By skillful correspondence, alluding to the solitude of the country, et cetera, and his natural wish for society, and what pleasant people were there in Delafield, Fanny had drawn her lines around Abel to carry the fact of his acquaintance, if possible, by pure strategy.

In reply, Abel wrote about many things—about Mrs. Kingo and Miss Broadbraid—the Sutlers and Grabeaus—he praised the peaceful tone of rural society, and begged Fanny to beware of city dissipation; but not a word of old Burt and Hope Wayne.

Sister Fanny wrote again in the most confiding manner. Brother Abel replied in a letter of beautiful sentiments and a quotation from Dr. Peewee.

He overdid it a little, as we sometimes do in this world. We appear so intensely unconscious that it is perfectly evident we know that somebody is looking at us. So Fanny, knowing that Christopher Burt was the richest man in the village, and lived in a beautiful place, and that his lovely grand-daughter lived with him constantly, with which information in detail Alfred Dinks supplied her, and perceiving from Abel's letter that he was not a recluse, but knew the society of the village, arrived very naturally and easily at the conclusion that brother Abel did know Hope Wayne, and was in love with her. She inferred the latter from the fact that she had long ago decided that brother Abel would not fall in love with any poor girl, and therefore she was sure that if he were in the immediate neighborhood of a lady at once young, beautiful, of good family and very rich, he would be immediately in love—very much in love.

To make every thing sure, Abel had not been at home half an hour before Fanny's well-directed allusion to Hope as the future Mrs. Dinks had caused her brother to indicate an interest which revealed every thing.

"If now," pondered Miss Fanny, "somebody who shall be nameless becomes Mrs. Alfred Dinks, and the nameless somebody's brother marries Miss Hope Wayne, what becomes of the Burt property?"

She went, therefore, to Saratoga in great spirits, and with an unusual wardrobe. The opposing general, Field-marshal Mrs. Budlong Dinks, had certainly the advantage of position, for Hope Wayne was of her immediate party, and she could devise as many opportunities as she chose for bringing Mr. Alfred and his cousin together. She did not lose her chances. There were little parties for bowling in the morning, and early walking, and Fanny was invited very often, but sometimes omitted, as if to indicate that she was not an essential part of the composition. There was music in the parlor before dinner, and working of purses and bags before the dressing-bell. There was the dinner itself, and the promenade, with music, afterward. Drives, then, and riding; the glowing return at sunset—the cheerful cup of tea—the reappearance, in delightful toilet, for the evening dance—windows—balconies—piazzas—moonlight!

Every time that Fanny, warm with the dance, declared that she must have fresh air, and that was every time she danced with Alfred, she withdrew, attended by him, to the cool, dim piazza, and every time Mrs. Dinks beheld the departure. On the cool, dim piazza the music sounded more faintly, the quiet moonlight filled the air, and life seemed all romance and festival.

"How beautiful after the hot room!" Fanny said, one evening as they sat there.

"Yes, how beautiful!" replied Alfred.

"How happy I feel!" sighed Fanny. "Ever since I have been here I have been so happy!"

"Have you been happy? So I have been happy too. How very funny!" replied Alfred.

"Yes; but pleasant too. Sympathy is always pleasant." And Fanny turned her large black eyes upon him, while the young Dinks was perplexed by a singular feeling of happiness.

They were content to moralize upon sympathy for some time. Alfred was fascinated, and a little afraid. Fanny moved her Junonine shoulders, bent her swan-like neck, drew off one glove and played with her rings, fanned herself gently at intervals, and, with just enough embarrassment not to frighten her companion, opened and closed her fan.

"What a fine fellow Bowdoin Beacon is!" said Miss Fanny, a little suddenly, and in a tone of suppressed admiration, as she drew on her glove and laid her fan in her lap, as if on the point of departure.

"Yes, he's a very good sort of fellow."

"How cold you men always are in speaking of each other! I think him a splendid fellow. He's so handsome. He has such glorious dark hair—almost as dark as yours, Mr. Dinks."

Alfred half raged, half smiled.

"Do you know," continued Fanny, looking down a little, and speaking a little lower—"do you know if he has any particular favorites among the girls here?"

Alfred was dreadfully alarmed.

"If he has, how happy they must be! I think him a magnificent sort of man; but not precisely the kind I should think a girl would fall in love with. Should you?"

"No," replied Alfred, mollified and bewildered. He rallied in a moment. "What sort of man do girls fall in love with, Miss Fanny?"

Fanny Newt was perfectly silent. She looked down upon the floor of the piazza, fixing her eyes upon a pine-knot, patiently waiting, and wondering which way the grain of the wood ran.

The silence continued. Every moment Alfred was conscious of an increasing nervousness. There were the Junonine shoulders—the neck—the downcast eyes—moonlight—the softened music.

"Why don't you answer?" asked he, at length.

Fanny bent her head nearer to him, and dropped these words into his waistcoat:

"How good you are! I am so happy!"

"What on earth have I done?" was the perplexed, and pleased, and ridiculous reply.

"Mr. Dinks, how could I answer the question you asked without betraying—?"

"What?" inquired Alfred, earnestly.

"Without betraying what sort of man I love," breathed Fanny, in the lowest possible tone, which could be also perfectly distinct, and with her head apparently upon the point of dropping after her words into his waistcoat.

"Well?" said Dinks.

"Well, I can not do that, but I will make a bargain with you. If you will say what sort of girl you would love, I will answer your question."

Fanny dreaded to hear a description of Hope Wayne. But Alfred's mind was resolved. The foolish youth answered with his heart in his mouth, and barely whispering,

"If you will look in your glass to-night, you will see."

The next moment Fanny's head had fallen into the waistcoat—Alfred Dinks's arms were embracing her. He perceived the perfume from her abundant hair. He was frightened, and excited, and pleased.

"Dear Alfred!"

"Dear Fanny!"

"Come Hope, dear, it is very late," said Mrs. Dinks in the ball-room, alarmed at the long absence of Fanny and Alfred, and resolved to investigate the reason of it.

The lovers heard the voice, and were sitting quietly just a little apart, as Mrs. Dinks and her retinue came out.

"Aren't you afraid of taking cold, Miss Newt?" inquired Alfred's mother.

"Oh not at all, thank you, I am very warm. But you are very wise to go in, and I shall join you. Good-night, Mr. Dinks." As she rose, she whispered—"After breakfast."

The ladies rustled along the piazza in the moonlight. Alfred, flushed and nervous and happy, sauntered into the bar-room, lit a cigar, and drank some brandy and water.

Meanwhile the Honorable Budlong Dinks sat in an armchair at the other end of the piazza with several other honorable gentlemen—Major Scuppernong from Carolina, Colonel le Fay from Louisiana, Captain Lamb from Pennsylvania, General Arcularius Belch of New York, besides Captain Jones, General Smith, Major Brown, Colonel Johnson, from other States, and several honorable members of Congress, including, and chief of all, the Honorable B.J. Ele, a leading statesman from New York, with whom Mr. Dinks passed as much time as possible, and who was the chief oracle of the wise men in armchairs who came to the springs to drink the waters, to humor their wives and daughters in their foolish freaks for fashion and frivolity, and who smiled loftily upon the gay young people who amused themselves with setting up ten-pins and knocking them down, while the wise men devoted themselves to talking politics and showing each other, from day to day, the only way in which the country could be made great and glorious, and fulfill its destiny.

"I am not so clear about General Jackson's policy," said the Honorable Budlong Dinks, with the cautious wisdom of a statesman.

"Well, Sir, I am clear enough about it," replied Major Scuppernong. "It will ruin this country just as sure as that," and the Major with great dexterity directed a stream of saliva which fell with unerring precision upon the small stone in the gravel walk at which it was evidently aimed.

The Honorable Budlong Dinks watched the result of the illustration with deep interest, and shook his head gravely when he saw that the stone was thoroughly drenched by the salivary cascade. He seemed to feel the force of the argument. But he was not in a position to commit himself.

"Now, I think," said the Honorable B.J. Ele, "that it is the only thing that can save the country."

"Ah! you do," said the Honorable B. Dinks.

And so they kept it up day after day, pausing in the intervals to smile at the ardor with which the women played their foolish game of gossip and match-making.

When Mrs. Dinks withdrew from her idle employments to the invigorating air of the Honorable B.'s society, he tapped her cheek sometimes with his finger—as he had read great men occasionally did when they were with their wives in moments of relaxation from intellectual toil—asked her what would become of the world if it were given up to women, and by his manner refreshed her consciousness of the honor under which she labored in being Mrs. Budlong Dinks.

The weaker vessel smiled consciously, as if he very well knew that was the one particular thing which under no conceivable circumstances could she forget.

"Budlong, I really think Alfred ought to keep a horse."

"My dear!" replied the Honorable B., in a tone of mingled reproach, amusement, contempt, and surprise.

"Oh! I know we can't afford it. But it would be so pleasant if he could drive out his cousin Hope, as so many of the other young men do. People get so well acquainted in that way. Have you observed that Bowdoin Beacon is a great deal with her? How glad Mrs. Beacon would be!" Mrs. Dinks took off her cap, and was unpinning her collar, without in the least pressing her request. Not at all. His word was enough. She had evidently yielded the point. The horse was out of the question.

Now the state of the country did not so entirely engross her husband's mind, that he had not seen all the advantage of Hope's marrying Alfred.

"It is a pleasant thing for a young man to have his own horse. My dear, I will see what can be done," said he.

Then the diplomatist untied his cravat as if he had been undoing the parchment of a great treaty. He fell asleep in the midst of rehearsing the speech which he meant to make upon occasion of his presentation as foreign minister somewhere; while his beloved partner lay by his side, and resolved that Alfred Dinks must immediately secure Hope Wayne before Fanny Newt secured Alfred Dinks.



CHAPTER XXII.

THE FINE ARTS.

