To-morrow comes. It is Miss Beatrix Stuart's birthday. The great party is to be to-night. They shake hands and part with Mrs. Rogers on the pier. Charley hails a hack and assists his cousin in, and they are whirled off to the palatial avenue up-town.

The house is a stately brown-stone front, of course, and on a sunny corner. Edith leans back, quite silent, her heart beating as she looks. The whirl, the crash, the rush of New York streets stun her, the stateliness of the Stuart mansion awes her. She is very pale, her lips are set together. She turns to Charley suddenly, and holds out her hands to him as a helpless child might.

"I feel lost already, and—and ever so little afraid. How big and grand it looks. Don't desert me, Charley. I feel as though I were astray in a strange land."

He squeezes the little hand, he whispers something reassuring, and life and color come back to her face.

"Make your mind easy, Dithy," is what he says. "Like Mrs. Micawber, 'I'll never desert you.'"

He rings the door bell sharply, a smart-looking young woman admits them, and Edith goes with him into a splendid and spacious apartment, where three people sit at breakfast. Perhaps it is the garish sunshine, sparkling on so much cut glass and silver, that dazzles Edith's eyes, but for a minute she can see nothing. Then the mist clears away, the trio have risen—a pompous-looking old gentleman in a shining bald head and expansive white vest, a pallid, feeble-looking elderly lady in a lace cap, and a tall, stylish girl, with Charley's eyes and hair, in violet ribbons and white cashmere. The bald gentlemen shakes hands with her, and welcomes her in a husky baritone; the faded, elderly lady, and stylish young lady kiss her, and say some very pleasant and gracious words. As in a dream Edith sees and hears all—as in a dream she is led off by Beatrix.

"I shall take you to your room myself. I only hope you may like it. The furniture and arrangement are my taste, every bit. Oh you dear darling!" cries Miss Stuart, stopping in the passage to give Edith a hug. "You don't know how frightened I've been that you wouldn't come. I'm in love with you already! And what a heroine you are—a real Grace—what's-her-name—saving Charley's life and all that. And best of all, you're in time for the ball—which is a rhyme, though I didn't mean it." She laughs and suddenly gives Edith another hug. "You pretty creature!" she says; "I'd no idea you were half so good-looking. I asked Charley, but you might as well ask a lamp-post as Charley. Here is your room—how do you like it?"

She would have been difficult to please indeed, if she had not liked it. To Edith's inexperienced eyes, it is a glowing nest of amber silk curtains, yellowish Brussells carpet, tinted walls, pretty pictures, gilt frames, mirrors, ornaments, and dainty French bed.

"Do you like it? But I see by your face you do. I'm so glad. This is my room adjoining, and here's your bath. Now lay off your things and come down to breakfast."

Still in a dream Edith obeys. She descends to breakfast in her gray travelling suit, looking pale, and not at all brilliant. Miss Stuart, who has had her doubts, that this country cousin may prove a rival, is reassured. She takes her breakfast, and then Beatrix conducts her over the house—a wonder of splendor, of velvet carpets, magnificent upholstering, lace drapings, gilding and ormolu. But her face keeps its pale, grave look. Trixy wonders if she is not a stupid little body after all. Last of all they reach the sacred privacy of Trixy's own room, and there she displays her ball dress. She expiates on its make and its merits, in professional language, and with a volubility that makes Edith's head swim.

"It is made with a court train, trimmed with a deep flounce, waved in the lower edge, and this flounce is trimmed with four narrow flounces, edged with narrow point lace. The sides are en revers, with sashes tied in butterfly bow in the centre of the back, below the puffing of the skirt near the waist. The front of the skirt is trimmed to correspond with the train, the short apron, flounced and trimmed with point lace, gathered up at the sides, under the revers on the train. The waist is high in the shoulders, V shaped in front and back, with small flowing sleeves, finished with plaitings of white silk tulle. And now," cries Trixy, breathless and triumphant, "if that doesn't fetch the baronet, you may tell me what will! The pearls are superb—here they are. Pearls are en regle for weddings only, but how was poor pa to know that? Arn't they lovely?"

They lie in their cloudy luster, necklet, earrings, bracelet.

"Lovely!" Edith repeats; "lovely indeed. Beatrix, what a fortunate girl you are."

There is a touch of envy in her tone. Beatrix laughs, and gives her a third hug.

"Why? Because I have pearls? Bless you! they're nothing. You'll have diamonds beyond counting yourself, one of those days. You'll marry rich, of course—brunettes are all the style now, and you're sure to look lovely by gaslight. What are you going to wear to-night?"

"I'm like Flora McFlimsey," Edith laughs; "I have nothing to wear. There is a white Swiss muslin in my trunk, but it will look wofully rustic and dowdy, I'm afraid, in your gorgeous drawing-rooms."

"Nonsense! Plain Swiss is always in taste for girls of eighteen. I wore it greatly my first season. Do you know I feel awfully old, Edith—twenty-one to-night! I must do something toward settling before the year ends. Let us see the white Swiss. Now there is a lovely amber tissue I have—it isn't my color. I never wore it but once, and it would suit you exactly. Lucy, my maid, is a perfect dress-maker, and could alter it to fit you easily before—Now, Edith! you're not angry?"

For the color has risen suddenly all over Edith's proud, pale face.

"You have made a mistake, Miss Stuart, that is all—meant kindly, I am sure. If my white muslin is admissible, I will wear it; if not, I can keep to my room. But neither now, nor at any future time, can I accept—charity."

Trixy gives a little shriek at the word, and inflicts a fourth hug on Edith. She is the soul of easy good-nature herself, and ready to take anything and everything that is offered her, from a husband to a bouquet.

"Bless the child!" she exclaims. "Charity! As if any one ever thought of such a thing. It's just like me, however, to make a mess of it. I mean well, but somehow I always do make a mess of it. And my prophetic soul tells me, the case of Sir Victor Catheron will be no exception to the rest."

The day wears on. Edith drives down town, shopping with Madame and Mademoiselle Stuart; she returns, and dines in state with the family. The big, brown house is lit up from basement to attic, and presently they all adjourn to their rooms to dress.

"Don't ask me to appear while you are receiving your guests," Edith says. "I'll step in unobserved, when everybody has come."

She declines all offers of assistance, and dresses herself. It is a simple toilet surely—the crisp white muslin, out of which the polished shoulders rise; a little gold chain and cross, once her mother's; earrings and bracelet of gold and coral, also once her mother's; and her rich, abundant, blackish-brown hair, gathered back in a graceful way peculiar to herself. She looks very pretty, and she knows it. Presently sails in Miss Stuart, resplendent in the pink silk and pearls, the "court train" trailing two or three yards behind her, her light hair "done up" in a pyramid wonderful to behold, and loaded with camelias.

"How do I look, Dithy? This strawberry-ice pink is awfully becoming to me, isn't it? And you—why, you look lovely—lovely! I'd no idea you made up so handsomely. Ah! we blondes have no chance by gaslight, against you brunettes."

She sweeps downstairs in her rose-colored splendor, and Edith is alone. She sits by the open window, and looks out at the night life of the great city. Carriage after carriage roll up to the door, and somehow, in the midst of all this life, and brightness, and bustle, a strange feeling of loneliness and isolation comes over her. Is it the old chronic discontent cropping up again? If it were only not improper for Charley to come up here and sit beside her, and smoke, in the sweet spring dusk, and be sarcastic as usual, what a comfort it would be just now! Somehow—"how it comes let doctors tell"—that restless familiar of hers is laid when he is by her side—never lonely, never discontented then. As she thinks this, innocently enough, despite all her worldly wisdom, there is a tap at the door, and Lucy, the maid, comes smilingly in, holding an exquisite bouquet, all pink and white roses, in her hand.

"Mr. Charles' compliments, please, miss, and he's waiting for you at the foot of the stairs, when you're ready, miss, for the ball-room."

She starts and colors with pleasure.

"Thank you, Lucy!" she says, taking the bouquet. "Tell Mr. Stuart I will be down in a moment."

The girl leaves the room.

With a smile on her face it is just as well "Mr. Charles" does not see, she stands looking at her roses; then she buries her face, almost as bright, in their dewy sweetness.

"Dear, thoughtful Charley!" she whispers gratefully. "What would ever have become of me but for him?"

She selects one or two bits of scarlet blossom and green spray, and artistically twists them in the rich waves of her hair. She takes one last glance at her own pretty image in the mirror, sees that fan, lace-handkerchief, and adornment generally, are in their places, and then trips away and goes down.

In elegant evening costume, looking unutterably handsome and well-dressed, Mr. Charles Stuart stands at the foot of the grand stairway, waiting. He looks at her as she stands in the full glare of the gasaliers.

"White muslin, gold and coral, pink roses, and no chignon. My dear Miss Darrell, taking you as a whole, I think I have seen worse-looking young women in my life."

He draws her hand through his arm, with this enthusiastic remark, and Edith finds herself in a blaze of light and a crowd of brilliantly dressed people. Three long drawing-rooms are thrown open, en suite; beyond is the ball-room, with its waxed flows and invisible musicians. Flowers, gaslight, jewels, handsome women, and gallant men are everywhere; the band is crashing out a pulse-tingling waltz, and still Edith hears and sees, and moves in a dream.

"Come," Charley says. His arm is around her waist, and they whirl away among the waltzers. Edith waltzes well, so does Charley. She feels as though she were floating on air, not on earth. Then it is over, and she is being introduced to people, to resplendent young ladies and almost equally resplendent young gentlemen. Charley resigns her to one of these latter, and she glides through a mazurka. That too ends, and as it grows rather warm, her partner leads her away to a cool music-room, whence proceed melodious sounds. It is Trixy at the piano, informing a select audience in shrill soprano, and in the character of the "Queen of the May," that "She had been wild and wayward, but she was not wayward now." Edith's partner finds her a seat and volunteers to go for an ice. As she sits fanning herself, she sees Charley approaching with a young man of about his own age, taller than he is—fairer, with a look altogether somehow of a different nationality. He has large blue eyes, very fair hair, and the blondest of complexions. Instinctively she knows who it is.

"Ah, Edith," Charley says, "here you are. I have been searching for you. Miss Darrell, allow me to present to you Sir Victor Catheron."



CHAPTER IV.

"UNDER THE GASLIGHT."

Two darkly solemn eyes look up into Sir Victor Catheron's face. Both bow. Both murmur the pianissimo imbecility requisite on such occasions, and Edith Darrell is acquainted with a baronet.

