I have said that Aunt Agnes and I were on pleasant terms; but there was one speck on the mirror of her serenity which threatened at times to mar the whole. It was my intimacy with Mr. Barr. Some one had informed her,—I have no doubt it was Miss Kingsley,—that he was much in my society, and that we behaved like lovers. I had learned by this time not to allow my awe for Aunt Agnes to prevent me from defending myself; but I found exculpation a difficult matter in this instance, on account of the character of the other offender. She styled my attitude hypocritical, because I parleyed with the enemy. Even assuming that there was no flirtation between us,—of which she was by no means convinced,—what right, she asked, had I, as a neophyte of recent standing, to be on terms of intimacy with the arch advocate of the school of thought most opposed to that which I professed?

I mention this in order to explain why I had of late been more chary of my sympathy in my interviews with the artist, and had given him strict orders that he was not to send me any more fruit and flowers. However much I might desire his welfare, self-respect required that I should not let our friendship become so conspicuous as to attract general attention. It was shortly after I issued this mandate that he began the picture to which I have referred; but the immediate result of my words was a fit of angry despondency.

Two days before Christmas he came to me and said the picture would be finished and ready for exhibition on Christmas Eve, and that he wished me to see it first of all. Would I come to his rooms on that afternoon? As he saw me hesitate, he clasped his hands with so piteous an expression that I chose not to say no. Why not, after all, thought I. It was unconventional to be sure. But matrons were out of date and superfluous in the artistic world. Did not Miss Kingsley go about freely to studios and wherever the needs of her profession called her? If she were safe from familiarity, why should not I be? I had a strong belief in the magic circle of respect which surrounds a thoroughly refined woman. If I refused the artist's request, I was certain to disappoint him sorely. It was a small enough favor, I argued, to grant to one who had been striving bravely to overcome his evil nature at my instigation.

Mr. Barr's studio was up seven flights of stairs in the French roof of a building which had no elevator, and had doubtless been chosen by him on account of cheapness and light. Breathless, I paused on the last landing on the afternoon of the day before Christmas, and in response to my knock was greeted by the black beard and large eyes of the artist appearing round the edge of the door. As he threw it wide open he gave a cry of pleasure, singing the while at the top of his lungs the air he played that evening at Miss Kingsley's when he flung himself down before the piano after tea.

"At last, at last, my goddess! I have prayed for this hour," he said, bowing low.

I stopped short in the middle of the room. "If you do not wish me to leave you instantly, you must cease all such language and unseemly conduct. I have come to see your picture, Mr. Barr."

"I will. Believe me, I will. I will be quiet as a lamb, though I am so happy I could dance a minuet with Satan and not tire. But I will obey you. Do not be uneasy. Sit here. No, here. The light is better. There it is. Look, finished! My masterpiece, my ideal! It is only to lift that curtain, and I shall be famous."

Despite his words he was jumping about with nervous, excited gestures. I sat in the armchair he had indicated, and looked from him to the picture on the easel over which a drapery was flung, and back again to him. For an indefinable feeling of dread was coming over me, as I noted the disordered dress and the bloodshot eyes of my strange host. He had failed, then, to keep his pledges; had yielded to temptation. My hoped-for regeneration was a failure, and all was as it used to be with him. But yet it might be overwork and the strain of a night without sleep that gave him such a dissipated aspect. I tried to think it was so. Meanwhile he had seated himself at an old worn-out piano, and looking across to me was pounding out bar after bar of passionate music.

"Really, this is too much! I cannot stay and endure this absurdity," I cried, and I walked to the door.

But he darted at me and seized my hand with fierceness and the grip of a vice, so that I shook with fear.

"You shall not go, not until you have seen her,—her I adore. Sit there!" he thundered; and then, with an apparent sense of his own harshness, he fell on his knees before me and kissed my fingers with feverish frenzy. "My queen! my own!" he cried.

I was so frightened I could not speak. What was I to do? To scream would not have availed me in that attic,—and yet I wonder now I did not try to scream. I tore my hands away from him and sprang from my seat, he not seeking to restrain me, but still kneeling and gazing up at me with wild but penitent eyes.

"Open the door, sir, and let me go! That is the least return you can make for your rudeness," I said.

"No, no, no!" he cried with a wail of grief. "I have insulted my goddess. I have broken her heart. She will not speak to me. But look, look!" he said, darting again toward the canvas and throwing aside the drapery. "She is here! I have her here forever. No one can rob me of her now."

Fancy my emotions. It was a portrait of myself!

I shall never forget the tipsy cunning of Paul Barr's expression, as he watched the effect of his legerdemain. The portrait was excellent; it was, indeed, a masterpiece. I was sufficiently in my senses to appreciate that, though my absorbing thought was how to get out of the room. For some moments we each kept our pose,—I standing surveying the picture, and he with his eyes bent upon me, leaning against the easel which was in the pathway to the door.

Suddenly, and to my intense surprise, he pronounced my name,—

"Virginia!"

It was a whisper almost, and spoken as one might breathe the name of a saint.

"Virginia!"

Then with a low cry he stepped forward a pace or two and dropped on his knees again.

"I love you, I adore you. I have broken your heart, my angel, but it was love that forced me to it. Forgive me, and tell me if you can that there is hope,—a shadow is enough. Hope that I may some day press you to this bosom and call you mine,—mine for eternity! Virginia, hear me!—do not look so cold and cruel; you are a stone, while I am burning! I have loved you since the first moment I saw you. I wish my heart were dust for you to trample on, if it may not beat forever close to yours. With you as my bride I could conquer worlds. I could become an Angelo, a Rubens. Without you I shall die!"

He seized my hands again and covered them with kisses.

"Mr. Barr, Mr. Barr! I cannot listen to you further. Let me go,—you are mad."

"Yes, I am mad,—mad with love for you, sweet Virginia."

I tried to speak calmly, yet decisively, though from fear and pity I was trembling like a leaf. I told him that I could not grant what he asked. I loved him as a friend, as a brother almost, and would do anything to serve him but consent to become his wife. His studio was no place for such a conversation, I said. Let him come to my house, after he had thought it over. He would agree then that he had been carried away by the impulse of the moment, by the tension of his overstrained nerves, and that a marriage between us would be an absurdity. Were not our tastes and habits totally unlike?

Perhaps these were no words to address to an overwrought soul, mastered by passion. But, as I have said, I was terrified and bewildered. The strong desire I felt to treat him with all the gentleness and tender consideration I could muster, must have been to some extent neutralized by my anxiety to put an end to the interview. As I spoke, his eyes seemed to grow darker and to glow with fire, and the cunning, satyr-like expression I had noticed before to intensify.

"Pardon me," I said, "for the pain I cause you. My presence can only increase your suffering. I will leave you, and if you wish, we will talk of this to-morrow."

"To-morrow!" he answered; "there may be no to-morrow. It is still to-day! still to-day!" he repeated with a sort of chuckle. "I will live to-day, though I may die to-morrow. My goddess, my queen is here, and love—love—love!" With a bound he folded me in his huge arms and pressed my face against his lips three times in a mad embrace.

"Coward! wretch!" I screamed; but I was powerless as a babe.

He let me go.

"I will not hurt you, my own true love. A kiss can do no harm. Once more!" and he threw his arms wide open for a fresh embrace.

But another voice interrupted his purpose. "Coward! you shall not touch a hair of her head."

It was Mr. Spence who spoke; we had not noticed the door open. He strode forward and placed himself between me and the artist. On the threshold stood Miss Kingsley, and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks as our eyes met. I would gladly have given half my fortune to blot out the past few minutes.

"Is this the courtesy of Bohemia?" asked Mr. Spence, breaking the silence that followed. He was pale, and his lips were set, and there had never seemed to me so little difference in stature between him and Mr. Barr.

"It is love," was the answer. "The rapture of those kisses will be on my lips to my dying day." The artist began to troll the words of a mad song of his own composition I had heard before.

"Paul Barr, though we have long differed on many subjects, we have been friends. But after what I have heard and seen to-day, we must meet henceforth as strangers," said Mr. Spence, with a fire I had never known him display before.

"I adore her, and I am human. See there!" he pointed to the portrait, which hitherto had escaped their attention. "I would give even that for another kiss."

At the sight of the picture Mr. Spence gave a start, for the likeness was marvellous. As for Miss Kingsley, she whispered in my ear,—

"Did you sit for it, dear?"

"No, I did not," I answered.

"Detestable philosophy!" continued Mr. Spence, looking from the canvas to the artist. "There was the making of a man in you,—this portrait shows it. But it is too late. The brute is rampant, and genius is no more."

"She could have moulded me in her hands like clay," said Paul Barr. I could not help feeling touched by the despair in his voice.

"How distinctly piteous!" murmured Miss Kingsley.

"I have no more to say. You have heard my decision, Paul Barr."

Mr. Spence seemed greatly moved and excited. I could see him tremble. It was very bitter to me to feel that on my account friends of a lifetime were to be separated. The big artist pulled at his beard, and with another of his faun-like looks, exclaimed,—

"I understand. You want her for yourself. But you cannot rob me of those kisses, ha! ha! They shall lie in the grave with me, and I shall still smile."

Mr. Spence grew paler yet. He seemed about to speak, but controlling himself by an effort turned to leave the room, motioning us to precede him.

