She shyly lifted her blue eyes to his, and said, "Foolish Tom, surely your love is blind."

Then to Harcourt the door of heaven opened.

When Mr. Martell returned, he saw by the firelight in his dusky study that his daughter had made such ample amends that but little was left for him to do; but he did that right heartily.

Then the Christian man said, "Alice, compare this with the shadow of 'Storm King,' and the grinding ice. Let us thank God."

She gently replied, "I have, father."

"But I have more reason to thank Him than either of you," said Harcourt, brokenly, "for had you perished I should have been lost, body and soul."

"Then serve Him faithfully, my son,—serve Him as my old friend your father did."

"With His help I will."



CHAPTER XXIX.

HEMSTEAD'S ADVICE, AND LOTTIE'S COLORS.



Soon after the departure of Mr. Martell and his daughter, Hemstead pleaded headache, and retired to his room. Lottie, to escape De Forrest, had also gone to hers, but soon after, at her brother's solicitation, had accompanied him to a neighboring pond to make sure that the ice was safe for him. But, though she yielded to Dan's teasing, her compliance was so ungracious, and her manner so short and unamiable, that with a boy's frankness he had said: "What is the matter with you, Lottie? You are not a bit like Auntie Jane to-day. I wish you could stay one thing two days together."

As may be imagined, these remarks did not conduce to Lottie's serenity. She did not understand herself; nor why she felt so miserable and out of sorts. She had fallen into the "Slough of Despond," and was experiencing that depression which usually follows overwrought emotional states, and—her knight had disappointed her.

Having learned that the ice was firm, and assisted her little brother in putting on his skates, instead of returning at once to the house, she sat down in a little screening clump of hemlocks, and gave way to her feelings in a manner not uncommon with girls of her mercurial temperament.

Now it so happened that Hemstead, gazing listlessly from his window, saw their departure, and soon afterward it occurred to him that the fresh air would do his headache more good than moping in his room. By a not unnatural coincidence, his steps tended in the same direction as theirs, and soon he found Dan sprawling about the pond in great glee over his partial success in skating; but Lottie was nowhere to be seen. A sound from the clump of evergreens soon gained his attention, and a moment later he stood at the entrance of her wintry bower, the very embodiment of sympathy, and wondering greatly at her distress.

A stick snapped under his tread, and Lottie looked up hastily, dashing the tears right and left.

"What did you come for?" she asked brusquely.

"Well, I suppose I must say in truth—I wanted to. I hope you won't send me away."

"You ought to have given me a little warning, and not caught me crying like a great baby as I am."

"I wish I were your friend," he said humbly.

"Why so?"

"Because you would then tell me your trouble, and let me try to comfort you."

"I haven't any trouble worth naming. I've just been crying like a foolish child because I was out of sorts. There, don't look at me so with your great, kind eyes, or I shall cry again, and I am ashamed of myself now."

"Something is troubling you, Miss Marsden, and I shall be very unhappy if you send me away without letting me help you."

"You would think me a fool if I told you," she faltered.

"No one will ever charge you with being that."

She gave him another of her quick, strange looks, like the one she fixed upon him when he first moved her to tears by weaving about her the 'spell of truth.' It was a look akin to that of a child who learns by an intuitive glance whom it may trust. After a moment, she said: "If you were less kind, less simple and sincere, I would indeed send you away, and not very amiably either, I fear. And yet I should like a few crumbs of comfort. I scarcely understand myself. Monday and yesterday I was so strangely happy that I seemed to have entered on a new life, and to-day I am as wicked and miserable a little sinner as ever breathed. The idea of my being a Christian!—never was farther from it. I've had nothing but mean and hateful thoughts since I awoke."

"And is this not a 'trouble worth naming'? In my judgment it is a most serious one."

"Do you think so?" she said gratefully. "But then I'm provoked that I can be so changeable. Dan just said, 'I wish you could be the same two days together,' and so do I."

"Let us look into this matter," he said, sympathetically, sitting down in a companionable way on the fallen tree beside her. "Let us try to disentangle this web of complex and changing feeling. As the physician treats the disordered body, you know it is my cherished calling to minister to the disquieted mind. The first step is to discover the cause of trouble, if possible, and remove that. Can you not think of some cause of your present feelings?"

Lottie averted her face in dismay, and thought, "What shall I do? I can't tell him the cause."

"Because you see," continued Hemstead, in the most philosophical spirit, "when anything unpleasant and depressing occurs, one of your temperament is apt to take a gloomy, morbid view of everything for a time."

"I think you are right," she said faintly.

"Now, I see no proof," he continued, with reassuring heartiness, "that you are not a Christian because you are unhappy, or even because you have had 'hateful thoughts,' as you call them. You evidently do not welcome these 'hateful thoughts.' The question as to whether you are a Christian is to be settled on entirely different grounds. Have you thrown off allegiance to that most merciful and sympathetic of friends that you led me to see last Sunday as vividly as I now see you?"

Lottie shook her head, but said remorsefully, "But I have scarcely thought of Him to-day."

"Rest assured He has thought of you. I now understand how He has sympathy for the least grief of the least of His children."

"If I am one, I am the very least one of all," she said humbly.

"I like that," he replied with a smile. "Paul said he was the 'chief of sinners,' and he meant it too. That was an excellent symptom."

A glimmer of a smile dawned on Lottie's face.

"And now," he continued hesitatingly, as if approaching a delicate subject, "I think I know the cause of your trouble and depression. Will you permit me to speak of it?"

Again she averted her face in confusion, but said faintly: "As my spiritual physician I suppose you must."

"I think you naturally felt greatly disappointed that Mr. De Forrest acted the part he did last evening."

This speech put Lottie at ease at once, and she turned to him in apparent frankness, but with something of her old insincerity, and said, "I confess that I was."

"You could not be otherwise," he said, in a low tone.

"What would you advise me to do?" she asked demurely.

It was now his turn to be embarrassed, and he found that he had got himself into a dilemma. The color deepened in his face as he hesitated how to answer. She watched him furtively but searchingly. At last he said, with sudden impetuosity, as if he could not restrain himself: "I would either make a man of him or break with him forever. It's horrible that a girl like you should be irrevocably bound to such—pardon me."

Again Lottie averted her face, while a dozen rainbows danced in her moist eyes.

But she managed to say, "Which do you think I had better do?"

He tried to catch her eye, but she would not permit him. After a moment he sprang up and said, with something of her own brusqueness, "You had better follow your own heart."

"That is what Mrs. Dlimm said," she exclaimed, struck by the coincidence. "You and Mrs. Dlimm are alike in many respects, but I fear the world would not regard either of you as the best of counsellors."

"Whenever I have taken counsel of the world, I have got into trouble, Miss Marsden."

"There, that is just what she said again. Are you two in collusion."

"Only as all truth agrees with itself," he answered, laughing.

"Well, perhaps it would be best to follow the advice of two such sincere counsellors, who are richly gifted with the wisdom of the other world, if not of this. Your talk has done me more good than I could have believed. How is it that it always turns out so? I'm inclined to think that your pastoral visits will do more good than your sermons."

"Now have pity on me, in regard to that wretched sermon. But I know of something that will do you more good than either, in your present depression. Will you wait for me ten minutes?"

"Yes; longer than that," she said, with an emphatic little nod.

He at once started for the house with great strides.

"My 'depression' is not very great at the present moment," she chirped, and giving a spring she alighted on the fallen tree with the ease of a bird. "I had 'better follow my own heart,' had I? Was there ever more delightful doctrine than that? But, bless me, whither is it leading? I dare not think, and I won't think."

And so, to keep herself warm while waiting, she balanced up and down on the fallen tree, trilling snatches of song as a robin might twitter on its spray.

Soon she saw her ghostly adviser speeding towards her in another guise. A stout rocking-chair was on his shoulder, and skates were dangling from his hand, and she ran to meet him with anticipating delight. A little later, Dan, who had been oblivious of proceedings thus far, was startled by seeing Lottie rush by him, comfortably ensconced in a rocking-chair and propelled by Hemstead's powerful strokes. This was a great change for the better, in his estimation, and he hailed it vociferously. Hemstead good-naturedly put the boy in his sister's lap, and then sent them whirling about the pond with a rapidity that almost took away their breaths. But he carefully shielded them from accidents.

"It's strange how you can be so strong, and yet so gentle," said Lottie, gratefully looking up at him over her shoulder.

"I haven't the faintest wish to harm you," he replied, smiling.

"That I should ever have wished to harm him!" she thought, with a twinge of remorse.

After a half-hour of grand sport, the setting sun reminded them that it was time to return.

"How do you feel now?" he asked.

"My face must be your answer," she said, turning to him features glowing with exercise and happiness.

"A beautiful answer," he said impulsively. "In color and brightness it is the reflection of the sunset there."

"I admit," she answered shyly, "that its brightness has a western cause. But speaking of color reminds me of something;" and her eyes twinkled most mirthfully as she caught a glimpse of something around his neck. "What have you done with my 'colors,' that I gave you last night? I know you wore them figuratively in your face this morning, when Miss Martell so enchanted you; but where are they, literally? Now a knight is supposed to be very careful of a lady's colors if he accepts them."

"I have been; and Miss Martell has never seen your colors."

"O, those so manifest this morning were hers. I understand now. But where are mine?"

"I cannot tell you. But they are safe."

"You threw them away."

"Never."

"Why, then, can't you tell me where they are?"

