"Very much so, indeed," replied Mr. Sutler, with equal gravity.

"And yet," said Mr. Grabeau, "if it had been so ordered that young Mr. Dinks should marry his cousin, Miss Wayne, he would—that is, I suppose he would—;" and he too hesitated.

"Undoubtedly," replied both the other gentlemen, seriously, "without question it would have been a very good thing. Mr. Burt must have left a very large property."

"He made every cent tell," said Mr. Sutler, taking the reins and stepping into his carriage.

"Rather—rather—a screw, perhaps?" inquired Mr. Grabeau, gravely, as he took out his whip.

"Awful!" replied Mr. Kingo, as he drove away.

The last carriage went, and the stately old mansion stood behind its trees deserted. The casket and its contents had been borne away forever; but somebody had opened all the windows of the house, and June, with its song, and perfume, and sunshine, overflowed the silent chambers, and banished the smell of the varnish and every thought of death.



CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE HEIRESS.

The next morning it was hard to believe in the spectacle of the preceding day. The house of Pinewood was pleasantly open to the sun and air. Hope Wayne, in a black dress of the lightest possible texture, so thin that her arms could be seen through the sleeves, sat by a window. Lawrence Newt sat beside her. Dr. Peewee was talking with Mrs. Dinks. Her son Alfred was sitting alone in a chair, looking at his mother, and Mrs. Fanny Newt Dinks was looking out at a window upon the lawn. Mrs. Simcoe sat near Hope Wayne. There was a table in the middle of the room, from which every thing had been removed. The Honorable Budlong Dinks was walking slowly up and down the room; and several legal-looking gentlemen, friends of his, were conversing and smiling among themselves.

Mr. Dinks stopped in his walk, and, leaning upon the table with the tips of two fingers and the thumb of his left hand, he thrust the right hand into his waistcoat, by the side of the ruffle of his shirt, as if he were about to address the house upon a very weighty question.

"In accordance," said he, with an air of respect and resignation, "with the wishes of the late Christopher Burt, as expressed in a paper found in his secretary drawer after his decease, I am about to open his will."

The Honorable Mr. Dinks cleared his throat. Mrs. Fanny Newt Dinks turned back from the window, and conversation ceased. All eyes were fixed upon the speaker, who became more pigeon-breasted every moment. He took out his glasses and placed them upon his nose, and slowly surveyed the company. He then drew a sealed paper from his pocket, clearing his throat with great dignity as he did so:

"This is the document," said he, again glancing about the room. At this point Hiram stepped gently in, and stood by the door.

Mr. Dinks proceeded to break the seal as if it had been sacramental bread, and with occasional looks at the groups around him, opened the document—shook it—creased it back—smoothed it—and held it carefully in the attitude of reading.

When the audience had been sufficiently impressed with this ceremony, and with a proper conviction of the fact that he of all other men had been selected to reveal the contents of that important paper to mankind, he began, and read that, being of sound mind and body, etc., etc., Christopher Burt, etc., etc., as an humble Christian, and loving the old forms, gave his body to the ground, his soul to his God, in the hope of a happy resurrection, etc., etc.; and devised and bequeathed his property, etc., etc., in the manner following, to wit; that is to say:

At this point Mr. Dinks paused, and blew his nose with profound gravity. He proceeded:

"First. I give to my housekeeper, Jane Simcoe, the friend of my darling daughter Mary, and the life-long friend and guardian of my dear grand-daughter, Hope Wayne, one thousand dollars per annum, as hereinafter specified."

Mrs. Simcoe's face did not change; nobody moved except Alfred Dinks, who changed the position of his legs, and thought within himself—"By Jove!"

"Second. I give to Almira Dinks, the daughter of my brother Jonathan Burt, and the wife of Budlong Dinks, of Boston, the sum of five thousand dollars."

The voice of Mr. Dinks faltered. His wife half rose and sat down again—her face of a dark mahogany color. Fanny Newt sat perfectly still and looked narrowly at her father-in-law, with an expression which was very black and dangerous. Alfred had an air of troubled consternation, as if something fearful were about to happen. The whole company were disturbed. They seemed to be in an electrical condition of apprehension, like the air before a thunder-burst.

Mr. Dinks continued:

"Third. I give to Alfred Dinks, my grand-nephew, my silver shoe-buckles, which belonged to his great-grandfather Burt."

"Fourth. And all the other estate, real and personal, of which I may die seized, I give, devise, and bequeath to Budlong Dinks, Timothy Kingo, and Selah Sutler, in trust, nevertheless, and for the sole use, behoof, and benefit of my dearly-beloved grand-daughter, Hope Wayne."

Mr. Dinks stopped. There were some papers annexed, containing directions for collecting the annuity to be paid to Mrs. Simcoe, and a schedule of the property. The Honorable B. Dinks looked hastily at the schedule.

"Miss Wayne's property will be at least a million of dollars," said he, in a formal voice.

There were a few moments of utter silence. Even the legal gentlemen ceased buzzing; but presently the forefinger of one of them was laid in the palm of his other hand, and as he stated his proposition to his neighbor, a light conversation began again.

Mrs. Fanny Dinks Newt seemed to have been smitten. She sat crushed up, as it were, biting her nails nervously; her brow wrinkled incredulously, and glaring at her father-in-law, as he folded the paper. Her face grew altogether as black as her hair and her eyes; as if she might discharge a frightful flash and burst of tempest if she were touched or spoken to, or even looked at.

But Mrs. Dinks the elder did look at her, not at all with an air of sullen triumph, but, on the contrary, with a singularly inquisitive glance of apprehension and alarm, as if she felt that the petty trial of wits between them was insignificant compared with the chances of Alfred's happiness. In one moment it flashed upon her mind that the consequences of this will to her Alfred—to her son whom she loved—would be overwhelming. Good Heavens! she turned pale as she thought of him and Fanny together.

The young man had merely muttered "By Jove, that's too d—— bad!" and flung himself out of the room.

His wife did not observe that her mother-in-law was regarding her; she did not see that her husband had left the room; she thought of no contest of wits, of no game she had won or lost. She thought only of the tragical mistake she had made—the dull, blundering crime she had committed; and still bowed over, and gnawing her nails, she looked sideways with her hard, round, black eyes, at Hope Wayne.

The heiress sat quietly by the side of her friend Lawrence Newt. She was holding the hand of Mrs. Simcoe, who glanced sometimes at Lawrence, calmly, and with no sign of regretful or revengeful remembrance. The Honorable Budlong Dinks was walking up and down the room, stroking his chin with his hand, not without a curiously vague indignation with the late lamented proprietor of Pinewood.

It was a strange spectacle. A room full of living men and women who had just heard what some of them considered their doom pronounced by a dead man. They had carried him out of his house, cold, powerless, screwed into the casket. They had laid him in the ground beneath the village spire, and yet it was his word that troubled, enraged, disappointed, surprised, and envenomed them. Beyond their gratitude, reproaches, taunts, or fury, he lay helpless and dumb—yet the most terrible and inaccessible of despots.