"How distinctly piteous!" repeated Miss Kingsley, as we went downstairs. "He acted shamefully, of course, and there is no excuse for his conduct. But though it is impossible to justify him, I can pity him, can't you? His nature is so impressionable; and when he is interested in anything there is no half way with him: he wants the whole or nothing. If you will excuse my saying so, several of us have been afraid of something of this sort. I wanted to warn you; but I said to myself, 'It may be Virginia really likes him,' so I decided not to speak. If I had done so, all this might have been prevented, for it was very evident to the rest of us that he was desperately in love with you. And by such a man, of course the very smallest marks of favor are construed as more significant than open encouragement would be by a less poetic temperament. I have no doubt the poor fellow wears over his heart every rose-bud you ever gave him, and knows by rote every word of sympathy you ever said to him. And then that portrait,—what volumes it tells of itself! Fancy that ardent soul toiling over the canvas to reproduce from memory your image (you tell me you did not sit to him), and when the masterpiece of his life was finished, inviting you to his studio (as I suppose he did), and then in a moment of deep and passionate love casting himself at your feet—and—and forgetting himself! Oh, Virginia, there is something exquisitely pathetic in the thought! But how fortunate too for you that we arrived when we did! In his sober senses Paul Barr would rather die than injure a hair of your head; but none of us, however self-reliant, is free from dread in the presence of a man who has been over-indulging in stimulants, even though sure of his affection. My poor dear, how you must have suffered! What will your Aunt Agnes say? It was only two days ago she said to me she hoped the affair was at an end. I told her then that one can never be sure of a thoroughly Bohemian nature; it is liable to burst into flame at the moment one least expects it. The result shows the correctness of my prediction. Poor Mr. Barr! what will become of him I wonder? I only hope he will not attempt his own life,—that would be worse than anything."

Neither Mr. Spence nor I had spoken as she rattled on in this manner, going down the long flights of stairs to the street. There was just enough of truth in her remarks to make my frame of mind still more wretched, and I could barely refrain from requesting her to keep still. Mr. Spence was evidently much disturbed by what had occurred. The expression of his face showed that he was under the influence of violent emotions. Once or twice, too, I saw him glance almost impatiently at Miss Kingsley, as if her prattle annoyed him. But she was so brimming over with volubility as to be blind to everything but the fancies she saw fit to evoke in regard to the scene she had just witnessed.

When, however, we reached a crossing of streets where her way separated from mine, Mr. Spence said, in a tone that for him was abrupt, "I shall see Miss Harlan home."

Miss Kingsley held my hand for a parting shot. "You must not think me unsympathetic, dear, because I feel sorry for poor Paul Barr. I knew him before you did, you know; and at one time we were quite as intimate, though in a different way. If you feel faint, as I should think you must after such a dreadful experience, why don't you stop at an apothecary's and get some salts? I always intend to carry salts with me; they are so convenient on an occasion of this sort. I do hope you will feel better to-morrow, dear. I shall call the first thing in the morning to inquire about you. Good-night."

For some minutes Mr. Spence and I remained silent. But now that Miss Kingsley was gone I felt an impulse to thank him, and to explain, so far as was possible, my presence at the studio.

"Believe me, Mr. Spence, I am very grateful to you for your aid," I began. "It was very inconsiderate and imprudent of me to go there alone; but he was so anxious for me to see the picture before any one else, that I was foolish enough to consider it allowable. I had no idea that it was a portrait of me, and none that he cared for me in the way it seems he does. I have tried to be kind to him, for I felt he was lonely, and might be saved from excesses by a sympathetic influence. But I see my mistake now. I ought to have known."

An indefinable wish that Mr. Spence should know the exact truth loosened my tongue.

"I understand—I understand perfectly," he said in an emotional tone. "It is I that am to blame. I might have prevented it," he added, as though speaking to himself.

Surprise prevented me from saying more, for I could not see how Mr. Spence was in any way responsible. Nor did he, on his part, continue the conversation. In five minutes we were at my door.

"Will you not come in, Mr. Spence?"

"No, not to-night." He paused an instant. "At what hour are you likely to be at home and disengaged to-morrow?" he asked with suddenness.

"To-morrow? At almost any time. Shall we say four?"

Mr. Spence bowed by way of acquiescence. He seemed so stiff that I feared he was offended with me. But if so, why did he wish to come to-morrow?

"Before you go, you must let me thank you once more for having saved me from a very awkward predicament," I said, holding out my hand. "What should I have done if you had not arrived?" I shuddered involuntarily.

"Poor girl, how you must have suffered!" he exclaimed in a voice full of feeling. Then he turned abruptly and left me.

VI.

As soon as I was safe at home, a terrible reaction followed. I went to bed prostrated physically, and sick at heart. True as it doubtless was that Paul Barr would never voluntarily have insulted me, I had deliberately exposed myself to the tipsy eccentricities of a man whose habits were not unknown. Might I not also have discovered, if I had been wholly candid with myself, that there was genuine feeling in the words of devotion he had so frequently whispered to me, and that under the extravagance of his behavior there lurked a vein of real sentiment? So much is apparent and stands out in another light when one looks back instead of forward! But this much was true at least,—I was disillusioned forever of the hope of successfully proselytizing Bohemia under the guise of sympathy. Mingled with the bitter tears of regret for the suffering of which I had been the cause were resolves that henceforth I would not sneer at conventionality and custom. However much I might be devoted to thought and study, I would practise the ordinary precautions of my sex, and recognize the uses of matrons.

The next day was Christmas, and before I returned from church Miss Kingsley had called. There was a letter from Paul Barr awaiting me,—and such a letter! In it humiliation, despair, poetry, and passion were intermingled. Tears had blurred the pages, and I wept in turn as I read the pitiful sentences. He could not hope for pardon, he said, but he should never cease to love. He wished to die. What would be fame unless shared with the idol of his soul? Existence was for him henceforth a dreary waste; and yet his only fault had been that in the ecstasy of heaven-sent passion he had over-leaped the bounds imposed by human pettiness.

As I read on, his burning words seemed almost intended as a defence. He had outraged my feelings, and for that he was to-day suffering exquisite torture, he said; but in the next paragraph he railed against the social prejudices of the age and the luke-warm character of contemporary love. In another century, he prophesied, the artificial barriers imposed by a narrow and fast-rotting civilization would be swept away by the mighty wave of passion which, pent up in the bosoms of strong men through a score of generations, was about to inundate the world. Under the impulse of this idea, the closing portions of his twelve-paged letter became a fierce tirade against the existing state of society; but the last sentence was so astonishing to me individually, that I blushed with the acuteness of my feelings. "Believing as I do," he wrote, "in the expansion and overflow of the human soul, I would fain have saved you from the cramped and bloodless nature to which you are about to ally yourself in preference to mine. He has robbed me of you, and thereby broken the last tie which held together our conflicting dispositions. With him you can never be supremely happy or supremely miserable,—which seems to me a lot so wretched that my heart, though heavy with the anguish of its own sorrow, is wrung more with pity than with pain."

His meaning was obvious, and I was still sitting with this strange epistle in my lap when Mr. Spence arrived. It would be affectation to say I was greatly surprised, when, after a few moments, he made to me a confession of his love. From his words of the previous evening, from a host of little indications which they had recalled to me, and finally from the jealous suspicions of the unhappy artist, I was not wholly unprepared for this result. There was nothing in the manner of his declaration that calls for mention. It was, as he said, a confession long deferred and struggled against, but he had been mastered at last by a power stronger than himself. He had come, he said, to make this acknowledgment of his feelings, no matter what might be the result; for there was something he must ask me to listen to, which it would be needful that I should know before he could dare to ask me to become his wife, or I should be able to answer.

I felt I knew what he was about to say, and was not mistaken. The question with most young people, he said, was how to find the means upon which to marry; but in his case those means were already provided, and a difficulty of a precisely opposite character stood between him and me. I must have perceived by this time his intense devotion to the system of philosophy of which he was the chief advocate. He had sacrificed everything in life to that one end, and he was prepared to do so so long as he was spared to labor. To practise in every way, so far as was possible, the principles he professed was the only escape, in his opinion, from that worst stigma of would-be-reformers,—hypocrisy. Among the leading obstacles, in his judgment, to a well-ordered life was the accumulation of property beyond enough to satisfy the common needs and comforts of life. He had taken the vow of approximate poverty,—not the extreme obligation of the clerical orders, but a limited, moderate view in accordance with the views just expressed. In seeking a partner to aid him with her support and sympathy in the great up-hill struggle to which he had consecrated his powers, he had wished to make choice of a woman with but small means, if any; but fate had willed otherwise. Once already—he said that he desired to conceal nothing—he had offered himself to a young lady of large property, for whom he felt a deep attachment. He had asked her, as he was about to ask me, to give herself to him in return for his love, without her fortune. With that she was free to do what she wished; it would be easy to dispose of it. After debate she refused him. This was six years ago; and until he saw me no thought of love had refreshed his heart. On that night at Miss Kingsley's, when he saw me for the first time and before he knew of my father's wealth, he loved me, he said, almost without knowing it; but from the moment of hearing the words that warned him of the barrier between us, he had striven to drive my image from his thoughts. Ever since, with all the might and resolution of which he was capable, he had struggled against his love, but in vain. He had tried to avoid my presence; he had resisted the temptation to become my teacher at the time I consulted him on the subject; and subsequently, when we were brought into constant contact at the rooms of the society, he had offended his own sense of politeness by the reserve of his behavior toward me. But, despite all this, he had felt the ground gradually slipping from beneath his feet. A chance look or smile nullified in an instant the self-denial of weeks. He had been many times already on the verge of an avowal. He had seen and heard from others of the intimacy between Mr. Barr and me, and been tortured by the pangs of jealousy. But the events of yesterday had made it impossible for him to remain silent any longer. He loved me with all the fervor of his heart, and it was vain for him to deny it.

