All this splendor of appointment, all these shaded candles, hanging-lamps, Venetian glass, antique furniture, rich costumes, Japanese curios, and assorted bric-a-brac, were gathered together and arranged thus sumptuously to add charm and lustre to a banquet given by the Stone Mugs to those of their friends most distinguished in their several professions of art, literature, and music.

Indeed any banquet the Club gave was sure to be as unique as it was artistic.

Sometimes it would be held in the hold of an abandoned vessel left high and dry on a lonely beach, which, under the deft touches of the artists of the Club, would be transformed in a night to the cabin of a buccaneer filled with the loot of a treasure ship. Sometimes a canal boat, which the week before had been loaded with lime or potatoes, would be scoured out with a fire-hose, its deck roofed with awnings and hung with lanterns, its hatches lined with palms, and in the hold below a table spread of such surprising beauty, and in an interior so gorgeous in its appointments that each guest, as he descended the carpeted staircase leading from the deck above to the carpeted keelson below, would rub his eyes wondering whether he had not been asleep, and had suddenly awakened aboard Cleopatra's barge.

Again the club would hold a Roman feast in one of Solari's upstairs rooms—the successor to Riley's of the old days—each man speaking ancient Latin with Tenth Street terminals, the servants dressed in tunics and sandals, and the members in togas. Or they would make a descent at midnight on Fulton Market and have their tomcods scooped from the fish- boxes alive and broiled to their liking while they waited; or they would take possession of Brown's or Farrish's for mugs of ale and English chops. But it was always one so different from any other function of its class that it formed the topic of the studios for weeks thereafter.

To-night it was the humor of the club to reproduce as closely as possible, with the limited means at their disposal—for none of the Stone Mugs were rolling in wealth, nor did these functions require it—some one of the great banquets of former times, not to be historically or chronologically correct, but to express the artistic atmosphere of such an occasion.

That there were certain unavoidable and easily detected shams under all this glamour of color and form did not lessen the charm of the present function.

Everybody, of course, knew before the evening was over, or could have found out had he tried, that the two knights in armor who guarded the side-walk entrance to this royal chamber, and who had been the target of the street-rats until they took their places at the inside door, were respectively Mr. Patrick McGinnis, who tended the furnace in the basement of the Tenth Street Studio Building, stripped for the occasion down to his red flannels, and Signore Luigi Bennelli, his Italian assistant.

A closer inspection of the two ebony blackamoors, with drawn scimitars, who guarded the royal chair at the head of the table, would have revealed the fact that they were not made of ebony at all, but of veritable flesh and blood—the blackamoor on the right being none other than Black Sam, the bootblack who shined shoes on the corner of the avenue, and his bloodthirsty pal on the left the kinky-haired porter who served the grocer next door; the only "HONEST" thing about either of them, to quote Waller, being the artistic clothes that they stood in.

Further investigation would have shown that every one of the wonderful things that made glad and glorious the big square room on the ground floor of the building, from the brass sconces on the walls to the hanging church lamps, with everything that their lights fell upon, had been gathered up that same morning from the several homes and studios of the members by old black Jerry, the official carman of the Academy, and had been dumped in an indiscriminate heap on the floor of the banquet hall, where they had been disentangled and arranged by half a dozen painters of the club; that the table and table cloth had been borrowed from Solari's; that the very rare and fragrant old Chianti, the club's private stock, was from Solari's own cellars via Duncan's, the grocer; and that the dinner itself was cooked and served by that distinguished boniface himself, assisted by half a dozen of his own waiters, each one wearing an original Malay costume selected from Stedman's collection and used by him in his great picture of the Sepoy mutiny.

Moreover there was not the slightest doubt that the "Ingin," who was now bowing so gravely to the master of ceremonies, was no other than the distinguished Mr. Thomas Brandon Waller, himself; "N.A., Knight of the Legion of Honor, Pupil of Piloty, etc., etc.;" that the high-class mandarin in the sacred yellow robe and peacock feather who accompanied him, was Crug the 'cellist; that the bald- headed gentleman with the pointed beard, who looked the exact presentment of the divine William, was Munson; and that the gay young gallant in the Spanish costume was none other than our Oliver. The other nobles, cavaliers, and hidalgos were the less known members of the club, who, in their desire to make the occasion a success, had fitted themselves to their costumes instead of attempting to fit the costumes to themselves, with the difference that each man not only looked the character he assumed but assumed the character he looked.

But no one, even the most knowing; no student of costumes, no reader of faces, no discerner of character, no acute observer of manners and times—in glancing over the motley company would have thought for one instant that, in all this atmosphere of real unrealism, the two old gentlemen who had just entered leaning on Oliver's arm—one in a brown coat with high velvet collar and fluffy silk scarf, and the other in a long pen-wiper cloak which, at the moment was slipping from his shoulders—were genuine specimens of the period of to-day without a touch of makeup about them; that their old-time manners, even to the quaint bows they both gave the master of ceremonies, as they entered the royal chamber, were their very own, part of their daily equipment, and that nothing in the gorgeous banquet hall, from the jewelled rapier belted to Oliver's side, and which had once graced the collection of a prince, down to the priceless bit of satsuma set out on the table and now stuffed full of cigarettes (the bit could be traced back to the Ming dynasty), were any more veritable or genuine, or any more representative of the best their periods afforded than these two quaint old gentlemen from Kennedy Square.

Had there been any doubt in the minds of any such wiseacre, either regarding their authenticity or their quality, he had only to listen to Oliver's presentation of his father and friend and to hear Richard say, in his most courteous manner and in his most winning voice:

"I have never been more honored, sir. It was more than kind of you to wish me to come. My only regret is that I am not your age, or I would certainly have appeared in a costume more befitting the occasion. I have never dreamed of so beautiful a place."

Or to see him lift his hand in astonishment as he swept his eye over the room, his arm still resting on the velvet sleeve of Oliver's doublet, and hear him add, in a half whisper:

"Wonderful! Wonderful! Such harmony of color; such an exquisite light. I am amazed at the splendor of it all. What Aladdin among you, my son, held the lamp that evoked all this beauty?"

Or still more convincing would it have been had he watched him moving about the room, shaking every man's hand in turn, Oliver mentioning their real names and their several qualifications, and after ward the characters they assumed, and Richard commenting on each profession in a way quite his own.

"A musician, sir," he would have heard him exclaim as he grasped Simmons's hand, over which hung a fall of antique lace; "I have loved music all my days. It is an additional bond between us, sir. And the costume is quite in keeping with your art. How delightful it would be, my dear sir, if we could discard forever the sombre clothes of our day and go back to the velvets and silks Of the past."

"Mr. Stedman, did you say, my son?" and he turned to Oliver. "You have certainly mentioned this gentleman's name to me before. If I do not mistake, he is one of your very old friends. There is no need of your telling me that you are Lorenzo. I can quite understand now why Jessica lost her heart."

Or to see him turn to Jack Bedford with: "You don't tell me so! Mr. John Bedford, did you say, Oliver? Ah, but we should not be strangers, sir. If I am right, you are a fellow-townsman of ours, and have already distinguished yourself in your profession. Your costume is especially becoming to you, sir. What discernment you have shown. Permit me to say, that with you the old adage must be reversed —this time the man makes the clothes."

The same adage could really have been applied to this old gentleman's own dress, had he but only known it. He had not altered it in twenty years, even after it had become a matter of comment among his neighbors in Kennedy Square.

"I always associate one's clothes with one's manners," he would say, with a smile. "If they are good, and suited to the occasion, best not change them." Nathan was of the same mind. The wide hat, long, evenly parted hair, and pen-wiper cloak could be traced to these same old-fashioned ideas. These idiosyncrasies excited no comment so far as Nathan was concerned. He was always looked upon as belonging to some antediluvian period, but with a progressive man like Richard the case, his neighbors thought, might have been different.

As Richard moved about the room, saluting each one in turn, the men in and out of costume—the guests were in evening dress—looked at each other and smiled at the old gentleman's quaint ways, but the old gentleman, with the same ease of manner and speech, continued on quite around the table, followed closely by Nathan, who limited his salutations to a timid shake of the fingers and the leaving of some word of praise or quaint greeting, which many of them remember even to this day.