The conversation was cool and indifferent. The legal gentlemen moved about with a professional and indifferent air, as if they assisted at such an occasion as medical students at dissections. It was in the way of business. As Mr. Quiddy, the confidential counsel of the late lamented Mr. Burt, looked at Mrs. Alfred Dinks, he remarked to Mr. Baze, a younger member of the bar, anxious to appear well in the eyes of Quiddy, that it was a pity the friends of deceased parties permitted their disappointments to overpower them upon these occasions. Saying which, Mr. Quiddy waved his forefinger in the air, while Mr. Baze, in a deferential manner and tone, answered, Certainly, because they could not help themselves. There was no getting round a will drawn as that will was—here a slight bow to Mr. Quiddy, who had drawn the will, was interpolated—and if people didn't like what they got, they had better grin and bear it. Mr. Quiddy further remarked, with the forefinger still wandering in the air as if restlessly seeking for some argument to point, that the silver shoe-buckles which had so long been identified with the quaint costume of Mr. Burt, would be a very pretty and interesting heir-loom in the family of young Mr. Dinks.

Upon which the eminent confidential counsel took snuff, and while he flirted the powder from his fingers looked at his young friend Baze.

Young Mr. Baze said, "Very interesting!" and continued the attitude of listening for further wisdom from his superior.

Lawrence Newt meanwhile had narrowly watched his niece Fanny. Nobody else cared to approach her; but he went over to her presently.

"Well, Fanny."

"Well, Uncle Lawrence."

"Beautiful place, Fanny."

"Is it?"

"So peaceful after the city."

"I prefer town."

"Fanny!"

"Uncle Lawrence."

"What are you going to do?"

She had not looked at him before, but now she raised her eyes to his. She might as well have closed them. Dropping them, she looked upon the floor and said nothing.

"I'm sorry for you, Fanny."

She looked fierce. There was a snake-like stealthiness in her appearance, which Alfred's mother saw across the room and trembled. Then she raised her eyes again to her uncle's, and said, with a kind of hissing sneer,

"Indeed, Uncle Lawrence, thank you for nothing. It's not very hard for you to be sorry."

Not dismayed, not even surprised by this speech, Lawrence was about to reply, but she struck in,

"No, no; I don't want to hear it. I've been cheated, and I'll have my revenge. As for you, my respected uncle, you have played your cards better."

He was surprised and perplexed.

"Why, Fanny, what cards? What do you mean?"

"I mean that an old fox is a sly fox," said she, with the hissing sneer.

Lawrence looked at her in amazement.

"I mean that sly old foxes who have lined their own nests can afford to pity a young one who gets a silver shoe-buckle," hissed Fanny, with bitter malignity. "If Alfred Dinks were not a hopeless fool, he'd break the will. Better wills than this have been broken by good lawyers before now. Probably," she added suddenly, with a sarcastic smile, "my dear uncle does not wish to have the will broken?"

Lawrence Newt was pondering what possible interest she thought he could have in the will.

"What difference could it make to me in any case, Fanny?"

"Only the difference of a million of dollars," said she, with her teeth set.

Gradually her meaning dawned upon Lawrence Newt. With a mingled pain, and contempt, and surprise, and a half-startled apprehension that others might have thought the same thing, and that all kinds of disagreeable consequences might flow from such misapprehension, he perceived what she was thinking of, and said, so suddenly and sharply that even Fanny started,

"You think I want to marry Hope Wayne?"

"Of course I do. So does every body else. Do you suppose we have not known of your intimacies? Do you think we have heard nothing of your meetings all winter with that artist and Amy Waring, and your reading poetry, and your talking poetry?" said Fanny, with infinite contempt.

There was a look of singular perplexity upon the face of Lawrence Newt. He was a man not often surprised, but he seemed to be surprised and even troubled now. He looked musingly across the room to Hope Wayne, who was sitting engaged in earnest conversation with Mrs. Simcoe. In her whole bearing and aspect there was that purity and kindliness which are always associated with blue eyes and golden hair, and which made the painters paint the angels as fair women. A lambent light played all over her form, and to Lawrence Newt's eyes she had never seemed so beautiful. The girlish quiet which he had first known in her had melted into a sweet composure—a dignified serenity which comes only with experience. The light wind that blew in at the window by which she sat raised her hair gently, as if invisible fingers were touching her with airy benedictions. Was it so strange that such a woman should be loved? Was it not strange that any man should see much of her, be a great deal with her, and not love her? Was Fanny's suspicion, was the world's gossip, unnatural?

He asked himself these questions as he looked at her, while a cloud of thoughts and memories floated through his mind.

Yet a close observer, who could read men's hearts in their faces—and that could be more easily done with every one else than with him—would have seen another expression gradually supplanting the first, or mingling with it rather: a look as of joy at some unexpected discovery—as if, for instance, he had said to himself, "She must be very dear whom I love so deeply that it has not occurred to me I could love this angel!"

Something of that kind, perhaps; at least, something that brought a transfigured cheerfulness into his face.

"Believe me, Fanny," he said, at length, "I am not anxious to marry Miss Wayne; nor would she marry me if I asked her."

Then he rose and passed across the room to her side.

"We were talking about the future life of the mistress of this mansion," said Hope Wayne to Lawrence as he joined them.

"What does she wish?" asked he; "that is always the first question."

"To go from here," said she, simply.

"Forever?"

"Forever!"

Hope Wayne said it quietly. Mrs. Simcoe sat holding her hand. The three seemed to be all a little serious at the word.

"Aunty says she has no particular desire to remain here," said Hope.

"It is like living in a tomb," said Mrs. Simcoe, turning her calm face to Lawrence Newt.

"Would you sell it outright?" asked he. Hope Wayne bent her head in assent.

"Why not? My own remembrances here are only gloomy. I should rather find or make another home. We could do it, aunty and I."

She said it simply. Lawrence shook his head smilingly, and replied,

"I don't think it would be hard."

"I am going to see my trustees this morning, Uncle Dinks says," continued Hope, "and I shall propose to them to sell immediately."

"Where will you go?" asked Lawrence.

"My best friends are in New York," replied she, with a tender color.

Lawrence Newt thought of Arthur Merlin.

"With my aunty," continued she, looking fondly at Mrs. Simcoe, "I think I need not be afraid."

Lunch was brought in; and meanwhile Mr. Kingo and Mr. Sutler had been sent for, and arrived. Mr. Burt had not apprised them of his intention of making them trustees.

They fell into conversation with Mr. Quiddy, and Mr. Baze, and Mr. Dinks. Dr. Peewee took his leave, "H'm ha! yes. My dear Miss Wayne, I congratulate you; congratulate you! h'm ha, yes, oh yes—congratulate you." The other legal gentlemen, friends of Mr. Dinks, drove off. Nobody was left behind but the trustees and the family and Lawrence Newt—the Dinks were of the family.

After business had been discussed, and the heiress—the owner of Pinewood—had announced her wishes in regard to that property, she also invited the company to remain to dinner, and to divert themselves as they chose meanwhile.

Mrs. Fanny Newt Dinks declined to stay. She asked her husband to call their carriage, and when it came to the door she made a formal courtesy, and did not observe—at least she did not take—the offered hand of Hope Wayne. But as she bowed and looked at Hope that young lady visibly changed color, for in the glance which Fanny gave her she seemed to see the face of her brother Abel; and she was not glad to see it.