He paused, but I remained silent. Spoken in his soft melodious voice his words seemed to soothe me, by way of contrast to the storm of passion I had listened to so recently. I did not try to think. I felt that he had not finished, and I wished to hear him to the end. Perhaps I was conscious, too, that it would be impossible for me to come to a decision on the spot.

One circumstance, he continued, had given him hope that I might feel ready to make the sacrifice he asked, provided that I returned his love,—and that was the earnest spirit of interest I had shown in the work he had undertaken. There was no one among his followers who seemed so completely zealous, and who had so unreservedly labored for the cause of Moderation, as I. If, then, my heart by chance were interested in the founder as well as in the system, it might seem no very serious matter to disclaim the wealth I should inherit from my father. It appeared to him that a nature like mine might find a higher and more entire happiness in the pursuit of ideal truth than in the enjoyment of an excess of money contrary to the whispers of a sensitive conscience. And if at the same time this renunciation of that which less enlightened souls esteemed as a chief good should be abetted by the sympathy of a companion soul, what bliss might not be in store for two lives so wedded to progress and to love!

Such was the substance of Mr. Spence's communication; and when he ceased, my feelings were still so doubtful that I sat looking into space as though to find counsel elsewhere than from my own heart. He had spoken,—deemed it only right to speak, he said,—before closing, of the criticism to which so unusual an act would expose me. I should be called eccentric, and doubtless by many crazy; and the terms of contempt and ridicule already cast at him would be visited, in equal degree, upon his wife. It was this idea of martyrdom, joined to the deep interest I had in the doctrines of Moderation, that now took possession of my fancy and made me incline to accede to his request. Not that I sought ostracism and abuse,—far from it; the very mention of these things oppressed me with dread. But there was to me an inspiring sense of nobility in the thought of a man giving up his life to the prosecution of a great truth indifferent to scoffs and sneers, that made the blood course more swiftly through my veins. If such a one could be made happier, and his power of usefulness increased by any act of mine, no sacrifice seemed too large. For what was I, or what was the value of anything I might do, compared with the progress of humanity as a whole? I could not give him love, perhaps, and the freshness of a young heart; but sympathy and encouragement and the co-operation of a mind deeply interested in the cause with which he was identified, might do much to make the struggle more easy and success speedier. Was I likely ever to meet with any one more congenial? What better use could I make of my life?

These thoughts came to me not only then, but afterwards when Mr. Spence had gone and I was left alone to make up my mind. I had told him that he must give me time; it was impossible for me to decide at the moment. What he had said was so bewildering, and the condition of any possible marriage between us of so serious a character, that I was at a loss for an answer. But I warned him not to feel too much encouragement because I did not give him an immediate reply; the chances were more than likely that upon reflection I should feel what he asked to be impossible. "I respect you thoroughly, Mr. Spence, and I am much interested in your work; but I do not think I should ever love you as you would wish. I feel quite sure of it; but if you are disposed to let me think it over instead of giving you at once an unfavorable reply, I am willing to do so."

Both my aunts dined with us, it being Christmas day, and directly upon her arrival Aunt Helen remarked upon my paleness. It was an unusually silent meal for a Christmas gathering. My father, as I remembered later, seemed absorbed and dull. Aunt Agnes had shown me by a glance that the events of the previous day were not unknown to her. She sat glum and statuesque; but I did not attempt either to brave or to mollify her displeasure, for I knew that compared with the secret in my possession, the wretched affair with Paul Barr would seem to her a mere trifle. I wondered, however, what she would think of such a match. How surprised she would be, and how disappointed probably in Mr. Spence!—for I had little question that she regarded him as too much engrossed in his work ever to think of marriage. Indeed, she had said as much to me when I spoke of Miss Kingsley in that connection. Poor Miss Kingsley! it would be a cruel, bitter blow to her. I believed her to be in love with Mr. Spence, so far as it was possible for any woman to be interested in a man who had not made her an offer; and with the pardonable sense of triumph I experienced was mingled some pity. She was the first to detect the infatuation I had awakened in him, but his subsequent reserve had almost lulled her jealousy to sleep. I knew in advance what Aunt Helen would think. She would regard my conduct as little short of madness, and all sympathy between us would be at an end forever.

But it was my father's opinion on the subject that I most feared to face. I could not doubt what his verdict would be. It was the ambition of his later life to see me use well the fortune he had accumulated. By the marriage I was contemplating I should disappoint these expectations, for I could not suppose he would regard as a good use of the money a disclaimer of the fortune he wished to leave me. It was really between him and Mr. Spence that I must decide.

This was what presented itself to me clearly, as my father and I sat together in the library after my aunts had gone. It was past midnight, and yet neither of us had thought apparently of going to bed. He was smoking, and like myself busy with his own reflections. It seemed to me that he looked tired and worn. I had observed it several times of late. Was I certain that I was right in the choice I was tempted to make? But if I did not marry Mr. Spence, what was the prospect before me? What did my father wish me to do with his money?

As though he understood my silent question, he turned to me suddenly and said,—

"As you may remember, Virginia, I told you—it must be more than two years ago, now—that I was a very rich man. The same is true to-day, though, owing to the severe depression from which all classes of property have suffered during that period, I am no longer as wealthy as I was. Indeed, it has been only by unflagging attention and care that I have been able to avoid very serious losses. But let that pass. Confidence is restored, and the worst is over. My affairs are in a shape now where further depreciation is well-nigh impossible, and you will have all the money that you can possibly need when I am gone."

He paused a moment, and I hastened to express my concern that he had been worried.

"That is all done with now, I hope. I only mentioned it in order that you should know what you have to expect,—and because I have been making up my accounts for the first of the year. No one can tell what another year may bring forth. I am not so strong as I was, I think."

He spoke without emotion; but there was something in his tone that prompted me to go to him, and kneeling by his side to take his hand in mine.

"Are you not well, father?"

"Oh, yes. But when a man has worked hard all his days and gets to be sixty-five years old, the machine does not run so smoothly as it used. That is all. Some day it will stop all of a sudden, just as it did in my father's case. He was worn out when he died; and that is what I shall be. In this country, we most of us have only time to get together our millions and die." He spoke with a smile, and gently stroked my hair. "But we expect our children to make a good use of the leisure we have won for them. You begin where I leave off, Virginia. I had hoped to be able to see a great deal of you during the last few years, but just at the moment when I was about to lay aside the harness came the period of depression. It is very difficult, in this country, for parents to know their children intimately. Neither party has time for the operation. You have your interests, as well as I; and what is more, I scarcely know what they are. I am not complaining; I am merely stating facts. If my life is spared a few years longer, we will try to change all that. Before I die I should like to see you happily married to some one who is worthy of you. Nothing ever gave me so much pain as to see you suffer at the time that fellow deceived you,—nothing at least except the thought of your becoming his wife. But that is past, thank Heaven! and I think I am right in saying that you have forgotten him long since."

He talked in a half soliloquizing fashion, in short, deliberate sentences, and looked up to me as he finished, for a confirmation of his opinion.

"A woman never forgets, father. But I am very glad you saved me from marrying him."

"Yes, yes, it would have been madness," he replied eagerly. "I could not have endured the thought of that good-for-nothing squandering my property. I should never have relented, and I should have been in my grave before this. But let by-gones be by-gones. To-day you are older and wiser, and I have confidence that you will keep the credit of our name untarnished. It has taken three generations of honest men to accumulate the fortune you will inherit," he added proudly.

"But what do you wish me to do with it, father?"

"That is for you to decide when I am gone. I could tell you how to make money, and how to keep it, perhaps; but how to spend it wisely requires a different sort of talent than I possess. I have told you, from the first, that it was to be your life-work. Busy as I have been, I have tried to place the means of understanding the commercial value of money in your way, so that you might not be wholly ignorant when the time came to act."

"And it would be a bitter disappointment to you, then, if I were to give it all up?"

"Give it up?" he glanced at me with a comical expression, as though I had said something preposterous. "You couldn't give it up if you wanted to. It will come to you by my will. I shall leave it all in your hands."

For a few moments I did not reply. Then I turned to him and said:—

"You were speaking just now of wishing to see me happily married, and you referred to Mr. Dale."

"Well?"

"Don't be concerned, father. It is not of him I wish to speak, except to say that though I have been very grateful he is not my husband, I do not believe I shall ever care for anybody else in the same way. But I have had, this very day, an offer of marriage from a man who is in every sense worthy of me. Indeed, I am not worthy of him."

"Of whom are you speaking?"

"Of Mr. Spence, father."

"Spence? I do not recall the name."

"You have met him only once, I think. He came to the house one afternoon, about a year ago, with that Mr. Barr who dines here sometimes."

"Oh!"

I cannot give a precise idea of that ejaculation. It was a strange mixture of pleasantry and consternation.

"He is by profession a poet,—and a philosopher. His writings are highly thought of among literary people, and he is an intimate friend of Aunt Agnes," I said quietly.

