The carriage struck a stone, and the crowd shuddered as they saw it rock and swing in its furious course. The mad horses but flew more wildly. Mrs. Simcoe pressed Hope's hand, and murmured, almost inaudibly,

"'Christ shall bless thy going out, Shall bless thy coming in; Kindly compass thee about, Till thou art saved from sin.'"

"That corner! that corner!" shouted the throng, as the horses neared a sudden turn into a side-road, toward which they seemed to be making, frightened by the persons who came running toward them on the main street. Among these was Gabriel, who, hearing the confused murmur that rang down the road, turned and recognized the carriage that was whirled along at the mercy of wild horses. He seemed to his companions to fly as he went—to himself he seemed to be standing still.

"Carefully, carefully!" cried the others, as they saw his impetuosity. "Don't be trampled!"

Gabriel did not hear. He only saw the fatal corner. He only knew that Hope Wayne was in danger—that the carriage, already swaying, would be overturned—might be dashed in pieces, and Hope—

He came near as the horses were about turning. The street toward which they were heading was narrow, and on the other corner from him there was a wall. They were running toward Gabriel down the main road; but just as he came up with them he flung himself with all his might toward the animals' heads. The startled horses half-recoiled, turned sharply and suddenly—dashed themselves against the wall—and the carriage stood still. In a moment a dozen men had secured them, and the danger was past.

The door was opened, and the ladies stepped out. Mrs. Simcoe was pale, but her heart had not quailed. The faith that sustains a woman's heart in life does not fail when death brushes her with his finger-tips.

"Dear child!" she said to Hope, when they both knew that the crisis was over, and her lips moved in silent prayer and thanksgiving.

Hope herself was trembling and silent. In her inmost heart she hoped it was Abel Newt who had saved them. But in all the throng she did not see his face. She felt a secret disappointment.

"Here is your preserver, ma'am," said one of the villagers, pushing Gabriel forward. Mrs. Simcoe actually smiled. She put out her hand to him kindly; and Hope, with grave Sweetness, told him how great was their obligation. The boy bowed and looked at her earnestly.

"Are you hurt?"

"Oh! no, not at all," replied Hope, smiling, and not without some effort, because she fancied that Gabriel looked at her as if she showed some sign of pain—or disappointment—or what?

"We are perfectly well, thanks to you."

"What started the horses?" asked Gabriel.

"I'm sure I don't know," replied Hope.

"Abel Newt started them," said Mrs. Simcoe.

Hope reddened and looked at her companion. "What do you mean, Aunty?" asked she, haughtily.

Mrs. Simcoe was explaining, when Abel came up out of breath and alarmed. In a moment he saw that there had been no injury. Hope's eyes met his, and the color slowly died away from her cheeks. He eagerly asked how it happened, and was confounded by hearing that he was the cause.

"How strange it is," said he, in a low voice, to Hope, as the people busied themselves in looking after the horses and carriage, and Gabriel talked to Mrs. Simcoe, with whom he found conversation so much easier than with Hope—"how strange it is that just as I was wondering when and where and how I should see you again, I should meet you in this way, Miss Wayne!"

Pleased, still weak and trembling, pale and flushed by turns, Hope listened to him.

"Where can I see you?" he continued; "certainly your grandfather was unkind—"

Hope shook her head slowly. Abel watched every movement—every look—every fluctuating change of manner and color, as if he knew its most hidden meaning.

"I can see you nowhere but at home," she answered.

He did not reply. She stood silent. She wished he would speak. The silence was dreadful. She could not bear it.

"I am very sorry," said she, in a whisper, her eyes fastened upon the ground, her hands playing with her handkerchief.

"I hope you are," he said, quietly, with a tone of sadness, not of reproach. There was another painful pause.

"I hope so, because I am going away," said Abel.

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

"When?"

"In a few weeks."

"Where is your home?"

"In New York."

It was very much to the point. Yet both of them wanted to say so much more; and neither of them dared!

"Miss Hope!" whispered Abel.

Hope heard the musical whisper. She perceived the audacity of the familiarity, but she did not wish it were otherwise. She bent her head a little lower, as if listening more intently.

"May I see you before I go?"

Hope was silent. Dr. Livingstone relates that when the lion had struck him with his paw, upon a certain occasion, he lay in a kind of paralysis, of which he would have been cured in a moment more by being devoured.

"Hope," said Mrs. Simcoe, "the horses will be brought up. We had better walk home. Here, my dear!"

"I can only see you at home," Hope said, in a low voice, as she rose.

"Then we part here forever," he replied. "I am sorry."

Still there was no reproach; it was only a deep sadness which softened that musical voice.

"Forever!" he repeated slowly, with low, remorseless music.

Hope Wayne trembled, but he did not see it.

"I am sorry, too," she said, in a hurried whisper, as she moved slowly toward Mrs. Simcoe. Abel Newt was disappointed.

"Good-by forever, Miss Wayne!" he said. He could not see Hope's paler face as she heard the more formal address, and knew by it that he was offended.

"Good-by!" was all he caught as Hope Wayne took Mrs. Simcoe's arm and walked away.



CHAPTER XIII.

SOCIETY.

Tradition declares that the family of Newt has been uniformly respectable but honest—so respectable, indeed, that Mr. Boniface Newt, the father of Abel, a celebrated New York merchant and a Tammany Sachem, had a crest. He had even buttons for his coachman's coat with a stag's head engraved upon them. The same device was upon his sealring. It appeared upon his carriage door. It figured on the edges of his dinner-service. It was worked into the ground glass of the door that led from his dining-room to the back stairs. He had his paper stamped with it; and a great many of his neighbors, thinking it a neat and becoming ornament, imitated him in its generous use.

Mrs. Newt's family had a crest also. She was a Magot—another of the fine old families which came to this country at the earliest possible period. The Magots, however, had no buttons upon their coachman's coat; one reason of which omission was, perhaps, that they had no coachman. But when the ladies of the Magot family went visiting or shopping they hired a carriage, and insisted that the driver should brush his hat and black his boots; so that it was not every body who knew that it was a livery equipage.

Their friends did, of course; but there were a great many people from the country who gazed at it, in passing, with the same emotion with which they would have contemplated a private carriage; which was highly gratifying to the feelings of the Magots.

Their friends knew it, but friends never remark upon such things. There was old Mrs. Beriah Dagon—dowager Mrs. Dagon, she was called—aunt of Mr. Newt, who never said, "I see the Magots have hired a hackney-coach from Jobbers to make calls in. They quarreled with Gudging over his last bill. Medora Magot has turned her last year's silk, which is a little stained and worn; but then it does just as well."

By-and-by her nephew Boniface married Medora's sister, Nancy.

It was Mrs. Dagon who sat with Mrs. Newt in her parlor, and said to her,

"So your son Abel is coming home. I'm glad to hear it. I hope he knows how to waltz, and isn't awkward. There are some very good matches to be made; and I like to have a young man settle early. It's better for his morals. Men are bad people, my dear. I think Maria Chubleigh would do very well for Abel. She had a foolish affair with that Colonel Orson, but it's all over. Why on earth do girls fall in love with officers? They never have any pay worth speaking of, and a girl must tramp all over the land, and live I don't know how. Pshaw! it's a wretched business. How's Mr. Dinks? I saw him and Fanny waltzing last month at the Shrimps'. Who are the Shrimps? Somebody says something about the immense fortune Mr. Shrimp has made in the oil trade. You should have seen Mrs. Winslow Orry peering about at the Shrimps. I really believe she counted the spoons. What an eye that woman has, and what a tongue! Are you really going to Saratoga? Will Boniface let you? He is the kindest man! He is so generous that I sometimes fear somebody'll be taking advantage of him. Gracious me! how hot it is!"

It was warm, and Mrs. Dagon fanned herself. When she and Mrs. Newt met there was a tremendous struggle to get the first innings of the conversation, and neither surrendered the ground until fairly forced off by breathlessness and exhaustion.

"Yes, we shall go to Saratoga," began Mrs. Newt; "and I want Abel to come, so as to take him. There'll be a very pleasant season. What a pity you can't go! However, people must regard their time of life, and take care of their health. There's old Mrs. Octoyne says she shall never give up. She hopes to bring out her great-grand-daughter next winter, and says she has no life but in society. I suppose you know Herbert Octoyne is engaged to one of the Shrimps. They keep their carriage, and the girls dress very prettily. Herbert tells the young men that the Shrimps are a fine old family, which has been long out of society, having no daughters to marry; so they have not been obliged to appear. But I don't know about visiting them. However, I suppose we shall. Herbert Octoyne will give 'em family, if they really haven't it; and the Octoynes won't be sorry for her money. What a pretty shawl! Did you hear that Mellish Whitloe has given Laura a diamond pin which cost five hundred dollars? Extravagant fellow! Yet I like to have young men do these things handsomely. I do think it's such a pity about Laura's nose—"

"She can smell with it, I suppose, mother; and what else do you want of a nose?"

It was Miss Fanny Newt who spoke, and who had entered the room during the conversation. She was a tall young woman of about twenty, with firm, dark eyes, and abundant dark hair, and that kind of composure of manner which is called repose in drawing-rooms and boldness in bar-rooms.

"Gracious, Fanny, how you do disturb one! I didn't know you were there. Don't be ridiculous. Of course she can smell with it. But that isn't all you want of a nose."

"I suppose you want it to turn up at some people," replied Miss Fanny, smoothing her dress, and looking in the glass. "Well, Aunt Dagon, who've you been lunching on?"

Aunt Dagon looked a little appalled.

"My dear, what do you mean?" she said, fanning herself violently. "I hope I never say any thing that isn't true about people. I'm sure I should be very sorry to hurt any body's feelings. There's Mrs. Kite—you know, Joseph Kite's wife, the man they said really did cheat his creditors, only none of 'em would swear to it; well, Kitty Kite, my dear, does do and say the most abominable things about people. At the Shrimps' ball, when you were waltzing with Mr. Dinks, I heard her say to Mrs. Orry, 'Do look at Fanny Newt hug that man!' It was dreadful to hear her say such things, my dear; and then to see the whole room stare at you! It was cruel—it was really unfeeling."

