Temperance arrived that evening, in time to administer a scolding to Fanny.

"That girl needs looking after," she said. "She is as sharp as a needle. She met me in the yard and told me that a man fit for a nobleman had come on a visit. 'It may be for Cass,' says she, 'and it may not be. I have my doubts.' Did you ever?" concluded Temperance, counting the knives. "There's one missing. By jingo! it has been thrown to the pigs, I'll bet."

When Ben made a show of going, we asked him to stay longer. He said "Yes," so cordially, that we laughed. But it hurt me to see that he had forgotten all about my going to Belem. "I like Surrey so much," he said, "and you all, I have a fancy that I am in the Hebrides, in Magnus Troil's dwelling; it is so wild here, so naive. The unadulterated taste of sea-spray is most beautiful."

"We will have Cass for Norna," said Verry; "but, by the way, it is you that must be of the fitful head; have you forgotten that she is going to Belem soon?"

"I shall remember Belem in good time; no fear of my forgetting that ace—ancient spot. At least I may wait till your father goes to Boston, and we can make a party. You will be ready, Cassandra? I wrote Adelaide yesterday that you were coming, and mother will expect you."

It often stormed during his visit. We had driving rains, and a gale from the southeast, oceanward, which made our sea dark and miry, even after the storm had ceased and patches of blue sky were visible.

Our rendezvous was in the parlor, which, from the way in which Ben knocked about the furniture, cushions, and books, assumed an air which somehow subdued Veronica's love for order; she played for him, or they read together, and sometimes talked; he taught her chess, and then they quarreled. One day—a long one to me,—they were so much absorbed in each other, I did not seek them till dusk.

"Come and sing to me," called Ben.

"So you remember that I do sing?"

"Sing; there is a spell in this weird twilight; sing, or I go out on the rocks to break it."

He dropped the window curtains and sat by me at the piano, and I sang:

"I feel the breath of the summer night, Aromatic fire; The trees, the vines, the flowers are astir With tender desire.

"If I were alone, I could not sing, Praises to thee; O night! unveil the beautiful soul That awaiteth me!"

"A foolish song," said Veronica, pulling her hair across her face. No reply. She glided to the flower-basket, broke a rosebud from its stalk, and mutely offered it to him. Whether he took it, I know not; but he rose up from beside me, like a dark cloud, and my eyes followed him.

"Come Veronica," he whispered, "give me yourself. I love you, Veronica."

He sank down before her; she clasped her hands round his head, and kissed his hair.

"I know it," she said, in a clear voice.

I shut the door softly, thinking of the Wandering Jew, went upstairs, humming a little air between my teeth, and came down again into the dining-room, which was in a blaze of light.

"What preserves are these, Temperance?" I asked, going to the table. "Some of Abram's quinces?"

"Best you ever tasted, since you were born."

"Call Mr. Somers, Fanny," said mother. "Is Verry in the parlor, too?"

"I'll call them," I said; "I have left my handkerchief there."

"Is anything else of yours there?" said Fanny, close to my ear.

Ben had pushed back the curtain, and was staring into the darkness; Veronica was walking to and fro on the rug.

"Haven't I a great musical talent?" I inquired.

"Am I happy?" she asked, coming toward me.

Ben turned to speak, but Veronica put her hand over his mouth, and said:

"Why should I be 'hushed,' my darling?"

"Come to supper, and be sensible," I urged.

The light revealed a new expression in Verry's face—an unsettled, dispossessed look; her brows were knitted, yet she smiled over and over again, while she seemed hardly aware that she was eating like an ordinary mortal. The imp Fanny tried experiments with her, by offering the same dishes repeatedly, till her plate was piled high with food she did not taste.

The next day was clear, and mild with spring. Ben and I started for a walk on the shore. We were half-way to the lighthouse before he asked why it was that Veronica would not come with us.

"She never walks by the shore; she detests the sea."

"Is it so? I did not know that."

"Do you mind that you know few of her tastes or habits? I speak of this as a general truth."

"I am a spectacle to you, I suppose. But this sea charms me; I shall live by it, and build a house with all the windows and doors toward it."

"Not if you mean to have Verry in it."

"I do mean to have her in it. She shall like it. Are you willing to have me for a brother? Will you go to Belem, and help break the ice? She could never go," and he began to skip pebbles in the water.

"I will take you for a brother gladly. You are a fool—not for loving her, but all men are fools when in love, they are so besotted with themselves. But I am afraid of one fault in you."

"Yes," he answered hurriedly, "don't I know? On my honor, I have tried; why not leave me to God? Didn't you leave yourself that way once?"

"Oh, you are cruel."

"Pardon me, dear Cass. I must do well now, surely. Will you believe in me? Oh, do you not know the strength, the power, that comes to us in the stress of passion and duty?"

"This is from you, Ben."

"Never mind; I knew I wanted to marry her, when I saw her. I love her passionately," and he threw a pebble in the water farther than he had yet; "but she is so pure, so delicate, that when I approach her, in spite of my besottedness, my love grows lambent. That's not like me, you know," with great vehemence. "Will she never understand me?"

His face darkened, and he looked so strangely intent into my eyes that I was obliged to turn away; he disturbed me.

"Veronica probably will not understand you, but you must manage for yourself. As you have discerned, she and I are far apart. She is pure, noble, beautiful, and peculiar. I will have no voice between you."

"You must, you do. We shall hear it if you do not speak. You have a great power, tall enchantress."

"Certainly. What a powerful life is mine!"

"You come to these shores often. Are you not different beside them? This colorless picture before us—these vague spaces of sea and land—the motion of the one—the stillness of the other—have you no sense that you have a powerful spirit?"

"Is it power? It is pain."

"Your gold has not been refined then."

"Yes, I confess I have a sense of power; but it is not a spiritual sense."

"Let us go back," he said abruptly.

We mused by our footprints in the wet sand, as we passed them. We were told when we reached home that Veronica had gone on some expedition with Fanny. She did not return till time for supper, looking elfish, and behaving whimsically, as if she had received instructions accordingly. I fancied that the expression Ben regarded her with might be the Bellevue Pickersgill expression, it was so different from any I had seen. There was a haughty curiosity in his face; as she passed near him, he looked into her eyes, and saw the strange cast which made their sight so far off.

"Veronica, where are you?" he asked.

The tone of his voice attracted mother's regards; an intelligent glance was exchanged, and then her eyes sought mine. "It is not as you thought, mamma," I telegraphed. But Verry, not bringing her eyes back into the world, merely said, "I am here, am I not?" and went to shut herself up in her room. I found her there, looking through the wicket.

"The buds are beginning to swell," she said. "I should hear small voices breaking out from the earth. I grow happy every day now."

"Because the earth will be green again?" I asked, in a coaxing voice.

She shut the wicket, and, looking in my face, said, "I will go down immediately." For some reason the tears came into my eyes, which she, taking up the candle, saw. "I am going to play," she said hurriedly, "come." She ran down before me, but turning, by the foot of the stairs, she pointed to the parlor door, and said, "Is he my husband?"

"Answer for yourself. Go in, in God's name."

Ben was chatting with father over the fire; he stretched out his hand to her, with so firm and assured an air, and looked so noble, that I felt a pang of admiration for him. She laid her hand in his a moment, passed on to the piano, and began to play divinely, drawing him to her side. Father peeled and twisted his cigar, as he contemplated them with a thoughtful countenance.



CHAPTER XXVII.

When we went to Boston we went to a new hotel, as Ben had advised, deserting the old Bromfield for the Tremont. It was dusk when we arrived, and tea was served immediately, in a large room full of somber mahogany furniture. Its atmosphere oppressed Veronica, who ate her supper in silence.

"Charles Dickens is here, sir," said the waiter, who knew Ben. "Two models of the Curiosity Shop have just gone upstairs, sir. His room is right over here, sir."

Veronica looked adoringly at the ceiling.

"Then," said Ben, "our hunters are up from Belem. Anybody in from Belem, John?"

"Oh yes, sir, every day."

"I'll look them up," he said to us; but he returned soon, and begged us not to look at Dickens, if we had a chance.

Veronica, with a sigh, gave him up, and lost a chance of being immortalized with that perpetual and imperturbable beefsteak, covered with "the blackest of all possible pepper," which was daily served to him.

Father being out in pursuit of a cigar, Ben asked Veronica what she would do while he was in Belem.

"Walk round this lion-clawed table."

"I shall be gone from you."

"Alas!"

"Are we to part this way?"

"Father," she cried, as he entered with a theater bill, "had I better marry this friend of Cassy's?"

"Have you the courage? Do you know each other?"

"Having known Cassandra so long, sir," began Ben, but was interrupted by Veronica's exclaiming, "We do not know each other at all. What is the use of making that futile attempt? I am over eighteen, and do you know me, father?"

"If I do not, it is because you have no shadow."

"Shall I, then?" giving Ben a delicious smile. "I promise."

"I promise, too, Veronica," heaven dawning in his eyes.

"We will see about it," said father. "Now who will go to the theater?"

We declined, but Ben signified his willingness to accompany him.

