests the transmission of the
husband's name whom she loved and honored, despite his
faults—who, among poor mortals, has not faults? You would
compass sea and land to save my life for my mother's sake;
will you not do something to preserve that which is far
dearer to her, the honor of my life?

“I know you have a stern, permit me to say, a fanatical
sense of duty, which might impel you to disclose this story of
the poor girl, with your partly false impressions of it, to Miss

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

Herbert. If you do, it is easy to foresee the effect upon her
wounded pride, may I not add, her wounded affection?
Dare you take this responsibility? I ask this question
solemnly, my dear cousin, not in a spirit of defiance. Julia,
when you kneel at the marriage altar, will it not be a bitter
thought to you, that you have fenced me from it forever?
for as true as there is a heaven above, I never again can
entertain an honorable love.

“You may imagine what is the force of feeling that overcomes
my habitual reserve, and leads me to throw my open
heart, quivering, at your feet—do not crush the life out
of it.

“May the God you so faithfully serve direct you!

Miss Travers, with a deep conviction of her cousin's baseness,
and a clear perception of her duty to her friend, had
her hat and cloak on, with the purpose of going to Miss
Herbert to make a full disclosure, when this letter was
brought in. She read it through, at first simply with indignation
at its false views and false assumptions. She read it
a second time, and felt there was some truth, mingled with
its subtle sophisms; a third time, and she shrunk from leveling
a blow that must strike down her aunt; a fourth, and,
throwing off her hat and cloak, she exclaimed aloud, “No,
I dare not take this responsibility; perhaps it is by marrying
my cousin that poor Grace is to work out his salvation and
her own!”

How few there are that comprehend the responsibility of
declining a responsibility!

Copley received a short, cold note from his cousin, promising
secresy, and unfolding the letter he had written to Belson,
he added this postscript:

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

“I have Julia's promise of secresy, and the devil himself
can't tempt her to break it! The game is won! Dear,
sweet cousin Julia! you are just as consistent as the rest of
the world—saints and sinners!”

NOTE.

If this sad story serve to expose a prevailing sin, let it have the full
weight due to an “o'er true tale.” Its leading facts are true. Some of the
most touching expressions were taken down from the lips of a dying girl,
one of the many who are every year in our Christian city corrupted in
their youth, and turned aside from the benign purposes of Providence, their
fair field of life choked with poisonous weeds, and untimely driven to that
bar, where, if mercy is meted to them, justice will be dealt to their destroyers.

CHAPTER III.

“Ye ken when folks are paired, Birdie!
Ye ken when folks are paired;
Life 's fair an foul and freakish weather,
An light an lumbering loads thegither,
Maun a' be shared.”

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

The Esterlys, returned to their home, are at breakfast in
the sunny room where all the home-breakfasts of their married
life had been eaten. The beginning of each day has a
flavor of youth. Each morning, as in Paradise, “heaven
wakes with all his eyes;” and what happier scene do they
fall upon than a family assembling in love, grateful for possible
perils escaped, and speaking the “good-morning” in
tones of affection, hope, and courage? Of all the family
rites, the breakfast is the cheerfulest to the sound in body
and mind—to the unsound, its sweet uses are turned to
bitterness.

Eleanor, owing to the pressure of family work, had tied
the baby in a high chair at the table, and she, excited by the
unwonted indulgence, was rattling tea-spoons and napkin-rings,
and babbling her glee in a baby-patois, only intelligible
to baby-lovers.

“Why, I declare, what a pretty noise she makes, the
darling!” said Cousin Effie; “she's telling a story, is n't she,
all about the napkin-rings coming to see the tea-spoons? but
Bob sings the loudest, don't he, baby?” Bob was the canary,
whose cage was hung by the window, drawn down to

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

admit the soft April air, and who, as is the nature of that
genus, was excited by the social clatter to do his utmost at
his noisy music.

“Eleanor,” said her husband, in a querulous tone, “I trust
you will find some place to stow away that bird out of hearing,
when we get to Harlem.”

“Why, papa!” exclaimed May, “Erby's bird!”

The table was hushed, till good Cousin Effie said, in a
healing voice, “Father forgot Erby.”

“Did you forget Erby?” whispered May, as if her father
should vindicate himself from ever forgetting the missing
boy.

But Esterly made no reply, unless the sudden direction
of his moistened eye toward the canary might be one. In
another moment the wretched bodily sensations triumphed,
as they will in their hour of mastery, over affection, sentiment,
every thing that belongs to the spiritual nature.
“What is this villainous taste in this bread, Eleanor? You
really should attend to my bread,” he said.

“I am sorry you do not relish it, Frank,” replied his wife.

“Relish it! Why it's a compound of acid and bitter.
You that can eat Di's buckwheats, may talk about relishing!
What are you laughing at, May?”

“Why, papa, that's the very same loaf you said was so
good last evening, at tea.”

“No, May; that was Cristy's bread.”

“No, papa; you are mistaken. Mamma came all the way
back from Broadway, when she was going to Aunt Grace's,
to tell Di' to put it aside for you.”

“That may be; but it's not the same.”

“I think it is, sir; mamma marked it with a cross.” May
turned over the loaf, and, pointing to the cross, looked up
to her father with a smile that would have driven out a
legion of devils, having any other name than dyspepsia.

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

Esterly made no answer, but putting aside his untasted
tea, went off to his study.

“Poor Frank! he always was so from a child,” said Cousin
Effie; “he is always out of sorts when he is not well. Dear,”
to Eleanor, “don't you think a little milk porridge, with
just the least dash of lime-water, would help his stomach?”

“No, thank you, Cousin Effie, he does not like messes.”

“Oh he hates them, Cousin Effie,” said May.

“Does he, dear? Men a'most always do—they are peculiar
to nurse. But, may be he'll take a glass of cammomile
with soda. I have given it to him many a time when he was
of May's age.”

`That possibly is partly the reason,' thought Eleanor,
“why his bread tastes bitter now;” but, thanking Cousin
Effie, she declined the prescription, saying she feared Frank's
malady was now beyond a cammomile cure. The door-bell
rang. “Go, my little waiter, and open the door,” said
Eleanor to May; “Bridget is busy, and we must save old
Di' all the steps we can.” Eleanor, on reducing her expenditures,
had dismissed her man-servant.

“You save every body but yourself, dear,” said Cousin
Effie who, though accounted all through life “a dull little
body,” had an instinct to perceive and feel a demonstration
of humanity.

May, charmed with her new office, came bouncing in with
a note. It was from Mrs. Selby, the lady who had rented
Eleanor's house and furniture. She was to take possession
on Friday. It was now Wednesday morning. The note
ran thus:

“My Dear Mrs. Esterly:—

“I came to town last evening, to be ready to take possession
on Friday. I find it very uncomfortable at the Astor
House with my children. If you can give me possession

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

tomorrow, you will very much oblige me. As it is but one
day in anticipation, and you move so little furniture, I
imagine it can not much inconvenience you. Please return
by bearer a favorable answer.