Fanny did not wince. She merely said,

"How old is Mrs. Kite, Aunt Dagon?"

"Well, let me see; she's about my age, I suppose."

"Oh! well, Aunt, people at her time of life can't see or hear much, you know. They ought to be in their beds with hot bottles at their feet, and not obtrude themselves among people who are young enough to enjoy life with all their senses," replied Miss Fanny, carelessly arranging a stray lock of hair.

"Indeed, Miss, you would like to shove all the married people into the wall, or into their graves," retorted Mrs. Dagon, warmly.

"Oh no, dear Aunt, only into their beds—and that not until they are superannuated, which, you know, old people never find out for themselves," answered Fanny, smiling sweetly and calmly upon Mrs. Dagon.

"What a country it is, Aunt!" said Mrs. Newt, looking at Fanny with a kind of admiration. "How the young people take every thing into their own hands! Dear me! dear me! how they do rule us!"

Miss Newt made no observation, but took up a gayly-bound book from the table and looked carelessly into it. Mrs. Dagon rose to go. She had somewhat recovered her composure.

"Don't think I believed it, dear," said she to Fanny, in whom, perhaps, she recognized some of the family character. "No, no—not at all! I said to every body in the room that I didn't believe what Mrs. Kite said, that you were hugging Mr. Dinks in the waltz. I believe I spoke to every body I knew, and they all said they didn't believe it either."

"How kind it was of you, dear Aunt Dagon!" said Fanny, as she rose to salute her departing relative, "and how generous people were not to believe it! But I couldn't persuade them that that beautiful lace-edging on your dress was real Mechlin, although I tried very hard. They said it was natural in me to insist upon it, because I was your grand-niece; and it was no matter at all, because old ladies could do just as they pleased; but for all that it was not Mechlin. I must have told as many as thirty people that they were wrong. But people's eyes are so sharp—it's really dreadful. Good-morning, darling Aunt Dagon!"

"Fanny dear," said her mother, as the door closed upon Mrs. Dagon, who departed speechless and in what may be called a simmering state of mind, "Abel will be here in a day or two. I really hope to hear something about this Miss Wayne. Do you suppose Alfred Dinks is actually engaged to her?"

"How should I know, mother?"

"Why, my dear, you have been so intimate with him."

"My dear mother, how can any body be intimate with Alfred Dinks? You might as well talk of breathing in a vacuum."

"But, Fanny, he is a very good sort of young man—so respectable, and with such good manners, and he has a very pretty fortune—"

Mrs. Newt was interrupted by the servant, who announced Mr. Wetherley.

Poor Mr. Zephyr Wetherley! He was one of the rank and file of society—one of the privates, so to speak, who are mentioned in a mass after a ball, as common soldiers are mentioned after a battle. He entered the room and bowed. Mrs. Newt seeing that it was one of her daughter's visitors, left the room. Miss Fanny sat looking at the young man with her black eyes so calmly that she seemed to him to be sitting a great way off in a cool darkness. Miss Fanny was not fond of Mr. Wetherley, although she had seen plainly enough the indications of his feeling for her. This morning he was well gloved and booted. His costume was unexceptionable. Society of that day boasted few better-dressed men than Zephyr Wetherley. His judgment in a case of cravat was unerring. He had been in Europe, and was quoted when waistcoats were in debate. He had been very attentive to Mr. Alfred Dinks and Mr. Bowdoin Beacon, the two Boston youths who had been charming society during the season that was now over. He was even a little jealous of Mr. Dinks.

After Mrs. Newt had left the room Mr. Wetherley fell into confusion. He immediately embarked, of course, upon the weather; while Fanny, taking up a book, looked casually into it with a slight air of ennui.

"Have you read this?" said she to Mr. Wetherley.

"No, I suppose not; eh! what is it?" replied Zephyr, who was not a reading man.

"It is John Meal's 'Rachel Dyer.'"

"Oh, indeed! No, indeed. I have not read it!"

"What have you read, Mr. Wetherley?" inquired Fanny, glancing through the book which she held in her hand.

"Oh, indeed!—" he began. Then he seemed to undergo some internal spasm. He dropped his hat, slid his chair to the side of Fanny's, and said, "Ah, Miss Newt, how can you ask me at such a moment?"

Miss Fanny looked at him with a perfectly unruffled face.

"Why not at this moment, Mr. Wetherley?"

"Ah, Miss Newt, how can you when you know my feelings? Did you not carry my bouquet at the theatre last evening? Have you not long authorized me by your treatment to declare—"

"Stop, Mr. Wetherley," said Fanny, calmly. "The day is warm—let us be cool. Don't say any thing which you will regret to remember. Don't mistake any thing that I have done as an indication of—"

"Oh, Miss Newt," interrupted Zephyr, "how can you say such things? Hear me but one word. I assure you that I most deeply, tenderly, truly—"

"Mr. Wetherley," said Fanny, putting down the book and speaking very firmly, "I really can not sit still and hear you proceed. You are laboring under a great misapprehension. You must be aware that I have never in the slightest way given you occasion to believe that I—"

"I must speak!" burst in the impetuous Zephyr. "My feelings forbid silence! Great Heavens! Miss Newt, you really have no idea—I am sure you have no idea—you can not have any idea of the ardor with which for a long, long time I have—"

"Mr. Wetherley," said Fanny Newt, darker and cooler than ever, "it is useless to prolong this conversation. I can not consent to hear you declare that—"

"But you haven't heard me declare it," replied Zephyr, vehemently. "It's the very thing I am trying to do, and you won't let me. You keep cutting me off just as I am saying how I—"

"You need go no further, Sir," said Miss Newt, coldly, rising and standing by the table; while Zephyr Wetherley, red and hot and confused, crushed his handkerchief into a ball, and swept his hand through his hair, wagging his foot, and rubbing his fingers together. "I understand, Sir, what you wish to say, and I desire to tell you only—"

"Just what I don't want to hear! Oh dear me! Please, please, Miss Newt!" entreated Zephyr Wetherley.

"Mr. Wetherley," interrupted the other, imperiously, "you wish to ask me to marry you. I desire to spare you the pain of my answer to that question by preventing your asking it."

Mr. Wetherley was confounded. He wrinkled his brows doubtfully a moment—he stared at the floor and at Miss Newt—he looked foolish and mortified. "But—but—but—" stammered he. "Well—but—why—but—haven't you somehow answered the question?" inquired he, with gleams of doubtful intelligence shooting across his face.

Fanny Newt smiled icily.

"As you please," said she.

Poor Zephyr was bewildered.

"It is very confusing, somehow, Miss Newt, isn't it?" said he, wiping his face.

"Yes, Mr. Wetherley; one should always look before he leaps."

"Yes, yes; oh, indeed, yes. A man had better look out, or—"

"Or he'll catch a Tartar!" said a clear, strange voice.

Fanny Newt and Wetherley turned simultaneously toward the speaker. It was a young man, with clustering black hair and sparkling eyes, in a traveling dress. He stood in the back room, which he had entered through the conservatory.

"Abel!" said his sister, running toward him, and pulling him forward.

"Mr. Wetherley, this is my brother, Mr. Abel Newt."

The young men bowed.

"Oh, indeed!" said Zephyr. "How'd he come here listening?"

"Chance, chance, Mr. Wetherley. I have just returned from school. Pretty tough old school-boy, hey? Well, it's all the grandpa's doing. Grandpas are extraordinary beings, Mr. Wetherley. Now there was—"

"Oh, indeed! Really, I must go. Good-morning, Miss Newt. Good-morning, Sir." And Mr. Zephyr Wetherley departed.

The brother and sister laughed.

"Sensible fellow," said Abel; "he flies the grandpas."

"How did you come here, you wretch!" asked Fanny, "listening to my secrets?"

"My dear, I arrived this morning, only half an hour ago. I let myself in by my pass-key, and, hearing voices in the parlor, I went round by the conservatory to spy out the land. Then and there I beheld this spectacle. Fanny, you're wonderful."

Miss Newt made a demure courtesy.

"So you've really come home for good? Well, Abel, I'm glad. Now you're here I shall have a man of my own to attend me next winter. And there's to be the handsome Boston bride here, you know, next season."

"Who is she?" said Abel, laughing, sinking into a chair. "Mother wrote me you said that all Boston girls are dowdy. Who is the dowdy of next winter?"

"Mrs. Alfred Dinks," replied Fanny, carelessly, but looking with her keenest glance at Abel.

He, sprang up and began to say something; but his sister's eye arrested him.

"Oh yes," said he, hurriedly—"Dinks, I've heard about Alfred Dinks. What a devil of a name!"

"Come, dear, you'd better go up stairs and see mamma," said Fanny; "and I'm so sorry you missed Aunt Dagon. She was here this morning, lovely as ever. But I think the velvet is wearing off her claws."

Fanny Newt laughed a cold little laugh. Abel went out of the room.

"Master Abel, then, does know Miss Hope Wayne," said she to herself. "He more than knows her—he loves her—or thinks he does. Wouldn't he have known if she had been engaged to her cousin?"

She pondered a little while.

"I don't believe," thought Miss Fanny, "that she is engaged to him."

Miss Fanny was pleased with that thought, because she meant to be engaged to him herself, if it proved to be true, as every body declared, that he had ten or fifteen thousand a year.



CHAPTER XIV.

A NEW YORK MERCHANT.

Mr. Lawrence Newt, the brother of Boniface, sat in his office. It was upon South Street, and the windows looked out upon the shipping in the East River—upon the ferry-boats incessantly crossing—upon the lofty city of Brooklyn opposite, with its spires. He heard the sailors sing—the oaths of the stevedores—the bustle of the carts, and the hum and scuffle of the passers-by. As he sat at his table he saw the ships haul into the stream—the little steamers that puffed alongside bringing the passengers; then, if the wind were not fair, pulling and shoving the huge hulks into a space large enough for them to manage themselves in.