Toward sunset of that soft June day, when Uncle and Aunt Dinks—the latter humiliated and alarmed—were gone, and the honest neighbors were gone, Hope Wayne was sitting upon the very bench where, as she once sat reading, Abel Newt had thrown a shadow upon her book. But not even the memory of that hour or that youth now threw a shadow upon her heart or life. The eyes with which she watched the setting sun were as free from sorrow as they were from guile.

Lawrence Newt was standing near the window in the library, looking up at the portrait that hung there, and deep into the soft, dark eyes. He had a trustful, candid air, as if he were seeking from it a benediction or consolation. As the long sunset light swept across the room, and touched tenderly the tender girl's face of the portrait, it seemed to him to smile tranquilly and trustingly, as if it understood and answered his confidence, and a deep peace fell upon his heart.

And high above, from her window that looked westward—with a clearer, softer gaze, as if Time had cleared and softened the doubts and obscurities of life—Mrs. Simcoe's face was turned to the setting sun.

Behind the distant dark-blue hills the June sun set—set upon three hearts, at least, that Time and Life had taught and tempered—upon three hearts that were brought together then and there, not altogether understanding each other, but ready and willing to understand. As it darkened within the library and the picture was hidden, Lawrence Newt stood at the window and looked upon the lawn where Hope was sitting. He heard a murmuring voice above him, and in the clear, silent air Hope heard it too. It was only a murmur mingling with the whisper of the pine-trees. But Hope knew what it was, though she could not hear the words. And yet the words were heard:

"I hold Thee with a trembling hand, And will not let Thee go; Till steadfastly by faith I stand, And all Thy goodness know."



CHAPTER XLIX.

A SELECT PARTY.

On a pleasant evening in the same month of June Mr. Abel Newt entertained a few friends at supper. The same June air, with less fragrance, perhaps, blew in at the open windows, which looked outside upon nothing but the street and the house walls opposite, but inside upon luxury and ease.

It mattered little what was outside, for heavy muslin curtains hung over the windows; and the light, the beauty, the revelry, were all within.

The boyish look was entirely gone now from the face of the lord of the feast. It was even a little sallow in hue and satiated in expression. There was occasionally that hard, black look in his eyes which those who had seen his sister Fanny intimately had often remarked in her—a look with which Alfred Dinks, for instance, was familiar. But the companions of his revels were not shrewd of vision. It was not Herbert Octoyne, nor Corlaer Van Boozenberg, nor Bowdoin Beacon, nor Sligo Moultrie, nor any other of his set, who especially remarked his expression; it was, oddly enough, Miss Grace Plumer, of New Orleans.

She sat there in the pretty, luxurious rooms, prettier and more luxurious than they. For, at the special solicitation of Mr. Abel Newt, Mrs. Plumer had consented to accept an invitation to a little supper at his rooms—very small and very select; Mrs. Newt, of course, to be present.

The Plumers arrived, and Laura Magot; but a note from mamma excused her absence—papa somewhat indisposed, and so forth; and Mr. Abel himself so sorry—but Mrs. Plumer knows what these husbands are! Meanwhile the ladies have thrown off their shawls.

The dinner is exquisite, and exquisitely served. Prince Abel, with royal grace, presides. By every lady's plate a pretty bouquet; the handsomest of all not by Miss, but by Mrs. Plumer. Flowers are every where. It is Grand Street, indeed, in the city; but the garden at Pinewood, perhaps, does not smell more sweetly.

"There is, indeed, no perfume of the clover, which is the very breath of our Northern June, Mrs. Plumer; but clover does not grow in the city, Miss Grace."

Prince Abel begins the little speech to the mother, but his voice and face turn toward the daughter as it ends.

Flowers are in glasses upon the mantle, and in vases of many-colored materials and of various shapes upon tables about the room. The last new books, in English editions often, and a few solid classics, are in sight. Pictures also.

"What a lovely Madonna!" says Miss Plumer, as she raises her eyes to a beautiful and costly engraving that hangs opposite upon the wall; which, indeed, was intended to be observed by her.

"Yes. It is the Sistine, you know," says the Prince, as he sees that the waiter pours wine for Mrs. Plumer.

The Prince forgets to mention that it is not the engraving which usually hangs there. Usually it is a pretty-colored French print representing "Lucille," a young woman who has apparently very recently issued from the bath. Indeed there is a very choice collection of French prints which the young men sometimes study over their cigars, but which are this evening in the port-folio, which is not in sight.

The waiters move very softly. The wants of the guests are revealed to them by being supplied. Quiet, elegance, luxury prevail.

"Really, Mr. Newt"—it is Mrs. Plumer, of New Orleans, who speaks—"you have created Paris in Grand Street!"

"Ah! madame, it is you who graciously bring Versailles and the Tuileries with you!"

He speaks to the mother; he looks, as he ends, again at the daughter.

The daughter for the first time is in the sanctuary of a bachelor—of a young man about town. It is a character which always interests her—which half fascinates her. Miss Plumer, of New Orleans, has read more French literature of the lighter sort—novels and romances, for instance—than most of the young women whom Abel Newt meets in society. Her eyes are very shrewd, and she is looking every where to see if she shall not light upon some token of bachelor habits—something that shall reveal the man who occupies those pretty rooms.

Every where her bright eyes fall softly, but every where upon quiet, elegance, and luxury. There is the Madonna; but there are also the last winner at the Newmarket, the profile of Mr. Bulwer, and a French landscape. The books are good, but not too good. There is an air of candor and honesty in the room, united with the luxury and elegance, that greatly pleased Miss Grace Plumer. The apartment leads naturally up to that handsome, graceful, dark-haired, dark-eyed gentleman whose eye is following hers, while she does not know it; but whose mind has preceded hers in the very journey around the room it has now taken.

Sligo Moultrie sits beyond Miss Plumer, who is at the left of Mr. Newt. Upon his right sits Mrs. Plumer. The friendly relations of Abel and Sligo have not been disturbed. They seem, indeed, of late to have become even strengthened. At least the young men meet oftener; not infrequently in Mrs. Plumer's parlor. Somehow they are aware of each other's movements; somehow, if one calls upon the Plumers, or drives with them, or walks with them alone, the other knows it. And they talk together freely of all people in the world, except the Plumers of New Orleans. In Abel's room of an evening, at a late hour, when a party of youth are smoking, there are many allusions to the pretty Plumer—to which it happens that Newt and Moultrie make only a general reply.

As the dinner proceeds from delicate course to course, and the wines of varying hue sparkle and flow, so the conversation purls along—a gentle, continuous stream. Good things are said, and there is that kind of happy appreciation which makes the generally silent speak and the clever more witty.

Mrs. Godefroi Plumer has traveled much, and enjoys the world. She is a Creole, with the Tropics in her hair and complexion, and Spain in her eyes. She wears a Parisian headdress, a brocade upon her ample person, and diamonds around her complacent neck and arms. Diamonds also flash in the fan which she sways gently, admiring Prince Abel. Diamonds—huge solitaires—glitter likewise in the ears of Miss Grace. She wears also a remarkable bracelet of the same precious stones; for the rest, her dress is a cloud of Mechlin lace. She has quick, dark eyes, and an olive skin. Her hands and feet are small. She has filbert nails and an arched instep. Prince Abel, who hangs upon his wall the portrait of the last Newmarket victor, has not omitted to observe these details. He thinks how they would grace a larger house, a more splendid table.