The whole world of Saratoga congratulated Mrs. Dinks upon her beautiful niece, Miss Wayne. Even old Mrs. Dagon said to every body:

"How lovely she is! And to think she comes from Boston! Where did she get her style? Fanny dear, I saw you hugging—I beg your pardon, I mean waltzing with Mr. Dinks."

But when Hope Wayne danced there seemed to be nobody else moving. She filled the hall with grace, and the heart of the spectator with an indefinable longing. She carried strings of bouquets. She made men happy by asking them to hold some of her flowers while she danced; and then, when she returned to take them, the gentlemen were steeped in such a gush of sunny smiling that they stood bowing and grinning—even the wisest—but felt as if the soft gush pushed them back a little; for the beauty which, allured them defended her like a fiery halo.

It was understood that she was engaged to Mr. Alfred Dinks, her cousin, who was already, or was to be, very rich. But there was apparently nothing very marked in his devotion.

"It is so much better taste for young people who are engaged not to make love in public," said Mrs. Dinks, as she sat in grand conclave of mammas and elderly ladies, who all understood her to mean her son and niece, and entirely agreed with her.

Meanwhile all the gentlemen who could find one of her moments disengaged were walking, bowling, driving, riding, chatting, sitting, with Miss Wayne. She smiled upon all, and sat apart in her smiling. Some foolish young fellows tried to flirt with her. When they had fully developed their intentions she smiled full in their faces, not insultingly nor familiarly, but with a soft superiority. The foolish young fellows went down to light their cigars and drink their brandy and water, feeling as if their faces had been rubbed upon an iceberg, for not less lofty and pure were their thoughts of her, and not less burning was their sense of her superb scorn.

But Arthur Merlin, the painter, who had come to pass a few days at Saratoga on his way to Lake George, and whose few days had expanded into the few weeks that Miss Wayne had been there—Arthur Merlin, the painter, whose eyes were accustomed not only to look, but to see, observed that Miss Wayne was constantly doing something. It was dance, drive, bowl, ride, walk incessantly. From the earliest hour to the latest she was in the midst of people and excitement. She gave herself scarcely time to sleep.

The painter was introduced to her, and became one of her habitual attendants. Every morning after breakfast Hope Wayne held a kind of court upon the piazza. All the young men surrounded her and worshipped.

Arthur Merlin was intelligent and ingenuous. His imagination gave a kind of airy grace to his conversation and manner. Passionately interested in his art, he deserted its pursuit a little only when the observation of life around him seemed to him a study as interesting. He and Miss Wayne were sometimes alone together; but although she was conscious of a peculiar sympathy with his tastes and character, she avoided him more than any of the other young men. Mrs. Dagon said it was a pity Miss Wayne was so cold and haughty to the poor painter. She thought that people might be taught their places without cruelty.

Arthur Merlin constantly said to himself in a friendly way that if he had been less in love with his art, or had not perceived that Miss Wayne had a continual reserved thought, he might have fallen in love with her. As it was, he liked her so much that he cared for the society of no other lady. He read Byron with her sometimes when they went in little parties to the lake, and somehow he and Hope found themselves alone under the trees in a secluded spot, and the book open in his hand.

He also read to her one day a poem upon a cloud, so beautiful that Hope Wayne's cheek flushed, and she asked, eagerly,

"Whose is that?"

"It is one of Shelley's, a friend of Byron's."

"But how different!"

"Yes, they were different men. Listen to this."

And the young man read the ode to a Sky-lark.

"How joyous it is!" said Hope; "but I feel the sadness."

"Yes, I often feel that in people as well as in poems," replied Arthur, looking at her closely.

She colored a little—said that it was warm—and rose to go.

The cold black eyes of Miss Fanny Newt suddenly glittered upon them.

"Will you go home with us, Miss Wayne?"

"Thank you, I am just coming;" and Hope passed into the wood.

When Arthur Merlin was left alone he quietly lighted a cigar, opened his port-folio and spread it before him, then sharpened a pencil and began to sketch. But while he looked at the tree before him, and mechanically transferred it to the paper, he puffed and meditated.

He saw that Hope Wayne was constantly with other people, and yet he felt that she was a woman who would naturally like her own society. He also saw that there was no person then at Saratoga in whom she had such an interest that she would prefer him to her own society.

And yet she was always seeking the distraction of other people.

Puff—puff—puff.

Then there was something that made the society of her own thoughts unpleasant—almost intolerable.

Mr. Arthur Merlin vigorously rubbed out with a piece of stale bread a false line he had drawn.

What is that something—or some-bod-y?

He stopped sketching, and puffed for a long time.

As he returned at sunset Hope Wayne was standing upon the piazza of the hotel.

"Have you been successful?" asked she, dawning upon him.

"You shall judge."

He showed her his sketch of a tree-stump.

"Good; but a little careless," she said.

"Do you draw, Miss Wayne?"

A curious light glimmered across her face, for she remembered where she had last heard those words. She shrank a little, almost imperceptibly, as if her eyes had been suddenly dazzled. Then a little more distantly—not much more, but Arthur had remarked every thing—she said:

"Yes, I draw a little. Good-evening."

"Stop, please, Miss Wayne!" exclaimed Arthur, as he saw that she was going. She turned and smiled—a smile that seemed to him like starlight, it was so clear and cool and dim.

"I have drawn this for you, Miss Wayne."

She bent and took the sketch which he drew from his port-folio.

"It is Manfred in the Coliseum," said he.

She glanced at it; but the smile faded entirely. Arthur stared at her in astonishment as the blood slowly ebbed from her cheeks, then streamed back again. The head of Manfred was the head of Abel Newt. Hope Wayne looked from the sketch to the artist, searching him with her eye to discover if he knew what he was doing. Arthur was sincerely unconscious.

Hope Wayne dropped the paper almost involuntarily. It floated into the road.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Merlin," said she, making a step to recover it.

He was before her, and handed it to her again.

"Thank you," said she, quietly, and went in.

It was still twilight, and Arthur lighted a cigar and sat down to a meditation. The result of it was clear enough.

"That head looks like somebody, and that somebody is Hope Wayne's secret." Puff—puff—puff.

"Where did I get that head?" He could not remember. "Tut!" cried he, suddenly bringing his chair down upon its legs with a force that knocked his cigar out of his mouth, "I copied it from a head which Jim Greenidge has, and which he says was one of his school-fellows."

Meanwhile Hope Wayne had carefully locked the door of her room. Then she hurriedly tore the sketch into the smallest possible pieces, laid them in her hand, opened the window, and whiffed them away into the dark.



CHAPTER XXIII.

BONIFACE NEWT, SON, AND CO., DRY GOODS ON COMMISSION.

Abel Newt smoked a great many cigars to enable him to see his position clearly.

When he told his mother that he could not accompany her to the Springs because he was about entering his father's counting-room, it was not so much because he was enamored of business as that his future relations with Hope were entirely doubtful, and he did not wish to complicate them by exposing himself to the chances of Saratoga.

"Business, of course, is the only career in this country, my son," said Boniface Newt. "What men want, and women too, is money. What is this city of New York? A combination of men and machines for making money. Every body respects a rich man. They may laugh at him behind his back. They may sneer at his ignorance and awkwardness, and all that sort of thing, but they respect his money. Now there's old Jacob Van Boozenberg. I say to you in strict confidence, my son, that there was never a greater fool than that man. He absolutely knows nothing at all. When he dies he will be no more missed in this world than an old dead stage-horse who is made into a manure heap. He is coarse, and vulgar, and mean. His daughter Kate married his clerk, young Tom Witchet—not a cent, you know, but five hundred dollars salary. 'Twas against the old man's will, and he shut his door, and his purse, and his heart. He turned Witchet away; told his daughter that she might lie in the bed she had made for herself; told Witchet that he was a rotten young swindler, and that, as he had married his daughter for her money, he'd be d——d if he wouldn't be up with him, and deuce of a cent should they get from him. They live I don't know where, nor how. Some of her old friends send her money—actually give five-dollar bills to old Jacob Van Boozenberg's daughter, somewhere over by the North River. Every body knows it, you know; but, for all that, we have to make bows to old Van B. Don't we want accommodations? Look here, Abel; if Jacob were not worth a million of dollars, he would be of less consequence than the old fellow who sells apples at the corner of his bank. But as it is, we all agree that he is a shrewd, sensible old fellow; rough in some of his ways—full of little prejudices—rather sharp; and as for Mrs. Tom Witchet, why, if girls will run away, and all that sort of thing, they must take the consequences, you know. Of course they must. Where should we be if every rich merchant's daughters were at the mercy of his clerks? I'm sorry for all this. It's sad, you know. It's positively melancholy. It troubles me. Ah, yes! where was I? Oh, I was saying that money is the respectable thing. And mark, Abel, if this were the Millennium, things would be very different. But it isn't the Millennium. It's give one and take two, if you can get it. That's what it is here; and let him who wants to, kick against the pricks."

Abel hung his legs over the arms of the office-chairs in the counting-room, and listened gravely.

"I don't suppose, Sir, that 'tis money as money that is worth having. It is only money as the representative of intelligence and refinement, of books, pictures, society—as a vast influence and means of charity; is it not, Sir?"

Upon which Mr. Abel Newt blew a prodigious cloud of smoke.

Mr. Boniface Newt responded, "Oh fiddle! that's all very fine. But my answer to that is Jacob Van Boozenberg."

"Bless my soul! here he comes. Abel put your legs down! throw that cigar away!"

The great man came in. His clothes were snuffy and baggy—so was his face.

"Good-mornin', Mr. Newt. Beautiful mornin'. I sez to ma this mornin', ma, sez I, I should like to go to the country to-day, sez I. Go 'long; pa! sez she. Werry well, sez I, I'll go 'long if you'll go too. Ma she laughed; she know'd I wasn't in earnest. She know'd 'twasn't only a joke."