Sometimes he watched the parting of passengers at the wharf when the wind was fair, and the ship could sail from her berth. The vast sails were slowly unfurled, were shaken out, hung for a few moments, then shook lazily, then filled round and full with the gentle, steady wind. Mr. Lawrence Newt laughed as he watched, for he thought of fine ladies taking their hair out of curl-papers, and patting and smoothing and rolling it upon little sticks and over little fingers until the curls stood round and full, and ready for action.

Then the ship moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, from the wharf—so slowly, so imperceptibly, that the people on board thought the city was sliding away from them. The merchant saw the solid, trim, beautiful vessel turn her bow southward and outward, and glide gently down the river. Her hull was soon lost to his eyes, but he could see the streamer fluttering at the mast-head over the masts of the other vessels. While he looked it vanished—the ship was gone.

Often enough Mr. Lawrence Newt stood leaning his head against the window-frame of his office after the ship had disappeared, and seemed to be looking at the ferry-boats or at the lofty city of Brooklyn. But he saw neither. Faster than ship ever sailed, or wind blew, or light flashed, the thought of Lawrence Newt darted, and the merchant, seemingly leaning against his office-window in South Street, was really sitting under palm-trees, or dandling in a palanquin, or chatting in a strange tongue, or gazing in awe upon snowier summits than the villagers of Chamouni have ever seen.

And what was that dark little hand he seemed to himself to press?—and what were those eyes, soft depths of exquisite darkness, into which through his own eyes his soul seemed to be sinking?

There were clerks busily writing in the outer office. It was dark in that office when Mr. Newt first occupied the rooms, and Thomas Tray, the book-keeper, who had the lightest place, said that the eyes of Venables, the youngest clerk, were giving out. Young Venables, a lad of sixteen, supported a mother and sister and infirm father upon his five hundred dollars a year.

"Eyes giving out in my service, Thomas Tray! I am ashamed of myself."

And Lawrence Newt hired the adjoining office, knocked down all the walls, and introduced so much daylight that it shone not only into the eyes of young Venables, but into those of his mother and sister and infirm father.

It was scratch, scratch, scratch, all day long in the clerks' office. Messengers were coming and going. Samples were brought in. Draymen came for orders. Apple-women and pie-men dropped in about noon, and there were plenty of cheap apples and cheap jokes when the peddlers were young and pretty. Customers came and brother merchants, who went into Mr. Lawrence Newt's room. They talked China news, and South American news, and Mediterranean news. Their conversation was full of the names of places of which poems and histories have been written. The merchants joked complacent jokes. They gossiped a little when business had been discussed. So young Whitloe was really to marry Magot's daughter, and the Doolittle money would go to the Magots after all! And old Jacob Van Boozenberg had actually left off knee-breeches and white cravats, and none of his directors knew him when he came into the Bank in modern costume. And there was no doubt that Mrs. Dagon wore cotton lace at the Orrys', for Winslow's wife said she saw it with her own eyes.

Mr. Lawrence Newt's talk ceased with that about business. When the scandal set in, his mind seemed to set out. He stirred the fire if it were winter. He stepped into the outer office. He had a word for Venables. Had Miss Venables seen the new novel by Mr. Bulwer? It is called "Pelham," and will be amusing to read aloud in the family. Will Mr. Venables call at Carville's on his way up, have the book charged to Mr. Lawrence Newt, and present it, with Mr. Newt's compliments, to his sister? If it were summer he opened the window, when it happened to be closed, and stood by it, or drew his chair to it and looked at the ships and the streets, and listened to the sailors swearing when he might have heard merchants, worth two or three hundred thousand dollars apiece, talking about Mrs. Dagon's cotton lace.

One day he sat at his table writing letters. He was alone in the inner room; but the sun that morning did not see a row of pleasanter faces than were bending over large books in odoriferous red Russia binding, and little books in leather covers, and invoices and sheets of letter paper, in the outer office of Lawrence Newt.

A lad entered the office and stood at the door, impressed by the silent activity he beheld. He did not speak; the younger clerks looked up a moment, then went on with their work. It was clearly packet-day.

The lad remained silent for so long a time, as if his profound respect for the industry he saw before him would not allow him to speak, that Thomas Tray looked up at last, and said,

"Well, Sir?"

"May I see Mr. Newt, Sir?"

"In the other room," said Mr. Tray, with his goose-quill in his mouth, nodding his head toward the inner office, and turning over with both hands a solid mass of leaves in his great, odoriferous red Russia book, and letting them gently down—proud of being the author of that clearly-written, massive work, containing an accurate biography of Lawrence Newt's business.

The youth tapped at the glass door. Mr. Newt said, "Come in," and, when the door opened, looked up, and still holding his pen with the ink in it poised above the paper, he said, kindly, "Well, Sir? Be short. It's packet-day."

"I want a place, Sir."

"What kind of a place?"

"In a store, Sir."

"I'm sorry I'm all full. But sit down while I finish these letters; then we'll talk about it."



CHAPTER XV.

A SCHOOL-BOY NO LONGER.

The lad seated himself by the window. Scratch—scratch—scratch. The sun sparkled in the river. The sails, after yesterday's rain, were loosened to dry, and were white as if it had rained milk upon them instead of water. Every thing looked cheerful and bright from Lawrence Newt's window. The lad saw with delight how much sunshine there was in the office.

"I don't believe it would hurt my health to work here," thought he. Mr. Lawrence Newt rang a little bell. Venables entered quietly.

"Most ready out there?" asked Mr. Newt.

"Most ready, Sir."

"Brisk's the word this morning, you know. Please to copy these letters."

Venables said nothing, took the letters, and went out.

"Now, young man," said the merchant, "tell me what you want."

The lad's heart turned toward him like a fallow-field to the May sun.

"My father's been unfortunate, Sir, and I want to do something for myself. He advised me to come to you."

"Why?"

"Because he said you would give me good advice if you couldn't give me employment."

"Well, Sir, you seem a strong, likely lad. Have you ever been in a store?"

"No, Sir. I left school last week."

Mr. Newt looked out of the window.

"Your father's been unfortunate?"

"Yes, Sir."

"How's that? Has he told a lie, or lost his eyes, or his health, or has his daughter married a drunkard?" asked Mr. Lawrence Newt, looking at the lad with a kindly humor in his eyes.

"Oh no, Sir," replied the boy, surprised. "He's lost his money."

"Oh ho! his money! And it is the loss of money which you call 'unfortunate.' Now, my boy, think a moment. Is there any thing belonging to your father which he could so well spare? Has he any superfluous boy or girl? any useless arm or leg? any unnecessary good temper or honesty? any taste for books, or pictures, or the country, that he would part with? Is there any thing which he owns that it would not be a greater misfortune to him to lose than his money? Honor bright, my boy. If you think there is, say so!"

The youth smiled.

"Well, Sir, I suppose worse things could happen to us than poverty," said he.

Mr. Lawrence Newt interrupted him by remarks which were belied by his beaming face.

"Worse things than poverty! Why, my boy, what are you thinking of? Do you not know that it is written in the largest efforts upon the hearts of all Americans, 'Resist poverty, and it will flee from you?' If you do not begin by considering poverty the root of all evil, where on earth do you expect to end? Cease to be poor, learn to be rich. I'm afraid you don't read the good book. So your father has health"—the boy nodded—"and a whole body, a good temper, an affectionate family, generous and refined tastes, pleasant relations with others, a warm heart, a clear conscience"—the boy nodded with an increasing enthusiasm of assent—"and yet you call him unfortunate—ruined! Why, look here, my son; there's an old apple-woman at the corner of Burling Slip, where I stop every day and buy apples; she's sixty years old, and through thick and thin, under a dripping wreck of an umbrella when it rains, under the sky when it shines—warming herself by a foot-stove in winter, by the sun in summer—there the old creature sits. She has an old, sick, querulous husband at home, who tries to beat her. Her daughters are all out at service—let us hope, in kind families—her sons are dull, ignorant men; her home is solitary and forlorn; she can not read much, nor does she want to; she is coughing her life away, and succeeds in selling apples enough to pay her rent and buy food for her old man and herself. She told me yesterday that she was a most fortunate woman. What does the word mean? I give it up."

The lad looked around the spacious office, on every table and desk and chair of which was written Prosperity as plainly as the name of Lawrence Newt upon the little tin sign by the door. Except for the singular magnetism of the merchant's presence, which dissipated such a suggestion as rapidly as it rose, the youth would have said aloud what was in his heart.

"How easy 'tis for a rich man to smile at poverty!"

The man watched the boy, and knew exactly what he was thinking. As the eyes of the younger involuntarily glanced about the office and presently returned to the merchant, they found the merchant's gazing so keenly that they seemed to be mere windows through which his soul was looking. But the keen earnestness melted imperceptibly into the usual sweetness as Lawrence Newt said,

"You think I can talk prettily about misfortune because I know nothing about it. You make a great mistake. No man, even in jest, can talk well of what he doesn't understand. So don't misunderstand me. I am rich, but I am not fortunate."

He said it in the same tone as before.

"If you wanted a rose and got only a butter-cup, should you think yourself fortunate?" asked Mr. Newt.

"Why, yes, Sir. A man can't expect to have every thing precisely as he wants it," replied the boy.

"My young friend, you are of opinion that a half loaf is better than no bread. True—so am I. But never make the mistake of supposing a half to be the whole. Content is a good thing. When the man sent for cake, and said, 'John, if you can't get cake, get smelts,' he did wisely. But smelts are not cake for all that. What's your name?" asked Mr. Newt, abruptly.

"Gabriel Bennet," replied the boy.

"Bennet—Bennet—what Bennet?"

