"And one that you do not approve of, I fear."

"It has its lights and shadows."

Lottie now turned to speak to Miss Martell, and evil-eyed Brently, her partner, had also been standing near, waiting till Harcourt should cease to occupy her attention so closely.

The young lady was polite, but not cordial, to Lottie; she did not vouchsafe a glance to Brently. But he was not easily abashed.

"Miss Martell," he said suavely, "will you honor me for the next waltz?"

"You must excuse me, sir," she said coldly.

"Well, then, some time during the evening, at your own pleasure," he urged.

"You must excuse me, sir," she repeated still more frigidly, scarcely glancing at him.

"What do you mean?" he asked insolently, at the same time flushing deeply.

She gave him a cold, quiet look of surprise, and, turning her back upon him, resumed conversation with Harcourt. Lottie was a little indignant and perplexed at this scene; but noted, with a feeling of disgust, that her partner's face, in his anger, had the look of a demon.

But her own reception had been too cool to be agreeable, and this, with the supposed slight to Hemstead, caused Miss Martell to seem to her, for the time, the embodiment of capricious pride.

Harcourt said, "Brently does not seem to be in your good graces, Miss Martell; and that is strange, for he is the lion of the evening."

"I can well imagine that he belongs to the cat species," she replied. "I have no personal grievance against Mr. Brently, but I do not consider him a gentleman. My father knows that he is not one, and that is enough for me."

Harcourt flushed with both pleasure and shame; and as the next form just then required that he should take his companion's hand, he did so with a cordial pressure, as he said, "Men would be better—I should be better—if all young ladies showed your spirit, Miss Martell."

At the next pause in the dance she said, in a low tone, "Come, let us have no 'ifs.' Be better anyway."

She detected the dejection which he tried to mask with a light laugh, as he replied, "I often wish I were, but the world, the flesh, and the devil are too much for me."'

"Yes, and always will be for you. Who can fight such enemies alone? Besides, you are reading and thinking in the wrong direction. You are going out into the desert."

"Well, it's kind of you to care," he said, with a look that deepened the faint color of her cheeks.

"I am not inhuman," she replied quietly. "Is it a little thing that a mind should go astray?"

He looked at her earnestly, but made no reply.

Soon after, Lottie saw with surprise, during one of the intervals between the forms, that Miss Martell turned and spoke freely and cordially to Hemstead. Her surprise became something akin to annoyance, as, at the close, she took his arm and began to walk up and down the wide hall, evidently becoming deeply interested in his conversation. She soon shook off moody Brently, who could think of nothing but the slight he had received, and, taking De Forrest's arm, also commenced promenading in the hall. She noted, with satisfaction, that Hemstead was not so occupied with his new and fascinating acquaintance as to be oblivious of her presence.

Soon after Mr. Martell joined his daughter, and was introduced to Hemstead; and they went out to supper together.

Lottie managed that she and De Forrest should find seats near them in a roomy angle, where, being out of the crush, Mr. Martell and his little party could season Mrs. Byram's sumptuous viands with Attic salt. And the flavor of their wit and thought was so attractive that they soon had a group of the most intelligent and cultivated of the company around them, and Lottie saw that Hemstead, who had been neglected by his own party, was becoming appreciated by the best people present. Miss Martell, with the tact of a perfect lady, had the power of putting him at his ease and drawing him out. Hemstead's mind was no stagnant, muddy pool, but a living fountain, and his thought sparkled as it flowed readily on the congenial topics that Mr. and Miss Martell introduced. The freshness and originality of his views seemed to interest them and others greatly; but what pleased him most was that Lottie, who sat near, was neglecting her supper and De Forrest's compliments in her attention to the conversation. Her face showed a quick, discriminating mind, and as the discussion grew a little warm on a topic of general interest, he saw from her eager and intelligent face that she had an opinion, and he had the tact to ask her for it just at the right moment. Though a little embarrassed at his unexpected question, she expressed her thought so briefly and brightly that the others were pleased, and she was at once taken into the circle of their talk, which of course became more animated and spicy with her piquant words and manner added. It was evident that she was enjoying this employment of her brain more than she had that of her feet. The lower pleasure paled before the higher; and she was grateful to Hemstead for having drawn her within the charmed circle.

De Forrest did not grieve over Lottie's absorption, as it gave him more time for the supper-table and champagne; and to the latter he and a good many others were so devoted that they were hardly their poor selves the rest of the evening. In Brently's case it was most marked after the ladies had retired. He began to talk quite loudly and boisterously of his slight, and at one time was about to seek Miss Martell, and demand an explanation, but was prevailed upon by his friends to be quiet.



CHAPTER XVI.

HOW WOMAN MAKES OR MARS.



In the changes that occurred after leaving the supper-room, Miss Martell took Harcourt's arm and said in a low tone, "I was glad to see that you did not take any wine."

"And I am glad you cared to see. But how could I, after your gentle hint? I know my weakness. If I had indulged in one glass I might have taken too many, as I am sorry has been the case in more instances than one to-night."

"You admit, then, that it is a weakness?" she said gently fixing her eyes, that were no longer cold and expressionless, upon him.

"In truth, I must admit that I have many weaknesses, Miss Martell."

"You certainly possess one element of strength, in that you recognize them. Knowledge of danger is often the best means of safety. But how is it that you are so ready to acknowledge weakness of any kind? I thought that men scoffed at the idea that they could be weak or in danger from any temptation."

"If they do, they either do not know themselves, or they are not honest. I do know myself, to my sorrow, and it would seem like sacrilege to me not to be truthful and sincere with you. And yet it is when I am with you that I most despise myself."

"How, then, can you endure my presence?" she asked, with a shy, half-mischievous glance.

He flushed slightly, and tried to disguise a deeper meaning with a slight laugh, as he said, "If I were shut out of Eden, I should often be tempted to look over the hedge."

She did not reply at once, nor lift her eyes to his, but the color deepened upon her cheeks; and if he had seen the expression of her averted face, his might have appeared more hopeful.

After a moment she turned and said, with a smile, "I think the fact that you would like to look over the hedge a very promising sign. It proves that you regret our lost Eden purity, and would like to possess it again. If you will only let your wishes develop into right action, instead of looking wistfully over the hedge, you may be welcomed within the gate of the better Paradise."

He looked at her searchingly, but she again turned away her face, and would not meet his eye. After a moment, he said, "I do not think you used the pronoun 'our,' correctly. There is nothing akin between my moral state and yours."

"Yes, there is," she replied earnestly. "If you struggle as hard to do right as I do, you are trying very hard indeed."

With a quick glance of surprise he said, "It has ever seemed to me that you were developing as naturally and inevitably as a moss-rose."

"Nonsense!" she answered, a little abruptly. "I am as human as you are. I have doubtless had advantages over you in being more sheltered and less tempted. But in a world like ours, and with natures like ours, every one must struggle hard who would live a good life. Even then we need Divine help."

They had now passed into a large conservatory, where they supposed they were alone. He took her hand and said, with a manly sincerity that made his face almost as noble as hers was beautiful: "Miss Martell, you are holier than I am. You are as much above me as heaven is above the earth. And yet, because you have not said to me, 'Stand aside, for I am holier than thou'; because you have made a claim, which I can scarcely understand, of kindred weakness,—of like need of effort to do right,—you have given me a little hope that possibly at some distant day I may find a way out of my doubts and weaknesses. I should like to be a true and believing man."

"Please do not think that I have it in my heart to say 'Stand aside' to any one. Such a spirit is most unchristian, and in me would be most unwarranted. Do not think I meant that when I repulsed Mr. Brently. He has forfeited every right to the title of gentleman. I believe he is utterly bad, and he shows no wish to be otherwise; and I was disgusted by the flattering attentions he received from those with whom he had no right to associate at all. When will society get beyond its vulgar worship of wealth! But, Mr. Harcourt, please don't talk about a 'possible way out of your doubts and weaknesses at some distant day.' You paid me the highest compliment in your power, when you refrained from wine at supper to-night. I am going to ask a personal favor. Won't you let it alone altogether? Mr. Harcourt," she added, her eyes filling with tears, "I cannot bear to think of a nature like yours becoming a slave to such an appetite, and it does seem to master those who are naturally the noblest."

He turned away to hide his own feeling, while she, with clasped hands, stood looking at him, as his good angel might. When he turned to her, he spoke calmly, and almost humbly: "I will not protest too much, Miss Martell. I will make no loud and absolute promises, but it seems to me, while I stand here in your presence, I could not do a mean or ignoble thing again. But in that degree that I revere you, I distrust myself. But I pledge you my honor, that I will try to do what you ask, and more."

"You give me just the kind of promise I like best," she said, giving him her hand with a happy smile. "But I can not tell you how much I wish you could seek God's help, as simply, as believingly, as I do."