"Because—because—Well—I can't; so you need not ask me."

"If you don't tell me, I'll find out for myself."

"You cannot," he said confidently.

"Mr. Hemstead, what is that queer crimson fringe rising above your collar?"

He put his hand hastily to his neck, and felt the ribbon that his stooping posture and violent exercise had forced into a prominence that defied further concealment; then turned away laughing, and, with his face now vying with the Sunset, said, "You have caught an ostrich hiding with its head in the sand."

Her merry laugh trilled like the song of a bird, as she exclaimed. "O guilt, guilt! the western sky is pale compared with thy cheeks."

Then, taking his arm in a way that would have won an Michorite, she added with a dainty blending of mischief and meaning, "I, too, am an ostrich to-night,—that is, in my appetite. I am ravenous for supper."

"' I, too, am an ostrich '! What did she mean by that?" and Hemstead pondered over this ornithological problem for hours after.



CHAPTER XXX.

AROUND THE YULE-LOG.



Lottie's radiant face at supper, in contrast with her clouded one at dinner, again puzzled certain members of the household; and De Forrest, to his disgust, learned that while he slept she had again been with Hemstead. He resolved on sleepless vigilance till the prize was secured, and mentally cursed the ill-starred visit to the country over and over again.

Bel was cool and cynical outwardly, but was really perplexed as to what ought to be done. With all her faults she had a sincere affection for her friend, and was shrewd enough to perceive that this affair with Hemstead promised to be more serious than Lottie's passing penchants had been previously. But with her usual weakness and irresolution she hesitated and waited, Micawber-like, to see what would "turn up."

The impression grew on Mrs. Marchmont that Lottie was fascinating her nephew; and yet just how to interfere she did not see. It was rather delicate business to speak, with nothing more tangible than what she had yet seen. That Lottie herself was becoming sincerely attached to a young man of Frank's calling and prospects, could not occur to a lady of Mrs. Marchmont's ideas of propriety and the fitness of things. It was only Lottie's "inveterate disposition to flirt." As to Lottie's "moods and emotions," she smiled at them with cool indifference, as far as she noticed them at all. "Young people pass through such phases as through the measles," she was accustomed to say.

Addie was too much wrapped up in herself to think particularly about others.

Save by queer little chuckling laughs, which no one understood, Mr. Dimmerly gave no sign that he noted any thing unusual going on.

Besides, Lottie was very circumspect when in the presence of others, and Hemstead unconsciously followed the suggestion of her manner. Thus even lynx-eyed Bel could seldom lay her finger on any thing and say, "Here is something conclusive."

But if ever there was an earthly elysium, Hemstead and Lottie dwelt in it during the remainder of that week. Not that they were much together, or had much to say to each other by word of mouth. Scarcely another opportunity occurred for one of their momentous private talks, for De Forrest's vigilance had become sleepless indeed.

Besides, Hemstead was shut up in his room most of the time, engaged on another sermon. For Dr. Beams was ill, and the student had been asked to preach again. He gladly complied with the request, for he was most anxious to correct the dreary impression he had made on the previous Sabbath. Lottie, too, was much in her room, at work on something which no one was permitted to see. But little was thought of this, for the house was full of the mystery that always prevails just before Christmas. Every one was cherishing innocent, and often transparent, little secrets, which were soon to be proclaimed, if not on the "house-top," on the tree-top of the fragrant cedar that had already been selected and arranged in the back parlor, suggesting to all the blessedness of both giving and receiving.

Yet, while seemingly separated, what moment passed when they were not together? How vain was De Forrest's vigilance!—how futile were Mrs. Marchmont's precautions! Lottie was the muse that sat at Hemstead's side; and every time he lifted his eyes from the paper his vivid fancy saw her face glowing like the sunset, and beaming upon him. She inspired his sermon. Unconsciously, he wrote it for her alone, letting her need and spiritual state color the line of thought which his text naturally suggested; and a fresh, hope-imparting Christmas sermon it promised to be,—a veritable gospel. He was unconsciously learning the priceless advantage to a clergyman of pastoral visitation; for, in discovering and meeting the needs of one heart, nearly all are touched,—so near a kinship exists throughout humanity.

As Lottie stitched away at an odd bit of fancy-work—very different from any thing that had ever taxed her dainty skill before—strange gleams flitted across her face. At times her eyes would sparkle with mirth as she lived over scenes in which the student was ever the chief actor; and again she would grow pale, and her breath come quick and short, as her fancy portrayed him—when in the darkness he could not have been seen by human eyes—far out amid the ice upon the river. Then again her face would grow comically pitiful, as she murmured: "I could have brought him to quicker than uncle. I could have given him a stimulant more potent than the forty-year-old brandy of which uncle is so proud. I've found out my power over him."

Then her face would light up with exultation as she exclaimed, "O, it's grand to have such power over a strong, richly-endowed man,—to be able to move and play upon him at your will by some mystic influence too subtile for prying eyes to see. I can lift him into the skies by a smile. I can cast him into the depths by a frown. If I but touch his hand, the giant trembles. He would be a Hercules in my service, and yet I've got him just there"; and she depressed her little thumb with the confidence of a Roman empress desiring to show favor to some gladiatorial slave.

Then her face would change in quick and piquant transition to the expression of equally comic distress, as she sighed, "But, alas! where am I? Right under his big thumb, whether he knows it or not. How it all will end I dare not think."

When her jewelled watch indicated that the time for dinner or supper was near, she would make the most bewitching of toilets, and laugh at herself for doing so, querying, "What is the use of conquering one over and over again who is already helpless at your feet?"

And yet the admiration of Hemstead's beauty-loving eyes was sweeter incense than all the flattery she had ever received before.

And what hours of dainty, ethereal banqueting were those prosaic meals in Mrs. Marchmont's dining-room! The corpulent colored waiter served the others, but airy-winged love attended these two, bearing from one to the other glances, tones, accents, of the divinest flavor.

De Forrest noted and chafed over this subtile interchange. Bel and Mrs. Marchmont saw it also, and Mr. Dimmerly's queer chuckling laugh was heard with increasing frequency. But what could be done? Lottie's and Hemstead's actions were propriety itself. Mrs. Marchmont could not say, "You must not look at or speak to each other." As well seek to prevent two clouds in a summer sky from exchanging their lightnings!

Hemstead was in a maze. The past and the future had lost their existence to him, and he was living in the glorified present. He no more coolly realized the situation than would one in an ecstatic trance. In one sense he verified the popular superstition, and was bewitched; and, with the charming witch ever near to weave a new spell a dozen times a day, how could he disentangle himself? He was too innocent, too unhackneyed, to understand what was going on in his own heart.

The days and the hours fled away until Saturday—the day before Christmas—came. By noon Hemstead had finished his sermon, and Lottie had completed her mysterious fancy-work; and both were ready for the festivities of Christmas eve.

Mr. Dimmerly was a great stickler for the old English customs, and always had the yule-log brought in with great ceremony. With his own hands he suspended the mistletoe from the chandelier in the hall, which he always obtained from Dimmerly Manor in England. Lottie, without thinking, stood beneath, watching him, when, with a spryness not in keeping with his years, he sprang down and gave her a sounding smack in honor of the ancient custom.

"There," said he, "that pays me for all my trouble and expense. But you will get another kiss here, that you will like better, before I take the mistletoe down."

"Well, uncle," said Lottie, laughing and rubbing her tingling cheek, "I hope it won't be such an explosion as yours was, or it will alarm the household."

"Be careful, or it may attract more attention than mine"; and he departed with his queer chuckling laugh.

Lottie looked after him with sudden intelligence, and asked herself, "Now what does he mean by that? Does he suspect anything?"

At the dinner-table Mr. Dimmerly indulged in a long homily on the importance of keeping up old customs, and ended with a sly, significant glance at Lottie, which brought the color into her face. But during the afternoon she foiled all the devices of De Forrest to get her under the mistletoe bough, and yet with such grace that, however disappointed, he could not become angry. As for Hemstead, he was fat too diffident to attempt any such strategy, much as he would have liked to solemnize the venerable rite.

And so at last Christmas eve came; and with it a fevr guests. Harcourt and Miss Martell had been specially invited; for the fact of their engagement had become known at once, and Mrs. Marchmont hastened to assure them, by this invitation, that she had no regrets or resentment. Not for the world would she have Miss Martell imagine that any maternal projects had been frustrated.

Harcourt, grateful for all the kindness he had received at Mrs. Marchmont's, induced Alice to accept; and so their illumined faces were added to the circle that gathered around the yule-log in the large dining-room, that had been cleared for games and dancing.

In spite of the incongruous elements composing that circle, it made, with the crackling fire playing on happy faces and Christmas decorations, a pretty picture,—one that might convert a pagan into willingness to honor the chief Christian festival.

After some old-fashioned country dances—through which even Hemstead had been induced to blunder, to Lottie's infinite delight—they sat down to nuts, apples, and cider. Billets of hickory were piled higher than ever against the great yule-log; and never did the sacred flame light up fairer and happier faces than those of Alice Martell and Lottie Marsden. And yet they were as different as could be. One was the lily, and the other the rose. Harcourt and Hemstead also looked as if some angelic messenger had brought them "tidings of great joy."

Harcourt and Alice sat together; but Lottie, with seeming perverseness, got as far away as possible. But it was only seeming, for she sat where she could look Hemstead full in the face, and, with her brilliant eyes, indulge in love's mystic telegraphy without restraint.