"What answer did you give him?" asked my father presently, with a weary air. He leaned his head on his hand, and listened intently and anxiously.

"I told him I would think the matter over," I replied.

"He is not the husband I would have chosen for you, Virginia," he said, after a silence. "But you must suit yourself. Now that you recall him to me, I know who this Mr. Spence is. I have seen his name in the newspapers, and a few weeks ago I remember he delivered a lecture before the Thursday Evening Club. It was a visionary, unpractical address, I thought. Several members spoke to me of it as such. But there were one or two enthusiasts—as there are everywhere—who extolled it as a marvel of originality and cleverness. Are you sure of his habits?"

"His habits ought to be good, for he is the advocate of the theory of Moderation. It is to that he devotes the greater part of his time. Yes, father, I am sure of them."

"I remember now,—Moderation. That was what he talked about. He is one of your so-called reformers. He gets hold of an idea and tries to fit the world to it. And you say you wish to marry him, Virginia?"

"I have not said so. I don't know."

"If you take my advice, you will not. I know nothing further of him than you have told me. The better philosopher a man is, the worse husband he is likely to make. Has he anything to live upon?"

"Yes; enough to support us comfortably, I believe. In fact, he does not wish me to take any money from you."

"That shows him a more independent minded fellow than I supposed. Humph! One literary woman in the family ought to be enough. Still, the great thing is that you should be suited. We are not all cut after the same pattern, and if you have a fancy for a husband of that type, I shall not stand in the way. I interfered once, but that was a very different matter. Satisfy me that there is nothing objectionable against this Mr. Spence, and if you wish to marry him I shall not offer serious opposition. It is all nonsense about your not being able to care for anybody. If you like a man well enough to become his wife, the rest will follow. I should be glad to see you married."

"I like Mr. Spence very much; but it is his theory of Moderation that interests me even more than himself," I answered, uncertain how to lead up to the condition of our marriage, which I knew now would irritate my father greatly. He had received the news of Mr. Spence's offer much more favorably than I expected. It was evident he wished me to marry some one.

"As you have said, father, I have interests of my own of which you do not know. I have given five hours almost every day during the past year to the study of the principles of this philosophy. I have found my field of usefulness there, it seems to me. By continuing this work and becoming the wife of Mr. Spence, I feel that I shall be doing more good in the world than I could in any other way. If you ask me if I love Mr. Spence, candor compels me to say that I do not. If you ask if I am particularly happy at the prospect of marrying him, I must say that I am not. But it seems to me the best chance that is likely to offer. I respect him thoroughly, and, as you say, the rest may follow. A life devoted to a noble theory is better suited to my tastes and capacities than the control of a large fortune."

"You are a little morbid, Virginia," he interrupted. "My original impression is confirmed. This is no match for you. I warn you against the danger of becoming addicted to fads and isms. Your Aunt Agnes has made herself ridiculous and alienated all her friends by just such a course. I have not a word to say against a thorough education, as you must well know; but when a woman begins to talk about devoting her life to the principles of philosophy, 'Look out!' say I. It is not natural. She needs a new bonnet, and a few balls and parties. But even supposing you marry this Socrates and become as learned as he, how is that inconsistent with taking care of your fortune?"

"I thought I told you, father," I said.

"Told me what?"

"That Mr. Spence objected to my fortune."

"Objected, did he? How is he to help himself? Besides, the money is mine until I am dead. If he is so infernally proud, he needn't touch any of it until then. I fancy he might get tired of waiting."

"You don't understand, father. Mr. Spence wants me to agree never to touch any of it. He doesn't think it right for people to keep more than a certain amount, just enough to provide for their actual needs. It is one of the principles he believes in. It is a part of his system."

"Principles! System! Is the girl crazy?"

"It is opposed to all your ideas, I know," I exclaimed earnestly, determined now that I had entered on the matter to dispute it with vigor. "But are you sure that you are in the right? What is the use of so much money to a woman? You want me to make the most of the fortune it has taken you all your life to get together. Is it not possible that in renouncing it I should be doing that? New ideas have to encounter opposition, but they are not all to be presumed unsound on that account. There may be more sense in those of Mr. Spence than you suppose. By setting this example of moderation, I may be able to give an impetus to truth that will be of real service to mankind. Besides, women are different from men, father. They find more comfort and happiness in devotion to something like this than in the practical details of life. I have had some experience. I have seen society, and know the weariness of a merely social existence. As I have already told you, I believe I should be more content with Mr. Spence than with any one else. I need sympathy and an interest. I am morbid, perhaps; but there is every chance of my becoming more so unless you let me have my way in this matter. Leave your money to some deserving charity or college, father, and let me marry Mr. Spence."

"Deserving charity or college! That from the lips of my own daughter! I have wanted to interrupt you a dozen times to tell you how foolish and senseless is the rubbish you were talking. And now that I have heard you to the end, I am speechless. You are crazy! I repeat it, crazy! You are fit only for a convent or a lunatic asylum. I had better find another heir."

He covered his face with his hands, and I could see his whole form tremble.

"Father," I cried, "if I were only sure that you are not mistaken!"

We sat without another word being spoken for many minutes. At last he lay back in his chair with the weary air intensified which I had noticed when I told him of Mr. Spence's offer, and said in a tone in harmony with that,—

"You have been brought up, Virginia, like all American girls, to have your own way. I have given you every indulgence and liberty. Your smallest wish has been regarded. If I could wipe out the past and begin anew, I feel that I should act very differently. I should wield a rod of iron, and teach my own flesh and blood to obey by saying, 'Do this!' and 'You shall not do that!' The result could be no worse than it has been under the other system. Is the judgment of the new generation so infallible," he continued, "that it can afford to dispense with obedience and filial respect altogether? You have had one lesson already, Virginia, but you have failed to profit by it. When that fortune-hunting, idle dandy was whispering his pretty speeches in your ear, was it your own good sense that saved you from a miserable alliance? No; if I had not for once in my life stepped in and said, 'You do this thing at your own peril,' and proved to you the paltry soul of the fellow, what would you be to-day? Broken-hearted and old before your time. But that was when you were almost a child, and without experience. I was made very unhappy, but I said to myself, 'She will grow wiser as she grows older.' And I thought you had. In the multitude of my business cares I have merely had time to observe you in a general way. But I supposed the serious and absorbed air which your face has worn came from the interest of your studies, and that those studies were fitting you for the work I had planned for you. I wish now that you had never touched a book in your life. Better in my opinion to be the careless butterfly of society than the fanatic. I never expected to live to see my only child so blind to common-sense as to wish to follow such a monstrous theory as you have described. Money! Why, it is the power and possibility of the world. But what good are words? If you cannot see the folly and unsoundness of it at a glance, it is useless for me to talk. Go your own ways. Marry whom you like. Not a dollar of my money—"

He stopped as he realized the futility of his threat, and covered his face again with his hands.

Looking back over many years, it seems to me at times incredible that I should have held out so long against such entreaty and distress; but it is to be said on the other hand that my whole future happiness was involved in the decision of the question. My natural obstinacy had deepened as I listened to his words, and had tended to counteract the affection and pity I felt for him.

"If I were only sure that you are right!" I repeated. "What you say about my education is perfectly true. I have been brought up to have my own way, but also, father, to have no counsel but my own. If so much freedom has been given me, was it not with the idea of teaching me to make up my own mind about things? And if I have made up my mind, and I feel my conscience urge me to take a step which involves my happiness for the rest of my life, why is it unfilial of me to follow my own judgment? I have been alone, and thrown upon my own responsibility, ever since I was a child. I am not complaining. I have had no mother; you have been busy down-town, and my aunts never agree in their advice. I have tried to think for myself. I have chosen an interest in life to which I am ready to devote my best energies, and in order to do so more completely should, if you did not forbid, marry a man who is in every way my superior, and whom I thoroughly respect. I am willing to give this all up to please you. But I do not mean, father, that I think you are in the right. I am no longer the child I was when I wished to disobey you before. Then I refused to yield, until you convinced me that I was wrong. To-day I am prepared to sacrifice my own wishes for your sake, but I remain unconvinced. I will write to Mr. Spence to-night, and tell him that I cannot be his wife. I will resign my position as secretary of his Society, and give up what you call fads and isms. Only I shall expect for the future, father, that you will tell me precisely what you wish me to do, and let me do it. You must not deprive me of my liberty of choice, and then treat me just as if I were free. Do with me what you will. Marry me to whom you please. I will obey,—implicitly, unhesitatingly. Only take away from me the responsibility once and for all. I am weary of it."

I had spoken with anger and excitement. My nerves were all unstrung by the events of the past two days; and as I finished, my tears burst forth. I wept with passionate sobs. My father made no effort to comfort me. He sat with his chin resting on his breast, weary and sad.

"I did not mean to be disrespectful," I murmured at last. "I am willing to do all that you desire."

"You have said that you do not love this man, Virginia."

"I love him as much as I shall ever love any one else," I answered.

"I accept your sacrifice, my child. Some day you will thank me. But write to-night. I shall sleep better if I feel that it is done. Promise me," he added, looking at me with a strange eagerness that was pathetic, and made the tears return to my eyes, but this time out of tenderness,—"promise me that whatever happens, you will accept the trust I am going to leave you."

I ran to his side, and kneeling, raised my eyes to his,—"Forgive me, father! I promise faithfully."