"Ah, there is the trouble," he replied, in deep dejection. "My mind is tossed upon a sea of doubt and uncertainty." Then, as from a sudden impulse, he said, "But I could worship you. You are the most beautiful woman here tonight, but instead of making your beauty the slave of contemptible vanity, and employing it, like Miss Marsden and others, merely to win flattery and attention, you turn from all, and forget yourself and your own pleasure, that you may keep a man that is hardly worth saving from going to the devil. If I go, after your kindness to-night, it will be because I ought."

Here her father called her from the door. The character of the entertainment was becoming such that he was anxious to get away. As they left the conservatory, she said in a low, hasty tone, "I am not so unselfish as you think; for it would make me very unhappy if you did not become what you are capable of being."

"Since you care personally what becomes of me, you have given me a double incentive," he answered eagerly, as they passed out.

As they disappeared, Lottie Marsden stepped out from behind a large lemon-tree, with an expression upon her face quite as acid as the unripe fruit that had helped to conceal her. How she came to witness the scene described requires some explanation. As they left the supper-room, she shook De Forrest off for a time, and when Miss Martell parted from Hemstead, she joined him. After the attention he had received, she was not in as patronizing a mood as before.

"Are you willing to take a short promenade with such a guy as I am, Mr. Hemstead?" she asked.

"Yes, if you are willing to link yourself with so much awkwardness."

"I wish I had your grace of mind, Mr. Hemstead."

"You have no occasion to find fault with nature's gifts to you."

"I fear you think I should find much fault with myself, if not with nature. But I can hardly find fault with you after your kindly tact in the supper-room. I wanted to join your breezy, sprightly chat, and you gave me a chance so nicely."

"Because I wished you to join it. It was not a deed of charity, and you well repaid me. Indeed, I saw so much thought in your face, that I wanted more of the same kind."

"I think you see more than we give you credit for," she Said, looking doubtfully at him.

"'We'? who are 'we'? Yes, I am seeing a good deal here to-night. As you went to see the 'other set' a few evenings ago, I also am seeing some new phases of character."

"And some new phases in one that you had a pretty good opinion of that night. I imagine you no longer consider me 'capable of the noblest things.'"

"I have not changed my mind on that point at all, but—" and here he hesitated.

"But you are discovering that I am also capable of just the reverse."

He flushed, but said gravely, "You put my thought too strongly, Miss Marsden. It would be nearer the truth, if you care for ray opinion at all, to say that I do not understand you."

She also flushed, but said a little coldly, "I am not surprised; I scarcely understand myself."

"I find you full of puzzling contradictions," he added.

"Since I cannot contradict you, I will seek some fallible creatures like myself"; and she vanished, leaving him as uncomfortable and puzzled as ever he had been in his life.

She had scarcely entered the parlor before both De Forrest and Brently sought her hand for a waltz. The latter had disgusted her before, and now he was too tipsy for even the willing blindness of girls like Addie Marchmont, so she escaped with De Forrest, but soon found that his step was out of tune with the music, or her own mind so preoccupied that their feet made discord with the notes. Therefore she led her subservient attendant into the conservatory, and got rid of him for a time by the following ruse.

"I dropped something in the supper-room. Please find it, and look till you do."

De Forrest's ideas were too confused for him to ask what she had lost; and once in the supper-room again, the champagne was so inviting that he, with Brently and others, finished another bottle.

With thoughts dwelling on Hemstead's words, she strolled to the farther end of the walk, and around into another aisle, wishing to be alone for a few moments. It was then that Harcourt and Miss Martell entered, and before she was aware she heard the uncomplimentary reference to herself, and understood the significance of the unexpected scene.

"That is what Mr. Hemstead thinks me capable of," she thought, with tingling cheeks,—"making my 'beauty the slave of contemptible vanity,' and employing it merely to win flattery and attention for myself. You put it very plainly, Mr. Harcourt. I know what is your opinion of me certainly. I wish I cared as little what Mr. Hemstead thinks; and why I should care any more I'm sure I don't know. Yes, I do, too. He's a true, good man, and is the first one that ever treated me as if I were a true, good woman. But now I have made it clear to him, as well as to Harcourt and Miss Martell, what I really am. I knew what Brently was as well as the rest, and yet I smiled upon him because the others did. By this time both of my most ardent admirers are tipsy. What is their admiration worth?"

As she entered the parlors she saw at a glance what would be the character of the remaining hours. The sensuous spirit of wine would inspire the gayety and intensify the natural excitement of the occasion. Heretofore she could join in a fashionable revel with the keenest zest, but she could not to-night. Unconsciously Miss Martell had given her a stinging rebuke. She had been shown how a beautiful woman might employ the power of her fascinations to lure men into purer and nobler life, as Hemstead had suggested the morning after his arrival. As she remembered that she had used her beauty only to lure men to her feet, that she might enjoy a momentary triumph, soon to be forgotten in other conquests, she was already more than dissatisfied with herself,—an unusual experience with Lottie Marsden.

She refused half a dozen invitations to dancs, and was about ascending to the dressing-room, when Harcourt met her in the hall and said, "I think I had better send De Forrest home. Hemstead will go with him."

"What is the matter with Julian?"

"Well, they say he mistook a decanter of brandy for wine. At any rate he is under the table, 'looking for something of yours,' he says; though what he does not say or does not know. What's more, we can't get him up, for he says you told him not to leave the dining-room till he found it. I fear we shall have to use force, unless you can manage him."

Then with a. burning flush of shame she remembered how, in her wish to be alone, she had sent him into temptation, instead of trying to shield and protect, as had Miss Martell in the case of Harcourt, whose abstemiousness had excited the surprise of more than one. But without a word she went directly to the supper-room; and there witnessed a scene that she never forgot.

The elegant De Forrest was crawling about the floor, uttering her name continually in connection with the most maudlin sentiment, and averring with many oaths that he would never rise till he had found what she had lost.

Brently, almost equally drunk, sat near, convulsed with laughter, saying with silly iteration, "He's looking for Miss Marsden's heart."

Mrs. Byram and her son stood helplessly by, their manner showing that their wish to be polite was almost mastered by their disgust. Hemstead, who was trying to get De Forrest up, had just given a stern rebuke to one of the giggling waiters as Lottie entered.

It did not take her over a moment to comprehend all. While her face was crimson, she acted decidedly and with a. certain dignity. Going directly to De Forrest she said, "Julian, I have found what I lost. Get up and come with me."

His habitual deference to her wishes and words served him now. Her tone and manner were quiet but very firm and positive, and he at once sought to obey. Hemstead and Harcourt helped him to his feet.

"I am going home, Julian, and wish you to go with me," she continued in the same tone.

"Certainly (hic) my dear (hic) I'll do anything (hic) in the world (hic) or anywhere else for you."

A look of intense disgust flitted across her face, but she turned, and said emphatically to the others: "I am more to blame for this than he. I sent him here some time since, when I knew, or ought to have known, that he should have been kept away from temptation. May I trespass so far upon your kindness as to ask all present to remain silent in regard to this scene."

"I know little of etiquette," said Hemstead, "but surely any one would fail utterly in true courtesy, did they not accede to that request."

"Thank you, Mr. Hemstead," said Lottie, with a look he did not soon forget. "Will you order the sleigh to the door? Mr. Harcourt, will you get Mr. De Forrest's hat and coat?"

The door leading into the parlor had been closed and locked as soon as the trouble commenced, and thus the guests were ignorant of the disgraceful scene.

"Julian, I wish you to sit quietly here till I return," said Lottie, in the most decided manner.

He had sense enough left to know that something was wrong, and that his safest course was to yield to her. So, muttering, maudlin, and dishevelled, he sat almost helplessly in the chair where he was placed, with not a trace of his former elegance left.

Lottie looked at him a second, with a strange expression, then, taking Mrs. Byram aside, asked,

"Will you be so kind as to have the doors of the parlors leading into the hall closed, as if accidentally, when we pass out?" Adding, "I think if Mr. Byram can get Mr. Brently to his room now, it would also be well."

Mrs. Byram commenced many professions of regret, but Lottie merely said, "I cannot think about it now. I can only act," and she hastened away to prepare for the drive home.

A moment later De Forrest was steadied through the hall and helped into the sleigh.

"Shall I sit by him?" asked Harcourt.

"No," said Lottie, in the same decided voice. "I will take care of him. I was the cause of his trouble, and will not leave him till he is safely home. You will greatly oblige me if you will remain with Addie and Bel, and disarm their suspicion and that of others. Mr. Hemstead will accompany me, and we will send the sleigh back immediately."

"Miss Marsden," said Harcourt, "you are a noble hearted girl. I will do whatever you wish."

"Thank you for what you have done. That is all."

"The horses are restless; I will sit with the coachman," said Hemstead, surmising that Lottie would desire all the seclusion possible under the circumstances. He was not mistaken, for as Harcourt retired she said in a low tone, "You are right. I should be glad to escape now even from your eyes, that are friendly, I trust."