Now was the time for Mr. Dimmerly to shine out; and be proposed that some one should begin a story, and carry it forward to a certain point, then stop abruptly, while some one else took it up for a brief time, when, in like manner, it would again be dropped that another might continue it, so that each one who was willing might have a chance to contribute.

"You commence, Mr. Harcourt," said Mr. Dimmerly.

After a preface of hemming, the young man said: "Once upon a time, in a village in the south of France, it was arranged that there should be a general fete and dance on the village green the afternoon before Christmas. Little Ninon was a peasant's daughter, and she was only fourteen. If she were petite, she was also piquant and pretty—"

"Very good, very good," cried a chorus of voices; and a round of applause stimulated the narrator.

"Until this occasion, Ninon had always been kept at home as a child; but, after interminable coaxings, she obtained her mother's permission to go to the fete. Now her mother was a widow, and it so happened that she could not go with her daughter, and after she had given her consent had not one whom she could send with her child as a protector. But Ninon was in such glee that her mother had not the heart to take back her promise.

"'Now, mother, tell me what shall I say when the boys, and perhaps some of the very young men, ask me to dance with them?'

"'Say, I'm only a little child who have come to see. Go thy ways.'

"'But suppose they don't go their ways,' pouted Ninon.

"'Go thine then, and come home.'

"'Now, mother dear, am I not almost old enough to have a lover?'

"'Lover indeed! Silly child, but yesterday I rocked thee in the cradle there. I'm a fool to let thee go.'

"Then Ninon, in fear, kept still, lest her mother should change her mind, a thing which women sometimes do, even in France—"

"Now I protest against innuendoes," cried Lottie. "It is the Frenchman, as it is man all over the world, who changes his mind. Adam first said he wouldn't eat the apple, and then he did!"

"Where's your authority for that?" said Harcourt.

"It's in the Bible," answered Lottie, stoutly; at which there was a great explosion.

"Miss Marsden equals modern commentators in amplifying the text," laughed Hemstead.

"Well," persisted Lottie, "if it isn't just so written, I know enough of human nature to be sure that that was just how it happened."

"On with the story!" cried Mr. Dimmerly. "Come, Miss Martell."

"The afternoon of the fete came," said Alice, "and Ninon's mother was depressed with a boding of evil.

"'Whom shall I send with thee, my child? My heart fails me in sending thee alone.'

"'Little brother Pierre shall go with me,' said Ninon. 'He's an odd child, and talks to the saints and angels more than to us. If he goes with me, the saints will take care of us both.'

"This seemed to strike the mother as true, and she was comforted; and the pale little boy, with large, spiritual eyes that appeared to look into the other world, took his sister's hand without even a smile flitting across his sad face; and they started for the fete.

"Now, Miss Marchmont," said Miss Martell, with a graceful inclination to Addie.

"And the pale little boy, with big, owl-like eyes," continued Addie, flippantly, "stalked along as if going to a funeral, while Ninon tripped and danced at his side. But soon the young girl's steps grew slower and slower, and her face thoughtful, and she began to question her mother's words,—that she was too much of a child to have a lover; and by the time she reached the village green she gave her pretty head a toss as she said, 'We'll see about this. Mother doesn't know everything.'"

"Now, Bel."

"But poor little Ninon," said Bel, "soon became sadly bewildered, for there were so many people all talking at once, and they pushed against and jostled her as if she were very small and insignificant indeed, and she began to think that her mother was right, and that she was only a child; and she grew frightened and wished herself at home again. But she kept fast hold of the hand of her brother whom the saints loved, and felt that as long as he was with her she was safe. Finally they were pushed and jostled to a quiet nook on the edge of the green, under a tree, and here they sat down. Soon the dancing commenced, and Ninon amused herself by criticising the people and making remarks to her brother about their dress and manner. But he did not seem to hear her, and his eyes were fixed on the sky, as if he saw more that was wonderful there than she upon the village green."

"Mr. De Forrest, you next."

"But as Ninon sat there smiling and talking more to herself than to her queer little brother, who didn't listen, the young men began to notice her, and to nudge each other and ask who she was; for in truth she reminded every one of a half-blown rose. But no one knew who she was, and no one had ever seen her before. Then the handsomest young man in the village—indeed he was the one at whom all the girls were setting their caps—stepped forward and took a deliberate survey, and soon was convinced that, among all the village maidens, there was not a face as fair as Ninon's. And while he looked at her Ninon from under her long lashes as intently watched him. At last the young man made up his mind, and said to himself, 'I will be her lover for this afternoon,' and in a manner that was the very embodiment of grace, he stepped up to her and said, 'My pretty maiden, wilt dance with me?'"

And De Forrest bowed to Lottie to continue. It was strange how the foolish little story was gaining the breathless interest of all present—all the more because each one was unconsciously coloring his bit of the mosaic with his own individuality. Lottie's manner by no means tended to allay this interest as she began her part of the impromptu tale. She was a natural actress, and, for the moment, became little Ninon. The scene had grown actual to her vivid fancy, and by some process that cannot be explained she impressed it upon the minds of the others as real. They saw the crowded village green, the petite maiden and her weird brother sitting upon its edge, as she began.

"And Ninon shyly raised her dark eyes to the face of the handsomest young man of all the village, at whom the girls were setting their caps, and said, a trifle coldly, 'I am only a little child who has come to see. Go thy ways.'

"And the handsome young man stalked away, haughty and offended; and the youth of the village nudged each other and smiled and wondered and said, 'She must be a princess in disguise, or she would dance with him whom all the girls covet.' So no one else would venture to speak to her. But Ninon for a while was content to be left alone to watch all the funny people and their funny ways. She didn't see any one with whom she wanted to dance.

"At last she became conscious that one who seemed a stranger like herself was watching her, and she began to look curiously at him. At first she did not like his looks at all, His dress was very plain,—not a bit smart and gay like that of the other young men. Besides, he was so tall and grave; and once, when some one said a rude word to him, his eyes were so fiery that Ninon was afraid of him. But a moment later, when his eyes rested on her, they became so kind and gentle that she wondered how it could be. Then she began to grow sorry for him because, like herself, he was a stranger and had no one to talk to. But he seemed in quest of some one, for he would look all around among the people; but soon his eyes would come back and rest wistfully upon her face, as if she were the one he was looking for after all. This puzzled Ninon greatly, and she asked herself, 'Now can it be that I am the one he's looking for?' At last it seemed that the stranger wished to speak to her, but hadn't the courage, and this amused Ninon vastly. Twice he advanced, faltered, and then retreated. Ninon was convulsed with laughter and whispered, 'O Pierre, isn't this the funniest thing that ever was in this great world? That big man there is afraid of me,—little Ninon.'

"Then she saw that he thought she was laughing at him, and that he had straightened himself up stiff and haughty and had looked the other way. But he couldn't keep looking the other way very long," Lottie said, with an indescribable air that brought out a round of applause; "and when he timidly glanced towards her again she gave him such an encouraging smile that he came at once to her side and said, 'Little sister, wilt walk with me?'

"A happy thought struck Ninon. Her mother had said she was too young to have a lover, but nothing had been said against her having another brother. So, with conscience clear, she whispered, 'Sit still here till I come back '; and the little boy sat still, looking up into the sky, while Ninon let the tall stranger take her hand and lead her away. But his eyes were so gentle and true that she lost all fear and asked, 'Why do you call me sister?'

"'Perhaps you can tell me,' he said. 'I came here an utter stranger, and I looked all around among the people, and their faces were strange, and it seemed to me that they ever would be strange; but when I saw your face you appeared to belong to me. I think we must be related.'

"'I never saw you before,' said Ninon, shaking her head.

"'I've seen you in my dreams all my life,' he replied, looking at her so earnestly that the color deepened on her cheek.

"'I never heard anything so queer in all my life,' said Ninon.

"'You have much to learn,' said the stranger.

"'Yes,' said Ninon, humbly; 'as mother says, I'm only a little child.'

"'You are not a little child; you are a beautiful maiden, Ninon,' said the stranger, earnestly.

"'Nonsense!' she said blushingly. 'I'll never be that.' But she liked to hear him say it, nevertheless," Lottie added with an accent that again brought out a round of applause.

"I'm taking too much time," Lottie said, deprecatingly.

"Go on, go on," was the unanimous cry; and her little brother Dan, who had dropped nuts and apples and was leaning open-mouthed on her knees, said, "Lottie, if you don't go on, I'll do something dreadful."

So Lottie continued: "And the tall stranger smiled down upon her and said, 'Violets are my favorite flower, and you are a modest little violet.'

"'Now you are wrong again,' said Ninon; 'violets are a pale blue flower, and my cheeks are burning so oddly—I never had them do so before. I know I look like the peonies in the cure's garden.'

"'You look like the sweetest rose in the cure's garden.'

"'Is that the way big brothers talk to their little sisters?'

"'That is the way I talk to you, and I'm in earnest.'

"'How do little sisters treat a brother as big as you are?'

"'Well, for one thing, they kiss them.'

"'That's queer,' said Ninon, innocently. 'I should think it would be just the other way.'

"'Now I think of it, you are right,' and the stranger gave her a kiss that set every nerve tingling.

"'How odd!' she exclaimed, half-frightened, half-delighted. 'Pierre sometimes kisses me, but I never felt that way before.'