Sligo Moultrie remembers a spacious country mansion, surrounded by a silent plantation, somewhat fallen from its state, whom such a mistress would superbly restore. He looks a man too refined to wed for money, perhaps too indolently luxurious to love without it.

Half hidden under the muslin drapery by the window hangs a cage with a canary. The bird sits silent; but as the feast proceeds he pours a shrill strain into the murmur of the guests. For the noise of the golden-breasted bird Sligo Moultrie can not hear something that is said to him by the ripe mouth between the solitaires. He asks pardon, and it is repeated.

Then, still smiling and looking toward the window, he says, and, as he says it, his eyes—at which he knows his companion is looking—wander over the room,

"A very pretty cage!"

The eyes drop upon hers as they finish the circuit of the room. They say no more than the lips have said. And Miss Grace Plumer answers,

"I thought you were going to say a very noisy bird."

"But the bird is not very noisy," says the young man, his dark eyes still holding hers.

There is a moment of silence, during which Miss Plumer may have her fancy of what he means. If so, she does not choose to betray it. If her eyes are clear and shrewd, the woman's wit is not less so. It is with an air of the utmost simplicity that she replies,

"It was certainly noisy enough to drown what I was saying."

There is a sound upon her other side as if a musical bell rang.

"Miss Plumer!"

Her head turns. This time Mr. Sligo Moultrie sees the massive dark braids of her hair behind. The ripe mouth half smiles upon Prince Abel.

He holds a porcelain plate with a peach upon it, and a silver fruit-knife in his hand. She smiles, as if the music had melted into a look. Then she hears it again:

"Here is the sunniest side of the sunniest peach for Miss Plumer."

Sligo Moultrie can not help hearing, for the tone is not low. But, while he is expecting to catch the reply, Miss Magot, who sits beyond him, speaks to him. The Prince Abel, who sees many things, sees this; and, in a tone which is very low, Miss Plumer hears, and nobody else in the room hears:

"May life always be that side of a sweet fruit to her!"

It is the tone and not the words which are eloquent.

The next instant Sligo Moultrie, who has answered Miss Magot's question, hears Miss Plumer say:

"Thank you, with all my heart."

It seems to him a warm acknowledgment for a piece of fruit.

"I did not speak of the bird; I spoke of the cage," are the words that Miss Plumer next hears, and from the other side.

She turns to Sligo Moultrie and says, with eyes that expect a reply,

"Yes, you are right; it is a very pretty cage."

"Even a cage may be a home, I suppose."

"Ask the canary."

"And so turned to the basest uses," says Mr. Moultrie, as if thinking aloud.

He is roused by a little ringing laugh:

"A pleasant idea of home you suggest, Mr. Moultrie."

He smiles also.

"I do not wonder you laugh at me; but I mean sense, for all that," he says.

"You usually do," she says, sincerely, and eyes and solitaires glitter together.

Sligo Moultrie is happy—for one moment. The next he hears the musical bell of that other voice again. Miss Plumer turns in the very middle of a word which she has begun to address to him.

"Miss Grace?"

"Well, Mr. Newt."

"You observe the engraving of the Madonna?"

"Yes."

"You see the two cherubs below looking up?"

"Yes."

"You see the serene sweetness of their faces?"

"Yes."

"Do you know what it is?"

Grace Plumer looks as if curiously speculating. Sligo Moultrie can not help hearing every word, although he pares a peach and offers it to Miss Magot.

"Miss Grace, do you remember what I said once of honest admiration—that if it were eloquent it would be irresistible?"

Grace Plumer bows an assent.

"But that its mere consciousness—a sort of silent eloquence—is pure happiness to him who feels it?"

She thinks she remembers that too, although the Prince apparently forgets that he never said it to her before.

"Well, Miss Plumer, it seems to me the serene sweetness of that picture is the expression of the perfect happiness of entire admiration—that is to say, of love; whoever loves is like those cherubs—perfectly happy."

He looks attentively at the picture, as if he had forgotten his own existence in the happiness of the cherubs. Grace Plumer glances at him for a few moments with a peculiar expression. It is full of admiration, but it is not the look with which she would say, as she just now said to Sligo Moultrie, "You always speak sincerely."

She is still looking at the Prince, when Mr. Moultrie begins again:

"I ought to be allowed to explain that I only meant that as a cage is a home, so it is often used as a snare. Do you know, Miss Grace, that the prettiest birds are often put into the prettiest cages to entice other birds? By-the-by, how lovely Laura Magot is this evening!"

He cuts a small piece of the peach with his silver knife and puts it into his mouth,

"Peaches are luxuries in June," he says, quietly.

This time it is at Sligo Moultrie that Miss Grace Plumer looks fixedly.

"What kind of birds, Mr. Moultrie?" she says, at length.

"Miss Grace, do you know the story of the old Prince of Este?" answers he, as he lays a bunch of grapes upon her plate. She pulls one carelessly and lets it drop again. He takes it and puts it in his mouth.

"No; what is the story?"

"There was an old Prince of Este who had a beautiful villa and a beautiful sister, and nothing else in the world but a fiery eye and an eloquent tongue."

Sligo Moultrie flushes a little, and drinks a glass of wine. Grace Plumer is a little paler, and more serious. Prince Abel plies Madame Plumer with fruit and compliments, and hears every word.

"Well."

"Well, Miss Grace, she was so beautiful that many a lady became her friend, and many of those friends sighed for the brother's fiery eyes and blushed as they heard his honeyed tongue. But he was looking for a queen. At length came the Princess of Sheba—"

"Are you talking of King Solomon?"

"No, Miss Plumer, only of Alcibiades. And when the Princess of Sheba came near the villa the Prince of Este entreated her to visit him, promising that the sister should be there. It was a pretty cage, I think; the sister was a lovely bird. And the Princess came."

He stops and drinks more wine.

"Very well! And then?"

"Why, then, she had a very pleasant visit," he says, gayly.

"Mr. Moultrie, is that the whole of the story?"

"No, indeed, Miss Plumer; but that is as far as we have got."

"I want to hear the rest."

"Don't be in such a hurry; you won't like the rest so well."

"Yes; but that is my risk."

"It is your risk," says Sligo Moultrie, looking at her; "will you take it?"

"Of course I will," is the clear-eyed answer.

"Very well. The Princess came; but she did not go away."

"How curious! Did she die of a peach-stone at the banquet?"

"Not at all. She became Princess of Este instead of Sheba."

"Oh-h-h," says Grace Plumer, in a long-drawn exclamation. "And then?"

"Why, Miss Grace, how insatiable you are!—then I came away."

"You did? I wouldn't have come away."

"No, Miss Grace, you didn't."

"How—I didn't? What does that mean, Mr. Moultrie?"

"I mean the Princess remained."

"So you said. Is that all?"

"No."

"Well."