"Yes," he replied, with an emphasis that did her good,—"most friendly"; and they drove away through the cold white moonlight and colder and whiter snow; and to Lottie, with her burdened conscience and heavy heart, the calm night seemed more than ever like a face regarding her with cold and silent scorn.



CHAPTER XVII.

MIDNIGHT VIGILS.



There were indeed four strangely assorted characters in that sleigh as they were carried beyond the sounds of music and gayety, which, to Hemstead and Lottie Marsden at least, were little less than mockery. There was the stolid coachman, who, whatever were his thoughts, had been trained to appear oblivious of everything save his duty, and to be but an animate part of the "establishment." He was much like the horses he drove, living his narrow, material life in the passing hour, knowing little and caring less about the past or the future.

Hemstead, in contrast, had a mind as ethereal as faith could make it, and a fancy enriched by wide reading. Heretofore he had lived chiefly in the past and future, his studies making him at home in the one, and his hopes leading him forward into the other. But now a silent form near him had a strange power to concentrate his thoughts on the present. The man who had speculated and reasoned about sinners in the abstract, and who had classified and divided them up into well-defined shades and degrees, was now sorely puzzled over two of them, who, in a certain sense, were under his charge. What was also odd, his deepest sympathy and desire to help did not appear drawn toward the greater sinner. Indeed, for the tipsy youth he had hardly a sentiment other than contempt. Broad, impartial rules of action and feeling seemed perfectly correct in the seminary. He forgot that he was not carrying them out. It did not occur to him that he was like a physician who stepped by the sickest patient to a better and more promising one. In justice it must be said that he would have put himself to any personal inconvenience, and have made any effort in his power, were the question brought to an issue, in order to work a transformation in De Forrest's character. But for some reason it was so perfectly natural to take an absorbing interest in Lottie's moral state that he never asked himself why he had not a similar solicitude for Addie or Bel Parton.

Rigid and impartial rules are very well till fallible men come to apply them to their most fallible fellow-creatures.

Only God can mercifully apply a perfect law to imperfect humanity, and if He had a "beloved disciple," might not Hemstead have a favorite sinner?

And an oddly related couple were those two young people whom all supposed destined for a union, that in the judgment of friends would be most fitting, but that in truth would be unnatural and productive of wretchedness. Though Hemstead's mind dwelt unwaveringly upon them, he never once looked back during the drive. He would have seen a strange sight if he had,—a beautiful woman, with a face looking almost spirit-like in the pale moonlight, with her arm, for the first time, around a man whom she was beginning in the depths of her soul almost to loathe. No embrace of affection was that, but a mechanical act prompted by a stern and remorseful sense of duty. She shrank from the man whose swaying form she steadied. It was settled that night in her own soul, as if by a decree of fate, that she would never marry Julian De Forrest. And yet it was one of the good traits in her character, that, while she drew back in shuddering aversion from any dose personal relation to him, she at the same time bad generous, regretful pity, and, if she could be kind to him at a distance, would be a very faithful friend.

But why did her eyes tarn so often and so wistfully up to the tall great-coated form before her? She did not know. She did not even ask herself.

Are we ever guided by reason, will, deliberate choice? Are there not often strong half-recognized instincts that sway us more profoundly, even as the plant unconsciously turns its leaves and blossoms towards the sun, and sends its roots groping unerringly to the moisture?

So absorbed was she in looking at the square, burly form before her, that the sleigh suddenly stopped at Mrs. Marchmont's door, and Hemstead looked around and caught her eye. What was more, he saw her apparently loving embrace of De Forrest. He was not versed in the conditions of intoxication, nor did he realize that De Forrest was so far gone as to make the act necessary. But he could see her blush, even in the moonlight.

Without a word he assisted her oat, but had some difficulty with De Forrest, who, from the fumes of liquor and the cold air, had grown very drowsy. But Hemstead's grasp was so strong and masterful, that while he roused, he also steadied and supported him up the steps. Lottie said to the coachman, "Mr. De Forrest is not well, so we came home earlier. You may now return for the others."

The man heard her with a stolid face that might have been mahogany, but when by himself it relaxed into a grim smile as he chuckled, "I've seen people have such spells afore; but if you was my darter, miss, I'd make you give that chap the mitten, 'cause sich bad spells is wonderful apt to grow on a feller."

Mrs. Marchmont and Mr. Dimmerly had retired, and the rather dull servant who admitted them was too sleepy to note anything. Lottie promptly dismissed her, and told her she would wait for the others.

Hemstead saw De Forrest to his room. He had become so stupid that he did mechanically what was urged, and the student soon left him sleeping heavily.

But Hemstead's heart was strangely burdened. He had come to the conclusion that under all Lottie's coquetry and cousinly freedom with De Forrest she had hidden a real attachment, and that perhaps an engagement, or at least an understanding, existed between them. He did not think at the time why this relation should so depress him. He would probably have explained it by his natural regret that such a girl should be mismated to such a man. But it might well have been doubted whether his heart would have become suddenly like lead, had he discovered that his own cousin was engaged, even to Brently, however sincere might have been his regret. But he descended to the parlor with the unselfish purpose and wish to bring her mind again under the spell of truth, if possible, hoping that the events of the evening would suggest the need of a better philosophy than she had learned in the past.

But he would have no little difficulty in maintaining his disinterestedness and general missionary spirit in the interview that awaited him.

For a young man but a few years past his majority, with an impressible nature and a warm heart, to watch through the witching hour of midnight with a maiden like Lottie Marsden, and all the time have no other thought than her moral improvement, is perhaps asking too much of human nature. With the very best intentions and with the absolute conviction, as he supposed, that the young lady could only be a subject for his missionary zeal, unconsciously the beautiful picture she made with the firelight flickering upon her face, and the snowy opera-cloak thrown around her, stole into his heart that was large and empty, waiting for an occupant.

"I have drawn a chair close up to the fire," she said, "for you must be cold after riding on that high seat with the coachman."

"I am not cold, but I thank you all the same."

"You have been kinder to me than I deserved, Mr. Hemstead."

Truly Lottie's gratitude would be a dangerous thing to any man, as she expressed it then; and the disinterested student was conscious of a strange thrill at heart. But he said, with a flush of pleasure: "I do not know that I have. At any rate friends should not keep a debit and credit account with each other."

"And can you still feel friendly to me after this evening?"

"Do I look savagely hostile?" he asked smilingly.

"I feared you would despise me. I certainly despise myself."

"From the fact that you so evidently blame yourself I am less disposed to blame."

"But you rightly think me most worthy of blame."

"Do you honestly care what I think, Miss Marsden? My opinions have been formed in what must seem a plain and homely world to you, quite devoid of the elegance and fashion to which you have been accustomed."

"I begin to think it is a better world than mine, and to-night I am sick of elegance and fashion. Yes, I honestly do care now what you do think. I have been flattered and lied to all my life, and you are the first man who ever told me the unvarnished truth."

He rose and paced thoughtfully up and down the room; then looked dubiously at her. She was so exquisitely beautiful, and seemed in such a kindly mood, that he was greatly tempted to temporize and say smooth things, lest he should offend and drive her away. But conscience whispered, "Now is your opportunity to speak the 'unvarnished truth,' whatever be the consequences"; and conscience with Hemstead was an imperative martinet. She waited in curious and quiet expectancy. This sincere and unconventional man was delightfully odd and interesting to her. She saw the power and fascination of her beauty upon him, and at the same time perceived that in his crystal integrity he would give her his honest thought. She interpreted his hesitancy, and said, "You fear that I shall be offended?"

"Yes."

"I promise you to listen patiently—yes, gratefully—to the severest things you can say."

"I may test your promise severely. I am a plain and awkward man. Will you permit a plain and homely illustration of my thought?"

"I'm in a mood for plain words to-night. They will be in keeping with the former events of the evening, which were plain enough."

"Well, then, were it possible that I could be the fortunate possessor of a statue by Phidias, I would not use it as a hat-stand. If I possessed a painting by Rubens, I would not turn it into a fire-screen."

He hesitated, as he saw the hot blood mount to her face; but she said quietly, "Go on. I think I understand you."

He continued in a tone that was as gentle as his words seemed harsh. "Believe me, I am speaking in kindness, and only because you are brave enough to give me leave. As Phidias might embody beauty itself in marble, so God has bestowed it on you. When I was looking upon that marvellous scene—that transfigured world—the morning after my arrival, you appeared and seemed a part of it. Do you remember what I said then? I have reluctantly thought to-night that you could wear your coronet of beauty, not Only as a benignant queen, but as a petty tyrant,—that you could put it to ignoble uses, and make it a slave to self. It seemed at times that you only sought to lead men to bow in admiration to you, instead of inspiring them to stand erect in true manhood, with their faces heavenward. A woman endowed as you are can always do with a man one of two things: either fascinate him with her own personality, so that his thought is only of her; or else through her beauty and words and manner, that are in keeping, suggest the diviner loveliness of a noble life and character. I am satisfied that one could not be in Miss Martell's society without being better, or wishing to be better. You might have the same influence, and to a greater degree, because you naturally have more force and quicker sympathies. There is more magnetism in your nature, and you could understand and help, if you chose, a wider range of character than she. I doubt very much whether Miss Martell could make herself much at home among the plain country folk that you quite carried by storm the other evening. God has given you the power and beauty. Will you let me ask, in the spirit of kindness, not criticism, Are you using these gifts for Him, or for yourself?"