"'And big brothers take their little sisters in their arms and lift them over the rough places, as I do.'

"And he carried her over a low stone wall that separated them from a shadowy grove.

"'O, how nice!' sighed Ninon, complacently; 'I've always had to get over the rough places by myself before.'

"'You will no longer,' said the youth, as they passed under the low branches of a sheltering tree. 'O Ninon, as innocent as beautiful, can you not see that I am not your brother, but your lover?' and he threw himself at her feet.

"But Ninon clasped her hands in the deepest distress, and cried, 'O, why did you say that? You might have been my brother as long as you chose. But mother says I can have no lover,—that I am only a child'; and like a startled fawn she fled from him, and, a few moments later, panting and breathless, was sitting again beside her strange little brother, who was still looking into the sky as if he saw a vision.

"The young stranger followed sadly, thinking how he might still win her, and teach her that she was no longer a child. Ninon soon became more composed, and looked around as if she would like to see him again. As at a distance he watched her from under his bent eyebrows, a happy thought struck him, and he said, 'I'll teach her that she is a woman'; and, stepping forward, he singled out a neglected village maiden, who seemed ready for a little attention from anybody, and whirled her into the dance. Ninon, to her dismay, saw the arm of her whilom brother and lover encircling another girl, while she, apparently, was forgotten. She could scarcely believe her eyes. She looked at him fixedly, the picture of reproach, but he never seemed to look towards her. Surprise, resentment, grief, followed each other upon her fair face, like clouds passing over a sunny landscape. At last she buried her face upon little Pierre's shoulder, and sobbed, 'He may be my lover, or anything else, if he will only leave that hateful minx and come to me once more.'

"The tall stranger saw her drooping head, and quickly led his partner out of the dance and bowed himself away, leaving her bewildered,—so quickly had he come and gone.

"Ninon looked up, but he was nowhere to be seen, and the 'hateful minx' stood alone. Suddenly a voice that had grown strangely familiar said at her side, 'May I be thy lover now?'

"'Thou art false,' she said faintly.

"'Never to thee, Ninon. My thoughts were with thee every moment since thou so cruelly left me. Do you not see why I sought another maiden? I wished to teach you that you were no longer a child, but a woman. I am your lover. Your heart has already claimed me, and these jealous tears prove it.'

"'Well, then,' said Ninon, shyly smiling again, 'if my heart has gone to you, and I half believe it has, I must follow my heart'; and she put her hand in his."

Loud and long was the applause that greeted Lottie's conclusion. Dan executed a miniature breakdown as an expression of his feelings, and it seemed as if Mr. Dimmerly's chuckling laugh would never cease. De Forrest looked uneasy, and Hemstead was in a trance of bewildered delight. Alice and Harcourt exchanged significant glances. but upon the faces of Mrs. Marchmont and Bel were traces of disapproval.

"Now, uncle," cried Lottie, "it's your turn. I have given you COMEDY; we shall expect from you high tragedy."

The word "comedy," as Lottie here used it, jarred unpleasantly on Hemstead's ear, and the thought crossed Harcourt's mind, "Can she be leading Hemstead on in heartless jest, as we proposed at first? How I have changed since that day! and I was in hopes that she had, too, somewhat."

But Mr. Dimmerly had taken up the thread of the narrative where Lottie had dropped it.

"Ninon," he said, "lived a long while ago, and did not properly refer the tall stranger to her mamma. A trysting place and time were agreed upon, and the mysterious stranger in green, who was apparently a forester, said that he had a deer to kill before nightfall; and, raising her hand to his lips, departed. Ninon sat a long time, lost in a maze of thought, and then, in the twilight, roused the rapt child from his visions, and they started for their home. But villainous faces had hovered on the outskirts of the village green, and ill-omened eyes had marked the beauty of Ninon and the spiritual face of her brother. At that time there was in France a terrible monster, known as Giles de Laval, whose emissaries were ever on the alert for such victims. It was this cruel man who suggested to Perrault his world-renowned story of Barbe-bleu, the Blue-Beard that Dan there knows all about. Well, when Ninon and her little brother were passing a thicket but half-way home, two masked men sprang out upon them, and, stifling their terror-stricken cries, carried them to a distance from the highway. They then bound bandages firmly over their mouths, and lifted them on their horses and galloped away and away, till poor Ninon felt that she could never find her way home again, even if she had a chance. Soon the shadowy walls of a great castle rose before them, with a single light in a lofty tower. The feet of the iron-shod horses rang on the draw-bridge, which rose after them, and then Ninon knew they were prisoners. At first they were shut up in a dungeon that was perfectly dark, for their cruel jailer knew the overpowering effect of such rayless gloom. But strange little Pierre said that the place was brighter than the sun, and that lovely faces were smiling at him. Ninon, however, saw nothing, and it was dark indeed to her, and she sobbed bitterly, and called on her mother and lover for help. But only stony-hearted Laval and his accomplices heard her girlish voice. A bell in one of the towers slowly tolled out eleven o'clock. A little later the door of their cell opened, and light streamed in. Two men in hideous masks seized them, and carried them up and up, till Ninon, in horror, thought that they were to be thrown from the top of the tower. But worse than that awaited them; for soon they entered a large circular room, in which, on a sort of throne, sat a dreadful-looking man, clad in sable. He had human form and features, but reminded one of the more disgusting kind of wild beasts. His eyes were small, piercing, and malignant, but his face was large, sensual, devilish, and poor Ninon lost hope from the moment she saw him. She instinctively felt that to sue for mercy from such a monster would be worse than vain. She had lost hope utterly. She and her mother had been mistaken. The saints cared for neither little Pierre nor herself, and had left them to fall into the clutches of this demon. She glanced slowly around the room in the faint hope of escape, or even for the chance of throwing herself from a window, if it were needful, in order to escape from that horrible man. But the walls were thick. No light came from without, but only from a great furnace, that was Strangely constructed and made her shudder. For a long time there was perfect silence in the dreadful place. The two masked men, grotesque and horrible, stood near the furnace, motionless as statues. The sable monster on his black throne watched them without moving a muscle in his great, coarse face, only his small eyes seemed like two scintillating sparks of infernal fire, as with a fiendish kind of pleasure he marked the agony of Ninon. Although the young girl instinctively gave up all hope of life, yet never had life seemed so sweet. Its homeliest details now appeared precious, and their poor little cottage, heaven, compared with this den of infamy. She had just tasted the exquisite happiness of a new and before unknown love, and now she was to die. She thought of her mother growing gray in loneliness and grief. She thought of her lover coming eagerly to their trysting-place; but when he should come on the morrow, Christmas day, what would she be?—where would she be? and in her anguish she cried aloud, and, kneeling, stretched out her hands towards the sable throne.

"Then for the first time the coarse, thick lips of the monster distorted themselves into a hideous grin, but otherwise he did not move, and the awful silence continued in that chamber of death.

"Ninon put her hands to her face, to hide his ugly visage, and then sank down in the apathy of despair.

"There was nothing in Ninon's agony that disturbed Laval. Scarcely a night passed but some victim like herself writhed under his remorseless eyes. Their mortal fear and sufferings were his recreation before the sterner business of sorcery that followed; and the more demonstrative they were in their pain, the more highly spiced was his pleasure. At first Ninon's beautiful and expressive face kept his whole attention; but after a time he began to note the strange-appearing little boy who accompanied her. There was no fear in his calm, pale face. There was no dread in his large, spiritual eyes, that seemed to look past the monster and his thick walls to some rare vision beyond.

"'What does the little wretch see?' he queried, for Laval, like his age, was very superstitious.

"But Ninon must be goaded out of her apathy, or the night would be dull; so at last the thick lips open, and the awful silence is broken by more awful words:

"'Girl, thou who art to lose body and soul, look at me.'

"Slowly Ninon lifted her eyes to his brutal face, and gazed fixedly as some poor little bird might look into the envenomed jaws of a serpent. The fascination of fear was upon her. In a thick, guttural, monotonous voice, the human beast continued: 'The devil has shown me that there is a potent charm in thy young innocent heart, that there are powerful spells in thy warm young blood, and that with them I may discover untold wealth. When the bell tolls out the hour of midnight, I shall take your bleeding heart out of your living body, and the heart of your brother out of his body, that with them I may decoct an essence in yonder furnace that will transmute the basest metal into gold. Midnight is the hour, and at midnight you shall die. Only the spell will be far more potent if you first give yourself to the foul fiend. Therefore, repeat after me: 'I give my soul and body to Satan.'

"Mechanically the terror-stricken girl began: 'I give—' but little Pierre put his hand over her mouth. 'The saints forbid,' he said quietly.

"'Seize the child; tear out his staring eyes,' shouted the monster, savagely."

Mr. Dimmerly stopped, took off his spectacles, and coolly wiped them as he said: "I'm through, and my part of the story is true. This Giles de Laval, or, as he is better known in French history, the Marshal de Retz, destroyed hundreds of children, at ages varying from eight to eighteen, and in ways far worse than I have described. So, Lottie, have you had enough of high tragedy?"

"O uncle!" she exclaimed, with a little impatient stamp of the foot, "you have told us a horrible story. It must not break off in this way, or we sha'n't sleep a wink to-night. Mr. Hemstead, you take up the story where uncle left off, and, if possible, complete it in a way that won't make our blood run cold."

Thus Hemstead was put upon his mettle, and soon all present were hanging with breathless interest on his rich, well-modulated tones.