Eleanor smiled at a selfishness so common in a world
where one's own convenience is lead in one scale, and one's
neighbor's a feather in the other.

“What are you smiling at, dear?” asked Cousin Effie;
“something pleasant in your note?”

Eleanor told its purport—Cousin Effie caught but one
idea from it “It would be awful,” she said, “if any thing
should happen to those dear little children—hotels are so apt
to catch fire!”

Eleanor did not permit her amiability to degenerate into
weakness, and she had taken her pen to write a laconic
refusal, but at the suggestion of soft-hearted cousin Effie,
she considered how she could put two days' work into one,
and while she hesitated, her husband opened the door and
said, “Eleanor, can you possibly copy that article for me?”

“Oh yes, Frank; you know I asked you to let me do it.”
The fate of Mrs. Selby's request was decided. Eleanor
wrote a refusal, qualifying it with the offer of her spare
room for the nurse and children.

“Now I should never have thought of that!” exclaimed
Cousin Effie; “'tis a great help to have a superior mind.”

“A far greater to have a superior heart, Cousin Effie.”

Eleanor's sweet look at Cousin Effie, as she said this, made

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

it inevitable for the honest little woman to take the remark
home, and she said with a blushing deprecation, “Well, I
can feel, but I never know how to say or do any thing.”

“Dear Cousin Effie, do you call it doing nothing to take
my big baby off my hands till 12 o'clock?”

“Oh, that's only what I love to do.”

“And can do so well, Cousin Effie, that we shall never
again know how to live without you.”

“The dear little creater!” exclaimed Effie, as Eleanor
went off to her task with alacrity, “who but she would
ever think such a poor old body as I any thing but a burden?
What a wife for poor Frank! She takes all the stumbling-stones
and bramble-bushes out of every body's path!”

“My mother?” asked May. While Cousin Effie was thinking
how she should literalize her figurative language for
May's comprehension—not seeing how very short the
descent was from her own level to the child's—the door
was opened, and Mr. Walter Herbert appeared. May leaped
into his arms, and Cousin Effie, begging to be excused, withdrew.

“Where is your mother, May?” asked Mr. Herbert.

“Writing for my father, and she said she must not be
called for any body—but you are some body, Uncle Walter,
and I may call her for you.”

“No, no, May—I am no body—and no one cares for
me!”

“Uncle Walter, I am sure I do, and my Aunt Grace
does.”

“Your Aunt Grace has other fish to fry.”

“Aunt Grace fry fish! How funny you are, Uncle
Walter.”

Uncle Walter did not look “funny,” but pensive and
abstracted. He was recoiling from dangers that now
seemed to him close at hand. He had asked Grace to come

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

to her sister's with him. She declined, pleading an engagement.
During his solitary walk he had met her with Copley.
May, with the instinct of a loving child, felt, without
knowing wherefore, that he needed to be comforted. She
put up her bright lips and kissed him, caressed his cheek,
and said, “Ah, now, Uncle Walter, come and live with us
in our nice little house at Harlem; if you and Aunt Grace
come it will be jolly! Oh, it's such a pretty little house;
not ugly old brick like this, but wood painted white; and
not such big rooms as these, but the cunningest little rooms,
just a little bigger than mamma's dressing-room. It's so
much pleasanter, Cousin Effie says, not to have rooms cluttered
up with furniture and things that we children must
not touch—only a few things that we must have, you know,
Uncle Walter.”

“But my darling, people differ as to what they must
have.”

“Let them; you and I know, Uncle Walter, and mamma
has all those things—a sofa for you to take a nap on
when you are tired, and chairs, and a little table to sew by,
and a big table to eat on. And we shall have one room
entirely empty, where you, and I, and Grace can play blindfold,
and not hurt ourselves, and break things. And there's
a closet big enough for my baby-house, and a nice sunny
kitchen, where poor old Di' won't get her rheumatisms,
mamma says; and oh, best of all! there's a pear-tree in our
yard where we can hang up Bob's cage; and ever—ever so
much blue sky over us! Will you come with us, Uncle
Walter?”

The child's estimates of the necessaries of life were certainly
very different from those of the world's in general—
but, except ye become as one of these, ye can not enter into
that kingdom of heaven which is in a heart of love and
simplicity.

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

Uncle Walter was responsive—May cheated him of his
moodiness—and half an hour afterward Mrs. Herbert and
Miss Carlton found him on the floor building castles with
the child, with her blocks, and laughing with her over their
downfall.

“Good-morning, May,” said Mrs. Herbert.

“Good-morning, ma'am—keep a building, Uncle Walter—
mamma is very much engaged, ma'am, and so are Uncle
Walter and I.”

“Hoity toity miss!” said Anne Carlton, “where did you
learn your manners?”

“Pshaw, Anne!” said Mrs. Herbert, “children must be
children. I heard at the door, my dear, that your mamma
was engaged, but we came in to see the baby, and to take
you home to pass the day.”

“Is Aunt Grace at home?”

“No.”

“Then I'll stay here, if you please, ma'am, and I'll go and
ask Cousin Effie to bring down baby.”

“Oh, Mr. Herbert!” said Anne Carlton, as May ran off to
the nursery, “how can you help spoil that child? She is the
rudest little thing I ever saw.”

“Not rude, Miss Anne; you know the old adage—`children
and fools will speak the truth.'”

“I know they will if they are not taught better,” said
Miss Anne.

Uncle Walter whistled. Now that whistle of Walter
Herbert's was a commentary Mrs. Herbert never could bear
in silence. “You don't understand Anne, brother,” she
said; “she—” and she was going on to paraphrase all the
truth out of Anne's remark, when, to Mr. Herbert's great
relief, she was interrupted by the entrance of Cousin Effie
and the baby.

Cousin Effie, after making her rustic salutation to the

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

ladies, was lost in the delight of showing off the baby in all
the beauty and pride of babyhood as she was. She did not
even see the splendid Brussels lace on Mrs. Herbert's new
mantilla, nor if she had, would she have known it from the
vulgarest net. She did not notice Miss Anne's beautiful
French millinery. Effie was absorbed in displaying baby's
sweet dimples, her curls, her mottled arms, her plump
little hands, and her dear rosy neck; the baby jingled
her coral bells, and crowed in response to Effie's crooning
and May's screams of delight at her showing-off. Suddenly,
by one of those impulses incident to babies, she dropped her
coral bells, made a spring at Miss Anne, and clutched the
roses in her bonnet. Anne shrieked, the baby screamed,
and Effie, murmuring, “Dear little innocent creater!” and
pressing her to her bosom, made her escape from the turmoil
to the nursery.

“Are they ruined, mamma?” asked Anne with a tragic
vehemence.

“Done for, Miss Anne,” interposed Walter Herbert,
while the mother was mentally elaborating a paraphrase of
the same fact. “An irreparable calamity, is it not?”

“Yes, it is, Mr. Herbert, though I suppose you are laughing
in your sleeve when you say so. I don't know what
babies are born for.”

“I sometimes wonder too, Miss Anne, when I see to what
women they grow up.”