Lottie's eyes were moist, but her brow was contracted into a thoughtful frown, as she sat lowering at the fire. After a few moments' silence, she said, in a tone of bitterness:

"As I feel and see things to-night, I should say, for neither God nor myself, but solely and expressly for the sake of the Evil One. What good, what happiness, do all the compliments, all the attention I ever received, secure to me to-night? I thought I was using all for my own benefit. That was my only purpose and aim, but every flattering thing that I can remember is only a burden to think of now. I am the worse for my beauty, as you regard it. I cannot think of any one that I have made better; but many that I have made worse. I seem to have been receiving all my life, and yet to-night I feel as if I had nothing but a burden upon my heart."

Hemstead's words were not reassuring. Indeed, Lottie thought them a trifle harsh, though spoken so kindly.

"You cannot feel otherwise, Miss Marsden. You have been seeking to keep and use for yourself what God meant you should use for Him. You feel very much as you would, did you take a large sum of money, left in your hands as a sacred trust, and go on a pleasure trip with it. He has intrusted to you the richest and rarest gifts, and every day that you have misappropriated them is a burden upon your conscience. You will feel the same after a long life of adulation, in which every whim has been gratified. Believe me, Miss Marsden, it is a very sad thing to come to the end of one's life with no other possession than a burdened conscience and a heavy, guilty heart. I long to save you from such a fate. That would be a wretchedly poor result of a lifetime for one endowed as you are."

"Your words are very severe, Mr. Hemstead," she said in a low tone, burying her face in her hands.

"Faithful are the wounds of a friend," he replied.

"I never thought I could permit any one to speak to me as you have done, nor would I endure it from you, did I not recognize something like sympathy in the voice with which you speak such cutting words. But I fear they are true, after all. A burdened conscience and a guilty heart seem all there is of me to-night."

He was about to reverse the picture, and portray in strong and hopeful terms what she might be, and what she could accomplish, when the sleigh-bells announced the return of the rest of the party. She sprang up and said hastily: "I do not wish to meet them to-night, and so will retire at once. As physician of the 'mind diseased' you dearly believe in what is termed the 'heroic treatment.' Your scalpel is sharp, and you cut deeply. But as proof that I have kept my word, and am not offended, I give you my hand."

He took it in both of his, but did not speak. She looked up at him through the tears that still lingered, and was touched to see that his eyes were as moist as hers. Giving his hand a cordial pressure, she said as she left him: "You cannot look at me in harsh criticism through tears of sympathy. Your face is kinder than your words. I am glad you do not despise me."

Hemstead admitted Harcourt and the young ladies into the shadowy hall, and then bade them good night. He, too, was in no mood for Addie's gossip or Bel's satire. They had also found Harcourt strangely silent and pre-occupied.

The evident influence of Miss Martell over Harcourt, and their intimate relations require some explanation. He was an orphan, and his father had been a friend of Mr. Martell. During the last illness of the elder Mr. Harcourt, he had asked his friend to take some interest in his son, and, when possible, to give him friendly counsel. To a man like Mr. Martell such a request was like a sacred obligation; and he had sought to do more than was asked. He wrote the young man almost fatherly letters, and often invited him to his house. Thus it came about that the influence of Mr. Martell and his daughter did more to restrain the wayward tendencies of young Harcourt than all other things combined; and it must be confessed that the little blue-eyed girl had more influence than the wise old father. She seemed to take almost a sisterly interest in him, and occasionally wrote such a sweet little letter that he would reform his college life for a week thereafter. But he seemed to have a dash of wild blood that would break out only too often into indiscretions, the rumors of which filled his kind friend Mr. Martell with anxiety. But Alice, his daughter ever insisted that he would "come out all right."

"Tom has a good heart, father," she would say; and so, with woman's faith, she hoped where her father feared.

If Harcourt could have been continually under their influence he would undoubtedly have developed into a far better man. But, between absence at college and the law-school and some travel during vacations, he saw less and less of them. Alice also was kept very steadily at school, and during the last two years of her studies they had missed each other in vacations, and seldom met.

But something more than maidenly modesty and pride made Alice shy and reserved when with Harcourt. She would think more about him, but talk less to him than to others when in company. She was a peculiarly sensitive, diffident girl, and instinctively shrank from the man who had for her the strongest interest.

On the completion of her studies her father had taken her abroad, and they had spent two or three years in travel. The extraordinary graces of her person were but the reflex of her richly cultivated mind. Even abroad she had many admirers; but with tact, firmness, and inimitable grace, she ever sought to prevent false hopes, and so had fewer offers than an ordinary coquette. But many who soon learned that they could never establish a dearer relation became strong friends, and also better men; for Alice Martell seemed to have the power of evoking all the good there was in a man, and of putting him under a kind of sacred obligation to be true and manly, as the result of her acquaintance. However deep and lasting regret may have been, no man ever left her presence in harsh and bitter contempt for the—very name of woman, as too often had been the case with Lottie Marsden. Those who knew her least said she was cold, and those who knew her true, womanly heart best wondered at her continued indifference to every suit. And sometimes she wondered at herself,—how it was that all the attention she received scarcely ever quickened her pulse.

But when after long absence she returned and met the friend and playmate of her childhood—the wayward youth to whom she was accustomed to give sisterly counsel—her pulse was so strangely accelerated, and the blood so quick to mount to her face at his every word and look, that she began to understand herself somewhat.

They had but recently returned to their residence on the banks of the Hudson; and Harcourt was made a welcome visitor.

Having completed his professional studies, the young man had succeeded largely to the practice of his deceased father, and was doing well in a business point of view. He had inherited enough property to secure a good start in life, but not enough to rob him of the wholesome stimulus which comes from the need of self-exertion. He had an acute, active mind. Abundance of intellect and fire flashed from his dark eyes, and we have seen that he was not without good and generous traits. But in his spiritual life he had become materialistic and sceptical. His associates were brilliant, but fast men; and for him also the wine-cup was gaining dangerous fascination.

Mr. Martell, in the spirit of the most friendly interest, soon learned these facts after his return, and also the gossip, which brought a sudden paleness to his daughter's cheek, that he was engaged, or virtually engaged, to Addie Marchmont.

While Alice therefore was kind, she seemed to avoid him; and he found it almost impossible to be alone with her. She had always dwelt in his mind, more as a cherished ideal, a revered saint, than as an ordinary flesh-and-blood girl with whom he was fit to associate, and for a time after her return her manner increased this impression. He explained the recognized fact that she shunned his society by thinking that she knew his evil tendencies, and that to her believing and Christian spirit his faithless and irregular life was utterly uncongenial. For a short time he had tried to ignore her opinion and society in reckless indifference; but the loveliness of her person and character daily grew more fascinating, and his evil habits lost in power as she gained. For some little time before Mrs. Byram's company, he had been earnestly wishing that he could become worthy of at least her esteem and old friendly regard, not daring to hope for anything more. It never occurred to him that gossip had coupled his name with his cousin Addie, and that this fact influenced Miss Martell's manner as well as his tendencies toward dissipation. He laid it all to the latter cause, and was beginning to feel that he could live the life of an ascetic, if this lovely saint would only permit his devotion.

And Alice, so sensitive where he was concerned, thought she saw a change in him for the better, and in the spirit of womanly self-sacrifice was resolving to see more of him than was prudent for her peace of mind, if by so doing she could regain her old power to advise and restrain.

With gladness she recognized her influence over him at Mrs. Byram's company, and, as we have seen, made the most of it. But, with surprise and some strange thrills at heart, she noted that he and Addie Marchmont did not act as an engaged couple naturally would; and observed, with disgust, that Miss Marchmont seemed more pleased with Brently's attentions than Lottie Marsden had been.

That a man of Harcourt's force and mind should be captivated by such a girl as Miss Marchmont, had been a mystery; and she thought, when seeing them together in Mrs. Byram's parlors, "They take it more coolly than any people I ever saw."

Addle appeared engrossed with the attentions of others, and Harcourt not in the least jealous or annoyed. In brief, they acted like cousins, and not in the least like lovers.

But in the sensitive delicacy of her character she would not permit her mind to dwell on the problem of their relations, and bent all her thoughts upon her effort to win Harcourt to a better life.

And she had moved him that evening more deeply than she could know. Neither she, nor any finite power, could plant righteous principle within his soul and transform his character; but she had created, for the time at least, an utter distaste for all low and sensual pleasures, and an honest and absorbing wish to become a true, good man. He felt that he could not, in her society, and breathing the pure atmosphere of her life, be his old self.