"Oh! the rest is nothing. I mean nothing new."

"Let me hear the old story, then, Mr. Moultrie."

"The rest is merely that the Princess found that the fiery eyes burned her and the eloquent tongue stung her, and truly that is the whole. Isn't it a pretty story? The moral is that cages are sometimes traps."

Sligo Moultrie becomes suddenly extremely attentive to Miss Magot. Grace Plumer ponders many things, and among others wonders how, when, where, Sligo Moultrie learned to talk in parables. She does not ask herself why he does so. She is a woman, and she knows why.



CHAPTER L.

WINE AND TRUTH.

The conversation takes a fresh turn. Corlaer Van Boozenberg is talking of the great heiress, Miss Wayne. He has drunk wine enough to be bold, and calls out aloud from his end of the table,

"Mr. Abel Newt!"

That gentleman turns his head toward his guest.

"We are wondering down here how it is that Miss Wayne went away from New York unengaged."

"I am not her confidant," Abel answers; and gallantly adds, "I am sure, like every other man, I should be glad to be so."

"But you had the advantage of every body else."

"How so?" asks Abel, conscious that Grace Plumer is watching him closely.

"Why, you were at school in Delafield until you were no chicken."

Abel bows smilingly.

"You must have known her."

"Yes, a little."

"Well, didn't you know what a stunning heiress she was, and so handsome! How'd you, of all men in the world, let her slip through your fingers?"

A curious silence follows this effusion. Corlaer Van Boozenberg is slightly flown with wine. Hal Battlebury, who sits near him, looks troubled. Herbert Octoyne and Mellish Whitloe exchange meaning glances. The young ladies—Mrs. Plumer is the only matron, except Mrs. Dagon, who sits below—smile pleasantly. Sligo Moultrie eats grapes. Grace Plumer waits to hear what Abel says, or to observe what he does. Mrs. Dagon regards the whole affair with an approving smile, nodding almost imperceptibly a kind of Freemason's sign to Mrs. Plumer, who thinks that the worthy young Van Boozenberg has probably taken too much wine.

Abel Newt quietly turns to Grace Plumer, saying,

"Poor Corlaer! There are disadvantages in being the son of a very rich man; one is so strongly inclined to measure every thing by money.. As if money were all!"

He looks her straight in the eyes as he says it. Perhaps it is some effort he is making which throws into his look that cold, hard blackness which is not beautiful. Perhaps it is some kind of exasperation arising from what he has heard Moultrie say privately and Van Boozenberg publicly, as it were, that pushes him further than he means to go. There is a dangerous look of craft; an air of sarcastic cunning in his eyes and on his face. He turns the current of talk with his neighbors, without any other indication of disturbance than the unpleasant look. Van Boozenberg is silent again. The gentle, rippling murmur of talk fills the room, and at a moment when Moultrie is speaking with his neighbor, Abel says, looking at the engraving of the Madonna,

"Miss Grace, I feel like those cherubs."

"Why so, Mr. Newt?"

"Because I am perfectly happy."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, Miss Grace, and for the same reason that I entirely love and admire."

Her heart beats violently. Sligo Moultrie turns and sees her face. He divines every thing in a moment, for he loves Grace Plumer.

"Yes, Miss Grace," he says, in a quick, thick tone, as if he were continuing a narration—"yes, she became Princess of Este; but the fiery eyes burned her, and the sweet tongue stung her forever and ever."

Mrs. Plumer and Mrs. Dagon are rising. There is a rustling tumult of women's dresses, a shaking out of handkerchiefs, light gusts of laughter, and fragments of conversation. The handsome women move about like birds, with a plumy, elastic motion, waving their fans, smelling their bouquets, and listening through them to tones that are very low. The Prince of the house is every where, smiling, sinuous, dark in the eyes and hair.

It is already late, and there is no disposition to be seated. Sligo Moultrie stands by Grace Plumer, and she is very glad and even grateful to him. Abel, passing to and fro, looks at her occasionally, and can not possibly tell if her confusion is pain or pleasure. There is a reckless gayety in the tone with which he speaks to the other ladies. "Surely Mr. Newt was never so fascinating," they all think in their secret souls; and they half envy Grace Plumer, for they know the little supper is given for her, and they think it needs no sibyl to say why, or to prophesy the future.

It is nearly midnight, and the moon is rising. Hark!

A band pours upon the silent night the mellow, passionate wail of "Robin Adair." The bright company stands listening and silent. The festive scene, the hour, the flowers, the luxury of the place, the beauty of the women, impress the imagination, and touch the music with a softer melancholy. Hal Battlebury's eyes are clear, but his heart is full of tears as he listens and thinks of Amy Waring. He knows that all is in vain. She has told him, with a sweet dignity that made her only lovelier and more inaccessible, that it can not be. He is trying to believe it. He is hoping to show her one day that she is wrong. Listening, he follows in his mind the song the band is playing.

Sligo Moultrie feels and admires the audacious skill of Abel in crowning the feast with music. Grace Plumer leans upon his arm. Abel Newt's glittering eyes are upon them. It is the very moment he had intended to be standing by her side, to hold her arm in his, and to make her feel that the music which pealed in long cadences through the midnight, and streamed through the draped windows into the room, was the passionate entreaty of his heart, the irresistible pathos of the love he bore her.

Somehow Grace Plumer is troubled. She fears the fascination she enjoys. She dreads the assumption of power over her which she has observed in Abel. She recoils from the cold blackness she has seen in his eyes. She sees it at this moment again, in that glittering glance which slips across the room and holds her as she stands. Involuntarily she leans upon Sligo Moultrie, as if clinging to him.

There is more music?—a lighter, then a sadder and lingering strain. It recedes slowly, slowly up the street. The company stand in the pretty parlor, and not a word is spoken. It is past midnight; the music is over.

"What a charming party! Mr. Newt, how much we are obliged to you!" says Mrs. Godefroi Plumer, as Abel hands her into the carriage.

"The pleasure is all mine, Madame," replies Mr. Newt, as he sees with bitterness that Sligo Moultrie stands ready to offer his hand to assist Miss Plumer. The footman holds the carriage door open. Miss Plumer can accept the assistance of but one, and Mr. Abel is resolved to know which one.

"Permit me, Miss Plumer," says Sligo.

"Allow me, Miss Grace," says Abel.

The latter address sounds to her a little too free. She feels, perhaps, that he has no rights of intimacy—at least not yet—or what does she feel? But she gives her hand to Sligo Moultrie, and Abel bows.

"Thank you for a delightful evening, Mr. Newt. Good-night!"

The host bows again, bareheaded, in the moonlight.

"By-the-by, Mr. Moultrie," says the ringing voice of the clear-eyed girl, who remembers that Abel is listening, but who is sure that only Sligo can understand, "I ought to have told you that the story ended differently. The Princess left the villa. Good-night! good-night!"

The carriage rattles down the street.

"Good-night, Newt; a very beautiful and pleasant party."

"Good-night, Moultrie—thank you; and pleasant dreams."

