"If he is as bad as you say, I wonder he gets any one to visit him."

"He does, however. We all go,—generally the same lot every year; though I have been rather out of it for a time, on account of my short stay in India. He has first-class shooting; and when he is not in the way, it is pretty jolly. He hates old people, and never allows a chaperon inside his doors,—I mean elderly chaperons. The young ones don't count: they, as a rule, are backward in the art of talking at one and making things disagreeable all round."

"But he is old himself."

"That's just it. It is all jealousy. He finds every old person he meets, no matter how unpleasant, a decided improvement on himself; whereas he can always hope the young ones may turn out his counterparts."

"Really, if you say much more, I shall be afraid to go to Herst."

"Oh, well"—temporizing—"perhaps I exaggerate slightly. He has a wretched temper, and he takes snuff, you know, but I dare say there are worse."

"I have heard of damning praise," says Molly, laughing. "You are an adept at it."

"Am I? I didn't know. Well, do you know, in spite of all my uncivil remarks, there is a certain charm about Herst that other country-houses lack? We all understand our host's little weaknesses, in the first place, and are, therefore, never caught sleeping. We feel as if we were at school again, united by a common cause, with all the excitement of a conspiracy on foot that has a master for its victim; though, to confess the truth, the master in our case has generally the best of it, as he has a perfect talent for hitting on one's sore point. Then, too, we know to a nicety when the dear old man is in a particularly vicious mood, which is usually at dinner-time, and we keep looking at each other through every course, wondering on whose devoted head the shell of his wrath will first burst; and when that is over we wonder again whose turn it will be next."

"It must keep you very lively."

"It does; and, what is better, it prevents formality, and puts an end to the earlier stages of etiquette. We feel a sort of relationship, a clanship among us; and, indeed, for the most part, we are related, as Mr. Amherst prefers entertaining his family to any others,—it is so much easier to be unpleasant to them than to strangers. I am connected with him very distantly through my mother; so is Cecil Stafford; so is Potts in some undefined way."

"Now, don't tell me you are my cousin," says Molly, "because I wouldn't like it."

"I am not proud; if you will let me be your husband, I won't ask anything more. Oh, Molly, how I wish this year was at an end!"

"Do you? I don't. I am absolutely dying to go to Herst." Then, turning eyes that are rather wistful upon him, she says, earnestly, "Do they—the women, I mean—wear very lovely clothes? To be like them must I—be very well dressed?"

"You always are very well dressed, are you not?" asks her lover, in return, casting a loving, satisfied glance over the fresh, inexpensive Holland gown she wears, with a charming but strictly masculine disregard of the fact that muslin is not silk, nor cotton cashmere.

"Am I? You stupid boy!" says Molly; but she laughs in a little pleased way and pats his hand. Next to being praised herself, the sweetest thing to a woman is to have her dress praised. "Not I. Well, no matter; they may crush me if they please with their designs by Worth, but I defy them to have a prettier ring than mine," smiling at her new toy as it still lies in the middle of her hand. "Is Herst very large, Teddy? How shall I remember my own room? It will be so awkward to be forever running into somebody else's, won't it?"

"Your maid will manage all that for you."

"My maid?" coloring slowly, but still with her eyes on his. "And—supposing I have no maid?"

"Well, then," says Tedcastle, who has been bred in the belief that a woman without her maid is as lost as a babe without its mother, "why, then, I suppose, you would borrow one from your nearest neighbor. Cecil Stafford would lend you hers. I know my sisters were only allowed one maid between each two; and when they spent the autumn in different houses they used to toss up which should have her."

"What does a maid do for one, I wonder?" muses independent Molly.

"I should fancy you could better answer that than I."

"No,—because I never had one."

"Well, neither had I," says Luttrell; at which they both laugh.

"I am afraid," says Molly, in a rather dispirited tone, "I shall feel rather strange at Herst. I wish you could manage to be there the very day I arrive,—could you, Teddy? I would not be so lonely if I knew for certain you would be on the spot to welcome me. It is horrible going there for—that is—to be inspected."

"I will surely be there a day or two after, but I doubt if I could be there on the twenty-seventh. You may trust me to do my best."

"I suppose it is—a very grand place," questions Molly, growing more and more depressed, "with dinner-parties every day, and butlers, and footmen, and all the rest of it? And I shall be there, a stranger, with no one to care whether I enjoy myself or not."

"You forget me," says Luttrell, quietly.

"True," returns she, brightening; "and whenever you see me sitting by myself, Teddy, you are to come over to me, no matter how engaged you may be, and sit down beside me. If I have any one else with me, of course you need not mind it."

"I see." Rather dryly. "Two is company, three is trumpery."

"Have I vexed you? How foolish you are! Why, if you are jealous in imagination, how will it be in reality? There will be many men at Herst; and perhaps—who knows——"

"What?"

"I may fall in love with some of them."

"Very likely." With studied coolness.

"Philip Shadwell, for instance?"

"It may be."

"Or your Mr. Potts?"

"There is no accounting for tastes."

"Or any one else that may happen to please me?"

"I see nothing to prevent it."

"And what then?"

"Why, then you will forget me, and like him,—until you like some one else better."

"Now, if I were a dignified young lady," says Molly, "I should feel insulted; but, being only Molly Bawn, I don't. I forgive you; and I won't fall in love with any one; so you may take that thunder-cloud off your brow as soon as it may please your royal highness."

"What do you gain by making me unhappy?" asks he, impetuously seizing the hand she has extended to him with all the air of an offended but gracious queen.

"Everything." Laughing. "I delight in teasing you, you look so deliciously miserable all through; it is never time thrown away upon you. Now, if you could only manage to laugh at my sallies or tease me back again, I dare say I should give in in a week and let you rest in peace ever after. Why don't you?"

"Perhaps because I can't. All people are not gifted with your fertile imagination. Or because it would give me no pleasure to see you 'deliciously miserable.'"

"Oh, you wouldn't see that," says Molly, airily. "All you could say would not suffice to bring even the faintest touch of misery into my face. Angry I might be, but 'miserable,' never!"

"Be assured, Molly, I shall never put your words to the test. Your happiness means mine."

"See how the diamonds flash!" says Molly, presently, recurring to her treasure. "Is this the engagement-finger? But I will not let it stay there, lest it might betray me."

"But every one knows it now."

"Are John and Letty every one? At Herst they are still in blissful ignorance. Let them remain so. I insist on our engagement being kept secret."

"But why?"

"Because if it was known it would spoil all my fun. I have noticed that men avoid a fiancee as they would a—a rattlesnake."

"I cannot see why being engaged should spoil your fun."

"But it would for all that. Come now, Ted, be candid: how often were you in love before you met me?"

"Never." With the vehemence of a thousand oaths.

"Well, then, to put it differently, how many girls did you like?"

"Like?" Reluctantly. "Oh, as for that, I suppose I did fancy I liked a few girls."

"Just so; and I should like to like a few men," says Miss Massereene, triumphantly.

"You don't know what you are talking about," says Tedcastle, hotly.

"Indeed I do. That is just one of the great points which the defenders of women's rights forget to expatiate upon. A man may love as often as he chooses, while a woman must only love once, or he considers himself very badly used. Why not be on an equal footing? Not that I want to love any one," says Molly; "only it is the injustice of the thing I abhor."

"Love any one you choose," says Tedcastle, passionately, springing to his feet, "Shadwell or any other fellow that comes in your way, I shan't interfere. It is hardly necessary for you to say you don't 'want to love one.' Your heart is as cold as ice. It is high time this engagement—this farce—should come to an end."

"If you wish it," says Molly, quietly, in a subdued tone, yet as she says it she moves one step—no more—closer to him.

"But I do not wish it; that is my cruel fate!" cries the young man, taking both her hands and laying them over his heart with a despairing tenderness. "There are none happy save those incapable of knowing a lasting affection. Oh, Molly!"—remorsefully—"forgive me. I am speaking to you as I ought not. It is all my beastly temper; though I used not to be ill-tempered," says he, with sad wonder. "At home and among our fellows I was always considered rather easy-going than otherwise. I think the knowledge that I must part from you on Thursday (though only for a short time) is embittering me."

"Then you are really sorry to leave me?" questions Molly, peering up at him from under her straw hat.

"You know I am."

"But very sorry,—desperately so?"

"Yes." Gravely, and with something that is almost tears in his eyes. "Why do you ask me, Molly? Is it not palpable enough?"

"It is not. You look just the same as ever,—quite as 'easy-going'"—with a malicious pout—"as either your 'home' or your 'fellows' could desire. I quite buoyed myself up with the hope that I should see you reduced to a skeleton as the last week crept to its close, and here you are robust and well to do as usual. I call it unfeeling," says Miss Massereene, reproachfully, "and I don't believe you care a pin about me."

"Would you like to see me 'reduced to a skeleton'?" asks Luttrell, reproachfully. "You talk as though you had been done out of something; but a man may be horribly cut up about a thing without letting all the world know of it."