With, a baronet! Only yesterday, as it were, she was darning hose, and ironing linen at home, going about the dismal house slipshod and slatternly. Now she is in the midst of a brilliant ball, diamonds sparkling around her, and an English baronet of fabulous wealth and ancestry asking her for the favor of the next waltz! Something ridiculous and absurd about it all, struck her; she felt an idiotic desire to laugh aloud. It was all unreal, all a dream. She would awake presently, to hear her step-mother's shrill call to come and help in the kitchen, and the howls of the juvenile Darrells down the passage. A familiar voice rouses her.

"You'll not forget, I hope, Edith," Charley is saying, "that next redowa is mine. At present I am going to meander through the lancers with Mrs. Featherbrain."

He takes her tablets, coolly writes his name, smiles, shows his white teeth, says "Au revoir," and is gone. She and the baronet are alone.

What shall she say to him? She feels a whimsical sort of trepidation as she flutters her fan. As yet the small-talk of society, is Sanscrit, to this young lady from Sandypoint. Sir Victor leans lightly against the arm of her chair, and looks down upon her as she sits, with flushed cheeks, half smiling lips, and long black lashes drooping. He is thinking what a wonderfully bright and charming face it is—for a brunette.

For Sir Victor Catheron does not fancy brunettes. He has his ideal, and sees in her the future Lady Catheron. In far-off Cheshire there is a certain Lady Gwendoline; she is an earl's daughter, the owner of two soft blue eyes, a complexion of pink and snow, a soft, trained voice and feathery halo of amber hair. Lady Gwendoline is his ideal of fair, sweet womanhood, turning coldly from all the rest of the world to hold out her arms to one happy possessor. The vision of Lady Gwendoline as he saw her last, the morning sunshine searching her fair English face and finding no flaw in it, rises for a second before him—why, he does not know. Then a triumphal burst of music crashes out, and be is looking down once more upon Edith Darrell, in her white dress and coral ornaments, her dark hair and pink roses.

"You seem quite like an old acquaintance, Miss Darrell," he says, in his slow, pleasant, English accented voice; "our mutual friend, the prince, has told me about his adventure in the snow, and your heroism."

"The prince?" she repeats, interrogatively, and Sir Victor laughs.

"Ah! you don't know. They call him the prince here—Prince Charlie. I don't know why, I'm sure, unless it be that his name is Charles Edward Stuart, and that he is the prince of good fellows. You have no idea how delighted I am that he—that the whole family are going across with us in May. You accompany them, I understand, Miss Darrell."

"As companion and interpreter on the continent," Miss Darrell answers, looking up at him very steadily. "Yes."

"And you will like the continent, I know," Sir Victor goes on. "You will like Paris, of course. All Americans go to Paris. You will meet scores of your countrymen in every continental city."

"I am not sure that that is an advantage," responds the young lady coolly. "About my liking it, there can be no question. It has been the dream of my life—a dream I thought as likely to be realized a month ago, as that I should take a trip to the moon. For you, Sir Victor, I suppose every nook and corner of Europe, is as familiar to you, as your own native Cheshire?"

The brown brilliant eyes look up at him frankly. She is at her ease at last, and Sir Victor thinks again, what beautiful eyes, brown eyes are. For a dark young person, she is really the most attractive young person he has ever met.

"Cheshire," he repeats with a smile, "how well you know my birthplace. No, not my birthplace exactly, for I was born in London. I'm a cockney, Miss Darrell. Before you all go abroad, you are to come and spend a week or two down in my sunny Cheshire; both my aunt and I insist upon it. You don't know how many kindnesses—how many pleasant days and nights we owe to our friends, the Stuarts. It shall be our endeavor when we reach England to repay them in kind. May I ask, Miss Darrell, if you have met my aunt?"

"No," Edith replies, fluttering a little again. "I have not even seen Lady Helena as yet."

"Then allow me the pleasure of making you acquainted. I think you will like her. I am very sure she will like you."

The color deepens on Edith's dark cheek; she arises and takes his proffered arm. How gracefully deferential and courteous he is. It is all custom, no doubt, and means nothing, but it is wonderfully pleasant and flattering. For the moment it seems as though he were conscious of no other young lady in the scheme of creation than Miss Darrell—a flirting way a few young men cultivate.

They walk slowly down the long brilliant rooms, and many eyes turn and look after them. Every one knows the extremely blonde young baronet—the dark damsel on his arm is as yet a stranger to most of them. "Dused pretty girl, you know," is the unanimous verdict of masculine New York; "who is she?" "Who is that young lady in the dowdy white muslin and old fashioned corals?" asks feminine New York, and both stare as they receive the same whispered reply: "A poor relation—a country cousin, or something of the sort, going to Europe with them as companion to Beatrix."

Edith sees the looks, and the color deepens to carnation in her face. Her brown eyes gleam, she lifts her head with haughty grace, and flashes back almost defiance at these insolent starers. She feels what it is they are saying of her, and Sir Victor's high bred courtesy and deference, go to the very depths of her heart by contrast. She likes him; he interests her already; there is something in his face, she can hardly tell what,—a sort of sombre shadow that underlies all his smiling society manner. In repose and solitude, the prevailing expression of that face will be melancholy, and yet why? Surely at three-and-twenty, life can have shown nothing but her sunshine and roses, to this curled darling of fortune.

A stout, elderly lady, in gray moire and chantilly lace, sits on a sort of a throne of honor, beside Mrs. Stuart, and a foreign gentleman, from Washington, all ribbons and orders. To this stout, elderly lady, as Lady Helena Powyss, his aunt, Sir Victor presents Miss Darrell.

The kindly eyes of the English lady turn upon the dark, handsome face of the American girl; the pleasant voice says a few pleasant words. Miss Darrell bows gracefully, lingers a few moments, is presented to the ribbon-and-starred foreigner, and learns he is Russian Ambassador at Washington. Then the music of their dance strikes up, both smilingly make their adieux, and hasten to the ball-room.

Up and down the long waxed room, in and out with gorgeous young New York, in all the hues of the rainbow, the air heavy with perfume, the matchless Gounod waltz music crashing over all, on the arm of a baronet—worth, how much did Trixy say? thirty or forty thousand a year?—around her slim white muslin waist Edith is in her dream still—she does not want to wake—Trixy whirls by, flushed and breathless, and nods laughingly as she disappears. Charley, looking calm and languid even in the dance, flits past, clasping gay little Mrs. Featherbrain, and gives her a patronizing nod. And Edith's thought is—"If this could only go on forever!" But the golden moments of life fly—the leaden ones only lag—we all know that to our cost. The waltz ends.

"A most delicious waltz," says Sir Victor gayly. "I thought dancing bored me—I find I like it. How well you waltz, Miss Darrell, like a Parisienne—but all American young ladies are like Frenchwomen. Take this seat, and let me fetch you a water ice."

He leads her to a chair and departs. As she sits there, half smiling and fluttering her fan, looking very lovely, Charley saunters up with his late partner. "If your royal highness will permit," cries Mrs. Featherbrain, laughing and panting, "I will take a seat. How cool and comfortable you look, Miss Darrell. May I ask what you have done with Sir Victor?"

"Sir Victor left me here, and told me he would go for a water ice. If I look cool, it is more than I feel—the thermometer of this room must stand at a hundred in the shade."

"A water ice," repeats Mrs. Featherbrain with a sigh; "just what I have been longing for, this past half hour. Charley, I heard you say something about bringing me one, some time ago, didn't I? But I know of old what you're promises are worth. You know the adage, Miss Darrell—never more true than in this instance, 'Put not your trust in princes.'"

Miss Darrell's dark, disdainful eyes look full at the frivolous young matron. Mrs. Featherbrain and Mr. Stuart have been devoted to each other all the evening.

"I know the adage," she answers cooly, "but I confess I don't see the application."

"What! don't you know Charley's sobriquet of Prince Charley? Why he has been the Prince ever since he was five years old, partly on account of his absurd name, partly because of his absurd grand seigneur airs. I think it fits—don't you?"

"And if I were Prince," Charley interposes, before Miss Darrell can answer, "my first royal act would be to order Featherbrain to the deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat, and make his charming relict Princess consort, as she has long, alas! been queen of my affections!"

He lays his white-kidded hand on the region of his heart, and bows profoundly. Mrs. Featherbrain's shrill, rather silly laugh, rings out—she hits him a blow with her perfumed fan.

"You precocious little boy!" she says, "as if children of your age knew what their affections meant. Miss Darrell, you'll not credit it I'm sure, but this juvenile cousin of yours—Charley, you told me, Miss Darrell, was your cousin—was my first love—actually—my first!"

"And she jilted me in cold blood for Featherbrain. Since then I've been a blighted being—hiding, like the Spartan chap in the story, the fox that preys on my vitals, and going through life with the hollow mockery of a smile on my lips."

Again Mrs. Featherbrain's foolish little laugh peals out. She leans back, almost against him, looks up, and half whispers something very daring in French.

Edith turns away disgusted, gleams of disdainful scorn in, her shining hazel eyes. What a little painted giggling idiot the woman is—what fools most young men are! What business have married women flirting, and how much more sensible and agreeable Englishmen are than Americans.

"Miss Darrell looks sick of our frivolity," Mrs. Featherbrain gayly exclaims; "the wickedness of New York and the falsity of mankind, are new to her as yet. You saved Charley's life, didn't you, my love? Trixy told me all about it,—and remained with him all night in the snow, at the risk of your own life. Quite a romance, upon my word. Now why not end it, like all romances of the kind, in a love match and a marriage?"

Her eyes glitter maliciously and jealously, even while she laughs. If it is in the shallow heart of this prettily-painted, prettily-powdered woman, to care for any human being, she has cared for Charley Stuart.

"Mrs. Featherbrain!" Edith exclaims, in haughty surprise, half rising.

"My dear, don't be angry—you might do worse, though how, it would be difficult to say. I suggested it, because it is the usual ending of such things in novels, and on the stage—that is all."

"And as if I could fall in love with any one now," Mr. Stuart murmurs, plaintively. "Such a suggestion from you, Laura, is adding insult to injury."

"Here comes our baronet," Mrs. Featherbrain exclaims, "bearing a water ice in his own aristocratic hand. Rather handsome, isn't he?—only I detest very fair men. What a pity, for the peace of mind of our New York girls, he should be engaged in England."

"Ah! but he isn't engaged—I happen to know," said Charley; "so you see what comes of marrying in haste, Mrs. Featherbrain. If you had only waited another year now, instead of throwing me over for old Featherbrain, it might have been for a baronet—for of course there isn't a girl in New York could stand the ghost of a chance beside you."

"A most delicate compliment," Edith says, her scornful lip curling; "one hardly knows which to admire most—the refined tact of Mr. Stuart's flatteries, or the matronly dignity with which Mrs. Featherbrain repels them!"