We took the first morning train, so that father could return before evening, and ran through in the course of an hour the wooden suburbs of Belem, bordered by an ancient marsh, from which the sea had long retired. Taking a cab, we turned into Norfolk Street, at the head of which, Ben said, a mile distant, was his father's house. It was not a cheerful street, and when we stopped before an immense square, three-storied house, it looked still more gloomy! There was a gate on one side, with white wooden urns on the posts, that shut off a paved courtway. On each side of the street were houses of the same pattern, with the same gates. Down the paved court of the opposite house a coach pulled by two fat horses clattered, and as the coach turned we saw two old ladies inside, highly dressed, bowing and smiling at Ben.

"The Miss Hiticutts—hundred thousand apiece."

"Hundred thousand apiece," I echoed in an anguish of admiration, which made my father laugh and Ben scowl. A servant in a linen jacket opened the door. "Is it yourself, Mr. Ben?"

"Open the parlor door, Murph. Where's my mother and my sister?"

"Miss Somers is taking her exercise, sir, and Mrs. Somers is with the owld gentleman"; opening the door, with the performance of taking father's hat.

"Sit down, Cassandra. I'll look up somebody."

It was a bewildering matter where to go; the room, vast and dark, was a complete litter of tables and sofas. The tables were loaded with lamps, books, and knick-knacks of every description; the sofas were strewn with English and French magazines, novels, and papers. I went to the window, while father perched on the music stool.

My attention was diverted to a large dog in the court, chained to a post near a pump, where a man was giving water to a handsome bay horse, at the same time keeping his eye on an individual who stood on a stone block, dressed in a loose velvet coat, a white felt hat, and slippers down at the heel. He had a coach whip in his hand—the handsomest hand I ever saw, which he snapped at the dog, who growled with rage. I heard Ben's voice in remonstrance; then a lazy laugh from velvet coat, who gave the dog a cut which made him bound. Ben, untying him, was overwhelmed with caresses. "Down, you fool! Off, Rash!" he said. "Look there," pointing to the window where I stood. The gentleman with the coach whip looked at me also. The likeness to Ben turned my suspicion into certainty that they were brothers. His disposition, I thought, must be lovely, judging from the episode with "Rash." I turned away, almost running against a lady, who extended her fingers toward me with a quick little laugh, and said:

"How de do? Where's Ben, to introduce us properly?"

"Here, mother," he said behind her, followed by the dog. "You were expecting Cassandra, my old chum; and Mr. Morgeson has come to leave her with us."

"Certainly. Rash, go out, dear. Mr. Morgeson, I am sorry to say," she spoke with more politeness, "that Mr. Somers is confined to his room with gout. May I take you up?"

"I have a short time to stay," looking at his watch and rising. "Do you consider the old school friendship between your son and Cassandra a sufficient reason for leaving her with you? To say nothing of the faint relationship which, we suppose, exists."

"Of course, very happy; Adelaide expects her," she said vaguely. I saw at once that she had never heard a word of our being relations. Ben had managed nicely in the affair of my invitation to Belem. But I desired to remain, in spite of Mrs. Somers's reception.

Mr. Somers was bolstered up in bed, in a flowered dressing gown, with a bottle of colchicum and a pile of Congressional reports on a stand beside him. His urbanity was extreme; it was evident that the gout was not allowed to interfere with his deportment, though the joints of his hands were twisted and knotty. He expatiated upon Ben's long ungratified wish for a visit from me, and thanked father for complying with it. He mentioned the memento of the miniature, and gave every particular of Locke Morgeson's early marriage, explaining the exact shade of consanguinity—a faint one. I glanced at Mrs. Somers, who sat remote, in the act of inspecting me, with an eye askance, which I afterward found was her mode of looking at those whom she doubted or disliked; it changed its expression, as it met mine, into one of haughty wonder, that said there could be no tie of blood between us. She irritated and embarrassed me. I tried to think of something to say, and uttered a few words, which were uncommonly trivial and awkward. Mr. Somers touched on politics. The door opened, and Ben's brother entered, with downcast eyes. Advancing to the footboard of the bed, he leaned his chin on its edge, looked at his father, and in a remarkably clear, ringing voice, said:

"The check."

Mr. Somers coughed behind his hand. "To-morrow will do, Desmond."

"To-day will do."

"Desmond," said Ben in a low voice, "you do not see Mr. Morgeson and Miss Morgeson. My brother, Cassandra."

"Beg pardon, good-morning"; and he pulled off his hat with an air of grace which became him, though it was very indifferent. Mrs. Somers in a soft voice said: "Ring, Des, dear, will you?" He warned her with a satirical smile, and gave such a pull at the bell-rope that it came down. Her florid face flushed a deeper red, but he had gone. Father looked at his watch, and got up with alacrity.

"You are to dine with us, at least, Mr. Morgeson."

"I must return to Boston on account of my daughter, who is there alone."

"Have you been remiss, Ben," said his father affectionately, "in not bringing her also?"

"She would not come, of course, father."

A tall, black-haired girl of twenty-five rushed in.

"Why, Ben," she said, "you were not expected. And this is Miss Morgeson," shaking hands with me. "You will spend a month, won't you?" She put her chin in her hand, and scanned me with a cool deliberateness. "Pa, do you think she is like Caroline Bingham?"

"Yes, so she is; but fairer. She is a great belle," nodding to me.

"Do you really think she looks like her, Somers?" said Mrs. Somers, in a tone of denial.

"Certainly, but handsomer," Adelaide replied for him, without looking at her mother.

"Would you like to go to your room?" she asked. "What a pretty dress this is!" taking hold of the sleeve, her chin in her hand still. "We will have some walks; Belem is nice for walking. Pa, how do you feel now?"

She allowed me to go downstairs with father, without following, and sent Murphy in with wine and biscuit. I put my arms round his neck and kissed him, for I had a lonesome feeling, which I could not define at the last moment.

"You will not stay long," he said; "there is something oppressive in this atmosphere."

"Something artificial, is it? It must be the blood of the Bellevue Pickersgills that thickens the air."

"Now," said Ben, with father's hat in his hand, "the time is up."

Adelaide was at the door to take courteous leave of him, and Mrs. Somers bowed from the top of the stairs, revealing a pair of large ankles, whose base rested in a pair of shabby, pudgy slippers. Adelaide then took me to my room, telling me not to change my dress, but to come down soon, for dinner was ready. Hearing a bell, I hurried down to the parlor which we were in before, and waited for directions respecting the dinner. Adelaide came presently. "We are dining; come and sit next me," offering her arm. Mrs. Somers, Desmond, and a girl of fifteen were at the table. The latter had just come from school, I concluded, as a satchel of books hung at her chair. Murphy was removing the soup, and I derived the impression that I had been forgotten. While taking mine, they vaguely stared about till Murphy brought in the roast mutton, except Adelaide, who rubbed her teeth with a dry crust, making a feint of eating it. Desmond kept the decanter, occasionally swallowing a glassful.

"What wine is that, Murphy?" Mrs. Somers asked. He hesitatingly answered, "I think it is the Juno, mum."

"You stole the key from pa's room, Des," said the girl. He shook the carving-knife at her, at which gesture she said "Pooh!" and applied herself to the roast mutton with avidity. They all ate largely, especially the girl, whose wide mouth was filled with splendid teeth. Mrs. Somers made a motion with her glass for Murphy to bring her the wine, and pouring a teaspoonful, held it to her mouth, as if she were practicing drinking healths. Her hands were beautiful, too; they all had handsome hands, whose movements were graceful and expressive. When Ben arrived, Murphy set the dishes before him, and Adelaide began to talk in a lively, brilliant way. He did not ask for wine, but I saw him look toward it and Desmond. The decanter was empty. After the dessert, Mrs. Somers arose and we followed; but she soon left us, and we went to the parlor. The girl, taking a seat beside me, said: "My name is Ann Somers. I am never introduced; Adder, my sister, is in the way, you know. I dare say Ben never spoke of me to you. I am never spoken of, am never noticed. I have never had new dresses; yet pa is my friend, the dear soul."

Adelaide looked upon her with the same superb indifference with which she regarded her mother and Desmond.

"Would you like to go to your room?" she asked again. "You are too tired to take a walk, perhaps?"

"Lord!" said Ann, "do let her do as she likes. Adder, don't be too disagreeable."

I picked up my bonnet, which she took from me, and put on the top of her head as we went upstairs.

"Murph must bring up your trunk," said Ann, opening the closet. "But there is no space to hang anything; the great Mogul's wardrobe stops the way."

My chamber was stately in size and appointments. The afternoon sun shone in, where a shutter was open, behind the dull red curtains, and illuminated the portrait of a nimble old lady in a scarlet cloak, which hung near the gigantic curtained bed, over a vast chair, covered with faded green damask.

"Grandmother Pickersgill," said Ann, who saw me observing the picture. Adelaide contemplated it also. "It was painted by Copley," she said, "Lord Lyndhurst afterwards. Grandfather entertained him, and he went to one of grandmother's parties; he complimented her on her beauty. But you see that she has not a handsome hand. Ours is the Pickersgill hand," and she spread her fingers like a fan. "She was a regular old screw," continued Ann, "and used to have mother's underclothes tucked to last for ever; she was a beast to servants, too."