Mr. Van Boozenberg drew out a large red bandana handkerchief, and blew his nose as if it had been a trumpet sounding a charge.

Messrs. Newt & Son smiled sympathetically. The junior partner observed, cheerfully,

"Yes, Sir."

The millionaire stared at the young man.

"Ma's going to Saratogy," remarked Mr. Van Boozenberg. "She said she wanted to go. Werry well, sez I, ma, go."

Messrs. Newt & Son smiled deferentially, and hoped Mrs. Van B. would enjoy herself.

"No, I ain't no fear of that," replied the millionaire.

"Mr. Van Boozenberg," said Boniface Newt, half-hesitatingly, "you were very kind to undertake that little favor—I—I—"

"Oh! yes, I come in to say I done that as you wanted. It's all right."

"And, Mr. Van Boozenberg, I am pleased to introduce to you my son Abel, who has just entered the house."

Abel rose and bowed.

"Have you been in the store?" asked the old gentleman.

"No, Sir, I've been at school."

"What! to school till now? Why, you must be twenty years old!" exclaimed Mr. Van Boozenberg, in great surprise.

"Yes, Sir, in my twentieth year."

"Why, Mr. Newt," said Mr. Van B., with the air of a man who is in entire perplexity, "what on earth has your boy been doing at school until now?"

"It was his grandfather's will, Sir," replied Boniface Newt.

"Well, well, a great pity! a werry great pity! Ma wanted one of our boys to go to college. Ma, sez I, what on earth should Corlaer go to college for? To get learnin', pa, sez ma. To get learnin'! sez I. I'll get him learnin', sez I, down to the store, Werry well, sez ma. Werry well, sez I, and so 'twas; and I think I done a good thing by him."

Mr. Van Boozenberg talked at much greater length of his general intercourse with ma. Mr. Boniface Newt regarded him more and more contemptuously.

But the familiar style of the old gentleman's conversation begot a corresponding familiarity upon the part of Mr. Newt. Mr. Van Boozenberg learned incidentally that Abel had never been in business before. He observed the fresh odor of cigars in the counting-room—he remarked the extreme elegance of Abel's attire, and the inferential tailor's bills. He learned that Mrs. Newt and the family were enjoying themselves at Saratoga. He derived from the conversation and his observation that there were very large family expenses to be met by Boniface Newt.

Meanwhile that gentleman had continually no other idea of his visitor than that he was insufferable. He had confessed to Abel that the old man was shrewd. His shrewdness was a proverb. But he is a dull, ignorant, ungrammatical, and ridiculous old ass for all that, thought Boniface Newt; and the said ass sitting in Boniface Newt's counting-room, and amusing and fatiguing Messrs. Newt & Son with his sez I's, and sez shes, and his mas, and his done its, was quietly making up his mind that the house of Newt & Son had received no accession of capital or strength by the entrance of the elegant Abel into a share of its active management, and that some slight whispers which he had heard remotely affecting the standing of the house must be remembered.

"A werry pretty store you have here, Mr. Newt. Find Pearl Street as good as Beaver?"

"Oh yes, Sir," replied Boniface Newt, bowing and rubbing his hands. "Call again, Sir; it's a rare pleasure to see you here, Mr. Van Boozenberg."

"Well, you know, ma, sez she, now pa you mustn't sit in draughts. It's so sort of draughty down town in your horrid offices, pa, sez she—sez ma, you know—that I'm awful 'fraid you'll catch your death, sez she, and I must mind ma, you know. Good-mornin', Mr. Newt, a werry good-mornin', Sir," said the old gentleman, as he stepped out.

"Do you have much of that sort of thing to undergo in business, father?" asked Abel, when Jacob Van Boozenberg had gone.

"My dear son," replied the older Mr. Newt, "the world is made up of fools, bores, and knaves. Some of them speak good grammar and use white cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, some do not. It's dreadful, I know, and I am rather tired of a world where you are busy driving donkeys with a chance of their presently driving you."

Mr. Boniface Newt shook his foot pettishly.

"Father," said Abel.

"Well."

"Which is Uncle Lawrence—a fool, a bore, or a knave?"

Mr. Boniface Newt's foot stopped, and, after looking at his son for a few moments, he answered:

"Abel, your Uncle Lawrence is a singular man. He's a sort of exception to general rules. I don't understand him, and he doesn't help me to. When he was a boy he went to India and lived there several years. He came home once and staid a little while, and then went back again, although I believe he was rich. It was mysterious, I never could quite understand it—though, of course, I believe there was some woman in it. Neither your mother nor I could ever find out much about it. By-and-by he came home again, and has been in business here ever since. He's a bachelor, you know, and his business is different from mine, and he has queer friends and tastes, so that I don't often see him except when he comes to the house, and that isn't very often."

"He's rich, isn't he?" asked Abel.

"Yes, he's very rich, and that's the curious part of it," answered his father, "and he gives away a great deal of money in what seems to me a very foolish way. He's a kind of dreamer—an impracticable man. He pays lots of poor people's rents, and I try to show him that he is merely encouraging idleness and crime. But I can't make him see it. He declares that, if a sewing-girl makes but two dollars a week and has a helpless mother and three small sisters to support besides rent and fuel, and so on, it's not encouraging idleness to help her with the rent. Well, I suppose it is hard sometimes with some of those people. But you've no right to go by particular cases in these matters. You ought to go by the general rule, as I constantly tell him. 'Yes,' says he, in that smiling way of his which does put me almost beside myself, 'yes, you shall go by the general rule, and let people starve; and I'll go by particular cases, and feed 'em.' Then he is just as rich as if he were an old flint like Van Boozenberg. Well, it is the funniest, foggiest sort of world. I swear I don't see into it at all—I give it all up. I only know one thing; that it's first in first win. And that's extremely sad, too, you know. Yes, very sad! Where was I? Ah yes! that we are all dirty scoundrels."

Abel had relighted his cigar, after Mr. Van Boozenberg's departure, and filled the office with smoke until the atmosphere resembled the fog in which his father seemed to be floundering.

"Abel, merchants ought not to smoke cigars in their counting-rooms," said his father, in a half-pettish way.

"No, I suppose not," replied Abel, lightly; "they ought to smoke other people. But tell me, father, do you know nothing about the woman that you say was mixed up with Uncle Lawrence's affairs?"

"Nothing at all"

"Not even her name?"

"Not a syllable."

"Pathetic and mysterious," rejoined Abel; "a case of unhappy love, I suppose."

"If it is so," said Mr. Newt, "your Uncle Lawrence is the happiest miserable man I ever knew."

"Well, there's a difference among men, you know, father. Some wear their miseries like an order in their button-holes. Some do as the Spartan boy did when the wolf bit him."

"How'd the Spartan boy do?" asked Mr. Newt.

"He covered it up, laughed, and dropped dead."

"Gracious!" said Mr. Boniface Newt.

"Or like Boccaccio's basil-pot," continued Abel, calmly; pouring forth smoke, while his befogged papa inquired,

"What on earth do you mean by Boccaccio's basil-pot?"

"Why, a girl's lover had his head cut off, and she put it in a flower-pot, and covered it up that way, and instead of laughing herself, set flowers to blooming over it."

"Goodness me, Abel, what are you talking about?"

"Of Love, the canker-worm, Sir," replied Abel, imperturbable, and emitting smoke.

It was evidently not the busy season in the Dry-goods Commission House of Boniface Newt & Son.

When Mr. Van Boozenberg went home to dinner, he said:

"Ma, you'd better improve this werry pleasant weather and start for Saratogy as soon as you can. Mr. Boniface Newt tells me his wife and family is there, and you'll find them werry pleasant folks. I jes' want you to write me all about 'em. You see, ma, one of our directors to-day sez to me, after board, sez he, 'The Boniface Newts is a going it slap-dash up to Saratogy.' I laughed, and sez I, 'Why shouldn't they? but I don't believe they be,' sez I. Sez he, 'I'll bet you a new shawl for your wife they be,' sez he. Sez I, 'Done.' So you see ma, if so be they be, werry well. A new shawl for some folks, you know; only jes' write me all about it."

Ma was not reluctant to depart at the earliest possible moment. Her son Corlaer, whose education had been intercepted by his father, was of opinion, when he heard that the Newts were at Saratoga, that his health imperatively required Congress water. But papa had other views.

"Corlaer, I wish you would make the acquaintance of young Mr. Newt. I done it to-day. He is a well-edicated young man; I shall ask him to dinner next Sunday. Don't be out of the way."

Jacob Van Boozenberg having dined, arose from the table, seated himself in a spacious easy-chair, and drawing forth the enormous red bandana, spread it over his head and face, and after a few muscular twitches, and a violent nodding of the head, which caused the drapery to fall off several times, finally propped the refractory head against the back of the chair, and bobbing and twitching no longer, dropped off into temporary oblivion.



CHAPTER XXIV.

"QUEEN AND HUNTRESS."

Hope Wayne leaned out of the window from which she had just scattered the fragments of the drawing Arthur Merlin had given her. The night was soft and calm, and trees, not far away, entirely veiled her from observation.

She thought how different this window was from that other one at home, also shaded by the trees; and what a different girl it was who looked from it. She recalled that romantic, musing, solitary girl of Pinewood, who lived alone with a silent, grave old nurse, and the quiet years that passed there like the shadows and sunlight over the lawn. She remembered the dark, handsome face that seemed to belong to the passionate poems that girl had read, and the wild dreams she had dreamed in the still, old garden. In the hush of the summer twilight she heard again the rich voice that seemed to that other girl of Pinewood sweeter than the music of the verses, and felt the penetrating glance, that had thrilled the heart of that girl until her red cheek was pale.

How well for that girl that the lips which made the music had never whispered love! Because—because—

Hope raised herself from lightly leaning on the window-sill as the thought flashed in her mind, and she stood erect, as if straightened by a sudden, sharp, almost insupportable pain—"because," she went on saying in her mind, "had they done so, that other romantic, solitary girl at Pinewood"—dear child! Hope's heart trembled for her—"might have confessed that she loved!"