She turns her white shoulder deliberately upon them both, and welcomes Sir Victor with her brightest smile.

"And for a rustic lassie, fresh from the fields and the daisies, it isn't so bad," is Mrs. Featherbrain's cool criticism.

"And I hope, despite Sir Victor's aristocratic attentions, Miss Darrell, you'll not forget you're engaged to me for the redowa," Charley finds a chance to murmur, sotto voce, in her ear, as he and his flirtee move on.

"You see the poor child's jealous, Charley," is the Featherbrain's last remark—"a victim to the green-eyed monster in his most virulent form. You really should be careful, my dear boy, how you use the charms a beneficent Providence has showered upon you. As you are strong, be merciful, and all that sort of thing."

The hours go on. Edith eats her water ice, and talks very animatedly to her baronet. Balls (he has had a surfeit of them, poor fellow!) mostly bore him—to-night he is really interested. The Americans are an interesting people, he thinks that must be why. Then the redowa begins, and Charley returns and carries her off. With him she is coldly silent, her eyes are averted, her words are few. He smiles to himself, and asks her this pleasant question:

"If she doesn't think Laura Featherbrain the prettiest and best-dressed lady in the room?"

"I think Mrs. Featherbrain is well-named," Miss Darrell answers, her dark eyes flashing. "I understand Mr. Featherbrain is lying sick at home. You introduced me to her—while I live in this house, Mr. Stuart, you will be kind enough to introduce me to no more—Mrs. Featherbrains!"

She brings out the obnoxious name with stinging scorn, and a look toward the lady bearing it sharper than daggers. There is a curious smile in Charley's eyes—his lips are grave.

"Are you angry, Edith? Do you know—of course you do, though—that it becomes you to be angry? My charming cousin, I never knew until to-night how really handsome you were."

She disengages herself with sudden abruptness from his clasp.

"I am tired of dancing," she says. "I detest redowas. And be kind enough to keep your odious point-blank compliments for the 'prettiest and best-dressed lady in the room.' I don't appreciate them!"

Is it jealousy? Charley wonders, complacently. He sits down beside her, and tries to coax her into good humor, but she is not to be coaxed. In ten minutes another partner comes up and claims her, and she goes. The pretty, dark girl in white, is greatly admired, and has no lack of partners. For Mr. Stuart he dances no more—he leans against a piller, pulls his mustache; and looks placid and handsome. He isn't devoted to dancing, as a rule he objects to it on principle, as so much physical exertion for very little result; he has only fatigued himself to-night as a matter of abstract duty. He stands and watches Edith dance—this country girl has the lithe, willowy grace of a Bayadere, and she is laughing now, and looking very bright and animated. It dawns upon him, that she is by all odds the prettiest girl in the house, and that slowly but surely, for the hundred-and-fiftieth time in his life, he is falling in love.

"But I might have known it," Mr. Stuart thinks, gravely; "brown beauties always did play the dickens with me. I thought that at five-and-twenty I had outgrown all that sort of youthful rubbish, and here I am on the brink of the pit again. Falling in love in the present, involves matrimony in the future, and matrimony has been the horror of my life since I was four years old. And then the governor wouldn't hear of it. I'm to be handed over to the first 'daughter of a hundred earls' across in England, who is willing to exchange a tarnished British coronet for a Yankee million or two of dollars."

It is Trixy who is dancing with the baronet now—Trixy who descends to supper on the baronet's arm. She dances with him once again after supper; then he returns to Edith.

So the hours go on, and the April morning is growing gray. Once, Edith finds herself seated beside genial Lady Helena, who talks to her in a motherly way, that takes all her heart captive at once. Sir Victor leans over his aunt's chair, listening with a smile, and not saying much himself. His aunt's eyes follow him everywhere, her voice takes a deeper tenderness when she speaks to him. It is easy to see she loves him with almost more than a mother's love.

A little longer and it is all over. Carriage after carriage rolls away—Sir Victor and Lady Helena shake hands with this pretty, well-bred Miss Darrell, and go too. She sees Charley linger to the last moment, by fascinating Mrs. Featherbrain, whispering the usual inanity, in her pretty pink ear. He leads her to her carriage, when it stops the way, and he and the millionnaire's wife vanish in the outer darkness.

"Now half to the setting moon are gone, And half to the rising day; Low on the sand, and loud on the stone, The last wheel echoes away."

Edith hums as she toils up to her pretty room. Trixy's grand field night is over—Edith's first ball has come to an end, and the first night of her new life.



CHAPTER V.

OLD COPIES OF THE "COURIER."

"Two waltzes," said Trix, counting on her fingers; "that's two; one cracovienne, that's three; les lanciers, that's four; one galop, that's five; and one polka quadrille, that's six. Six dances, round and square, with Sir Victor Catheron. Edith," cried Miss Stuart, triumphantly, "do you hear that?"

"Yes, Trixy, I hear," said Edith, dreamily.

"You don't look as if you did, or if you do hear, you don't heed. Six dances—two more I am certain, than he danced with any other girl in the house. That looks promising, now doesn't it? Edith, the long and short of the matter is this: I shall break my heart and die if he doesn't make me Lady Catheron."

A faint, half-absent smile—no other reply from Miss Darrell. In the handsome reception-room of the Stuart mansion, the two girls sat. It was half-past three in the afternoon, of the day succeeding the ball. In the luxuriant depths of a puffy arm-chair, reclined Edith Darrell, as much at home, as though puffy chairs and luxuriant reclining, had ever been her normal state. The crimson satin cushions, contrasted brilliantly with her dark eyes, hair and complexion. Her black silk dress was new, and fitted well, and she had lit it up with a knot of scarlet tangled in some white lace at the throat. Altogether she made a very effective picture.

In another puffy rocking-chair near, sat Trixy, her chestnut hair crepe to her eyebrows and falling in a crinkling shower down to her waist. Her voluminous draperies balloon over the carpet for the space of a couple of yards on either side, and she looked from top to toe the "New Yorkiest of New York girls." They made a very nice contrast if you had an eye for effect—blonde and brunette, dash and dignity, style and classic simplicity, gorgeous furniture, and outside the gray, fast-drifting April afternoon, the raw, easterly April wind.

"Of course," pursued Miss Stuart, going on with the web of rose-colored knitting in her lap, "being the daughter of the house, and considering the occasion, and everything, I suppose a few more dances than usual were expected of him. Still, I don't believe he would have asked me six times if—Edith! how often did he dance with you?"

"How often did—I beg your pardon, Beatrix; I didn't catch what you said."

"I see you didn't. You're half-asleep, arn't you? A penny for your thoughts, Dithy."

"They're not worth a farthing," Edith answered, contemptuously. "I chanced just then to be thinking of Mrs. Featherbrain. What was it you asked—something about Sir Victor?"

"I asked how often Sir Victor danced with you last night."

"I really forget. Four times, I think—yes, four times. Why?"

"He danced six with me, and I'm sure he didn't dance more than half as often with any one else. Mamma thinks he means something, and he took me to supper, and told me about England. We had quite a long conversation; in fact, Edith, I fairly grow crazy with delight at the thought of one day being 'My lady.'"

"Why think of it, then, since it sets you crazy?" Edith suggested, with cool indifference. "I daresay you've heard the proverb, Trix, about counting your chickens before they're hatched. However, in this case I don't really see why you should despair. You're his equal in every way, and Sir Victor is his own master, and can do as he likes."

"Ah, I don't know!" Trix answered with a despondent sigh, "he's a baronet, and these English people go so much for birth and blood. Now you know we've neither. It's all very well for pa to name Charley after a prince, and spell Stuart, with a u instead of an ew, like everybody else, and say he's descended from the royal family of Scotland—there's something more wanted than that. He's sent to London, or somewhere, for the family coat-of-arms. You may laugh, Edith, but he has, and we're to seal our letters with a griffin rampant, or a catamount couchant, or some other beast of prey. Still the griffin rampant, doesn't alter the fact, that pa began life sweeping out a grocery, or that he was in the tallow business, until the breaking out of the rebellion. Lady Helena and Sir Victor are everything that's nice, and civil, and courteous, but when it comes to marrying, you know, that's quite another matter. Isn't he just sweet, though, Edith?"

"Who? Sir Victor? Poor fellow, what has he ever said or done to you, Trix, to deserve such an epithet as that? No, I am glad to say he didn't strike me as being 'sweet'—contrariwise, I thought him particularly sensible and pleasant."

"Well, can't a person be sweet and sensible too?" Trix answered, impatiently. "Did you notice his eyes? Such an expression of weariness and sadness, and—now what are you laughing at. I declare, you're as stupid as Charley. I can't express a single opinion that he doesn't laugh at. Call me sentimental if you like, but I say again he has the most melancholy expression I ever looked at. Do you know, Dithy, I love melancholy men."

"Do you?" said Edith, still laughing. "My dear lackadaisical Trixy! I must confess myself, I prefer 'jolly' people. Still you're not altogether wrong about our youthful baronet, he does look a prey at times to green and yellow melancholy. You don't suppose he has been crossed in love, do you? Are baronets—rich baronets—ever crossed in love I wonder. His large, rather light blue eyes, look at one sometimes as though to say:

"'I have a secret sorrow here, A grief I'll ne'er impart, It heaves no sigh, it sheds no tear, But it consumes the 'art!'"

Miss Darrell was an actress by nature—she repeated this lachrymose verse, in a sepulchral tone of voice.

"That's it, you may depend, Trixy. The poor young gentleman's a prey to unrequited affection. What are you shaking your head so vehemently at?"

"It isn't that," said Trix, looking solemn and mysterious, "it's worse!"

"Worse! Dear me. I didn't think anything could be worse. What is it then?"

"Murder!"

It was Trixy's turn to be sepulchral. Miss Darrell opened her big brown eyes. Miss Stuart's charnel-house tone was really blood curdling.

"My dearest Trix! Murder! Good gracious, you can't mean to say we've been dancing all night with a murderer? Who has he killed?"

"Edith, don't be an idiot! Did I say he killed any one? No, it isn't that—it's a murder that was committed when he was a baby."

"When he was a baby!" Miss Darrell repeats, in dense bewilderment.

"Yes, his mother was murdered, poor thing. It was a most shocking affair, and as interesting as any novel you ever read," said Trixy, with the greatest relish. "Murdered in cold blood as she slept, and they don't know to this day who did it."

Edith's eyes were still very wide open.

"His mother—when he was a baby! Tell us about it, Trix. One naturally takes an interest in the family murders of one's future second cousin-in-law."