“Come, come, dear Anne,” said her mother, “we are
wasting time—(what else do the Anne Carltons ever do with
time?)—brother, we are going round to see Horace Copley's
house. Bandeli is doing the frescoes. The salon-à-manger is
to be decorated after one in a celebrated villa on Como.
You will like to see a place where you have a prospect of
enjoying many a good dinner—do come, brother.”

There was malice in the twinkle of Mrs. Herbert's eye

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

as she said this. Uncle Walter replied gruffly, “Thank
you—no!”

“Oh, I am sure it will please you; the house is palatial;
splendid drawing-rooms, a suite of private apartments for
the master, another for the mistress—we'll suppose Grace,
for so the world does say, now—a magnificent library, a billiard-room,
a callisthenic apartment—in short, every thing
that heart of man or woman can desire.”

During this harangue Miss Carlton stood tapping the
floor impatiently with her pretty French boot, and fidgeting
with her faultless Paris gloves. “I have been twice over
the house,” continued the incessant woman; “it's nearly
perfect; but I could make one or two suggestions to the
fortunate intended, Grace,” she concluded, casting a side-glance,
half impertinent and half silly, at Mr. Herbert.

“Don't make them, madam—don't speak to Grace—don't
speak to me of that house, or any thing relating to it.”
Uncle Walter's brow had been gathering the clouds that
now burst. He could not help it.

Mrs. Herbert retreated, and as the street door closed
upon them, she said with a gasp, as if a bucket of water
had been thrown in her face, “Brother Walter is dreadful
to-day.”

“Did you ever see such affectation?” exclaimed Anne;
“as if he would not give his right hand to see Grace mistress
of that house!”

And Walter Herbert, left free to express what he felt,
caught May in his arms, “You are right, my darling, you
are right,” he said, “would we were all in that little white
wooden house in Harlem!”

May said nothing, but she understood Walter Herbert far
better than those “world's women” did. She took out her
little handkerchief and wiped the tears from his cheek,

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

kissed him, and whispered, “I hate to see you cry, Uncle
Walter; people that's old should not cry—don't.”

“I won't, May, my little comforter, I won't.” He set
the child down and went his way.

It was near 12 o'clock when Esterly returned from a gallop
to Harlem, whither Eleanor had sent him on some
errands, as she said, to the new place, but mainly in the
secret hope of refreshing her husband with a ride. How
sweet and sure are nature's restoring agencies. He came in
with a light quick step, heightened color, and brightened
eye. “Eleanor!” he exclaimed in a voice cheerful and
tender, “still slaving for me?”

“Oh, no, Frank!” she said, holding up the manuscript,
“I have just done my work: see if I have done it well.”

He turned the leaves—“Perfectly; your hand-writing,
Eleanor, is as clear as your head.” He fell on his knees, put
his arm around her, and laid his head on his wife's bosom—
“Eleanor, I was a brute this morning; no—not I, but my
brutish nature mastered me, and it does so often, and I am
then so querulous, cross, unreasonable, unchristian, even
your sweet patience irritates me, my children's voices are
discords, the world is one huge incubus oppressing me; then
comes penitence bitter, but wholesome—and then, dear
Nel, the flood-tide of love, sweeping out of my life every
thing harsh and hurtful. Tell me, how is it, dear child, that
you never get out of patience with me, never flout me,
never, by any chance, speak a cross word to me.”

“Perhaps you would not be flattered, Frank, if I told
you the simple truth,” replied Eleanor, turning his waving
locks from off his white temples, and smiling sweetly, as she
looked in his face, beaming with tenderness.

“The simple truth, my child? You can't speak any thing
else.”

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

“Well then, Frank, when you are out of humor, I feel
just as I do when baby is cross with teething. It is her
inevitable misery and my business to help her, to divert and
soothe her as well as I can.”

“That is not flattering to my manhood, Nelly,” said Esterly
with a very dim smile.

“The bargain was `simple truth,' not flattery, Frank, and
it is as simple truth when I tell you that these little trials are
mere exhalations from the ground, that melt away in the
dear sunshine of our love; that you are my teacher, my
master, my daily bread.”

“Ma'am!” called out Bridget, hastily knocking at the
door, and half opening it, “the carman is waiting.”

The husband and wife started to their feet like lovers surprised
at a tête-à-tête, and like lovers, as they were, they
kissed and parted, each going with a lightened heart to the
burdens of the day.

With more of such Christian unions as that of the Esterlys,
there would be fewer divorces for “incompatibility,” and a
long lull to the stormy question of “women's rights.”

CHAPTER IV.

“Let her here a shelter find,
Shield the shorn lamb from the wind.”

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

If our readers have not forgotten our humble little friend,
Letty, they will be glad to know that if she had not conquered
her love, she had mastered herself. No thought,
bidden or unbidden, no vagrant fancy now blended her
future with Lisle's. He had become her earthly providence,
and she carried out, in a human relation, the extravagance
of those fanatics who make self-annihilation a test of religious
safety; who say one is only fit to be saved when one is
willing to be lost. Letty's love for Archibald, and her desire
to requite his generosity to her, produced a result that
genius might have failed to attain. It was her hour of study
at the piano, when she was startled by the nasal voice of a
stranger, who, entering her parlor, said, “Miss Letty Alsop,
I believe?”

“Yes,” said Letty, rising, and setting a chair for the
visitor; “do you wish to see Madam Steinberg?”

“No; it's you I came to see, Letty. I call you Letty,
for I always heard of you by that name.” One who has
chanced to see the fluttering of a dove who, lighting in a
poultry-yard, encounters a mature Shanghai hen, may imagine
the relative appearance of the parties en scene. “I conclude
you don't know me,” continued the Shanghai; “but I am
the one you wrote letters to for your Aunt Lisle.”

“Ah, you are—Miss—Clapp!” said Letty, stammering,

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

and blushing, as sundry recollections rushed upon her. Miss
Adeline noticed the blush, and said, mentally, `I thought
so.' For once she felt some difficulty in a direct approach
to the matter in hand. Perhaps she was touched by the appealing
tenderness of Letty's demeanor; an ox will not set
its hoof upon a child. After looking about the room, as if
taking an inventory of its furniture, “What a spruce little
parlor,” she said; “I suppose you have a privilege in it, as
you appeared to be playing when I came in—of course it's
the family parlor, isn't it?”

“No, Miss Clapp; it is my private sitting-room.”

“Dear me! Oh, I see. You teach the young Steinbergs,
and this is thrown into your salary.”

It did not comport with Letty's Puritan habits of truth
to connive at Miss Clapp's mistake. “No,” she said, “my
salary does not include the parlor.”

“Then, how do you afford it? rents are so up in the
city.”

Letty made no reply. She looked tormented.