"I don't know, Sir."

Lawrence Newt was apparently satisfied with this answer. He only said:

"Well, my son, you do wisely to say at once you don't know, instead of going back to somebody a few centuries ago, of whose father you have to make the same answer. The Newts, however, you must be aware, are a very old family." The merchant smiled. "They came into England with the Normans; but who they came into Normandy with I don't know. Do you?"

Gabriel laughed, with a pleasant feeling of confidence in his companion.

"Have you been at school in the city?" asked the merchant.

Gabriel told him that he had been at Mr. Gray's.

"Oh ho! then you know my nephew Abel?"

"Yes, Sir," replied Gabriel, coloring.

"Abel is a smart boy," said Mr. Newt.

Gabriel made no reply.

"Do you like Abel?"

Gabriel paused a moment; then said,

"No, Sir."

The merchant looked at the boy for a few moments.

"Who did you like at school?"

"Oh, I liked Jim Greenidge and Little Malacca best,", replied Gabriel, as if the whole world must be familiar with those names.

At the mention of the latter Lawrence Newt looked interested, and, after talking a little more, said,

"Gabriel, I take you into my office."

He called Mr. Tray.

"Thomas Tray, this is the youngest clerk, Gabriel Bennet. Gabriel, this is the head of the outer office, Mr. Thomas Tray. Thomas, ask Venables to step this way."

That young man appeared immediately.

"Mr. Venables, you are promoted. You have seven hundred dollars a year, and are no longer youngest clerk. Gabriel Bennet, this is Frank Venables. Be friends. Now go to work."

There was a general bowing, and Thomas Tray and the two young men retired.

As they went out Mr. Newt opened a letter which had been brought in from the Post during the interview.

"DEAR SIR,—I trust you will pardon this intrusion. It is a long time since I have had the honor of writing to you; but I thought you would wish to know that Miss Wayne will be in New York, for the first time, within a day or two after you receive this letter. She is with her aunt, Mrs. Dinks, who will stay at Bunker's.

"Respectfully yours,

"JANE SIMCOE."

Lawrence Newt's head drooped as he sat. Presently he arose and walked up and down the office.

Meanwhile Gabriel was installed. That ceremony consisted of offering him a high stool with a leathern seat. Mr. Tray remarked that he should have a drawer in the high desk, on both sides of which the clerks were seated. The installation was completed by Mr. Tray's formally introducing the new-comer to the older clerks.

The scratching began again. Gabriel looked curiously upon the work in which he was now to share. The young men had no words for him. Mr. Newt was engaged within. The boy had a vague feeling that he must shift for himself—that every body was busy—that play in this life had ended and work begun. The thought tasted to him much more like smelts than cake. And while he was wisely left by Thomas Tray to familiarize himself with the entire novelty of the situation his mind flashed back to Delafield with an aching longing, and the boy would willingly have put his face in his hands and wept. But he sat quietly looking at his companions—until Mr. Tray said,

"Gabriel, I want you to copy this invoice."

And Gabriel was a school-boy no longer.



CHAPTER XVI.

PHILOSOPHY.

Abel Newt believed in his lucky star. He had managed Uncle Savory—couldn't he manage the world?

"My son," said Mr. Boniface Newt, "you are now about to begin the world." (Begin? thought Abel.) "You are now coming into my house as a merchant. In this world we must do the best we can. It is a great pity that men are not considerate, and all that. But they are not. They are selfish. You must take them as you find them. You, my son, think they are all honest and good."—Do I? quoth son, in his soul.—"It is the bitter task of experience to undeceive youth from its romantic dreams. As a rule, Abel, men are rascals; that is to say, they pursue their own interests. How sad! True; how sad! Where was I? Oh! men are scamps—with some exceptions; but you must go by the rule. Life is a scrub-race—melancholy, Abel, but true. I talk plainly to you, but I do it for your good. If we were all angels, things would be different. If this were the Millennium, every thing would doubtless be agreeable to every body. But it is not—how very sad! True, how very sad! Where was I? Oh! it's all devil take the hindmost. And because your neighbors are dishonest, why should you starve? You see, Abel?"

It was in Mr. Boniface Newt's counting-room that he preached this gospel. A boy entered and announced that Mr. Hadley was outside looking at some cases of dry goods.

"Now, Abel," said his father, "I'll return in a moment."

He stepped out, smiling and rubbing his hands. Mr. Hadley was stooping over a case of calicoes; Blackstone, Hadley, & Merrimack—no safer purchasers in the world. The countenance of Boniface Newt beamed upon the customer as if he saw good notes at six months exuding from every part of his person.

"Good-morning, Mr. Hadley. Charming morning, Sir—beautiful day, Sir. What's the word this morning, Sir?"

"Nothing, nothing," returned the customer. "Pretty print that. Just what I've been looking for" (renewed rubbing of hands on the part of Mr. Newt)—"very pretty. If it's the right width, it's just the thing. Let me see—that's about seven-eighths." He shook his head negatively. "No, not wide enough. If that print were a yard wide, I should take all you have."

"Oh, that's a yard," replied Mr. Newt; "certainly a full yard." He looked around inquiringly, as if for a yard-stick.

"Where is the yard-stick?" asked Mr. Hadley.

"Timothy!" said Mr. Newt to the boy, with a peculiar look.

The boy disappeared and reappeared with a yard-stick, while Mr. Newt's face underwent a series of expressions of subdued anger and disgust.

"Now, then," said Mr. Hadley, laying the yard-stick upon the calicoes; "yes, as I thought, seven-eighths; too narrow—sorry."

There were thirty cases of those goods in the loft. Boniface Newt groaned in soul. The unconscious small boy, who had not understood the peculiar look, and had brought the yard-stick, stood by.

"Mr. Newt," said Hadley, stopping at another case, "that is very handsome."

"Very, very; and that is the last case."

"You have no other cases?"

"No."

"Oh! well, send it round at once; for I am sure—"

"Mr. Newt," said the unconscious boy, smiling with the satisfaction of one who is able to correct an error, "you are mistaken, Sir. There are a dozen more cases just like that up stairs."

"Ah! then I don't care about it," said Mr. Hadley, passing on. The head of the large commission-house of Boniface Newt & Co. looked upon the point of apoplexy.

"Good-morning, Mr. Newt; sorry that I see nothing farther," said Mr. Hadley, and he went out.

Mr. Newt turned fiercely to the unconscious boy.

"What do you mean, Sir, by saying and doing such things?" asked he, sharply.

"What things, Sir?" demanded the appalled boy.

"Why, getting the yard-stick when I winked to you not to find it, and telling of other cases when I said that one was the last."

"Why, Sir, because it wasn't the last," said the boy.

"For business purposes it was the last, Sir," replied Mr. Newt. "You don't know the first principles of business. The tongue is always the mischief-maker. Hold your tongue, Sir, hold your tongue, or you'll lose your place, Sir."

Mr. Boniface Newt, ruffled and red, went into his office, where he found Abel reading the newspaper and smoking a cigar. The clerks outside were pale at the audacity, of Newt, Jun. The young man was dressed extremely well. He had improved the few weeks of his residence in the city by visits to Frost the tailor, in Maiden Lane; and had sent his measure to Forr, the bootmaker in Paris, artists who turned out the prettiest figures that decorated the Broadway of those days. Mr. Abel Newt, to his father's eyes, had the air of a man of superb leisure; and as he sat reading the paper, with one leg thrown over the arm of the office-chair, and the smoke languidly curling from his lips, Mr. Boniface Newt felt profoundly, but vaguely, uncomfortable, as if he had some slight prescience of a future of indolence for the hope of the house of Newt.

As his father entered, Mr. Abel dropped by his side the hand still holding the newspaper, and, without removing the cigar, said, through the cloud of smoke he blew,

"Father, you were imparting your philosophy of life."

The older gentleman, somewhat discomposed, answered,

"Yes, I was saying what a pity it is that men are such d——d rascals, because they force every body else to be so too. But what can you do? It's all very fine to talk, but we've got to live. I sha'n't be such an ass as to run into the street and say, 'I gave ten cents a yard for those goods, but you must pay me twenty.' Not at all. It's other men's business to find that out if they can. It's a great game, business is, and the smartest chap wins. Every body knows we are going to get the largest price we can. People are gouging, and shinning, and sucking all round. It's give and take. I am not here to look out for other men, I'm here to take care of myself—for nobody else will. It's very sad, I know; it's very sad, indeed. It's absolutely melancholy. Ah, yes! where was I? Oh! I was saying that a lie well stuck to is better than the truth wavering. It's perfectly dreadful, my son, from some points of view—Christianity, for instance. But what on earth are you going to do? The only happy people are the rich people, for they don't have this eternal bother how to make money. Don't misunderstand me, my son; I do not say that you must always tell stories. Heaven forbid! But a man is not bound always to tell the whole truth. The very law itself says that no man need give evidence against himself. Besides, business is no worse than every other calling. Do you suppose a lawyer never defends a man whom he knows to be guilty? He says he does it to give the culprit a fair trial. Fiddle-de-dee! He strains every nerve to get the man off. A lawyer is hired to take the side of a company or a corporation in every quarrel. He's paid by the year or by the case. He probably stops to consider whether his company is right, doesn't he? he works for justice, not for victory? Oh, yes! stuff! He works for fees. What's the meaning of a retainer? That if, upon examination, the lawyer finds the retaining party to be in the right, he will undertake the case? Fiddle! no! but that he will undertake the case any how and fight it through. So 'tis all round. I wish I was rich, and I'd be out of it."

Mr. Boniface Newt discoursed warmly; Mr. Abel Newt listened with extreme coolness. He whiffed his cigar, and leaned his head on one side as he hearkened to the wisdom of experience; observing that his father put his practice into words and called it philosophy.



CHAPTER XVII.

OF GIRLS AND FLOWERS.

Mr. Abel Newt was not a philosopher; he was a man of action.