"Well," began Miss Stuart, still with the utmost relish, "you see his father—another Sir Victor—made a low marriage—married the daughter of a common sort of person, in trade. Now there's a coincidence to begin with. I'm the daughter of a common sort of person in trade—at least I was!"

"It is to be hoped the coincidence will not be followed out after the nuptial knot," answered Edith, gravely, "it would be unpleasant for you to be murdered, Trix, and plunge us all into the depth of despair and bombazine. Proceed, as they say on the stage, 'Your tale interests me.'"

"He was engaged—the other Sir Victor, I mean—to his cousin, a Miss Inez Catheron—pretty name, isn't it?—and, it seems, was afraid of her. She was a brunette, dark and fierce, with black eyes and a temper to match."

A bow of acknowledgment from Miss Darrell.

"As it turned out, he had good reason to be afraid of her. He was a year and a half married, and the baby—this present Sir Victor—was two or three months old, when the marriage was made public, and wife and child brought home. There must have been an awful row, you know, at Catheron Royals, and one evening, about a month after her arrival, they found the poor thing asleep in the nursery, and stabbed to the heart."

"Was she asleep after she was stabbed or before?"

"Bother. There was an inquest, and it turned out that she and Miss Catheron had had a tremendous quarrel, that very evening: Sir Victor was away when it happened, and he just went stark, staring mad the first thing, when he heard it. Miss Catheron was arrested on suspicion. Then it appeared that she had a brother, and that this brother was an awful scamp, and that he claimed to have been married to Lady Catheron before she married Sir Victor, and that he had had a row with her, that same day too. It was a dreadfully mixed up affair—all that seemed clear, was that Lady Catheron had been murdered by somebody, and that Juan—yes, Juan Catheron—had run away, and when wanted, was not to be found."

"It appears to have been a strictly family affair from first to last—that, at least, was a consolation. What did they do to Miss Inez Catheron?"

"Put her in prison to stand her trial for murder. She never stood it, however—she made her escape, and never was heard of, from that day to this. Isn't it tragical, and isn't it dreadful for Sir Victor—his mother murdered, his father crazy, or dead, ages ago for what I know, and his relations tried for their lives?"

"Poor Sir Victor! Dreadful indeed. But where in the world, Trixy, did you find all this out? Has he been pouring the family history so soon into your sympathetic ear?"

"Of course not; that's the curious part of the story. You know Mrs. Featherbrain?"

"I'm happy to say," retorted Miss Darrell, "I know very little about her, and intend to know less."

"You do know her, however. Well, Mrs. Featherbrain has a father."

"Poor old gentleman!" says Miss Darrell, compassionately.

"Old Hampson—that's his name. Hampson is an Englishman, and from Cheshire, and knew the present Sir Victor's grandfather. He gets the Cheshire papers ever since he left, and, of course, took an interest in all this. He told Mrs. Featherbrain—and what do you think?—Mrs. Featherbrain actually asked Lady Helena."

"It is precisely the sort of thing Mrs. Featherbrain would be likely to do. 'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' How copious are my quotations this afternoon. What did Lady Helena say?"

"Gave her a look—a lady who was present told me—such a look. She turned dead white for a minute, then she spoke: 'I never discuss family matters with perfect strangers.' Those were her words—'perfect strangers.' 'I consider your question impertinent, madame, and decline to answer it.' Then she turned her back upon Mrs. Featherbrain; and shouldn't I like to have seen Mrs. Featherbrain's face. Since then, she just bows frigidly to her, no more."

"Little imbecile! Trixy, I should like to see those papers."

"So you can—I have them. Charley got them from Laura Featherbrain. What could not Charley get from Laura Featherbrain I wonder?" adds Trix, sarcastically.

Edith's color rose, her eyes fell on the tatting between her fingers.

"Your brother and the lady are old lovers then? So I inferred from her conversation last night."

"I don't know about their being lovers exactly. Charley has that ridiculous flirting manner, young men think it their duty to cultivate, and it certainly was a strong case of spoons—excuse the slang. Pa would never have listened to it, though—he wants birth and blood too, and old Hampson's a pork merchant. Then Phineas Featherbrain came along, sixty years of age, and a petroleum prince. Of course, there was a gorgeous wedding—New York rang with it. I don't see that the marriage makes much difference in Charley and Laura's flirtation, though. Just wait a minute and I'll go and get the papers—I haven't read it all myself."

Miss Stuart swept, stately and tall, from the room, returning in a few moments with some half-dozen old, yellow newspapers.

"Here you are, sir," she cries, in shrill newsboy singsong; "the full, true and particular account of the tragedy at Catheron Royals. Sounds like the title of a sensation novel, doesn't it? Here's No. 1 for you—I've got on as far as No. 4."

Miss Darrell throws aside her work and becomes absorbed in the Chesholm Courier of twenty-three years back. Silence fell—the moments wore on—the girls become intensely interested, so interested that when the door was thrown open and "Sir Victor Catheron" announced, both sprang to their feet, conscience-stricken with all their guilt, red in their faces.

He advanced, hat in hand, a smile on his face. He was beside Trix first. She stood, the paper still clutched in her hand, her cheeks redder than the crimson velvet carpet. His astonished eyes fell upon it—he who ran might read—the Chesholm Courier in big, black letters, and in staring capitals, the "TRADGEDY OF CATHERON ROYALS."

The smile faded from Sir Victor Catheron's lips, the faint color, walking in the chill wind had brought, died out of his face. He turned of that dead waxen whiteness, fair people do turn—then he lifted his eyes and looked Miss Stuart full in the face.

"May I ask where you got this paper?" he asked, very quietly.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" burst out Trixy. "I'm awfully sorry, but I—I didn't know—I mean, I didn't mean—oh, Sir Victor, forgive me if I have hurt your feelings. I never meant you to see this."

"I am sure of that," he said, gently; "it is necessarily very painful to me. Permit me to ask again, how you chanced to come by these papers?"

"They were lent us by—by a lady here; her father is from Cheshire, and always gets the papers. Indeed I am very, very sorry. I wouldn't have had it happen for worlds."

"There is no need to apologize—you are in no way to blame. I trust I find you and Miss Darrell entirely recovered from the fatigue of last night. The most charming party of the season—that is the unanimous verdict, and I for one indorse it."

He took a seat, the color slowly returning to his face. As he spoke, two eyes met his, dark, sweet, compassionate, but Edith Darrell did not speak a word.

The obnoxious papers were swept out of sight—Miss Stuart made desperate efforts at ease of manner, and morning call chit-chat, but every effort fell flat. The spell of the Chesholm Courier was on them all, and was not to be shaken off. It was a relief when the baronet rose to go.

"Lady Helena desires best regards to you both—she has fallen quite in love with you, Miss Darrell. As it is a 'Nilsson night' at the academy, I suppose we will have the pleasure of seeing you there?"

"You certainly will," answered Trix, "Edith has never heard Nilsson yet, poor child. Remember us to Lady Helena, Sir Victor. Good afternoon."

Then he was gone—and Miss Stuart looked at Miss Darrell, solemnly and long.

"There goes my last hope! Oh, my, why did I fetch down those wretched papers. All my ambitious dreams of being a baro—nette are knocked in the head now. He'll never be able to bear the sight of me again."

"I don't see that," Edith responded; "if a murder is committed, the world is pretty sure to know of it—its something not to be ignored. How deeply he seems to feel it too—in spite of his rank and wealth I pity him, Trixy."

"Pity him as much as you like, so that it is not the pity akin to love. I don't want you for a rival, Edie—besides I have other views for you."

"Indeed! The post of confidential maid when you are Lady Catheron?"

"Something better—the post of confidential sister. There! You needn't blush, I saw how the land lay from the first, and Charley isn't a bad fellow in spite of his laziness. The door bell again. Nothing but callers now until dark."

All Miss Stuart's masculine friends came dropping in successively, to institute the necessary inquiries as to the state of her health, after eight hours' steady dancing the preceding night. Edith's unsophisticated head ached with it all, and her tongue grew paralyzed with the platitudes of society. The gas was lit, and the dressing-bell ringing, before the last coat-tail disappeared.

As the young ladies, yawning drearily in each other's faces, turned to go up to their rooms, a servant entered, bearing two pasteboard boxes.

"With Sir Victor Catheron's compliments, Miss Beatrix, and brought by his man."

Each box was labelled with the owner's name. Trix opened hers with eager fingers. A lovely bouquet of white roses, calla lilies, and jasmine, lay within. Edith opened hers—another bouquet of white and scarlet camellias.

"For the opera," cried Trix, with sparkling eyes, "How good of him—how generous—how forgiving! After the papers and all! Sir Victor's a prince, or ought to be."

"Don't gush, Trixy," Edith said, "it grows tiresome. Why did he send you all white, I wonder? As emblematic of your spotless innocence and that sort of thing? And do I bear any affinity to 'La Dame aux Camellias?' I think you may still hope, Trix—if there be truth in the language of flowers."

Three hours later—fashionably late, of course—the Stuart party swept in state into their box. Mrs. Stuart, Miss Stuart Mr. Stuart, junior, and Miss Darrell. Miss Stuart dressed for some after "reception" in silvery blue silk, pearl ornaments in her hair, and a virginal white bouquet in her hand. Miss Darrell in the white muslin of last night, a scarlet opera cloak, and a bouquet of white and scarlet camellias. Charley lounging in the background, looking as usual, handsome of face, elegant of attire, and calmly and upliftedly unconscious of both.

The sweet singer was on the stage. Edith Darrell leaned forward, forgetting everything in a trance of delight. It seemed as though her very soul were carried away in the spell of that enchanting voice. A score of "double barrels" were turned to their box—Beatrix Stuart was an old story—but who was the dark beauty? As she sat, leaning forward, breathless, trance-bound, the singer vanished, the curtain fell.

"Oh!" it was a deep drawn sigh of pure delight. She drew back, lifted her impassioned eyes, and met the smiling ones of Sir Victor Catheron.

"You did not know I was here," he said. "You were so enraptured I would not speak. Once it would have enraptured me too, but I am afraid my rapturous days are past."

"Sir Victor Catheron speaks as though he were an octogenarian. I have heard it is 'good form' to outlive at twenty, every earthly emotion. Mr. Stuart yonder prides himself on having accomplished the feat I may be stupid, but I confess being blase, doesn't strike me in the light of an advantage?"

"But if blase be your normal state? I don't think I ever tried to cultivate the vanitas vanitatem style of thing, but if it will come? Our audience are enthusiastic enough—see! They have made her come back."