“I see,” continued Miss Clapp, “that you have feelings,
Letty, and I don't mean to hurt them; but I must say, a
young lady is in a precarious situation—I don't mean that
exactly—but it's not prudent, for a young lady to live in
lodgings that a young gentleman pays for; and there's no
one living has a better right to advise you than I, if that is
your case, and Archy Lisle is the man.” Letty gave way
to inevitable tears. “I am sorry for you,” continued Miss
Adeline; “I don't believe any harm of you, for you look as
innocent as a lamb.” Letty did not just then feel lamb-like;
a feeling of resistance rose in her gentle bosom. Miss
Clapp was checked in her tramp into Letty's affairs, and,
looking round for something to fill up the pause, she saw a
portfolio on the table, with drawing utensils beside it, and
putting her hand upon it, “Do you draw?” she asked.

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

“Yes, a little,” replied Letty, rising to rescue the prey
from the fowler.

“Oh don't take it away,” said Miss Adeline, “I admire
to look at drawings;” and forthwith opening the portfolio,
she shook the contents upon the table; and before Letty,
whose face reddened with more painful vexation than she
ever in her life felt before, could gather them up she had
snatched from among them a crayon sketch of Archibald
reading by lamplight—as he did to Letty many an evening—
with Steinberg's little grand-daughter leaning her elbow
on the table, and gazing at him. It was a pretty and a faithful
picture, and showed that love had not deserted the art
it first inspired. Miss Adeline held it afar and near, on one
side and on the other, and then broke out in a tone of utter
amazement: “Did you do this Letty?” She probably
heard Letty's faintly articulated “Yes,” for she proceeded,
“It's much better done than any of the others! Why, I
don't see but it is as well done as Cheeny's, and they say
he makes men and women look like angels. Dear me! I
always thought Archy handsome; but this is splendid!
Why Cheeny gets two or three hundred dollars a piece for
his. A bright thought! You can take likenesses—how
much better for you than keeping on dependent. I have a
lot of acquaintances, and I will make it a business to recommend
you.”

“Oh no, no, no, Miss Clapp,” said Letty, with more vehemence
than she had ever spoken before; “don't recommend
me—don't speak about me!” and taking the drawing
from Miss Clapp, whose touch seemed to her to desecrate
that which she had kept for the contemplation of her most
private hours, she returned it to the portfolio; and having
gathered up the scattered drawings, she laid it aside, as she
would out of the reach of a mischievous child. She felt
Miss Adeline's presence to be intolerable, and mustering

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

courage, she said, looking at her watch, “You must excuse
me, Miss Clapp—it is time for the children's lessons.”

But Adeline Clapp was not to be repulsed by the tactics
of civilized warfare. “Oh, my dear,” she said, “you must
keep the young ones out for a while; I have not entered on
business yet. I saw you had quick feelings, and I did not
want to hurt them; but now I'll come to the point.” Letty
sunk back into her chair, as if a dentist, with his instrument
of torture, were approaching her. “To commence, then,”
resumed Miss Adeline; “I think I can see as far into a millstone
as any one, and I believe that you are correct, and
that Archy Lisle is honorable.” This profession of faith indicated
nothing to the artless girl, and she made no answer,
though Miss Clapp paused apparently for one. She proceeded:
“You know, Letty, the city is different from the
country; there we know all about folks, here they know a
little, and guess the rest; and when a young woman that's
rather pretty, to say the least, carries a gold watch, and
has a drawing-master, and the most expensive of music-masters,
as I hear you have, and a private parlor, and a
young gentleman visiting her for a constancy—why, people
will talk.”

“What do you mean, Miss Clapp? Talk about me! I
do not know a human creature in this great, full city, but
the Steinbergs and Mr. Lisle.”

“My dear, what does that signify, so long as they know
Mr. Lisle? Folks will talk—folks live by talking. Why,
Letty, I heard a drawing-room full of ladies talking over the
pros and cons about you and Archy, and I did not let on
that I knew either of you.”

“But you should, Miss Clapp,” said Letty, speaking now
with a calmness that surprised herself, and a gentle dignity
that, for a moment, awed Adeline Clapp. “You should
have told them that I have no father, no mother, no brother

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

or sister—but that Mr. Lisle is all of these to me; that he
placed me here with good people, where I am earning my
bread; and that all I have, beyond that, he gives me—masters
and books, and my sitting-room, and my `gold watch!'”
If Letty could be sarcastic, then her tremulous smile, as she
uttered the last clause, was sarcastic; but it vanished as she
added, with intense sadness, “And he has given me what I
can never have again—his time.”

“And his affection, perhaps you think?” said Miss Adeline,
plunging her probe to the quick.

“Yes,” replied Letty, with an heroic effort, “yes, as a
dear brother gives it to a dear sister—so, and no otherwise.”

“That's well—that's very well. But, child, I am older
than you, and I must tell you it is not prudent to go on so;
there's no telling when brotherly love may blow out into
something higher-colored. You and Archy are running
risks. He has given you all duty will let him, for Archy is—
married.”

“Married!” Letty covered her face with her hands.

Whether it were white or red, whether it expressed mortification,
disappointment, or misery, Adeline Clapp could not
guess; in any case, she meant to speak soothingly. “I
knew you would feel,” she said; “but it's always the way in
our family, to bring things to a head. And so I repeat it—
Archy is married. A Clapp's word is as good as a bond.
What I tell you is truth, though not the whole truth—that
will come out in time; the circumstances are peculiar. I
leave you now to judge for yourself whether it is right for
you to live on in your present style. Not but what I think
it right that Archy should befriend you, and I am sure I am
quite willing to bear half the expense—” Miss Adeline was
stopped in her career by Letty's hands falling into her lap,
and her head dropping on to her shoulder. Not one word

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

had she heard since Miss Clapp's authoritative declaration
that Archibald was married.

Adeline Clapp roused the house with her outcries, and as
she perceived Letty coming to life again under the tender
ministrations of the Steinbergs, she took her leave, congratulating
herself upon her wisdom in ascertaining the exact condition
of affairs, and putting a bar to their further progress.

Archibald Lisle now knew far more of the world in its
good and bad aspects, and far more of the theory and the
actuality of the world of sentiment, than when, in his youth,
he unconsciously stole away poor Letty's heart. Without
vanity, he was aware, that placed in the relationship she was
to him, and restricted to his society, he might become the
idol to her that a girl of loving heart will make to herself,
and he conscientiously guarded against the danger by talking
to her of her future career of teacher, by keeping the
ultimate purpose of his liberalities steadily in view, and by
selecting such books for reading to her as she might turn to
account in her future occupation. We do not mean to intimate
that Archibald was self-denying in his devotion to
Letty. His evenings, at old Steinberg's, harmonized with his
domestic tastes, in danger of starvation in a bachelor's
boarding-house life with all its egotistic little comforts. The
kindling of Letty's soft eye at his approach, her sweet cheerful
satisfaction in his society, the caresses of the little Steinbergs,
and their glee when like all lovers of children—childish
as they—he showered toys and candies upon them, and an
occasional gossip with the old people, all combined to diffuse
a home atmosphere over Letty's little sitting-room, and to
make it a balmy rest, after the dreary and weary bustle of
every-day life. Lisle had now and then, at long intervals,
spoken to Letty of Miss Herbert. He had mentioned meeting
her, had quoted some brilliant remark of hers, or alluded

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

to some interesting circumstance that bore a relation to her,
and when he did so, there was a flash from his eye, and a quivering
of his lip that never escaped Letty's observation. But
strange as it may seem, this did not make her unhappy.
She had settled it in her mind, that Miss Herbert was
Archibald's fate, but when it was to be accomplished, had
the indistinctness and mystery that death has to common
minds—and so had her own future. It was neither near, nor
afar off. So long as she satisfied her masters, did earnestly
her duty to the little Steinbergs, and could pass half her
evenings beside Archy, she lived in absolute content with
the present. And could this have been her eternity, good
little orthodox Puritan as she was, we fear she would not
have changed it.