Only a few words more need to be said concerning this phase of my life. That night I wrote to Mr. Spence. Gratitude and friendship will not make up for the absence of love, but whatever there can be of consolation in these substitutes I sent to him. Why was it that as I penned the lines which were to disappoint his hopes, I was vaguely conscious that my interest in his theories was already less? So difficult is it in life to determine precisely how far our beliefs are decided by our associations! But it is not to be supposed that because I admit this after the lapse of years, the consciousness of which I speak was at that time more than a secret one, which I shrank from confessing even to myself. Genuine were the tears I shed in private for many days. My life seemed to me a blank, and I had lost the motive of action. For allowing my father to be right, and the principles advocated by Mr. Spence to be monstrous and absurd, I had been too intimately connected with the system not to feel a great void in my existence at severing my relations with it. What was to take its place?

I had to undergo, moreover, one or two disagreeable interviews with my Aunt Agnes before the matter was finally settled. In the intensity of his disappointment, Mr. Spence applied to her and asked her to endeavor to alter my resolution. She sent for me, and though she did not disguise her surprise that her favorite should wish to marry at all, she was unequivocal in the expression of her opinion that I should never get such another chance. As I remained obdurate, she accused me of a deliberate attempt to trifle with his affections. I had already ruined the life of one man of genius, she said, who though a wanderer from the right path might reasonably have become a noble worker but for my influence; and now I was about to blight the happiness of one whose equal was to be found only a few times in a century. She even went to my father, and represented to him the folly I would commit in refusing such an offer. I was not present at the interview; but Aunt Agnes, as she came out of the library into the room where I was sitting, looked angry and severe.

"Money, money, money! That is all your father thinks of from morning until night. It is wearing on him too. It is killing him by inches."

"You are right, Aunt Agnes; he needs rest; he looks tired out," I said, ignoring the first part of her speech.

"It is his own fault. And now he wants to educate you in the same school. Lucretia Kingsley is correct,—oil and water are more fit to be mated than you and Mr. Spence. You have broken her heart, too, by your wanton conduct, Virginia. Her sympathy for Mr. Spence is very affecting."

"Pooh!" I answered, angered by her indifference regarding my father; "she is crazy to marry him herself. That is all the matter with her."

This was the last effort Aunt Agnes made to alter my resolution, but she saw fit to tell Aunt Helen of my escapade at Mr. Barr's studio, who came to me in horror. Her predictions were about to be realized, she said. Notwithstanding all her warnings, my name was associated with a vulgar adventurer. "A handsome wretch as I remember him," she added, "but—even on your aunt's admission, who is none too nice in her estimate of people—unprincipled, and with low agrarian tastes."

A fortnight after my dismissal of Mr. Spence, a misfortune befell me that banished all thoughts save those of grief. My father was seized with a sudden illness, and died within a few hours. The doctors said the cause of his death was disease of the heart, and that he had been aware of the existence of the disorder for some time. It was many days before I thought again of what I was told after the funeral,—that I was left by my father's will sole heiress to four million dollars.



BOOK III.

(UN)COMMON SENSE.

I.

My first impulse was to become a woman of business, and assume the entire control of my inheritance. Excepting a few charitable bequests and some trifling legacies, everything was left to me. I was even made executrix; but my father had indicated in a separate paper that in regard to matters out of my knowledge I could safely consult his own legal adviser, Horatio Chelm.

Mr. Chelm was the conventional idea of a successful lawyer,—withered, non-committal, and a little fusty; but technicalities had failed to harden his heart or obscure his good sense. He had a sunny smile, which refreshed my sad spirit when I called upon him shortly after the funeral to inform him of my purpose, and made me feel that I could confide in him.

"What, my dear young lady! take entire charge of four million dollars? I admire your business ambition, but I must tell you that such a task is impossible, if you wish to have leisure for anything else. No, no! your father could not have meant that. I knew him well, and he was the last man to have wished to make you a slave to your good fortune. With an income of nearly two hundred thousand dollars you can afford to leave to some one else the anxiety and drudgery attendant on the care of your property. Your father wished you to enjoy his money and use it well. He has told me so himself. He was very fond and very proud of you, Miss Harlan."

"But he was very anxious to have me understand business matters, Mr. Chelm," I replied.

"And he was quite right, too. Don't think for a moment I am dissuading you from undertaking a general supervision of your property and trying to know all about it. It is your duty under the circumstances, I fully agree. But it would never do to have you spending the best years of your life cooped up in an office cutting off coupons and worrying over investments. Not, to be sure, that there is much to be done at present, for I never saw a cleaner list of securities than yours; but you have no idea of the amount of watchfulness required to keep an estate like this unimpaired. A family of children are nothing to it, ha! ha! No, Miss Harlan, I tell you what we will do; you shall have a little office adjoining mine, where you can spend one day in every week transacting what is necessary in regard to your property. Everything shall be in your name, and nothing done without your full understanding and consent. I will be at hand to be plied with questions, and you shall become as wise in finance as Necker himself. But I pray you to devote the six remaining days to other things, and leave to us dry, matter-of-fact lawyers the details of your business. I have a great many millions under my control, and the percentage which I should derive from the care of yours is a matter of indifference to me; but I am very much concerned that you should not make the fatal mistake of becoming a mere feminine trustee."

I yielded to persuasion; and in accordance with his promise a little room adjoining his own private office was allotted to me, and every Monday morning I drove down-town and spent the day in poring over the ledgers and deeds and reports, and in taking a general scrutiny of my affairs. At first it was all very confusing, but by degrees order was reduced out of chaos to my understanding, and I learned to take a keen interest in the points submitted to me for my decision. At first I felt some humiliation in perceiving that my opinion was consulted merely from form and courtesy,—or, more roughly, because the law required it. I was forced to laugh and shake my head and acknowledge that I was not capable of judging. I had hoped that I knew enough to be of service sometimes, and the consciousness of my ignorance spurred me to determined exertions to overcome the deficiency. Contrary to our compact, I read and studied at home books relating to financial and economical matters; I concealed railway reports in my muff, and tried various artifices to acquire knowledge unbeknown to Mr. Chelm. But it was chiefly to his kindness and unwearying attention that I owed the proficiency I gradually acquired; and I think it was as genuine a pleasure to him as to me, when at last I was able, with a moderate degree of confidence, to choose for myself between two lines of conduct. I often asked myself what I should have done had I attempted to act alone from the start.

But it was not long before another interest incident to and growing out of this began to occupy my thoughts and time. The bulk of my daily mail was increased by subscription lists and circulars soliciting my assistance to every kind of charity and enterprise. People whom I had never seen, came to the house to ask aid for struggling talent. I was importuned with begging letters from victims to all sorts of distress. Zealous philanthropists wrote that they had taken the liberty of putting down my name as a member of their societies, and that the annual assessment was now due and payable. Here again I had recourse to the counsel of Mr. Chelm, whose experience, as I have hinted, radiated beyond the limits of his lucrative practice, and who was not only liberal toward the poor, but familiar with their needs. From him I obtained a variety of hints and suggestions that enabled me to give my money and time intelligently, and also to refuse them without remorse. I was very glad of this new duty, which easily became a great pleasure despite my occasional disgust at the impertinence of some applicants when it was discovered that I was ready to subscribe freely. I was not however satisfied with the easy work of giving, but soon passed from the passive act of signing cheques to active work among the needy. I studied the theories of tenement houses and hygiene, and became a leading spirit in several charitable organizations.

I renewed also my old habit of reading, and no longer confined myself to the philosophic and dry subjects pursued under Mr. Fleisch. But I was conscious that the zest which I felt in renewing a wider range of study was due to the fact of my having acquired from his instruction a degree of industry and a power to appreciate that I had not previously possessed. At the suggestion of Mr. Chelm, whom I allured to chat with me regarding outside subjects when my business was finished, I read with regularity the leading newspapers and magazines. A familiarity with the former he declared to be indispensable to a knowledge of current affairs, and also that much of the freshest and most valuable thought of the day was first made public through the medium of periodicals. This practice received likewise the approval of Aunt Helen, who assured me that she always felt lost for the day if she had not looked at the Deaths and Marriages.

One of my first steps had been to ask Aunt Helen to come and live with me; to which she finally consented, though the consequent necessity of disestablishing her cosey little parlor, upon the embellishment of which she had spent the overflow of her income for years, cost her many a pang. But she was a far-seeing woman, and had I dare say, while accepting my offer, a delightful vision of helping me to live up to the duties of my position. I can only say that she soon began to impress the importance of this upon me by hints more or less palpable; and it was not long before she was to all intents and purposes the real house-keeper. It was still, to be sure, I that ordered the dinners and engaged the servants, but even in these minor details I was alive to her suggestions; while in the matter of the general direction of what went on, her wishes were supreme. At first I was too sad to be other than indifferent; and later it was a relief to me to have taken off my shoulders the bother of many things which I felt instinctively ought to be done. I could trust Aunt Helen's taste; and so she had my tacit permission to follow out her own inclinations in the way of change and improvements. Under her supervision the house was almost entirely refurnished and adorned with the most exquisite specimens of upholstery and bric-a-brac obtainable. So too, as time went on, she increased the number and raised the standard of the domestics, and persuaded me to buy a variety of horses and equipages. It was she who kept the grooms up to the mark regarding the proper degree of polish for the harnesses, and she spent many days in the selection of an artistic design for the crest to be emblazoned upon them. So far as was possible she represented that all these things were done at my desire and out of her sheer good nature. When I drove with her from shop to shop, as I often did to save myself from depressing thoughts, she invariably made me pass a formal approval upon whatever charmed her eye. If this innocent self-deceit gave her pleasure, it did not seem to me worth while to protest.