She came back, and held out both hands to the audience, and the pretty gesture, and the charming smile, redoubled the applause. Then silence fell, and softly and sweetly over that silence, floated the tender, pathetic words of "Way down upon the Swanee River." You might have heard a pin drop. Even Sir Victor looked moved. For Edith, she sat scarcely breathing—quivering with ecstasy. As the last note was sung, as the fair songster kissed hands and vanished, as the house arose from its spell, and re-rang with enthusiasm, Edith turned again to the young baronet, the brown eyes luminous with tears, the lips quivering. He bent above her, saying something, he could hardly have told what, himself—carried away for once in his life, by the witchery of two dark eyes.

Mr. Charles Stuart, standing in the background, beheld it all.

"Hard hit," he murmured to his mustache, but his face, as he gave his mother his arm, and led her forth, told nothing.

An old adorer escorted Miss Stuart. Miss Darrell and her camellias, came last, on the arm of the baronet.

That night, two brown eyes, haunted Sir Victor Catheron's slumbers—two brown eyes sparkling through unshed tears—two red lips trembling like the lips of a child.

For the owner of the eyes and lips, she put the camellias, carefully in water, and far away in the small hours went to bed and to sleep. And sleeping she dreamed, that all dressed in scarlet, and wearing a crown of scarlet camellias, she was standing up to be married to Sir Victor Catheron with Mr. Charley Stuart as officiating clergyman, when the door opened, and the murdered lady of Trixy's story came stalking in, and whirled her screaming away in her ghostly arms.

Too much excitement, champagne, and lobster salad had engendered the vision no doubt, but it certainly spoiled Miss Darrell's beauty sleep that night.



CHAPTER VI.

ONE MOONLIGHT NIGHT.

The pleasant days went on—April went out—May came in. On the tenth of May, the Stuart family, Sir Victor Catheron, and Lady Helena Powyss were to sail from New York for Liverpool.

To Edith, fresh from the twilight of her country life, these days and nights had been one bewildering round of excitement and delight. Opera, theatre, dinner and evening parties, shopping, driving, calling, receiving—all that goes to make the round of that sort of life, had been run. Her slender wardrobe had been replenished, the white Swiss had been reinforced by half-a-dozen glistening silks; the corals, by a set of rubies and fine gold. Mr. Stuart might be pompous and pretentious, but he wasn't stingy, and he had insisted upon it for his own credit. And half-a-dozen "spandy new" silks, fresh from Stewart's counters, with the pristine glitter of their bloom yet upon them, were very different from one half-worn amber tissue of Trixy's. Miss Darrell took the dresses and the rubies, and looked uncommonly handsome in both.

On the last night but one, of their stay in New York, Mrs. Featherbrain gave a last "At Home," a sort of "P. P. C." party, Trixy called it. Miss Darrell was invited, and said nothing at the time, unless tossing the card of invitation contemptuously out of the window can be called saying something; but at the last moment she declined to go.

"My head is whirling now, from a surfeit of parties," she said to Miss Stuart. "Aunt Chatty is going to stay at home, and so shall I. I don't like your Mrs. Featherbrain—that's the truth—and I'm not fashionable enough yet to sham friendship with women I hate. Besides, Trix dear, you know you were a little—just a little—jealous of me, the other night at Roosevelt's. Sir Victor danced with me once oftener than he did with you. Now, you dear old love, I'll let you have a whole baronet to yourself, for this night, and who knows what may happen before morning?"

Miss Edith Darrell was one of those young persons—happily rare—who, when they take a strong antipathy, are true to it, even at the sacrifice of their own pleasure. In her secret soul, she was jealous of Mrs. Featherbrain. If she and Charley carried on their imbecile flirtation, at least it would not be under her disgusted eyes.

Miss Stuart departed—not the lilies of the field—not Solomon in all his glory—not the Queen of Sheba herself, ever half so magnificent. Charley went with her, a placid martyr to brotherly duty. And Edith went down to the family sitting-room where Aunt Chatty (Aunt Chatty by request) sat dozing in her after-dinner chair.

"We are going to have an 'At home' all to our two selves to-night, auntie," Edith, said, kissing her thin cheek; "and I am going to sing you to sleep, by way of beginning."

She was fond of Aunt Chatty—a meek soul, born to be tyrannized over, and tyrannized over, from her very cradle. One of those large women, who obey their small husbands in fear and trembling, who believe everything they are told, who "bless the squire and his relations, and live contented with their stations;" who are bullied by their friends, by their children, by their servants, and who die meekly some day, and go to Heaven.

Edith opened the piano and began to play. She was looking very handsome to-night, in green silk and black-lace, one half-shattered rose in her hair. She looked handsome—at least so the young man who entered unobserved, and stood looking at her, evidently thought.

She had not heard him enter, but presently some mesmeric rapport between them, told her he was near. She turned her head and saw him. Aunt Chatty caught sight of him, in her semi-sleeping state, at the same moment.

"Dear me, Charley," his mother said, "you here? I thought you went to Mrs. Featherbrain's?"

"So I did," replied Charley. "I went—I saw—I returned—and here I am, if you and Dithy will have me for the rest of the evening."

"Edith and I were very well off without you. We had peace, and that is more than we generally have when you and she come together. You shall be allowed to stay only on one condition, and that is that you don't quarrel."

"I quarrel?" Charley said, lifting his eyebrows to the middle of his forehead. "My dear mother, your mental blindness on many points, is really deplorable. It's all Edith's fault—all; one of the few fixed principles of my life, is never to quarrel with anybody. It upsets a man's digestion, and is fatiguing in the extreme. Our first meeting," continued Mr. Stuart, stretching himself out leisurely on a sofa, "at which, Edith fell in love with me at sight, was a row. Well, if it wasn't a row, it was an unpleasantness of some sort. You can't deny, Miss Darrell, there was a coolness between us. Didn't we pass the night in a snow-drift? Since then, every other meeting has been a succession of rows. Injustice to myself, and the angelic sweetness of my own disposition, I must repeat, the beginning, middle, and ending of each, lies with her. She will bully, and I never could stand being bullied—I always knock under. But I warn her—a day of retribution is at hand. In self-defence I mean to marry her, and then, base miscreant, beware! The trodden worm will turn, and plunge the iron into her own soul. May I ask what you are laughing at, Miss Darrell?"

"A slight confusion of metaphor, Charley—nothing more. What have you done with Trix?"

"Trix is all right in the matronly charge of Mrs. Featherbrain, and engaged ten deep to the baronet. By the bye, the baronet was inquiring for you, with a degree of warmth and solicitude, as unwelcome as it was uncalled for. A baronet for a brother-in-law is all very well—a baronet for a rival is not well at all. Now, my dear child, try to overcome the general nastiness of your cranky disposition, for once, and make yourself agreeable. I knew you were pining on the stem for me at home, and so I threw over the last crush of the season, made Mrs. Featherbrain my enemy for life, and here I am. Sing us something."

Miss Darrell turned to the piano with a frown, but her eyes were smiling, and in her secret heart she was well-content. Charley was beside her. Charley had given up the ball and Mrs. Featherbrain for her. It was of no use denying it, she was fond of Charley. Of late it had dawned dimly and deliciously upon her that Sir Victor Catheron was growing very attentive. If so wildly improbable a thing could occur, as Sir Victor's falling in love with her, she was ready at any moment to be his wife; but for the love which alone makes marriage sweet and holy, which neither time, nor trouble, nor absence, can change—that love she felt for her cousin Charley, and no other mortal man.

It was a very pleasant evening—how pleasant, Edith did not care to own, even to herself. Aunt Chatty dozed sweetly in her arm-chair, she in her place at the piano, and Charley taking comfort on his sofa, and calmly and dispassionately finding fault with her music. That those two could spend an evening, an hour, together, without disagreeing, was simply an utter impossibility. Edith invariably lost her temper—nothing earthly ever disturbed Charley's. Presently, in anger and disgust, Miss Darrell jumped up from the piano-stool, and protested she would play no more.

"To be told I sing Kathleen Mavourneen flat, and that the way I hold my elbows when I play Thalberg's 'Home,' is frightful to behold, I will not stand! Like all critics, you find it easier to point out one's faults, than to do better. It's the very last time, sir, I'll ever play a note for you!"

But, somehow, after a skirmish at euchre, at which she was ignobly beaten, and, I must say, shamefully cheated, she was back at the piano, and it was the clock striking twelve that made her start at last.

"Twelve! Goodness me. I didn't think it was half-past ten!" Mr. Stuart smiled, and stroked his mustache with calm complacency. "Aunt Chatty, wake up! It's midnight—time all good little women were in bed."

"You need not hurry yourself on that account, Dithy," Charley suggests, "if the rule only applies to good little women."

Miss Darrell replies with a glance of scorn, and wakes up Mrs. Stuart.

"You were sleeping so nicely I thought it a pity to wake you sooner. Come, auntie dear, we'll go upstairs together. You know we have a hard day's work before us to-morrow. Good-night, Mr. Stuart."

"Good-night, my love," Mr. Stuart responded, making no attempt to stir. Edith linked her strong, young arm in that of her sleepy aunt and led her upstairs. He lay and watched the slim green figure, the beautiful bright face, as it disappeared in a mellow flood of gaslight. The clear, sweet voice came floating saucily back:

"And Charley he's my darling, My darling—my darling, And Charley he's my darling, The young Chevalier!"

All that was sauciest, and most coquettish in the girl's nature, came out with Charley. With Sir Victor, as Trixy explained it, she was "goody" and talked sense.

Mr. Stuart went back to the ball, and, I regret to say, made himself obnoxious to old Featherbrain, by the marked empressement of his devotion to old Featherbrain's wife. Edith listened to the narration next day from the lips of Trix with surprise and disgust. Miss Stuart, on her own account, was full of triumph and happiness. Sir Victor had been most devoted, "most devoted" said Trix, in italics, "that is, for him. He danced with me very often, and he spoke several times of you, Dithy, dear. He couldn't understand why you absented yourself from the last party of the season—no more can I for that matter. A person may hate a person like poison—I often do myself—and yet go to that person's parties."

But this was a society maxim Miss Darrell could by no means be brought to understand. Where she liked she liked, where she hated she hated—there were no half measures for her.

The last day came. At noon, with a brilliant May sun shining, the ship fired her farewell guns, and steamed away for Merrie England. Edith leaned over the bulwark and watched the receding shore, with her heart in her eyes.

"Good-by to home," she said, a smile on her lip, a tear in her eye. "Who knows when and how I may see it again. Who knows whether I shall ever see it?"

The luncheon bell rang; everybody—a wonderful crowd too—flocked merrily downstairs to the saloon, where two long tables, bright with crystal and flowers, were spread. What a delightful thing was an ocean voyage, and sea-sickness—bah!—merely an illusion of the senses.