But now had come the declaration from that relentless
Miss Clapp that must be “the end-all.” And that there
might be no misunderstanding, Miss Clapp followed up her
interview with a note, as follows:—“Dear girl, I did
not say quite all I wished, owing to your fainting which, I
suppose, came from the heat of the room, and your surprise.
I thought it my duty to tell you of a certain person's marriage,
but as it is yet a secret, don't let it transpire, and
don't allude to it to him. A. C.”

Poor Letty! She could have plucked out her tongue
easier than to have told it to another, or alluded to it to
Archibald. All day she was restless, and in answer to the
kind solicitude of the Steinbergs, she complained of head-ache,
and head-ache and heart-ache she had. Margaretta
Steinberg brought her in a basket of exquisite flowers, and
a novel from Mr. Roberts, a lodger in Steinberg's house.
This Mr. Roberts was head master of a noted Latin school.
He had sought an introduction to Letty through the Steinbergs,
and had lately been lavish in certain demonstrations,

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

which her kind friends thought most auspicious omens of
her future; and even the children interchanged whispers
about “dear Letty's beau,” and smiled when they brought
in his offerings. And Mr. Roberts might have had a fair
chance of winning any sound heart, but not poor Letty's.
The novel remained with uncut leaves on the table, and the
costly flowers would have withered there, but for Margaretta's
interposition.

Letty, living out of the world, and having no data by
which to calculate its chances, never, for a moment, doubted
that Archibald was married to Miss Herbert, and all day her
tormented brain was exercised in divining the reasons of the
secresy—“Why Archy had not even had the kindness to
hint it to her? and how in the world Adeline Clapp had
found out what Archibald had meant to keep secret?” She
sent away her drawing-master, she vainly tried to get through
with her daily task with her pupils. Their report brought in
Madam Steinberg, and she, alarmed by Letty's burning
cheeks, and hot hands, sent her husband waddling round to
Mr. Lisle's office to ask him to send a physician. But Steinberg
not finding him there, or at his lodgings, the good old
people, with German placidity, determined to defer medical
aid, and in the mean time to administer, a homeopathic narcotic,
not so innocent as it might have been, as the old lady, on
paying her last visit to Letty's attic before going to bed, and
finding her sleepless, trebled the dose. How blindly mortals
work out Heaven's beneficent purposes! Dear old Madam
Steinberg never forgot Letty's good-night to her, and often
repeated it with streaming eyes, “Oh, how kind you are to
me, Madam Steinberg,” she said—“to me, a stranger;” and
then clasping her little hands, she added, “Seeing this, shall
I not trust myself to him who pities me, even as a father
pitieth his children—I do, I do!” The trust and the prayer
were answered.

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

Lisle had been walking till a late hour that evening, taking
no note of time. Life seemed to him made up of disturbed and
disturbing forces, all inharmonious. Letty in her artlessness,
her gratitude to him, and her unworldliness, stood before him
in something like reproachful contrast to Grace, who was being
overcome by the world. Lisle felt, as he had never felt before,
the fact of Letty's love. He felt an irrepressible gush of pity
and tenderness for her—not love; no, that comes not for the
bidding. He was approaching Canal-street, and turned into
it, remembering, with some contrition, that a longer interval
than usual had passed since he had seen her. He heard a
cry of fire, and perceived it was in his direction. Still, so
common an occurrence excited no alarm, till he perceived
the outcries concentrating near Steinberg's. In a moment
after, he saw the flames burst out from the old man's little
wooden dwelling. In another instant he was there, and
penetrating through the crowd, he met Steinberg, face to
face, who, with a child in each arm, was screaming in German—
so completely had he lost his head—“Letty's in the
attic, save her!—the dear child!—mein Gott! mein Gott!”
Lisle understood him—he knew the localities of the house.
The fire had broken out in a crazy back-kitchen, and had
made some progress when the sleepers in the front rooms were
awakened by the smoke and crackling. “Bring a ladder!”
cried Lisle, “there's a person in the attic that must be saved!”
A ladder was brought, but intrepid as our firemen notoriously
are, they recoiled from applying it. “Ther's no use,” cried
one, “the flames are licking round the rafters—it can't be
done.” Lisle sprang upon the ladder. “Come down, young
man,” cried another. “You are lost,” shrieked a third, with
a horrid oath, “you are lost, if you enter!—it's death—
it's death, over and over.” Lisle paused on the topmost
rung, but not to retreat. With characteristic presence of
mind he took a silk scarf from his neck, put it over his face,

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

and secured it. With one thrust of his strong arm he demolished
the frail window-sash, a dense column of smoke
rushed outward, and Lisle disappeared. From below arose
cries upon His name, who, if forgotten till human help fails,
is surely then remembered. Breaths were suspended till,
issuing from the blackness, and followed by the flames, Lisle
reappeared bearing Letty, whom he had wrapped in a blanket,
as if he carried but a child's weight. A general acclamation
burst from the crowd; such a response as ever comes from
man's soul to an heroic deed.

Archibald, tearing the cover from his face that had saved
him in his mortal strife with death, perceived that Letty was
incapable of motion and unconscious. Plenty of hands
came to his aid, and she was borne to the nearest safe house,
and laid on a sofa. Restoratives were brought, and medical
aid was sought and found. Her pulse beat feebly. Archibald
knelt before her, and unconsciously kissed over and
over the little hands he held in his, and felt the pulses, that
had quickened at the faintest sound of his approaching footstep,
grow feebler and feebler.

“Spare your pains, friends,” said the physician with professional
coolness, addressing the assistants who were lavishing
restoratives; “it is all over with the poor girl. It is
death by suffocation.”

“It is not death; it can not be death!” cried Archibald;
“Letty! Letty—dear Letty!” She answered not. “Oh,
Letty—dear Letty! rouse yourself. Speak to me—to
Archy!” There was a slight, a perceptible tremulousness
of the eyelids, and the least possible movement of her lips
to smile. It was the last vibration to the voice that had
mastered the finest chords of her being—henceforward, still
forever.

The coarse, hard-handed men who stood around, bowed
their heads. “Can we do any thing for you, sir?” said one

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

and another in subdued voices. Lisle shook his head, and
they slowly departed, one whispering, “I think he is her
brother;” and another answering, “Something more, I
think.”