"You conceal it with great skill," says Molly, placing her hand beneath his chin, under a pretense of studying his features, but in reality to compel him to look at her; and, as it is impossible for any one to gaze into another's eyes for any length of time without showing emotion of some kind, presently he laughs.

"Ah!" cries she, well pleased, "now I have made you laugh, your little attack of the spleens will possibly take to itself wings and fly away."

All through the remainder of this day and the whole of the next—which is his last—she is sweetness itself to him. Whatever powers of tormenting she possesses are kept well in the background, while she betrays nothing but a very successful desire to please.

She wanders with him contentedly through garden and lawn; she sits beside him; at dinner she directs swift, surreptitious smiles at him across the flowers; later on she sings to him his favorite songs; and why she scarcely knows. Perhaps through a coquettish desire to make the parting harder; perhaps to make his chains still stronger; perhaps to soothe his evident regret; perhaps (who can say?) because she too feels that same regret.

And surely to-night some new spirit is awake within her. Never has she sung so sweetly. As her glorious voice floats through the dimly-lighted room and out into the more brilliant night beyond, Luttrell, and Letitia, and John sit entranced and wonder secretly at the great gift that has been given her.

"If ever words are sweet, what, what is song When lips we love the melody prolong!"

Molly in every-day life is one thing; Molly singing divinely is another. One wonders curiously, when hearing her, how anything so gay, so debonnaire as she, can throw such passion into words, such thrilling tenderness, such wild and mournful longing.

"Molly," cries John impatiently from the balcony, "I cannot bear to hear you sing like that. One would think your heart was broken. Don't do it, child."

And Molly laughs lightly, and bursts into a barcarolle that utterly precludes the idea of any deep feeling; after which she gives them her own "Molly Bawn," and then, shutting down the piano, declares she is tired, and that evidently John doesn't appreciate her, and so she will sing no more.

Then comes the last morning,—the cruel moment when farewell must be said.

The dog-cart is at the door; John is good-naturedly busy about the harness; and, Letitia having suddenly and with suspicious haste recollected important commands for the kitchen, whither she withdraws herself, the lovers find themselves alone.

"Hurry, man; you will barely catch it," cries John, from outside, meaning the train; having calculated to a nicety how long it would take him to give and receive a kiss, now that he has been married for more years than he cares to count.

Luttrell, starting at his voice, seizes both Molly's hands.

"Keep thinking of me always," he says, in a low tone, "always, lest at any moment you forget."

Molly makes him no answer, but slowly raises to him eyes wet with unshed tears. It is more than he has hoped for.

"Molly," he cries, hurriedly, only too ready to grasp this small bud of a longed-for affection, "you will be sorry for me? There are tears in your eyes,—you will miss me? You love me, surely,—a little?"

Once more the lovely dewy eyes meet his; she nods at him and smiles faintly.

"A little," he repeats, wistfully. (Perhaps he has been assuring himself of some more open encouragement,—has dreamed of spoken tenderness, and feels the disappointment.) "Some men," he goes on, softly, "can lay claim to all the great treasure of their love's heart, while I—see how eagerly I accept the bare crumbs. Yet, darling, believe me, your sweet coldness is dearer to me than another woman's warmest assertion. And later—who knows?—perhaps——"

"Yes, perhaps," says Molly, stirred by his emotion or by some other stronger sentiment lying deep at the bottom of her heart, "by and by I may perhaps bore you to death by the violence of my devotion. Meantime"—standing on tiptoe, and blushing just enough to make her even more adorable than before, and placing two white hands on his shoulders—"you shall have one small, wee kiss to carry away with you."

Half in doubt he waits until of her own sweet accord her lips do verily meet his; and then, catching her in his arms, he strains her to him, forgetful for the moment of the great fact that neither time nor tide waits for any man.

"You are not going, I suppose?" calls John, his voice breaking in rudely upon the harrowing scene. "Shall I send the horse back to the stables? Here, James,"—to the stable boy,—"take round Rufus; Mr. Luttrell is going to stay another month or two."

"Remember," says Luttrell, earnestly, still holding her as though loath to let her go.

"You remind me of Charles the First," murmurs she, smiling through her tears. "Yes, I will remember you, and all you have said, and—everything. And more, I shall be longing to see you again. Now go." Giving him a little push.

Presently—he hardly knows how—he finds himself in the dog-cart, with John, oppressively cheerful, beside him, and, looking back as they drive briskly up the avenue, takes a last glance at Brooklyn, with Molly on the steps, waving her hand to him, and watching his retreating form with such a regretful countenance as gives him renewed courage.

In an upper window is Letitia, more than equal to the occasion, armed with one of John's largest handkerchiefs, that bears a strong resemblance to a young sheet as it flutters frantically hither and thither in the breeze; while below the two children, Daisy and Renee,—under a mistaken impression that the hour is festive,—throw after him a choice collection of old boots much the worse for wear, which they have purloined with praiseworthy adroitness from under their nurse's nose.

"Oh, Letty, I do feel so honestly lonely," says Molly, half an hour later, meeting her sister-in-law on the stairs.

"Do you, dearest?" admiringly. "That is very nice of you. Never mind; you know you will soon see him again. And let us come and consult about the dresses you ought to wear at Herst."

"Yes, do let us," returns Miss Massereene, brightening with suspicious alacrity, and drawing herself up as straight as a young tree out of the despondent attitude she has been wearing. "That will pass the time better than anything."

Whereupon Letitia chuckles with ill-suppressed amusement and gives it as her opinion that "dear Molly isn't as bad as she thinks herself."

* * * * *

John has done his duty, has driven the melancholy young man to the station, and very nearly out of his wits—by insisting on carrying on a long and tedious argument that lasts the entire way, waiting pertinaciously for a reply to every one of his questions.

This has taken some time, more especially as the train was late and the back drive hilly; yet when at length he reaches his home he finds his wife and Molly still deep in the mysteries of the toilet.

"Well?" says his sister, as he stands in the doorway regarding them silently. As she speaks she allows the dejected expression of two hours ago to return to her features, her lids droop a little over her eyes, her forehead goes up, the corners of her mouth go down. She is in one instant a very afflicted Molly. "Well?" she says.

"He isn't well at all," replies John, with a dismal shake of the head and as near an imitation of Molly's rueful countenance as he can manage at so short a notice; "he is very bad. I never saw a worse case in my life. I doubt if he will last out the day. I don't know how you regard it, but I call it cruelty to animals."

"You need not be unfeeling," says Molly, reproachfully, "and I won't listen to you making fun of him behind his back. You wouldn't before his face."

"How do you know?" As though weighing the point. "I never saw him funny until to-day. He was on the verge of tears the entire way. It was lucky I was beside him, or he would have drenched the new cushions. For shame's sake he refrained before me, but I know he is in floods by this."

"He is not," says Molly, indignantly. "Crying, indeed! What an idea! He is far too much of a man for that."

"I am a man too," says John, who seems to find a rich harvest of delight in the contemplation of Luttrell's misery. "And once, before we were married, when Letitia treated me with disdain, I gave way to my feelings to such an extent that——"

"Really, John," interposes his wife, "I wish you would keep your stupid stories to yourself, or else go away. We are very busy settling about Molly's things."

"What things? Her tea-things,—her playthings? Ah! poor little Molly! her last nice new one is gone."

"Letty, I hope you don't mind, dear," says Molly, lifting a dainty china bowl from the table near her. "Let us trust it won't break; but, whether it does or not, I must and will throw it at John."

"She should at all events have one pretty new silk dress," murmurs Letitia, vaguely, whose thoughts "are with her heart, and that is far away," literally buried, so to speak, in the depths of her wardrobe. "She could not well do without it. Molly,"—with sudden inspiration,—"you shall have mine. That dove-color always looks pretty on a girl, and I have only worn it once. It can easily be made to fit you."

"I wish, Letitia, you would not speak to me like that," says Molly, almost angrily, though there are tears in her eyes. "Do you suppose I want to rob you? I have no doubt you would give me every gown you possess, if I so willed it, and leave yourself nothing. Do remember I am going to Herst more out of spite and curiosity than anything else, and don't care in the least how I look. It is very unkind of you to say such things."

"You are the kindest soul in the world, Letty," says John from the doorway; "but keep your silk. Molly shall have one too." After which he decamps.

"That is very good of John," says Molly. "The fact is, I haven't a penny of my own,—I never have a week after I receive my allowance,—so I must only do the best I can. If I don't like it, you know, I can come home. It is a great thing to know, Letty, that you will be glad to have me, whether I am well dressed or very much the reverse."

"Exactly. And there is this one comfort also, that you look well in anything. By the bye, you must have a maid. You shall take Sarah, and we can get some one in until you come back to us. That"—with a smile—"will prevent your leaving us too long to our own devices. You will understand without telling what a loss the fair Sarah will be."

"You are determined I shall make my absence felt," says Molly, with a half-smile. "Really, Letty, I don't like——"

"But I do," says Letty. "I don't choose you to be one whit behind any one else at Herst. Without doubt they will beat you in the matter of clothes; but what of that? I have known many titled people have a fine disregard of apparel."