"When the monster from his sable throne uttered his merciless mandate to tear out the eyes of little Pierre, the two grotesque and statue-like apparitions sprang into life, and, snatching hot irons from the furnace, rushed towards the child. Ninon gave a shriek of terror, and sought to shelter the boy in her arms, crying,'Do what you will with me, but spare him.' Thus again, more truly than before by jealous tears, Ninon proved that she had become a woman."

At this sentence he was interrupted by a perfect storm of applause, in which Harcourt led off again and again. But Hemstead drew his inspiration from Lottie's face, and noted with a thrill of joy that tears stood in her eyes. This was a richer tribute than he received from all the others, and with deeper and more effective tones he continued: "But just then the great bell began to toll out the hour of twelve, and the demon, from his sable throne, made a restraining gesture.

"'Naught,' he said, 'must now interfere with our high magic and solemn sorcery. At the last stroke of the bell take their hearts out of their living bodies.'

"Ninon sank on the floor, murmuring like a dying zephyr among the chords of an AEolian harp, 'Farewell, mother dear. Farewell, my lover true. I cannot meet you to-mortarn at the FALLEN TREE' (here Hemstead glanced at Lottie, whose face was instantly suffused); and she bowed her bead upon her brother's shoulder, and sobbed aloud.

"Slowly and solemnly upon the silent night the iron tongue tolled out the fatal moments.

"With increasing uneasiness the monster upon his sable throne watched little Pierre, who, from first to last, had not shown a trace of fear or trouble. Among all his victims he had never seen a child like this, and his guilty heart began to fail him wofully.

"'He surely sees something,' he muttered, as the boy's large eyes dilated with a wondrous awe, and his face grew luminous with a great joy.

"The heavy vibrations of the last stroke of the bell resounded through the silent night.

"Suddenly, with a shrill, piercing voice that went like an arrow to the guilty heart of Laval, little Pierre exclaimed, 'It is Christmas morn! O Ninon, look! there is Jesu, the Christ-Child, and the Lord of all the saints. See, He is coming towards us, bearing His cross—He is here—He is placing His pierced hands upon our heads—we are saved'; and the child knelt reverently on the pavement, and his sister knelt beside him.

"The monster tumbled off his sable throne and lay grovelling and groaning upon the floor, while his terror-stricken accomplices ran clattering down the stairs.

"Far above the tower even, Ninon thought she heard a burst of heavenly song, while little Pierre in rapt ecstasy cried,' Listen.'

"Suddenly a clarion voice that Ninon heard most plainly, and that thrilled her to the heart, rang up from the earth beneath.

"' Harm but a hair of their heads, and I will make you suffer the tortures of the damned.'

"Even at their height they could hear the sound of galloping steeds.

"A dozen brave fellows swam the moat, and a moment later the draw-bridge fell heavily, and the clangor of a hundred hoofs rang upon it.

"Up the winding stair came the tramp of armed men. A thud and a groan followed when any resisted. The dethroned monster lay grovelling on the floor, not daring to move.

"Little Pierre still looked heavenward. Ninon looked towards the door. A moment later her lover rushed in with drawn sword; and Ninon, unharmed, with a cry of joy sprang to his heart.

"But the fire of a terrible anger burned in the young man's cheek, and he raised his gleaming sword against Laval, who now pleaded piteously for mercy.

"'What mercy would you have shown these children?' thundered the youth. 'What mercy have you shown to your other innocent victims?' and he was about to run him through when Ninon caught his arm and cried, 'Stay, kill him not this Christmas morn in his terrible guilt. It was Jesu who saved us; and does He not ever say, Forgive—even our enemies?'

"Slowly she drew down the raised arm of human vengeance. She took from his reluctant hand the gleaming sword, and returned it in its sheath.

"And now Ninon has become more than a woman,—she is a Christian."



CHAPTER XXXI.

UNDER THE MISTLETOE.



Instead of applause, there was the truer and more appropriate tribute of silence when Hemstead finished the mosaic of a story which, by the various narratives, had been developed so differently and yet characteristically. The eyes of more than one were moist, and Lottie hastily left the room.

Mr. Dimmerly was the first to recover himself, and, after blowing his nose most vociferously, managed to say: "Well, nephew, it was hardly the thing to get a sermon off on us before Sunday, but, since it was rather well done, I don't think we will complain. I now suggest that you young people have some games that will set your blood in motion. The last hours of Christmas eve should ever be the merriest. I will send Lottie back,—the tender-hearted little minx, who must take everything in earnest."

His advice was followed, and Lottie soon returned, becoming, as usual, the life of the company. A breezy sound of voices and many a ringing laugh took the place of the former hush, as games and jests followed in quick succession.

Harcourt was good-naturedly on the alert to serve Hemstead, and, in a game that required the absence of two of the company from the room a few moments, suggested the names of the student and Lottie Marsden. They, nothing loath, went out together into the empty hall.

"Do you know," said Hemstead, "I think it a little strange I have not had a chance to speak to you alone since we were at the fallen tree in the clump of hemlocks?"

"I did not know," said Lottie, laughing and blushing, "that the 'fallen tree' was a trysting place."

"Well," said he, eagerly, "I met a young lady there once, whom I would gladly meet there or anywhere else again."

"To see whether she had taken your advice?"

"That depends. I doubt whether she can 'make a man' of a certain individual, and I fear she will not take the other alternative."

"She will probably do as Ninon did,—follow her heart." "If one could only know whither your heart would lead you!" he said, looking at her so wistfully that she, seeing through his thin disguise, had it on her tongue to tell him. But, instead, she took a few dancing steps away, and, with no such intention whatever, stood just under the mistletoe as she laughingly said, "That reminds me of what father often says: How nice it would be to speculate, if one only knew every time how it would turn out!"

"Miss Marsden!" he exclaimed, hurriedly, "you are right under the mistletoe."

She tried to spring away, but he snatched her hand and detained her, while he stood hesitatingly at her side, looking at her lips as if they were the gates of Paradise.

"Well," said she, laughing and blushing, "I have nothing to do in the matter."

"But I dare not take it unless you give it."

"And I dare not give it unless you take it."

If Hemstead did not emulate Mr. Dimmerly's "explosion," the ancient rite was nevertheless honored in a way that Lottie would not soon forget. Never did a kiss mean more, express more, or impart more, upon any occasion of the observance of the ceremony by her ancestors, back to the times of the Druids.

But this moment of bliss was of short duration, for Mrs. Marchmont unexpectedly entered the hall, and threw them both into disastrous confusion by exclaiming, in unfeigned astonishment, "Well, well! what does this mean?"

Of course Lottie was the first to recover herself, and managed to falter: "You see, auntie, by some accident—I assure you it was an accident; I didn't mean to do it at all—I got under that pesky mistletoe of uncle's, and Mr. Hemstead, it would seem, had taken to heart uncle's homily on the duty of keeping up old customs. Mr. Hemstead, you know, is so conscientious, and I suppose he felt that he must, poor man; and so—and thus"—

At this moment Harcourt's expedients of delay failed, and they were loudly summoned back to the dining-room.

"I hope there will be no more such nonsense," said Mrs. Marchmont, severely.

"O, no, indeed, auntie; it will never happen again. Only the strongest sense of duty could have impelled Mr. Hemstead to do such a thing"; and they escaped to the dining-room only to be subjected to a fire from another quarter. Their color was so high, and they had such an air of general confusion, that Harcourt cried, laughingly, "I more than half believe that you have been under the mistletoe."

"Nonsense!" said Lottie; "with auntie in the hall? If you think Mr. Hemstead is brave enough for that, you greatly misjudge him."

But De Forrest was wofully suspicious, and had many uneasy thoughts about the "jest" which Lottie must be carrying out; for surely it could not be possible that she was becoming in earnest.

Hemstead and Lottie made wretched work in guessing the word required of them from the nature of the game; for Mr. Dimmerly's prolonged chuckling laugh, which could be heard from the parlor, did not tend to allay their confusion.

When Mrs. Marchmont entered that apartment she found her brother apparently in a convulsion; but he was only vainly endeavoring to prevent his merriment from developing into an outrageous chuckle, for he too had seen Lottie under the mistletoe.

"This thing must be stopped," said Mrs. Marchmont, most emphatically; at which her brother chuckled louder than ever, and said, "Stopped, indeed! As if it could be, or ever had been 'stopped,' since Adam and Eve first cast sheep's eyes at each other in the Garden of Eden."

His sister left the room with a gesture of annoyance.

Suddenly the little man's queer, cackling laugh ceased, and his wrinkled face grew sad and thoughtful as he sighed: "I'm the only Dimmerly who was ever 'stopped,'—fool that I was. His mother, sister Celia, would marry a poor man; and her life, in spite of all her toil and privation, has been happier than mine"; and he shook his head pathetically over "what might have been."

The marble clock on the mantel chimed out the hour of twelve, and the young people came flocking in from the dining-room, their noisy mirth hushed as they remembered that the sacred hours of the Christmas Sabbath had begun.

"I have induced Miss Martell to give us a Christmas hymn before parting," said Harcourt; and he led Alice to the piano, as if there had been some preconcerted arrangement.

Lottie went to her uncle's side, and took his arm in a sort of wheedling, affectionate way. She was beginning instinctively to recognize that she had an ally and sympathizer in him. As he looked down upon her fair face in its dewy freshness and bloom, he vowed that, as far as it was in his power, she should have her own way. Time and the inevitable ills of our lot might dim that face, but it should not become withered by a lifetime of vain regret.