The young Georgian skips up the street, thinking only of Grace Plumer's last words. Abel Newt stands at his door for a moment, remembering them also, and perfectly understanding them. The next instant he is shawling and cloaking the other ladies, who follow the Plumers; among them Mrs. Dagon, who says, softly,

"Good-night, Abel. I like it all very well. A very proper girl! Such a complexion! and such teeth! Such lovely little hands, too! It's all very right. Go on, my dear. What a dreadful piece of work Fanny's made of it! I wonder you don't like Hope Wayne. Think of it, a million of dollars! However, it's all one, I suppose—Grace or Hope are equally pleasant. Good-night, naughty boy! Behave yourself. As for your father, I'm afraid to go to the house lest he should bite me. He's dangerous. Good-night, dear!"

Yes, Abel remembers with singular distinctness that it was a word, only one word, just a year ago to Grace Plumer—a word intended only to deceive that foolish Fanny—which had cost him—at least, he thinks so—Hope Wayne.

He bows his last guests out at the door with more sweetness in his face than in his soul. Returning to the room he looks round upon the ruins of the feast, and drinks copiously of the wine that still remains. Not at all inclined to sleep, he goes into his bedroom and finds a cigar. Returning, he makes a few turns in the room while he smokes, and stops constantly to drink another glass. He half mutters to himself, as he addresses the chair in which Grace Plumer has been sitting,

"Are you or I going to pay for this feast, Madame? Somebody has got to do it. Young woman, Moultrie was right, and you are wrong. She did become Princess of Este. I'll pay now, and you'll pay by-and-by. Yes, my dear Grace, you'll pay by-and-by."

He says these last words very slowly, with his teeth set, the head a little crouched between the shoulders, and a stealthy, sullen, ugly glare in the eyes.

"I've got to pay now, and you shall pay by-and-by. Yes, Miss Grace Plumer; you shall pay for to-night and for the evening in my mother's conservatory."

He strides about the room a little longer. It is one o'clock, and he goes down stairs and out of the house. Still smoking, he passes along Broadway until he reaches Thiel's. He hurries up, and finds only a few desperate gamblers. Abel himself looks a little wild and flushed. He sits down defiantly and plays recklessly. The hours are clanged from the belfry of the City Hall. The lights burn brightly in Thiel's rooms. Nobody is sleeping there. One by one the players drop away—except those who remark Abel's game, for that is so careless and furious that it is threatening, threatening, whether he loses or wins.

He loses constantly, but still plays on. The lights are steady. His eyes are bright. The bank is quite ready to stay open for such a run of luck in its favor.

The bell of the City Hall clangs three in the morning as a young man emerges from Thiel's, and hurries, then saunters, up Broadway. His motions are fitful, his dress is deranged, and his hair matted. His face, in the full moonlight, is dogged and dangerous. It is the Prince of the feast, who had told Grace Plumer that he was perfectly happy.



CHAPTER LI.

A WARNING.

A few evenings afterward, when Abel called to know how the ladies had borne the fatigues of the feast, Mrs. Plumer said, with smiles, that it was a kind of fatigue ladies bore without flinching. Miss Grace, who was sitting upon a sofa by the side of Sligo Moultrie, said that it was one of the feasts at which young women especially are supposed to be perfectly happy. She emphasized the last words, and her bright black eyes opened wide upon Mr. Abel Newt, who could not tell if he saw mischievous malice or a secret triumph and sense release in them.

"Oh!" said he, gayly, "it would be too much for me hope to make any ladies, and especially young ladies, perfectly happy."

And he returned Miss Plumer's look with a keen glance masked in merriment.

Sligo Moultrie wagged his foot.

"There now is conscious power!" said Abel, with a laugh, as he pointed at Miss Plumer's companion.

They all laughed, but not very heartily. There appeared to be some meaning lurking in whatever was said; and like all half-concealed meanings, it seemed, perhaps, even more significant than it really was.

Abel was very brilliant, and told more and better stories than usual. Mrs. Plumer listened and laughed, and declared that he was certainly the best company she had met for a long time. Nor were Miss Plumer and Mr. Moultrie reluctant to join the conversation. In fact, Abel was several times surprised by the uncommon spirit of Sligo's replies.

"What is it?" said Abel to himself, with a flash of the black eyes that was startling.

All the evening he felt particularly belligerent toward Sligo Moultrie; and yet a close observer would have discovered no occasion in the conduct of the young man for such a feeling upon Abel's part. Mr. Moultrie sat quietly by the side of Grace Plumer—"as if somehow he had a right to sit there," thought Abel Newt, who resolved to discover if indeed he had a right.

During that visit, however, he had no chance. Moultrie sat persistently, and so did Abel. The clock pointed to eleven, and still they did not move. It was fairly toward midnight when Abel rose to leave, and at the same moment Sligo Moultrie rose also. Abel bade the ladies good-evening, and passed out as if Moultrie were close by him. But that young man remained standing by the sofa upon which Grace Plumer was seated, and said quietly to Abel,

"Good-evening, Newt!"

Grace Plumer looked at him also, with the bright black eyes, and blushed.

For a moment Abel Newt's heart seemed to stand still! An expression of some bitterness must have swept over his face, for Mrs. Plumer stepped toward him, as he stood with his hand upon the door, and said,

"Are you unwell?"

The cloud dissolved in a forced smile.

"No, thank you; not at all!" and he looked surprised, as if he could not imagine why any one should think so.

He did not wait longer, and the next moment was in the street.

Mrs. Plumer also left the room almost immediately after his departure. Sligo Moultrie seated himself by his companion.

"My dear Grace, did you see that look?"

"Yes."

"He suspects the truth," returned Sligo Moultrie; and he might have added more, but that his lips at that instant were otherwise engaged.

Abel more than suspected the truth. He was sure of it, and the certainty made him desperate. He had risked so much upon the game! He had been so confident! As he half ran along the street he passed many things rapidly in his mind. He was like a seaman in doubtful waters, and the breeze was swelling into a gale.

Turning out of Broadway he ran quickly to his door, opened it, and leaped up stairs.

To his great surprise his lamp was lighted and a man was sitting reading quietly at his table. As Abel entered his visitor closed his book and looked up.

"Why, Uncle Lawrence," said the young man, "you have a genius for surprises! What on earth are you doing in my room?"

His uncle said, only half smiling,

"Abel, we are both bachelors, and bachelors have no hours. I want to talk with you."

Abel looked at his guest uneasily; but he put down his hat and lighted a cigar; then seated himself, almost defiantly, opposite his uncle, with the table between them.

"Now, Sir; what is it?"

Lawrence Newt paused a moment, while the young man still calmly puffed the smoke from his mouth, and calmly regarded his uncle.

"Abel, you are not a fool. You know the inevitable results of certain courses. I want to fortify your knowledge by my experience. I understand all the temptations and excitements that carry you along. But I don't like your looks, Abel; and I don't like the looks of other people when they speak of you and your father. Remember, we are of the same blood. Heaven knows its own mysteries! Your father and I were sons of one woman. That is a tie which we can neither of us escape, if we wanted to. Why should you ruin yourself?"

"Did you come to propose any thing for me to do, Sir, or only to inform me that you considered me a reprobate?" asked Abel, half-sneeringly, the smoke rising from his mouth.

Lawrence Newt did not answer.