After lunch, Charley selected the sunniest spot on deck for his resting-place, and the prettiest girl on board, for his companion, spread out his railway rug at her feet, spread out himself thereon, and prepared to be happy and be made love to. Trix, on the arm of the baronet, paraded the deck, Mrs. Stuart and Lady Helena buried themselves in the seclusion of the ladies' cabin, in expectation of the wrath to come. Edith got a camp-stool and a book, and hid herself behind the wheel-house for a little of private enjoyment. But she did not read; it was delight enough to sit and watch the old ocean smiling, and smiling like any other coquette, as though it could never be cruel.

The afternoon wore on; the sun dropped low, the wind arose—so did the sea. And presently—staggering blindly on Sir Victor's arm, pale as death, with speechless agony imprinted on every feature—Trixy made her appearance behind the wheel house.

"O Edith, I feel awfully—awfully! I feel like death—I feel—"

She wrenched her arm from the baronet's, rushed wildly to the side, and—Edith's dark, laughing eyes looked up into the blue ones, that no effort of Sir Victor's could quite control. The next moment she was by Trixy's side, leading that limp and pallid heroine to the regions below, whence, for five mortal days, she emerged not, nor did the eye of man rest on Miss Beatrix Stuart.

The weather was fine, but the wind and sea ran tolerably high, and of course everybody mostly was tolerably sick. One day's ordeal sufficed for Edith's tribute to old Neptune; after that, she never felt a qualm. A great deal of her time was spent in waiting upon Aunt Chatty and Trix, both of whom were very far gone indeed. In the case of Miss Stuart, the tortures of jealousy were added to the tortures of sea-sickness. Did Sir Victor walk with the young ladies on deck? Did he walk with her, Edith? Did he ever inquire for herself? Oh, it was shameful—shameful that she should be kept prostrate here, unable to lift her head! At this juncture, generally, in her excitement, Trixy did lift it, and the consequence was—woe.

It was full moon before they reached mid-ocean. How Edith enjoyed it, no words can tell. Perhaps it was out of merciful compassion to Trix, but she did not tell her of the long, brisk twilight, mid-day, and moonlight walks she and the baronet took on deck. How, leaning over the bulwarks, they watched the sun set, round and red, into the sea, and the silver sickle May moon rise, like another Aphrodite, out of the waves. She did not tell her, how they sat side by side at dinner, how he lay at her feet, and read aloud for her, in sheltered sunny nooks, how uncommonly friendly and confidential they became altogether, in these first half-dozen days out. People grow intimate in two days at sea, as they would not in two years on land. Was it all gentlemanly courtesy and politeness on the baronet's side? the girl sometimes wondered. She could analyze her own feelings pretty well. Of that fitful, feverish passion called love, described by the country swain as feeling—"hot and dry like—with a pain in the side like," she felt no particle. There was one, Mr. Charles Stuart, lying about in places, looking serene and sunburnt, who saw it all with sleepy, half-closed eyes, and kept his conclusions to himself. "Kismet!" he thought; "the will of Allah be done. What is written is written. Sea-sickness is bad enough, without the green-eyed monster. Even Othello, if he had been crossing in a Cunard ship, would have put off the pillow performance until they reached the other side."

One especial afternoon, Edith fell asleep after luncheon, on a sofa, in her own and Trixy's cabin, and slept through dinner and dessert, and only woke with the lighting of the lamps. Trix lay, pale and wretched, gazing out of the porthole, at the glory of moonlight on the heaving sea, as one who sorrows without hope of consolation.

"I hope you enjoyed your forty winks, Edith," she remarked; "what a Rip Van Winkle you are! For my part, I've never slept at all since I came on board this horrid ship! Now, where are you going?"

"To get something to eat from my friend the stewardess," Edith answered; "I see I am too late for dinner."

Miss Darrell went, and got some tea and toast. Then wrapping herself in a blanket shawl, and tying a coquettish red wool hood over her hair, she ascended to the deck.

It was pretty well deserted by the ladies—none the worse for that, Edith thought. The full moon shone with untold splendor, over the vast expanse of tossing sea, heaving with that majestic swell, that never quite lulls on the mighty Atlantic. The gentlemen filled the smoking-room, the "Tabak Parliament" was at its height. She took a camp-stool, and made for her favorite sheltered spot behind the wheel-house. How grand it was—the starry sky, the brilliant white moon, the boundless ocean—that long trail of silvery radiance stretching miles behind. An icy blast swept over the deep, but, wrapped in her big shawl, Edith could defy even that. She forgot Sir Victor and the daring ambition of her life. She sat absorbed in the beauty and splendor of that moonlight on the sea. Very softly, very sweetly, half unconsciously, she began singing "The Young May Moon," when a step behind made her turn her head. It was Sir Victor Catheron. She awoke from her dream—came back to earth, and was of the world worldly, once more. The smile that welcomed him was very bright. She would have blushed if she could; but it is a disadvantage of pale brunettes that they don't blush easily.

"I heard singing, sweet and faint, and I give you my word, Miss Darrell, I thought it might be the Lurline, or a stray mermaid combing her sea-green locks. It is all very beautiful, of course, but are you not afraid of taking cold?"

"I never take cold," Miss Darrell answered; "influenza is an unknown disease. Has the tobacco parliament broken up, that I behold you here?"

"It is half-past eleven—didn't you know it?—and all the lights are out."

"Good Heaven!" Edith cried, starting up aghast; "half-past eleven! What will Trixy say? Really, moon-gazing must be absorbing work. I had no idea it was after ten."

"Stay a moment, Miss Darrell," Sir Victor interposed, "there is something I would like to say to you—something I have wished to speak of, since we came on board."

Edith's heart gave one great jump—into her mouth it seemed. What could such a preface as this portend, save one thing? The baronet spoke again, and Miss Darrell's heart sunk down to the very soles of her buttoned boots.

"It is concerning those old papers, the Chesholm Courier. You understand, and—and the lamentable tragedy they chronicle."

"Yes?" said Miss Darrell, shutting her lips tight.

"It is naturally a deeply painful subject to me. Twenty-three years have passed; I was but an infant at the time, yet if it had, occurred only a year ago, I think I could hardly feel it more keenly than I do—hardly suffer more, when I speak of it."

"Then why speak of it?" was the young lady's very sensible question. "I have no claim to hear it, I am sure."

"No," the young man responded, and even in the moonlight she could see his color rise, "perhaps not, and yet I wanted to speak to you of it ever since. I don't know why, it is something I can scarcely bear to think of even, and yet I feel a sort of relief in speaking of it to you. Perhaps there is 'rapport' between us—that we are affinities—who knows?"

Who indeed! Miss Darrell's heart came up from her boots, to its proper place, and stayed there.

"It was such a terrible thing," the young man went on, "such a mysterious thing. To this day it is wrapped in darkness. She was so young, so fair, so good—it seems too horrible for belief, that any human being could lift his hand against so innocent a life. And yet it was done."

"A most terrible thing," Edith said; "but one has only to read the papers, to learn such deeds of horror are done every day. Life is a terribly sensational story. You say it is shrouded in darkness, but the Chesholm Courier did not seem at all in the dark."

"You mean Inez Catheron. She was innocent."

"Indeed!"

"She was not guilty, except in this—she knew who was guilty, and concealed it. Of that, I have reason to be sure."

"Her brother, of course—the Juan Catheron of the papers?"

"Who is to tell? Even that is not certain. No," in answer to her look of surprise, "it is not certain. I am sure my aunt believes in his innocence."

"Then who—"

"Ah—who?" the baronet said mournfully, "who was the murderer? It may be that we will never know."

"You will know," Edith said decidedly. "I am sure of it. I am a firm believer in the truism that 'murder will out.' Sooner or later you will know."

She spoke with the calm conviction of prophecy. She looked back to shudder at her own words in the after-days.

"Three-and-twenty years is a tolerable time to forget even the bitterest sorrow, but the thought of that tragedy is as bitter to my aunt to-day, as it was when it was done. She cannot bear to speak of it—I believe she cannot bear to think of it. What I know, therefore, concerning it, I have learned from others. Until I was eighteen, I knew absolutely nothing. Of my mother, of course I have no remembrance, and yet"—his eyes and tone grew dreamy—"as far back as I can recall, there is in my mind the memory of a woman, young and handsome, bending above my bed, kissing and crying over me. My mother was fair, the face I recall is dark. You will think me sentimental—you will laugh at me, perhaps," he said, smiling nervously; "you will set me down as a dreamer of dreams, and yet it is there."

Her dark, earnest eyes looked up at him, full of womanly sympathy.

"Laugh at you! Think better of me, Sir Victor. In these days it is rare enough to see men with either memory or veneration for their mother—whether dead or alive."

He looked at her; words seemed struggling to his lips. Once he half spoke. Then he checked himself suddenly. When he did speak it was with a total change of tone.

"And I am keeping you selfishly here in the cold. Take my arm, Miss Darrell; you must not stop another instant."

She obeyed at once. He led her to her cabin-door—hesitated—took her hand and held it while he spoke:

"I don't know why, as I said before, I have talked of this; I could not have done it with any one else. Let me thank you for your sympathy with all my heart."

Then he was gone; and, very grave and thoughtful, Edith sought Trixy and the upper berth. Miss Stuart lay calmly sleeping the sleep of the just and the sea-sick, blissfully unconscious of the traitorous goings on about her. Edith looked at her with a sort of twinge. Was it fair, after all? was it strictly honorable? "Poor Trix," she said, kissing her softly, "I don't think it will be you!"

Next morning, at breakfast, Miss Darrell noticed that Mr. Stuart, junior, watched her as he sipped his coffee, with a portentous countenance that foreboded something. What it foreboded came out presently. He led her on deck—offered her his arm for a morning constitutional, and opened fire thus wise:

"What were you and the baronet about on deck at abnormal hours of the night? What was the matter with you both?"

"Now, now!" cried Edith, "how do you come to know anything about it? What business have small boys like you, spying on the actions of their elders, when they should be safely tucked up, and asleep in their little beds?"

"I wasn't spying; I was asleep. I have no restless conscience to keep me prowling about at unholy hours."

"How do you come to know, then?"

"A little bird told me."

"I'll twist your little bird's neck! Who was it, sir? I command you."

"How she queens it already! Don't excite yourself, you small Amazon. It was the officer of the deck."

"The officer of the deck might be much better employed; and you may tell him so, with my compliments."

"I will; but you don't deny it—you were there!"

"I never deny my actions," she says with royal disdain; "yes, I was there."

"With Sir Victor—alone?"

"With Sir Victor—alone!"

"What did you talk about, Miss Darrell?"

"More than I care to repeat for your edification, Mr. Stuart. Have you any more questions to ask, pray?"