My trunk was brought in, which I unlocked and unpacked, while Adelaide opened a drawer in a great bureau.

"Oh, you know it is full of Marm's fineries," said Ann, in a confidential tone; "I'll ring for Hannah." Adelaide busied herself in throwing the contents of the drawers on the floor. "There's her ball dresses," commented Ann, as a pink satin, trimmed with magnificent lace, tumbled out. "Old Carew brought the lace over for her."

"Bring a basket, Hannah, and take these away somewhere, to some other closet of Mrs. Somers's."

"That gold fringe, do you remember, Adder? She looked like an elephant with his howdah on when she wore it."

Her impertinence inspired Adelaide, who joined her in a flow of vituperative wit at the expense of their mother and other relatives, incidentally brought in. Instead of being aghast, I enjoyed it, and was feverish with a desire to be as brilliant, for my vocabulary was deficient and my sense of inferiority was active during the whole of my visit in Belem. I blushed often, smiled foolishly, and was afflicted with a general apprehension in regard to gaucherie.

I changed my traveling dress, as they were not inclined to leave me, with anxiety, for I was weak enough to wish to make an impression with my elegant bearing and appointments. Being so anatomized, I was oppressed with an indefinite discouragement. Their stealthy, sharp, selfish scrutiny brought out my failures. My dress seemed ill-made; my hair unbecomingly dressed; my best collar and ribbon, which I put on, were nothing to the lace I had just seen falling on the floor. When we descended it was twilight. Ann said she must study, and left us by the parlor fire. Adelaide lighted a candle, and took a novel, which she read reclining on a sofa. Reclining on sofas, I discovered, was a family trait, though they were all in a state of the most robust health, with the exception of Mr. Somers. I walked up and down the rooms. "They were fine once," said Ben, who appeared from a dark corner, "but faded now. Mother never changes anything if she can help it. She is a terrible aristocrat," he continued, in a low voice, "fixed in the ideas imbedded in the Belem institutions, which only move backward. We laugh, though, at everybody's claims but our own. You despised me for mentioning the Hiticutts' income; it was the atmosphere."

"It amuses me to be here."

"Of course; but stir up Adelaide, she is genuine; has fine sense, and half despises her life; but she knows no other, and is proud."

"Let's go and find tea," she said, yawning, dropping her book. "Why don't that lazy Murph light the lamp? I wish pa was down to regulate affairs." No one was at the tea-table but Mrs. Somers.

"Ben is very polite, don't you think so?" she said with her peculiar laugh, which made my flesh creep, as he pulled up a chair for me. Her voice made me dizzy, but I smiled. Ben was not the same in Belem, I saw at once, and no longer wondered at its influence, or at the vacillating nature of his plans and pursuits. Mrs. Somers gave me some tea from a spider-shaped silver tea-pot, which was related to a spider-shaped cream-jug and a spider-shaped sugar-dish. The polished surface of the mahogany table reflected a pair of tall silver candlesticks, and the plates, being of warped blue and white Chinese ware, joggled and clattered when we touched them. The tea was delicious; I said so, but Mrs. Somers deigned no answer. We were regaled with spread bread and butter and baked apples. Adelaide ate six.

"We do not have your Surrey suppers," Ben remarked.

"How should you know?" his mother asked. Ben's eyes looked violent and he bit his lips. Adelaide commenced speaking before her mother had finished her question, as if she only needed the spur of her voice to be lively and agreeable, per contra.

"Hepburn must ask us to tea. Her jam and her gossip are wonderful. Aunt Tucker might ask us too, with housekeeper Beck's permission. I like tea fights with the old Hindoos. They like us too, Ben; we are the children of Hindoos also—superior to the rest of the world. There will be a party or two for this young person."

"Parties be hanged!" he said. "Then we must have a rout here, and I hate 'em."

"But we owe an entertainment," said Mrs. Somers. "I have been thinking of giving one as soon as Mr. Somers gets out."

"I have no such idea," said Adelaide, with her back toward her mother. "We shall have no party until some one has been given to our young friend, Ben."

Ben and I visited his father, who asked questions relative to the temperature, the water, and the dietetic qualities of Surrey. He was affable, but there was no nearness in his affability. He skated on the ice of appearances, and that was his vocation in his family. He fulfilled it well, but it was a strain sometimes. His family broke the ice now and then, which must have made him plunge into the depths of reality. I learned to respect his courage, bad as his cause was. Marrying Bellevue Pickersgill for her money, he married his master, and was endowed only with the privilege of settling her taxes. Simon Pickersgill, her father, tied up the main part of his money for his grandchildren. It was to be divided among them when the youngest son should arrive at the age of twenty-one—an event which took place, I supposed, while Ben was on his way to India. Desmond and an older son, who resided anywhere except at home, made havoc with the income. As the principal prospectively was theirs, or nearly the whole of it, why should they not dispose of that?

At last Mr. Somers looked at his watch, a gentle reminder that it was time for us to withdraw. Adelaide was still in the parlor, lying on her favorite sofa contemplating the ceiling. I asked permission to retire, which she granted without removing her regards. In spite of my sound sleep that night, I was started from it by the wail of a young child. The strangeness of the chamber, and the continued crying, which I could not locate, kept me awake at intervals till dawn peeped through the curtains.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

A few days after my arrival, some friends dined with Mrs. Somers. The daughters of a senator, as Ann informed me, and an ex-governor, or I should not have known this fact, for I was not introduced. The dinner was elaborate, and Desmond did the honors. With the walnuts one of the ladies asked for the baby.

Mrs. Somers made a sign to Desmond, who pulled the bell-rope—mildly this time. An elderly woman instantly appeared with a child a few months old, puny and anxious-looking. Mrs. Somers took it from her, and placed it on the table; it tottered and nodded to the chirrups of the guests. Ben, from the opposite side of the table, addressed me by a look, which enlightened me. His voyage to India was useless, as the property would stand for twenty-one years more, lacking some months, unless Providence interposed. Adelaide was oblivious of the child, but Desmond thumped his glass on the mahogany to attract it, for its energies were absorbed in swallowing its fists and fretfully crying. When Murphy announced coffee in the parlor, the nurse took it away; and after coffee and sponge cake were served the visitors drove off. That afternoon some friends of Adelaide called, to whom she introduced me as "cousin." She gave graphic descriptions of them, after their departure. One had achieved greatness by spending her winters in Washington, and contracting a friendship with John C. Calhoun. Another was an artist who had painted an ideal head of her ancestor, Sir Roger de Roger, not he who had arrived some years ago as a weaver from Glasgow, but the one who had remained on the family estate. A third reviewed books and collected autographs.

The next afternoon one of the Miss Hiticutts from across the way came, in a splendid camel's-hair shawl and a shabby dress. "How is Mr. Somers?" she asked. "He is such a martyr."

Here Mrs. Somers entered. "My dear Bellevue, you are worn out with your devotion to him; when have you taken the air?" She did not wait for a reply, but addressed Adelaide with, "This is your young friend, and where is my favorite, Mr. Ben, and little Miss Ann? Have you anything new? I went down to Harris yesterday to tell her she must sweep away her old trash of a circulating library, and begin with the New Regime of Novels, which threatens to overwhelm us."

Adelaide talked slowly at first, and then soared into a region where I had never seen a woman—an intellectual one. Miss Hiticutt followed her, and I experienced a new pleasure. Mrs. Somers was silent, but listened with respect to Miss Hiticutt, for she was of the real Belem azure in blood as well as in brain; besides, she was rich, and would never marry. It was a Pickersgill hallucination to be attentive to people who had legacies in their power. Mrs. Somers had a bequested fortune already in hair rings and silver ware. While appearing to listen to Adelaide, her eyes wandered over me with speculation askant in them. Adelaide was so full of esprit that I was again smitten with my inferiority, and from this time I felt a respect for her, which never declined, although she married an Englishman, who, too choleric to live in America, took her to Florence, where they settled with their own towels and silver, and are likely to remain, for her heart is too narrow to comprise any further interest in Belem.

Miss Hiticutt chatted herself out, giving us an invitation to tea, for any day, including Ben and Miss Ann, who had not been visible since breakfast.

April rains kept us indoors for several days. Ann refused to go to school. She must have a holiday; besides, pa needed her; she alone could take care of him, after all. Her mother said that she must go.

"Who can make me, mum?"

Desmond ordered the coach for her. When it was ready he put her in it, seated himself beside her, with provoking nonchalance, and carried her to school. Murphy, with his velvet-banded hat, left her satchel at the door, with a ceremonious air, which made Ann slap his cheek and call him an old grimalkin. But she was obliged to walk home in the rain, after waiting an hour for him to come back.

Mr. Somers hobbled about his room, with the help of his cane, and said that he should be out soon, and requested Adelaide to put in order some book-shelves that were in the third story, for he wanted to read without confusion. We went there together, and sorted some odd volumes; piles of Unitarian sermons, bound magazines, political works, and a heap of histories. Ben found a seat on a bunch of books, pleased to see us together.

"This is a horrid hole," he said. "I have not been up in this floor for ages. How do the shelves look?"

A hiccough near us caused us to look toward the door.

"It is only Des, in his usual afternoon trim," said Ben.