Hope Wayne clenched her hands, and, all alone in her dim room, flushed, and then turned pale, and a kind of cold splendor settled on her face, so that if Arthur Merlin could have seen her he would have called her Diana.

During the moment in which she thought these things—for it was scarcely more—the little white bits of paper floated and fell beneath her. She watched them as they disappeared, conscious of them, but not thinking of them. They looked like rose-leaves, they were so pure; and how silently they sank into the darkness below!

And if she had confessed she loved, thought Hope, how would it be with that girl now? Might she not be standing in the twilight, watching her young hopes scattered like rose-leaves and disappearing in the dark?

She clasped her hands before her, and walked gently up and down the room. The full moon was rising, and the tender, tranquil light streamed through the trees into her chamber.

But, she thought, since she did not—since the young girl dreamed, perhaps only for a moment, perhaps so very vaguely, of what might have been—she has given nothing, she has lost nothing. There was a pleasant day which she remembers, far back in her childhood—oh! so pleasant! oh! so sunny, and flowery, and serene! A pleasant day, when something came that never comes—that never can come—but once.

She stopped by the window, and looked out to see if she could yet discover any signs of the scattered paper. She strained her eyes down toward the ground. But it was entirely dark there. All the light was above—all the light was peaceful and melancholy, from the moon.

She laid her face in that moonlight upon the window-sill, and covered it with her hands. The low wind shook the leaves, and the trees rustled softly as if they whispered to her. She heard them in her heart. She knew what they were saying. They sang to her of that other girl and her wishes, and struggles and prayers.

Then came the fierce, passionate, profuse weeping—the spring freshet of a woman's soul.

—She heard a low knock at the door. She remained perfectly silent. Another knock. Still she did not move.

The door was tried.

Hope Wayne raised her head, but said nothing.

There was a louder knock, and the voice of Fanny Newt:

"Miss Wayne, are you asleep? Please let me in."

It was useless to resist longer. Hope Wayne opened the door, and Fanny Newt entered. Hope sat down with her back to the window.

"I heard you come in," said Fanny, "and I did not hear you go out; so I knew you were still here. But I was afraid you would oversleep yourself, and miss the ball."

Hope replied that she had not been sleeping.

"Not sleeping, but sitting in the moonlight, all alone?" said Fanny. "How romantic!"

"Is it?"

"Yes, of course it is! Why, Mr. Dinks and I are romantic every evening. He will come and sit in the moonlight, and listen to the music. What an agreeable fellow he is!" And Fanny tried to see Hope's face, which was entirely hidden.

"He is my cousin, you know," replied Hope.

"Oh yes, we all know that; and a dangerous relationship it is too," said Fanny.

"How dangerous?"

"Why, cousins are such privileged people. They have all the intimacy of brothers, without the brotherly right of abusing us. In fact, a cousin is naturally half-way between a brother and a lover."

"Having neither brother nor lover," said Hope, quietly, "I stop half-way with the cousin."

Fanny laughed her cold little laugh. "And you mean to go on the other half, I suppose?" said she.

"Why do you suppose so?" asked Hope.

"It is generally understood, I believe," said Fanny, "that Mr. Alfred Dinks will soon lead to the hymeneal altar his beautiful and accomplished cousin, Miss Hope Wayne. At least, for further information inquire of Mrs. Budlong Dinks." And Fanny laughed again.

"I was not aware of the honor that awaited me," replied Hope.

"Oh no! of course not. The family reasons, I suppose—"

"My mind is as much in the dark as my body," said Hope. "I really do not see the point of the joke."

"Still you don't seem very much surprised at it."

"Why should I be? Every girl is at the mercy of tattlers."

"Exactly," said Fanny. "They've had me engaged to I don't know how many people. I suppose they'll doom Alfred Dinks to me next. You won't be jealous, will you?"

"No," said Hope, "I'll congratulate him."

Fanny Newt could not see Hope Wayne's face, and her voice betrayed nothing. She, in fact, knew no more than when she came in.

"Good-by, dear, a ce soir!" said she, as she sailed out of the room.

Hope lingered for some time at the window. Then she rang for candles, and sat down to write a letter.



CHAPTER XXV.

A STATESMAN—AND STATESWOMAN.

In the same twilight Mrs. Dinks and Alfred sat together in her room.

"Alfred, my dear, I see that Bowdoin Beacon drives out your Cousin Hope a good deal."

Mrs. Dinks arranged her cap-ribbon as if she were at present mainly interested in that portion of her dress.

"Yes, a good deal," replied Mr. Alfred, in an uncertain tone, for he always felt uncomfortably at the prospect of a conversation with his mother.

"I am surprised he should do so," continued Mrs. Dinks, with extraordinary languor, as if she should undoubtedly fall fast asleep before the present interview terminated. And yet she was fully awake.

"Why shouldn't he drive her out if he wants to?" inquired Alfred.

"Now, Alfred, be careful. Don't expose yourself even to me. It is too hot to be so absurd. I suppose there is some sort of honor left among young men still, isn't there?"

And the languid mamma performed a very well-executed yawn.

"Honor? I suppose there is. What do you mean?" replied Alfred.

Mamma yawned again.

"How drowsy one does feel here! I am so sleepy! What was I saying? Oh I remember. Perhaps, however, Mr. Beacon doesn't know. That is probably the reason. He doesn't know. Well, in that case it is not so extraordinary. But I should think he must have seen, or inferred, or heard. A man may be very stupid; but he has no right to be so stupid as that. How many glasses do you drink at the spring in the morning, Alfred? Not more than six at the outside, I hope. Well, I believe I'll take a little nap."

She played with her cap string, somehow as if she were an angler playing a fish. There is capital trouting at Saratoga—or was, thirty years ago. You may see to this day a good many fish that were caught there, and with every kind of line and bait.

Alfred bit again.

"I wish you wouldn't talk in such a puzzling kind of way, mother. What do you mean about his knowing, and hearing, and inferring?"

"Come, come, Alfred, you are getting too cunning. Why, you sly dog, do you think you can impose upon me with an air of ignorance because I am so sleepy. Heigh-ho."

Another successful yawn. Sportsmen are surely the best sport in the world.

"Now, Alfred," continued his mother, "are you so silly as to suppose for one moment that Bowdoin Beacon has not seen the whole thing and known it from the beginning?"

"Why," exclaimed Alfred, in alarm, "do you?"

"Of course. He has eyes and ears, I suppose, and every body understood it."

"Did they?" asked Alfred, bewildered and wretched; "I didn't know it."

"Of course. Every body knew it must be so, and agreed that it was highly proper—in fact the only thing."

"Oh, certainly. Clearly the only thing," replied Alfred, wondering whether his mother and he meant the same thing.

"And therefore I say it is not quite honorable in Beacon to drive her out in such a marked manner. And I may as well say at once that I think you had better settle the thing immediately. The world understands it already, so it will be a mere private understanding among ourselves, much more agreeable for all parties. Perhaps this evening even—hey, Alfred?"

Mrs. Dinks adjusted herself upon the sofa in a sort of final manner, as if the affair were now satisfactorily arranged.

"It's no use talking that way, mother; it's all done."

Mrs. Dinks appeared sleepy no longer. She bounced like an India-rubber ball. Even the cap-ribbons were left to shift for themselves. She turned and clasped Alfred in her arms.

"My blessed son!"

Then followed a moment of silent rapture, during which she moistened his shirt-collar with maternal tears.

"Alfred," whispered she, "are you really engaged?"

"Yes'm."

She squeezed him as if he were a bag of the million dollars of which she felt herself to be henceforth mistress.

"You dear, good boy! Then you are sly after all!"

"Yes'm, I'm afraid I am," rejoined Alfred very uncomfortably, and with an extremely ridiculous and nervous impression that his mother was congratulating him upon something she knew nothing about.

"Dear, dear, DEAR boy!" said Mrs. Dinks, with a crescendo affection and triumph. While she was yet embracing him, his father, the unemployed statesman, the Honorable Budlong Dinks, entered.

To the infinite surprise of that gentleman, his wife rose, came to him, put her arm affectionately in his, and leaning her head upon his shoulder, whispered exultingly, and not very softly,

"It's done without the wagon. Our dear boy has justified our fondest hopes, Budlong."

The statesman slipped his shoulder from under her head. If there were one thing of which he was profoundly persuaded it was that a really great man—a man to whom important public functions may be properly intrusted—must, under no circumstances, be wheedled by his wife. He must gently, but firmly, teach her her proper sphere. She must not attempt to bribe that judgment to which the country naturally looks in moments of difficulty.

Having restored his wife to an upright position, the honorable gentleman looked upon her with distinguished consideration; and, playing with the seals that hung at the end of his watch-ribbon, asked her, with the most protective kindness in the world, what she was talking about.

She laid her cap-ribbons properly upon her shoulder, smoothed her dress, and began to fan herself in a kind of complacent triumph, as she answered,

"Alfred is engaged as we wished."

The honorable gentleman beamed approval with as much cordiality as statesmen who are also fathers of private families, as well as of the public, ought to indulge toward their children. Shaking the hand of his son as if his shoulder wanted oiling, he said,

"Marriage is a most important relation. Young men can not be too cautious in regard to it. It is not an affair of the feelings merely; but common sense dictates that when new relations are likely to arise, suitable provision should be made. Hence every well-regulated person considers the matter from a pecuniary point of view. The pecuniary point of view is indispensable. We can do without sentiment in this world, for sentiment is a luxury. We can not dispense with money, because money is a necessity. It gives me, therefore, great pleasure to hear that the choice of my son has evinced the good sense which, I may say without affectation, I hope he has inherited, and has justified the pains and expense which I have been at in his education. My son, I congratulate you. Mrs. Dinks, I congratulate you."