These introductions over—Oliver had arrived on the minute—the ceremony of seating the guests was at once begun. This ceremony was one of great dignity, the two men-at-arms escorting the Master of the Feast, the Most High Pan-Jam, Frederico Stono, N.A., to his Royal Chair, guarded by the immovable blackamoors, the members and guests standing until His Royal Highness had taken his seat, and then dropping into their own. When everyone was in his place Richard found himself, to his delight, on the right of Fred and next to Nathan and Oliver—an honor accorded to him because of his age and relationship to one of the most popular members of the club, and not because of his genius and attainments —these latter attributes being as yet unknown quantities in that atmosphere. The two thus seated together under the especial care of Oliver—a fact which relieved the master of ceremonies of any further anxiety on their account—were to a certain extent left to themselves, the table being too large for general conversation except with one's neighbors.

The seat in which he had been placed exactly suited Richard's frame of mind. With an occasional word to Fred, he sat quite still, talking now and then in low tones to Nathan, his eyes taking in every detail of the strange scene.

While Nathan saw only the color and beauty of it all, Richard's keener mind was analyzing the causes that had led up to such a gathering, and the skill and taste with which the banquet had been carried out. He felt assured that the men who could idle so luxuriously, and whose technical knowledge had perfected the artistic effects about him, could also work at their several professions with equal results. He was glad that Oliver had been found worthy enough to be admitted to such a circle. He loved, too, to hear his son's voice and watch the impression his words made on the room. As the evening wore on, and he listened to his banter, or caught the point of the jests that Oliver parried and heard his merry laugh, he would slip his hand under the table and pat his boy's knee with loving taps of admiration, prouder of him than ever. His own pleasures so absorbed him that he continued to sit almost silent, except for a word now and then to Nathan or a monosyllable to Fred.

The guests who were near enough to observe the visitors closely soon began to look upon Richard and Nathan as a couple of quaint, harmless, exceedingly well-bred old gentlemen, rather provincial in appearance and a little stilted in their manners, who, before the evening was over, would, perhaps, become tired of the gayety, ask to be excused, and betake themselves to bed. All of which would be an eminently proper proceeding in view of their extreme age and general infirmities, old gentlemen of three score years and over appearing more or less decrepit to athletes of twenty and five.

Waller was the only man who really seemed to take either of them seriously. After a critical examination of Richard's head in clear relief under the soft light of the candles, he leaned over to Stedman and said, in a half whisper, nodding toward Richard:

"Stedman, old man, take that in for a minute. Strong, isn't it? Wouldn't you like to paint him as a blessed old Cardinal in a red gown? See how fine the nose is, and the forehead. Best head I've seen anywhere. Something in that old fellow."

The dinner went on. The Malays in scarlet and yellow served the dishes and poured the wine with noiseless regularity. The men at arms at each side of the door rested their legs. The two blackamoors, guarding the High Pan-Jam's chair, and who had been promised double pay if they kept still during the entire evening, had not so far winked an eyelid. Now and then a burst of laughter would start from one end of the table, leap from chair to chair, and end in a deafening roar in which the whole room joined. Each man was at his best. Fred, with entire gravity, and with his sternest and most High Pan-Jam expression, told, just after the fish was served, a story of a negro cook at a camp so true to life and in so perfect a dialect that the right-hand blackamoor doubled himself up like a jack-knife, much to the astonishment of those on the far side of the big round table, who up to that moment had firmly believed them to be studio properties with ebony heads screwed on bodies of iron wire, the whole stuffed with curled hair. Bianchi, Who had come in late, clothed in a Burgomaster's costume and the identical ruff that Oliver had expected to paint him in the night when the Countess took his place, was called to account for piecing out his dress with a pair of breeches a century behind his coat and hat, and had his voice drowned in a roar of protests before he could explain.

Batterson, the big baritone of the club, Batterson with the resonant voice, surpassed all his former efforts by singing, when the cheese and salads were served, a Bedouin love-song, with such power and pathos and to the accompaniment of a native instrument so skilfully handled that the room rose to its feet, waving napkins, and the great Carvalho, the famous tenor—a guest of Crug's, each member could invite one guest—who was singing that week at the Academy of Music, left his seat and, circling the table, threw his arms about the singer in undisguised admiration.

When the cigars and liqueurs had been passed around—these last were poured from bubble-blown decanters and drunk from the little cups flecked with gold that Munson had found in an old shop in Ravenna —the chairs were wheeled about or pushed back, and the members and guests rose from the table and drifted to the divans lining the walls, or threw themselves into the easy-chairs that were being brought from the corners by the waiters. The piano, with the assistance of the two now crest- fallen and disappointed blackamoors, who, Eurydice like, had listened and lost, was pushed from its place against the wall; Crug's 'cello was stripped of its green baize bag and Simmons's violin-case opened and his Stradivarius placed beside it. The big table, bearing the wreck of the feast, more captivating even in its delightful disorder than it had been in its orderly confusion, was then, with the combined help of all the Malays, moved gently back against the wall, so as to widen the space around the piano, its debris left undisturbed by special orders from the Royal Chair, the rattling of dishes while their fun was in progress being one of the things which the club would not tolerate.

While all this rearranging of the banquet-hall was going on, Simmons was busying himself putting a new bridge under the strings of his violin, tightening its bow, and testing the condition of his instrument by that see-saw, harum-scarum flourish so common to all virtuosos;—no function of the club was ever complete without music—the men meanwhile settled themselves comfortably in their seats; some occupying their old chairs, others taking possession of the divans, the gay costumes of the members, and the black coats and white shirt-fronts of the guests in high relief against the wrecked dinner-table presenting a picture as rich in color as it was strong in contrast.

What is so significant, by the way, or so picturesque, as a dinner-table wrecked by good cheer and hospitality? The stranded, crumpled napkins, the bunching together of half and wholly emptied glasses, each one marking a period of content—the low candles, with half dried tears still streaming down their cheeks (tears of laughter, of course); the charming disorder of cups on plates and the piling up of dishes one on the other—all such a protest against the formality of the beginning! and all so suggestive of the lavish kindness of the host. A wonderful object-lesson is a wrecked dinner-table, if one cares to study it.

Silence now fell upon the room, the slightest noise when Simmons played being an unpardonable sin. The waiters were ordered either to become part of the wall decoration or to betake themselves to the outside hall, or the infernal regions, a suggestion of Waller's when one of them rattled some glasses he was carrying on a tray.

Simmons tucked a handkerchief in the band of his collar, balanced his bow for an instant, looked around the room, and asked, in a modest, obliging way:

"What shall it be, fellows?"

"Better give us Bach. The aria on the G strings," answered Waller.

"No, Chopin," cried Fred.

"No, you wooden-head, Bach's aria," whispered Waller. "Don't you know that is the best thing he does?"

"Bach it is then," answered Simmons, tucking his instrument under his chin.

As the music filled the room, Richard settled himself on one of the large divans between Nathan and Oliver, his head lying back on the cushions, his eyes half closed. If the table with its circle of thoughtful and merry faces, had set his brain to work, the tones of Simmons's violin had now stirred his very soul. Music was the one thing in the world he could not resist.

He had never heard the aria better played. He had no idea that anyone since Ole Bull's time could play it so well. Really, the surprises of this wonderful city were becoming greater to him every hour. Nathan, too, had caught the infection as he sat with his body bent forward, his head on one side listening intently.

When the last note of Simmons's violin had ceased vibrating, Richard sprang to his feet with all the buoyancy of a boy and grasped the musician by the hand.

"My dear sir, you really astound me! Your tone is most exquisite, and I must also thank you for the rendering. It is one quite new to me. Ole Bull played it, you remember—excuse me," and he picked up Simmons's violin where he had laid it on the piano, tucked it under his chin, and there vibrated through the room, half a dozen quivering notes, so clear and sweet that all eyes were instantly directed toward the quaint old gentleman, who still stood with uplifted bow, the violin in his hand.

"Where the devil did he learn to play like that?" said one member to another. "Why I thought he was an inventor."

"Keep your toes in your pumps, gentlemen," said Waller under his breath to some men beside him, as he sat hunched up in the depths of an old Spanish armchair. He had not taken his eyes from Richard while the music went on. "We're not half through with this old fellow. One thing I've found out, any how—that's where this beggar Horn got his voice."

Simmons was not so astounded; if he were he did not show it. He had recognized the touch of a musician in the very first note that came from the strings, just as the painters of the club had recognized the artist in the first line of the Countess's brush.

"Yes, you're right, Mr. Horn," said Simmons, as Richard returned him the instrument. "Now I come to think of it, I do remember having heard Ole Bull phrase it in that way you have. Stop a moment; take my violin again and play the air. There's another instrument here which I can use. I brought it for one of my orchestra, but he has not turned up yet," and he opened a cabinet behind him and took out a violin and bow.