Never did a man return from a fashionable revel in a more serious and thoughtful mood, and equally with Lottie and Hemstead he was glad to escape, from the trifling chat and gossip of Addie and Bel Parton, to the solitude of his own loom.



CHAPTER XVIII.

HEMSTEAD'S HEAVY GUN AND ITS RECOIL.



The "day after the ball" has its proverbial character, and Saturday was so long and dismal to several of the revellers that it occurred to them that their pleasure had been purchased rather dearly. It seemed an odd coincidence, that those who had been bent on securing all the pleasure possible, with no other thought, suffered the most. Bel and Addie could scarcely endure their own company, they were so weary and stupid; and they yawned through the day, irritable and dishevelled, for it was too stormy for callers.

De Forrest did not appear until dinner, and then came down moody and taciturn. The young ladies had heard of his illness the evening before, with significant glances. Mrs. Marchmont partly surmised the truth, but politely ignored the matter, treating it only as a sudden indisposition; and so the affair was passed over, as such matters usually are in fashionable life until they reach a stage too pronounced for polite blindness.

De Forrest but dimly recollected the events of the preceding evening. He was quite certain, however, that he had been drunk, and had made a fool of himself.

Though his conscience was not over tender upon this subject, and though such occurrences were not so exceedingly rare in fashionable life as to be very shocking, he still had the training and instinct of a gentleman, to a sufficient degree to feel deep mortification.

If he had become tipsy among those of his own sex, or while off on a fishing excursion, he would have regarded it as a light matter; but, even in his eyes, intoxication at an evening company, and before the girl in whose estimation he most wished to stand well, was a very serious matter. He could not remember much after going a second time to the supper-room in compliance with Lottie's request, but had a vague impression that she and Hemstead had brought him home. He was left in torturing uncertainty how far he had disgraced himself, because it was a subject concerning which he could not bring himself to make inquiries. That those he met at the dinner-table treated him with their usual quiet politeness proved nothing. Human faces mask more thoughts than are expressed. Hemstead's grave silence was somewhat significant; but De Forrest cared so little for his opinion that he scarcely heeded the student's manner.

Lottie Marsden was the one he most wished, and yet most dreaded to see. But Lottie did not appear.

Whether it was true, as she believed, or not, that she was the more guilty, she certainly was the greater sufferer, and that Saturday became the longest and dreariest period of pain that she had ever experienced. She awoke in the morning with a nervous headache, which grew so severe that she declined to leave her room during the day. Bel, Addie, and her aunt all offered to do anything in their power; but she only asked to be left alone. She was so unstrung that even words of kindness and solicitude jarred like discord.

It was torture to think, and yet her brain was unnaturally active. Everything presented itself in the most painfully bare and accurate manner. The glamour faded out of her gay young life, and she saw only the hard lines of fact. Hemstead's words repeated themselves over and over again, and in their light she questioned the past closely. It was not in keeping with her positive nature and strong mind to do things by halves. With fixed and steady scrutiny she reviewed the motives of her life, and estimated the results. They were so unsatisfactory as to startle her. Although the spent years had been filled with continuous and varied activity, what had she accomplished for herself or any one else? Were not all her past days like water spilled on barren sands, producing nothing?

As she had before intimated, she had been receiving homage, flattery, and even love, all her life, and yet now her heart had no treasures to which she could turn in solid satisfaction, nor could memory recall efforts like that she saw Miss Martell making in behalf of Harcourt. The adulation received was now empty breath and forgotten words, and nothing substantial or comforting remained.

But, if memory could recall little good accomplished, it placed in long and dark array many scenes that she would gladly have forgotten.

What can be worse—what need we fear more—than to be left alone forever with a guilty and accusing conscience, and no respite, no solace? What perdition need a man shrink from more than to go away from his earthly life, to be alone with memory—a pale and silent spectre—who will turn the pages of his daily record, and point to what was, and what might have been?

A shallow-minded girl would have been incapable of this searching self-analysis. A weak, irresolute girl like Bel Parton would have taken a sedative, and escaped a miserable day in sleep. But, with all her faults, Lottie abounded in practical common sense; and Hemstead's words and her own experience suggested that she might be doing herself a very great wrong. She felt that it was no light matter to make one's whole life a blunder, and to invest all one's years and energies in what paid no better interest than she had received that day. Her physical pain and mental distress acted and reacted upon each other, until at last, wearied out, she sobbed herself to sleep.

Both De Forrest and Hemstead were greatly in hopes that she would be at the supper-table, but they did not see her that day. The former, with his aching head and heavy heart, learned, if never before, that the "way of transgressors is hard." But, though the latter could not be regarded as a transgressor, his way was hard also that long day; and he whom Lottie, in the memory of his severe words, regarded somewhat as her stern accuser, would have been more than ready to take all her pains and woes upon himself, could he have relieved her.

He now bitterly condemned himself for having been too harsh in the wholesome truth he had brought home to the nattered girl. It was rather severe treatment; still she was vigorous, and would be all the better for it. But now her faithful physician, as he heard how ill and suffering she was, almost wished that he had but faintly suggested the truth in homreopathic doses.

At the same time he supposed that her indisposition was caused more by her shame and grief at the conduct of De Forrest than by anything he had said. The impression that she was attached or engaged to De Forrest was becoming almost a conviction.

Though Lottie had never, by a word, bound herself to her cousin, yet her aunt and all the household regarded her as virtually engaged to him, and expected that the marriage would eventually occur. With Hemstead, they regarded her illness and seclusion as the result of her mortificaton at his behavior, and, underneath their politic politeness, were very indignant at his folly. But they expected that the trouble would soon blow over, as a matter of course. The mantle of charity for young men as rich and well-connected as De Forrest is very large. And then this slip could be regarded somewhat in the light of an accident; for when it became evident that Bel understood the nature of De Forrest's "spell," as the coachman called it, Lottie had taken pains to insist that it was an accident for which she was chiefly to blame; and had also said as much to Mrs. Marchmont. Thus they all concluded that her relations with De Forrest would not be disturbed.

Harcourt was the happiest of the party; but it must be confessed that, clearer than any law points, he saw still among blooming exotics a being far more rare and beautiful, who stood before him the whole day with clasped hands and entreating eyes, whose only request was, "be a true man." Under the inspiration of her words and manner he began to hope that he might eventually grant her request.

As far as Lottie's intruding image would permit, Hemstead concentrated all his energies on the great sermon, the elaborate effort of many months, that he expected to preach on the morrow. He hoped that Lottie, and indeed all, would be there, for it seemed that if they would only give him their thoughtful attention he would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were in God's hands, and that it would be worse than folly not to submit to His shaping and moulding discipline.

At last Sunday morning came. It was a cold, chilly, leaden day, and even a glance from the windows gave one a shivering sense of discomfort.

The gloom of nature seemed to shadow the faces of some of the party as they gathered at a late breakfast; and of none was this more true than of Lottie Marsden, as, pale and languid, she took her wonted place. Her greeting of De Forrest was most kindly, and he seemed greatly reassured. and brightened up instantly. But Lottie's face did not lose its deep dejection.

To the others she appeared to take very little notice of Hemstead; but he thought that he observed her eyes furtively seeking his face, with a questioning expression. Once he answered her gknce with such a frank, sunny smile that her own face lighted up. As they were passing into the parlor he said, in a low tone, "I wished a hundred times yesterday that I could bear your headache for you."

"That is more kind than just. It is right that I should get my deserts," she replied, shaking her head.

"Heaven save us from our deserts," he answered quickly.

Before she could speak again, De Forrest was by her side and said, "Let me wheel the lounge up to the fire, and I will read anything you wish this morning."

"O, no; I'm going to church."

"Miss Lottie, I beg of you do not go. You are not able."

"Yes, I am; the air will do me good. It's the Sunday before Christmas, Julian, and we both ought to be at church."

"O, certainly, I'll go if you wish it."

"I hope your sermon will do me good, Mr. Hemstead. I'm wofully blue," she said, as she left the room to prepare for church.

"I think it will," he replied; "for I have prepared it with a great deal of care."

The building was a small but pretty Gothic structure, and its sacred quiet did seem to Lottie somewhat like a refuge. With an interest such as she had never felt in the elegant city temple, she waited for the service to begin, honestly hoping that there might be something that would comfort and reassure.

But Hemstead went through the preliminary services with but indifferent grace and effect. He was embarrassed and awkward, as is usually the case with those who have seldom faced an audience, and who are naturally very diffident. But as he entered upon his sermon his self-consciousness began to pass away, and he spoke with increasing power and effect.

He took as his text words from the eleventh chapter of St. John, wherein Jesus declares to his disciples, in regard to the death of Lazarus, "I am glad, for your sakes, that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe."

The importance of faith—believing—as the source of Christian life, and the ground of man's acceptance with God, was his subject, from which he wandered somewhat,—a course often observed in the ministerial tyro.