"What were you laughing at so, uncle?" she whispered.

"At my nephew's painful conscientiousness and stern performance of duty. What a martyr he made of himself, to be sure!"

"Now, uncle, I half believe you think I stepped under your old mistletoe on purpose. It's no such thing."

"O, no, my dear. The mistletoe is haunted, and has been for a thousand years or more, and viewless elves draw under it those who are to receive kisses,—prophetic of many others from the same lips."

But here he found Lottie's hand upon his lips for a second, and then she stood at Miss Martell's side, who was now playing a prelude. In some surprise, Lottie noticed that, instead of there being a printed sheet upon the piano-rack, both the words and music were written by hand. As Miss Martell sang, in a sweet but unfamiliar air, the following words, her surprise and interest deepened:

At midnight, in Judean skies, There dawned a light whose holy rays Not only cheered the shepherds' eyes, But filled with hope all coming days.

At midnight, o'er Judea's plain Was heard a song unknown before; The echoes of that sweet refrain Are reaching earth's remotest shore.

'Twas not the sun o'er Eastern hills, That shed a transient radiance round; Nor a feeble heir of earthly ills The shepherds in the manger found.

Upon the darker midnight sky Of human sorrow, care, and sin— A night that broods at noontide high; A dreary gloom all hearts within—

There rose a gentle, human face, Whose light was love and sympathy— The God of heaven, yet of our race— The humblest of humanity.

The night of sorrow, sin, and care Still shadows many hapless hearts; But all who will this light may share,— This hope which Christmas morn imparts.

Lottie's eyes were suffused with tears when the simple hymn was finished, but they did not prevent her from following Miss Kartell's finger as she turned to the title-page and pointed to the inscription:

"Music by Alice Martell.

"Words by Frank Hemstead.

"Dedicated to Miss Lottie Marsden.

"We wish you more than a 'merry'—the happy Christmas, rather, of the Christian."

Her first response was an impulsive kiss to Alice. But when she looked around to thank Hemstead he had gone.

A little later, as he came stamping up the piazza, out of the snow, after assisting Harcourt and Miss Martell away, the hall-door opened, and some one darted out, and took his hand in a quick, thrilling pressure. A voice that had grown as dear as familiar said, "Before we parted to-night I wanted to tell you that I think Lottie Marsden, like Ninon, has become more than a woman,—a Christian."

And she vanished, but left the night so luminous about him that he could not, for a long time, enter the house.

He felt, like the shepherds who kept watch centuries ago, that an angel had brought him "tidings of great joy."



CHAPTER XXXII.

THE CHRISTMAS SUNDAY.



This Christmas Sabbath, though marked by no unusual event, was destined to be a memorable day in the lives of Frank Hemstead and Charlotte Marsden. A chain of unforeseen circumstances and experiences, and a sequence of emotions still less understood, had lifted them higher and higher, until this culminating day was scarcely one of earthly existence.

Lottie, in her previous life, had been frivolous and selfish; but her evil resulted from thoughtlessness, rather than from the deliberate purpose to do wrong. She was the type of multitudes of her fair sisters, who, with sparkling eyes, look out upon life in its morning to see only what it offers to them, and not the tasks it furnishes them for others. Only by experience—only by God's logic of events—do they find that their happiness is in these tasks; in unselfish giving and doing.

The world had been at Lottie's feet. It had offered her all that it has to give to a girl in her station; but when, withdrawn from it by a day of suffering, she had summed up her treasures, she had found that she had nothing but remorse. She had been receiving all her life, and yet had nothing. She would then gladly have remembered that she had given even one an impulse towards a truer and happier life. But she could not. Apart from natural impulses of affection towards kindred and friends, her only thought in regard to all had been,—How can I make them minister to me and my pleasure? With tact and skill, enhanced by exceeding beauty, she had exacted an unstinted revenue of flattery, attention, and even love; and yet, when, in weakness and pain, she wished the solace of some consoling memory, she found only an accusing conscience.

This experience conveyed to the practical girl a startling lesson. With all her faults, she did not belong to the class that is hopeless, because so weak and shallow. Though her handsome face might often express much that was unlovely and unwomanly, it ever expressed mind.

When she, in her turn, like hosts of others, came to realize the limitations of her being, her weakness and need, she looked around, instinctively, for help and support. Human teaching presented a God from whom she shrank in fear and dislike. The Bible revealed Jesus. When she most felt her need, the Bible presented One whose eyes overflowed with sympathy, and whose hand was omnipotent. She instinctively felt, like Mary of old, that, at "His feet," there were rest and hope.

The feeling was not reached as a mathematician solves an equation, or a theologian comes to a conclusion, but more after the manner in which some women and most children will look at a person and say, "I like him; I'll trust him."

There was nothing incongruous or unnatural in the contemporary love growing up in her heart for Hemstead, though it is possible that some may so think. In some minds the ideas of love and passion seem inseparable, and they regard religion as something far removed. These are but the right wing of that sinister class who jumble their passions and religion together, and, in pious jargon and spiritual double entendre, half conceal and half convey the base meaning of their hearts. In others, love, or what with them goes by the name, is equally inseparable from management and match-making, trousseaux and settlements,—concerns pertaining to earth, and very earthy, it must be admitted. No doubt many excellent, solid people would regard Lottie's spiritual condition with grave suspicion, and ask, disapprovingly, "What business have two such DIFFERENT loves to be originating in her heart at the same time?" But, in the term "different," they beg the question. Where is the antagonism? Where is even the dissimilarity? Are not these two impulses of the heart near akin, rather? and does not a truer and deeper philosophy of life teach that love for a human object may be as certainly God's will as love towards Himself? Have these solid, excellent people aught to say against the faithful devotion of a wife, or the patient tenderness of a mother, which are corner-stones of the family, as the family is the corner-stone of all true civilization? But what is the origin of the wife's devotion and the mother's tenderness? These people, surely, are as wist as they are solid. They would have the day without the dawn.

At any rate, it would appear that Heaven was making the match between Hemstead and Lottie,—making it as the spring comes on in northern latitudes, subtilely, imperceptibly, and yet speedily. Just how or when it came about, they did not know; but when they met on that Christmas morning, the peace and gladness of an assured and reciprocal love smiled from each other's eyes. They needed no explanations. Frank Hemstead's face had ever been as easily interpreted as his honest words; and he now had taught Lottie's face to tell the truth. A blessed truth it revealed to him that Christmas day.

As he entered the pulpit that morning his face was radiant with the purest human love, as well as love to God. So far from being incongruous, the one seemed to kindle and intensify the other. Though his sermon was simplicity itself he spoke as one inspired. His message now was a gospel, and came to his hearers as the angel's announcement (which was his text) to the shepherds.

But his closing words were searching, and sent many of his hearers home thoughtful and conscience-smitten, as well as cheered by the great hope which Christmas day should ever bring to the world.

"I would gladly correct," he said, "the impression which I fear was made on some minds last Sabbath. Christ is the embodiment of Christianity, and His coming to the world was 'tidings of great joy'; His coming to every sinful heart should be 'tidings of great joy.' But I fear that I led some to dread His coming, as they would purgatorial fires. How did the All-powerful One come? As a little, helpless child, that he might disarm our fears and enlist our sympathy. How did He live? The humblest among the humble, that no one on earth should be too lowly to go straight to His side with his griefs. How did He act? He took little children in His arms, and blessed them. He laid His hand on the loathsome leper from whom all shrank. He looked into the glare of the demoniac's eyes: the demons fled. Then, in meekness, He would offer to enter the poor wretch's heart, and dwell in what had been the foul abode of the foulest fiends. When men wept, He, from sympathy, wept with them, though his next breath changed their mourning into joy. When man dishonored God, or wronged his fellow-men,—as did the Pharisees, with their unhallowed traffic in the Temple, their robbery of the widow and fatherless, their blocking up of the way of life with their senseless ceremonies, puerile traditions,—no knight in all the heroic past ever breathed out a more fiery indignation. How did He die? In such a way that even the thief might be redeemed and live eternally. He was an ideal man, as well as perfect God. He was the servant of all, as well as King of kings. Not from his throne did He stoop to us. He stood at our side, and sustained fainting humanity with His encircling arm, as a brother. Little wonder, then, that the angel called the announcement that God had thus visited His creatures 'good tidings of great joy.'

"But there is a brief word of pointed and searching significance in this message. The angel said, 'Unto YOU is born a Saviour.' Is that true of each one of us? Is this Christmas day a mockery, reminding us of a hope that is not ours,—of a heaven in which we have no right or part? Does conscience tell us to-day that we have looked upon the light that shone at Bethlehem with apathetic eyes, and heard the angel's message with unbelieving hearts, so that practically no Saviour has been born unto us? Why do you keep this day as a festival, my hearer? I can tell you why you may. If you will receive it, the angel's message is to you personally; unto you is born a Saviour who will forgive your past sin, and shield you from its consequences,—who will ennoble your future life, and sustain and comfort you under the inevitable sorrow and suffering awaiting,—and who will receive you into an eternal and a happy home at the end of your brief sojourn here. May not this Christmas pass until each one has received the abiding peace and joy of the angel's message into the depths of his heart."

After the service, Miss Martell, with glistening eyes, said to Harcourt, "I am glad you heard that sermon."