Richard laughed as he again picked up Simmons's instrument from the piano where he had laid it.

"What an. extraordinary place this is," he said as he adjusted the maestro's violin to his chin. "It fills me with wonder. Everything you want seems to be within reach of your hand. You take a bare room and transform it into a dream of beauty; you touch a spring in a sixteenth century cabinet, and out comes a violin. Marvellous! Marvellous!" and he sounded the strings with his bow. "And a wonderful instrument too," he continued, as he tightened one of its strings, his acute ear having detected a slight inaccuracy of pitch.

"I'm all ready, Mr. Simmons; now, if you please."

If the club and its guests had forgotten the old gentleman an hour before, the old gentleman had now quite forgotten them.

He played simply and easily, Simmons joining in, picking out the accompaniment, entirely unaware that anybody was listening, as unaware as he would have been had only the white-haired mistress been present, and perhaps Malachi stepping noiselessly in and out. When he ceased, and the audience had broken out into exclamations of delight, he looked about him as if surprised, and then, suddenly remembering the cause of it all, said, in a low, gentle voice, and with a pleasant smile: "I don't wonder you're delighted, gentlemen. It is to me the most divine of all his creations. There is only one Bach." That his hand had held the bow and that the merit of its expression lay with him, never seemed to have entered his head.

When the applause had died out, and Oliver with the others had crowded around his father to congratulate him, the young fellow's eyes fell upon Nathan, who was still sitting on the long divan, his head resting against the wall, his trembling legs crossed one over the other, the thin hands in his lap—Richard's skill was a never-ending delight to Nathan, and he had not lost a note that his bow had called out. The flute-player had kept so quiet since the music had begun, and had become so much a part of the decorations —like one of the old chairs with its arms held out, or a white-faced bust staring from out a dark corner, or some portrait that looked down from the tapestries and held its peace—that almost everyone had forgotten his presence.

The attitude of the old man—always a pathetic one, brought back to Oliver's mind some memory from out his boyhood days. Suddenly a forgotten strain from Nathan's flute floated through his brain, some strain that had vibrated through the old rooms in Kennedy Square. Springing to his feet and tip- toeing to the door, he passed between the two men in armor—rather tired knights by this time, but still on duty—ran down the carpeted hall between the lines of palms and up one flight of stairs. Then came a series of low knocks. A few minutes later he bounded in again, his rapier in his hand to give his legs freer play.

"I rapped up Mitchell, who's sick in his studio upstairs, and got his flute," he whispered to Waller. "If you think my father can play you should hear Uncle Nat Gill," and he walked toward Nathan, the flute held out toward him.

The old gentleman woke to consciousness at the sight of the instrument, and a slight flush overspread his face.

"Oh, Oliver! Really, gentlemen—I—Of course, I love the instrument, but here among you all—" and he looked up in a helpless way.

"No, no, Uncle Nat," cried Oliver, pressing the flute into Nathan's hand. "We won't take any excuse. There is no one in my town, gentlemen," and he faced the others, "who can play as he does. Please, Uncle Nat—just for me; it's so long since I heard you play," and he caught hold of Nathan's arm to lift him to his feet.

"You are quite right, my son," cried Richard, "and I will play his accompaniment."

Oliver's announcement and Richard's endorsement caused a stir as great as Richard's own performance. A certain curiosity took possession of the room, quite distinct from the spirit of merriment which had characterized it before. Many of the men now left their seats and began crowding about the piano—red cardinals, cavaliers, nobles, and black-coated guests looking over each other's shoulders. Everybody was getting more and more mystified.

"Really, Fred," whispered Waller, who still sat quietly watching the two visitors—he had not taken his eyes from them since Richard in his enthusiasm sprang forward to grasp Simmons's hand—,"this is the most ridiculous thing I ever saw in my life. First comes this fossil thoroughbred who outplays Simmons, and now comes this old nut-cracker with his white tow-hair sticking out in two straight mops, who is going to play the flute! What in thunder is coming next? Pretty soon one of them will be pulling rabbits out of somebody's ears, or rubbing gold watches into canary birds."

Nathan took the flute from Oliver's outstretched hand, bowed in a timid way like a school-boy about to speak a piece, turned it over carefully, tried the silver keys to see that they responded easily to the pressure of his fingers, and raised it to his lips. Richard picked up the violin and whispered to Munson, with whom he had been talking—the one member who could play the piano as well as he could paint or fence—who nodded his head in assent.

Then, with Richard leading, the four—one of the guests a 'cellist of distinction took Max Unger's place—began Max's arrangement of the overture to "Fidelio"; the one Richard and Nathan had played so often together in the old parlor in Kennedy Square, with Miss Clendenning and Unger: an arrangement which had now become known to most musical amateurs.

There is not a man yet alive who has forgotten the tones of Nathan's flute as they soared that night through the clouds of tobacco-smoke that filled the great banquet-hall. Every shade and gradation of tone was a delight. Now soft as the cooing of doves, now low as the music of a brook rippling over the shallows and again swelling into song like a chorus of birds rejoicing in the coming of spring.

Not until the voice in the slender instrument had become silent and the last note of Richard's bow had ceased reverberating—not in fact, until both men had laid down their instruments, and had turned from the piano—did the room seem to recover from the spell that had bound it. Even then there was no applause; no clapping of hands nor stamping of feet. There followed, from members and guests alike, only a deep, pent-up sigh and a long breath of relief, as if from a strain unbearable. Simmons, who had sat with his head buried in his hands, gave no other sign of his approval than by rising from his chair, taking Nathan's thin hand in his own and grasping it tightly, without a word. Stedman blurted out, in a low voice to himself: "My God! Who ever heard anything like that?" and remained fixed to his seat. As for Richard and Nathan, they resumed their places on the divan as men who had read a message not their own to willing ears.

Another, and quite a different mood now took possession of the room. Somehow the mellow tones of Nathan's flute had silenced the spirit of the rollicking buffoonery which had pervaded the evening.

The black-coated guests, with superlative praise of the good time they had had, and with renewed thanks for the privilege, began to bid Fred, the Master of Ceremonies, good-night. Soon only the costumed members, with Richard and Nathan, were left. So far from being tired out with the night's diversion, these two old gentlemen seemed to have just wakened up.

Those remaining drew their chairs together, lighted fresh cigars, and sat down to talk over the events of the evening. Richard related an anecdote of Macready when playing the part of Hamlet; Stedman told of the graceful manner, in which Booth, a few months before, in the same part, had handed the flageolet to the musicians, and the way the words fell from his lips, "You would play upon me "; Oliver, addressing his words rather to his father than to the room—acting the scene as he talked, and in his tight- fitting doublet, looking not unlike the tragedian himself, cut in with a description of the great tragedian's first night at the Winter Garden after his seclusion— a night when the whole house rose to greet their favorite and cheered and roared and pounded everything within reach of their hands and feet for twenty minutes, while Booth stood with trembling knees, the tears rolling down his cheeks. Munson remarked with some feeling—he was an intimate friend of the actor—that he remembered the night perfectly, having sat behind Oliver, and that Booth was not only the most accomplished actor but the best swordsman ever seen on the American or any other stage. Munson was an expert fencer himself, as was evidenced by the scar on his left cheek, received when be was a student at Heidelberg, and so thought himself competent to judge.

While Munson was speaking the great Waller had risen from his seat for the first time, gathered his gorgeous raiment closer about him, crossed the room, and now stood filling a thin glass from a Venetian flagon that graced the demoralized table.

"Booth's a swordsman, is he?" he said, pushing back his turban from his forehead, and walking toward Munson, glass in hand, his baggy trousers and tunic making him look twice his regular size. "You know as much about fencing, Munson, as you do about the lost tribes of Israel. Booth handles his foil as a policeman does a rattan cane in the pit of the Bowery. Forrest is the only man in this country who can handle a blade."

"I do, do I?" cried Munson, springing to his feet and unhooking a pair of foils decorating the wall. "Stop where you are, you caricature of Nana Sahib, or I'll run you through the body and pin you to the wall like a beetle, where you can kick to your heart's content. Here, catch this," and he tossed one of the foils to Waller.

"A ring! A ring!" cried the men, with one of those sudden inspirations that often swept over them, jumping from their seats and pushing back the chairs and music-racks to give the contestants room.