He told his mother that he could not accompany her to the Springs, because he must prepare himself to enter the counting-room of his father. But the evening before she left, Mrs. Newt gave a little party for Mrs. Plumer, of New Orleans. So Miss Grace, of whom his mother had written Abel, and who was just about leaving school, left school and entered society, simultaneously, by taking leave of Madame de Feuille and making her courtesy at Mrs. Boniface Newt's.

Madame de Feuille's was a "finishing" school. An extreme polish was given to young ladies by Madame de Feuille. By her generous system they were fitted to be wives of men of even the largest fortune. There was not one of her pupils who would not have been equal to the addresses of a millionaire. It is the profound conviction of all who were familiar with that seminary that the pupils would not have shrunk from marrying a crown-prince, or any king in any country who confined himself to Christian wedlock with one wife, or even the son of an English duke—so perfect was the polish, so liberal the education.

Mrs. Newt's party was select. Mrs. Plumer, Miss Grace Plumer and the Magots, with Mellish Whitloe, of course; and Mrs. Osborne Moultrie, a lovely woman from Georgia, and her son Sligo, a slim, graceful gentleman, with fair hair and eyes; Dr. and Mrs. Lush, Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Maundy, who came only upon the express understanding that there was to be no dancing, and a few other agreeable people. It was a Summer party, Abel said—mere low-necked muslin, strawberries and ice-cream.

The eyes of the strangers of the gentler sex soon discovered the dark, rich face of Abel, who moved among the groups with the grace and ease of an accomplished man of society, smiling brightly upon his friends, bowing gravely to those of his mother's guests whom he did not personally know.

"Who is that?" asked Mrs. Whetwood Tully, who had recently returned with her daughter, one of Madame de Feuille's finest successes, from a foreign tour.

"That is my brother Abel," replied Miss Fanny.

"Your brother Abel? how charming! How very like he is to Viscount Tattersalls. You've not been in England, I believe, Miss Newt?"

Fanny bowed negatively.

"Ah! then you have never seen Lord Tattersalls. He is a very superior young man. We were very intimate with him indeed. Dolly, dear!"

"Yes, ma."

"You remember our particular friend Lord Viscount Tattersalls?"

"Was he a bishop?" asked Miss Fanny Newt.

"Law! no, my dear. He was a—he was a—why, he was a Viscount, you know—a Viscount."

"Oh! a Viscount?"

"Yes, a Viscount."

"Ah! a Viscount."

"Well, Dolly dear, do you see how much Mr. Abel Newt resembles Lord Tattersalls?"

"Yes, ma."

"It's very striking, isn't it?"

"Yes, ma."

"Or now I look, I think he is even more like the Marquis of Crockford. Don't you think so?"

"Yes, ma?"

"Very like indeed."

"Yes, ma."

"Dolly, dear, don't you think his nose is like the Duke of Wellington's? You remember the Wellington nose, my child?"

"Yes, ma."

"Or is it Lord Brougham's that I mean?"

"Yes, ma."

"Yes, dear."

"May I present my brother Abel, Miss Tally?" asked Fanny Newt.

"Yes, I'm sure," said Miss Tully.

Fanny Newt turned just as a song began in the other room, out of which opened the conservatory.

"Last May a braw wooer cam down the lang glen, And sair wi' his love he did deave me: I said there was naething I hated like men— The deuce gae wi'm to believe'me, believe me, The deuce gae wi'm to believe me."

The rooms were hushed as the merry song rang out. The voice of the singer was arch, and her eye flashed slyly on Abel Newt as she finished, and a murmur of pleasure rose around her.

Abel leaned upon the piano, with his eyes fixed upon the singer. He was fully conscious of the surprise he had betrayed to sister Fanny when she spoke suddenly of Mrs. Alfred Dinks. It was necessary to remove any suspicion that she might entertain in consequence. If Mr. Abel Newt had intentions in which Miss Hope Wayne was interested, was there any reason why Miss Fanny Newt should mingle in the matter?

As Miss Plumer finished the song Abel saw his sister coming toward him through the little crowd, although his eyes seemed to be constantly fixed upon the singer.

"How beautiful!" said he, ardently, in a low voice, looking Grace Plumer directly in the eyes.

"Yes, it is a pretty song."

"Oh! you mean the song?" said Abel.

The singer blushed, and took up a bunch of roses that she had laid upon the piano and began to play with them.

"How very warm it is!" said she.

"Yes," said Abel. "Let us take a turn in the conservatory—it is both darker and cooler; and I think your eyes will give light and warmth enough to our conversation."

"Dear me! if you depend upon me it will be the Arctic zone in the conservatory," said Miss Grace Plumer, as she rose from the piano. (Mrs. Newt had written Abel she was fourteen! She was seventeen in May.)

"No, no," said Abel, "we shall find the tropics in that conservatory."

"Then look out for storms!" replied Miss Plumer, laughing.

Abel offered his arm, and the young couple moved through the humming room. The arch eyes were cast down. The voice of the youth was very low.

He felt a touch, and turned. He knew very well who it was. It was his sister.

"Abel, I want to present you to Miss Whetwood Tully."

"My dear Fanny, I can not turn from roses to violets. Miss Tully, I am sure, is charming. I would go with you with all my heart if I could," said he, smiling and looking at Miss Plumer; "but, you see, all my heart is going here."

Grace Plumer blushed again. He was certainly a charming young man.

Fanny Newt, with lips parted, looked at him a moment and shook her head gently. Abel was sure she would happen to find herself in the conservatory presently, whither he and his companion slowly passed. It was prettily illuminated with a few candles, but was left purposely dim.

"How lovely it is here! Oh! how fond I am of flowers!" said Miss Plumer, with the prettiest little rapture, and such a little spring that Abel was obliged to hold her arm more closely.

"Are you fond of flowers, Mr. Newt?"

"Yes; but I prefer them living."

"Living flowers—what a poetic idea! But what do you mean?" asked Grace Plumer, hanging her head.

Abel saw somebody on the cane sofa under the great orange-tree, almost hidden in the shade. Dear Fanny! thought he.

"My dear Grace," began Abel, in his lowest, sweetest voice; but the conservatory was so still that the words could have been easily heard by any one sitting upon the sofa.

Some one was sitting there—some one did hear. Abel smiled in his heart, and bent more closely to his companion. His manner was full of tender devotion. He and Grace came nearer. Some one not only heard, but started. Abel raised his eyes smilingly to meet Fanny's. Somebody else started then; for under the great orange-tree, on the cane sofa, sat Lawrence Newt and Hope Wayne.



CHAPTER XVIII.

OLD FRIENDS AND NEW.

Lawrence Newt had called at Bunker's, and found Mrs. Dinks and Miss Hope Wayne. They were sitting at the window upon Broadway watching the promenaders along that famous thoroughfare; for thirty years ago the fashionable walk was between the Park and the Battery, and Bunker's was close to Morris Street, a little above the Bowling Green.

When Mr. Newt was announced Hope Wayne felt as if she were suffocating. She knew but one person of that name. Her aunt supposed it to be the husband of her friend, Mrs. Nancy Newt, whom she had seen upon a previous visit to New York this same summer. They both looked up and saw a gentleman they had never seen before. He bowed pleasantly, and said,

"Ladies, my name is Lawrence Newt."

There was a touch of quaintness in his manner, as in his dress.

"You will find the city quite deserted," said he. "But I have called with an invitation from my sister, Mrs. Boniface Newt, for this evening to a small party. She incloses her card, and begs you to waive the formality of a call."

That was the way that Lawrence Newt and Hope Wayne came to be sitting on the cane sofa under the great orange-tree in Boniface Newt's conservatory.

They had entered the room and made their bows to Mrs. Nancy; and Mr. Lawrence, wishing to talk to Miss Hope, had led her by another way to the conservatory, and so Mr. Abel had failed to see them.

As they sat under the tree Lawrence Newt conversed with Hope in a tone of earnest and respectful tenderness that touched her heart. She could not understand the winning kindliness of his manner, nor could she resist it. He spoke of her home with an accuracy of detail that surprised her.

"It was not the same house in my day, and you, perhaps, hardly remember much of the old one. The house is changed, but nothing else; no, nothing else," he added, musingly, and with the same dreamy expression in his eyes that was in them when he leaned against his office window and watched the ships—while his mind sailed swifter and farther than they.

"They can not touch the waving outline of the hills that you see from the lawn, nor the pine-trees that shade the windows. Does the little brook still flow in the meadow below? And do you understand the pine-trees? Do they tell any tales?"

He asked it with a half-mournful gayety. He asked as if he both longed and feared that she should say, "Yes, they have told me: I know all."

The murmurs of the singing came floating out to them as they sat. Hope was happy and trustful. She was in the house of Abel—she should see him—she should hear him! And this dear gentleman—not exactly like a father nor an uncle—well, yes, perhaps a young uncle—he is brother of Abel's mother, and he mysteriously knows so much about Pinewood, and his smiling voice has a tear in it as he speaks of old days. I love him already—I trust him entirely—I have found a friend.

"Shall we go in again?" said Lawrence Newt. But they saw some one approaching, and before they arose, while they were still silent, and Hope's heart was like the dawning summer heaven, she suddenly heard Abel Newt's words, and watched him, speechlessly, as he and his companion glided by her into the darkness. It was the vision of a moment; but in the attitude, the tone, the whole impression, Hope Wayne instinctively felt treachery.

"Yes, let us go in!" she said to Lawrence Newt, as she rose calmly.

Abel had passed. He could no more have stopped and shaken hands with Hope Wayne than he could have sung like a nightingale. He could not even raise his head erect as he went by—something very stern and very strong seemed to hold it down.

Miss Plumer's head was also bent; she was waiting to hear the end of that sentence. She thought society opened beautifully. Such a handsome fellow in such a romantic spot, beginning his compliments in such a low, rich voice, with his hair almost brushing hers. But he did not finish. Abel Newt was perfectly silent. He glided away with Grace Plumer into grateful gloom, and her ears, exquisitely apprehensive, caught from his lips not a word further.