"One or two; did he ask you to marry him, Edith?"

"Ah, no!" Edith answers with a sigh that is genuine; "there is no such luck as that in store for Dithy Darrell. A baronet's bride—Lady Catheron! no, no—the cakes and ale of life are not for me."

"Would you marry him, if he did? Will you marry him when he does? for that is what it comes to, after all."

"Would I marry him?" She looks at him in real incredulous wonder. "Would I marry Sir Victor Catheron—I? My dear Charley, when you ask rational questions, I shall be happy to answer them, to the best of my ability, but not such absurdity as that."

"Then, you will?"

"Charley, don't be a tease—what do young persons of your juvenile years know about such things? I don't like the turn this conversation has taken; let us change it, let us talk about the weather—that's always a safe subject. Isn't it a splendid morning? Isn't it charming to have a perpetual fair wind? And how are you going to account for it, that the wind is always fair going to England, and always ahead coming out?

"'England, my country—great and free Heart of the world—I leap to thee!'"

She sings, with a wicked look in her dark eyes, as she watches her cavalier.

Charley is not going to be put off however; he declines to talk of either wind or weather.

"Answer my question, Edith, if you please. If Sir Victor Catheron asks you, will you be his wife?"

She looks at him calmly, steadily, the man she loves, and answers:

"If Sir Victor Catheron asks me, I will be his wife."



CHAPTER VII.

SHORT AND SENTIMENTAL.

Two days later, and Fastnet Rock looms up against the blue sky; the iron-bound Irish coast appears. At noon they will land in Queenstown.

"Come back to Erin, mavourneen, mavourneen," sings Charley's voice down the passage, early in the morning.

Charley can sing a little still. He is to lose Edith. Sir Victor Catheron is to win and wear; but as she is not Lady Catheron yet, Mr. Stuart postpones despair and suicide until she is.

She sprang from her bed with a cry of delight. Ireland! One, at least, of the lands of her dreams.

"Trixy!" she cries. "O Trixy, look out! 'The land of sweet Erin' at last!"

"I see it," Trixy said, rolling sleepily out of the under berth; "and I don't think much of it. A lot of wicked-looking rocks, and not a bit greener than at home. I thought the very sky was green over Ireland."

For the last two days Trixy's bitter trials had ended—her sea-sickness a dismal dream of the past. She was able, in ravishing toilet, to appear at the dinner-table, to pace the deck on the arm of Sir Victor. As one having the right, she calmly resumed her sway where she had left it off. Since that moonlight night of which she (Trixy) happily knew nothing, the bare civilities of life alone had passed between Miss Darrell and the baronet. Sir Victor might try, and did, but with, the serene superiority of right and power Miss Stuart countermanded every move. Hers she was determined he should be, and there was all the lost time to be made up besides. So she redoubled her attentions, aided and abetted by her pa—and how it came about the perplexed young Englishman never could tell, but somehow he was constantly at Miss Stuart's side and unable to get away. Edith saw it all and smiled to herself.

"To-day for me, to-morrow for thee," she hummed. "I have had my day; it is Trixy's turn now. She manoeuvres so well it would be a pity to interfere."

Charley was her cavalier those pleasant last days; both were disposed to take the goods their gods provided, and not fret for to-morrow. It would not last—life's fairy gifts never do, for to-day they would eat, drink, and be merry together, and forget the evil to come.

They landed, spent an hour in Queenstown, then the train whirled them away "to that beautiful city called Cork." There they remained two days, visited Blarney Castle, of course, and would have kissed the Blarney Stone but for the trouble of climbing up to it. Then off, and away, to Killarney.

And still Sir Victor was Trixy's captive—still Edith and Charley maintained their alliance. Lady Helena watched her nephew and the American heiress, and her fine woman's instinct told her he was in no danger there.

"If it were the other one, now," she thought, glancing at Edith's dark, bright face; "but it is quite clear how matters stand between her and her cousin. What a handsome pair they will make."

Another of the elders—Mr. James Stuart—watched the progress of matters, through very different spectacles. It was the one dream of his life, to marry his son and daughter to British rank.

"Of wealth, sir, they have enough," said the Wall Street banker, pulling up his collar pompously. "I will leave my children a cool million apiece. Their descent is equal to the best—to the best, sir—the royal rank of Scotland is in their veins. Fortune I don't look for—blood, sir—BLOOD, I do."

Over his daughter's progress after blood, he smiled complacently. Over his son's conduct he frowned.

"Mind what you're at, young man," he said, on the day they left Cork, gruffly to Charley. "I have my eye on you. Ordinary attention to Fred Darrell's daughter I don't mind, but no fooling. You understand me, sir? No fooling. By George, sir, if you don't marry to please me, I'll cut you off with a shilling!"

Mr. Stuart, junior, looked tranquilly up at Mr. Stuart, senior, with an expression of countenance the senior by no means understood.

"Don't lose your temper, governor," he answered calmly. "I won't marry Fred Darrell's daughter, if that's what you mean by 'fooling.' She and I settled that question two or three centuries ago."

At the village of Macroom, they quitted the comfortable railway carriage, and mounted the conveyance known in Ireland, as a public car, a thing like an overgrown jaunting-car, on which ten people can ride, sitting back to back, isolated by the pile of luggage between. There was but one tourist for the Lakes besides themselves, a large, military-looking young man, with muttonchop whiskers and an eye-glass, a knapsack and knickerbockers.

"Hammond, by Jove!" exclaimed Sir Victor. "Hammond, of the Scotch Grays. My dear fellow, delighted to see you. Captain Hammond, my friend, Mr. Stuart, of New York."

Captain Hammond put up his eye-glass and bowed. Charley lifted his hat, to this large military swell.

"I say, Sir Victor," the Captain of Scotch Grays began, "who'd have thought of seeing you here, you know? They said—aw—you had gone exploring Canada, or the United States, or some of those kind of places, you know. Who's your party?" sotto voce; "Americans—hey?"

"American friends, and my aunt, Lady Helena Powyss."

"Now, thin—look alive yer honors," cried the car-driver, and a scramble into seats instantly began. In his own mind, Sir Victor had determined his seat should be by Miss Darrell's side. But what is man's determination beside woman's resolve?

"Oh, p-please, Sir Victor," cries Miss Stuart, in a piteous little voice, "do help me up. It's so dreadfully high, and I know I shall fall off. And oh, please, do sit here, and point out the places as we go along—one enjoys places, so much more, when some one points them out, and you've been along here before."

What could Sir Victor do? More particularly as Lady Helena good-humoredly chimed in:

"Yes, Victor, come and point out the places. You shall sit bodkin, between Miss Beatrix and me. Your friend in the Tweed suit, can sit next, and you, my dear Mrs. Stuart—where will you sit?"

"As Charley and Edith will have all the other side to themselves," said meek Mrs. Stuart, "I guess I'll sit beside Edith."

"Ay, ay," chimed in her spouse, "and I'll mount with cabby. All serene, there, behind? Then away we go!"

Away they went, clattering over the road, with the whole tatterdemalion population of Macroom after, shouting for "ha' pennies."

"Rags enough to set up a paper-mill," suggested Charley, "and all the noses turn-ups! Edith, how do you like this arrangement?"

"I think Trixy's cleverer than I ever gave her credit for," laughed Edith; "it's a pity so much diplomacy should be 'love's labor lost.'"

"Poor Trixy! She means well too. Honor thy father, that thy days may be long in the land. She's only trying to fulfil the command. And you think she has no chance?"

"I know it," Edith answers, with the calm serenity of conviction.

"Sir Victor, who's your friend with the solemn face and the funny knickerbockers?" whispers Trixy, under her white parasol.

"He's the Honorable Angus Hammond, second son of Lord Glengary, and captain of Scotch Grays," replies Sir Victor, and Miss Stuart opens her eyes, and looks with new-born reverence, at the big, speechless young warrior, who sits sucking the head of his umbrella, and who is an honorable and the son of a lord.

The day was delightful, the scenery exquisite, his companion vivacious in the extreme, Lady Helena in her most genial mood. But Sir Victor Catheron sat very silent and distrait all the way. Rallied by Miss Stuart on his gloom, he smiled faintly, and acknowledged he felt a trifle out of sorts. As he made the confession he paused abruptly—clear and sweet, rang out the girlish laugh of Edith Darrell.

"Our friends on the other side appear to be in excellent spirits at least," says Lady Helena, smiling in sympathy with that merry peal; "what a very charming girl Miss Darrell is."

Trixy shoots one swift, sidelong glance at the baronet's face, and answers demurely:

"Oh, it's an understood thing that Dithy and Charley are never really happy, except when together. I don't believe Charley would have taken the trouble to come at all, if Edith, at his solicitation, had not been one of the party."

"A very old affair I suppose?" asks her ladyship, still smiling.

"A very old affair, indeed," Trix answers gayly. "Edith will make a charming sister-in-law; don't you think so, Sir Victor?"

She looks up at him artlessly as she plunges her small dagger into a vital place. He tries to smile, and say something agreeable in return—the smile is a failure; the words a greater failure. After that, all Trixy's attention falls harmless. He sits moodily listening to the gay voices on the other side of the luggage, and finds out for sure and certain that he is dead in love with Miss Darrell.

They reach Glengariff as the twilight shadows fall—lovely Glengariff, where they are to dine and pass the night. At dinner, by some lucky chance, Edith is beside him, and Captain Hammond falls into the clutches of Trix. And Miss Darrell turns her graceful shoulder deliberately upon Charley, and bestows her smiles, and glances, and absolute attention upon his rival.

After dinner they go for a sail by moonlight to an island, where there are the remains of a martello tower. The elders, for whom "moonlight on the lake," long ago lost its witchery, and falling dews and night airs retain their terrors, stay at home and rest. Edith and Sir Victor, Trix and the Honorable Angus Hammond, saunter down arm in arm to the boat. Charley and the two Irish boatmen bring up the rear—Mr. Stuart smoking a consolatory cigar.

They all "pile in" together, and fill the little boat. The baronet follows up his luck, and keeps close to Edith. How beautiful she is with the soft silver light on her face. He sits and watches her, and thinks of the laureate's lines:

"A man had given all other bliss And all his worldly worth for this, To wast his whole heart in one kiss Upon her perfect lips."

"Am I too late?" he thought; "does she love her cousin? Is it as his sister hints; or—"

His jealous, anxious eyes never left her. She saw it all. If she had ever doubted her power over him, she did not doubt to-night. She smiled, and never once looked toward Charley.

"No," he thought, with a sigh of relief; "she does not care for him in that way—let Miss Stuart think as she pleases. She likes him in a sisterly way—nothing more. I will wait until we reach England, and speak then. She, and she alone, shall be my wife."