Waller laid down his wine-glass, slipped off his turban and gold embroidered tunic with great deliberation, threw them over to Oliver, who caught them in his arms, tightened his sash, grasped the foil in his fat hand, and with great gravity made a savage lunge at the counterfeit presentment of William Shakespeare, who parried his blow without moving from where he stood. Thereupon the lithe, well-built young fellow teetered his foil in the air, and with great nicety pinked his fat antagonist in the stomach, selecting a gilt band just above his sash as the point of contact.

A mock battle now ensued, Munson chasing Waller about the room, the, members roaring with laughter, Richard, with Oliver's assistance, having mounted the divan to see the better, clapping his hands like any boy and shouting, "Bravo! Bravo! Now the uppercut, now the thrust! Ah, well done. Capital! Capital!"

Oliver listened in wonder to the strange expressions that dropped from his father's lips. Up to that moment he had never known that the old gentleman had ever touched a foil in his life.

The next instant Richard was on the floor again, commiserating with Waller, who was out of Munson's reach and out of breath with laughter, and congratulating Munson on his skill as a swordsman.

"I only noticed one flaw, my dear Mr. Munson, in your handling," he cried, with a graceful wave of the hand, "and that may be due to your more modern way of fencing. Pardon me"—and he picked up Waller's foil where he had dropped it, and the fine wrist with the nimble fingers, that had served him so well all his days, closed over the handle of the foil. "The thrust in the old days was made SO. You, I think, made it SO"—and two flashes at different angles gleamed in the candle-light.

Munson, as if to humor the old gentleman, threw up his foil, made a pass or two, and, to his intense astonishment, received the button of Richard's foil on his black velvet jacket and within an inch of his heart.

Everybody on the floor at once circled about the contestants. The spectacle of an old gentleman in a snuff-colored coat and high collar, having a bout with a short gentleman in shorter velvet trunks, silk hose, and steel buckles, was one too droll and too exhilarating to lose—anachronistic it was, yet quite in keeping with the surroundings. More exhilarating still was the extreme punctiliousness with which the old gentleman raised the handle of his foil to his chin after he had made his point, and saluted his antagonist as if he had been some knight of King Arthur's table.

Still more fascinating was the way in which the younger man settled down to work, his brow knit, his lips tightly closed, the members widening out to give them room, Oliver and Nathan cheering the loudest of them all as Richard's foil flashed in the air, parrying, receiving, now up, now down, his right foot edging closer, his dear old head bent low, his deep eyes fixed on his young antagonist, until, with a quick thrust of his arm and a sudden upward twist of his hand, he wrenched Munson's foil from his grasp and sent it flying across the room.

Best of all was the joyful yet apologetic way with which Richard sprang forward and held out his hand to Munson, crying out:

"A fluke, my dear Mr. Munson; quite a fluke, I assure you. Pray forgive me. A mere lucky accident. My old fencing master, Martini, taught me that trick. I thought I had quite forgotten it. Just think! it is forty years since I have had a foil in my hands," and, laughing like a boy he crossed the room, picked up the foil, and, bowing low, handed it to the crestfallen man with the air of a gallant.

Half the club, costumed as they were—it was now after midnight, and there were but few people in the streets—escorted the two old men back to their hotel. Munson walked beside Richard; Waller, his flowing skirts tucked up inside his overcoat, stepped on the right of Nathan; Oliver, Fred, and the others followed behind, the hubbub of their talk filling the night: even when they reached the side door of the hotel and rang up the night porter, they must still stand on the sidewalk listening to Richard's account of the way the young gallants were brought up in his day; of the bouts with the foils; and of the duels which were fought before they were willing to take their leave.

When the last good-byes had been given, and Oliver had waved his rapier from the doorstep as a final farewell to his fellow-members before he saw his father upstairs to bed, and the delighted escort had turned on their heels to retrace their steps up Broadway, Waller slipped his arm into Munson's, and said, in his most thoughtful tone, one entirely free from cynicism or badinage:

"What a lovely pair of old duffers. We talk about Bohemia, Munson, and think we've got it, but we haven't. Our kind is a cheap veneer glued to commonplace pine. Their kind is old mahogany, solid all the way through—fine grain, high polish and no knots. I only wish they lived here."



CHAPTER XXIV

IN THE TWILIGHT



Each day Margaret's heart warmed more and more to Richard. He not only called out in her a tenderness and veneration for his age and attainments which her own father had never permitted her to express, but his personality realized for her an ideal which, until she knew him, she had despaired of ever finding. While his courtesy, his old-time manners, his quaintness of speech and dress captivated her imagination, his perfect and unfailing sympathy and constant kindness completely won her heart. There was, too, now and then, a peculiar tone in his voice which would bring the tears to her eyes without her knowing why, until her mind would recall some blunt, outspoken speech of her dead father's in answer to the very sentiments she was then expressing to Richard, who received them as a matter of course—a remembrance which always caused a tightening about her heart.

Sometimes the inventor would sit for her while she sketched his head in different lights, he watching her work, interested in every stroke, every bit of composition. She loved to have him beside her easel criticising her work. No one, she told Oliver, had ever been so interested before with the little niceties of her technique—in the amount of oil used, in the way the paints were mixed; in the value of a palette knife as a brush or of an old cotton rag as a blender, nor had any one of her sitters ever been so enthusiastic over her results.

There was one half-hour sketch which more than all the others astonished and delighted him—one in which Margaret in her finishing touches had eschewed brushes, palette-knife and rag, and with one dash of her dainty thumb had brought into instant relief the subtle curves about his finely modelled nose. This filled him with wonder and admiration. His own finger had always obeyed him, and he loved to find the same skill in another.

To Richard these hours of intercourse with Margaret were among the happiest of his life. It was Margaret, indeed, who really helped him bear with patience the tedious delays attendant upon the completion of his financial operations. Even when the final sum was agreed upon—and it was a generous one, that filled Oliver's heart with joy and set Nathan's imagination on fire—the best part of two weeks had been consumed before the firm of lawyers who were to pass upon Richard's patents were willing to certify to the purchasers of the stock of the horn Magnetic Motor Company, as to the priority of Richard's invention based on the patent granted on August 13, 1856, and which covered the principle of the levers working in connection with the magnets.

During these tedious delays, in which his heart had vibrated between hope and fear, he had found his way every afternoon to Margaret's studio, Nathan having gone home to Kennedy Square with his head in the clouds when the negotiations became a certainty. In these weeks of waiting the Northern girl had not only stolen his heart, taking the place of a daughter he had never known—a void never filled in any man's soul—but she had satisfied a craving no less intense, the hunger for the companionship of one who really understood his aims and purposes. Nathan had in a measure met this need as far as unselfish love and unswerving loyalty could go; and so had his dear wife, especially in these later years, when her mind had begun to grasp the meaning of the social and financial changes that the war had brought, and what place her husband's inventions might hold in the new regime. But no one of these, not even Nathan, had ever understood him as clearly as had this young girl.

When it grew too dark to paint, he would make her sit on a stool at his feet, while he would talk to her of his life work and of the future as he saw it—often of things which he had kept shut away in his heart even from Nathan. He would tell her of the long years of anxiety; of the sleepless nights; of his utter loneliness, without a friend to guide him, while he was trying to solve the problems that had blocked his path; of the poverty of these late years, all the more pitiful because of his inability at times to buy even the bare materials and instruments needed for his work; and, again, of his many disappointments in his search for the hoped-for link that was needed to make his motor a success.

Once, in lowered tones and with that eager, restless expression which so often came into his face when standing over his work-bench in his little shop, baffled by some unsolved problem, he told her of his many anxieties lest some other brain groping along the same paths should reach the goal before him; how the Scientific Review, the one chronicle of the discoveries of the time, would often lie on his table for hours before he had the courage to open it and read the list of patents granted during the preceding months, adding, with a voice full of gentleness, "I was ashamed of it all, afterward, my dear, but Mrs. Horn became so anxious over our daily expenses, and so much depended on my success."

This brave pioneer did not realize, nor did she, that they were both valiant soldiers fighting the good fight of science and art against tradition and provincialism—part of that great army of progress which was steadily conquering the world!

As she listened in the darkening shadows, her hand in his, her fingers tight about his own, he, reading the sympathy of her touch, and fearing to have distressed her by his talk, had started up, and in his cheery, buoyant voice cried out:

"But it is all over now, my child. All past and gone. The work of my life is finished. There's plenty now for all of us. For my dear wife who has borne up so bravely and has never complained, and for you and Oliver. Your waiting need not be long, my dear. This last happiness which has come to me" —and he smoothed her hair gently with his thin hand and drew her closer to him—"seems the greatest of them all."