And so by the time I left off my mourning, there was little left to be done to make my establishment one of the most elegant in the city. Aunt Helen now turned her attention to my clothes. The costumes which I suffered her to select were marvels of Parisian art and New York adaptiveness. She sought too, by frequent allusions to my increased personal beauty, to arouse my vanity and induce me to throw off the pall of soberness that had settled upon my spirit. When this failed, she had recourse to an opposite policy, and repeated to me the remarks she overheard in coming out of church and elsewhere concerning me. Many of my acquaintances, she said, were of the opinion that I was eccentric and partial to "advanced" ideas. Another story current was that I had been compelled by my father on his death-bed, on pain of disinheritance, to dismiss a young artist to whom I was passionately attached. There was the same grain of truth to a bushel of error in the remaining conjectures; but Aunt Helen assured me that every one agreed I was peculiar, and deemed it unfortunate that a young lady possessed of such signal advantages should be different from all the rest of the world. Even I, unobservant as I was at this time, was made aware by the curious glances directed at me as I descended from my carriage, that to a certain extent an heiress belongs to the public.

Continual dropping, however, will wear away the hardest stone, and Aunt Helen was not one to weary in what she considered well-doing. When nearly three years had elapsed after my father's death, I yielded to her urgency and consented to inaugurate my return to society by giving a large ball. The idea came to me one night when I was feeling depressed and discouraged over my failure to obtain more than a passive sort of happiness in my present occupations. There were so many philanthropists, I thought. I had even begun to feel that the poor were extremely well provided for, and that in some respects they were really rather better off than I was. For despite my studies and my hours with Mr. Chelm, and the society meetings which I attended, I was conscious at heart of being lonely. My ideas too had received certain impressions regarding the people who composed society that were quite foreign to those which had given me an aversion to it. Since my accession to an enormous fortune my attention had naturally been directed to the conduct of people situated similarly to myself. At first I was shocked and made morbid by the whirl of selfish pleasure and dissipation that seemed to characterize the lives of this class. But when I came to look a little deeper, I was surprised to find how many people among the rich whom I had judged to be simply frivolous and indifferent were in reality earnest workers in the various fields of philanthropy, science, or art, for the most part carrying on their investigations unobserved. Among them were a number of my old acquaintances with whom at the charitable and other gatherings where we met I had resumed the associations of four years ago; and I was struck by the serious spirit that now seemed to determine their actions. It was clear to me that earnest-minded people existed among the very wealthy no less than among those less fortunately circumstanced; and as this grew more apparent, I began to catch a glimpse of what my father had meant in speaking of wealth as the power and possibility of the world. Was it not essential to leisure; and leisure to refinement and culture? And where necessity ceased to control action, ought there not to be a greater chance for excellence and progress?

These growing impressions served to temper the almost morbid tendency of my thoughts to the extent that I have indicated. We gave a grand ball, and under the stimulus of the cordial welcome given me I became the gayest of the gay, and surprised not only my old acquaintances but myself by the vivacity and desire to please of which I proved capable. Without undue confidence, I can say that I achieved a triumph, and put to rout the various uncomplimentary conjectures that the world had hazarded in regard to me. Society opened its arms to me as a returning prodigal, and my revulsion of feeling was all the more spontaneous from the fact, that, if some of my former acquaintances were as frivolous as ever, they had learned to conceal their emptiness by an adaptability which made them agreeable companions. There was a keen satisfaction, too, in the consciousness which became mine, as I went from house to house during the following weeks, that I excelled the most of them in the power to make myself agreeable. The reading and study of the past few years enabled me to shine as a conversationalist, and in my present regenerated mood I had, on the other hand, no temptation to play the pedant or moralist. I tried to be amusing and to appear clever; and I was pleased to read a favorable verdict upon my effort in the attentions of men as a rule unsusceptible, and in the amazed countenance of Aunt Helen.

Her satisfaction at the course of events was not disguised; but she was diplomatic enough, in her conversations with me, not to take to herself the glory of the evolution. She contented herself by way of recrimination in such expressions as—"To think, Virginia, how near you came to throwing yourself away!" and, "It takes a great load off my mind to see you yourself once again." But after the first few entertainments at which we were present together, I often caught her looking at me with a sort of wonder, as though she could scarcely believe that the brilliant young person whose reappearance in the social world was the sensation of a successful season could really be her niece.

One evening as we were sitting after our return from an especially pleasant dinner-party, Aunt Helen surveyed me contentedly through her eye-glass, and said:—

"I have never seen you look or appear better in your life than you did to-night, my dear. Your dress set to perfection, and you were very agreeable."

I dropped a little curtsy in return.

"Yes," she continued, "I will not disguise that there was a time about a year ago when I felt very anxious in regard to you. Eccentricity, as I have often told you before, is all very well when one has nothing to lose and everything to gain by it. I can understand how a young person with no antecedents or opportunities for getting on in society might secure a temporary advantage by making herself an object of remark. But in your case it has always seemed to me wholly inexplicable. Every one knows who you are and all about you, already. However, all is well that ends well, and it is an unspeakable relief to me that you have come to your senses at last."

"Don't crow, Aunt Helen, until you are out of the woods. I may be merely a meteor that will vanish some day as quickly as I appeared, and leave you all in the dark."

"You are your own mistress, of course. If I take any credit to myself for what you are to-day, Virginia, it is because I have never interfered with anything you chose to do. I have expressed my opinion of course when I thought you were making mistakes, but I have stopped short at that. Others in the same position might have behaved differently; but it is not my way. I said to myself, 'If her own good sense does not teach her, nothing will.' So, too, now that you have justified my confidence in you, I have no temptation to act otherwise. You will do what you prefer, of course. But naturally I have my own ideas as to what is desirable for you."

"You have been very good to me always," I replied, smiling at this bland assumption of tact; "and I always like to hear what you have to say."

"Well, dear, it seems to me that with a very little trouble you can have the most attractive house in town. One hears it so often said that we have nothing to correspond to what the French call salons,—those delightful entertainments one reads about, where every one is either clever or distinguished. Of course every one is not really clever, but made to appear so,—the whole secret lying in the power of some charming and talented woman to select and combine harmoniously: even the most stupid people (if it is necessary to invite them) are made to say amusing things. You know of course what I mean. It has been tried here, but rarely with success. It requires both brains and personal attractions, and our women who possess one are too apt to imagine they have the other also. But it has occurred to me, several times lately, that you are just the person to attempt it. I may say without flattery, dear, that you are considered very handsome, and people have an impression that you are clever,—which is better even than really being so, and I do not mean to say that you are not, for I think you are. You have had an excellent education, and have a taste for books, and all that sort of thing. The fact that you have been known to be peculiar would rather add to your chances of success than otherwise, for it would throw a little air of mystery about you. Then you have a beautiful house and the means to entertain elegantly; and last, but not least, you have an assured position. The trouble is so apt to be, that those who attempt anything of the sort are not known. All the talent in the world will not be able to constitute a salon unless one possesses, and is intimate with others who possess, that indescribable something which every one understands, but which it is difficult to put into words. Yes, Virginia, you have a great opportunity before you, if only you choose to take advantage of it."

Curiously enough, this view of Aunt Helen was quite similar to certain ideas which I myself had been revolving since my return to conventional habits. I foresaw that my interest in balls and parties merely as such was sure to wane before long, and that if I wished to obtain continued diversion from society it must be by force of some such programme as that which she had suggested. In short, I felt that the tone and standard of social life might be raised if one set about it in the right way. As Aunt Helen said, there were really no reasons why my house should not become a centre of elegance and refinement, which, however far distant from the conception of a salon, might give pleasure of a legitimate sort to a large number of people.

So much did this scheme grow upon me, that by another winter I was busy in putting it into execution. Thanks to the past energy of Aunt Helen, my house was already very nearly up to the mark as a model of luxury and taste. I gave a series of entertainments which I sought to make as distinguished and agreeable as possible. Upon a foundation of the most fastidious and well-bred of my acquaintances I cast a sprinkling of clever men who commonly found parties a bore, original but outlandish women, representatives of every sort of talent, local and visiting celebrities, and every desirable stranger in town. They all would be glad to come for once, I knew. The vital point was to induce them to come again. To effect this, I left no stone unturned and begrudged no expenditure. I found it somewhat up-hill work at first, but none the less were my efforts crowned with success in the end. My house grew to be the favorite resort alike of the fashionable and the cultivated; and to keep it so created an interest in my life which relieved the sombreness of my other occupations.

In the pursuance of this object I gave free scope to a taste which I had been educating in a quiet way ever since my youth,—that of collecting pictures. I had a room in the house admirably adapted for the purpose fitted up as a gallery, and in a short time had got together the nucleus of a valuable display of masterpieces. By degrees it came to be known that this was the case, and I found pleasure in allowing the public to see them on certain days.