He presented his views strongly, however; but they were partial and unripe, giving but one side of the truth, and therefore calculated to do injury rather than good. He did not—he could not—over-estimate the importance of faith, but he unwittingly misrepresented God, in his efforts to inspire this faith, and the Christian life resulting; and he under-valued our earthly state and its interests.

He sketched in strong outlines the experience of the little family at Bethany, portraying with vivid realism the suffering of the man whom Jesus loved; the anxiety of the sisters when Lazarus became ill; this anxiety passing into fear, dread, sickening certainty, and despair; the anguish of bereavement, the loneliness and heart-breaking sorrow of four days; and that most agonized wrench of the heart when the beloved form is left alone to corrupt in the dark and silent sepulchre.

Having presented this picture in such true and sombre colors that the gloom was reflected from the faces of all his hearers, they being reminded that this would be their lot ere long, he passed suddenly from the painful scenes of Bethany to Bethabara, beyond Jordan, where was sojourning the mysterious Prophet of Nazareth, who had so often proved His power to heal every disease. He enlarged upon the fact that Jesus, seeing all the suffering at Bethany, which He could change by a word into gladness, did not interfere, but decreed that the terrible ordeal should be endured to the bitter end.

From this he reasoned that the transient sorrows of the household at Bethany were of little moment, and that God, in the advancement of His own glory and the accomplishment of His great plans, would never turn aside because His human children in their short-sighted weakness would stay His heavy hand if they could. He knew all that was occurring at Bethany, but calmly permitted it to take place, and in this case it was the same as if He had willed it.

He then proceeded to show that the Divine purpose had not only a wide and general sweep, embracing the race, and extending through all time, but that there was a minute providence encompassing each life. If there were any good in us, God would bring it out, nor would He spare us in the effort. The preacher, unfortunately and unconsciously to himself, gave the impression that God acted on the principle that He could accomplish far more with the rod of affliction than with anything else, and that when He fully set about the task of winning a soul from sin, His first step was to stretch it upon the rack of some kind of suffering. He also intensified this painful impression by giving the idea that God thought little of the processes, which might be so painful to us, but fixed His eye only on the result. If people became sullen, rebellious, or reckless under His discipline, they were like misshappen clay, that the potter must cast aside. The crude ore must go into the furnace, and if there was good metal in it the fact would appear.

"Sooner or later," he said, "God will put every soul into the crucible of affliction. Sooner or later we shall all be passing through scenes like that of the family at Bethany. We may not hope to escape. God means we shall not. As Christ firmly, while seeing all, left events at Bethany to their designed course, so He will as surely and steadily carry out the discipline which He, as the unerring physician of the soul, sees that each one of us requires. Does the refiner hesitate to put the crude ore into the crucible? Does the sculptor shrink from chiselling the shapeless block into beauty? Does not the surgeon, with nerves of steel and pulse unquickened, cut near the very vitals of his agonized patient? He sees that it is necessary, in order to save from greater evil, and therefore he is as remorseless as fate. If to cure some transient, physical infirmity, man is justified in inflicting—nay, more, is compelled to inflict—so much suffering upon his fellow-creatures, how much more is God justified in His severest moral discipline, which has as its object our eternal health. Though we shrink from the sorrow, though we writhe under the pain, though our hearts break a thousand times, He will not waver in His calm, steadfast purpose. He sees eternity; the present is as nothing to Him. He will break our grasp from all earthly idols, even though He tear our bleeding hearts asunder. If we are trusting in aught save Him, that upon which we are leaning will be snatched away, even though we fall at first into the depths of despairing sorrow. What He makes us suffer now is not to be considered, in view of His purpose to wean us from this world and prepare us for the next. Christ, as we learn from our text, is as inflexible as fate, and does not hesitate to secure the needful faith by remaining away, even though the message of the sisters was an entreaty in itself. Nay, more, he distinctly declares to his disciples, 'I am glad, for your sakes, that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe.'

"In conclusion, we assert that we ought to rise above our human weakness and co-work with God. Instead of clinging so to the present, we ought to think of the eternal future, and welcome the harshest discipline which prepares us for that future. We should mortify ourselves, trample our earthly natures under our feet. To that degree that we can bring ourselves to think less of earth, we shall think more of heaven. Our business, our earthly hopes and plans, our dearest ties, may be fatal snares to our souls. The husband may make an idol of his wife, the mother of her child. God jealously watches; we should watch more jealously. The sisters may have been loving their brother and trusting to his protection more than in Christ. We should hold all earthly possessions in fear and trembling, as something not our own, but only committed for a brief time to our trust. We should remember that the one great object of this life is to secure that faith which leads to preparation for the life to come. The harsher our experiences are here, the better, if they more surely wean us from earth and all earthly things, and make eternity the habitation of our thoughts. We see how stern and resolute God is in His great purpose to stamp out unbelief from the world. Jesus would not save the family at Bethany that He loved,—the family that freely gave hospitality and love in return when nearly all the world was hostile. Do not think, then, that He will spare us. Let us therefore not spare ourselves, but with remorseless hands smite down every earthly object that hides from our view the wide ocean of eternity. As the wise men from the East travelled steadily across arid wastes with eyes fixed only on the strange bright luminary that was guiding them to Bethlehem, so we should regard this world as a desert across which we must hasten to the presence of our God."

As Hemstead forgot himself, and became absorbed in his theme, he spoke with impressivensss and power; and everywhere throughout the audience was seen that thoughtful contraction of the brow and fixed gaze which betoken deep attention. But upon the faces of nearly all was the expression of one listening to something painful. This was especially true of Miss Martell and her father, while Harcourt's face grew cold and satirical. Lottie looked pale and sullen, and De Forrest was evidently disgusted. Mr. Dimmerly fidgeted in his seat, and even complacent Mrs. Marchmont seemed a little ruffled and disturbed, while her daughter Addie was in a state of irritable protest against both preacher and sermon. Poor Bel was merely frightened and conscience-stricken,—her usual condition after every sermon to which she listened.

As, during the brief remnant of the service, Hemstead dropped into consciousness of the world around him, he felt at first, rather than saw, the chill he had caused, instead of a glow answering to his own feelings. As he looked more closely, he imagined he detected a gloomy and forbidding expression on the faces turned towards him. The Gospel—the message of good news that he had brought—appeared to shadow the audience like a passing cloud.

After dismission, the people aroused themselves as from an oppressive dream. The few greetings and congratulations that he received as he passed down the aisle seemed formal and constrained, and, he thought, a little insincere. He was still more puzzled as he overheard Miss Martell say to Harcourt at the door, "I am sorry you heard that sermon."

"I am, too," he replied, "for it seemed true."

"It's only half-truth," she said earnestly.

"The Lord deliver me, then; this half is more than I can stand."

Lottie scarcely spoke during the drive home, and Hemstead noted, with pain, that her face had a hard, defiant look. It occurred to him that he had not seen any who appeared to have enjoyed the service.

There were long pauses at the dinner-table, and after one of the longest, Mr. Dimmerly abruptly remarked, in his sententious manner: "Well, nephew, I suppose you gave us a powerful sermon this morning. It has made us all deucedly uncomfortable, anyhow. But I've no doubt the old rule holds good, the worse the medicine is to take the more certain to cure."

Lottie's response to this remark was a ringing laugh, in which the others, in the inevitable reaction from the morbid gloom, joined with a heartiness that was most annoying to the young clergyman.

"You must excuse me, Mr. Hemstead," said she, after a moment, "I have had the blues all day, and have reached that point where I must either laugh or cry, and prefer the former at the dinner-table."

Hemstead stiffly bowed as his only response. He was too chagrined, puzzled, and disappointed to venture upon a reply, and after this one lurid gleam of unnatural mirth the murky gloom of the day seemed to settle down more heavily than before.

After dinner De Forrest tried to secure Lottie's society for the afternoon. The refusal was kind, not careless, as had been often the case. Indeed her whole manner towards him might be characterized as a grave, remorseful kindness, such as we might show towards a child or an inferior that we had wronged somewhat.

De Forrest, finding that Lottie would persist in going to her room, went to his also, and took a long, comfortable nap.

Bel wanted to talk about the sermon, but as Lottie would not talk about anything, she, too, soon forgot her spiritual anxieties in sleep.

But Lottie sat and stared at her fire, and Hemstead, deserted by all, stared at the fire in the parlor; and both were sorely troubled and perplexed.



CHAPTER XIX.

THE PREACHER TAUGHT BY THE PAGAN



We have said that Lottie Marsden was a pagan. That is not necessarily a reproach. Socrates was a pagan. But Lottie, in the main, was a very ordinary pagan, not better than the average. Her only superiority over other idolaters, and many nominal Christians, it might be added, was her practical common sense. The more she thought, the more unsatisfactory Hemstead's sermon grew, and the more sure she became that there was a wrong somewhere: in him, or her, or in religion itself.

Her whole nature revolted at the idea of God given that morning.