The honorable gentleman thereupon shook hands with his wife and son, as if he were congratulating them upon having such an eloquent and dignified husband and father, and then blew his nose gravely and loudly. Having restored his handkerchief, he smiled in general, as it were—as if he hung out signals of amity with all mankind upon condition of good behavior on their part.

Poor Alfred was more speechless than ever. He felt very warm and red, and began to surmise that to be engaged was not necessarily to be free from carking care. He was sorely puzzled to know how to break the real news to his parents:

"Oh! dear me," thought Alfred; "oh! dear me, I wonder if Fanny wouldn't do it. I guess I'd better ask her. I wonder if Hope would have had me! Oh! dear me. I wonder if old Newt is rich. How'd I happen to do it? Oh! dear me."

He felt very much depressed indeed.

"Well, mother, I'm going down," said he.

"My dear, dear son! Kiss me, Alfred," replied his mother.

He stooped and kissed her cheek.

"How happy we shall all be!" murmured she.

"Oh, very, very happy!" answered Alfred, as he opened the door.

But as he closed it behind him, the best billiard-player at the Trimountain billiard-rooms said, ruefully, in his heart, while he went to his beloved,

"Oh! dear me! Oh!—dear—me! How'd I happen to do it?"

Fanny Newt, of course, had heard from Alfred of the interview with his mother on the same evening, as they sat in Mrs. Newt's parlor before going into the ball. Fanny was arrayed in a charming evening costume. It was low about the neck, which, except that it was very white, descended like a hard, round beach from the low shrubbery of her back hair to the shore of the dress. It was very low tide; but there was a gentle ripple of laces and ribbons that marked the line of division. Mr. Alfred Dinks had taken a little refreshment since the conversation with his mother, and felt at the moment quite equal to any emergency.

"The fact is, Fanny dear," said he, "that mother has always insisted that I should marry Hope Wayne. Now Hope Wayne is a very pretty girl, a deuced pretty girl; but, by George! she's not the only girl in the world—hey, Fanny?"

At this point Mr. Dinks made free with the lips of Miss Newt.

"Pah! Alfred, my dear, you have been drinking wine," said she, moving gently away from him.

"Of course I have, darling; haven't I dined?" replied Alfred, renewing the endearment.

Now Fanny's costume was too careful, her hair too elaborately arranged, to withstand successfully these osculatory onsets.

"Alfred, dear, we may as well understand these little matters at once," said she.

"What little matters, darling?" inquired Mr. Dinks, with interest. He was unwontedly animated, but, as he explained—he had dined.

"Why, this kissing business."

"You dear!" cried Alfred, impetuously committing a fresh breach of the peace.

"Stop, Alfred," said Fanny, imperiously. "I won't have this. I mean," said she, in a mollified tone, remembering that she was only engaged, not married—"I mean that you tumble me dreadfully. Now, dear, I'll make a little rule. You know you don't want your Fanny to look mussed up, do you, dear?" and she touched his cheek with the tip of one finger. Dinks shook his head negatively. "Well, then, you shall only kiss me when I am in my morning-dress, and one kiss, with hands off, when we say good-night."

She smiled a little cold, hard, black smile, smoothing her rumpled feathers, and darting glances at herself in the large mirror opposite, as if she considered her terms the most reasonable in the world.

"It seems to me very little," said Alfred Dinks, discontentedly; "besides, you always look best when you are dressed."

"Thank you, love," returned Fanny; "just remember the morning-dress, please, for I shall; and now tell me all about your conversation with your mother."

Alfred told the story. Fanny listened with alarm. She had watched Mrs. Dinks closely during the whole summer, and she was sure—for Fanny knew herself thoroughly, and reasoned accordingly—that the lady would stop at nothing in the pursuit of her object.

"What a selfish woman it is!" thought Fanny. "Not content with Alfred's share of the inheritance, she wants to bring the whole Burt fortune into her family. How insatiable some people are!"

"Alfred, has your mother seen Hope since she talked with you?"

"I'm sure I don't know."

"Why didn't you warn her not to?"

"I didn't think of it."

"But why didn't you think of it? If you'd only have put her off, we could have got time," said Fanny, a little pettishly.

"Got time for what?" asked Alfred, blankly.

"Alfred," said Fanny, coaxing herself to speak gently, "I'm afraid you will be trying, dear. I am very much afraid of it."

The lover looked doubtful and alarmed.

"Don't look like a fool, Alfred, for Heaven's sake!" cried Fanny; but she immediately recovered herself, and said, with a smile, "You see, dear, how I can scold if I want to. But you'll never let me, I know."

Mr. Dinks hoped certainly that he never should. "But I sha'n't be a very hard husband, Fanny. I shall let you do pretty much as you want to."

"Dearest, I know you will," rejoined his charmer. "But the thing is now to know whether your mother has seen Hope Wayne."

"I'll go and ask her," said Alfred, rising.

"My dear fellow," replied Fanny, with her mouth screwed into a semblance of smiling, "you'll drive me distracted. I must insist on common sense. It is too delicate a question for you to ask."

Mr. Dinks grinned and look bewildered. Then he assumed a very serious expression.

"It doesn't seem to me to be hard to ask my mother if she has seen my cousin."

"Pooh! you silly—I mean, my precious darling, your mother's too smart for you. She'd have every thing out of you in a twinkling."

"I suppose she would," said Alfred, meekly.

Fanny Newt wagged her foot very rapidly, and looked fixedly upon the floor. Alfred gazed at her admiringly—thought what a splendid Mrs. Alfred Dinks he had secured, and smacked his lips as if he were tasting her. He kissed his hand to her as he sat. He kissed the air toward her. He might as well have blown kisses to the brown spire of Trinity Church.

"Alfred, you must solemnly promise me one thing," she said, at length.

"Sweet," said Alfred, who began to feel that he had dined very much, indeed—"sweet, come here!"

Fanny flushed and wrinkled her brow. Mr. Dinks was frightened.

"Oh no, dear—no, not at all," said he.

"My love," said she, in a voice as calm but as black as her eyes, "do you promise or not? That's all."

Poor Dinks! He said Yes, in a feeble way, and hoped she wouldn't be angry. Indeed—indeed, he didn't know how much he had been drinking. But the fellers kept ordering wine, and he had to drink on; and, oh! dear, he wouldn't do so again if Fanny would only forgive him. Dear, dear Fanny, please to forgive a miserable feller! And Miss Newt's betrothed sobbed, and wept, and half writhed on the sofa in maudlin woe.

Fanny stood erect, patting the floor with her foot and looking at this spectacle. She thought she had counted the cost. But the price seemed at this instant a little high. Twenty-two years old now, and if she lived to be only seventy, then forty-eight years of Alfred Dinks! It was a very large sum, indeed. But Fanny bethought her of the balm in Gilead. Forty-eight years of married life was very different from an engagement of that period. Courage, ma chere!

"Alfred," said she, at length, "listen to me. Go to your mother before she goes to bed to-night, and say to her that there are reasons why she must not speak of your engagement to any body, not even to Hope Wayne. And if she begins to pump you, tell her that it is the especial request of the lady—whom you may call 'she,' you needn't say Hope—that no question of any kind shall be asked, or the engagement may be broken. Do you understand, dear?"

Fanny leaned toward him coaxingly as she asked the question.

"Oh yes, I understand," replied Alfred.

"And you'll do just as Fanny says, won't you, dear?" said she, even more caressingly.

"Yes, I will, I promise," answered Alfred.

"You may kiss me, dear," said Fanny, leaning toward him, so that the operation need not disarrange her toilet.

Alfred Dinks kept his word; and his mother was perfectly willing to do as she was asked. She smiled with intelligence whenever she saw her son and his cousin together, and remarked that Hope Wayne's demeanor did not in the least betray the engagement. And she smiled with the same intelligence when she remarked how devoted Alfred was to Fanny Newt.

"Can it possibly be that Alfred knows so much?" she asked herself, wondering at the long time during which her son's cunning had lain dormant.



CHAPTER XXVI.

THE PORTRAIT AND THE MINIATURE.

The golden days of September glimmered through the dark sighing trees, and relieved the white brightness that had burned upon the hills during the dog-days. Mr. Burt drove into town and drove out. Dr. Peewee called at short intervals, played backgammon with his parishioner, listened to his stories, told stories of his own, and joined him in his little excursions to the West Indies. Mrs. Simcoe was entirely alone.

One day Hiram brought her a letter, which she took to her own room and sat down by the window to read.

"SARATOGA.

"DEAR AUNTY,—We're about going away, and we have been so gay that you would suppose I had had 'society' enough. Do you remember our talk? There have been a great many people here from every part of the country; and it has been nothing but bowling, walking, riding, dancing, dining at the lake, and listening to music in the moonlight, all the time. Aunt Dinks has been very kind, but although I have met a great many people I have not made many friends. I have seen nobody whom I like as much as Amy Waring or Mr. Lawrence Newt, of whom I wrote you from New York, and they have neither of them been here. I think of Pinewood a great deal, but it seems to me long and long ago that I used to live there. It is strange how much older and different I feel. But I never forget you, dearest Aunty, and I should like this very moment to stand by your side at your window as I used to, and look out at the hills, or, better still, to lie in your lap or on my bed, and hear you sing one of the dear old hymns. I thought I had forgotten them until lately. But I remember them very often now. I think of Pinewood a great deal, and I love you dearly; and yet somehow I do not feel as if I cared to go back there to live. Isn't that strange? Give my love to Grandpa, and tell him I am neither engaged to a foreign minister, nor a New York merchant, nor a Southern planter—nor to any body else. But he must keep up heart, for there's plenty of time yet. Good-by, dear Aunty. I seem to hear you singing,

"'Oh that I now the rest might know!'

"Do you know how often you used to sing that? Good-by.

"Your affectionate, HOPE."