Lawrence Newt rose as Hope requested, and they moved away. She found her aunt, and stood by her side. The young men were brought up and presented, and submitted their observations upon the weather, asked her how she liked New York—were delighted to hear that she would pass the next winter in the city—would show her then that New York had some claim to attention even from a Bostonian—were charmed, really, with Mr. Bowdoin Beacon and—and—Mr. Alfred Dinks; at mention of which name they looked in her face in the most gentlemanly manner to see the red result, as if the remark had been a blister, but they saw only an unconscious abstraction in her own thoughts, mingled with an air of attention to what they were saying.

"Miss Hope," said Lawrence Newt, who approached her with a young woman by his side, "I want you to know my friend Amy Waring."

The two girls looked at each other and bowed. Then they shook hands with a curious cordiality.

Amy Waring had dark eyes—not round and hard and black—not ebony eyes, but soft, sympathetic eyes, in which you expect to see images as lovely as the Eastern traveler sees when he remembers home and looks in the drop held in the palm of the hand of the magician's boy. They had the fresh, unworn, moist light of flowers early in June mornings, when they are full of sun and dew. And there was the same transparent, rich, pure darkness in her complexion. It was not swarthy, nor black, nor gloomy. It did not look half Indian, nor even olive. It was an illuminated shadow.

The two girls—they were women, rather—went together to a sofa and sat down. Hope Wayne's impulse was to lay her head upon her new friend's shoulder and cry; for Hope was prostrated by the unexpected vision of Abel, as a strong man is unnerved by sudden physical pain. She felt the overwhelming grief of a child, and longed to give way to it utterly.

"I am glad to know you, Miss Wayne!" said Amy Waring, in a cordial, cheerful voice, with a pleasant smile.

Hope bowed, and thanked her.

"I find that Mr. Newt's friends always prove to be mine," continued Amy.

"I am glad of it; but I don't know why I am his friend," said Hope. "I never saw him until to-day. He must have lived in Delafield. Do you know how that is?"

She found conversation a great relief, and longed to give way to a kind of proud, indignant volubility.

"No; but he seems to have lived every where, to have seen every thing, and to have known every body. A very useful acquaintance, I assure you!" said Amy, smiling.

"Is he married?" asked Hope.

There was the least little blush upon Amy's cheek as she heard this question; but so slight, that if any body had thought he observed it, he would have looked again and said, "No, I was mistaken," Perhaps, too, there was the least little fluttering of a heart otherwise unconscious. But words are like breezes that blow hither and thither, and the leaves upon the most secluded trees in the very inmost covert of the wood may sometimes feel a breath, and stir with responsive music before they are aware.

Amy Waring replied, pleasantly, that he was not married. Hope Wayne said, "What a pity!" Amy smiled, and asked,

"Why a pity?"

"Because such a man would be so happy if he were married, and would make others so happy! He has been in love, you may be sure."

"Yes," replied Amy; "I have no doubt of that. We don't see men of forty, or so, who have not been touched—"

"By what?" asked Lawrence Newt, who had come up silently, and now stood beside her.

"Yes, by what?" interposed Miss Fanny, who had been very busy during the whole evening, trying to get into her hands the threads of the various interests that she saw flying and streaming all around her. She had seen Mr. Alfred Dinks devoted to Miss Wayne, and was therefore confirmed in her belief that they were engaged. She had seen Abel flirting with Grace, and was therefore satisfied that he cared nothing about her. She had done the best she could with Alfred Dinks, but was extremely dissatisfied with her best; and, seeing Hope and Amy together, she had been hovering about them for a long time, anxious to overhear or to join in.

"Really," said Amy, looking up with a smile, "I was making a very innocent remark."

"Perfectly innocent, I'm sure!" replied Fanny, in her sweetest manner. It was such a different sweetness from Amy Waring's, that Hope turned and looked very curiously at Miss Fanny.

"There are few men of forty who have not been in love," said Amy, calmly. "That is what I was saying."

As there was only one man of forty, or near that age, in the little group, the appeal was evidently to him. Lawrence Newt looked at the three girls, with the swimming light in his eyes, half crushing them and smiling, so that every one of them felt, each in her own way, that they were as completely blinded by that smile as by a glare of sunlight—which also, like that smile, is warm, and not treacherous.

They could not see beyond the words, nor hope to.

"Miss Amy is right, as usual," said he.

"Why, Uncle Lawrence, tell us all about it!" said Fanny, with a hard, black smile in her eyes.

Uncle Lawrence was not in the slightest degree abashed.

"Fanny," said he, "I will speak to you in a parable. Remember, to you. There was a farmer whose neighbor built a curious tower upon his land. It was upon a hill, in a grove. The structure rose slowly, but public curiosity rose with fearful rapidity. The gossips gossiped about it in the public houses. Rumors of it stole up to the city, and down came reporters and special correspondents to describe it with an unctuous eloquence and picturesque splendor of style known only to them. The builder held his tongue, dear Fanny. The workmen speculated upon the subject, but their speculations were no more valuable than those of other people. They received private bribes to tell; and all the great newspapers announced that, at an enormous expense, they had secured the exclusive intelligence, and the exclusive intelligence was always wrong. The country was in commotion, dear Fanny, about a simple tower that a man was building upon his land. But the wonder of wonders, and the exasperation of exasperations, was, that the farmer whose estate adjoined never so much as spoke of the tower—was never known to have asked about it—and, indeed, it was not clear that he knew of the building of any tower within a hundred miles of him. Of course, my dearest Fanny, a self-respecting Public Sentiment could not stand that. It was insulting to the public, which manifested so profound an interest in the tower, that the immediate neighbor should preserve so strict a silence, and such a perfectly tranquil mind. There are but two theories possible in regard to that man, said the self-respecting Public Sentiment: he is either a fool or a knave—probably a little of each. In any case he must be dealt with. So Public Sentiment accosted the farmer, and asked him if he were not aware that a mysterious tower was going up close to him, and that the public curiosity was sadly exercised about it? He replied that he was blessed with tolerable eyesight, and had seen the tower from the very first stone upward. Tell us, then, all about it! shrieked Public Sentiment. Ask the builder, if you want to know, said the farmer. But he won't tell us, and we want you to tell us, because we know that you must have asked him. Now what, in the name of pity!—what is that tower for? I have never asked, replies the farmer. Never asked? shrieked Public Sentiment. Never, retorted Rusticus. And why, in the name of Heaven, have you never asked? cried the crowd. Because, said the farmer—"

Lawrence Newt looked at his auditors. "Are you listening, dear Fanny?"

"Yes, Uncle Lawrence."

"—because it's none of my business."

Lawrence Newt smiled; so did all the rest, including Fanny, who remarked that he might have told her in fewer words that she was impertinent.

"Yes, Fanny; but sometimes words help us to remember things. It is a great point gained when we have learned to hoe the potatoes in our own fields, and not vex our souls about our neighbor's towers."

Hope Wayne was not in the least abstracted. She was nervously alive to every thing that was said and done; and listened with a smile to Lawrence Newt's parable, liking him more and more.

The general restless distraction that precedes the breaking up of a party had now set in. People were moving, and rustling, and breaking off the ends of conversation. They began to go. A few said good-evening, and had had such a charming time! The rest gradually followed, until there was a universal departure. Grace Plumer was leaning upon Sligo Moultrie's arm. But where was Abel?

Hope Wayne's eyes looked every where. But her only glimpse of him during the evening had been that glimmering, dreadful moment in the conservatory. There he had remained ever since. There he still stood gazing through the door into the drawing-room, seeing but not seen—his mind a wild whirl of thoughts.

"What a fool I am!" thought Abel, bitterly. He was steadily asking himself, "Have—I—lost—Hope Wayne—before—I—had—won—her?"



CHAPTER XIX.

DOG-DAYS.

The great city roared, and steamed, and smoked. Along the hot, glaring streets by the river a few panting people hurried, clinging to the house wall for a thin strip of shade, too narrow even to cover their feet. All the windows of the stores were open, and within the offices, with a little thinking, a little turn of the pen, and a little tracing in ink, men were magically warding off impending disaster, or adding thousands to the thousands accumulated already—men, too, were writing without thinking, mechanically copying or posting, scribbling letters of form, with heads clear or heads aching, with hearts burning or cold; full of ambition and hope, or vaguely remembering country hill-sides and summer rambles—a day's fishing—a night's frolic—Sunday-school—singing-school, and the girl with the chip hat garlanded with sweet-brier; hearts longing and loving, regretting, hoping, and remembering, and all the while the faces above them calm and smooth, and the hands below them busily doing their part of the great work of the world.

In Wall Street there was restless running about. Men in white clothes and straw-hats darted in at doors, darted out of doors—carrying little books, and boxes, and bundles in their hands, nodding to each other as they passed, but all infected with the same fever; with brows half-wrinkled or tied up in hopeless seams of perplexity; with muttering pale lips, or lips round and red, and clearly the lips of clerks who had no great stakes at issue—a general rushing and hurrying as if every body were haunted by the fear of arriving too late every where, and losing all possible chances in every direction.

Within doors there were cool bank parlors and insurance offices, with long rows of comely clerks writing in those Russia red books which Thomas Tray loved—or wetting their fingers on little sponges in little glass dishes and counting whole fortunes in bank-notes—or perched high on office-stools eating apples—while Presidents and Directors, with shiny bald pates and bewigged heads, some heroically with permanent spectacles and others coyly and weakly with eye-glasses held in the hand, sat perusing the papers, telling the news, and gossiping about engagements, and marriages, and family rumors, and secrets with the air of practical men of the world, with no nonsense, no fanaticism, no fol-de-rol of any kind about them, but who profoundly believed the Burt theory that wives and daughters were a more sacred kind of property than sheep pastures, or even than the most satisfactory bond and mortgage.