She nodded, as he pushed open the door, thrusting in his head. "What the hell are you doing here? This region is sacred to Chaos and old Night," striking the panels, first one and then the other, with the tassels of his dressing-gown. No one answered him. Adelaide counted a row of books, and Ben whistled.

"Damn you, Ben," he said, in a languid voice: "you never seem bored. Curse you all. I hate ye, especially that she-Calmuck yonder—that Siberian-steppe-natured, malachite-hearted girl, our sister."

"Oh come away, Mr. Desmond. What are the poor things doing that you should harry them?" and the woman who had brought in the baby the day of the dinner laid her hands on him and pulled him away.

"Sarah will never give him up," said Ben.

"She swears there is good in him. I think he is a wretch," turning over the leaves of a book with her beautiful hand, such a hand as I had just seen beating the door—such a hand as clasped its fellow in Ben's hair. Adelaide was not embarrassed at my presence. She neither sought nor avoided my look. But Ben said, "You are thinking."

"Is she?" And Adelaide raised her eyes.

"You are all so much alike," I said.

"You are right," she answered seriously. "Our grandfather—"

"Confound him!" broke in Ben. "I wish he had never been born. Are you proud, Addie, of being like the Pickersgills? But I know you are. Remember that the part of us which is Pickersgill hates its like. I am off; I am going to walk."

Adelaide coolly said, after he had gone, that he was very visionary, predicting changes that could not be, and determined to bring them about.

"Why did he bring me here?" I asked, as if I were asking in a dream.

"Ben's hospitality is genuine. He is like pa. Besides, you are related to us—on the Somers side, and are the first visitor we ever saw, outside of mother's connection. Do you not know, too, that Ben's friendship is very sincere—very strong?"

"I begin to comprehend the Pickersgills," I remarked as if in a dream. "How words with any meaning glance off, when addressed to them. How impossible it is to return the impression they give. How incapable they are of appreciating what they cannot appropriate to the use of their idiosyncrasies."

She gazed at me, as if she heard an abstract subject discussed, with a slight interest in her black eyes.

"Are they vicious to the death?" I went on with this dream. "It is not fair—their overpowering personality—it is not fair to others. It overpowers me, though I know it is all fallacious."

"I am ignorant of Ethical Philosophy."

"Miss Somers," said Murphy, knocking, "if Major Millard is below?"

"I am coming."

She smiled when she looked at me again. I stared at her with a singular feeling. Had I touched her, or had I made a fool of myself?

"There is some nice gingerbread in the closet. Sha'n't I get you a piece?"

I fell out of my dream.

"Major Millard is an old beau. Come down and captivate him. He likes fair women."

Declining the gingerbread, I accepted the Major. He was an old gentleman, in a good deal of highly starched linen, amusing himself by teazing Ann, who liked it, and paid him in impertinence. Adelaide played chess with him. Desmond sauntered in about nine, threw himself into a chair behind the sofa where I sat, and swung his arm over the back. The chessboard was put aside, and a gossipy conversation was started, which included Mrs. Somers, who was on a sofa across the room, but he did not join in it. I watched Mrs. Somers, as her fingers moved with her Berlin knitting, feeling more composed and settled as to my identity, in spite of my late outburst, than I had felt at any moment since my arrival in Belem. They were laughing at a funny description, which Ann was giving of a meeting she had witnessed between Miss Hiticutt and Mr. Pearsall, a gentleman lately arrived from China, after a twenty years' residence, with several lacs of rupees. Her delineation of Miss Hiticutt, who attempted to appear as she had twenty years before, was excellent. Ben, who was rolling and unrolling his mother's yarn, laughed till the tears ran, but Major Millard looked uneasy, as if he expected to be served a-la-Hiticutt by the satirical Ann after his departure. Before the laughter subsided, I heard a low voice at my ear, and felt a slight touch from the tip of a finger on my cheek.

"How came those scars?"

I brushed my cheek with my handkerchief, and answered, "I got them in battle."

He left his chair, and walked slowly through the room into the dark front parlor. Major Millard took leave, and was followed by Mrs. Somers and Ann, neither of whom returned. As Ben stretched himself on his sofa with an air of relief, Desmond emerged from the dark and stood behind him, leaning against a column, with his hands in his coat pockets and his eyes searchingly fixed upon me. Ben, turning his head in my direction, sprang up so suddenly that I started; but Desmond's eyes did not move till Ben confronted him; then he gave him a haughty smile, and begged him to take his repose again.

I went to the piano and ran my fingers over the keys.

"Do you play? Can you sing?" asked Adelaide, rousing herself.

"Yes."

"Do sing. I never talk music; but I like it."

"Some old song," said Ben.

Singing

"Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine,"

I became conscious that Desmond was near me. With a perfectly pure voice he joined in the song:

"The thirst that from the soul doth rise, Doth ask a drink divine."

As the tones of his voice floated through the room, I was where I saw the white sea-birds flashing between the blue deeps of our summer sea and sky, and the dark rocks that rose and dipped in the murmuring waves.



CHAPTER XXIX.

One pleasant afternoon Adelaide and I started on a walk. We must go through the crooked length of Norfolk Street, till we reached the outskirts of Belem, and its low fields not yet green; that was the fashionable promenade, she said. After the two o'clock dinner, Belem walked. All her acquaintances seemed to be in the street, so many bows were given and returned with ceremony. Nothing familiar was attempted, nothing beyond the courtliness of an artificial smile.

Returning, we met Desmond with a lady, and a series of bows took place. Desmond held his hat in his hand till we had passed; his expression varied so much from what it was when I saw him last, at the breakfast table, he being in a desperate humor then, that it served me for mental comment for some minutes.

"That is Miss Brewster," said Adelaide. "She is an heiress, and fancies Desmond's attentions: she will not marry him, though."

"Is every woman in Belem an heiress?"

"Those we talk about are, and every man is a fortune-hunter. Money marries money; those who have none do not marry. Those who wait hope. But the great fortunes of Belem are divided; the race of millionaires is decaying."

"Is that Ann yonder?"

"I think so, from that bent bonnet."

It proved to be Ann, who went by us with the universal bow and grimace, sacrificing to the public spirit with her fine manners. She turned soon, however, and overtook us, proposing to make a detour to Drummond Street, where an intimate family friend, "Old Hepburn," lived, so that the prospect of our going to tea with her might be made probable by her catching a passing glimpse of us; at this time she must be at the window with her Voltaire, or her Rousseau. The proposition was accepted, and we soon came near the house, which stood behind a row of large trees, and looked very dismal, with three-fourths of its windows barred with board shutters.

"Walk slow," Ann entreated. "I see her blinking at us. She has not shed her satin pelisse yet."

Before we got beyond it a dirty little girl came out of the gate, in a pair of huge shoes and a canvas apron, which covered her, to call us back. Mrs. Hepburn had seen us, and wished us to come in, wanting to know who Miss Adelaide had with her, and to talk with her. She ran back, reappearing again at the door, out of breath, and minus a shoe. As we entered a small parlor, an old lady in a black dress, with a deep cape, held out her withered hand, without rising from her straight-backed arm-chair, smiling at us, but shaking her head furiously at the small girl, who lingered in the door.

"Mari, Mari," she called, but no Mari came, and the small girl took our shawls, for Mrs. Hepburn said we must stay, now that she had inveigled us inside her doors. Ann mimicked her at her back, but to her face behaved servilely. The name of Morgeson belonged to the early historical time of New England, Mrs. Hepburn informed me. I never knew it; but bowed, as if not ignorant. Old Mari must be consulted respecting the sweetmeats, and she went after her.

"What an old mouser it is!" said Ann. "What unexpected ways she has! She scours Belem in her velvet shoes, to find out everybody's history. Don't you smell buttered toast?"

"Your father is getting the best of the gout," said Mrs. Hepburn, returning. "How is Desmond? He may be the wickedest of you all, but I like him the best. I shall not throw away praise of him on you, Adelaide." And she looked at me.

"He bows well," I said.

"He resembles his mother, who was a great beauty. Mr. Somers was handsome, too. I was at a ball at Governor Flam's thirty years ago. Your mother was barely fifteen, then, Adelaide; she was just married, and opened the ball."

She examined me all the while, with a pair of small, round eyes, from which the color had faded, but which were capable of reading me.

Tea was served by candlelight, on a small table. Mrs. Hepburn kept her eyes on everything, talking volubly, and pulled the small, girl's ears, or pushed her by the shoulder, with faith that we were not observing her. The toast was well buttered, the sweetmeats were delicious, and the cake was heavenly, as Ann said. Mrs. Hepburn ate little, but told us a great deal about marriages in prospect and incomes which waxed or waned in consequence. When tea was over, she said to the small girl who removed the tea things, "On your life taste not of the cake or the sweetmeats; and bring me two sticks of wood, you huzzy." She arranged the sticks on a decaying fire, inside a high brass fender, pulled up a stand near the hearth, lighted two candles, and placed on it a pack of cards.

"Some one may come, so that we can play."

Meantime she dozed upright, walking, talking, and dozing again, like a crafty old parrot.

"She has a great deal of money saved," Ann whispered behind a book. "She is over seventy. Oh, she is opening her puss eyes!"