The two were seated in this way one afternoon, Margaret resting after a day's work, when Oliver opened the door. She had made a sketch of Richard's head that very morning as he lay back in a big chair, a strong, vigorous piece of work which she afterward finished.

Richard looked up and his face broke into a joyous smile.

"Bring a chair, my son," he cried, "and sit by me. I have something to say to you." When, a few moments later, Margaret had left the room to give some directions to Mrs. Mulligan, he added: "I have been telling Margaret that you both do wrong in putting off your marriage. These delays fret young people's lives away. She tells me it is your wish. What are you waiting for?"

"Only for money enough to take care of her, father. Madge has been accustomed to more comforts than I can give her. She would, I know, cheerfully give up half of her income, small as it is, to me if I would let her, but that is not the way I want to make her happy. Don't worry, dear old dad, the Fish portrait will pull us out"—and he leaned down and put his arms about his father's neck as he used to do when he was a boy. "I shall get there before long."

Oliver did not tell his father what a grief it had been to him to keep Madge waiting, nor how he had tried to make it up to her in every way while he had made his fight alone. Nor did he tell Richard of the principal cause of his waiting—that the mortgage to which his mother had pledged her name and to which he had morally pledged his own was still unpaid.

Richard listened to Oliver's outburst without interrupting him.

"I only wanted to do the best I could for you my son," he answered, laying his fingers on Oliver's hand. "I was thinking of nothing but your happiness. During the last few days, since I have become assured that this negotiation would go through, I have decided to carry out a plan which has long been in my mind and which, now that I know about Margaret, makes it all the more necessary. I am going to make provision for you immediately. This, I hope, will be to-morrow or the next day at farthest. The contracts are all ready for our signatures, and only await the return of one of the attorneys who is out of town. The cash sum they pay for the control of the patents is, as you know, a considerable one; then I get nearly half of the capital stock of the new company. I am going to give you, at once, one-third of the money and one-third of the stock."

Oliver raised his hand in protest, but Richard kept on.

"It is but just, my son. There are but three of us —your mother, yourself, and I. It is only your share. I won't have you and Margaret waiting until I am gone"—and he looked up with a smile on his face.

Oliver stood for a moment dazed at the joyous news, his father's hand in his, the tears dimming his eyes. While he was thanking him, telling him how glad he was that the struggle was over and how proud he was of his genius, Margaret stole up behind him and put her hands over his eyes, bidding him guess who it was—as if there could be another woman in the whole world who would take the liberty. Oliver caught her in his arms and kissed her, whispering in her ears the joyous news with her cheek close to his; and Margaret looked from one to the other, and then put her arms around Richard and kissed him without a word—the first time she had ever dared so much.

Oh, but there were joyous times that followed!

Mrs. Mulligan, at a whispered word from her mistress, ran down-stairs as fast as her old legs could carry her and came back with her arms full of bundles, which she dumped upon her small kitchen-table. And Margaret put on a clean white apron, white as snow, and rolled up her sleeves, showing her beautiful arms above her elbows—Oliver always vowed that she had picked them up where the Milo had dropped them—and began emptying the contents of a bowl of oysters, one of Mrs. Mulligan's packages, into a chafing-dish. And Oliver wheeled out the table and brought out the cloth, and dear old Richard, his face full of smiles, placed the napkins with great precision beside each plate, puckering them up into little sheaves, "just as Malachi would have done," he said; and then Margaret whispered to Oliver if he didn't think "it would be just the very thing," they were "so anxious to see him"—and Oliver thought it would—he was cutting bread at the moment, and getting it ready for Mrs. Mulligan to toast on her cracker-box of a range; and Margaret, with her arms and her cheeks scarlet, ran out in the hall and down the corridor, and came back, out of breath, with two other girls—one in a calico frock belted in at her slender waist, and the other in a black bombazine and a linen collar. And Richard looked into their faces, and took them both by the hand and told them how glad he was to be permitted to share in their merrymakings; and then, when Oliver had drawn out the chairs—one was a stool, by the way—the whole party sat down, Oliver at the foot and Richard on Margaret's right, the old gentleman, remarking, as he opened his napkin, that but one thing was wanting to complete his happiness, and that was Oliver's mother, who of all women in the world would enjoy the occasion the most.

But the happiest time of all was over the soup, or rather over the tureen, or rather what was inside of it—or worse still, what was not. This wonderful soup had been ordered at the restaurant across the way, and was to be brought in smoking hot at the appointed time by a boy. The boy arrived on the minute, and so did the tureen—a gayly flowered affair with a cover, the whole safely ensconced in a basket. When the lid was lifted and Margaret and the two girls looked in, a merry shout went up. Not a drop of soup was in the tureen! The boy craned his head in amazement, and Mrs. Mulligan, who stood by with the plates, and who had broken out into violent gestures at the sight was about to upbraid the boy for his stupidity, when Margaret's quick eye discovered a trail of grease running down the table-cloth, along the floor and out of the door. Whereupon everybody got up, including Richard, and with roars of laughter followed the devious trail out into the hall and so on down the staircase as far as they could see. Only when Mrs. Mulligan on their return to the room held up the tureen and pointed to a leak in its bottom, was the mystery explained.

And so the merry dinner went on.

Ah, dear old man, if these happy days could only have gone on till the end.

On the afternoon of the day following this joyous night—the day the contracts were to be signed, a culmination which would make everybody happy— Margaret hurried up the stairs of her building, and pushed open the door. She knew she should find the inventor waiting for her, and she wanted to be the first to get the glad news from his lips. It was varnishing day at the Academy, and she had gone down to put the last touches on her big portrait—the one of "Madame X." that she had begun in Paris the year before.

Richard did not move when she entered. He was leaning back in the chair she had placed for him, his head on his hand, his attitude one of thoughtful repose, the light of the fast-fading twilight making a silhouette of his figure. She thought he was dozing, and so crept up behind him to make sure.

"Ah, my dear, is that you?" he asked. The voice did not sound like Richard's.

"Yes—I thought you were asleep."

"No, my child—I'm only greatly troubled. I'm glad you have come"—and he took her hand and smoothed it with his own. "Bring your stool; I have something to say to you."

Without taking off her bonnet and cloak, she took her place at his feet. The tones of his voice chilled her. A great fear rose in her heart. Why she could not tell.

"Has anything happened to Oliver?" she asked, eagerly.

"No, nothing so terrible as that. It is about the motor. The bankers have refused the loan, and the attorneys have withdrawn the papers."

"Withdrawn the papers! Oh, no it can't be!" She had leaned forward now, her anxious, startled eyes looking into his.

"Yes, my dear; a Mr. Gorton from Maine has perfected a machine which not only accomplishes what I claim for my own, but is much better in every way. The attorneys have been looking into this new motor for a week past, so I learn now. Here is their letter" —and he put his hand in his pocket and took out a white envelope. "They will, perhaps, take up Mr. Gorton's machine instead of mine. I made a hasty examination of this new motor this morning with my old friend Professor Morse, and we both agree that the invention is all Mr. Gorton claims for it. It is only a beginning, of course, along the lines of galvanic energy, but it is a better beginning than mine, and I feel sure it is all the inventor claims for it. I have so informed them, and I have also written a letter to Mr. Gorton congratulating him on his success." The calmness and gentleness of his voice thrilled her.

"I suppose I ought to have telegraphed the news to Mrs. Horn, as I promised," he continued, slowly, as if each word gave him pain, "but I really had not the heart, so I came up here. I've been here all the afternoon hoping you would come in. The room felt a little cold, my dear, and your good woman made a fire for me, as you see. You don't mind, do you?"

Margaret bowed her head on his hands and kissed the thin fingers that lay in her own. Her heart was full to bursting. The pathos of the bent figure, the despairing sound of his voice—so unlike his buoyant tones; the ghostly light that permeated the room, so restful always before, so grewsome and forbidding now, appealed to her in a way she had never known. She was not thinking of herself, nor of Oliver, nor of the wife waiting for the news at home; she was only thinking of this dear old man who sat with bowed head, his courage gone, all the joyousness out of his life. What hurt her most was her own utter helplessness. In most things she could be of service: now she was powerless. She knew it when she spoke.

"Is it ended?" she asked at last, her practical mind wanting to know the worst.