Mrs. Simcoe held the letter in her hand for a long time, looking, as usual, out of the window.

Presently she rose, and went to a bureau, and unlocked a drawer with a key that she carried in her pocket. Taking out an ebony box like a casket, she unlocked that in turn, and then lifted from it a morocco case, evidently a miniature. She returned to her chair and seated herself again, swaying her body gently to and fro as if confirming some difficult resolution, but with the same inscrutable expression upon her face. Still holding the case in her hands unopened, she murmured:

"I want a sober mind, A self-renouncing will, That tramples down and casts behind The baits of pleasing ill."

She repeated the whole hymn several times, as if it were a kind of spell or incantation, and while she was yet saying it she opened the miniature.

The western light streamed over the likeness of a man of a gallant, graceful air, in whom the fires of youth were not yet burned out, and in whose presence there might be some peculiar fascination. The hair was rather long and fair—the features were handsomely moulded, but wore a slightly jaded expression, which often seems to a woman an air of melancholy, but which a man would have recognized at once as the result of dissipation. There was a singular cast in the eye, and a kind of lofty, irresistible command in the whole aspect, which appeared to be quite as much an assumption of manner as a real superiority. In fact it was the likeness of what is technically called a man of the world, whose frank insolence and symmetry of feature pass for manly beauty and composure.

The miniature was in the face of a gold locket, on the back of which there was a curl of the same fair hair. It was so fresh and glossy that it might have been cut off the day before. But the quaintness of the setting and the costume of the portrait showed that it had been taken many years previous, and that in the order of nature the original was probably dead.

As Mrs. Simcoe held the miniature in both hands and looked at it, her body still rocked over it, and her lips still murmured.

Then rocking and murmuring stopped together, and she seemed like one listening to music or the ringing of distant bells.

And as she sat perfectly still in the golden September sunshine, it was as if it had shone into her soul; so that a softer light streamed into her eyes, and the hard inscrutability of her face melted as by some internal warmth, and a tender rejuvenescence somehow blossomed out upon her cheeks until all the sweetness became sadness, and heavy tears dropped from her eyes upon the picture.

Then, with the old harshness stealing into her face again, she rose calmly, carrying the miniature in her hand, and went out of the room, and down the stairs into the library, which was opposite the parlor in which Abel Newt had seen the picture of old Grandpa Burt at the age of ten, holding a hoop and book.

There were book-shelves upon every side but one—stately ranges of well-ordered books in substantial old calf and gilt English bindings, and so carefully placed upon the shelves, in such methodical distribution of shapes and sizes, that the whole room had an air of preternatural propriety utterly foreign to a library. It seemed the most select and aristocratic society of books—much too fine to permit the excitement of interest in any thing they contained—much too high-bred to be of the slightest use in imparting information. Glass doors were carefully closed over them and locked, as if the books were beatified and laid away in shrines. And the same solemn order extended to the library table, which was precisely in the middle of the room, with a large, solemn family Bible precisely in the middle of the table, and smaller books, like satellites, precisely upon the corners, and precisely on one side an empty glass inkstand, innocent of ink spot or stain of any kind, with a pen carefully mended and evidently carefully never used, and an exemplary pen-wiper, which was as unsullied as might be expected of a wiper which had only wiped that pen which was never dipped into that inkstand which had been always empty. The inkstand was supported on the other side of the Bible by an equally immaculate ivory paper-knife.

The large leather library chairs were arranged in precisely the proper angle at the corners of the table, and the smaller chairs stood under the windows two by two. All was cold and clean, and locked up—all—except a portrait that hung against the wall, and below which Mrs. Simcoe stopped, still holding the miniature in her hand.

It was the likeness of a lovely girl, whose rich, delicate loveliness, full of tender but tremulous character, seemed to be a kind of foreshadowing of Hope Wayne. The eyes were of a deep, soft darkness, that held the spectator with a dreamy fascination. The other features were exquisitely moulded, and suffused with an airy, girlish grace, so innocent that the look became almost a pathetic appeal against the inevitable griefs of life.

As Mrs. Simcoe stood looking at it and at the miniature she held, the sadness which had followed the sweetness died away, and her face resumed the old rigid inscrutability. She held the miniature straight before her, and directly under the portrait; and, as she looked, the apparent pride of the one and the tremulous earnestness of the other indescribably blended into an expression which had been long familiar to her, for it was the look of Hope Wayne.

While she thus stood, unconscious of the time that passed, the sun had set and the room was darkening. Suddenly she heard a sound close at her side, and started. Her hand instinctively closed over the miniature and concealed it.

There stood a man kindly regarding her. He was not an old man, but there was a touch of quaintness in his appearance. He did not speak when she saw him, and for several minutes they stood silent together. Then their eyes rose simultaneously to the picture, met again, and Mrs. Simcoe, putting out her hand, said, in a low voice,

"Lawrence Newt!"

He shook her hand warmly, and made little remarks, while she seemed to be studying into his face, as if she were looking for something she did not find there. Every body did it. Every body looked into Lawrence Newt's face to discover what he was thinking of, and nobody ever saw. Mrs. Simcoe remembered a time when she had seen.

"It is more than twenty years since I saw you. Have I grown very old?" asked he.

"No, not old. I see the boy I remember; but your face is not so clear as it used to be."

Lawrence Newt laughed.

"You compliment me without knowing it. My face is the lid of a chest full of the most precious secrets; would you have the lid transparent? I am a merchant. Suppose every body could look in through my face and see what I really think of the merchandise I am selling! What profit do you think I should make? No, no, we want no tell-tale faces in South Street."

He said this in a tone that corresponded with the expression which baffled Mrs. Simcoe, and perplexed her only the more. But it did not repel her nor beget distrust. A porcupine hides his flesh in bristling quills; but a magnolia, when its time has not yet come, folds its heart in and in with over-lacing tissues of creamy richness and fragrance. The flower is not sullen, it is only secret.

"I suppose you are twenty years wiser than you were," said Mrs. Simcoe.

"What is wisdom?" asked Lawrence Newt.

"To give the heart to God," replied she.

"That I have discovered," he said.

"And have you given it?"

"I hope so."

"Yes, but haven't you the assurance?" asked she, earnestly.

"I hope so," responded Lawrence Newt, in the same kindly tone.

"But assurance is a gift," continued she.

"A gift of what?"

"Of Peace," replied Mrs. Simcoe.

"Ah! well, I have that," said the other, quietly, as his eyes rested upon the portrait.

There was moisture in the eyes.

"Her daughter is very like her," he said, musingly; and the two stood together silently for some time looking at the picture.

"Not entirely like her mother," replied Mrs. Simcoe, as if to assert some other resemblance.

"Perhaps not; but I never saw her father."

As Lawrence Newt said this, Mrs. Simcoe raised her hand, opened it, and held the miniature before his eyes. He took it and gazed closely at it.

"And this is Colonel Wayne," said he, slowly. "This is the man who broke another man's heart and murdered a woman."

A mingled expression of pain, indignation, passionate regret, and resignation suddenly glittered on the face of Mrs. Simcoe.

"Mr. Newt, Mr. Newt," said she, hurriedly, in a thick voice, "let us at least respect the dead!"

Lawrence Newt, still holding the miniature in his hand, looked surprised and searchingly at his companion. A lofty pity shot into his eyes.

"Could I speak of her otherwise?"

The sudden change in Mrs. Simcoe's expression conveyed her thought to him before her words:

"No, no! not of her, but—"

She stopped, as if wrestling with a fierce inward agony. The veins on her forehead were swollen, and her eyes flashed with singular light. It was not clear whether she were trying to say something to conceal something, or simply to recover her self-command. It was a terrible spectacle, and Lawrence Newt felt as if he must veil his eyes, as if he had no right to look upon this great agony of another.

"But—" said he, mechanically, as if by repeating her last word to help her in her struggle.

The sad, severe woman stood before him in the darkening twilight, erect, and more than erect, drawn back from him, and quivering and defiant. She was silent for an instant; then, leaning forward and reaching toward him, she took the miniature from Lawrence Newt, closed her hand over it convulsively, and gasped in a tone that sounded like a low, wailing cry:

"But of him."

Lawrence Newt raised his eyes from the vehement woman to the portrait that hung above her.

In the twilight that lost loveliness glimmered down into his very heart with appealing pathos. Perhaps those parted lips in their red bloom had spoken to him—lips so long ago dust! Perhaps those eyes, in the days forever gone—gone with hopes and dreams, and the soft lustre of youth—had looked into his own, had answered his fond yearning with equal fondness. By all that passionate remembrance, by a lost love, by the early dead, he felt himself conjured to speak, nor suffer his silence even to seem to shield a crime.

"And why not of him?" he began, calmly, and with profound melancholy rather than anger. "Why not of him, who did not hesitate to marry the woman whom he knew loved another, and whom the difference of years should rather have made his daughter than his wife? Why not of him, who brutally confessed, when she was his wife, an earlier and truer love of his own, and so murdered her slowly, slowly—not with blows of the hand, oh no!—not with poison in her food, oh no!" cried Lawrence Newt, warming into bitter vehemence, clenching his hand and shaking it in the air, "but who struck her blows on the heart—who stabbed her with sharp icicles of indifference—who poisoned her soul with the tauntings of his mean suspicions—mean and false—and the meaner because he knew them to be false? Why not of him, who—"

"Stop! in the name of God!" she cried, fiercely, raising her hand as if she appealed to Heaven.

It fell again. The hard voice sank to a tremulous, pitiful tone:

"Oh! stop, if you, are a man!"

They stood opposite each other in utter silence. The light had almost faded. The face in the picture was no longer visible.

Bewildered and awed by the passionate grief of his companion, Lawrence Newt said, gently,

"Why should I stop?"

The form before him had sunk into a chair. Both its hands were clasped over the miniature. He heard the same strange voice like the wailing cry of a child:

"Because I am the woman he loved—because I loved him."