"I admit," he replied, with bowed head, "that it is better than my old philosophy. I think Hemstead must have written it for me."

As the young clergyman helped Lottie into the sleigh, she whispered, "You wrote that sermon for me."

Both were right. Hemstead had preached Christ, who is God's embodied truth, meant alike for every human hearty and alike adapted to all.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE END OF THE "JEST."



It is a common impression that impending disasters cast their shadows before; and especially in the realm of fiction do we find that much is made of presentiments, which are usually fulfilled in a very dramatic way. But the close observer of real life, to a large degree, loses faith in these bodings of ill. He learns that sombre impressions result more often from a defective digestion and a disquieted conscience than from any other cause; and that, after the gloomiest forebodings, the days pass in unusual serenity. Not that this is always true, but it would almost seem the rule. Perhaps more distress is caused by those troubles which never come, but which are feared and worried over, than by those which do come, teaching us, often, patience and faith.

Does not experience show that disasters and trials more often visit us, like the "thief in the night," unexpectedly?

At any rate, it so occurred to Hemstead and Lottie on the dreary Monday that followed their glorified Sunday. And yet, never did a day open with fairer promise. A cloudless sky bent over a crystal earth. The mystic peace of Christmas seemed to have been breathed even into bleak December; for the air was mild and still, and the shadow of many a slender tree crept across the snow as steadily as that made by the sun-dial on the lawn.

Within doors all appeared equally serene. The fire burned cheerily upon the hearth when Hemstead came down to breakfast. What was of far more importance, the light of love glowed as brightly in Lottie's eyes, as she beamed upon him across the table; and the spell which kept him, unthinking, unfearing, in the beatified present remained unbroken.

But the darkest shadows were creeping towards both.

To any situated as they were, and in their condition of mind and heart, a mere awakening would have been a rude shock. Some one had only to show them, with the remorseless logic of this world, what all their heavenly emotions involved, in order to cause perplexity and almost consternation. They could not long dwell, like the immortal gods, on the Mount Olympus of their exalted feeling, subsisting on the nectar and ambrosia of tones and glances.

Lottie was the fashionable daughter of an ultra-fashionable mother and a worldly father, in whose eyes sins against the beau monde were the most irrational and unpardonable.

Hemstead was a predestined home missionary, upon whom the Christian Church proposed to inflict the slow martyrdom of five or six hundred a year. Mrs. Marchmont but reflected the judgment of the world when she thought that for two young people, thus situated, to fall in love with each other, would be the greatest possible misfortune. Therefore, with the sincerest sense of duty, and the very best intentions, she set about preventing it, after all the mischief had been done.

Like a prudent lady, as she was, she first sought to get sufficient information to justify her in speaking plainly to both nephew and niece. For this purpose she drew Addie out on Sunday afternoon, asking her if she had noticed anything peculiar in the manner of Hemstead and Lottie towards each other. Then, for the first time, and with just indignation, to her credit be it said, she learned of the practical joke of which her nephew was to have been the victim. She skilfully drew from her daughter all the details of its inception and the mode in which it had been carried out; for, to Addie's superficial observation, Lottie was only indulging in one of her old flirtations, She neither saw, nor was she able to understand, the change in Lottie's feelings and character. She also wronged Lottie by giving the impression that she herself had had nothing to do with the plot, with the exception that she had promised not to interfere.

Mrs. Marchmont could scarcely believe what she heard, but Addie referred her to Bel, who confirmed her words and admitted that from the first she had "known it was very wrong, but had not believed that anything would come of it, until it seemed too late."

"Besides," she said, "Lottie told me that if I said a word, or interfered in any way, she would from that time treat me as a stranger, and she said it in a way that proved she meant it. Therefore, whatever you do, please let it appear that I have no part in it."

"You surprise and shock me greatly," said Mrs. Marchmont. "With all Lottie's wild nonsense and fondness for flirting, I would not have thought that she could be guilty of such deliberate and persistent effort to trifle with one so sincere and good as Frank. The most heartless coquette would scarcely call him fair game. She puzzles me too, for she does not seem like one who is acting, but more like one in earnest. Besides, look at the interest she is beginning to take in religion. She surely could not employ such sacred things for the purposes of mere flirtation."

But Bell soon converted Mrs. Marchmont to her way of thinking. Lottie had found Hemstead more interesting than she had expected, and had foolishly and recklessly permitted a mere sentiment for him to develop, which, in her case, would end with the visit, and soon be forgotten in the mad whirl of New York gayety. "But with Mr. Hemstead," concluded Bel, "it will be a very different affair. He is one of the kind that will brood over such a disappointment and wrong to the end of life."

So it was settled that Mrs. Marchmont should "speak plainly" to her nephew, and warn him against "Lottie's wiles," as soon as possible.

But no opportunity occurred before Monday morning, and then not until Hemstead had received some of the most blissful experiences that he had yet enjoyed. For, immediately after breakfast, all had flocked into the back parlor, where the laden Christmas tree revealed the secrets that had filled the air with mystery during the preceding days.

All had been remembered, and Mr. Martell's munificence towards the gallant coachman quite took away his breath.

But Hemstead was overwhelmed and troubled at first, when he opened an envelope, and found a check for a thousand dollars, with the words:

"We send you this, not in any sense as compensation,—for we know enough of your character to recognize that you would have taken equal risks in behalf of the penniless,—but because we wish to be remembered by you, whom we can never forget. And we only request tint you invest this sum towards your library, so that, in coming years, the thoughts of your favorite authors may remind you of those whose best wishes, sincerest gratitude, and highest esteem Will ever be yours.

"(Signed) HERBERT MARTELL, ALICE MARTELL."

"Now, Frank, what is the use of putting on such airs?" said Addie. "You surely expected a handsome present from Mr. Martell."

"I assure you, I expected nothing of the kind," he replied, a trifle indignantly. "Why should I? As it is, I am doubtful whether I ought to accept it."

"Why should I?" Lottie echoed with a merry laugh. "That's like you. But, unless you wish to hurt and wrong sincere friends very much, I advise you to keep it and do as they say. You are so exceedingly proud or humble—which shall I call it?—that I fear you neither expect, nor will take anything from me."

"Here is a queer-looking parcel for Frank Hemstead," said Mr. Dimmerly, with his chuckling laugh.

With intense delight Lottie saw the student hesitate, and his hand tremble as he slowly began to open it.

"It's not a torpedo, or an infernal machine, that you need be in such trepidation," she whispered. "It won't go off."

"Is it from you?"

"Look and see."

It was a sermon holder, of rich, plain morocco without, but within, most elaborately embroidered. Most prominent among the rare and dainty devices was a single oar.

The expression of his face repaid her, as he examined it with a comical blending of reverence and affection, such as a devout Catholic would manifest towards a relic. In the blade of the oar were worked, with the most exquisite fineness, the words, "A True Knight." Within an inner pocket, where they could not be readily seen, were the words,

"With the thanks of Lottie Marsden."

But his quick scrutiny soon discovered them, and he turned and said, with an emphasis that did her good, "I value this more than the check."

"What folly!" she said, blushing with pleasure; "it isn't worth five dollars."

"I can prove that it is worth more than the check," he said, in a low tone.

"How?"

"We value that gift most which we receive from the friend we value most. There; it is proved in a sentence; but I can prove it over again."

"What delightful lessons in logic! But you surely cannot prove it again."

"Yes. If the gift from the friend we value most contains evidence that thought and time have been expended upon it, that gift, however slight its market value, has a worth to us beyond price, because showing that the friend we love supremely thinks of us in our absence."

"I did put a great deal of time and thought in that little gift, but you have repaid me," Lottie answered.

Their brief but significant tete-a-tete was now interrupted by De Forrest, who came forward to thank Lottie for her costly gift to him,—a gift bought on Broadway. He had uneasily marked the fact that she had given something to Hemstead, but when he saw that it was only a sermon-cover, he was quite relieved.

"Come here, Frank, and show me your present," said Mr. Dimmerly, a little later.

Hemstead good-naturedly complied, and the old gentleman looked at the single embroidered oar, with a comical twinkle in his eye, and called again, "Lottie, come here."

She approached rather shyly and reluctantly, not knowing what to expect.

"Now, Lottie," said her uncle, reproachfully, pointing to the oar, "I did not expect that from so sensible a girl as you are. What is a man going to do with one oar, unless he is to take a lonely scull through life as I have? Did you mean to suggest that to Mr. Hemstead?"

"Mr. Hemstead found out another meaning than that," she said, laughing, "and I'm not going to stay here to be teased by you"; and she ran out of the room, the picture of blushing happiness.

When Hemstead again saw her it was with a great dread in his heart, and his tones were grave and almost stern.

"O—h—h, you found out another meaning, did you?" said Mr. Dimmerly, looking both kindly and quizzically over his spectacles at his nephew.

"Well, uncle, to tell you the truth I hardly understand myself. My visit here is a great contrast to my quiet seminary life, and I have been getting deeper and deeper into a maze of happy bewilderment every day. So much has happened, and I am so changed, that, like many in tales of enchantment, I scarcely know whether I am myself."

"I have seen the spell working," said Mr. Dimmerly, dryly, "and am thankful that the transformation has not been of the nature that Shakespeare portrayed in his Midsummer Night Fantasy. Your head might have become turned by the wrong girl, and you have reached the period when it is bound to be turned by some one."