"Yes, my child, ended. I wish I could give you some hope, but there is none. I shall go home to- morrow and begin again;—on what I do not know— something—I cannot tell."

Oliver's footsteps sounded in the outer hall. She rose quickly and met him on the outside, half closing the door, so that she could tell him the dreadful news without being overheard.

"Broken their promises to father? Impossible! Why? What for? Another invention? Oh, it cannot be!"

He walked quickly toward him. "But father, what about your patents? They can't rob you of them. Suppose this man's motor is better."

Richard did not move. He seemed unwilling to look his son in the face.

"Let me take hold of this thing." Oliver was bending over him now, his arms about his neck. "I'll see Mr. Slade at once. I met him this morning and told him you were here, and he is coming to call on you. He has always stood by me and will now. These people who have disappointed you are not the only ones who have got money. Mr. Slade, you know, is now a banker himself. I will begin to-morrow to fight this new man who—"

"No, no, my son, you must do nothing of the kind," said Richard leaning his cheek wearily against Oliver's hand, as if for warmth and protection, but still looking into the fire. "It would not be right to take from him what he has honestly earned. The lifting power of his machine is four times my own, and the adjustment of the levers much simpler. He has only accomplished what I failed to do. I am not quite sure but I think he uses the same arrangement of levers that I do, but everything else is his. Such a man is to be helped, not worried with lawsuits. No, my son, I must bear it as best I may. Your poor mother!" He stopped suddenly and passed his hand over his eyes, and in a broken, halting voice, added: "I've tried so hard to make her old age happier. I fear for the result when the news reaches her. And you and this poor girl!"—and he reached out his hand to Margaret—"this is the part that is hardest to bear."

Oliver disengaged his arm from his father's neck and walked up and down the room, Madge watching him. His mind was searching about for some way to stem the tide of disaster. Every movement of his body expressing his determination. He was not thinking of himself. He saw only Madge and his mother. Then he turned again and faced his father.

"Will you let me try?" he urged in a firm voice.

"No, Oliver! Positively no."

As he spoke he straightened himself in his chair and turned toward Oliver. His voice had regained something of its old-time ring and force. "To rob a man of the work of his brain is worse than to take his purse. You will agree with me, I know, when you think it over. Mr. Gorton had never heard of my invention when he perfected his, nor had I ever heard of his when I perfected mine. He is taking nothing from me; how can I take anything from him! Give me your hand my son; I am not feeling very well." His voice fell again as if the effort had been too much for him. "I think I will go back to the hotel. A night's rest will do me good."

He rose slowly from his chair, steadied himself by holding to Oliver's strong arm, stood for an instant looking into Margaret's eyes, and said, with infinite tenderness:

"Come close; my daughter, and kiss me."

She put her arms about him, cuddling her head against his soft cheek, smoothing his gray hair with her palm.

"My child," he said, "you have been a delight and joy to me. A woman like you is beyond price. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for loving my son."

With something of his old manner he again straightened himself up, threw his shoulders back as if strengthened by some new determination, walked firmly across the room, and picked up his cloak. As he stood waiting for Oliver to place it about his shoulders, he put his hand to his side, with a quick movement, as if smitten by some sudden pain, staggered backward, his head upon his breast, and would have sunk to the floor but for Oliver's hand. Margaret sprang forward and caught his other arm.

"It's nothing, my son," he said, between his gasps for breath, holding on to Oliver. "A sudden giddiness. I'm often subject to it. I, perhaps, got up too quickly. It will pass over. Let me sit down for a moment."

Half supporting him, Oliver put his arm about his father and laid him on the lounge.

As Richard's head touched the cushion that Margaret had made ready, he gave a quick gasp, half rose as if to breathe the better, and fell back unconscious.

When the doctor arrived Richard was lying on Margaret's bed, where Oliver had carried him, he had rallied a little, and had then sunk into a deep sleep. Margaret sat beside him, watching every breath he drew, the scalding tears streaming down her face.

The physician bent closer and pressed his ear to the sleeping man's breast

"Has he been subject to these attacks?" he said, in a grave tone.

"I know of only one some years ago, the year the war broke out, but he recovered then very quickly," answered Oliver.

"Is your mother living!"

"Yes."

"Better send her word at once."



CHAPTER XXV

SMOULDERING COALS



The night wind sighed through the old sycamores of Kennedy Square. A soft haze, the harbinger of the coming spring, filled the air. The cold moon, hanging low, bleached the deserted steps of the silent houses to a ghostly white.

In the Horn mansion a dim light burned in Richard's room and another in the lower hall. Everywhere else the house was dark.

Across the Square, in Miss Clendenning's boudoir, a small wood fire, tempering the chill of the April night, slumbered in its bed of ashes, or awakened with fitful starts, its restless blaze illumining the troubled face of Margaret Grant. The girl's eyes were fixed on the dying coals, her chin in her hand, the brown-gold of her wonderful hair gold-red in the firelight. Now and then she would lift her head as if listening for some approaching footstep. Miss Clendenning sat beside her, leaning over the hearth in her favorite attitude, her tiny feet resting on the fender.

The years had touched the little lady but lightly since that night when she sat in this same spot and Oliver had poured out his heart to her. She was the same dainty, precise, lovable old maid that she had been in the old days of Kennedy Square, when the crocuses bloomed in the flower-beds and its drawing-rooms were filled with the wit and fashion of the day. Since that fatal night when Richard had laid away his violin and brother had been divided against brother, and Kennedy Square had become the stamping ground of armed men, she had watched by the bedsides of a thousand wounded soldiers, regardless of which flag they had battled under. The service had not withered her. Time had simply stood still, forgetting the sum of its years, while it marked her with perennial sweetness.

"I'm afraid he's worse," Margaret said, breaking the silence of the room, as she turned to Miss Clendenning, "or Ollie would have been here before this. Dr. Wallace was to go to the house at eleven, and now it is nearly twelve."

"The doctor may have been detained," Miss Clendenning answered. "There is much sickness in town."

For a time neither spoke. Only the low muttering of the fire could be heard, or the turning of some restless coal.

"Margaret," Miss Clendenning said at last—it had always been "Margaret" with the little lady ever since the day she had promised Oliver to love the woman whom he loved; and it was still "Margaret" when the women met for the first time in the gray dawn at the station and Miss Clendenning herself helped lead Richard out of the train— "There is a bright side to every trouble. But for this illness you would never have known Oliver's mother as she really is. All her prejudices melted away as soon as she looked into your face. She loves you better every day, and she is learning to depend on you just as Richard and Oliver have done."

"I hope she will," the young woman answered, without moving. "It breaks my heart to see her suffer as she does. I see my own mother in her so often. She is different in many ways, but she is the same underneath—so gentle and so kind, and she is so big and broad-minded too. I am ashamed to think of all the bitter feelings I used to have in my heart toward her."

She stopped abruptly, her hands tightly folded in her lap, her shoulders straightened. Margaret's confessions were always made in this determined way, head thrown back like a soldier's, as though a new resolve had been born even while an old sin was being confessed.

"Go on," said Miss Clendenning. "I understand. You mean that you did not know her."

"No; but I thought her narrow and proud, and that she disliked me for influencing Oliver in his art, and that she wanted to keep him from me and from my ideals. Oh, I've been very, very wicked!"

"Not wicked, my dear—only human. You are not the first woman who did not want to divide a love with a mother."

"But it wasn't exactly that, dear Cousin Lavinia. I had never met anyone who obeyed his mother as Ollie did, and—and—I almost hated her for being his guide and counsel when—oh, not because she did not love him too, just as I did—but because I thought that I could really help him most—because I believed in his talent and she did not, and because I knew all the time that she was ruining him, keeping him back, spoiling his career, and—"

Again she stopped and straightened herself, her beautiful head held higher. Those who knew Margaret well would have known that the worst part of her confession was yet to come.

"I suppose I was hurt too," she said, slowly accentuating each pause with a slight movement of the head. "That I was LITTLE enough and MEAN enough and HORRID enough for that. But he was always talking of his mother as though she never did anything but sit still in that white shawl of hers, listening to music, while everybody waited on her and came to her for advice. And I always thought that she couldn't understand me nor any other woman who wanted to work. When Ollie talked of you all, and of what you did at home, I couldn't help feeling she must think that I and all my people belonged to some different race and that when she saw me she would judge me by some petty thing that displeased her, the cut of my skirt, or the way I carried my hands, or something else equally trivial, and that she would use that kind of thing against me and, perhaps, tell Ollie, too. Father judged Oliver in that way. He thought that Ollie's joyousness and his courtesy, even his way of taking off his hat, and holding it in his two hands for a moment—you've seen him do it a hundred times—was only a proof of his Southern shiftlessness—caring more for manners than for work. Mother didn't; she understood Ollie better, and so did John, but father never could. That's why I wouldn't come when you asked me. You wouldn't have judged me, I know, but I thought that she would. And now—oh, I'm so sorry I could cry."