"So have I," returns Molly, gayly. "Indeed, were I a man, possessed with a desire to be mistaken for a lord, I would go to the meanest 'old clo' shop and purchase there the seediest garments and the most dilapidated hat (with a tendency toward greenness), and a pair of boots with a patch on the left side, and, having equipped myself in them, saunter down the 'shady side of Pall Mall' with a sure and certain conviction that I was 'quite the thing.' Should my ambitious longings soar as high as a dukedom, I would add to the above costume a patch on the right boot as well, and—questionable linen."

"Well," says Letitia, with a sigh, "I hope Marcia is a nice girl, and that she will be kind to you."

"So do I,"—with a shrug,—"but from her writing I am almost sure she isn't."



CHAPTER X.

"What a dream was here! Methought a serpent ate my heart, And you sat smiling at his cruel prey."

—Midsummer Night's Dream.

Long, low terraces bathed in sunshine; a dripping, sobbing fountain; great masses of glaring flowers that mix their reds and yellows in hideous contrast and sicken the beholder with a desire for change; emerald lawns that grow and widen as the eye endeavors vainly to grasp them, thrown into bold relief by the rich foliage, all brown, and green, and red, and bronze-tinged, that spreads behind them; while beyond all these, as far as sight can reach, great swelling parks show here and there, alive with deer, that toss and fret their antlered heads, throwing yet another charm into the already glorious scene.

Such is Herst Royal, as it stands, a very castle in its pride of birth. On one side the "new wing" holds prominence, so called, although fully a century has passed since mason's hand has touched it; on the other is a suspicion of heavy Gothic art. Behind, the taste of the Elizabethan era holds full sway; in front (forgetful of time) uprears itself the ancient tower that holds the first stones in all its strength and stately dignity; while round it the sympathetic ivy clings, and, pressing it in its long arms, whispers, "Courage."

Upon the balcony the sleepy peacocks stand, too indolent to unfurl their gorgeous plumage, looking in their quiet like statues placed at intervals between the stone vases of scarlet geraniums and drooping ferns that go to adorn it.

There is a dead calm over all the house; no sound of life beyond the indistinct hum of irrepressible nature greets the ear; all is profoundly still.

The click of high-heeled shoes, the unmistakable rustle of silk, and the peacocks, with a quick flutter, raise their heads, as though to acknowledge the approach of their mistress.

Stepping from one of the windows, thereby displaying to the unobservant air an instep large but exquisitely arched, Marcia Amherst comes slowly up to where the lazy fowl are dreaming. Almost unconsciously (because her face is full of troubled thought), or perhaps a little vengefully, she flicks the one nearest to her with the handkerchief she carries loosely in her hand, until, with a discordant scream, it rouses itself, and, spreading its tail to its fullest, glances round with conscious pride.

"That is all you are good for," says Marcia out loud, contemptuously.

Her voice is singularly clear, but low and trainante. She is tall and very dark, with rich wavy black hair and eyes of the same hue, deep and soft as velvet. Her nose is Grecian; her lips a trifle thin. She is distinctly handsome, but does not so much as border on the beautiful.

As she turns from the showy bird with a little shrug of disdain at its vanity or of disgust at its odious cry, she finds herself face to face with a young man who has followed almost in her footsteps.

He, too, is tall and dark, and not altogether unlike her. But his face shows the passion that hers rather conceals than lacks, and, though sufficiently firm, is hardly as determined as hers. There is also a certain discontent about the lower part of the jaw in which she is wanting, and there are two or three wrinkles on his forehead, of which her broad, low brow is innocent.

"Well, Philip?" she says, anxiously, as he reaches her side.

"Oh, it is of no use," he replies, with a quick frown, "I could not get up my courage to the sticking-point, and if I had I firmly believe it would only have smashed my cause the more completely. Debt is his one abhorrence, or rather—he has so many—his deepest. To ask for that two thousand pounds would be my ruin."

"I wish I had it to give you," she says, gently, laying her hand—a very beautiful hand, but not small—upon his arm.

"Thank you, my dear," replies he, lightly, "but your good wishes do not get me out of my hobble. Money I must have within seven days, and money I have not. And if our grandfather discovers my delinquencies it will be all UP with me. By the bye, Marcia, I can hardly expect you to sympathize with me, as that would be so much the better for you, eh?"

"Nothing the better," says Marcia, calmly; "it would be always the same thing. I should share with you."

"What a stake it is to play for!" says the young man, wearily, with a distasteful gesture. "Is even twenty thousand pounds a year worth it?—the perpetual paying court, every day, and all day long? Sometimes I doubt it."

"It is well worth it," says Marcia, firmly. "How can you doubt it? All the good this world contains might be written under the name of 'money.' There is no happiness without it."

"There is love, however, and contentment."

"Don't believe it. Love may be purchased; and as for contentment, there is no such thing. It is a dream, a fable, a pretty story that babes may swallow."

"Yet they tell us money is the root of all evil."

"Not money, but the love of it," replies she, quickly. "Do not lose heart, Philip; he cannot last forever; and this week how ill he has been!"

"So he has, poor old wretch," her companion interrupts her hastily. "Well, I have just one clear week before me, and then,—I suppose I had better have recourse to my friends, the Jews. That will be a risky thing, if you like, under the circumstances. Should he find that out——"

"How can he? They are always so secret, so safe. Better do it than eat your heart out. And who is to betray you?"

"You." With a laugh.

"Ay, tremble!" says she, gayly; then softly, "If that is all you have to fear, Philip, you are a happy man. And when you have got the two thousand pounds, will you be free?"

"No, but comparatively easy for awhile. And who knows, by that time——"

"He may die?"

"Or something may turn up," exclaims he, hurriedly, not looking at her, and therefore unable to wonder at the stolidity and utter unconcern of her expression.

At this moment a querulous, broken voice comes to them from some inner room. "Marcia, Marcia!" it calls, with trembling impatience; and, with a last flick at the unoffending peacock, she turns to go, yet lingers, as though loath to leave her companion.

"Good-bye,—for awhile," she says.

"Good-bye," replies he, and, clasping her lightly round the waist, presses a kiss upon her cheek,—not upon her lips.

"You will be here when I return?" asks she, turning a face slightly flushed by his caress toward him as she stands with one foot placed upon the bow-window sill preparatory to entering the room beyond. There is hope fully expressed in her tone.

"No, I think not," replies he, carelessly. "The afternoon is fine; I want to ride into Longley, for——" But to the peacocks alone is the excuse made known, as Marcia has disappeared.

* * * * *

Close to a fire, although the day is oppressively warm, and wrapped in a flannel dressing-gown, sits an old man,—old, and full of the snarling captiousness that makes some white hairs hideous. A tall man, with all the remains of great beauty, but a singularly long nose (as a rule one should always avoid a person with a long nose), that perhaps once might have added a charm to the bold, aristocratic face it adorned, but now in its last days is only suggestive of birds of prey, being peaky and astonishingly fine toward the point. Indeed, looking at it from a side-view, one finds one's self instinctively wondering how much leaner it can get before kindly death steps in to put a stop to its growth. And yet it matches well with the lips, which, curving downward, and thin to a fault, either from pain or temper, denote only ill-will toward fellow-man, together with a certain cruelty that takes its keenest pleasure in another's mental suffering.

Great piercing eyes gleam out from under heavy brows, and, looking straight at one, still withhold their inmost thoughts. Intellect (wrongly directed, it may be, yet of no mean order) and a fatal desire for power sparkle in them; while the disappointment, the terrible self-accusing sadness that must belong to the closing of such a life as comes of such a temperament as his, lingers round his mouth. He is meagre, shrunken,—altogether unlovely.

Now, as he glances up at Marcia, a pettishness, born of the sickness that has been consuming him for the past week, is his all-prevailing expression. Raising a hand fragile and white as a woman's, he beckons her to his side.

"How you dawdle!" he says, fretfully. "Do you forget there are other people in the world besides yourself? Where have you been?"

"Have I been long, dear?" says Marcia, evasively, with the tenderest air of solicitude, shaking up his pillows and smoothing the crumpled dressing-gown with careful fingers. "Have you missed me? And yet only a few minutes have really passed."

"Where have you been?" reiterates he, irritably, taking no notice of her comfortable pats and shakes.

"With Philip."

"Ay, 'with Philip.' Always Philip. I doubt me the course of your love runs too smoothly to be true. And yet it was a happy thought to keep the old man's money well together." With a sneer.

"Dear grandpapa, we did not think of money, but that we love each other."

"Love—pish! do not talk to me of it. I thought you too shrewd, Marcia, to be misled by a mirage. It is a myth,—no more,—a sickening, mawkish tale. Had he no prospects, and were you penniless, I wonder how far 'love' would guide you?"

"To the end," says Marcia, quickly. "What has money to do with it? It can neither be bought nor sold. It is a poor affection that would wither under poverty; at least it would have no fears for us."