One day I was puzzled by the arrival of a picture carefully boxed up and addressed to me, which on opening I discovered to be the portrait of me which Paul Barr had painted. In selecting material for my entertainments I had naturally thought of him among the first, but inquiry failed to discover his whereabouts. He had left town a few days subsequent to the harassing scene between us, and there were no traces of him beyond the direction on the door of his studio that all communications intrusted to the janitor of the building would ultimately reach him. To this address I sent several notes of invitation, hoping perhaps to catch him on the wing or lure him from retirement. But at the time the portrait arrived I had ceased to make further attempts. There was no note or card accompanying it, but the bold superscription left no doubt in my mind as to the donor. A few weeks later I was astonished and delighted at one of my receptions to see the artist-poet's massive figure towering above the other guests, and an instant later we had exchanged the most cordial of hand-shakings, attended on his part as ever by profuse gesture and compliment, and on mine by genuine good-will, which it was easy to see he reciprocated. He looked little changed, unless it were that he was handsomer and more extraordinary than formerly, and his presence caused much lively speculation as to the new celebrity I had unearthed. He had been abroad, studying and travelling,—and trying to forget, he added. The last he had found impossible, he said; but though he sighed as he spoke, I knew that his wound was healed. He was to resume his work at once; had brought back a host of ideas he was eager to put into execution, and was what he called "under the mastery of the twin demi-gods—necessity and aspiration."

Later I thanked him for his picture, which I told him, as was notably the case, artistic circles were raving over. Indeed, when I let it be known that the handsome stranger was no other than Paul Barr, whose genius was already celebrated, he received an ovation. Nor was it exhausted at my house. He was instantly taken up by the critics and by fashionable folk alike, to such an extent that I became apprehensive lest so much attention would detract from the merit of his new work. But though I feared from what was whispered concerning him that his temperament and habits were still mercurial, he had evidently studied to some purpose; for his pictures, the abandon of which would have shocked Mr. Spence more than ever, became instantly the vogue, and brought him speedy fame and fortune. For both of these he persisted in considering himself indebted to me. I never ventured to run the risk of wounding his sensibilities by offering him anything for the portrait, although in a merchantable sense its value was excessive.

I have not spoken of my Aunt Agnes; but up to this time there was little to be said of her. She kept up the even tenor of her ways, which included a repellent air toward me for long after my father's death. She might have forgotten and forgiven the past, but in my choice of Aunt Helen as a companion I had added insult to injury. There was no open breach of course, but our relations were not cordial. I tried at times to ameliorate the situation by sending her presents, and trying to let her see when we met that I was still studious and anxious to lead a sober life. But all in vain. She was resolute in the belief that to have refused an offer of marriage from such a man as Mr. Spence was inconsistent with a serious desire for self-improvement. She doubtless was abetted in this view by Miss Kingsley, who continued to be intimate at her house despite her increasing appropriation of Mr. Spence. The philosopher was said to be more and more under her thrall every day, as I was informed by Mr. Fleisch whom I invited to several of my receptions. He told me he was himself no longer in harmony with Mr. Spence, or rather that the master could not afford to pay him a sufficient salary to warrant him in devoting his entire time to the doctrine of Moderation. His condensed music had not sold, and he had been forced, in order to support his wife and child (for he was married now), to adopt the old system of composition, and to give music lessons. This had caused a coolness on the part of Mr. Spence, who, as Mr. Fleisch expressed it, wished to have all or none. But though he was no longer the chief disciple, he held the master in the profoundest regard and affection. He assured me, with tears in his eyes, that nothing but the stress of absolute want could have induced him to sacrifice artistic truth to expediency, and that he stole hours from sleep that he might continue to carry on his investigations still. Here again I was able to be of some service, for I introduced Mr. Fleisch as a competent and conscientious musical instructor to a number of my friends, who seemed to find him all that I described. He played several of his pieces at my house with much eclat, even including one of those which illustrated Moderation. But I noticed as he became more popular and prosperous that he seemed content to adhere to the conventional methods, and to avoid allusion to his former hobbies.

Though I sent cordial invitations to Mr. Spence to lecture at my receptions, he invariably declined. I sometimes fancied that it might be because I did not extend them to Miss Kingsley also. I judged from what I saw in the newspapers, as well as from what Mr. Fleisch told me, that the number of his followers was diminishing in spite of his most earnest efforts, and that Miss Kingsley was now his only really devoted supporter. The knowledge of this counteracted my scruples against her so far that I sent an invitation to them both, with the assurance that Mr. Spence's lecture should be the feature of the occasion. They accepted, not altogether to my surprise, and I did my best to select an appreciative audience. Mr. Spence looked worn and dispirited I thought, but as he warmed to his theme the light in his eyes seemed as vivid as ever. The sweetness of his tones was however unfortunately impaired by a heavy cold, and though I, being familiar with the lecture,—"Tension and Torpor of the Nerves,"—felt some of my old enthusiasm, it was soon evident to me that the majority of his listeners were bored. The appearance of Miss Kingsley likewise created an impression that reacted on the philosopher. She was very much overdressed, and made a marked effort to carry the assembly by storm. She played the double role of a would-be arch coquette and hero-worshipper, and while chanting the talent of the lecturer, omitted no effort to secure admiration on her own account. There are always a few men who are amused for the moment by this sort of thing, but I could see the eye-glasses of the censors raised wonderingly, and the turned shoulders grow colder, as the evening advanced. I was sorry for them both, even for her; and not many days after, I wrote Mr. Spence a long letter, in which I referred to the great influence in the way of discipline which I felt his instruction had had upon me, and inclosed a check for a considerable sum, which I asked him to accept as a contribution towards endowing a school where lectures should be delivered on the leading features of Moderation. I cannot say that I did this without some scruples, on the score that I no longer had much faith in the soundness of any of his ideas, but I condoned the weakness with my conscience by debiting the amount to charity. After all, he could not do much harm by his teachings, and I hated to think that a man so earnest as he should know the bitterness of total failure.

But my kind intentions met a cruel rebuff. On the following morning I received a formal note in Miss Kingsley's handwriting, which stated that Mr. Spence had desired her to say that it was impossible for him to accept the money, and that she was my "obedient servant, Lucretia Kingsley." My attention was called by a friend the same day to a long item in the "Sunday Mercury," which while extolling the lecture of Mr. Spence at my house, and announcing that among the guests was the "authoress Miss Kingsley, who wore, etc." contained a disagreeable comment on what was called "the lavish luxury and lack of discriminating reverence for the best sentiments of the day, which characterized the principal parlors."

The next time I went to see Aunt Agnes I received an explanation of this conduct, though my name had appeared once or twice before during the past few years in uncomplimentary paragraphs. She upbraided me at once with a renewed attempt to divert the attention of Mr. Spence from his labors to myself. Miss Kingsley had come to her with tears in her eyes, and described the Babylonian influences by which I had sought to seduce him. He had gone, she said, at the call of duty to accomplish what good he might, but never in the whole course of his professional experience had his words fallen on a more flinty and barren soil. And then, as if it were not enough to flaunt in the face of my old master the extravagances most hostile to the theories of which he was the advocate, I had sought to tempt him with money to become a perpetual presence at my immoderate receptions.

"Bah!" exclaimed Aunt Agnes in the ardor of her indignation, as she finished the account of Miss Kingsley's narrative,—"bah! Trying to lead a sober life! Tell me! I hear on all sides that your house has become a hot-bed of all that is worldly and luxurious in the city. And not content with that, you are scheming to corrupt the one who in this money-worshipping age is faithful to principle. I am almost disposed to say for the last time, 'Go your own ways, and never come near me again.'"

"Do not say that yet, Aunt Agnes. Wait a little," I answered, genuinely moved by the distress of the old lady.

"If I were to wait until doomsday it would be still the same. You are no longer a child; and though you have Harlan blood in your veins, I am beginning to feel that I have wasted my best affections on a worthless subject. If you were my own daughter, I could not have been more unhappy on your account. Thank Heaven! I shall soon be in my grave."

I left the house feeling very much like crying, for the mood of Aunt Agnes was less defiant and more pitiful than usual. It seemed as though her iron spirit had yielded at last to the repeated opposition of an unkind world. And of those who had resisted her wishes and commands I was certainly among the chief. I had tried, was trying now, to live what she liked to call a sober life,—but all in vain, so far as winning her approval. Was there no way in which I could make her happy, and smooth the stern frown from her features before she died? I would certainly make the endeavor; and under the influence of this determination I revolved with a freshened interest as I went along the street the circumstances of a curious incident that had befallen me a week ago at Mr. Chelm's office. So absorbed was I that I did not notice the approach of Mr. Spence and Miss Kingsley until they were close upon me. I bowed with politeness; but though the philosopher hesitated, he turned his pale face away and looked in another direction. As for Miss Kingsley, she regarded me with a cold and haughty stare, as though we had never met.

II.

The incident to which I have vaguely alluded was the result of an arrangement between Mr. Chelm and myself, that the door connecting our offices should be left ajar during the visits of his clients, except where privacy was important. In the latter case he was very careful, of course, to close it; but unless he did so I had his permission to listen to what was said. This soon became my favorite diversion, and I even came to the office for the purpose on other days than my usual one. A great many strange people came to consult Mr. Chelm, and I thus picked up a stock of miscellaneous information about business matters as well as some new ideas regarding human nature. Sometimes when the visitors seemed particularly interesting I would venture to peep round the corner or through the crack of the door, so as to catch a glimpse of them. Afterward Mr. Chelm often told me more about them, and in instances where pecuniary aid could be of service allowed me to come to the rescue; for there were numerous persons who resorted to him for relief, knowing that he was a charitable man who had helped others. If he had the leisure, he always lent a sympathetic ear to their stories, and if he could not aid them was uniformly kind and considerate.