Adelaide mused, after her fashion, on the slippery hair-cloth sofa, looking at the dim fire, and I surveyed the room. Its aspect attracted me, though it was precise and stiff. An ugly Turkey carpet covered the floor; a sideboard was against the wall, with a pair of silver pitchers on it, and two tall vases, filled with artificial flowers, under glass shades. Old portraits hung over it. Upon one I fixed my attention.

"That is the portrait of Count Rumford," Mrs. Hepburn said.

"Can't we see the letters?" begged Ann. "And wont you show us your trinkets? It is three or four years since we looked them over."

"Yes," she answered, good-humoredly; "ring the bell."

An old woman answered it, to whom Mrs. Hepburn said, in a friendly voice, "The box in my desk." Adelaide and Ann said, "How do you do, Mari?" When she brought the box, Mrs. Hepburn unlocked it, and produced some yellow letters, which we looked over, picking out here and there bits of Parisian gossip, many, many years old. They were directed to Cavendish Hepburn, by his friend, the original of the portrait. But the letters were soon laid aside, and we examined the contents of the box. Old brooches, miniatures painted on ivory, silhouettes, hair rings, necklaces, ear-rings, chains, and finger-rings.

"Did you wear this?" asked Ann with a longing voice, slipping an immense sapphire ring on her forefinger.

"In Mr. Hepburn's day," she answered, taking up a small case, which she unfastened and gave me. It contained a peculiar pair of ear-rings, and a brooch of aqua-marina stones, in a setting perforated like a net.

"They suit you. Will you accept such an old-fashioned ornament? Put the rings in; here Ann, fasten them."

Ann glared at her in astonishment, and then at me, for the reason which had prompted so unexpected a gift.

"Is it possible that I am to have them? Why do you give them to me? They are beautiful," I replied.

"They came from Europe long ago," she said. "And they happen to suit you."

'Sabrina fair, Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, In twisted braids of lilies knitting The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair.'"

"Those lines make me forgive Paradise Lost," said Adelaide.

"They are very long, these ear-rings," Ann remarked.

I put the brooch in the knot of ribbon I wore; Mrs. Hepburn joggled the white satin bows of her cap in approbation.

The knocker resounded. "There is our partner," she cried.

"It must be late, ma'am," said Adelaide; "and I suspect it is some one for us. You know we never venture on impromptu visits, except to you, and our people know where to send."

"Late or not, you shall stay for a game," she said, as Ben came in, hat in hand, declaring he had been scouting for us since dark. Mrs. Hepburn snuffed the candles, and rang the bell. The small girl, with a perturbed air, like one hurried out of a nap, brought in a waiter, which she placed on the sideboard.

"Get to bed," Mrs. Hepburn loudly whispered, looking over the waiter, and taking from it a silver porringer, she put it inside the fender, and then shuffled the cards.

"Now, Ann, you may sit beside me and learn."

"If it is whist, mum, I know it. I played every afternoon at Hampton last summer, and we spoiled a nice polished table, we scratched it so with our nails, picking up the cards."

"Young people do too much, nowadays."

I was in the shadow of the sideboard; Ben stood against it.

"When have you played whist, Cassandra?" he asked in a low voice. "Do you remember?"

"Is my name Cassandra?"

"Have you forgotten that, too?"

"I remember the rain."

"It is not October, yet."

"And the yellow leaves do not stick to the panes. Would you like to see Helen?"

"Come, play with me, Ben," called Mrs. Hepburn.

"Ann, try your skill," I entreated, "and let me off."

"She can try," Mrs. Hepburn said sharply. "Don't you like games? I should have said you were by nature a bold gamester." She dealt the cards rapidly, and was soon absorbed in the game, though she quarreled with Ann occasionally, and knocked over the candlestick once. Adelaide played heroically, and was praised, though I knew she hated play.

Two hours passed before we were released. The fire went out, the candles burnt low, and whatever the contents of the silver porringer, they had long been cold. When Mrs. Hepburn saw us determined to go, she sent us to the sideboard for some refreshment. "My caudle is cold," taking off the cover of the porringer. "Why, Mari, what is this?" she said, as the woman made a noiseless entrance with a bowl of hot caudle.

"I knew how it would be," she answered, putting it into the hands of her mistress.

"I am a desperate old rake, you mean, Mari. There, take your virtue off, you appall me."

She poured the caudle into small silver tumblers, and gave them to us. "The Bequest of a Friend" was engraved on them. Her fingers were like ice, and her head shook with fatigue; but her voice was sprightly and her smile bright. Ann ate a good deal of sponge cake, and omitted the caudle, but I drank mine to the memory of the donor of the cup.

"You know that sherry, Ben," and Mrs. Hepburn nodded him toward a decanter. He put his hand on it, and took it away. "None to-night," he said. Mari came with our shawls, and we hastened away, hearing her shoot the bolt of the door behind us. Ben drew my arm in his, and the girls walked rapidly before us. It was a white, hazy night, and the moon was wallowing in clouds.

"Let us walk off the flavor of Hep's cards," said Adelaide, "and go to Wolf's Point."

"Do you wish to go?" he asked me.

"Yes."

Ann skipped. A nocturnal excursion suited her exactly.

"You are not to have the toothache to-morrow, or pretend to be lame," said Adelaide.

"Not another hiss, Adder. En avant!"

We passed down Norfolk Street, now dark and silent, and reached our house. A light was burning in a room in the third story, and a window was open. Desmond sat by it, his arms folded across his chest, smoking, and contemplating some object beyond our view. Ann derisively apostrophized him, under her breath, while Ben unlocked the court gate and went in after Rash, who came out quietly, and we proceeded. In looking behind me, I stumbled.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Are you afraid?"

"Yes."

"Of what?"

"The Prince of Darkness."

"The devil lives a little behind us."

"In you, too, then?"

"In Rash. Look at him; he is bigger than Faust's dog, jumps higher, and is blacker. You can't hear the least sound from him as he gambols with his familiar."

We left the last regular street on that side of the city, and entered a road, bordered by trees and bushes, which hid the country from us. We crept through a gap in it, crossed two or three spongy fields, and ascended a hill, reaching an abrupt edge of the rocks, over whose earthy crest we walked. Below it I saw a strip of the sea, hemmed in on all sides, for the light was too vague for me to see its narrow outlet. It looked milky, misty, and uncertain; the predominant shores stifled its voice, if it ever had one. Adelaide and Ann crouched over the edge of the rock, reciting, in a chanting tone, from a poem beginning:

"The river of thy thoughts must keep its solemn course too still and deep For idle eyes to see."

Their false intonation of voice and the wordy spirit of the poem convinced me that poetry with them was an artificial taste. I turned away. The dark earth and the rolling sky were better. Ben followed.

"I hope Veronica's letter will come to-morrow," he said with a groan.

"Veronica! Why Veronica?"

"Don't torment me."

"She writes letters seldom."

"I have written her."

"She has never written me."

"It might be the means of revealing you to each other to do so."

"Ben, your native air is deleterious."

"You laugh. I feel what you say. I do not attempt to play the missionary at home, for my field is not here."

"You were wise not to bring Veronica, I see already."

"She would see what I hate myself for."

"One may venture farther with a friend than a lover."

"I thought that you might understand the results of my associations. Curse them all! Come, girls, we must go back."



CHAPTER XXX.

I took a cold that night. Belem was damp always, but its midnight damp was worse than any other. Mrs. Somers sent me medicine. Adelaide asked me, with an air of contemplation, what made me sick, and felt her own pulse. Ann criticised my nightgown ruffles, and accused me of wearing imitation lace; but nursing was her forte, and she stayed by me, annoying me by a frequent beating up of my pillow, and the bringing in of bowls of strange mixtures for me to swallow, which she persuaded the cook to make and her father to taste.

Before I left my room, Mrs. Somers came to see me.

"You are about well, I hear," she said, in a cold voice.

I felt as if I had been shamming sickness.

"I thought you were in remarkable health, your frame is so large."

Adelaide was there, and answered for me. "You are delicate. It must be because you do not take care of yourself."

"Wolf's Point to be avoided, perhaps!"

"I have walked to Wolf's Point for fifteen years, night and day, many times."

"Mr. Munster's man left this note for you," her mother said, handing it to her.

She read an invitation from Miss Munster, a cousin, to a small party.

"You will not be able to go," Mrs. Somers remarked to me.

"You will go," Adelaide said; "it is an attention to you altogether."

She never replied to her mother, never asked her any questions, so that talking between them was a one-sided affair.

"Let us go out shopping, Adelaide; I want some lace to wear," I begged.

Mrs. Somers looked into her drawers, out of which Adelaide had thrust her finery, and found mine, but said nothing.

"We are going to a party, Ann. Thanks to your messes and your nursing," as I passed her in the hall.

"Where is your evening dress?"

"Pinned in a napkin—like my talent."

"Old Cousin Munster, the pirate, who made his money in the opium trade, has good things in his house. I suppose," with a coquettish air, "that you will see Ned Munster; he would walk to the door with me to-day. He wishes me out, I know."