While the lady of the house went with her domestics to
prepare an apartment for the exigency, Archibald was, as he
desired, left alone with Letty. The first motion of his soul
was a devout thanksgiving to the great Shepherd that he
had taken this lamb away from the perils of life to his own
inexhaustible love—that she had passed from the rough
places of earth without dread or consciousness, to rest and
peace eternal.

And then, by that preternatural power which the memory
has at such periods of exaltation, the passages of their past
association passed in revision before him. Her loving, pleasant
childhood in his father's house; her fond clingings to
him in fancied dangers; her graceful little form playfully
hidden by the vines of the old porch, springing to meet him
with eager joy, when he came in from his field sports; the
refinements that, as she grew older and more perceptive, she
sprinkled over the homeliness of rustic life; the consolation
of her filial devotion to his father, and her cheerful patience
with the little fry at home. And, as if by a spell, came up
the memory of thrilling tones, of words half spoken, of sudden
blushes, and as sudden tears. These, passed by at the
time as caprice or moodiness, were now revelations. And the
last and dearest chapter of their joint lives, Letty's happiest
days at old Steinberg's, her sweet contentment in his
mere presence, her gratitude for even his smallest kindness,
not conveyed in words made common by common thanks,
but in floods of light that came beaming from her soul
through her eyes, in smiles that are the spirit's language,
in tones that breathe music into the simplest sentence.

“Oh, I have been hard, unkind, unfeeling!” was the cry

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

of his inmost soul. “I loved you, Letty—truly. But why
have I wasted on another what should have been yours?
Bitter, bitter, vain regrets! Now you are as far beyond
my reach, as you were above my deservings.”

Is it not ever thus? Is any, the happiest relation of life,
severed without leaving us to lament over the imperfection
of our love and its irremediable failures?

CHAPTER V.

“Enfin sa bouche flétrie
Ose prendre un noble accent.”

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

There are tides in the affairs of men; tides so strong as
to sweep every obstruction away and bear down every opposing
force. Circumstances had of late been auspicious to
Copley, and the object that for years he had pursued with
unwavering determination, was within his grasp. The Esterlys
had been out of the way. Little May, who had stood
like the angel at the gate of Paradise, pointing a sword
against him, was gone; and Uncle Walter, though the treasure
of his life was at stake, became hopeless, and resigned
himself to the common law of non-interference.

Had Lisle, before this crisis, cast off the shackles of his
reserve, risen above his self-distrust, and manifested to Grace
his unconquered and unconquerable love, she might have
responded to him, and risen by the force of her own upward
tendencies out of sight of the subtle spell that Copley had
addressed to her lower nature. But Lisle had now withdrawn
wholly from her society, and though his love was not
extinguished, it was buried deep in his heart and covered
with the ashes of despair.

Events are sometimes in such curious relation and proximity,
that one does not wonder they have been referred to
conjunctions of the stars. It was on the evening of Letty's
death, that Grace, at twilight, was sitting alone at the

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

bay-window of Mrs. Herbert's library, not gazing at the tints of
parting day that smiled on the budding trees opposite, but
taking an introspective view, where, just then, a soft and
pleasing twilight pervaded too. She was endeavoring to
overpower the still small voice that yet murmured against
her lover, with such thoughts as, “how kind, how lavish he
was to dear little Herbert;” “how generously forgiving of
Frank's obstinate prejudice against him;” “how considerate
of his interests;” “how prompt and noble for poor Violet's
relief.”

The door opened, and the ideal of her reverie glided in,
approached her, and bent over her chair with a low and
ardent expression of his joy in finding her, as he wished to
find her, alone. He took her hand and pressed it to his lips.
She did not withdraw it, and he saw in her beaming face a
happy augury.

The words, and the more expressive silence, the emotions,
and the demonstrations that made the two hours that followed
an epoch in the lives of both can not be told—must not be
told, for the time was sure to come when Grace would wish
all memory and record of them effaced. How many hours
of life glide away colorless and unnoted; and how vitalized
two hours may be; how bright! shedding a soft lustre over
the past, and illuminating the future and illimitable! What
swift movement have they, and yet what anchorage and
sweet rest! What outpouring of hearts, what telling of their
histories, what solving of their mysteries!

Such were not Grace's; not even then, in those two happiest
hours of all her intercourse with Copley, was there the
beatitude of a true love. But they ended as such hours do,
with promises, and plighted vows, and with some earthly
regards and arrangements. Copley had business which
would take him South for a few days, and it was therefore
agreed that their engagement should not be announced till

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

he returned. In the mean time Walter Herbert was first to
be told; a note was to be written to Eleanor (a cold tremor
seized Grace at the thought of these duties) and the fact,
as in courtesy due, was to be imparted to Mrs. Herbert and
her daughter.

Copley was just transferring from his own finger to Grace's
a diamond ring, to be the symbol of betrothal; her hand
rested impassive in his, while he poured a torrent of tears
over it (whence came they? had he a good angel? and was
he then possessed by it? were questions Grace often afterward
asked herself), when, at the sound of a footstep in the
entry, approaching, he dropped it, and shot off into an alcove
at the end of the room, where he stood in shadow.

“My!” exclaimed the most unwelcome intruder. “I am
so glad, Grace Herbert, to find you at home and disengaged;
I seldom have that good luck with you. Dear me! is that
you, Mr. Copley? Oh—ah—I might have known; but
there being no light here—well, moonlight is pleasantest for
some occasions that shall be nameless. Oh, how well I remember
one moonlight night! Well now I hope I don't
intrude,” continued Miss Clapp—it could be no other than
Miss Adeline Clapp—lowering her voice to Grace; “I dare
say I have broken up a tête-à-tête again. I have not been
to Mrs. Tallis' since her reception till this morning, and I
found Mr. Copley tête-à-tête there; odd, is n't it?”

The obscurity of the room, and the imperceptiveness of
Miss Clapp, favored all parties. She did not see the look
Copley darted at her, nor did Grace perceive his sudden
paleness, nor betray her own mounting color. On went
Adeline Clapp: “Mrs. Tallis looked uncommon handsome
this morning; she had on the loveliest silk, just the color of
a dove's wing, Paris made, sleeves entire new cut. I asked
her for the pattern, and if she remembers to give it to me,
I'll send it to you, if you wish, Grace.”

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

“Thank you.”

Miss Clapp proceeded: “What a kind of a superstitious
look Mrs. Tallis' little girl has. She'll not be long spared!
How she did run on this morning, Mr. Copley. I guess
Mrs. Tallis felt something she said to be rather searching—
don't you, Mr. Copley?”

“I do not remember a word she said,” replied Copley.

“Why, don't you? how odd. Don't you remember she
asked her mother `how long her papa would be gone?' and
when her mother told her a month, `I wish it were a month
now,' said she, and the tears ran down her pretty cheeks,
and her mother kissed her—she does love that child; and
then—why it's strange you did not observe—she looked up
in her mother's face, and says she, `Mamma, do you love
papa?' `Run up to the nursery, my dear,' says the mother,
and she went just like a little lamb. But my! I wonder you
did not hear her say, as she stood with her little hand on the
door, `I never send you away, mamma—I hate the nursery,
and I hate Mr. Copley.' Her mother got up and kissed
her, and checked her. I'm sure she spoke loud enough for
you to hear her, Mr. Copley.”