"It was only another of the mistakes and misunderstandings that divided us all at that time, my dear," Miss Clendenning answered. "This dreadful war could have been averted, if people had only come together and understood each other. I did not think so then, but I do now."

"And you don't think me wicked, Cousin Lavinia?" Margaret asked with a sudden relaxation of her figure and something infinitely childlike and appealing in her tone. "You really don't think me wicked, do you?"

"Not wicked, dear; only human, as I said a moment ago. Yet you have been stronger than I. You have held on and won; I let go and lost."

Margaret bent forward and laid her finger on Miss Clendenning's knee.

"Lost what, Cousin Lavinia?" she asked, in surprise.

"My lover."

"When?"

"When I was just your age."

"Did he die?" asked Margaret in awed tones, overcome all at once with the solemnity of the hour and a strange new note in Miss Lavinia's voice.

"No, he married someone else."

"He never—never loved you, then." There was a positiveness now in her intonations.

"Yes, he did, with all his heart. His mother came between us."

Again silence fell on the room. Margaret would not look at Miss Clendenning. The little old maid had suddenly opened the windows of her heart, but whether to let a long-caged sorrow out or some friendly sympathy in, she could not tell.

"May I know about it!" There was a softer cadence now in the girl's voice.

"It would only make you unhappy, dear. It was all over forty years or more ago. Sallie, when she saw you, put her arms about you. You had only to come together. The oftener she sees you, the more she will love you. My lover's mother shut the door in my face."

"In your face? Why?"

Margaret moved closer to Miss Clendenning, stirred by a sudden impulse, as if she could even now protect her from one who had hurt her.

Miss Lavinia bent forward and picked up the brass tongs that lay on the fender at her feet. She saw Margaret's gesture, but she did not turn her head. Her eyes were still watching the smouldering embers.

"For no reason, dear, that you or any other Northern woman could understand. An old family quarrel that began before I was born."

Margaret's cheeks flushed and a determined look came into her face.

"The coward! I would not have cared what his mother or anybody else did, or how they quarrelled. If I loved you I would have married you in spite of everything."

"And so would he." She was balancing the tongs in her hand now, her eyes still on the fire. She had not looked at Margaret once.

"What happened then?"

Miss Clendenning leaned forward, spread the tongs in her little hands, lifted an ember and tucked it closer to its neighbor. The charred mass crumbled at the touch and fell into a heap of broken coals.

"I am a Clendenning, my dear; that is all," she answered, slowly.

Margaret stared at her with wide-open eyes. That a life should be wrecked for a mere question of family pride was something her mind could not fathom.

"Have you regretted it since, Cousin Lavinia?" she asked, calmly. She wanted to follow it out now to the end.

Miss Clendenning heaped the broken coals closer together, laid the tongs back in their place on the fender, and, turning to Margaret, said, with a sigh:

"Don't ask me, my dear. I never dare ask myself, but do you keep your hand close in Oliver's. Remember, dear, close—close! Then you will never know the bitterness of a lonely life."

She rose from her seat, bent down, and, taking Margaret's cheeks between her palms, kissed her on the forehead.

Margaret put her arms about the little lady, and was about to draw her nearer, when the front door opened and a step was heard in the hall. Miss Lavinia raised herself erect, listening to the sound.

"Hark!" she cried, "there's the dear fellow, now"—and she advanced to meet him, her gentle countenance once more serene.

Oliver's face as he entered the room told the story.

"Not worse?" Margaret exclaimed, starting from her chair.

"Yes—much worse. I have just sent word to Uncle Nat"—and he kissed them both. "Put on your things at once. The doctor is anxious.

Miss Lavinia caught up her cloak, handed Margaret her shawl, and the three hurried out the front- door and along the Square, passing the Pancoast house, now turned into offices, its doors and windows covered with signs, and the Clayton Mansion, surmounted by a flag-pole and still used by the Government. Entering the park, they crossed the site of the once lovely flower-beds, now trampled flat— as was everything else in the grounds—and so on to the marble steps of the Horn Mansion.

Mrs. Horn met them at the top of the stairs. She put her arms silently about Margaret, kissed her tenderly, and led her into Richard's room. Oliver and Miss Clendenning stood at the door.

The master lay under the canopy of the four-post bedstead, his eyes closed, the soft white hair lost in the pillows, the pale face tinged with the glow of the night lamp. Dr. Wallace was standing by the bed watching the labored breathing of the prostrate man. Old Hannah sat on the floor at Richard's feet. She was rocking to and fro, making no sign, crooning inaudibly to herself listening to every sound.

Margaret sank to her knees and laid her cheek on the coverlet. She wanted to touch something that was close to him.

The head of the sick man turned uneasily. The doctor bent noiselessly down, put his ears close to the patient's breast, touched his pulse with his fingers, and laid his hand on his forehead.

"Better send for some hot water," he whispered to Mrs. Horn when he had regained her side. Margaret overheard, and started to rise from her knees, but Mrs. Horn waved her back. "Hannah will get it," she said, and stooped close to the old woman to give the order. There was a restrained calmness in her manner that sent a shiver through Margaret. She remembered just such an expression on her mother's face when her own father lay dying.

The old servant lifted herself slowly, and with bent head and crouching body crept out of the room without turning her face toward her master. The superstition of the negroes about the eyes of a dying man kept hers close to the floor—she did not want Richard to look at her.

Dr. Wallace detected the movement—he knew its cause—and passed out of the sick chamber to where Oliver stood with Miss Clendenning.

"Better go down, Oliver, and see that the hot water is sent up right away," he said. "Poor old Hannah seems to have lost her head."

"Has there been any further change, Doctor!" Oliver asked, as he started for the stairs.

"No, not since you went. He is holding his own. His hands feel cold, that is all." To Miss Lavinia he said: "It is only a question of hours," and went back into the room.

Oliver hurried after Hannah. He intended to send Malachi up with the hot water and then persuade the old woman to go to bed. When he reached the lower hall it was empty; so were the parlors and the dining-room. At the kitchen-door he met Hannah. She had filled the pitcher and had turned to carry it upstairs. Oliver stopped her.

"Where is Malachi, aunty?"

Hannah pointed through the open door to Richard's little shop in the back yard and hurried on. Oliver walked quickly through the damp, brick- paved yard, now filled with the sombre shadows of the night, and pushed open the green door. The place was dark except for a slant of moonlight which had struggled through the window-pane and was illumining the motor where it rested in its customary place under the sash.

"Malachi, are you here?"

A sob was the only answer.

Oliver stepped inside. The old man was on his knees, his head and arms lying flat on Richard's work-bench. Oliver bent down and laid his hand on the old servant's head.

"Mally!"

"I hear ye, Marse Ollie, an' I hearn Hannah. I tell you same as I tol' her—ain't no use fetchin' no water; ain't no use no mo' for no doctor, ain't no use, ain't no use. I ain't never goin' to say no mo' to him, 'Chairs all ready, Marse Richard.' I ain't never goin' to wait on him no mo', Come close to me, Marse Ollie; get down an' let me tell ye, son."

He had lifted his head now, and was looking up into Oliver's eyes, the tears streaming down his face.

"He freed me; he gimme a home. He ain't neber done nothin' but love me an' take care o' me. When I bin sick he come in an' he set by me. 'You got a fever, I think, Malachi,' he say. 'Go to bed dis minute. Cold, is you? Git dat blanket out'n my room an' put it on yo' bed. Don't let me hab to tell ye dat agin, Malachi.' 'Marse Richard,' I'd say to him, 'I ain't got no coat fit to wear.' Dat was in de ol' days, when you warn't nuffin but a chile, Marse Ollie. 'Who says so, Malachi,' he say. 'I say so, Marse Richard.' 'Lemme see,' he'd say. 'Dat's so, dat ain't fit fer nobody to wear. Go upstairs to my closet, Malachi, an' git dat coat I was a-wearin' yisterday. I reckon I kin git on widout it."

Malachi had his head in his hands now, his body swaying from side to side. Oliver stood silent.