We consumed that evening in talking of dress. Adelaide showed me her camel's-hair scarfs which Desmond had brought, and her dresses. Ann tried them all on, walking up and down, and standing tiptoe before the glass, while I trimmed a handkerchief with the lace I had purchased. I unfolded my dress after they were gone, with a dubious mind. It was a heavy white silk, with a blue satin stripe. It might be too old-fashioned, for it belonged to mother, who would never wear it. The sleeves were puffed with bands of blue velvet, and the waist was covered with a berthe of the same. It must do, however, for I had no other.

We were to go at nine. Adelaide came to my room dressed, and with her hair arranged exactly like mine. She looked well, in spite of her Mongolic face.

"Pa wants to see us in his room; he has gone to bed."

"Wait a moment," I begged. I took my hair down, unbraided it, brushed it out of curl as much as I could, twisted it into a loose mass, through which I stuck pins enough to hold it, bound a narrow fillet of red velvet round my head, and ran after her.

"That is much better," she said; "you are entirely changed." Desmond was there, in his usual careless dress, hanging over the footboard of the bed, and Ann was huddled on the outside. Mrs. Somers was reading.

"Pa," said Ann, "just think of Old Hepburn's giving her a pair of lovely ear-rings."

"Did she? Where are they?" asked Mrs. Somers.

"I am not surprised," said Mr. Somers. "Mrs. Hepburn knows where to bestow. Why not wear them?"

"I'll get them," said Ann.

Mr. Somers continued his compliments. He thought there was a pleasing contrast between Adelaide and myself, referred to Diana, mentioned that my hair was remarkably thick, and proceeded with a dissertation on the growth and decay of the hair, when she returned with the ear-rings.

"It is too dark here," she said.

Desmond, who had remained silent, took the candle, which Mrs. Somers was reading by, and held it for Ann, close to my face. The operation was over, but the candle was not taken away till Mrs. Somers asked for it sharply.

"I dare say," murmured Mr. Somers, who was growing drowsy, "that Mrs. Hepburn wore them some night, when she went to John Munster's, forty years ago, and now you wear them to the son's. How things come round!"

The Munsters' man opened the door for us.

The rooms were full. "Very glad," said Mr., Mrs., and Miss Munster, and amid a loud buzz we fell back into obscurity. Adelaide joined a group, who were talking at the top of their voices, with most hilarious countenances.

"They pretend to have a Murillo here, let us go and find it," said Ben.

It was in a small room. While we looked at a dark-haired, handsome woman, standing on brown clouds, with hands so fat that every finger stood apart, Miss Munster brought up a young gentleman with the Munster cast of countenance.

"My brother begs an introduction, Miss Morgeson."

Ben retired, and Mr. Munster began to talk volubly, with wandering eyes, repeating words he was in danger of forgetting. No remarks were required from me. At the proper moment he asked me to make the tour of the rooms, and offered his arm. As we were crossing the hall, I saw Despond, hat in hand, and in faultless evening dress, bowing to Miss Munster.

"Your Cousin Desmond, and mine, is a fine-looking man, is he not? Let us speak to him."

I drew back. "I'll not interrupt his devoir."

He bowed submissively.

"My cousin Desmond," I thought; "let me examine this beauty." He was handsomer than Ben, his complexion darker, and his hair black. There was a flush across his cheek-bones, as if he had once blushed, and the blush had settled. The color of his eyes I could not determine. As if to resolve my doubt, he came toward us; they were a deep violet, and the lids were fringed with long black lashes. I speculated on something animal in those eyes. He stood beside me, and twisted his heavy mustache.

"What a pretty boudoir this is," I said, backing into a little room behind us.

"Ned," he said abruptly, "you must resign Miss Morgeson; I am here to see her."

"Of course," Ned answered; "I relinquish."

Before a word was spoken between us, Mrs. Munster touched Desmond on the shoulder, and told him that he must come with her, to be introduced to Count Montholon.

"Bring him here, please."

"Tyrant," she answered playfully, "the Count shall come."

He brought a chair. "Take this; you are pale. You have been ill." Bringing another, he seated himself before me and fanned himself with his hat.

Mrs. Munster came back with the Count, an elderly man, and Desmond rose to meet him, keeping his hand on the back of his chair. They spoke French. The freedom of their conversation precluded the idea of my understanding it. The Count made a remark about me. Desmond replied, glancing at me, and both pulled their mustaches. The Count was called away soon, and Desmond resumed his chair.

"I understood you," I said.

"The deuce you did."

He placed his hat over a vase of flowers, which tipping over, he leisurely righted, and bending toward me, said:

"It was in battle."

"Yes."

"And women like you, pure, with no vice of blood, sometimes are tempted, struggle, and suffer."

His words, still more his voice, made we wince.

"Even drawn battles bring their scars," I replied.

"Convince me beyond all doubt that a woman can reason with her impulses, or even fathom them, and I will be in your debt."

"Maybe—but Ben is coming."

He looked at me strangely.

"You must find this very dull, Cassandra," said Ben, joining us.

"Cassandra," said Desmond, "are you bored?"

The accent with which he spoke my name set my pulses striking like a clock. I got up mechanically, as Ben directed.

"They are going to supper. There's game. Des. Munster told me to take the northeast corner of the table."

"I shall take the southwest, then," he replied, nodding to a tall gentleman who passed with Adelaide. When we left him, he was observing a carved oak chair, in occult sympathy probably with the grain of the wood. Nature strikes us with her phenomena at times when other resources are not at hand.

We were compelled to wait at the door of the supper-room, the jam was so great.

"What fairy story do you like best?" asked Ben

"I know which you like."

"Well?"

"Bluebeard. You have an affinity with Sister Ann in the tower."

"Do you think I see nothing 'but the sun which makes a dust and the grass which looks green?' I believe you like Bluebeard, too."

That was a great joke, at which we both laughed.

When I saw Desmond again, he was surrounded by men, the French Count among them, drinking champagne. He held a bottle, and was talking fast. The others were laughing. His listless, morose expression had disappeared; in the place of a brutal-tempered, selfish, bored man, I saw a brilliant, jovial gentleman. Which was the real man?

"Finish your jelly," said Ben.

"I prefer looking at your brother."

"Leave my brother alone."

"You see nothing but 'the sun which makes a dust, and the grass which looks green.'"

Miss Munster hoped I was cared for. How gay Desmond was! she had not seen such a look in his face in a long time. And how strongly he was marked with the family traits.

"How am I marked, May?" asked Ben.

"Oh, we know worse eccentrics than you are. What are you up to now? You are not as frank as Desmond."

He laughed as he looked at me, and then Adelaide called to us that it was time to leave.

We were among the last; the carriage was waiting. We made our bows to Mrs. Munster, who complained of not having seen more of us. "You are a favorite of Mrs. Hepburn's, Miss Morgeson, I am told. She is a remarkable woman, has great powers." I mentioned my one interview with her. Guests were going upstairs with smiles, and coming down without, released from their company manners. We rode home in silence, except that Adelaide yawned fearfully, and then we toiled up the long stairs, separating with a tired, "good-night."

I extinguished my candle by dropping my shawl upon it, and groped in vain for matches over the tops of table and shelf.

"To bed in the dark, then," I said, pulling off my gloves and the band, from my head, for I felt a tightness in it, and pulled out the hairpins. But a desire to look in the glass overcame me. I felt unacquainted with myself, and must see what my aspect indicated just then.

I crept downstairs, to the dining-room, passed my hands over the sideboard, the mantel shelf, and took the round of the dinner-table, but found nothing to light my candle with.

"The fire may not be out in the parlor," I thought; "it can be lighted there." I ran against the hatstand in the hall, knocking a cane down, which fell with a loud noise. The parlor door was ajar; the fire was not out, and Desmond was before it, watching its decay.

"What is it?" he asked.

"The candle," I stammered, confused with the necessity of staying to have it lighted, and the propriety of retreating in the dark.

"Shall I light it?"

I stepped a little further inside the door and gave it to him. He grew warm with thrusting it between the bars of the grate, and I grew chilly. Shivering, and with chattering teeth, I made out to say, "A piece of paper would do it." Raising his head hastily, it came crash against the edge of the marble shelf. Involuntarily I shut the door, and leaned against it, to wait for the effect of the blow; but feeling a pressure against the outside, I yielded to it, and moved aside. Mrs. Somers entered, with a candle flaring in one hand, and holding with the other her dressing-gown across her bosom.

"What are you doing here?" she asked harshly, but in a whisper, her eyes blazing like a panther's.

"Doing?" I replied; "stay and see."

She swept along, and I followed, bringing up close to Desmond, who had his hand round his head, and was very pale, either from the effect of the blow or some other cause. Even the flush across his cheeks had faded. She looked at him sharply; he moved his hands from his head, and met her eyes. "I am not drunk, you see," he said in a low voice. She made an insulting gesture toward me, which meant, "Is this an adventure of yours?"

The blaze in her eyes kindled a more furious one in his; he stepped forward with a threatening motion.

Anger raged through me—like a fierce rain that strikes flat a violent sea. I laid my hand on her arm, which she snapped at like a wolf, but I spoke calmly:

"You tender, true-hearted creature, full of womanly impulses, allow me to light my candle by yours!"

I picked it from the hearth, lighted it, and held it close to her face, laughing, though I never felt less merry. But I had restrained him.