They talked politics, these banking and insurance gentlemen, with vigor and warmth. "What on earth does, this General Jackson mean, Sir? Is he going to lay the axe at the very roots of our national prosperity? What the deuce does a frontier soldier know about banking?"

They talked about Morgan who had been found in Lake Ontario; and the younger clerks took their turn at it, and furiously denied among themselves that Washington was a Mason. The younger clerks held every Mason responsible for the reported murder. Then they turned pale lest their neighbors were Masons, and might cause them to be found drowned off the Battery. The older men shook their heads.

Murders—did you speak of murders, Mr. Van Boozenberg? Why, this is a dreadful business in Salem! Old Mr. White murdered in his bed! The most awful thing on record. Terrible stories are told, Sir, about respectable people! It's getting to be dangerous to be rich. What are we coming to? What can you expect, Sir, with Fanny Wright disseminating her infidel sentiments, and the work-people buying The Friend of Equal Human Rights? Equal human fiddle-sticks, Mr. Van Boozenberg!

To which remarks from the mouths of many Directors that eminent officer nodded his head, and looked so wise that it was very remarkable so many foolish transactions took place under his administration.

And in all the streets of the great city, in all the lofty workshops and yards and factories, huge hammers smote and clashed, and men, naked to the waist, reeking in dingy interiors, bent like gnomes at their tasks, while saws creaked, wheels turned, planes and mallets, and chisels shoved and cut and struck; and down in damp cellars sallow ghastly men and women wove rag-carpets, and twisted baskets in the midst of litters of puny, pale children, with bleared eyes, and sore heads, and dirty faces, tumbling, playing, shouting, whimpering—scampering after the pigs that came rooting and nosing in the liquid filth that simmered and stank to heaven in the gutters at the top of the stairs; and the houses above the heads of the ghastly men and women were swarming rookeries, hot and close and bare, with window-panes broken, and hats, and coats, and rags stuffed in, and men with bloodshot eyes and desperate faces sitting dogged with their hats on, staring at nothing, or leaning on their ragged elbows on broken tables, scowling from between their dirty hands at the world and the future; while in higher rooms sat solitary girls in hard wooden chairs, a pile of straw covered with a rug in the corner, and a box to put a change of linen in, driving the needle silently and ceaselessly through shirts or coats or trowsers, stooping over in the foul air during the heat of the day, straining their eyes when the day darkened to save a candle, hearing the roar and the rush and the murmur far away, mingled in the distance, as if they were dead and buried in their graves, and dreaming a horrid dream until the resurrection.

Only sometimes an acute withering pain, as if something or somebody were sewing the sewer and pierced her with a needle sharp and burning, made the room swim and the straw in the corner glimmer; and the girl dropped the work and closed her eyes—the cheeks were black and hollow beneath them—and she gasped and panted, and leaned back, while the roar went on, and the hot sun glared, and the neighboring church clock, striking the hour, seemed to beat on her heart as it smote relentlessly the girl's returning consciousness. Then she took up the work again, and the needle, with whose little point in pain and sickness and consuming solitude, in darkness, desolation, and flickering, fainting faith, she pricked back death and dishonor.

At neighboring corners were the reefs upon which human health, hope, and happiness lay stranded, broken up and gone to pieces. Bloated faces glowered through the open doors—their humanity sunk away into mere bestiality. Human forms—men no longer—lay on benches, hung over chairs, babbled, maundered, shrieked or wept aloud; while women came in and took black bottles from under tattered shawls, and said nothing, but put down a piece of money; and the man behind the counter said nothing, but took the money and filled the bottles, which were hidden under the tattered shawl again, and the speechless phantoms glided out, guarding that little travesty of modesty even in that wild ruin.

In shops beyond, yards of tape, and papers of pins, and boots and shoes and bread, and all the multitudinous things that are bought and sold every minute, were being done up in papers by complaisant, or surly, or conceited, or well-behaved clerks; and in all the large and little houses of the city, in all the spacious and narrow streets, there were women cooking, washing, sweeping, scouring, rubbing, lifting, carrying, sewing, reading, sleeping—tens and twenties and fifties and hundreds and thousands of men, women, and children. More than two hundred thousand of them were toiling, suffering, struggling, enjoying, dreaming, despairing on a summer day, doing their share of the world's work. The eye was full of the city's activity; the ear was tired with its noise; the heart was sick with the thought of it; the streets and houses swarmed with people, but the world was out of town. There was nobody at home.

In the mighty stream, of which men and women are the waves, that poured ceaselessly along its channels, friends met surprised—touched each other's hands.

"Came in this morning—off to-night—droll it looks—nobody in town—"

And the tumultuous throng bore them apart.

In the evening the Park Theatre is jammed to hear Mr. Forrest, who made his first appearance in Philadelphia nine or ten years ago, and is already a New York favorite. Contoit's garden flutters with the cool dresses of the promenaders, who move about between the arbors looking for friends and awaiting ices. The click of billiard balls is heard in the glittering cafe at the corner of Reade Street, and a gay company smokes and sips at the Washington Hotel. Life bursts from every door, from every window, but there is nobody in town.

More than two hundred thousand men, women, and children go to their beds and wake up to the morrow, but there is nobody in town. Nobody in town, because Mrs. Boniface Newt & Co. have gone to Saratoga—no cathedral left, because some plastering has tumbled off an upper stone—no forest left, because a few leaves have whirled away. Nobody in town, because Mrs. Boniface Newt & Co. have gone to Saratoga, and are doing their part of the world's work there.

Mr. Alfred Dinks, Mr. Zephyr Wetherley, and Mr. Bowdoin Beacon, were slowly sauntering down Broadway, when, they were overtaken and passed by a young woman walking rapidly for so warm a morning.

There was an immense explosion of adjectives expressing surprise when the three young, gentlemen discovered that the young lady who was passing them was Miss Amy Waring.

"Why, Miss Waring!" cried they, simultaneously.

She bowed and smiled. They lifted their hats.

"You in town!" said Mr. Beacon.

"In town?" echoed Mr. Dinks.

"Town?" murmured Mr. Wetherley.

"Town," said Miss Waring, with her eyes sparkling.

"Where did you come from? I thought you were all at Saratoga," she continued.

"It's stupid there," said Mr. Beacon.

"Quite stupid," echoed Mr. Dinks.

"Stupid," murmured Mr. Wetherley.

"Stupid?" asked the lady, this time making the interrogation in the antistrophe of the chant.

"We wanted a little fun."

"A little fun."

"Fun," replied the gentlemen.

"Well, I'm going about my business," said she. "Good-morning."

"About your business?"

"Your business?"

"Business?" murmured the youths, in order. Zephyr concluding.

"Business!" said Miss Amy, bursting into a little laugh, in which the listless, perfectly good-humored youths cheerfully joined.

"It's dreadful hot," said Mr. Beacon.

"Oh! horrid!" said Mr. Dinks.

"Very," said Zephyr. And the gentlemen wiped their foreheads.

"Coming to Saratoga, Miss Waring?" they asked.

"Hardly, I think, but possibly," said she, and moved away, with her little basket; while the gentlemen, swearing at the heat, the dust, and the smells, sauntered on, asseverated that Amy Waring was an odd sort of girl; and finally went in to the Washington Hotel, where each lolled back in an armchair, with the white duck legs reposing in another—excepting Mr. Dinks, who poised his boots upon the window-sill that commanded Broadway; and so, comforted with a cigar in the mouth, and a glass of iced port-wine sangaree in the hand, the three young gentlemen labored through the hot hours until dinner.

Amy Waring walked quite as rapidly as the heat would permit. She crossed the Park, and, striking into Fulton Street, continued toward the river, but turned into Water Street. The old peach-women at the corners, sitting under huge cotton umbrellas, and parching in the heat, saw the lovely face going by, and marked the peculiarly earnest step, which the sitters in the streets, and consequent sharp students of faces and feet, easily enough recognized as the step of one who was bound upon some especial errand. Clerks looked idly at her from open shop doors, and from windows above; and when she entered the marine region of Water Street, the heavy stores and large houses, which here and there were covered with a dull grime, as if the squalor within had exuded through the dingy red bricks, seemed to glare at her unkindly, and sullenly ask why youth, and beauty, and cleanly modesty should insult with sweet contrast that sordid gloom.

The heat only made it worse. Half-naked children played in the foul gutters with the pigs, which roamed freely at large, and comfortably at home in the purlieus of the docks and the quarter of poverty. Carts jostled by with hogsheads, and boxes, and bales; the red-faced carmen, furious with their horses, or smoking pipes whose odor did not sweeten the air, staring, with rude, curious eyes, at the lady making her way among the casks and bales upon the sidewalks. There was nothing that could possibly cheer the eye or ear, or heart or imagination, in any part of the street—not even the haggard faces, thin with want, rusty with exposure, and dull with drink, that listlessly looked down upon her from the windows of lodging-houses.

The door of one of these was open, and Amy Waring went in. She passed rapidly through the desolate entry and up the dirty stairs with the broken railing—stairs that creaked under her light step. At a room upon the back of the house, in the third story, she stopped and tapped at the door. A voice cried, "Who's there?" The girl answered, "Amy," and the door was immediately unlocked.



CHAPTER XX.

AUNT MARTHA.

The room was clean. There was a rag carpet on the floor; a pine bureau neatly varnished; a half dozen plain but whole chairs; a bedstead, upon which the bedding was scrupulously neat; a pine table, upon which lay a much-thumbed leather-bound family Bible and a few religious books; and between the windows, over the bureau, hung a common engraving of Christ upon the Cross. The windows themselves looked upon the back of the stores on South Street. Upon the floor was a large basket full of work, with which the occupant of the room was evidently engaged. The whole room had an air of severity and cheerlessness, yet it was clear that every thing was most carefully arranged, and continually swept and washed and dusted.