"I am like other young men," continued Abel. "I am fond of living well, of a good horse, of a pretty woman. I drink my glass, and I am not afraid of a card. Really, Uncle Lawrence, I see no such profound sin or shame in it all, so long as I honestly pay the scot. Do I cheat at cards? Do I lie in the gutters?"

"No!" answered Lawrence.

"Do I steal?"

"Not that I know," said the other.

"Please, Uncle Lawrence, what do you mean, then?"

"I mean the way, the spirit in which you do things. If you are not conscious of it, how can I make you? I can not say more than I have. I came merely—"

"As a handwriting upon the wall, Uncle Lawrence?"

Lawrence Newt rose and stood a little back from the table.

"Yes, if you choose, as a handwriting on the wall. Abel, when the prodigal son came to himself, he rose and went to his father. I came to ask you to return to yourself."

"From these husks, Sir?" asked Abel, as he looked around his luxurious rooms, his eye falling last upon the French print of Lucille, fresh from the bath.

Lawrence Newt looked at his nephew with profound gravity. The young man lay back in his chair, lightly holding his cigar, and carelessly following the smoke with his eye. The beauty and intelligence of his face, the indolent grace of his person, seen in the soft light of the lamp, and set like a picture in the voluptuous refinement of the room, touched the imagination and the heart of the older man. There was a look of earnest, yearning entreaty in his eyes as he said,

"Abel, you remember Milton's Comus?"

The young man bowed.

"Do you think the revelers were happy?"

Abel smiled, but did not answer. But after a few minutes he said, with a smile,

"I was not there."

"You are there," answered Lawrence Newt, with uplifted finger, and in a voice so sad and clear that Abel started.

The two men looked at each other silently for a few moments.

"Good-night, Abel."

"Good-night, Uncle Lawrence."

The door closed behind the older man. Abel sat in his chair, intently thinking. His uncle's words rang in his memory. But as he recalled the tone, the raised finger, the mien, with which they had been spoken, the young man looked around him, and seemed half startled and frightened by the stillness, and awe-struck by the midnight hour. He moved his head rapidly and arose, like a person trying to rouse himself from sleep or nightmare. Passing the mirror, he involuntarily started at the haggard paleness of his face under the clustering black hair. He was trying to shake something off. He went uneasily about the room until he had lighted a match, and a candle, with which he went into the next room, still half-looking over his shoulder, as if fearing that something dogged him. He opened the closet where he kept his wine. He restlessly filled a large glass and poured it down his throat—not as if he were drinking, but as if he were taking an antidote. He rubbed his forehead with his hand, and half-smiled a sickly smile.

But still his eyes wandered nervously to the spot in which his uncle had stood; still he seemed to fear that he should see a ghostly figure standing there and pointing at him; should see himself, in some phantom counterpart, sitting in the chair. His eyes opened as if he were listening intently. For in the midnight he thought he heard, in that dim light he thought he saw, the Prophet and the King. He did not remember more the words his uncle had spoken. But he heard only, "Thou art the man! Thou art the man!"

And all night long, as he dreamed or restlessly awoke, he heard the same words, spoken as if with finger pointed—"Thou art the man! Thou art the man!"



CHAPTER LII.

BREAKERS.

Lawrence Newt had certainly told the truth of his brother's home. Mr. Boniface Newt had become so surly that it was not wise to speak to him. He came home late, and was angry if dinner were not ready, and cross if it were. He banged all the doors, and swore at all the chairs. After dinner he told May not to touch the piano, and begged his wife, for Heaven's sake, to take up some book, and not to sit with an air of imbecile vacancy that was enough to drive a man distracted. He snarled at the servants, so that they went about the house upon tip-toe and fled his presence, and were constantly going away, causing Mrs. Newt to pass many hours of the week in an Intelligence Office. Mr. Newt found holes in the carpets, stains upon the cloths, knocks upon the walls, nicks in the glasses and plates at table, scratches upon the furniture, and defects and misfortunes every where. He went to bed without saying good-night, and came down without a good-morning. He sat at breakfast morose and silent; or he sighed, and frowned, and muttered, and went out without a smile or a good-by. There was a profound gloom in the house, an unnatural order. Nobody dared to derange the papers or books upon the tables, to move the chairs, or to touch any thing. If May appeared in a new dress he frowned, and his wife trembled every time she put in a breast-pin.

Only in her own room was May mistress of every thing. If any body had looked into it he would have seen only the traces of a careful and elegant hand, and often enough he would have seen a delicate girl-face, almost too thoughtful for so young a face, resting upon the hand, as if May Newt were troubled and perplexed by the gloom of the house and the silence of the household. Her window opened over the street, and there were a few horse-chestnut trees before the house. She made friends with them, and they covered themselves with blossoms for her pleasure. She sat for hours at her window, looking into the trees, sewing, reading, musing—solitary as a fairy princess in a tower.

Sometimes flowers came, with Uncle Lawrence's love. Or fine fruit for Miss May Newt, with the same message. Several times from her window May had seen who the messenger was: a young man with candid eyes, with a quick step, and an open, almost boyish face. When the street was still she heard him half-singing as he bounded along—as nobody sings, she thought, whose home is not happy.

Solitary as a fairy princess in a tower, she looked down upon the figure as it rapidly disappeared. The sewing or the reading stopped entirely; nor were they resumed when he had passed out of sight. May Newt thought it strange that Uncle Lawrence should send such a messenger in the middle of the day. He did not look like a porter. He was not an office boy. He was evidently one of the upper-clerks. It was certainly very kind in Uncle Lawrence.

So thought the solitary Princess in the tower, her mind wandering from the romance she was reading to a busy speculation upon the reality in the street beneath her.

The blind was thrown partly back as she sat at the open window. A simple airy dress, made by her own hands, covered her flower-like figure. The brown hair was smoothed over the white temples, and the sweet girl eyes looked kindly into the street from which the figure of the young man had just passed. If by chance the eyes of that young man had been turned upward, would he not have thought—since one Sunday morning, when he passed her on the way to church, he was sure that she looked like an angel going home—would he not have thought that she looked like an angel bending down toward him out of heaven?

It was not strange that Uncle Lawrence had sent him. For somehow Uncle Lawrence had discovered that if there was any thing to go to May Newt, there was nothing in the world that Gabriel Bennet was so anxious to do as to carry it.

But while the young man was always so glad to go to Boniface Newt's gloomy house—for some reason which he did not explain, and which even his sister Ellen did not know—or, at least, which she pretended not to know, although one evening that wily young girl talked with brother Gabriel about May Newt, as if she had some particular purpose in the conversation, until she seemed to have convinced herself of some hitherto doubtful point—yet with all the willingness to go to the house, Gabriel Bennet never went to the office of Boniface Newt, Son, & Co.

If he had done so it would not have been pleasant to him, for it was perpetual field-day in the office. A few days after Uncle Lawrence's visit to his nephew, the senior partner sat bending his hard, anxious face over account-books and letters. The junior partner lounged in his chair as if the office had been a club-room. The "Company" never appeared.

"Father, I've just seen Sinker."

"D—— Sinker!"