He took the candle away gently.

"Leave the room," he said to her.

She beckoned me to go.

"No, you shall go."

They made a simultaneous movement with their hands, he to insist, she to deprecate, and I again observed how exactly alike they were.

"Desmond," I implored, "pray allow me to go."

A deep flush suffused his face. He bowed, threw wide the door, and followed me to the foot of the stairs. I reached my hand for the candle, for he retained both.

"You, pardon first."

"For what?"

"For much? oh—for much."

What story my face told, I could not have told him. He kissed my hand and turned away.

At the top of the stairs I looked down. He was there with upturned face, watching me. Whether he went back to confer with his mother, I never knew; if he did, the expression which he wore then must have troubled her. I went to bed, wondering over the mischief that a candle could do. After I had extinguished it, its wick glowed in the dark like a one-eyed demon.



CHAPTER XXXI.

Another week passed. Ben had received a letter from Veronica, informing him that letter-writing was a kind of composition she was not fond of. He must come to her, and then there would be no need for writing. Her letter exasperated him. His tenacious mind, lying in wait to close upon hers, was irritated by her simple, candid behavior. I could give him no consolation, nor did I care to. It suited me that his feelings for her weakened his penetration in regard to me.

When he roused at the expression which he saw Desmond fix upon me the night that Major Millard was there, I expected a rehearsal from him of watchfulness and suspicion; but no symptom appeared. I was glad, for I was in love with Desmond. I had known it from the night of Miss Munster's party. The morning after I woke to know my soul had built itself a lordly pleasure-house; its dome and towers were firm and finished, glowing in the light that "never was on land or sea." How elate I grew in this atmosphere! The face of Nemesis was veiled even. No eye saw the pure, pale nimbus ringed above it. I did not see him, except as an apparition, for suddenly he had become the most unobtrusive member of the family, silent and absent. Immunity from espionage was the immutable family rule. Mrs. Somers, under the direction of that spirit which isolated me from all exterior influences, for a little time had shut down the lid of her evil feelings, and was quiet; watching me, perhaps, but not annoying. Mr. Somers was engaged with the subject of ventilation. Ann, to convince herself that she had a musical talent, practiced of afternoons till she was turned out by Adelaide, who had a fit of reading abstruse works, sometimes seeking me with fingers thrust between their leaves to hold abstract conversations, which, though I took small part in them, were of service.

That portion of the world of emotions which I was mapping out she was profoundly indifferent to. My experiences to her would have been debasing. As she would not come to me, I went to her, and gained something.

Ben, always a favorite with his father, pursued him, rode with him, and made visits of pleasure or business, with a latent object which kept him on the alert.

I had been in Belem three weeks; in a week more I decided to return home. My indignation against Mrs. Somers, from our midnight interview, had not suggested that I should shorten my visit. On the contrary, it had freed me from any regard or fear of her opinion. I had discovered her limits.

It was Saturday afternoon. Reflecting that I had but a few days more for Belem, and summing up the events of my visit and the people I had met, their fashions and differences, I unrolled a tolerable panorama, with patches in it of vivid color, and laid it away in my memory, to be unrolled again at some future time. Then a faint shadow dropped across my mind like a curtain, the first that clouded my royal palace, my mental paradise!

I sighed. Joyless, vacant, barren hours prefigured themselves to me, drifting through my brain, till their vacant shapes crowded it into darkness. I must do something! I would go out; a walk would be good for me. Moreover, wishing to purchase a parting gift for Adelaide and Ann, I would go alone. Wandering from shop to shop in Norfolk Street, without finding the articles I desired, I turned into a street which crossed it, and found the right shop. Seeing Drummond Street on an old gable-end house, a desire to exchange with some one a language which differed from my thoughts prompted me to look up Mrs. Hepburn. I soon came to her house, and knocked at the door, which Mari opened. The current was already changed, as I followed her into a room different from the one where I had seen Mrs. Hepburn. It was dull of aspect, long and narrow, with one large window opening on the old-fashioned garden, and from which I saw a discolored marble Flora. Mrs. Hepburn was by the window, in her high chair. She held out her hand and thanked me for coming to see an old woman. Motioning her head toward a dark corner, she said, "There is a young man who likes occasionally to visit an old woman also."

The young man, twenty-nine years old, was Desmond. He crossed the room and offered me his hand. We had not spoken since we parted at the stairs that memorable night. He hastily brought chairs, and placed them near Mrs. Hepburn, who seized her spectacles, which were on a silk workbag beside her, scanned us through them, and exclaimed, "Ah ha! what is this?"

"Is it something in me, ma'am?" said Desmond, putting his head before my face so that it was hid from her.

"Something in both of you; thief! thief!"

She rubbed her frail hand against my sleeve, muttering, "See now, so!—the same characteristics."

"I spoke of the difference of the rooms; the one we were in reminded me of a lizard! The walls were faint gray, and every piece of furniture was covered with plain yellow chintz, while the carpet was a pale green. She replied that she always moved from her winter parlor to this summer room on the twenty-second day of April, which had fallen the day before, for she liked to watch the coming out of the shrubs in the garden, which were as old as herself. The chestnut had leaved seventy times and more; and the crippled plum, whose fruit was so wormy to eat, was dying with age. As for the elms at the bottom of the garden, for all she knew they were a thousand years old.

"The elms are a thousand years old," I repeated and repeated to myself, while she glided from topic to topic with Desmond, whose conversation indicated that he was as cultivated as any ordinary gentleman, when the Pickersgill element was not apparent. The form of the garden-goddess faded, the sun had gone below the garden wall. The garden grew dusk, and the elms began to nod their tops at me. I became silent, listening to the fall of the plummet, which dropped again and again from the topmost height of that lordly domain, over which shadows had come. Were they sounding its foundations?

My eyes roved the garden, seeking the nucleus of an emotion which beset me now—not they, but my senses, formed it—in a garden miles away, where nodded a row of elms, under which Charles Morgeson stood.

"I am glad you're here, my darling, do you smell the roses?"

"Are you going?" I heard Mrs. Hepburn say in a far-off voice. I was standing by the door.

"Yes, madam; the summer parlor does not delay the sunset."

"Come again. When do you leave Belem?"

"In few days."

Desmond made a grimace, and went to the window.

"Who returns with you," she continued, "Ben? He likes piloting."

"I hope he will; I came here to please him."

"Pooh! You came here because Mr. Somers had a crotchet."

"Well; I was permitted somehow to come."

"It was perfectly right. A woman like you need not question whether a thing is convenable."

Desmond turned from the window, and bestowed upon her a benign smile, which she returned with a satisfied nod.

This implied flattery tinkled pleasantly on my ears, allaying a doubt which I suffered from. Did I realize how much the prestige of those Belem saints influenced me, or how proud I was with the conviction of affiliation with those who were plainly marked with Caste?

"Walk with me," he demanded, as we were going down the steps.

We passed out of Drummond Street into a wide open common. Rosy clouds floated across the zenith, and a warm, balmy wind was blowing. I thought of Veronica, calm and happy, as the spring always made her, and the thought was a finishing blow to the variety of moods I had passed through. The helm of my will was broken.

"There is a good view from Moss Hill yonder," he said. "Shall we go up?"

I bowed, declining his arm, and trudged beside him. From its summit Belem was only half in sight. Its old, crooked streets sloped and disappeared from view; Wolf's Point was at the right of us, and its thread of sea. I began talking of our walk, and was giving an extended description of it, when he abruptly asked why I came to Belem.

"I know," he said, "that you would not have come, had there been any sentiment between you and Ben."

"Thanks for your implication. But I must have made the visit, you know, or how could I learn that I should not have made it?"

"You regret coming?"

"Veronica will give me no thanks."

"Who is she?"

"My sister, whom Ben loves."

"Ben love a sister of yours? My God—how? when first? where? And how came you to meet him?"

"That chapter of accidents need not be recounted. Can you help him?"

"What can I do?" he said roughly. "There is little love between us. You know what a devil's household ours is; but he is one of us—he is afraid."

"Of what?"

"Of mother—of our antecedents—of himself."

"I could not expect you to speak well of him."

"Of course not. Your sister has no fortune?"

"She has not. Men whose merchandise is ships are apt to die bankrupt."

"Your father is a merchant?"

"Even at that, the greatest of the name.

"We are all tied up, you know. Ben's allowance is smaller than mine. He is easy about money; therefore he is pa's favorite."

"Why do you not help yourselves?"

"Do you think so? You have not known us long. Have you influenced Ben to help himself?"

I marched down the hill without reply. Repassing Mrs. Hepburn's, he said, "My grandfather was an earl's son."

"Mrs. Hepburn likes you for that. My grandfather was a tailor; I should have told her so, when she gave me the aqua marina jewels."

"Had you the courage?"

"I forgot both the fact and the courage."

I hurried along, for it grew dark, and presently saw Ben on the steps of the house.

"Have you been walking?" he asked.

"It looks so. Yes, with me," answered Desmond. "Wont you give me thanks for attention to your friend?"

"It must have been a whim of Cassandra's."

"Break her of whims, if you can—"

"I will."

We went into the parlor together.

"Where do you think I have been?" Ben asked.