"When he come home de udder day an' I lif' him in de bed, he say, 'Don't you strain yo'se'f, Malachi. 'Member, you ain't spry as you was.' Oh, Gawd! Oh, Gawd! What's Malachi gwine to do?"

Oliver sat down beside him. There was nothing to say. The old servant's grief was only his own.

"Ebery night, Marse Ollie, sence he bin sick, I git so lonesome dat I wait till de house git still an' den I git out'n de bed and crope down-stairs an' listen at de bedroom door. Den I hear de mistis say: 'In pain, dear?' and he say, 'No, Sallie.' An' den I crope up agin an' go to bed kind o' comforted. I was down agin las' night—mos' mawnin'—a-listenin', an' de mistis say: 'Kin I do sumpin' to ease de pain, dear?' an' he don't answer, only groan, and den I hear de bed creak, an' dat SHORT BREF COME. Pat's the sign! I knows it. In de mawnin' he'll be gone. Can't fool Malachi; I knows de signs."

A gentle tap at the front door on the street sounded through the stillness. Oliver had left all the intervening doors between the dining-room and the shop open in his search for Malachi.

The old servant, with the lifelong habit upon him, started up to answer the summons.

"No, Mally, stay here," said Oliver. "I'll go. Some neighbor, perhaps, wanting to know how father is."

Oliver walked rapidly through the yard, tiptoed through the hall, and carefully turned the knob.

Amos Cobb stepped in.

"I saw the light, Oliver," he said, in a low tone, "and I knew you were up. I have an important telegram from New York in answer to one I sent this morning from my office here. Would it be possible for me to see your father? I know it is very late, but the matter is most urgent."

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Cobb. He is very low."

"Not serious?" Amos exclaimed, in alarm.

"Doctor Wallace thinks it is."

"You don't tell me so! I had no idea he was so ill!"

"Nor did we, sir; a change for the worse set in this evening."

Amos leaned back against the wall, his hat in his hand. The light from the eight-sided hall lamp fell on his thick-set shoulders and square, determined, honest face. The keen-eyed, blunt Vermonter's distress at the news was sincere, and heartfelt.

"Could I attend to it, Mr. Cobb?" asked Oliver.

"Perhaps so. I've got those fellows now where the hair is short, and I'm going to make 'em pay for it."

"What is it about?"

Amos Cobb took a double telegram from his pocket. It was closely written and contained a long message.

"It's about your father's patents. This telegram is from the attorneys of the Gorton—"

Oliver laid his fingers on the open telegram in Cobb's hand, and said, in a positive tone:

"He will not rob this man of his rights, Mr. Cobb."

"It's not that! It is the other way. The attorneys of the Gorton Company refuse to rob your father of HIS rights. Further, the bankers will not endorse the Gorton stock until your father's patent —I think it is No. 18,131"—and he examined the telegram closely—"yes, August 13, 1856, 18,131— is out of the way. They are prepared to pay a large price for it at once, and have asked me to see your father and arrange it on the best terms I can. The offer is most liberal. I don't feel like risking an hour's delay; that's why I'm here so late. What had I better do?"

Oliver caught Mr. Cobb's hand in his and a flash of exultant joy passed over his face as he thought of his father's triumph and all it meant to him. Then Margaret's eyes looked into his and next his mother's; he knew what it meant to them all. Then the wasted figure of his father rose in his mind, and his tears blinded him.

Amos stood watching him, trying to read his thoughts. He saw the tears glistening on Oliver's lashes, but he misunderstood the cause. Only the practical side of the situation appealed to the Vermonter at the moment. These New York men had cast discredit on his endorsement of Richard's priority in the invention and had tried to ignore them both. Now he held them tight in his grasp. Horn was a rich man.

"I'll be very quiet, Oliver," he continued, in a half-pleading tone, "and will make it as short as I can. Just let me go up. It can't hurt him"—and he laid his hand on Oliver's shoulder with a tenderness that surprised him. "I would never forgive myself if he should pass away without learning of his success. He's worked so hard."

Before Oliver could reply another low tap was heard at the door. Cobb turned the knob gently and Nathan stepped inside the hall. The old man had gone home and to bed, tired out with his ceaseless watching by Richard's bedside, and was only half dressed.

"Still with us?" he asked in trembling tones, his eyes searching Oliver's face. "Oh, thank God! Thank God! I'll go up at once"—and he passed on toward the stairway. Amos and Oliver followed.

As Nathan's foot touched the first step Doctor Wallace's voice sounded over the bannisters.

"Oliver! Malachi! Both of you—quick!" The three bounded noiselessly up-stairs and entered the room. Richard lay high up on the pillows, the face in shadow, his eyes closed. Margaret was still on her knees, her head on the coverlet. Mrs. Horn stood on the other side of the bed, the same calm, fixed expression on her face, as if she was trying to read the unknowable. Dr. Wallace sat on a chair beside his patient, his fingers on Richard's pulse.

"Is he gone?" asked Oliver, stepping quickly to his father's side, his voice choking.

Dr. Wallace shook his head.

Amos Cobb drew near, and whispered in the doctor's ear. The old physician listened quietly, and nodded in assent. Then he leaned over his patient.

"Mr. Cobb has some good news for you, Richard," he said, calmly. "The bankers have recognized your patents, and are ready to pay the money—"

The dying man's eyes opened slowly.

Amos stepped in front of the doctor, and bent down close to the bed.

"It's all right, Horn—all right! They can't get along without your first patent. Here's the telegram." He spoke with an encouraging cheeriness in his voice, as one would in helping a child across a dangerous place.

The brow of the dying man suddenly cleared; the eyes burned with their old steadiness, then the lips parted.

"Read it," he muttered. The words were barely audible.

Cobb held the paper so the dim light should fall upon it and read the contents slowly, emphasizing each word.

"Raise me up."

The voice seemed to come from his throat, as if his lungs were closed. Oliver started forward, but Cobb, being nearer, slipped his arm under the wasted figure, and with the tenderness of a woman, lifted him carefully, tucking the pillows in behind the thin shoulders for better support. Oliver sank softly to his knees beside Margaret.

Again the thin lips parted.

"Read it once more." The voice came stronger now.

Amos held the paper to the light, and the words of the telegram, like the low tick of a clock, again sounded through the hushed room.

For a brief instant the inventor's eyes sought each face in turn. As his gaze rested on Margaret and Oliver, he moved his thin white hand slowly along the coverlet, and laid it first on Oliver's and next on Margaret's head. Then, with a triumphant look lighting his face, he lifted his arms toward his wife.

"Sallie!" he called, and fell back on his pillow, lifeless.



CHAPTER XXVI

THE LIGHT OF A NEW DAY



The crocuses are a-bloom once more. The lilac buds are bursting with the joy of the new spring. A veil of silver-gray floats over Moose Hillock. The idle brook, like a truant boy, dances in the sunshine, singing to itself as it leaps from ledge to pool.

All the doors and windows of the big studio on the side looking down the valley are open to the morning air. Through one of these Margaret has just entered, her arms full of apple blossoms. One spray she places in a slender blue jar, the delicate blush of the buds and the pale green of the leaves harmonizing with the gold-brown of her marvellous hair as she buries her face among them. All about the spacious room are big easels, half-finished portraits, rich draperies, wide divans, old brass, and rare porcelain.

In an easy chair, close to the window, with the fragrance of the blossoms around her, sits a white- haired old lady with a gossamer shawl about her shoulders. She is watching Margaret as she moves about the room, her eyes brimming with tenderness and pride. Now and then she looks toward a door leading into the bedroom beyond, as if expecting someone.

Oliver stands before his easel, his palette and brushes in his hand. He is studying the effect of a pat of color he has just laid on the portrait of a young girl in a rich gown—the fourth full-length he has painted this year—the most important being the one of his father ordered by the Historical Society of Kennedy Square, and painted from Margaret's sketches.

Malachi—the old man is very feeble—moves slowly around a square table covered with a snow- white cloth, with seats set for four—one a high chair with little arms. In his hands are a heap of cups and saucers—the same Spode cups and saucers he looked after so carefully in the old house at home. These he places near the smoking coffee-urn.

Suddenly a merry, roguish laugh is heard, and a little fellow with gold-brown hair and big blue eyes peers in through the slowly opening door.

The old servant stops, and his withered face breaks into a smile.

"Is dat you, honey?" he cries, with a laugh. "Come along, son. Yo' cha'r's all ready, Marse Richard."

THE END