"Us,—us," returns this detestable old pagan, with a malicious chuckle. "How sure we are! how positive! ready to risk our all upon our lover's truth! Yet, were I to question this faithful lover upon the same subject, I fear me that I should receive a widely different answer."

"I hope not, dear," says Marcia, gently, speaking in her usual soft, low tone. Yet a small cold finger has been laid upon her heart. A dim foreboding crushes her. Only a little pallor, so slight as to be imperceptible to her tormentor, falls across the upper part of her face and tells how blood has been drawn. Yet it is hardly the mere piercing of the skin that hurts us most; it is in the dark night hours when the wound rankles that our agony comes home to us.

"When is this girl coming?" asks the old man, presently, in a peevish tone, vexed that, as far as he can tell, his arrow has overshot the mark. "I might have known she would have caught at the invitation."

"On the twenty-seventh,—the day you mentioned. She must be anxious to make your acquaintance, as she has not lost an hour," says Marcia, in a tone that might mean anything. "But"—sweetly—"why distress yourself, dear, by having her at all? If it disturbs your peace in the very least, why not write to put her off, at all events until you feel stronger? Why upset yourself, now you are getting on so nicely?" As she speaks she lets her clear, calm eyes rest fully upon the hopeless wreck of what once was strong before her. No faintest tinge of insincerity mars the perfect kindliness of her tone. "Why not let us three remain as we are, alone together?"

"What!" cries Mr. Amherst, angrily, and with excitement, raising himself in his chair, "am I to shut myself up within these four walls with nothing to interest me from day to day beyond your inane twaddle? No, I thank you. I will have the house full,—full—do you hear, Marcia?—and that without delay? Do you want me to die of ennui in this bare barrack of a place?"

"Well, do not make yourself ill, dear," says Marcia, with an admirably executed sigh. "It shall be as you wish, of course. I only spoke for your good,—because—I suppose (being the only near relative I have on earth besides my mother), I—love you."

"You are very good," replies the old man, grimly, utterly untouched by all this sweetness, "but I will have my own way. And don't you 'dear' me again. Do you hear, Marcia? I won't have it: it reminds me of my wife. Pah!"

* * * * *

The days fade, the light wanes, and night's cold dewy mantle falls thickly on the longing earth.

Marcia, throwing wide her casements, stretches out her arms to the moonlight and bathes her white face and whiter neck in the cool flood that drenches all the quiet garden.

There is peace everywhere, and rest, and happy sleep, but not for Marcia; for days, for weeks, she has been haunted by the fear that Philip's affection for her is but a momentary joy, that, swiftly as the minutes fly, so it dwindles. To-night this fear is strong upon her.

Not by his word, not by his actions, but by the subtle nothings that, having no name, yet are, and go to make up the dreaded whole, has this thought been forced upon her. The cooling glance, the suppressed restlessness, the sudden lack of conversation, the kind but unloving touch, the total absence of a lover's jealousy,—all go to prove the hateful truth. And now her grandfather's sneer of the morning comes back to torture her and make assurance doubly sure. Yet hardly three months have passed since Philip Shadwell asked her to be his wife.

"Already his love wanes," she murmurs, turning up her troubled face and eyes, too sad for tears, to the starry vault above her, where the small luminous bodies blink and tremble and take no heed of a ridiculous love-tale, more or less. Her tone is low and despairing; and as she speaks she beats her hands together slowly, noiselessly, yet none the less passionately.

In vain she tries to convince herself her doubts are groundless, to compel herself to believe her arms are full, when in her heart she knows she but presses to her bosom an empty, fleeting shadow. The night's dull vapors have closed upon her, and, while exaggerating her misery, still open her eyes with kind cruelty to the end that surely awaits her.

So she sits hugging her fears until the day breaks, and early morning, peeping in at her, wafts her a kiss as it flies over the lawn and field and brooklet. Then, wearied by her watching, she flings herself upon her bed, and, gaining a short but dreamless sleep, wakens refreshed, to laugh at her misgivings of the night before,—at her grandfather's hints,—at aught that speaks to her of Philip's falseness.

Despair follows closely upon night. Hope comes in the train of day. And Marcia, standing erect before her glass, with her beautiful figure drawn to its full height and her handsome head erect, gazes long and earnestly at the reflection therein. At last the deep flush of satisfaction dyes her cheeks; all her natural self-reliance and determination return to her; with a little laugh at her own image (on which she builds her hopes), she defies fate, and, running down the staircase with winged feet, finds herself on the last step, almost in Philip's arms.

"Abroad so early!" he says, with a smile; and the kindliness of his tone, the more than kindness of his glance, confirm her hopes of the morning. She is looking very pretty, and Philip likes pretty women, hence the kindly smile. And yet, though he might have done so without rebuke (perhaps because of that), he forgot to kiss her. "You are the early bird, and you have caught me," he says. "I can only hope you will not make your breakfast off me. See,"—holding out to her an unclosed letter,—"the deed is done. I have written to my solicitor to get me the money from Lazarus and Harty."

"Oh, Philip! I have been thinking," she says, following him into the library, "and now it seems to me a risk. You know his horror of Jews,—you know how he speaks of your own father and his unfortunate dealings with them. Yesterday I felt brave, and advised you, as I fear, wrongly; to-day——"

"I have been thinking it over too,"—lighting the taper on the table, and applying the sealing-wax to the flame,—"and now it seems to me the only course left open. And yet"—speaking gayly, but pausing as the wax falls upon the envelope—"perhaps—who knows?—I may be sealing my own fate."

"You make me superstitious. Why imagine horrors? Yet if you have any doubts, Philip,"—laying one shapely white finger upon the letter,—"do not send it. Something tells me to warn you. And, besides, are you quite sure they will lend you the money?"

"They will hardly refuse a paltry two thousand to the heir of Herst Royal."

"But you are not the heir."

"In the eyes of the world I am."

"And yet they know it can be left to any one else."

"To you, for instance."

"That would hardly alter your position, except that you would be then, not heir, but master," she says, smiling sweetly at him. "No, I was supposing myself also disinherited. This cousin that is coming,—Eleanor Massereene,—she, too, is his grandchild."

As a rule, when speaking of those we hate, quite as much as when speaking of those we love, we use the pronoun alone. Mr. Amherst is "he" always to his relatives.

"What! Can you believe it possible a little uneducated country girl, with probably a snub nose, thick boots, and no manners to speak of, can cut you out? Marcia, you grow modest. Why, even I, a man, can see her in my mind's eye, with a freckled complexion (he hates freckles), and a frightened gasp between each word, and a wholesome horror of wine, and a general air of hoping the earth will open presently to swallow her up."

"But how if she is totally different from all this?"

"She won't be different. Her father was a wild Irishman. Besides, I have seen her sort over and over again, and it is positive cruelty to animals to drag the poor creatures from their dull homes into the very centre of life and gayety. They never can make up their minds whether the butler that announces dinner is or is not the latest arrival; and they invariably say, 'No, thank you,' when asked to have anything. To them the fish-knife is a thing unknown and afternoon tea the wildest dissipation."

"Well, I can only hope and trust she will turn out just what you say," says Marcia, laughing.

Four days later, meeting her on his way to the stables, he throws her a letter from his solicitor.

"It is all right," he says, and goes on a step or two, as though hurried, while she hastily runs her eyes over it.

"Well, and now your mind is at rest," she calls after him, as she sees the distance widening between them.

"For the present, yes."

"Well, here, take your letter."

"Tear it up; I don't want it," he returns, and disappears round the angle of the house.

Her fingers form themselves as though about to obey him and tear the note in two. Then she pauses.

"He may want it," she says to herself, hesitating. "Business letters are sometimes useful afterward. I will keep it for him."

She slips it into her pocket, and for the time being thinks no more of it. That night, as she undresses, finding it again, she throws it carelessly into a drawer, where it lies for many days forgotten.

* * * * *

It is the twentieth of August: in seven days more the "little country girl with freckles and a snub nose" will be at Herst Royal, longing "for the earth to open and swallow her up."

To Philip her coming is a matter of the most perfect indifference. To Marcia it is an event,—and an unpleasant one.

When, some three years previously, Marcia Amherst consented to leave the mother she so sincerely loved to tend an old and odious man, she did so at his request and with her mother's full sanction, through desire of the gold that was to be (it was tacitly understood) the reward of her devotion. There was, however, another condition imposed upon her before she might come to Herst and take up permanent quarters there. This was the entire forsaking of her mother, her people, and the land of her birth.

To this also there was open agreement made: which agreement was in private broken. She was quite clever enough to manage a clandestine correspondence without fear of discovery; but letters, however frequent, hardly make up for enforced absence from those we love, and Marcia's affection for her Italian mother was the one pure sentiment in her rather scheming disposition. Yet the love of riches, that is innate in all, was sufficiently strong in her to bear her through with her task.

But now the fear that this new-comer, this interloper, may, after all her detested labor, by some fell chance become a recipient of the spoil (no matter in how small a degree), causes her trouble.