Copley deigned no reply, and Miss Adeline at last perceived
that her persistent monologue met with but an ungracious
reception; but nothing ever disturbed her equilibrium,
and she wound up with saying, “I feel as if it was
but friendly to you, Miss Grace, and to Mr. Copley, too, to
tell you that I surmise even that poor little child has heard
that people talk about you and her mamma, Mr. Copley;
and that is the make of people—they will keep on talking
when a gentleman pays, well, rather particular attention to
a married lady, visiting her every day, as it were, when her
husband is off on a journey.”

“Madam!” said Copley, with so fierce an expression that
even Miss Adeline started, and exclaimed, “Gracious me!

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

Mr. Copley, I did not mean to touch your feelings. I admire
to see gentlemen polite to married ladies; and if you
arn't sensible of any imprudence, there's no harm done by
just my speaking between us three.”

Copley had quite recovered himself, and, taking up his
hat, he replied with his usual coolness, “Much impertinence,
madam, but no possible harm;” and then, murmuring a few
sentences to Grace, too low for Miss Clapp's greedy ear, he
took his leave.

“Miss Clapp,” said Grace, rising, “you must excuse me,
I—I—”

“Oh now, Grace, I can't excuse you. Miss Carlton told
me you had no engagement this evening. I have been waiting
ever since Eleanor's boy sickened to speak to you, or to
her. It seemed more suitable to consult with a married
lady; but she is always engaged, or out of town, or something.
It's about Archy; and you and she are friends to us
both. Now do listen to me.”

Grace had risen, and was quivering with impatience to
get out of Miss Adeline's grasp, but Archibald Lisle's complication
with the insatiable woman turned the tide, and she
reseated herself with resignation.

“It's a pretty long story,” began Miss Adeline; “but
then, Grace, I know you'll have a fellow-feeling, when we
get into it. But it's so dark here, won't you have lights?”
Grace rang the bell. The servant lighted the gas. “My
goodness, how pale you look!” exclaimed Miss Adeline,
staring at Grace, as the light flashed on her face, and for a
moment she was awed, without comprehending the height
and depth of feeling it expressed. But a glimpse into
heaven would not long have checked Miss Adeline's tongue
in its communication of her self-centered interests.

“I am sure,” she resumed, “you'll approve of my feelings—
there can't be two opinions about it—as brother says, it's

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

only a question of time. Well, to commence at the commencement.
Archy and my brother Dates were classmates
in college. Archy was first-rate then, as he is now, and
Dates was sort o' behindhand at mathematics and those kind
of studies; and father hired Archy to give him extra lessons
which Archy did, at a pretty handsome price—you know
Archy's folks were rather poor, but we did not feel any
difference on that account. I hope all the Clapps are too
noble for that. Archy was invited down to Clapp Bank,
to celebrate his birth-day. He had paid me considerable
attention before that; and though he had not a dollar but
what he earned, and his father was a mechanic, and my
father had been a wholesale shoe-merchant, and had gone
out of business with a handsome fortune—though nothing
to compare with what we have now, with the rise of real
estate, and factory-stock, and so forth—”

“Oh, do come to the point, Miss Clapp.”

“Well, I am close upon it. I was just going to say that
none of our folks would have made any objection if Archy
had delicate views; though father had been a member of the
Legislature for five years, and Uncle Medad was in Congress;
they felt I would have selected Archy before any other
young man I knew. Well, that evening we had a first-rate
time. It was moonlight, and the young men took the girls
a rowing on the lake. Archy took me, and then we played
plays, and had forfeits; and Anne Jane Evans adjudged
Archy and I to go through the marriage ceremony to redeem
our forfeits. Pa was in his study with Judge Eastly,
and the judge went through the whole ceremony of the
Church of England service with us. I can't say I looked upon
it then as any thing more than a kind of forerunner. Well,
after commencement, Dates went off to China, and Archy
studied law, and went into practice, and never came to
Clappville again. Well, you know how it is, Grace; when

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

one is attached, and is, as Dates says, expecting `relations
of reciprocity,' one don't give up the ship for a trifle. Well,
you know Archy made the tower of Europe, and while he
was gone, I did for his family just as if I were daughter and
sister. Well, last fall, Judge Eastly was down at Clappville,
and talking over old times with Dates and me, and so, says
he, `Take care, Adeline,' says he, `that that chap of a New
York lawyer don't claim you for his wife when he comes
home.' I asked the judge his meaning, and he said he referred
to the marriage ceremony, and he said there had been
two just parallel cases in Massachusetts that bound the parties.
The first lawyers had been consulted, and they gave it as
their opinion, that it was `a legal and binding contract.'
These were the judge's words.”

Grace's interest was now thoroughly excited. “Good
heaven,” she exclaimed, “you do not mean—”

“Hear me through, Grace Herbert. I don't mean any
thing but what is fair and above board. Well, I won't
repeat all that the judge and Dates said. The judge thought
that with my large fortune in hand, for by this time, you
know, pa was deceased, and the estate settled; the judge
thought that Archibald, knowing the points of the law,
would claim me, whether or no. Well, Dates was ambitious
for me, and he thought Archy was not quite up to my mark,
and wanted me to keep it hushed up. I did not say much,
but I had my own feelings. It's true, I did not know
Archy's views, but knowing he would have the best of the
bargain, I did not hesitate. I knew the day he landed. I
laid all my plans, straight-work, as you would mark out a quilt.
Matrimony is a solemn duty; and to be sure, I own I had
entered on it rather lightly, but not without feeling—perhaps
it was the same with Archy. I meant to behave
honorably, and give him opportunities of falling in love,
before we took up the stiches; and so I told Dates; and

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

have written him the same since I came to New York.”
Miss Adeline paused, and Grace's face expressing, even to
her dull perceptions, something of the mingled wonder and
disgust she felt,

“I see,” she resumed, “that you don't quite feel with me.
Perhaps you think it would have been more prudent for me
to have told him at once that we were as good as man and
wife?”

“Oh, no—no, no, Miss Clapp, never tell him that.”

“Never! why, we are; and can't you see it must not run
on as it is now. He takes no hints, and he's all the while
paying attention to the girl Letty Alsop—at old Steinberg's.
I have found out who she is; it is not prudent, as
regards her, and if Archy has really forgotten all about that
evening, as he pretends to, don't you think it's quite time he
was reminded? Now that's just the question I came to ask
you.”