I was struck by the number of applicants for employment. "Give us something to do, and we can get along. We want work, not money," was the too frequent petition, for it was just this class of persons whom Mr. Chelm found it most difficult to assist. So many of them too were educated and intelligent young men and women, unaccustomed to hardships and to shift for themselves, driven out of work by the continued hardness of the times. For nearly five years business had been at a stand-still, Mr. Chelm told me, and as a consequence property had depreciated sadly in value, and an immense amount of distress been caused among people of moderate means. To many a tale of destitution I thus listened with tears in my eyes, and on more than one occasion was able to procure at least temporary occupation for the sufferers.

One morning as I was thus sitting hoping for some client to arrive, I saw through the half open door a young man dressed in the height of fashion, bien gante, bien chausse, and attended by the very ugliest bull-terrier it had ever been my lot to gaze on, enter Mr. Chelm's office. I had by this time learned to divine usually the errands of clients before they began to speak, and I made up my mind that this handsome young dandy—for he was extremely good-looking to boot—must be the heir to some large estate which he wished to intrust to the care of Mr. Chelm, or that he had got entangled with an actress, and was in search of legal aid to release him from the meshes of the net. In either event I expected to have the door closed in my face, and the stranger's secret to remain sealed from me forever. I placed my chair however so that I should be screened from observation and yet within earshot, prepared to see and listen as long as should be possible.

The visitor drew a card from a very dainty case and laid it on Mr. Chelm's desk.

"My name is Prime, sir,—Francis Prime. I have come to consult you on a business matter."

"Pray sit down, Mr. Prime. What is it I can do for you?"

"You knew my father, I think?"

"Ralph Prime, of New York? Most assuredly. I had a high regard for him."

"I am his only son. He died, as you may be aware, five years ago in reduced circumstances, because he preferred to remain honest. An odd erratic choice, was it not?"

"I was sorry to hear he had been unfortunate," answered Mr. Chelm quietly.

"Yes, sir, paradoxical as it may seem, my father was an honest man. One might have supposed his only son would inherit that trait, if nothing else. But it must have skipped a generation. I am not what I seem. I am a sham." He sat in silence for some minutes stroking his mustache.

"I judge that you have got into some difficulty, Mr. Prime. If so, I am very sorry to hear it. Be frank with me, and as your father's friend I will do what I can for you. But as a lawyer I must ask you to conceal nothing." So saying Mr. Chelm made a move as if to close the door.

"Pray, do not trouble yourself, sir. My story is already known to so many people that privacy is immaterial. Let me, instead, ask permission to light a cigarette,—that is, if you do not object to smoking and are sufficiently at leisure to hear me to the end."

"Certainly. Make it a cigar and I will join you; and pray try one of these if you will, for my time is quite at your disposal," answered Mr. Chelm, who it was evident to me was amused and puzzled by his visitor.

"Thank you." He settled himself comfortably in his chair, and after a preliminary puff, said: "I am no ordinary felon. I am even not, strictly speaking, amenable to the laws. I am however, as I have told you already, a sham. The world believes me to be a young fellow of fortune, whose only concern is with the cut of his coat and the smile of his mistress. The world for once is in error. I am nothing of the sort. Appearances are against me, I admit. Even you I fancy were deceived. No, my dear sir, while every one judges me to be a mere butterfly of fashion, I am an idealist at heart. And the worst of it is that no one will believe me. All that I want is a chance, an opportunity to prove I am that which I claim; but nobody will give it to me. If I venture to suggest that I am in earnest, the statement excites sneers or ridicule. For nearly two years I have been trying to find something to do, and without success. I have exhausted my own city, and have now come to yours. Your name was familiar to me as one which my father respected, and it occurred to me to tell you my story. I am quite prepared to be informed that there are a thousand applicants for every vacancy, and that such a case as mine is not especially deserving. In one sense of the word you would be right; there are others who suffer more acutely than I, but few who suffer more unjustly. And the whole cause is to be found in a single phrase,—I am a gentleman."

"You are indeed to be pitied," said Mr. Chelm, with an amused laugh.

"And what is more, it is not my fault. I am not responsible for it; I was born so. My case is precisely opposite to that of most of my contemporaries. They find it easy enough to get occupation, but very difficult to be gentlemen; I know how to behave like a gentleman, but can find nothing to do. Gentlemen are evolved, not made. Would to Heaven I had been consulted on the subject! But I awoke one day and found myself what I am. Let me rehearse to you briefly my qualifications. I was sent to school abroad, and was graduated from college at home. I speak fluently three modern languages besides my own, and have a bowing acquaintance with two dead ones. I have read widely enough in history, political economy, literature, science, and music to be superficial. I can write verses, play on the piano and flute, fence, flirt, and lead the cotillon. All this the public seem to recognize and give me credit for; but when I ask them to take me seriously, as they would the veriest beggar in the street, the frivolous look incredulous and giggle, and the practical frown and point me to the door. And why? Simply,—and this will, it may be, anticipate your criticism,—simply because I wear well-fitting clothes, address a lady with gallantry, and change my coat for dinner. Let me add at once, if you have no assistance to offer as to how I shall find employment except to go from office to office with a long face and baggy trousers, I must respectfully decline to take the step. It has become a matter of pride with me: I draw the line there. Call it volatile, foolish, obstinate, what you will,—I propose to be a gentleman to the last. I will starve with a smile on my face and a flawless coat on my back, though it be my only one. As I have said, gentlemen are evolved, not made; and we owe it to our sons to keep up the standard of the race. They will not even allow, sir, that I am an American. I am received with scorn, and denied my birthright, not only by those to whom I apply for work, but by the Arabs of the street and the public press. I am not complaining; I am merely stating the facts of the case. They even cast Ike in my teeth,—Ike the imperious, beautifully ugly Ike," he added, stooping down to pat the bull-terrier, who showed his teeth and growled affectionately. "Now, Mr. Chelm, you have my story. I am in earnest. Will you help me?"

"I can understand your difficulties to some extent, Mr. Prime, and am not altogether without sympathy for you," began the lawyer gravely, after a short reflection. "The times are hard for everybody undeniably, and especially for young men in your position. It is a comparatively easy matter to draw a cheque to alleviate distress, but finding work for anybody to-day is next to impossible. However, as one can never tell what may turn up, let me ask you a blunt question. What are you fit for? What can you do?"

"Here again, sir, the world would tell you that I was fit for nothing except to play the lute beneath a lady's window. But if you will believe me, I am not without business knowledge. Gentleman as I am, I have long cherished an ambition to become a merchant prince (it is well to aspire high),—a genuine merchant-prince, however, and not the counterfeit article who accumulates millions for his children to squander. I have views upon the subject. I am an idealist, as I have told you, and there was a time when I thought my father very rich, and that I should be able to carry out my theories. Since then I have resolved to win back before I die the fortune he lost; and with a view to that I devote several hours in each day (if this should be breathed abroad, my reputation for consummate emptiness might suffer) to the study of exports and imports, markets and exchanges, and all that relates to commercial affairs. You asked me what I am fit for, Mr. Chelm. My father was a banker. I should like to follow in his footsteps. But supplicants cannot be choosers. Procure me a clerkship in any line of business, and I shall try to prove myself worthy of your patronage."

"Humph! I wish I could help you, with all my heart. But, frankly, I know of nothing at the moment. Bankers are discharging their clerks, not engaging new ones. I will make inquiries however, and see if it is possible to do anything for you. You have applied to all your friends in New York, you say, without avail?"

"Entirely. The few who have any faith in my professions are powerless to give me employment."

"Let me see: to-day is Wednesday. Can you call again on Saturday, Mr. Prime? Mind, I promise nothing. In fact, I have every reason to believe that I shall be unsuccessful."

The appointment thus made was due to my touching the electric bell in my office,—a signal agreed upon as an indication of my desire to assist any applicant for aid. Accordingly, when I entered Mr. Chelm's room after his visitor was gone, I was greeted with a bantering smile.

"How now, my fair philanthropist! What scheme have you to relieve the plight of this knight-errant?"

"In the first place," I said, "who is he? Do you believe his story? What sort of a person was his father?"

"Three questions in one breath! The last is the easiest to answer. This young man's father was one of the wealthiest bankers in New York fifteen years ago. I knew him well: a man who was the very soul of honor, shrewd and liberal in his business notions, and in his bearing the pattern of a finished gentleman,—one of your genuine aristocrats; and, like his son, a bit of a dandy. He came to grief, as so many of us do, through misplaced confidence. Certain parties whom he trusted implicitly made a wreck of his entire fortune. It was said at the time that he might have saved a large portion of it, had he been willing to take advantage of a legal technicality as against his creditors. But, as his son said, he preferred to remain honest. He died not many years ago, and left this boy very little, I fancy, but an untarnished name. Of the son I know really nothing. I have never seen him before. He is not unlike his father in appearance, and is even more fastidious in his dress. That may be from bravado, of course. What he says about gentlemen not having a fair chance in this country has a certain amount of truth in it."

"A great deal of truth, it seems to me," I answered.

"Very likely. But it is to be borne in mind that the so-called gentlemen have a heavy score against them in the past. They have had their innings; and now that they are out, democracy is not disposed to let them off too easily. The sins of the forefathers being visited on the children is a proverb as stable as the hills in its logical results."