CHAPTER XXVII.

GABRIEL AT HOME.

During all this time Gabriel Bennet is becoming a merchant. Every morning he arrives at the store with the porter or before him. He helps him sweep and dust; and it is Gabriel who puts Lawrence Newt's room in order, laying the papers in place, and taking care of the thousand nameless details that make up comfort. He reads the newspapers before the other clerks arrive, and sits upon chests of tea or bales of matting in the loft, that fill the air with strange, spicy, Oriental odors, and talks with the porter. In the long, warm afternoons, too, when there is no pressure of business, and the heat is overpowering, he sits also alone among those odors, and his mind is busy with all kinds of speculations, and dreams, and hopes.

As he walks up Broadway toward evening, his clear, sweet eyes see every thing that floats by. He does not know the other side of the fine dresses he meets any more than of the fine houses, with the smiling, glittering windows. The sun shines bright in his eyes—the street is gay—he nods to his friends—he admires the pretty faces—he wonders at the fast men driving fast horses—he sees the flowers in the windows, the smiling faces between the muslin curtains—he gazes with a kind of awe at the funerals going by, and marks the white bands of the clergymen and the physicians—the elm-trees in the hospital yard remind him of the woods at Delafield; and here comes Abel Newt, laughing, chatting, smoking, with an arm in the arms of two other young men, who are also smoking. As Gabriel passes Abel their eyes meet. Abel nods airily, and Gabriel quietly; the next moment they are back to back again—one is going up street, the other down.

It is not one of the splendid houses before which Gabriel stops when he has reached the upper part of the city. It is not a palace, nor is it near Broadway. Nor are there curtains at the window, but a pair of smiling faces, of friendly women's faces. One is mild and maternal, with that kind of tender anxiety which softens beauty instead of hardening it. It has that look which, after she is dead, every affectionate son thinks he remembers to have seen in his mother's face; and the other is younger, brighter—a face of rosy cheeks, and clustering hair, and blue eyes—a beaming, loyal, loving, girlish face.

They both smile welcome to Gabriel, and the younger face, disappearing from the window, reappears at the door. Gabriel naturally kisses those blooming lips, and then goes into the parlor and kisses his mother. Those sympathetic friends ask him what has happened during the day. They see if he looks unusually fatigued; and if so, why so? they ask. Gabriel must tell the story of the unlading the ship Mary B., which has just come in—which is Lawrence Newt's favorite ship; but why called Mary B. not even Thomas Tray knows, who knows every thing else in the business. Then sitting on each side of him on the sofa, those women wonder and guess why the ship should be called Mary B. What Mary B.? Oh! dear, there might be a thousand women with those initials. And what has ever happened to Mr. Newt that he should wish to perpetuate a woman's name? Stop! remembers mamma, his mother's name was Mary. Mary what? asks the daughter. Mamma, you remember, of course.

Mamma merely replies that his mother's name was Bunley—Mary Bunley—a famous belle of the close of the last century, when she was the most beautiful woman at President Washington's levees—Mary Bunley, to whom Aaron Burr paid his addresses in vain.

"Yes, mamma; but who was Aaron Burr?" ask those blooming lips, as the bright young eyes glance from under the clustering curls at her mother.

"Ellen, do you remember this spring, as we were coming up Broadway, we passed an old man with a keen black eye, who was rather carelessly dressed, and who wore a cue, with thick hair of his own, white as snow, whom a good many people looked at and pointed out to each other, but nobody spoke to?—who gazed at you as we passed so peculiarly that you pressed nearer to me, and asked who it was, and why such an old man seemed to be so lonely, and in all that great throng, which evidently knew him, was as solitary as if he had been in a desert?"

"Perfectly—I remember it," replies Ellen.

"That friendless old man, my dear, whom at this moment perhaps scarcely a single human being in the world loves, was the most brilliant beau and squire of dames that has ever lived in this country; handsome, accomplished, and graceful, he has stepped many a stately dance with the queenly Mary Bunley, mother of Lawrence Newt. But that was half a century ago."

"Mamma," asks Ellen, full of interest in her mother's words, "but why does nobody speak to him? Why is he so alone? Had he not better have died half a century ago?"

"My dear, you have seen Mrs. Beriah Dagon, an aunt of Mr. Lawrence Newt's? She was Cecilia Bunley, sister of Mary. When she was younger she used to go to the theatre with a little green snake coiled around her arm like a bracelet. It was the most lovely green—the softest color you ever saw; it had the brightest eyes, the most sinuous grace; it had a sort of fascination, but it filled you with fear; fortunately, it was harmless. But, Ellen, if it could have stung, how dreadful it would have been! Aaron Burr was graceful, and, accomplished, and brilliant; he coiled about many a woman, fascinating her with his bright eyes and his sinuous manner; but if he had stung, dear?"

Ellen shakes her head as her mother speaks, and Gabriel involuntarily thinks of Abel Newt.

When Mrs. Bennet goes out of the room to attend to the tea, Gabriel says that for his part he doesn't believe in the least that the ship was named for old Mrs. Newt; people are not romantic about their mothers; and Miss Ellen agrees with him.

The room in which they sit is small, and very plain. There are only a sofa, and table, and some chairs, with shelves of books, and a coarse carpet. Upon the wall hangs a portrait representing a young and beautiful woman, not unlike Mrs. Bennet; but the beauty of the face is flashing and passionate, not thoughtful and mild like that of Gabriel's mother. But although every thing is very plain, it is perfectly cheerful. There is nothing forlorn in the aspect of the room. Roses in a glass upon the table, and the voice and manner of the mother and daughter, tell every thing.

Presently they go in to tea, and Mr. Bennet joins them. His face is pale, and of gentle expression, and he stoops a little in his walk. He wears slippers and an old coat, and has the air of a clergyman who has made up his mind to be disappointed. But he is not a clergyman, although his white cravat, somewhat negligently tied, and his rusty black dress-coat, favor that theory. There is a little weariness in his expression, and an involuntary, half-deferential smile, as if he fully assented to every thing that might be presented—not because he is especially interested in it or believes it, but because it is the shortest way of avoiding discussion and getting back to his own thoughts.

"Gabriel, my son, I am glad to see you!" his father says, as he seats himself, not opposite his wife, but at one side of the table. He inquires if Mr. Newt has returned, and learns that he has been at home for several days. He hopes that he has enjoyed his little journey; then sips his tea, and looks to see if the windows are closed; shakes himself gently, and says he feels chilly; that the September evenings are already autumnal, and that the time is coming when we must begin to read aloud again after tea. And what book shall we read? Perhaps the best of all we can select is Irving's Life of Columbus; Mr. Bennet himself has read it in the previous year, but he is sure his children will be interested and delighted by it; and, for himself, he likes nothing better than to read over and over a book he knows and loves. He puts down his knife as he speaks, and plays with his tea-spoon on the edge of the cup.

"I find myself enchanted with the description of the islands in the Gulf, and the life of those soft-souled natives. As I read on, I smell the sweet warm odors from the land; I pick up the branches of green trees floating far out upon the water; I see the drifting sea-weed, and the lights at night upon the shore; then I land, and lie under the palm-trees, and hear the mellow tongue of the tropics; I taste the luscious fruits; I bask in that rich, eternal sun—" His eyes swim with tropical languor as he speaks. He still mechanically balances the spoon upon the cup, while his mind is deep sunk in reverie. As his wife glances at him, both the look of tenderness and of anxiety in her face deepen. But the moment of silence rouses him, and with the nervous smile upon his face, he says, "Oh—ah!—I—yes—let it be Irving's Columbus!"

Toward his wife Mr. Bennet's manner is almost painfully thoughtful. His eye constantly seeks hers; and when he speaks to her, the mechanical smile which greets every body else is replaced by a kind of indescribable, touching appeal for forgiveness. It is conveyed in no particular thing that he says or does, but it pervades his whole intercourse with her. As Gabriel and Ellen grow up toward maturity, Mrs. Bennet observes that the same peculiarity is stealing into his manner toward them. It is as if he were involuntarily asking pardon for some great wrong that he has unconsciously done them. And yet his mildness, and sweetness, and simplicity of nature are such, that this singular manner does not disturb the universal cheerfulness.

"You look a little tired to-night, father," says Gabriel, when they are all seated in the front room again, by the table, with the lamp lighted.

"Yes," replies the father, who sits upon the sofa, with his wife by his side—"yes; Mr. Van Boozenberg was very angry to-day about some error he thought he had discovered, and he was quite short with us book-keepers, and spoke rather sharply."

A slight flush passes over Mr. Bennet's face, as if he recalled something extremely disagreeable. His eyes become dreamy again; but after a moment the old smile returns, and, as if begging pardon, in a half bewildered way, he resumes:

"However, his position is trying. Fortunately there wasn't any mistake except of his own."

He is silent again. After a little while he asks, "Couldn't we have some music? Ellen, can't you sing something?"

Ellen thinks she can, if Gabriel will sing second; Gabriel says he will try, with pleasure; but really—he is so overwhelmed—the state of his voice—he feigns a little cough—if the crowded and fashionable audience will excuse—he really—in fact, he will—but he is sure—

During this little banter Nellie cries, "Pooh, pooh!" mamma looks pleased, and papa smiles gently. Then the fresh young voices of the brother and sister mingle in "Bonnie Doon."

The room is not very light, for there is but one lamp upon the table by which the singers sit. The parents sit together upon the sofa; and as the song proceeds the hand of the mother steals into that of the father, which holds it closely, while his arm creeps noiselessly around her waist. Their hearts float far away upon that music. His eyes droop as when he was speaking of the tropic islands—as if he were hearing the soft language of those shores. As his wife looks at him she sees on his face, beneath the weariness of its expression, the light which shone there in the days when they sang "Bonnie Doon" together. He draws her closer to him, and his head bows as if by long habit of humility. Her eyes gradually fill with tears; and when the song is over her head is lying on his breast.