In her vivid fancy, she saw an unrelenting, unimpassioned, and yet all-powerful Being, from whom there was no escape, calmly subjecting one human life after another to the severest crucial tests. If one could endure them, all might be well. If, in the composition of one's character, there existed good metal, it would come out of the furnace fine gold perhaps; but if, as she feared might be true of herself, there was only dross, then the fiery trials awaiting would be as useless as cruel.

"Why couldn't an all-powerful God find a pleasanter and surer way of making us good?" she asked in bitterness. "I know there is something wrong in what Mr. Hemstead preached this morning. He is different from his own doctrines, and to my mind a great deal better. He was severe upon me, but not calmly and stonily severe. He looked as if he felt for me deeply, and would, even at cost to himself, give me aid if I tried to do right. If he had shown me my faults in the calm, cold distance of immeasurable superiority which he ascribed to God, I would not have listened to a word. But his voice was gentleness itself, and it evidently pained him to give me pain; but when he came to show our relations to God, I seemed to come into the presence of stony-hearted, stony-faced fate. If this is the real God that ministers preach about, little wonder that they have such a hard time of it in persuading us to love Him. Little wonder that people forget Him as long as they can. But Mr. Hemstead seems to want us to think of these awful things nearly all the time; and what's worse, to begin torturing and mortifying ourselves, even before God is ready to commence. No, I thank you. No such religion for me. If I must go into the fiery furnace, I won't go till I must."

She sprang up, and restlessly paced the room. "He's a very cheerful apostle of such a gloomy gospel," she thought. "Gospel! I thought 'gospel' meant 'good news.' I never heard worse than he told us this morning. If what he preached is true religion, he's a very inconsistent professor of it, and I would like to tell him so.

"What's more, I will if I can find him"; and acting upon the impulse she left the room.

The "miserable sinners," as the prayer-book has it, whom Hemstead had in fact made quite miserable for a time, grew more comfortable after dinner; and by three o'clock, so far from employing hair-cloth and scourgings, or even the mildest form of a crusade against the weaknesses of the flesh, were all dozing and digesting in the most luxurious manner. Lottie was the only "sinner" who remained "miserable"; but she was not more "out of sorts" than the one who, ex officio, as the world is prone to believe, Ought to have been calm and serene upon his theological height above the clouds.

As she entered the parlor with her velvet-like tread, she paused a moment to observe the Boanerges of the morning. As he sat alone before the fire, with his elbows upon his knees and his face buried in his hands, he looked more like a weak mortal than a "son of thunder." He did not look a bit like one who, with face as firm and inflexible as God's purpose, was anxious to step into the fiery furnace before it was ready.

She drew a few steps nearer, and stood over him with a curious expression on her face, which could so well mask or reveal her thought as she chose. She had come downstairs in a state of irritable and defiant protest against his doctrines, and with no little vexation at him for being their mouth-piece. If she had found him calmly pacing the floor, pondering on human frailty and folly, or if he had been reading judicially a semi-sceptical work, that he might demolish the irreverent author, she would have made an onslaught whose vigor, if not logic, would have greatly disturbed his equanimity and theological poise. But when she saw his attitude of deep dejection, and when twice he sighed long and heavily, her woman's nature was disarmed, and she began to think that his doctrines were as hard upon him as upon the rest. Instinctively she took his part against God, whose formative hand appeared too heavy for them both.

Therefore, instead of the hard, bitter words that she intended to speak, she said, with a little quaver in her voice. "Mr. Hemstead, I almost believe that you feel as bad as I do."

When he looked up she was sure he felt worse. But he seemed to try to forget his own trouble as he said kindly, "I'm sorry you feel bad."

"Well," said Lottie, sitting down on the opposite side of the hearth, while the fire, on which Hemstead had thrown some damp green wood, smoked dismally between them, "I do think you are a little sorry."

"Can I help you in any way? I wish you knew how gladly I would do so."

"Yes, I believe that, too. You don't look a bit as if you would like to throw me into a fiery furnace, and see if I would come out a lump of gold or a good-for-nothing cinder."

His only reply was a look of perplexed inquiry, but his gray eyes were so kind, and yet withal so full of dejection, that she again thought, "He is dreadfully inconsistent with his doctrines"; and she said, with a trace of archness in her tone, "I think you look as if you needed a little help and comfort yourself."

He turned away his face, but after a moment said, "You never spoke truer words, Miss Marsden."

Then Lottie, who before had felt in such need of cheer herself, forgot this need in her wish to help the great desponding man before her, whose mingled weakness and strength surprised her more and more. In a tone that would have softened flint she said, "I wish I were good enough to help you."

Then he perplexed her by saying, with sudden energy, "And I wish you were bad enough."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Pardon me," he said hastily. "My words were figurative, and exaggerated by deep feeling. I meant that I wished you, or some one, could be human and charitable enough to understand me, and help me to triumph over my weakness without condemning too severely."

"Well," said Lottie, with a little sigh of satisfaction, "I think I'm bad enough. I'm very human, anyway, and I think I'm in a mood to be charitable to-day; for, if my conscience tells me the truth, I'm awfully in need of charity myself."

He looked up quickly and hopefully as he said, "Then my sermon did you some good after all."

"Not a bit of it. I can have plenty of charity for you, but hot a particle for your sermon,—no more than I would for a thumb-screw of the Inquisition."

This unmeasured condemnation of the pet child of his brain,—a part of himself as it were,—of which he had been so proud, cut to the quick, and he flushed deeply and almost resentfully at first. But he made no reply, and sat lowering at the smoky hearth while he sank into a lower depth of despondency. Preaching was his chosen life-work, and yet this was the verdict against his first great sermon.

Lottie looked hopelessly at him, not knowing what to say or do next, and regretting that she had spoken so hastily and harshly.

At last he sighed: "I don't understand it. I had spent months over that sermon. I fear I have mistaken my calling."

"Well," said Lottie, rather brusquely, "I wouldn't feel so forlorn and miserable over that. I don't think it's much of a calling anyway."

"O Miss Marsden!" he ejaculated, in a shocked tone.

"I'm sincere in what I say," she continued earnestly, "Please don't misunderstand me. As far as I am a judge I think your sermon was well written, and it certainly was delivered effectively; for, though none of us liked it, we couldn't help listening. But its strongest effect was to make me wish I was an infidel and, like Mr. Harcourt, did not believe in anything. I honestly think that it will be a very poor calling to go out among the poor people on the frontier and preach such a gospel as you gave us this morning. In the name of pity, haven't they enough to contend with now? In addition to the scalping Indians, the border ruffians, the grasshoppers, and grinding poverty, are you going to give them a religion in which the furnace of affliction and the crucible of trial flame as the centre? Poor creatures! I suppose they are in hard and hot places most of the time, but don't make them think that God puts them there, and that there is no chance to get out till He is through with them. I can tell you beforehand, that people are not going to get into the fiery furnace and commence having a miserable time of it before they must. Let us be as comfortable as we can, while we can. If you feel that you have mistaken your calling—and I hope you have—I'm sure that father, at my request, will find you a better one in New York."

Poor Hemstead was as satisfied as Luther had been that this was a temptation of the devil; but before him was no such apparition as that against which the great reformer could hurl his ink-horn without leaving a spot.

With the lurid flash of Lucifer as he fell from heaven, the thought passed through his disquieted mind, "And in New York I might win the hand and heart of this beautiful girl." But every quality of his soul frowned so darkly on this thought, which held out Lottie Marsden as a bribe, that it soon skulked away. His mind reverted to the main difficulty, and he said, "Surely, Miss Marsden, I did not preach such a religion as you suggest."

"You surely did, Mr. Hemstead, as I could soon prove to you. I am glad you are so inconsistent a professor of your religion."

"Am I an inconsistent professor?" he asked sadly.

"Indeed you are," she replied; and both mischief and kindness lurked in her eyes. "You don't live up to your doctrines at all."

"Little wonder, then," he exclaimed, in bitter self-condemnation, "that all turn from my teaching."

She looked at him with a curious smile, as she thought, "What a child he is! He is but wax in my hands. If he should marry a cold-hearted, selfish woman, with a spice of petty, teasing malice in her nature, she could sit down quietly at his hearth and torture to death this overgrown man, with whole libraries in his brain. I could wring his soul now, by making him think that he had lived so unworthily that we could not listen to his most unworthy sermon."

She led him out of his strong self-condemnation into equal perplexity, by saying, "Unlike most of the world, you are so much better than your creed as to be utterly inconsistent."

He came and sat down near her, with such an appealing, helpless look that she laughed outright.

"Please don't laugh at me," he said, with the glimmer of a smile, "because this to me is a more serious matter than you or any one can understand."