"Where?"

"For the doctor. The baby is sick"; and he looked hard at Desmond.

"I hope it will live for years and years," I said.

"I know what you are at, Ben," said Desmond. "I have wished the brat dead; but upon my soul, I have a stronger wish than that—I have forgotten it."

There was no falseness in his voice; he spoke the truth.

"Forgive me, Des."

"No matter about that," he answered, sauntering off.

I felt happier; that spark of humanity warmed me. I might not have another. "I would," I said, "that the last day, the last moments of my visit had come. You will see me henceforth in Surrey. I will live and die there."

"To-night," Ben said, "I am going to tell pa."

"That is best."

"Horrible atmosphere!"

"It would kill Verry."

"You thrive in it," he said, with a spice of irritation in his voice.

"Thrive!"

Adelaide and Ann proved gracious over my gift. They were talking of the doctor's visit. Ann said the child was teething, for she had felt its gums; nothing else was the matter. There need be no apprehension. She should say so to Desmond and Ben, and would post a letter to her brother in unknown parts.

"Miss Hiticutt has sent for us to come over to tea," Adelaide informed me. The black silk I wore would do, for we must go at once.

The quiet, formal evening was a pleasant relief, although I was troubled with a desire to inform Mrs. Somers of Ben's engagement, for the sake of exasperating her. We came home too early for bed, Adelaide said; beside, she had music-hunger. I must sing. Mrs. Somers was by the fire, darning fine napkins, winking over her task, maintaining in her aspect the determination to avert any danger of a midnight interview with Desmond. That gentleman was at present sleeping on a sofa. I seated myself before the piano, wondering whether he slept from wine, ennui, or to while away the time till I should come. I touched the keys softly, waiting for an interpreting voice, and half unconsciously sang the lines of Schiller:

"I hear the sound of music, and the halls Are full of light. Who are the revelers?"

Desmond made an inarticulate noise and sprang up, as if in answer to a call. A moment after he stepped quietly over the back of the sofa and stood bending over me. I looked up. His eyes were clear, his face alive with intuition. Though Adelaide was close by, she was oblivious; her eyes were cast upward and her fingers lay languid in her lap. Ann, more lively, introduced a note here and there into my song to her own satisfaction. Mrs. Somers I could not see; but I stopped and, giving the music stool a turn, faced her. She met me with her pale, opaque stare, and began to swing her foot over her knee; her slipper, already down at her heel, fell off. I picked it up in spite of her negative movement and hung it on the foot again.

"I shall speak with you presently," she whispered, glancing at Desmond.

He heard her and his face flashed with the instinct of sport, which made me ashamed of any desire for a struggle with her.

"Good-night," I said abruptly, turning away.

"We are all sleepy except this exemplary housewife with her napkins," cried Ann. "We will leave her."

"Cassandra," said Adelaide, when we were on the stairs, "how well you look!"

Ann, elevating her candle, remarked my eyes shone like a cat's.

"Hiticutt's tea was too strong," added Adelaide; "it dilates the pupils. I am sorry you are going away," and she kissed me; this favor would have moved me at any other time, but now I rejoiced to see her depart and leave me alone. I sat down by the toilet table and was arranging some bottles, when Mrs. Somers rustled in. Out of breath, she began haughtily:

"What do you mean?"

A lethargic feeling crept over me; my thoughts wandered; I never spoke nor stirred till she pulled my sleeve violently.

"If you touch me it will rouse me. Did a child of yours ever inflict a blow upon you?"

She turned purple with rage, looming up before my vision like a peony.

"When are you going home?"

I counted aloud, "Sunday—Monday," and stopped at Wednesday. "Ben is going back with me."

"He may go."

"And not Desmond?"

"Do you know Desmond?"

"Not entirely."

"He has played with such toys as you are, and broken them."

"Alas, he is hereditarily cruel! Could I expect not to be broken?"

She caught up a glass goblet as if to throw it, but only grasped it so tight that it shivered. "There goes one of the Pickersgill treasures, I am sure," I thought.

"I am already scarred, you see. I have been 'nurtured in convulsions.'"

The action seemed to loosen her speech; but she had to nerve herself to say what she intended; for some reason or other, she could not remain as angry as she wished. What she said I will not repeat.

"Madam, I have no plans. If I have a Purpose, it is formless yet. If God saves us what can you do?"

She made a gesture of contempt.

"You have no soul to thank me for what may be my work," and I opened the door.

Ben stood on the threshhold.

"In God's name, what is this?"

I pointed to his mother. She looked uneasy, and stepping forward put her hand on his arm; but he shook her off.

"You may call me a fool, Cassandra, for bringing you here," he said in a bitter voice, "besides calling me cruel for subjecting you to these ordeals. I knew how it would be with mother. What is it, madam?" he asked imperiously, looking so much like her that I shuddered.

"It is not you she is after," she hotly exclaimed.

"No, I should think not." And he led her out swiftly.

I heard Mrs. Somers say at breakfast, as I went in, "We are to lose Miss Cassandra on Wednesday." I looked at Desmond, who was munching toast abstractedly. He made a motion for me to take the chair beside him, which I obeyed. Ben saw this movement, and an expression of pain passed over his face. At that instant I remembered that Desmond's being seen in the evening and in the morning was a rare occurrence. Mr. Somers took up the remark of Mrs. Somers where she had left it, and expatiated on it till breakfast was over, so courteously and so ramblingly that I was convinced the affair Ben had at heart had been revealed. He invited me to go to church, and he spent the whole of the evening in the parlor; and although Desmond hovered near me all day and all the evening, we had no opportunity of speaking to each other.



CHAPTER XXXII.

On Tuesday morning Adelaide sent out invitations to a farewell entertainment, as she called it, for Tuesday evening. Mrs. Somers, affecting great interest in it, engaged my services in wiping the dust from glass and china; "too valuable," she said, "for servants to handle." We spent a part of the morning in the dining-room and pantry. Ann was with us. If she went out, Mrs. Somers was silent; when present she chatted. While we were busy Desmond came in, in riding trousers and whip in hand.

"What nonsense!" he said, touching my hand with the whiplash. "Will you ride with me after dinner?"

"I must have the horses at three o'clock," said his mother, "to go to Mrs. Flint's funeral. She was a family friend, you know." The funeral could not be postponed, even for Desmond; but he grew ill-humored at once, swore at Murphy, who was packing a waiter at the sideboard, for rattling the plates; called Ann a minx, because she laughed at him; and bit a cigar to pieces because he could not light it. Rash had followed him, his nose against his velveteens, in entreaty to go with him; I was pleased at this sign of amity between them. At a harder push than common he looked down and kicked him away.

"Noble creature," I said, "try your whip on him. Rash, go to your master," and I opened the door. Two smaller dogs, Desmond's property, made a rush to come in; but I shut them out, whereat they whined so loudly that Mrs. Somers was provoked to attack him for bringing his dogs in the house. An altercation took place, and was ended by Desmond declaring that he was on his way after a bitch terrier, to bring it home. He went out, giving me a look from the door, which I answered with a smile that made him stamp all the way through the hall. Mrs. Somers's feelings as she heard him peeped out at me. Groaning in spirit, I finished my last saucer and betook myself to my room and read, till summoned by Mrs. Somers to a consultation respecting the furniture coverings. Desmond came home, but spoke to no one, hovering in my vicinity as on the day before.

In the afternoon Adelaide and I went in the carriage to make calls upon those we did not expect to see in the evening. She wrote P.P.C. on my cards and laughed at the idea of paying farewell visits to strangers. The last one was made to Mrs. Hepburn. A soft melancholy crept over me when I entered the room where I had met Desmond last. We should probably not see each other alone again. Mrs. Somers's policy to that effect would be a success, for I should make no opposition to it. Not a word of my feelings could I speak to Mrs. Hepburn—Adelaide was there—provided I had the impulse; and Mrs. Hepburn would be the last to forgive me should I make the conventional mistake of a scene or an aside. This old lady had taught me something. I went to the window, curious to know whether any nerve of association would vibrate again. Nothing stirred me; the machinery which had agitated and controlled me was effete.

Mrs. Hepburn said, as we were taking leave:

"If you come to Belem next year, and I am above the sod, I invite you to pass a month with me. But let it be in the summer. I ride then, and should like you for a companion."

She might have seen irresolution in me, for she added quickly, "You need not promise—let time decide," and shook my hands kindly.

"Hep, is smitten with you, in her selfish way," Adelaide remarked, as we rode from the door. She ordered the coachman to drive home by the "Leslie House," which she wanted me to see. A great aunt had lived and died there, leaving the house—one of the oldest in Belem—to her brother Ned.

"Who is he like?"

"Desmond; but worse. There's only a year's difference in their ages. They were educated together, kept in the nursery till they were great boys and tyrants, and then sent abroad. They were in Amiens three years."

"There are Desmond and Ben; they are walking in the street we are passing."

She looked out.

"They are quarreling, I dare say. Ben is a prig, and preaches to Des."

While we were in the house, and Adelaide talked with the old servant of her aunt, my thoughts were occupied with Desmond. What had they quarreled on? Desmond was pale, and laughed; but Ben was red, and looked angry.