Of late, too, she has not been happy. Philip's coldness has been on the increase. He himself, perhaps, is hardly aware of the change. But what woman loving but feels the want of love? And at times her heart is racked with passionate grief.

Now, as she and her lip-love stand side by side in the oriel window that overlooks the graveled path leading into the gardens, the dislike to her cousin's coming burns hotly within her.

Outside, in his bath chair, wheeled up and down by a long-suffering attendant, goes Mr. Amherst, in happy ignorance of the four eyes that watch his coming and going with such distaste.

Up and down, up and down he goes, his weakly head bent upon his chest, his fierce eyes roving restlessly to and fro. He is still invalid enough to prefer the chair to the more treacherous aid of his stick.

"He reminds me of nothing so much as an Egyptian mummy," says Philip, presently: "he looks so hard, and shriveled, and unreal. Toothless, too."

"He ought to die," says Marcia, with perfect calmness, as though she had suggested the advisability of his going for a longer drive.

"Die!" With a slight start, turning to look at her. "Ah! yes, of course. But"—with a rather forced laugh—"he won't, take my word for it. Old gentlemen with unlimited means and hungry heirs live forever."

"He has lived long enough," says Marcia, still in the same slow, calculating tone. "Of what use is he? Who cares for him? What good does he do in each twenty-four hours? He is merely taking up valuable room,—keeping what should by right be yours and mine. And, Philip," laying her hand upon his arm to insure his attention,—"I understand the mother of this girl who is coming was his favorite daughter."

"Well," surprised at her look and tone, which have both grown intense,—"that is not my fault. You need not cast such an upbraiding glance on me."

"What if he should alter his will in her favor? More unlikely things have happened. I cannot divest myself of fear when I think of her. Should he at this late hour repent him of his injustice toward his dead daughter, he might——" She pauses. "But rather than that——" Here she pauses again; and her lids falling somewhat over her eyes, leave them small but wonderfully deep.

"What, Marcia?" asks Philip, with a sudden anxiety he would willingly suppress, were it not for his strong desire to learn what her thoughts may be.

For a full minute she makes him no reply, and then, as though hardly aware of his question, goes on meditatively.

"Philip, how frail he is!" she says, almost in a whisper, as the chair goes creaking beneath the window. "Yet what a hold he has on life! And it is I give him that hold,—I am the rope to which he clings. At night, when sleep is on him and lethargy succeeds to sleep, mine is the duty to rouse him and minister such medicines as charm him back to life. Should I chance to forget, his dreams might end in death. Last night, as I sat by his bedside, I thought, were I to forget,—what then?"

"Ay, what then? Of what are you thinking?" cries her companion, in a tone of suppressed horror, resisting by a passionate movement the spell she had almost cast upon him by the power of her low voice and deep, dark eyes. "Would you kill the old man?"

"Nay, it is but to forget," replies she, dreamily, her whole mind absorbed in her subject, unconscious of the effect she is producing. She has not turned her eyes upon him (else surely the terrible fear and shrinking in his must have warned her to go no further), but has her gaze fixed rather on the hills and woods and goodly plains for which she is not only willing but eager to sell all that is best of her. "To remain passive, and then"—straightening her hand in the direction of the glorious view that spreads itself before them—"all this would be ours."

"Murderess!" cries the young man, in a low, concentrated tone, his voice vibrating with disgust and loathing as he falls back from her a step or two.

The word thrills her. With a start she brings herself back to the present moment, turns to look at him, and, looking slowly, learns the truth. The final crash has come, her fears are realized; she has lost him forever.

"What is it, Philip? what word have you used?" she asks, with nervous vehemence, as though only half comprehending; "why do you look at me so strangely? I have said nothing,—nothing that should make you shrink from me."

"You have said enough,"—with a shiver, "too much; and your face said more. I desire you never to speak to me on the subject again."

"What! you will not even hear me?"

"No; I am only thankful I have found you out in time."

"Say rather for this lucky chance I have afforded you of breaking off a detested engagement," cries she, with sudden bitterness. "Hypocrite! how long have you been awaiting it?"

"You are talking folly, Marcia. What reason have I ever given you that you should make me such a speech? But for what has just now happened,—but for your insinuations——"

"Ay,"—slowly,—"you shrink from hearing your thoughts put into words."

"Not my thoughts," protests he, vehemently.

"No?" searchingly, drawing a step nearer him. "Are you sure? Have you never wished our grandfather dead?"

"I may have wished it," confesses he, reluctantly, as though compelled to frankness, "but to compass my wish—to——"

"If you have wished it you have murdered," returns she, with conviction. "You have craved his death: what is that but unuttered crime? There is little difference; it is but one step the more in the same direction. And I,—in what way am I the greater sinner? I have but said aloud what you whisper to your heart."

"Be silent," cries he, fiercely. "All your sophistry fails to make me a partner in your guilt."

"I am the honester of the two," she goes on, rapidly, unheeding his anger. "As long as the accursed thing is unspoken, you see no harm in it; once it makes itself heard, you start and sicken, because it hurts your tender susceptibilities. Yet hear me, Philip." Suddenly changing her tone of passionate scorn to one of entreaty as passionate, "Do not cast me off for a few idle words. They have done no harm. Let us be as we were."

"Impossible," replies he coldly, unloosing her fingers from his arm, all the dislike and loathing of which he is capable compressed into the word. "You have destroyed my trust in you."

A light that means despair flashes across Marcia's face as she stands in all her dark but rather evil beauty before him; then suddenly she falls upon her knees.

"Philip, have pity on me!" she cries painfully. "I love you,—I have only you. Here in this house I am alone, a stranger in my own land. Do not you too turn from me. Ah! you should be the last to condemn, for if I dreamed of sin it was for your sake. And after all, what did I say? The thought that this girl's coming might upset the dream of years agitated me, and I spoke—I—but I meant nothing—nothing." She drags herself on her knees nearer to him and attempts to take his hand. "Darling, do not be so stern. Forgive me. If you cast me off, Philip, you will kill not only my body, but all that is good in me."

"Do not touch me," returns he, harshly, the vein of brutality in him coming to the surface as he pushes her from him and with slight violence unclasps her clinging fingers.

The action is in itself sufficient, but the look that accompanies it—betraying as it does even more disgust than hatred—stings her to self-control. Slowly she rises to her feet. As she does so, a spasm, a contraction near her heart, causes her to place her hand involuntarily against her side, while a dull gray shadow covers her face.

"You mean," she says, speaking with the utmost difficulty, "that all—is at an end—between us."

"I do mean that," he answers, very white, but determined.

"Then beware!" she murmurs, in a low, choked voice.



CHAPTER XI.

"You stood before me like a thought, A dream remembered in a dream."

—Coleridge.

It is five o'clock in the afternoon, and Herst is the richer by one more inmate. Molly has arrived, has been received by Marcia, has pressed cheeks with her, has been told she is welcome in a palpably lying tone, and finally has been conducted to her bedroom. Such a wonder of a bedroom compared with Molly's snug but modest sanctum at home,—a very marvel of white and blue, and cloudy virginal muslins, and filled with innumerable luxuries.

Molly, standing in the centre of it,—unaware that she is putting all its other beauties to shame—gazes round her in silent admiration, appreciates each pretty trifle to its fullest, and finally feels a vague surprise at the curious sense of discontent that pervades her.

Her reception so far has not been cordial. Marcia's cold unloving eyes have pierced her and left a little cold frozen spot within her heart. She is chilled and puzzled, and with all her strength is wishing herself home again at Brooklyn, with John and Letty, and all the merry, tormenting, kindly children.

"What shall I do for you now, Miss Molly?" asks Sarah, presently breaking in upon these dismal broodings. This antiquated but devoted maiden has stationed herself at the farthest end of the big room close to Molly's solitary trunk (as though suspicious of lurking thieves), and bears upon her countenance a depressed, not to say dejected, expression. "Like mistress, like maid," she, too, is filled with the gloomiest forebodings.

"Open my trunk and take out my clothes," says Molly, making no effort at disrobing, beyond a melancholy attempt at pulling off her gloves, finger by finger.

Sarah does as she is bidden.

"'Tis a tremenjous house, Miss Molly."

"Very. It is a castle, not a house."

"There's a deal of servants in it."

"Yes," absently.

"Leastways as far as I could judge with looking through the corners of my eyes as I came along them big passages. From every door a'most there popped a head bedizened with gaudy ribbons, and I suppose the bodies was behind 'em."

"Let us hope so, Sarah." Rising, and laughing rather hysterically. "The bare idea that those mysterious heads should lack a decent finish fills me with the liveliest horror." Then, in a brighter tone, "Why, what is the matter with you, Sarah? You look as if you had fallen into the very lowest depths of despair."

"Not so much that as lonesome, miss; they all seem so rich and grand that I feel myself out of place."

Molly smiles a little. After all, in spite of the difference in their positions, it is clear to her that she and her maid share pretty much the same fears.