While they are still sitting in silence there is a ring at the door, and Lawrence Newt and Amy Waring enter the room.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

BORN TO BE A BACHELOR.

"The truth is, Madame," began Lawrence Newt, addressing Mrs. Bennet, "that I am ashamed of myself—I ought to have called a hundred times. I ask your pardon, Sir," he continued, turning to Mr. Bennet, who was standing irresolutely by the sofa, half-leaning upon the arm.

"Oh!—ah! I am sure," replied Mr. Bennet, with the nervous smile flitting across his face and apparently breaking out all over him; and there he remained speechless and bowing, while Mr. Newt hastened to seat himself, that every body else might sit down also.

Mrs. Bennet said that she was really, glad to see the face of an old friend again whom she had not seen for so long.

"But I see you every day in Gabriel, my dear Madame," replied Lawrence Newt, with quaint dignity. Mother and son both smiled, and the father bowed as if the remark had been addressed to him.

Amy seated herself by Gabriel and Ellen, and talked very animatedly with them, while the parents and Mr. Newt sat together. She praised the roses, and smelled them very often; and whenever she did so, her eyes, having nothing in particular to do at the moment, escaped, as it were, under her brows through the petals of the roses as she bent over them, and wandered away to Lawrence Newt, whose kind, inscrutable eyes, by the most extraordinary chance in the world, seemed to be expecting hers, and were ready to receive them with the warmest welcome, and a half-twinkle—or was it no twinkle at all? which seemed to say, "Oh! you came—did you?" And every time his eyes seemed to say this Amy burst out into fresh praises of those beautiful roses to her younger cousins, and pressed them close to her cheek, as if she found their moist, creamy coolness peculiarly delicious and refreshing—pressed them so close, indeed, that she seemed to squeeze some of their color into her cheeks, which Gabriel and Ellen both thought, and afterward declared to their mother, to be quite as beautiful as roses.

Amy's conversation with her young cousins was very lively indeed, but it had not a continuous interest. There were incessant little pauses, during which the eyes slipped away again across the room, and fell as softly as before, plump into the same welcome and the same little interrogation in those other eyes, twinkling with that annoying "did you?"

Amy Waring was certainly twenty-five, although Gabriel laughed and jeered at any such statement. But mamma and the Family Bible were too much for him. Lawrence Newt was certainly more than forty. But the Newt Family Bible was under a lock of which the key lay in Mrs. Boniface Newt's bureau, who, in a question of age, preferred tradition, which she could judiciously guide, to Scripture. When Boniface Newt led Nancy Magot to the altar, he recorded, in a large business hand, both the date of his marriage and his wife's birth. She protested, it was vulgar. And when the bridegroom inquired whether the vulgarity were in the fact of being born or in recording it, she said: "Mr. Newt, I am ashamed of you," and locked up the evidence.

There was a vague impression in the Newt family—Boniface had already mentioned it to his son Abel—that there was something that Uncle Lawrence never talked about—many things indeed, of course, but still something in particular. Outside the family nothing was suspected. Lawrence Newt was simply one of those incomprehensibly pleasant, eccentric, benevolent men, whose mercantile credit was as good as Jacob Van Boozenberg's, but who perversely went his own way. One of these ways led to all kinds of poor people's houses; and it was upon a visit to the widow of the clergyman to whom Boniface Newt had given eight dollars for writing a tract entitled "Indiscriminate Almsgiving a Crime," that Lawrence Newt had first met Amy Waring. As he was leaving money with the poor woman to pay her rent, Amy came in with a basket of comfortable sugars and teas. She carried the flowers in her face. Lawrence Newt was almost blushing at being caught in the act of charity; and as he was sliding past her to get out, he happened to look at her face, and stopped.

"Bless my soul! my dear young lady, surely your name is Darro!"

The dear young lady smiled and colored, and replied,

"No, mine is not, but my mother's was."

"Of course it was. Those eyes of yours are the Darro eyes. Do you think I do not know the Darro eyes when I see them?"

And he took Amy's hand, and said, "Whose daughter are you?"

"My name is Amy Waring."

"Oh! then you are Corinna's daughter. Your aunt Lucia married Mr. Bennet, and—and—" Lawrence Newt's voice paused and hesitated for a moment, "and—there was another."

There was something so tenderly respectful in the tone that Amy, with only a graver face, replied,

"Yes, there was my Aunt Martha."

"I remember all. She is gone; my dear young lady, you will forgive me, but your face recalls other years." Then turning to the widow, he said, "Mrs. Simmer, I am sure that you could have no kinder, no better friend than this young lady."

The young lady looked at him with a gentle inquiry in her eyes as who should say, "What do you know about it?"

Lawrence Newt's eyes understood in a moment, and he answered:

"Oh, I know it as I know that a rose smells sweet."

He bowed as he said it, and took her hand.

"Will you remember to ask your mother if she remembers Lawrence Newt, and if he may come and see her?"

Amy Waring said Yes, and the gentleman, bending and touching the tips of her fingers with his lips, said, "Good-by, Mrs. Simmer," and departed.

He called at Mrs. Waring's within a few days afterward. He had known her as a child, but his incessant absence from home when he was younger had prevented any great intimacy with old acquaintances. But the Darros were dancing-school friends and partners. Since those days they had become women and mothers. He had parted with Corinna Darro, a black-eyed little girl in short white frock and short curling hair and red ribbons. He met her as Mrs. Delmer Waring, a large, maternal, good-hearted woman.

This had happened two years before, and during all the time since then Lawrence Newt had often called—had met Amy in the street on many errands—had met her at balls whenever he found she was going. He did not ask her to drive with him. He did not send her costly gifts. He did nothing that could exclude the attentions of younger men. But sometimes a basket of flowers came for Miss Waring—without a card, without any clue. The good-hearted mother thought of various young men, candidates for degrees in Amy's favor, who had undoubtedly sent the flowers. The good-hearted mother, who knew that Amy was in love with none of them, pitied them—thought it was a great shame they should lose their time in such an utterly profitless business as being in love with Amy; and when any of them called said, with a good-humored sigh, that she believed her daughter would never be any thing but a Sister of Charity.

Sometimes also a new book came, and on the fly-leaf was written, "To Miss Amy Waring, from her friend Lawrence Newt." Then the good-hearted mother remarked that some men were delightfully faithful to old associations, and that it was really beautiful to see Mr. Newt keeping up the acquaintance so cordially, and complimenting his old friend so delicately by thinking of pleasing her daughter. What a pity he had never married, to have had daughters of his own! "But I suppose, Amy, some men are born to be bachelors."

"I suppose they are, mother," Amy replied, and found immediately after that she had left her scissors, she couldn't possibly remember where; perhaps in your room, mamma, perhaps in mine.

They must be looked for, however, and, O how curious! there they lay in her own room upon the table. In her own room, where she opened the new book and read in it for half an hour at a time, but always poring on the same page. It was such a profound work. It was so full of weighty matter. When would she ever read it through at this rate, for the page over which she pored had less on it than any other page in the book. In fact it had nothing on it but that very commonplace and familiar form of words, "To Miss Amy Waring, from her friend Lawrence Newt."

Amy was entirely of her mother's opinion. Some men are undoubtedly born to be bachelors. Some men are born to be as noble as the heroes of romances—simple, steadfast, true; to be gentle, intelligent, sagacious, with an experience that has mellowed by constant and various intercourse with men, but with a heart that that intercourse has never chilled, and a faith which that experience has only confirmed. Some men are born to possess every quality of heart, and mind, and person that can awaken and satisfy the love of a woman. Yes, unquestionably, said Amy Waring in her mind, which was so cool, so impartial, so merely contemplating the subject as an abstract question, some men—let me see, shall I say like Lawrence Newt, simply as an illustration?—well, yes—some men like Lawrence Newt, for instance, are born to be all that some women dream of in their souls, and they are the very ones who are born to be bachelors.

It might be very sad not to be aware of it, thought Amy. What a profound pity it would be if any young woman should not see it, for instance, in the case of Lawrence Newt. But when a young woman is in no doubt at all, when she knows perfectly well that such a man is not intended by nature to be a marrying man, and therefore never thinks of such a thing, but only with a grace, and generosity, and delicacy beyond expression offers his general homage to the sex by giving little gifts to her, "why, then—then," thought Amy, and she was thinking so at the very moment when she sat with Gabriel and Ellen, talking in a half wild, lively, incoherent way, "why, then—then," and her eyes leaped across the room and fell, as it were, into the arms of Lawrence Newt's, which caressed them with soft light, and half-laughed "You came again, did you?"—"why, then—then," and Amy buried her face in the cool, damp roses, and did not dare to look again, "then she had better go and be a Sister of Charity."



CHAPTER XXIX.

MR. ABEL NEWT, GRAND STREET.

As the world returned to town and the late autumnal festivities began, the handsome person and self-possessed style of Mr. Abel Newt became the fashion. Invitations showered upon him. Mrs. Dagon proclaimed every where that there had been nobody so fascinating since the days of the brilliant youth of Aaron Burr, whom she declared that she well remembered, and added, that if she could say it without blushing, or if any reputable woman ought to admit such things, she should confess that in her younger days she had received flowers and even notes from that fascinating man.

"I don't deny, my dears, that he was a naughty man. But I can tell you one thing, all the naughty men are not in disgrace yet, though he is. And, if you please, Miss Fanny, with all your virtuous sniffs, dear, and all your hugging of men in waltzing, darling, Colonel Burr was not sent to Coventry because he was naughty. He might have been naughty all the days of his life, and Mrs. Jacob Van Boozenberg and the rest of 'em would have been quite as glad to have him at their houses. No, no, dears, society doesn't punish men for being naughty—only women. I am older than you, and I have observed that society likes spice in character. It doesn't harm a man to have stories told about him."