"I don't laugh unfeelingly, I assure you," she said earnestly. "I never was more sincere in my life than I was this afternoon, but I am one of those ridiculous mortals who cannot take things coolly, and, as I said at dinner, there are times when I must either laugh or cry. I never passed a more miserable day in my life than yesterday. You, terrible magician, whom I have scarcely known for a week, have awakened in my heart a giant; and yesterday and to-day he has been shaking my soul with his mutterings and threatenings. I could always manage my conscience before, and snub it into quietness when it became unruly. But, as I said, from a whining child it has suddenly grown into a threatening giant, more harsh even than you the other evening. I went to church this morning, hoping to find some comfort, some remedy; but, bad as is the disease, the remedy seems far worse. I came downstairs this afternoon in no amiable mood with you or your theology, but was disarmed by seeing you in as bad a plight as myself. I fear your medicine will kill both doctor and patient. During the past week you have been a strong, genial man, with a human, genuine enjoyment of our every-day life. If you were a little blue and puritanical, it was in a common-sense way that I could understand, and your criticism of myself I think in the main was just. Anyway, you made me wish I was a better girl, and I was thinking how to begin; then came this awful Sunday, and your awful sermon, which made me both fear and hate God, and want to keep away from Him as far and as long as I can."

"Your words perplex and sadden me beyond measure," said Hemstead. "You belong to the very class that I had hoped to benefit,—those who admit that they are without faith, but who are not so averse to the truth but that they may be won by it. And yet you say that the whole force of my sermon is to make you wish that you could be an infidel. I cannot understand it. If I have mistaken my calling I could not make you or any one comprehend the depth of my sorrow, or the bitterness of my disappointment In the calling of the ministry it has ever seemed to me that I could work a century with enthusiasm. But in any other work I should be but a drudge, for my heart would not be in it You know how young men often feel about these things. One has a natural bent for the law, another for medicine, and another for business or science. I had fondly hoped that I was a predestined minister, and this hope has strengthened with years and become inwrought with every fibre of my soul. I was willing to commence in a very humble way, and anywhere that God would set me to work; but if the effect of my preaching is to drive people away from Him, the sooner I give it all up the better."

"How different our tastes and plans for life are!" said Lottie, musingly. "It appears strange that you should have set your heart so strongly on what is so dismal to me. And yet such is the evident depth of your regret that I do feel for you very much."

Hemstead rose and took a few abrupt turns up and down the room. Lottie watched him with increasing interest. He had shown her his weakness, and she perceived that he would also show his strength. After a moment he leaned on the mantel before her, and said in quiet, decisive tones:

"Miss Marsden, I have given you the right to speak to me very plainly. I honestly wish light on this subject, and intend to settle this question at the earliest moment possible. God knows I do not wish to thrust myself unbidden into the sacred office. If I am not worthy of the calling, then the sooner I find it out the better, and so try to content myself with some humbler work. Not only from what you have said, but from the remarks and aspect of others, I am satisfied that my effort this morning was worse than a failure. You have a mind of unusual vigor, and a good faculty in expressing your thought. Won't you give me a keen, truthful analysis of the whole service? It is to the world I am to preach; and I wish to know just how what I say strikes the world. I know that Christian doctrines have ever been unpalatable, but if there is something in my presentation of them that is going to make them tenfold more so, then I will be dumb. I would rather hide in a desert than drive one soul from God, as you intimated. You were brave enough to let me speak to you almost harshly, I fear; now see if I have not equal courage. Say the very worst things that you believe true, and you may help me very much towards coming to the most important decision of my life."

"O dear!" said Lottie. "I'm not fit to counsel a downy chicken. I wish you didn't take this matter so to heart You look as if I might be your executioner."

"You can be my faithful surgeon and do some wholesome cutting."

"Well," said Lottie, dismally. "I'd rather give you ether or laughing-gas first."

"That is more kind than wise," he replied, smiling; "in moral and mental surgery the patient should have all his faculties."

"There!" she exclaimed with animation, "we are illustrating by contrast my chief complaint against your preaching. When you told me my faults you did so gently, and appeared pained in giving me pain; and now I am honestly sorry to say words that I know will hurt you. And I know my words will hurt and discourage you; for if the trouble were in you it might be remedied, but it is in what you teach, and of course you teach what you believe, and won't say smooth things, as I fear other ministers do sometimes. You represented God calm and unchangeable as fate, as unrelenting and unimpassioned. In this spirit you portrayed Him taking up one life after another and putting it into the furnace of affliction, to see what He can make of it. You illustrated His manner of doing this by the sculptor with his cold, unfeeling marble, by the refiner with crude ore, and by the surgeon, and you forgot to say that the last stupefies his patients before cutting. You gave me the impression that as soon as God set about making us better we should find ourselves in trouble, and that, like certain school-masters of the old regime, He had faith in nothing save the rod. You know the natural feeling of children towards such pedagogues. How can we help feeling hi the same way towards God? Then you presented God as full of inflexible purposes, but the oftener you told us that we could not help ourselves, and that there was no use in resisting, the move I felt like resisting. The idea of cutting and carving character out of quivering human hearts as if they were marble! The idea of putting one, like a lump of ore, into a crucible, and then coolly sitting by to see what becomes of it! I'm not a lump of ore, and if I need harsh treatment I want it done sympathetically, feelingly, or I shall become a Tartar instead of a saint. The tears in your eyes the other night, Mr. Hemstead, did me more good than all your wise words."

Hemstead looked as if a light were dawning upon him.

"You spoke of this life," continued Lottie, "as if it were nothing, and as if God didn't care—indeed approved of our having a hard time here, that we might be more sure of a good time hereafter. You spoke of God as jealously watching, lest we should love earthly friends more than Him, and said that He was bound to be first, if He had to snatch away everything that we loved most. Therefore, even the mother must keep chilling her natural love for her child, or else God will make the innocent little thing suffer and die, just to give the mother a lesson. You said that we should hold all earthly possessions in fear and trembling, and that the harsher our experiences were, here, the better, if they only wean us from earth. If this is true, we had better have no possessions and form no ties. The monks and nuns are right. Let us shut ourselves up, and wear hair-cloth instead of merino, and catch our death of cold by moping around bare-foot at all unseasonable hours. All you said may be good religion, but it's mighty poor sense, and very unnatural."

Hemstead shaded his burning face with his hands.

"There, I knew I should hurt you. No doubt I seem very irreverent, but you have no idea how I am restraining myself for your sake. I'm just that provoked and indignant—Well, well, what's the use? As you said, we can't help ourselves, and into the fiery furnace Lottie Marsden will go before long; only there will be nothing left of me but a little cinder. Why couldn't the Being you call all-wise and all-powerful, devise some nicer way, one more in accordance with the nature He has given us? Suppose heaven is a grander place than this world, that is no good reason for hating the world. This earth is our present home, and it looks sensible that we should make the most of it, and enjoy ourselves in it. Suppose my father should say, 'Lottie, I want you to hate and despise your present home, because in five years I'm going to give you a palace; and if you can only fall downstairs once or twice, and have a fit of illness so as to get weaned from it, I shall be glad.'

"How strangely and monstrously unnatural all that kind of talk is when you come to put it into plain English!" proceeded Lottie after a moment, tapping the floor impatiently with her foot. "If you must preach such doctrines as you did this morning, I am sorry for you; and, if they are true, I am sorry for the world, myself included. The trouble is not in you. I am sure you can make almost an orator in time, if you can get a theme that won't give men the shivers, and set their teeth on edge. I never understood religion and never liked it; and now that I do begin to understand it, I like it less than ever."

Hemstead sat down in his chair,—indeed he sank into it, and the face he turned toward her was white and full of pain.

"Miss Marsden," he said slowly, "I fear I have given you, and all who heard me, a very false impression of God and Christianity; and yet I thought I was speaking the truth."

"O, I knew you were honest. There isn't a dishonest fibre in your nature; but I wish you were all wrong. O, how delighted I should be if you were a heretic without knowing it, and we could find out a religion that wouldn't make one's blood run cold to think of it!"

"But my religion does me good, Miss Marsden. It cheers, sustains, and strengthens me."

"Now you see how inconsistent you are. You preach one thing, and feel and act another."

"I begin to see how I was misled in my sermon, and why what I said was so repugnant to you; and yet my mind is confused. It still appears to me that I developed the thought of the text. Christ said, 'I am glad I was not there, to the intent ye may believe.' These words would seem to show that He regarded our transient pains as of very secondary importance compared with the accomplishment of His great purposes. Why did He not go to Bethany at once, if it were not so?"

"Well, it's an awful text, or you give it an awful interpretation. Let me take the thought out of the realm of theology or religion, and bring it down to practical life. Suppose you go to New York to-morrow and remain a few days, and to-morrow night the house burns up, and I with it. Would your first thought be, 'I am glad I was not there to put out the fire or to rescue that naughty girl, Lottie Marsden, because her sudden death, for which she was all unprepared, will be a warning to many, and result in great good'? I may be wrong, Mr. Hemstead, but I think you would get pretty well scorched before you would permit even such a guy as I am to become a warning to other naughty girls."