"Uncle," he said, fervently, "she is the noblest and most beautiful being in existence."

"Frank, I wish to see you," said his aunt, quietly; and he followed her to her own private sitting-room.

Mr. Dimmerly indulged in his chuckling laugh as he looked after them.

"Now she's going to 'stop' it, he—he—In the mean time I'll go out and stop the brook from running down hill."

"The time has come," said Mrs. Marchmont to her perplexed nephew, with the complacent superiority with which the wise of this world enlighten those whose "heads are often in the clouds,"—"the time has come when I must speak plainly to you of a matter as important as it is delicate. You are my own sister's child, and I cannot see you wronged or going blindly into trouble without warning you. Are you not permitting yourself to become interested in Miss Marsden to a degree that is not wise?"

"Why not wise?" he answered with burning cheeks.

"Have you not realized that she is one of the most fashionable young ladies in New York, and belongs to one of the wealthiest and most fashionable families? If you could but once see her mother you would understand me."

"But she herself has changed," he urged, eagerly.

Mrs. Marchmont smiled incredulously and pityingly. "How little you know the world!" she said. "In what do you expect all your sentiment to end? Only sentiment? You say you purpose being a home missionary. Can you imagine for a moment that one situated as she is would contemplate such a life? Her parents would as soon bury her."

Hemstead groaned under his aunt's remorseless words, but said in a sort of blind desperation: "Her parents! Is this Hindostan, that parents can treat their daughters as merchandise? A girl of Miss Marsden's force and nobility of character—"

"O Frank, hush! It absolutely makes me sick to see one so easily deceived. 'Nobility of character,' indeed! Well, I didn't wish to speak of it. I could not believe it even of Lottie, but nothing less than the whole truth will convince you"; and she told him of the plot in which Lottie purposed to make him the ridiculous subject of a practical joke, and intimated that all her action since had been but the carrying out of that plot.

At first Hemstead grew deathly pale, and his aunt, thinking he was going to faint, began fumbling for her salts. But a moment later the blood suffused even his neck and brow, and he said passionately, "I don't believe a word of this; Miss Marsden is not capable of such falsehood."

"Whether in your unreasoning passion you will believe it or not makes no difference," said Mrs. Marchmont, quietly. "It is true, as I can prove by Addie and Miss Parton."

He took a few hasty strides up and down the room and muttered, "I will take her word against all the world. She shall answer for herself"; and he rang the bell.

When the servant appeared he said, "Please ask Miss Marsden to come here at once."

Mrs. Marchmont regretted Hemstead's action very much, but it was too firm and decided to be prevented. She had planned that after his "eyes had been opened to his folly," and Lottie's frivolity, to say the least, her nephew would, with quiet dignity, cease his attentions, and perhaps shorten his visit. She had a horror of scenes, but feared that one was coming now.

Hemstead admitted Lottie with a silent bow and gave her a chair.

When she saw his grave, pale face, her heart misgave her strangely, and she trembled so that even he noticed it, and also another fact,—she did not meet his eyes. He fastened his upon her, as if he would read her soul, for he now felt that more than life was at stake.

"Miss Marsden," he said, in a low, deep tone, "my aunt has made a strange charge against you, but I said to her, and I now say to you, that I will take your word against all the world. She asserts, and she gives the names of her witnesses, that your action—your kindness towards me from the first—has been but the carrying out of a deliberate and heartless jest. Is it true?"

Lottie's wonted quickness failed her. She had been so happy, she had seemed to have got so far beyond her old, false self, and so established in his affection, that such a reverse did not appear possible. But the evil that at one time she had feared had now come in a form so unexpected and serious that, for a moment, she was stunned and bewildered, and fell into helpless confusion. The nature of the case aggravated her distress. How could she explain? What could she say? In response to his question she only trembled more violently and buried her burning face in her hands.

He saw in this action confirmation of fears that he at first would scarcely entertain, and regarded her a moment with a strange expression upon his face,—anger and pity blended,—and then silently left the room.

The sleigh stood at the door, and the coachman was just starting on an errand to Newburgh.

Mr. Dimmerly looked with surprise at his nephew's pale face,—a surprise that was greatly increased as the young man seized his hat and coat, and said in a husky tone, "I am going to New York for some days," and sprang into the sleigh and was driven away.

"Well," said the old man, testily, "if she 'stopped' him as easily as that, he deserves to lose her."

And Mrs. Marchmont, seeing Hemstead depart so silently, congratulated herself that she had escaped a scene after all, and complacently thought, "These things can be 'stopped' if taken in time, notwithstanding brother's sentimental nonsense."

As poor Lottie's mind emerged from its chaos into connected thought, she speedily came to the conclusion to tell Hemstead the whole truth, to condemn herself more severely than even he could in his anger, and to ask his forgiveness.

But when she raised her tearful face to speak, he was gone.

She heard the sound of bells. A sudden fear chilled her, and she sprang to the window and saw a vanishing form that she dreaded might be his. Without a word to Mrs. Marchmont, she rushed down to the lower hall, where she found Mr. Dimmerly fuming about.

"Where is Mr. Hemstead?" she asked, eagerly.

"What the deuce is the matter? What have you sister been saying that Frank should come down here white as a sheet?"

"But where is he?" she asked again, in a tone that her uncle had never heard her use before.

"Gone to New York for several days," he said.

Lottie tottered a moment as if she had received a blow. With one hand she steadied herself on the balustrade of the stairs, while she passed the other across her brow, then turned and wearily climbed to her room.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

LOYAL.



Bel was startled at the pallor of Lottie's face as she entered the room, and rose hastily to offer assistance, but Lottie motioned her away. Without a word she threw herself upon the bed and signified her grief and despair by an act as old as the oldest records of humanity,—she "turned her face to the wall."

Bel knew that Mrs. Marchmont had "spoken plainly," and she had seen Hemstead drive away. She expected Lottie to come to her room in a towering passion, and was prepared to weather the storm in cynical endurance, assured that her friend would eventually thank her for having had a hand in breaking up the "whole absurd thing."

But when Lottie entered, with the expression of one who had received a mortal wound,—when in silence and despair she had turned her face from all the world as if there were nothing left in it for which she cared,—the nervous young lady began to fear that this affair might not pass away like an ordinary "mood."

She reasoned and remonstrated, but Lottie did not heed, and scarcely heard her. Then she went to Mrs. Marchmont, and disturbed even that lady's complacency by her account of Lottie's appearance and manner. But with approving consciences they both said, "It was time something was done."

The dinner hour came, but Lottie silently shook her head to all urging to come down. It was the same at supper. Entreaty, remonstrance, the assumption of hurt and injured tones, were alike unavailing. She lay motionless, like one stunned and under partial paralysis.

Mrs. Marchmont lost her complacency utterly, and Mr. Dimmerly proved but a Job's comforter, as he snarled, "You have stopped it with a vengeance. It's always the way when people meddle."

Nervous Bel was in a perfect tremor of anxiety, perplexity, and weak remorse; and she kept flitting in and out of the room as pale and restless as a disquieted ghost.

De Forrest thought he ought to be "chief mourner," but no one seemed to pay much attention to him.

As for Lottie, one ever-present thought seemed scorching her brain and withering heart and hope.

"He thinks me false,—false in everything,—false in every glance and word to him,—false even when I spoke of sacred things; and he will despise me forever."

Little wonder that she was so drearily apathetic to all that could be said or done to rouse her. The fall from the pinnacle of her religious hope and earthly happiness was too far and great to permit speedy recovery.

At last she rose, and mechanically disrobed for the night: but no sleep blessed her eyes, for, on every side, she saw, in flaming letters, the word false. With increasing vividness her fancy portrayed a pale, stern, averted face.

The next morning she was really ill, and her aunt, in alarm, was about sending for the physician, but Lottie prevented her by saying, somewhat coldly, "What drug has the doctor for rny trouble? If you really wish me to get better, give Bel another room, and leave me to myself. I must fight this battle out alone."

"Now, Lottie, how can you take a little thing so greatly to heart?"

"Is it a little thing that the one whom I most honor and respect in all the world regards me as a false coquette?"

"You surely cannot apply such language to my nephew?"

"I do; and on the best grounds. If I am young, I am somewhat capable of judging. He is not the first man I have seen. You do not know, and have never appreciated Mr. Hemstead."

"But, Lottie, compare your station and prospects with his."

"There is scarcely any one with whom I would not exchange prospects. I am sick of society's artificial distinctions, in which true worth and manhood—all that Heaven cares for—count for nothing. What does Mr. Hemstead care about my wealth, name, and position in New York? He looks at me; and you, or, rather, my own senseless folly, have made me appear a weak, false thing, that, from the very laws of his being, he cannot help despising. But it was cruelly hard in you and Bel, when you saw that I was trying to be a different—a better girl, to show him only what I was, and give me no chance to explain. He will never trust,—never even look at me again." And, for the first time, the unhappy girl burst into a passion of tears, and sobbed so long and violently that Mrs. Marchmont had a distressing consciousness that her worldly wisdom was not equal to this case at all. She would have telegraphed Hemstead to return, if she had known where to address him. She was often tempted to write to Lottie's mother, but dreaded the reproaches of Mrs. Marsden for permitting matters to reach such a crisis before "stopping" them. And so, in anxiety and perplexity, the day dragged slowly on, until, at last, Lottie, wearied out, fell into the heavy sleep of utter exhaustion, from which she did not wake till the following morning.