The person who had opened the door was a woman of nearly forty. She was dressed entirely in black. She had not so much as a single spot of white any where about her. She had even a black silk handkerchief twisted about her head in the way that negro women twine gay cloths; and such was her expression that it seemed as if her face, and her heart, and her soul, and all that she felt, or hoped, or remembered, or imagined, were clad and steeped in the same mourning garments and utter gloom.

"Good-morning, Amy," said she, in a hard and dry, but not unkind voice. In fact, the rigidity of her aspect, the hardness of her voice, and the singular blackness of her costume, seemed to be too monotonously uniform and resolute not to indicate something willful or unhealthy in the woman's condition, as if the whole had been rather superinduced than naturally developed.

"Aunt Martha, I have brought you some things that I hope you will find comforting and agreeable."

The young woman glanced around the desolately regular and forbidding room, and sighed. The other took the basket and stepped to a closet, but paused as she opened it, and turning to Amy, said, in the same dry, hopeless manner,

"This bounty is too good for a sinner; and yet it would be the unpardonable sin for so great a sinner to end her own life willfully."

The solemn woman put the contents of the basket into the closet; but it seemed as if, in that gloom, the sugar must have already lost its sweetness and the tea its flavor.

Amy still glanced round the room, and her eyes filled with tears.

"Dear Aunt Martha, when may I tell?" she asked, with piteous earnestness.

"Amy, would you thwart God? He is too merciful already. I almost fear that to tolerate your sympathy and kindness is a sore offense in me. Think what a worm I am! How utterly foul and rank with sin!"

She spoke with clasped hands lying before her in her lap, in the same hard tone as if the words were cut in ebony; with the same fixed lips—the same pale, unsmiling severity of face; above which the abundant hair, streaked with early gray, was almost entirely lost in the black handkerchief.

"But surely God is good!" said Amy, tenderly and sadly. "If we sin, He only asks us to repent and be forgiven."

"But we must pay the penalty, Amy," said the other. "There is a price set upon every sin; and mine is so vast, so enormous—"

She paused a moment, as if overwhelmed by the contemplation of it; then, in the same tone, she continued: "You, Amy, can not even conceive how dreadful it is. You know what it is, but not how bad it is."

She was silent again, and her soul appeared to wrap itself in denser gloom. The air of the room seemed to Amy stifling. The next moment she felt as if she were pierced with sharp spears of ice. She sprang up:

"I shall smother!" said she; and opened the window.

"Aunt Martha, I begin to feel that this is really wicked! If you only knew Lawrence Newt—"

The older woman raised one thin finger, without lifting the hand from her lap. Implacable darkness seemed to Amy to be settling upon her too.

"At least, aunt, let me have you moved to some less horrid place."

"Foulness and filth are too sweet and fair for me," said the dark woman; "and I have been too long idle already."

She lifted the work and began to sew. Amy's heart ached as she looked at her, with sympathy for her suffering and a sense of inability to help her.

There came a violent knock at the door.

"Who's there?" asked Aunt Martha, calmly.

"Come, come; open this door, and let's see what's going on!" cried a loud, coarse voice.

"Who is it?"

"Who is it? Why, it's me—Joseph!" replied the voice.

Aunt Martha rose and unlocked the door. A man whose face was like his voice bustled noisily into the room, with a cigar in his mouth and his hat on.

"Come, come; where's that work? Time's up! Quick, quick! No time, no pay!"

"It is not quite done, Mr. Joseph."

The man stared at Aunt Martha for a moment; then laughed in a jeering way.

"Old lady Black, when you undertake to do a piece of work what d'ye mean by not having it done? Damn it, there's a little too much of the lady about you! Show me that work!" and he seated himself.

The woman brought the basket to him, in the bottom of which were several pieces completed and carefully folded. The man turned them over rapidly.

"And why, in the devil's name, haven't you done the rest? Give 'em here!"

He took the whole, finished and unfinished, and, bundling them up, made for the door. "No time, no pay, old lady; that's the rule. That's the only way to work such infernally jimmy old bodies as you!"

The sewing woman remained perfectly passive as Mr. Joseph was passing out; but Amy sprang forward from the window:

"Stop, Sir!" said she, firmly. The man involuntarily turned, and such was his overwhelming surprise at seeing a lady suddenly standing before him, and a lady who spoke with perfect authority, that, with the instinct of obsequiousness instinctive in every man who depends upon the favor of customers, he took off his hat.

"If you take that work without paying for it you shall be made to pay," said Amy, quietly, her eyes flashing, and her figure firm and erect.

The man hesitated for a moment.

"Oh yes, ma'am, oh certainly, ma'am! Pay for it, of course, ma'am! 'Twas only to frighten the woman, ma'am; oh certainly, certainly—oh! yes, ma'am, pay for it, of course."

"At once," said Amy, without moving.

"Certainly, ma'am; here's the money," and Mr. Joseph counted it out upon the pine table.

"And you'd better leave the rest to be done at once."

"I'll do so, ma'am," said the man, putting down the bundle.

"And remember that if you ever harm this woman by a word or look, even," added Amy, bending her head toward her aunt, "you will repent it bitterly."

The man stared at her and fumbled with his hat. The cigar had dropped upon the floor. Amy pointed to it, and said, "Now go."

Mr. Joseph stooped, picked up the stump, and departed. Amy felt weak. Her aunt stood by her, and said, calmly,

"It was only part of my punishment."

Amy's eyes flashed.

"Yes, aunt; and if any body should break into your room and steal every thing you have and throw you out of the window, or break your bones and leave you here to die of starvation, I suppose you would think it all part of your punishment."

"It would be no more than I deserve, Amy."

"Aunt Martha," replied Amy, "if you don't take care you will force me to break my promise to you."

"Amy, to do that would be to bring needless disgrace upon your mother and all her family and friends. They have considered me dead for nearly sixteen years. They have long ago shed the last tear of regret for one whom they believed to be as pure as you are now. Why should you take her to them from the tomb, living still, but a loathsome mass of sin? I am equal to my destiny. The curse is great, but I will bear it alone; and the curse of God will fall upon you if you betray me."

Amy was startled by the intensity with which these words were uttered. There was no movement of the hands or head upon the part of the older woman. She stood erect by the table, and, as her words grew stronger, the gloom of her appearance appeared to intensify itself, as a thunder-cloud grows imperceptibly blacker and blacker.

When she stopped, Amy made no reply; but, troubled and uneasy, she drew a chair to the window and sat down. The older woman took up her work again. Amy was lost in thought, wondering what she could do. She saw nothing as she looked down into the dirty yards of the houses; but after some time, forgetting, in the abstraction of her meditation, where she was, she was suddenly aware of the movement of some white object; and looking curiously to see what it was, discovered Lawrence Newt gazing up at her from the back window of his store, and waving his handkerchief to attract her attention.

As she saw the kindly face she smiled and shook her hand. There was a motion of inquiry: "Shall I come round?" And a very resolute telegraphing by the head back again: "No, no!" There was another question, in the language of shoulders, and handkerchief, and hands: "What on earth are you doing up there?" The answer was prompt and intelligible: "Nothing that I am ashamed of." Still there came another message of motion from below, which Amy, knowing Lawrence Newt, unconsciously interpreted to herself thus: "I know you, angel of mercy! You have brought some angelic soup to some poor woman." The only reply was a smile that shone down from the window into the heart of the merchant who stood below. The smile was followed by a wave of the hand from above that said farewell. Lawrence Newt looked up and kissed his own, but the smiling face was gone.



CHAPTER XXI.

THE CAMPAIGN.

Miss Fanny Newt went to Saratoga with a perfectly clear idea of what she intended to do. She intended to be engaged to Mr. Alfred Dinks.

That young gentleman was a second cousin of Hope Wayne's, and his mother had never objected to his little visits at Pinewood, when both he and Hope were young, and when the unsophisticated human heart is flexible as melted wax, and receives impressions which only harden with time.

"Let the children play together, my dear," she said, in conjugal seclusion to her husband, the Hon. Budlong Dinks, who needed only sufficient capacity and a proper opportunity to have been one of the most distinguished of American diplomatists. He thought he was such already. There was, indeed, plenty of diplomacy in the family, and that most skillful of all diplomatic talents, the management of distinguished diplomatists, was not unknown there.

Fanny Newt had made the proper inquiries. The result was that there were rumors—"How do such stories start?" asked Mrs. Budlong Dinks of all her friends who were likely to repeat the rumor—that it was a family understanding that Mr. Alfred Dinks and his cousin Hope were to make a match. "And they do say," said Mrs. Dinks, "what ridiculous things people are! and they do say that, for family reasons, we are going to keep it all quiet! What a world it is!"

The next day Mrs. Cod told Mrs. Dod, in a morning call, that Mrs. Budlong Dinks said that the engagement between her son Alfred and his cousin Hope Wayne was kept quiet for family reasons. Before sunset of that day society was keeping it quiet with the utmost diligence.

These little stories were brought by little birds to New York, so that when Mrs. Dinks arrived the air was full of hints and suggestions, and the name of Hope Wayne was not unknown. Farther acquaintance with Mr. Alfred Dinks had revealed to Miss Fanny that there was a certain wealthy ancestor still living, in whom the Dinkses had an interest, and that the only participant with them in that interest was Miss Hope Wayne. That was enough for Miss Fanny, whose instinct at once assured her that Mrs. Dinks designed Hope Wayne for her son Alfred, in order that the fortune should be retained in the family.

Miss Fanny having settled this, and upon farther acquaintance with Mr. Dinks having discovered that she might as well undertake the matrimonial management of him as of any other man, and that the Burt fortune would probably descend, in part at least, to the youth Alfred, she decided that the youth Alfred must marry her.

But how should Hope Wayne be disposed of? Fanny reflected.

She lived in Delafield. Brother Abel, now nearly nineteen—not a childish youth—not unhandsome—not too modest—lived also in Delafield. Had he ever met Hope Wayne?