Grace had not heard this long story without arriving at
the conviction, that Archibald Lisle had entangled himself
with this inevitable woman. “What is to be done?” thought
she, rapidly reviewing in her own mind Adeline Clapp's
story; “that noble fellow must not be caught by this `mousing
owl,' but what can I do for him?—nothing. It is not a
matter for a third person's meddling. Archibald Lisle will
be the best manager of his own affairs, and the sooner he
gets out of the web this horrid woman has spun about him
the better.” And so, with effort suppressing a smile, she
said, “Miss Clapp, I see but one course for you to pursue,
that is, to make known at once to Mr. Lisle what your
brother calls your `relations of reciprocity.' He will, as he
chooses, confirm or dissolve them at once—good-night.”

“She might have had the politeness to wait till I got out
of the door,” said Miss Adeline, as Grace fleetly vanished up
the stair-case.

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

“`Dissolve them, indeed'—that he can't do; and dissolve
five thousand five hundred a year—it's all at seven per cent.—
that he won't do; but I kind o' dread to throw open the
blinds at once; what is the use of asking advice?”

Some of our readers may recoil with as much displeasure
from Grace's betrothal as she felt disgust at the presumption
of Miss Clapp's expectations, for there are those who in
spite of the discordant matches of every day, will as freshly
wonder at every new one as the child, who on looking at an
old man with a young wife, exclaimed, “What a poor two
you make!” Not that the world, in general, by which comprehensive
phrase is designated the particular circle in which
Miss Herbert moved, would feel any thing other than perhaps
a momentary sensation at her rare good fortune. The
general feeling in relation to any woman being, that she is
better off in port than afloat.

But there may be some, who comprehending the nobility
of Grace's nature, will feel a keen disappointment at this
crisis of her fate, having believed that though uncontrolled,
unguided, unwarned, she would, in Ida Roorbach's phrase,
“have worked out her own salvation,” and not have yielded
at last to extraneous influences. She had clung to her distasteful
home with the one dear compensation of her Uncle
Walter's presence, though solicited by the advantageous
parties, enumerated by Mr. Herbert to Lisle, and others
quite as advantageous, unknown to him. She was now the
victim of an illusion, an illusion to which an imaginative
unoccupied young women, cast into a state of society with
which she has few sympathies, is most miserably exposed.

Letter-writing was not Copley's speciality, but he wrote,
each day of his short absence, sincerely, and therefore earnestly.
He spoke of the future as a fait accompli. Grace
passed carelessly over his request that the finishing up, and
decorations of his house, should be controlled by her

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

judgment and taste, who “was soon to be its adored mistress;”
and over his exultation in cheating the town of its gossip—
though with this she rather sympathized, to dwell on his
professions of ardent love, his impatience to return and
bask in the summer of her kindness, after the “polar winter
he had endured,” and like phrases, common coin in common
circulation. Grace took them at their current value.
The happiness of being loved is next to that of loving, and
perhaps she felt that the perfection of the one made up for
the still haunting consciousness of the imperfection of the
other.

CHAPTER VI. THE RIGHT AND THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TAPESTRY.

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

It was a significant circumstance that Grace did not communicate
to one of her friends, not even to her dear Uncle
Walter, her engagement by word of mouth. Was it that
she instinctively avoided the truth that flashes from the face
before the soul is shrouded in plastic words and conventional
phrases?

Copley had recently gained in Mr. Herbert's good opinion.
He had even, on one or two occasions, eagerly praised him
in Grace's hearing, but the sigh, with which he ended, indicated
but too truly an ineradicable disapprobation of the
man. There was a singular sympathy between the old man
and the young woman; an understanding and correspondence
that did not need the intervention of words. And
Uncle Walter was a man of few words, especially on those
occasions when ordinary men are diffuse. The more intense
the heat, the less crackling was there.

Grace met Mr. Herbert, for the first time after her brief
written announcement to him of her engagement, the next
morning at breakfast. He was a very late riser, and she
was accustomed to give him his breakfast. It was their
hour of privilege and security, Mrs. Carlton being then in
the field, laying out the momentous duties of her productive
life. Grace met her uncle with her usual dutiful salutation,
and took her seat. Both parties were silent. That was no

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

unusual circumstance, for there was that perfect love between
them that casteth out fear and restraint of all sorts.
They were sometimes silent through the whole meal, and
sometimes merry as children. Grace poured out a cup of
coffee; Mr. Herbert took it, but their eyes did not meet.
The servant brought in his hot toast and egg and placed them
by him. He touched neither, but sat for a few moments,
looking out of the window as far away from poor Grace
as possible, and then seizing a morning paper he turned
over its mammoth pages; it would not do; his blinded
eyes could not see the words, and the rustling only sharpened
the silence. He threw it down, rose from his seat, and
was running away like a child from what he had not courage
to face. Uncle Walter was a child. Grace sprang to him,
and throwing her arms around him, and bursting into tears,
said, “You must not go so, dear Uncle Walter. Speak one
word to me, won't you? can't you? Well, then, I will
undo, unsay it all!”

“Oh, no, no!” he cried, his heart at last finding vent in
words; “no, you have done it, my child, my all; I am foolish,
Grace—I am old—God forgive me! God bless you!”
And then gently disengaging her arms, he seated her on the
sofa, and left her sobbing there; and taking his hat and
cane, he left the room and hobbled through the long entry
from the breakfast-room to the outer door, then returned,
and half opening the door, in a sort of choking between
laughing and crying, “Mind, Grace,” he said, “you give
me notice to quit in time. I'll set up my rest with Eleanor
and May; I'll not stay in this house after the only live person
in it leaves it.”

“Engaged! let me see her note,” cried Anne Carlton to
her mother, who had summoned her daughter to her room
to receive the news. She read Grace's missive. It was a

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

short reading, merely a respectful announcement of her engagement
and an injunction to present secresy.

“Secresy!” exclaimed Miss Anne, “I wonder who will
care to tell the news—men are shameful! It was only last
Thursday, at Mrs. Smith's, that Horace Copley said such
things to me, and looked more than he said.”

“My dear!”

“Oh, ma'am, you need not undertake to convince me
that he did not mean any thing—I know him. What's become
of your study of human nature, ma'am? You've missed
in your lesson this time.”

“My dear!”

“Well, it's too provoking. I should have accepted Edmund
Fay or Guy Clayton if you had not harped upon what
you called a `wavering scale,' and such nonsense.”

“My dear Anne, you are not respectful. One can not
always clearly discern the future.”

“Oh, I know. But you are always in a fog, and you always
think you have nothing to do but heave your lead—
human nature! that's a riddle you can't read, ma'am!”
(After a pause,) “I never heard him admire any thing in
Grace but her aristocratic air. And she and her uncle profess
to look down upon fashion, and fortune, and the world,
and so on. I never believed them. Who is a man of the
world, if Copley is not? So dreadfully shocked they were
at our asking Belson and Count de Salle. They and Copley
are birds of a feather.”

“Not quite, my dear. Not that I defend Brother Walter
or Grace, for criticizing us; they knew I did not approve of
intimacies with those men, nor would I exclude them from
large parties, because they are not just what they should
be—`judge not,' etc.”

“Oh, mamma, what is the use of talking so? Every body
knows what Sam Belson is, and you know besides.”

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