"There was a very proud look about the set of their caps," says Sarah, waxing more and more dismal. "Suppose they were to be uncivil to me, Miss Molly, on account of my being country-reared and my gowns not being, as it were, in the height of the fashion, what should I do? It is all this, miss, that is weighing me down."

"Suppose, on the contrary," says her mistress, with a little defiant ring in her tone, stepping to the glass and surveying her beautiful face with eager scrutiny, "you were to make a sensation, and cut out all these supercilious dames in your hall, how would it be then? Come, Sarah, let me teach you your new duties. First take my hat, now my jacket, now——"

"Shall I do your hair, Miss Molly?"

"No," with a laugh,—"I think not. I had one trial of you in that respect; it was enough."

"But all maids do their young ladies' hair, don't they, miss? I doubt they will altogether look down upon me when they find I can't do even that."

"I shall ring for you every day when I come to dress for dinner. Once in my room, who shall know whether you do my hair or not? And I faithfully promise you, Sarah, to take such pains with the performance myself as shall compel every one in the house to admire it and envy me my excellent maid. 'See Miss Massereene's hair!' they will say, in tearful whispers. 'Oh, that I too could have a Sarah!' By the bye, call me Miss Massereene for the future, not Miss Molly,—at least until we get home again."

"Yes, Miss—Massereene. Law! it do sound odd," says Sarah, with a little respectful laugh, "but high-sounding too, I think. I do hope I shan't forget it, Miss Molly. Perhaps you will be good enough to remind me when I go wrong?"

A knock at the door prevents reply. Molly cries out, "Come in," and, turning, finds herself face to face with a fine old woman, who stands erect, and firm, in spite of her many years, in the doorway. She is clad in a sombre gown of brown silk, and has an old-fashioned chain round her neck that hangs far below her waist, which is by no means the most contemptible portion of her.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Massereene; I could not resist coming to see if you were quite comfortable," she says, respectfully.

"Quite, thank you," replies Molly, in a degree puzzled. "You are"—smiling—"the housekeeper?"

"I am. And you, my dear,"—regarding her anxiously,—"are every inch an Amherst, in spite of your bonny blue eyes. You will forgive the freedom of my speech," says this old dame, with an air that would not have disgraced a duchess, "when I tell you I nursed your mother."

"Ah! did you?" says Molly, flushing a little, and coming up to her eagerly, with both hands extended, to kiss the fair old face that is smiling so kindly on her. "But how could one think it? You are yet so fresh, so good to look at."

"Tut, my dear," says the old lady, mightily pleased nevertheless. "I am old enough to have nursed your grandmother. And now can I do anything for you?"

"You can," replies Molly, turning toward Sarah, who is regarding them with an expression that might at any moment mean either approval or displeasure. "This is my maid. We are both strangers here. Will you see that she is made happy?"

"Come with me, Sarah, and I will make you acquainted with our household," says Mrs. Nesbitt, promptly.

As the door closes behind them, leaving her to her own society, a rather unhappy shade falls across Molly's face.

A sensation of isolation—loneliness—oppresses her. Indeed, her discouraging reception has wounded her more than she cares to confess even to her own heart. If they did not want her at Herst, why had they invited her? If they did want her, surely they might have met her with more civility; and on this her first visit her grandfather at least might have been present to bid her welcome.

Oh, that this hateful day were at an end! Oh, for some way of making the slow hours run hurriedly!

With careful fingers she unfastens and pulls down all her lovely hair until it falls in rippling masses to her waist. As carefully, as lingeringly, she rolls it up again into its usual artistic knot at the back of her head. With still loitering movements she bathes the dust of travel from her face and hands, adjusts her soft gray gown, puts straight the pale-blue ribbon at her throat, and now tells herself, with a triumphant smile, that she has got the better of at least half an hour of this detested day.

Alas! alas! the little ormolu ornament that ticks with such provoking empressement upon the chimney-piece assures her that her robing has occupied exactly ten minutes from start to finish.

This will never do. She cannot well spend her evening in her own room, no matter how eagerly she may desire to do so; so, taking heart of grace, she makes a wicked moue at her own rueful countenance in the looking-glass, and, opening her door hastily, lest her courage fail her, runs down the broad oak staircase into the hall beneath.

Quick-witted, as women of her temperament always are, she remembers the situation of the room she had first entered, and, passing by all the other closed doors, goes into it, to find herself once more in Marcia's presence.

"Ah! you have come," says Miss Amherst, looking up languidly from her macrame, with a frozen smile that owes its one charm to its brevity. "You have made a quick toilet." With a supercilious glance at Molly's Quakerish gown, that somehow fits her and suits her to perfection. "You are not fatigued?"

"Fatigued?" Smiling, with a view to conciliation. "Oh, no; it is such a little journey."

"So it is. How strange this should be our first meeting, living so close to each other as we have done! My grandfather's peculiar disposition of course accounts for it: he has quite a morbid horror of aliens."

"Is one's granddaughter to be considered an alien?" asks Molly, with a laugh. "The suggestion opens an enormous field for reflection. If so, what are one's nephews, and one's nieces, and cousins, first, second, and third? Poor third-cousins! it makes one sad to think of them."

"I think perhaps Mr. Amherst's incivility toward you arose from his dislike to your mother's marriage. You don't mind my speaking, do you? It was more than good of you to come here at all, considering the circumstances,—I don't believe I could have been so forgiving,—but I know he felt very bitterly on the subject, and does so still."

"Does he? How very absurd! Amhersts cannot always marry Amhersts, nor would it be a good thing if they could. I suppose, however, even he can be forgiving at times. Now, for instance, how did he get over your father's marriage?"

Marcia raises her head quickly. Her color deepens. She turns a glance full of displeased suspicion upon her companion, who meets it calmly, and with such an amount of innocence in hers as might have disarmed a Machiavelli. Not a shadow of intention mars her expression; her widely-opened blue eyes contain only a desire to know; and Marcia, angry, disconcerted, and puzzled, lets her gaze return to her work. A dim idea that it will not be so easy to ride rough-shod over this country-bred girl as she had hoped oppresses her, while a still more unpleasant doubt that her intended snubbing has recoiled upon her own head adds to her discontent. Partly through policy and partly with a view to showing this recreant Molly the rudeness of her ways, she refuses an answer to her question and starts a different topic in a still more freezing tone.

"You found your room comfortable, I hope, and—all that?"

"Quite all that, thank you," cordially. "And such a pretty room too!" (She is unaware as she speaks that it is one of the plainest the house contains.) "How large everything seems! When coming down through all those corridors and halls I very nearly lost my way. Stupid of me was it not? But it is an enormous house, I can see."

"Is it? Perhaps so. Very much the size of most country houses, I should say. And yet, no doubt, to a stranger it would seem large. Your own home is not so?"

"Oh, no. If you could only see poor Brooklyn in comparison! It is the prettiest little place in all the world, I think; but then it is little. It would require a tremendous amount of genius to lose one's self in Brooklyn."

"How late it grows!" says Marcia, looking at the clock and rising. "The first bell ought to ring soon. Which would you prefer,—your tea here or in your own room? I always adopt the latter plan when the house is empty, and take it while dressing. By the bye, you have not seen—Mr. Amherst?"

"My grandfather? No."

"Perhaps he had better be told you are here."

"Has he not yet heard of my arrival?" asks Molly, impulsively, some faint indignation stirring in her breast.

"He knew you were coming, of course; I am not sure if he remembered the exact hour. If you will come with me, I will take you to the library."

Across the hall in nervous silence Molly follows her guide until they reach a small anteroom, beyond which lies the "chamber of horrors," as, in spite of all her efforts to be indifferent, Molly cannot help regarding it.

Marcia knocking softly at the door, a feeble but rasping voice bids them enter; and, throwing it widely open, Miss Amherst beckons her cousin to follow her into the presence of her dreaded grandfather.

Although looking old, and worn, and decrepit, he is still evidently in much better health than when last we saw him, trundling up and down the terraced walk, endeavoring to catch some faint warmth from the burning sun.

His eyes are darker and fiercer, his nose a shade sharper, his temper evidently in an uncorked condition; although he may be safely said to be on the mend, and, with regard to his bodily strength, in a very promising condition.

Before him is a table covered with papers, from which he looks up ungraciously, as the girls enter.

"I have brought you Eleanor Massereene," says Marcia, without preamble, in a tone so kind and gentle as makes Molly even at this awful moment marvel at the change.

If it could be possible for the old man's ghastly skin to assume a paler hue, at this announcement, it certainly does so. With suppressed but apparent eagerness he fixes his eyes upon the new grandchild, and as he does so his hand closes involuntarily upon the paper beneath it; his mouth twitches; a shrinking pain contracts his face. Yes, she is very like her dead mother.

"How long has she been in my house?" he asks, presently, after a pause that to Molly has been hours, still with his gaze upon her, though beyond this prolonged examination of her features he has vouchsafed her no welcome.

"She came by the half-past four train. Williams met her with the brougham."

"And it is nearly six. Pray why have I been kept so long in ignorance of her arrival?" Not once as he speaks does he look at Marcia, or at anything but Molly's pale, pretty, disturbed face.