CHAPTER VIII.

IN TWO BOATS.

Early next morning our tourists remounted the car and jogged slowly over that lovely stretch of country which lies between Glengariff and Killarney.

Their places were as on the day before—Sir Victor in the possession of Trix, Charley with Edith. But the baronet's gloom was gone—hope filled his heart. She did not love her cousin,—of that he had convinced himself,—and one day he might call her wife.

Sir Victor Catheron was that rara avis, a modest young man. That this American girl, penniless and pedigreeless, was beneath him, he never thought—of his own rank and wealth, as motives to influence her, he never once dreamed. Nothing base or mercenary could find a place in so fair a creature; so noble and beautiful a face must surely be emblematic of a still more noble and beautiful soul. Alas! for the blindness of people in love.

It was a day of delight, a day of cloudless skies, sparkling sunshine, fresh mountain breezes, sublime scenery. Wild, bleak valleys, frowning Kerry rocks, roaring torrents, bare-footed, ragged children, pigs and people beneath the same thatched roof, such squalor and utter poverty as in their dreams they had never imagined.

"Good Heaven!" Edith said, with a shudder, "how can life be worth living in such horrible poverty as this?"

"The bugbear of your life seems to be poverty, Edith," Charley answered. "I daresay these people eat and sleep, fall in love, marry, and are happy even here."

"My dear Mr. Stuart, what a sentimental speech, and sillier even than it is sentimental. Marry and are happy! They marry no doubt, and the pig lives in the corner, and every cabin swarms with children, but—happy! Charley, I used to think you had one or two grains of common-sense, at least—now I begin to doubt it."

"I begin to doubt it myself, since I have had the pleasure of knowing Edith Darrell. I defy mortal man to keep common-sense, or uncommon-sense, long in her company. Poverty and misery, in your lexicon, mean the same thing."

"The same thing. There is no earthly evil that can equal poverty."

They reached Killarney late in the evening, and drove to the "Victoria." The perfect weather still continued, the moon that had lit their last night at sea, on the wane now, lifted its silver light over the matchless Lakes of Killarney, lying like sheets of crystal light beneath.

"Oh, how lovely!" Trix exclaimed. The rest stood silent. There is a beauty so intense as to be beyond words of praise—so sweet, so solemn, as to hush the very beating of our hearts. It was such beauty as this they looked upon now.

They stood on the velvety sward—Sir Victor with Trixy on his arm, Charley and Edith side by side. A glowing mass of soft, scarlet drapery wrapped Miss Darrell, a coquettish hat, with a long, black ostrich plume, set off her Spanish face and eyes. They had dined—and when is moonlight half so poetical as after an excellent dinner?

"I see two or three boats," remarked Sir Victor. "I propose a row on the lakes."

"Of all things," seconded Beatrix, "a sail on the Lakes of Killarney! Edith, do you realize it? Let us go at once, Sir Victor."

"Will you come with me, Edith?" Charley asked, "or would you rather go with them?"

She looked at him in surprise. How grave his face—how quiet his tone! He had been like this all day, silent, preoccupied, grave.

"My very dear Charley, how polite we grow! how considerate of others' feelings! Quite a new phase of your interesting character. I'll go with you, certainly—Mr. Charles Stuart, in a state of lamblike meekness, is a study worth contemplating."

He smiled slightly, and drew her hand within his arm.

"Come, then," he said, "let us have this last evening together; who knows when we shall have another?"

Miss Darrell's brown eyes opened to their widest extent.

"'This last evening! Who knows when we shall have another!' Charley, if you're meditating flight or suicide, say so at once—anything is better than suspense. I once saw a picture of 'The Knight of the Woful Countenance'—the K. of the W. C. looked exactly as you look now! If you're thinking of strychnine, say so—no one shall oppose you. My only regret is, that I shall have to wear black, and hideous is a mild word to describe Edith Darrell in black."

"Hideous!" Charley repeated, "you! I wonder if you could possibly look ugly in anything? I wonder if you know how pretty you are to-night in that charming hat and that scarlet drapery?"

"Certainly I know, and charming I undoubtedly must look to wring a word of praise from you. It's the first time in all your life, sir, you ever paid me a compliment. Hitherto you have done nothing but find fault with my looks and everything else."

"There is a time for everything," he answers, a little sadly—sadly! and Charley Stuart! "The time for all that is past. Here is our boat. You will steer, Edith? Yes—then I'll row."

The baronet and Trix were already several yards off, out upon the shining water. Another party—a large boat containing half-a-dozen, Captain Hammond among them, was farther off still. In this boat sat a girl with a guitar; her sweet voice as she sang came romantically over the lake, and the mountain echoes, taking it up, sang the refrain enchantingly over and over again. Edith lifted up her face to the starry sky, the moonlight bathing it in a glory.

"Oh, what a night!" she sighed. "What a bright, beautiful world it is, and how perfectly happy one could be, if—"

"One had thirty thousand a year!" Charley suggested.

"Yes, exactly. Why can't life be all like this—moonlight, capital dinners, lots of friends and new dresses, a nice boat, and—yes—I will say it—somebody one likes very much for one's companion."

"Somebody one likes very much, Edith? I wonder sometimes if you like me at all—if it is in you to like any one but yourself."

"Thanks! I like myself, certainly, and first best I will admit. After that—"

"After that?" he repeats.

"I like you. No—keep quiet, Charley, please, you'll upset the boat. Of course I like you—aren't you my cousin—haven't you been awfully kind—don't I owe all this to you? Charley, I bless that night in the snow—it has been the luckiest in my life."

"And the unluckiest of mine."

"Sir!"

"O Edith, let us speak for once—let us understand one another, and then part forever, if we must. Only why need we part at all?"

She turns pale—she averts her face from him, and looks out over the radiant water. Sooner or later she has known this must come—it has come to-night.

"Why need we part at all?" He is leaning on his oars, and they are floating rightly with the stream. "I don't need to tell you how I love you; you know it well enough; and I think—I hope—you care for me. Be true to yourself, Edith—you belong to me—come to me; be my wife."

There is passion in his tone, in his eyes, but his voice is quiet, and he sits with the oars in his hands. Even in this supreme moment of his life Mr. Stuart is true to his "principles," and will make no scene.

"You know I love you," he repeats, "as the man in the Cork theatre said the other night: 'I'll go down on my knees if you like, but I can love you just as well standing up.' Edith, speak to me. How can you ever marry any one but me—but me, whose life you saved. My darling, forget your cynicism—it is but lip-deep—you don't really mean it—and say you will be my wife."

"Your wife!" She laughs, but her heart thrills as she says it. "Your wife! It would be pleasant, Charley; but, like most of the pleasant things of life, it can never be."

"Edith!"

"Charley, all this is nonsense, and you know it. We are cousins—we are good friends and stanch comrades, and always will be, I hope; but lovers—no, no, no!"

"And why?" he asks.

"Have I not told you already—told you over and over again? If you don't despise me, and think me heartless and base, the fault has not been my want of candor. My cynicisms I mean, every word. If you had your father's wealth, the fortune he means to leave you, I would marry you to-morrow, and be," her lips trembled a little, "the happiest girl on earth."

"You don't care for me at all, then?" he calmly asks.

"Care for you! O Charley! can't you see? I am not all selfish. I care for you so much that I would sooner die than marry you. For you a marriage with me means ruin—nothing else."

"My father is fond of me. I am his only son. He would relent."

"He never would," she answered firmly, "and you know it. Charley, the day he spoke to you in Cork, I was behind the window-curtains reading. I heard every word. My first impulse was to come out and confront him—to throw back his favors and patronage, and demand to be sent home. A horrid bad temper is numbered among the list of my failings. But I did not. I heard your calm reply—the 'soft answer that turneth away wrath,' and it fell like oil on my troubled spirit.

"'Don't lose your temper,' you said; 'Fred Darrell's daughter and I won't marry, if that's what you mean.'

"I admire your prudence and truth. I took the lesson home, and—stayed behind the curtains. And we will keep to that—you and Fred Darrell's daughter will never marry."

"But, Edith, you know what I meant. Good Heavens! you don't for a second suppose—"

"I don't for a second suppose anything but what is good and generous of you, Charley. I know you would face your father like a—like a 'griffin rampant,' to quote Trix, and brave all consequences, if I would let you. But I won't let you. You can't afford to defy your father. I can't afford to marry a poor man."

"I am young—I am strong—I can work. I have my hands and my head, a tolerable education, and many friends. We would not starve."

"We would not starve—perhaps," Edith says, and laughs again, rather drearily. "We would only grub along, wanting everything that makes life endurable, and be miserable beyond all telling before the first year ended. We don't want to hate each other—we don't want to marry. You couldn't work, Charley—you were never born for drudgery. And I—I can't forget the training of my life even for you."

"You can't, indeed—you do your training credit," he answered bitterly.

"And so," she goes on, her face drooping, "don't be angry; you'll thank me for this some day. Let it be all over and done with to-night, and never be spoken of more. Oh, Charley, my brother, don't you see we could not be happy together—don't you see it is better we should part?"

"It shall be exactly as you wish. I am but a poor special pleader, and your worldly wisdom is so clear, the dullest intellect might comprehend it. You, throw me over without a pang, and you mean to marry the baronet. Only—as you are not yet his exclusive property, bought with a price—answer me this: You love me?"

Her head drooped lower, her eyes were full of passionate tears, her heart full of passionate pain. Throw him over without a pang! In her heart of hearts Edith Darrell knew what it cost her to be heartless to-night.

"Answer me!" he said imperiously, his eyes kindling. "Answer me! That much, at least, I claim as my right. Do you love me or do you not?"

And the answer comes very humbly and low.

"Charley! what need to ask? You know only too well—I do."

And then silence falls. He takes up the oars again—their soft dip, and the singing of the girl in the distant boat, the only sounds. White moonlight and black shadows, islands overrun with arbutus, that "myrtle of Killarney," and frowning mountains on every hand. The words of the girl's gay song come over the water:

"The time I've lost in wooing, In watching and pursuing, The light that lies In woman's eyes Has been my heart's undoing.

"Though wisdom oft has sought me, I scorned the lore she brought me; My only books Were woman's looks, And folly's all they've taught me."

"And folly's all they've taught me!" Charley says at length. "Come what may, it is better that I should have spoken and you should have answered. Come what may—though you marry Sir Victor to-morrow—I would not have the past changed if I could."

"And you will not blame me too much—you will not quite despise me?" she pleads, her voice broken, her face hidden in her hands. "I can't help it, Charley. I would rather die than be poor."