"Dear grandpapa, you have forgotten. Yesterday I told you the hour we expected her. But no doubt, with so many important matters upon your mind," with a glance at the littered table, "you forgot this one."

"I did," slowly, "so effectually as to make me doubt having ever heard it. No, Marcia, no more excuses, no more lies: you need not explain. Be satisfied that whatever plans you formed to prevent my bidding your cousin welcome to my house were highly successful. At intrigue you are a proficient. I admire proficiency in all things,—but—for the future—be so good as to remember that I never forget."

"Dear grandpapa," with a pathetic but very distinct sigh, "it is very hard to be misjudged!"

"Granted. Though at times one must own it has its advantages. Now, if for instance I could only bring myself, now and again, to misjudge you, how very much more conducive to the accomplishment of your aims it would be! Leave the room. I wish to speak to your cousin."

Reluctant, but not daring to disobey, and always with the same aggrieved expression upon her face, Marcia withdraws.

As the door closes behind her, Mr. Amherst rises, and holds out one hand to Molly.

"You are welcome," he says, quietly, but coldly, and evidently speaking with an effort.

Molly, coming slowly up to him, lays her hand in his, while entertaining an earnest hope that she will not be called upon to seal the interview with a kiss.

"Thank you," she says, faintly, not knowing what else to say, and feeling thoroughly embarrassed by the fixity and duration of his regard.

"Yes," speaking again, slowly, and absently. "You are welcome—Eleanor. I am glad I have seen you before—my death. Yes—you are very like—— Go!" with sudden vehemence, "leave me; I wish to be alone."

Sinking back heavily into his arm-chair, he motions her from him, and Molly, finding herself a moment later once more in the anteroom, breathes a sigh of thankfulness that this her first strange interview with her host is at an end.

* * * * *

"Dress me quickly, Sarah," she says, as she gains her own room about half an hour later, and finds that damsel awaiting her. "And make me look as beautiful as possible; I have yet another cousin to investigate, and something tells me the third will be the charm, and that I shall get on with him. Young men"—ingenuously, and forgetting she is expressing her thoughts aloud—"are certainly a decided improvement on young women. If, however, there is really any understanding between Philip and Marcia, it will rather spoil my amusement and—still I need not torment myself beforehand, as that is a matter I shall learn in five minutes."

"There's a very nice young man down-stairs, miss," breaks in Sarah, at this juncture, with a simper that has the pleasing effect of making one side of her face quite an inch shorter than the other.

"What! you have seen him, then?" cries Molly, full of her own idea, and oblivious of dignity. "Is he handsome, Sarah? Young? Describe him to me."

"He is short, miss, and stoutish, and—and——"

"Yes! Do go on, Sarah, and take that smile off your face: it makes you look downright imbecile. 'Short!' 'Stout!' Good gracious! of what on earth could Teddy have been thinking."

"His manners is most agreeable, miss, and altogether he is a most gentleman-like young man."

"Well, of course he is all that, or he isn't anything; but stout!——"

"Not a bit stiffish, or uppish, as one might expect, considering where he come from. And indeed, Miss Molly," with an irrepressible giggle, "he did say as how——"

"What!" icily.

"As how I had a very bewidging look about the eyes."

"Sarah," exclaims Miss Massereene, sinking weakly into a chair, "do you mean to tell me my cousin Philip—Captain Shadwell—told you—had the impertinence to speak to you about——"

"Law, Miss Molly, whatever are you thinking about?—Captain Shadwell! why, I haven't so much as laid eyes on him! I was only speaking of his young man, what goes by the name of Peters."

"Ridiculous!" cries Molly, impatiently; then bursting into a merry laugh, she laughs so heartily and so long that the somewhat puzzled Sarah feels compelled to join.

"'Short, and stout, and gentlemanly'—ha, ha, ha! And so Peters said you were bewidging, Sarah? Ah! take care, and do not let him turn your head: if you do, you will lose all your fun, and gain little for it. Is that a bell? Oh, Sarah! come, dispatch, dispatch, or I shall be late, and eternally disgraced."

The robing proceeds, and when finished leaves Molly standing before her maid with (it must be confessed) a very self-satisfied smirk upon her countenance.

"How am I looking, Sarah? I want a candid opinion; but on no account say anything disparaging."

"Lovely!" says Sarah, with comfortable haste. "There's no denying it, Miss Molly. Miss Amherst below, for all her dark hair and eyes (and I don't say but that she is handsome), could not hold a candle to you, as the saying is—and that's a fact."

"Is there anything in all the world," says Miss Massereene, "so sweet as sincere praise? Sarah, you are a charming creature. Good-bye; I go—let us hope—to victory. But if not,—if I find the amiable relatives refuse to acknowledge my charms I shall at least know where to come to receive the admiration I feel I so justly deserve!"

So saying, with a little tragic flourish, she once more wends her way down-stairs, trailing behind her her pretty white muslin gown, with its flecks of coloring, blue as her eyes, into the drawing-room.

The close of autumn brings to us a breath of winter. Already the daylight has taken to itself wings and flown partially away; and though, as yet, a good deal of it through compassion lingers, it is but a half-hearted dallying that speaks of hurry to be gone.

The footman, a young person, of a highly morbid and sensitive disposition, abhorrent of twilights, has pulled down all the blinds in the sitting-rooms, and drawn the curtains closely, has lit the lamps, and poked into a blaze the fire, that Mr. Amherst has the wisdom to keep burning all the year round in the long chilly room.

Before the fire, with one arm on the mantel-piece, and one foot upon the fender, stands a young man, in an attitude suggestive of melancholy. Hearing the rustling of a woman's garments, he looks up, and, seeing Molly, stares at her, first lazily, then curiously, then amazedly, then——

She is quite close to him; she can almost touch him; indeed, no farther can she go without putting him to one side; and still he has not stirred. The situation grows embarrassing, so embarrassing that, what with the ludicrous silence and Philip Shadwell's eyes which betray a charmed astonishment, Molly feels an overpowering desire to laugh. She compromises matters by smiling, and lowering her eyelids just half an inch.

"You do not want all the fire, do you?" she asks, demurely, in a low tone.

"I beg your pardon," exclaims Philip, in his abstraction, moving in a direction closer to the fire, rather than from it. "I had no idea I was. I"—doubtfully, "am I speaking to Miss Massereene?"

"You are. And I—I know I am speaking to Captain Shadwell."

"Yes," slowly. "That is my name,—Philip Shadwell."

"We are cousins, then," says Molly, kindly, as though desirous of putting him at his ease. "I hope we shall be, what is far better, friends."

"We must be; we are friends," returns he, hastily, so full of surprise and self-reproach as to be almost unconscious of his words.

Is this the country cousin full of freckles and mauvaise honte, who was to be pitied, and lectured, and taught generally how to behave?—whose ignorance was to draw forth groans from pit and gallery and boxes? A hot blush at his own unmeant impertinence thrills him from head to foot. Were she ever, by any chance, to hear what he had said. Oh, perish the thought!—it is too horrible!

A little laugh from Molly somewhat restores his senses.

"You should not stare so," she says, severely, with an adorable attempt at a frown. "And you need not look at me all at once, you know, because, as I am going to stay here a whole month, you will have plenty of time to do it by degrees, without fatiguing yourself. By the bye," reproachfully, "I have come a journey to-day, and am dreadfully tired, and you have never even offered me a chair; must I get one for myself?"

"You have driven any manners I may possess out of my head," replies he, laughing, too, and pushing toward her the coziest chair the room contains. "Your sudden entrance bewildered me; you came upon me like an apparition; more especially as people in this house never get to the drawing-room until exactly one minute before dinner is announced."

"Why?"

"Lest we should bore each other past forgiveness. Being together as we are every day, and all day long, one can easily imagine how a very little more pressure would smash the chains of politeness. You may have heard of the last straw and its disastrous consequences?"

"I have. I am sorry I frightened you. To-morrow night I shall know better, and shall leave you to your silent musings in peace."

"No; don't do that!" says her companion, earnestly. "On no account do that. I think the half-hour before dinner, sitting by the fire, alone, as we are now, the best of the whole day; that is, of course, if one spends it with a congenial companion."

"Are you a congenial companion?"

"I don't know," smiling. "If you will let me, I can at least try to be."

"Try, then, by all means." In a moment or two,—"I should like to fathom your thoughts," says Molly. "When I came in, there was more than bewilderment in your face; it showed—how shall I express it? You looked as though you had expected something else?"

"Will you forgive me if I say I did?"

"What, then? A creature tall, gaunt, weird——?"

"No."

"Fat, red, uncomfortable?"

This touches so nearly on the truth as to be unpleasant. He winces.

"I will tell you what I did not expect," he says, hastily, coloring a little. "How should I? It is so seldom one has the good luck to discover in autumn a rose belonging to June."

His voice falls.

"Am I one?" asks she, looking with dangerous frankness into the dark eyes above her, that are telling her silently, eloquently, she is the fairest, freshest, sweetest queen of flowers in all the world.

The door opens, and Mr. Amherst enters, then Marcia. Philip straightens himself, and puts on his usual bored, rather sulky expression. Molly smiles upon her grumpy old host. He offers her his arm, Philip does the same to Marcia, and together they gain the dining-room.

It is an old, heavily wainscoted apartment, gloomy beyond words, so immense that the four who dine in it tonight appear utterly lost in its vast centre.

Marcia, in an evening toilet of black and ivory, sits at the head of the table, her grandfather opposite to her. Philip and Molly are vis-a-vis at the sides. Behind stand the footmen, as sleek and well-to-do, and imbecile, as one can desire.

There is a solemnity about the repast that strikes but fails to subdue Molly. It has a contrary effect, making her spirits rise, and creating in her a very mistaken desire for laughter. She is hungry too, and succeeds in eating a good dinner, while altogether she comes to the conclusion that it may not be wholly impossible to put in a very good time at Herst.

Never does she raise her eyes without encountering Philip's dark ones regarding her with the friendliest attention. This also helps to reassure her. A friend in need is a friend indeed, and this friend is handsome as well as kind, although there is a little something or other, a suppressed vindictiveness, about his expression, that repels her.

She compares him unfavorably with Luttrell, and presently lets her thoughts wander on to the glad fact that to-morrow will see the latter by her side, when indeed she will be in a position to defy fate,—and Marcia. Already she has learned to regard that dark-browed lady with distrust.

"Is any one coming to-morrow?" asks Mr. Amherst, a propos of Molly's reverie."

"Tedcastle, and Maud Darley."

"Her husband?"

"I suppose so. Though she did not mention him when writing."

"Poor Darley!" with a sneer: "she never does mention him. Any one else?"

"Not to-morrow."

"I wonder if Luttrell will be much altered," says Philip; "browned, I suppose, by India, although his stay there was of the shortest."

"He is not at all bronzed," breaks in Molly, quietly.

"You know him?" Marcia asks, in a rather surprised tone, turning toward her.

"Oh, yes, very well," coloring a little. "That is, he was staying with us for a short time at Brooklyn."

"Staying with you?" her grandfather repeats, curiously. It is evidently a matter of wonder with them, her friendship with Tedcastle.

"Yes, he and John, my brother, are old friends. They were at school together, although John is much older, and he says——"

Mr. Amherst coughs, which means he is displeased, and turns his head away. Marcia gives an order to one of the servants in a very distinct tone. Philip smiles at Molly, and Molly, unconscious of offense, is about to return to the charge, and give a lengthened account of her tabooed brother, when luckily she is prevented by a voice from behind her chair, which says:

"Champagne, or Moselle?"

"Champagne," replies Molly, and forgets her brother for the moment.

"I thought all women were prejudiced in favor of Moselle," says Philip, addressing her hastily, more from a view to hinder a recurrence to the forbidden topic than from any overweening curiosity to learn her taste in wines. "Are not you?"

"I am hardly in a position to judge," frankly, "as I have never tasted Moselle, and champagne only once. Have I shocked you? Is that a very lowering admission?"

Mr. Amherst coughs again. The corners of Marcia's mouth take a disgusted droop. Philip laughs out loud.

"On the contrary, it is a very refreshing one," he says, in an interested and deeply amused tone, "more especially in these degenerate days when most young ladies can tell one to a turn the precise age, price, and retailer of one's wines. May I ask when was this memorable 'once'?"

"At the races at Loaminster. Were you ever there? I persuaded my brother to take me there the spring before last, and he went."

"We were there that year, with a large party," says Marcia. "I do not remember seeing you on the stand."

"We were not on it. We drove over, John and I and Letty, in the little trap, a Norwegian, and dreadfully shaky it was, but we did not care, and we sat in it all day, and saw everything very well. Then a friend of John's, a man in the Sixty-second, came up, and asked to be introduced to me, and afterward others came, and persuaded us to have luncheon with them in their marquee. It was there," nodding at Philip, "I got the champagne. We had great fun, I remember, and altogether it was quite the pleasantest day I ever spent in my life."

As she speaks, she dimples, and blushes, and beams all over her pretty face as she recalls that day's past glories.

"The Sixty-second?" says Marcia. "I recollect. A very second-rate regiment I thought it. There was a Captain Milburd in it, I remember."

"That was John's friend," says Molly, promptly; "he was so kind to me that day. Did you like him?"

"Like him! A man all broad plaid and red tie. No, I certainly did not like him."

"His tie!" says Molly, laughing gayly at the vision she has conjured up,—"it certainly was red. As red as that rose," pointing to a blood-colored flower in the centre of a huge china bowl of priceless cost, that ornaments the middle of the table, and round which, being opposite to him, she has to peer to catch a glimpse of Philip. "It was the reddest thing I ever saw, except his complexion. But I forgave him, he was so good-natured."

"Does good-nature make up for everything?" asks Philip, dodging the bowl in his turn to meet her eyes.

"For most things. Grandpapa," pointing to a family portrait over the chimney-piece that has attracted her attention ever since her entrance, "whose is that picture?"

"Your grandmother's. It is like you, but," says the old man with his usual gracefulness, "it is ten times handsomer."

"Very like you," thinks the young man, gazing with ever increasing admiration at the exquisite tints and shades and changes in the living face before him, "only you are ten thousand times more beautiful!"

Slowly, and with much unnecessary delay, the dinner drags to an end, only to be followed by a still slower hour in the drawing-room.

Mr. Amherst challenges Philip to a game of chess, that most wearisome of games to the on-looker, and so arranges himself that his antagonist cannot, without risking his neck, bestow so much as a glance in Miss Massereene's direction.

Marcia gets successfully through two elaborate fantasies upon the piano, that require rather more than the correct brilliancy of her touch to make up for the incoherency of their composition; while Molly sits apart, dear soul, and wishes with much devoutness that the inventor of chess had been strangled at his birth.

At ten o'clock precisely Mr. Amherst rises, having lost his game, and a good deal of his temper, and expresses his intention of retiring without delay to his virtuous slumbers. Marcia asks Molly whether she too would not wish to go to her room after the day's fatigue; at which proposition Molly grasps with eagerness. Philip lights her candle,—they are in the hall together,—and then holds out his hand.

"Do you know we have not yet gone through the ceremony of shaking hands?" he says, with a kindly smile, and a still more kindly pressure; which I am afraid met with some faint return. Then he wishes her a good night's rest, and she wends her way up-stairs again, and knows the long-thought-of, hoped-for, much-dreaded day is at an end.



CHAPTER XII.

"The guests are met, the feast is set; May'st hear the merry din."

—Ancient Mariner.

"Teddy is coming to-day," is Molly's first thought next morning, as, springing from her bed, she patters across the floor in her bare feet to the window, to see how the weather is going to greet her lover.

"He is coming." The idea sends through her whole frame a little thrill of protective gladness. How happy, how independent she will feel with her champion always near her! A sneer loses half its bitterness when resented by two instead of one, and Luttrell will be a sure partisan. Apart from all which, she is honestly glad at the prospect of so soon meeting him face to face.

Therefore it is that with shining eyes and uplifted head she takes her place at the breakfast-table, which gives the pleasantest meal at Herst—old Amherst being ever conspicuous by his absence at it.

Philip, too, is nowhere to be seen.

"It will be a tete-a-tete breakfast," says Marcia, with a view to explanation. "Grandpapa never appears at this hour, nor—of late—does Philip."

"How unsociable!" says Molly, rather disappointed at the latter's defection. "Do they never come? All the year round?"

"Grandpapa never. But Philip, I presume, will return to his usual habits once the house begins to fill,—I mean, when the guests arrive."

"This poor little guest is evidently of small account," thinks Molly, rather piqued, and, as the thought crosses her mind, the door opens and Philip comes toward her.

"Good-morning," he says, cheerfully.

"You have breakfasted?" Marcia asks, coldly, in a rather surprised tone.

"Long since. But I will take a cup of coffee from you now, if you will allow me."

"I hardly think you deserve it," remarks Molly, turning luminous, laughing eyes upon him. "Marcia has just been telling me of your bad habits. Fancy your preferring your breakfast all alone to having it with——"

"You?" interrupts he, quickly. "I admit your argument; it was bearish; but I was particularly engaged this morning. You shall not have to complain of my conduct in the future, however, as I am resolved to mend my ways. See how you have improved me already."

"Too sudden a reformation, I fear, to be lasting."

"No. It all hinges on the fact that the iron was hot. There is no knowing what you may not do with me before you leave, if you will only take the trouble to teach me. Some more toast?"

"No, thank you."

Marcia grows a shade paler, and lets one cup rattle awkwardly against another. Have they forgotten her very presence?

"I have not much fancy for the role of teacher," goes on Molly, archly: "I have heard it is an arduous and thankless one. Besides, I believe you to be so idle that you would disgrace my best efforts."

"Do you? Then you wrong me. On the contrary, you would find me a very apt pupil,—ambitious, too, and anxious to improve under your tuition."