"Come, come, father, let's be reasonable! Sinker says that the Canal will be a clear case of twenty per cent, per annum for ten years at least, and that we could afford to lose a cent or two upon the Bilbo iron to make it up, over and over again."

Mr. Abel Newt threw his leg over the arm of the chair and looked at his boot. Mr. Boniface Newt threw his head around suddenly and fiercely.

"And what's Sinker's commission? How much money do you suppose he has to put in? How much stock will he take?"

"He has sold out in the Mallow Mines to put in," said Abel, a little doggedly.

"Are you sure?"

"He says so," returned Abel, shortly.

"Don't believe a word of it!" said his father, tartly, turning back again to his desk.

Abel put both hands in his pockets, and both feet upon the ground, side by side, and rocked them upon the heels backward and forward, looking all the time at his father. His face grew cloudy—more cloudy every moment. At length he said,

"I think we'd better do it."

His father did not speak or move. He seemed to have heard nothing, and to be only inwardly cursing the state of things revealed by the books and papers before him.

Abel looked at him for a moment, and then, raising his voice, continued:

"As one of the firm, I propose that we sell out the Bilbo and buy into the Canal."

Not a look or movement from his father.

Abel jumped up—his eyes black, his face red. He took his hat and went to the door, saying,

"I shall go and conclude the arrangement!"

As he reached the door his father raised his eyes and looked at him. The eyes were full of contempt and anger, and a sneering sound came from his lips.

"You'll do no such thing."

The young man glanced sideways at his parent.

"Who will prevent me?"

"I!" roared the elder.

"I believe I am one of the firm," said Abel, coldly.

"You'd better try it!" said the old man, disregarding Abel's remark.

Abel was conscious that his father had this game, at least, in his hands. The word of the young man would hardly avail against a simultaneous veto from the parent. No transaction would stand a moment under such circumstances. The young man slowly turned from the door, and fixing his eyes upon his father, advanced toward him with a kind of imperious insolence.

"I should like to understand my position in this house," said he, with forced calmness.

"Good God! Sir, a bootblack, if I choose!" returned his father, fiercely. "The unluckiest day of my life was when you came in here, Sir. Ever since then the business has been getting more and more complicated, until it is only a question of days how long it can even look respectable. We shall all be beggars in a month. We are ruined. There is no chance," cried the old man, with a querulous wail through his set teeth. "And you know who has done it all. You know who has brought us all to shame and disgrace—to utter poverty;" and, rising from his chair, the father shook his clenched hands at Abel so furiously that the young man fell back abashed.

"Don't talk to me, Sir. Don't dare to say a word," cried Mr. Newt, in a voice shrill with anger. "All my life has come to nothing. All my sacrifices, my industry, my efforts, are of no use. I am a beggar, Sir; so are you!"

He sank back in his chair and covered his face with his hands. The noise made the old book-keeper outside look in. But it was no new thing. The hot debates of the private room were familiar to his ear. With the silent, sad fidelity of his profession he knew every thing, and was dumb. Not a turn of his face, not a light in his eye, told any tales to the most careful and sagacious inquirer. Within the last few months Mr. Van Boozenberg had grown quite friendly with him. When they met, the President had sought to establish the most familiar intercourse. But he discovered that for the slightest hint of the condition of the Newt business he might as well have asked Boniface himself. Like a mother, who knows the crime her son has committed, and perceives that he can only a little longer hide it, but who, with her heart breaking, still smiles away suspicion, so the faithful accountant, who supposed that the crash was at hand, was as constant and calm as if the business were never before so prosperous.



CHAPTER LIII.

SLIGO MOULTRIE vice ABEL NEWT.

Abel Newt had now had two distinct warnings of something which nobody knew must happen so well as he. He dined sumptuously that very day, and dressed very carefully that evening, and at eight o'clock was sitting alone with Grace Plumer. The superb ruby was on her finger. But on the third finger of her left hand he saw a large glowing opal. His eyes fastened upon it with a more brilliant glitter. They looked at her too so strangely that Grace Plumer felt troubled and half alarmed. "Am I too late?" he thought.

"Miss Grace," said Abel, in a low voice.

The tone was significant.

"Mr. Newt," said she, with a half smile, as if she accepted a contest of badinage.

"Do you remember I said I was perfectly happy?"

He moved his chair a little nearer to hers. She drew back almost imperceptibly.

"I remember you said so, and I was very glad to hear it."

"Do you remember my theory of perfect happiness?"

"Yes," said Miss Plumer, calmly, "I believe it was perfect love. But I think we had better talk of something else;" and she rose from her chair and stood by the table.

"Miss Plumer!"

"Mr. Newt."

"It was you who first emboldened me."

"I do not understand, Sir."

"It was a long time ago, in my mother's conservatory."

Grace Plumer remembered the evening, and she replied, more softly,

"I am very sorry, Mr. Newt, that I behaved so foolishly: I was young. But I think we did each other no harm."

"No harm, I trust, indeed, Miss Grace," said Abel. "It is surely no harm to love; at least, not as I love you."

He too had risen, and tried to take her hand. She stepped back. He pressed toward her.

"Grace; dear Grace!"

"Stop, Sir, stop!" said his companion, drawing herself up and waving him back; "I can not hear you talk so. I am engaged."

Abel turned pale. Grace Plumer was frightened. He sprang forward and seized her hand.

"Oh! Grace, hear me but one word! You knew that I loved you, and you allowed me to come. In honor, in truth, before God, you are mine!"

She struggled to release her hand. As she looked in his face she saw there an expression which assured her that he was capable of saying any thing, of doing any thing; and she trembled to think how much she might be—how much any woman is—in the power of a desperate man.

"Indeed, Mr. Newt, you must let me go!"

"Grace, Grace, say that you love me!"

The frightened girl broke away from him, and ran toward the door. Abel followed her, but the door opened, and Sligo Moultrie entered.

"Oh, Sligo!" cried Grace, as he put his arm around her.

Abel stopped and bowed.

"Pardon me, Miss Plumer. Certainly Mr. Moultrie will understand the ardor of a passion which in his case has been so fortunate. I am sorry, Sir," he said, turning to Sligo, "that my ignorance of your relation to Miss Plumer should have betrayed me. I congratulate you both from my soul!"

He bowed again, and before they could speak he was gone. The tone of his voice lingering upon their ears was like a hiss. It was a most sinister felicitation.



CHAPTER LIV.

CLOUDS AND DARKNESS.

"At least, Miss Amy—at least, we shall be friends."

Amy Waring sat in her chamber on the evening of the day that Lawrence Newt had said these words. Her long rich brown hair clustered upon her shoulders, and the womanly brown eyes were fixed upon a handful of withered flowers. They were the blossoms she had laid away at various times—gifts of Lawrence Newt, or consecrated by his touch.

She sat musing for a long time. The womanly brown eyes were soft with a look of aching regret rather than of sharp disappointment. Then she rose—still holding the withered remains—and paced thoughtfully up and down the room. The night hours passed, and still she softly paced, or tranquilly seated herself, without the falling of a tear, and only now and then a long deep breath rather than a sigh.

At last she took all the flowers—dry, yellow, lustreless—and opened a sheet of white paper. She laid them in it, and the brown womanly eyes looked at them with yearning fondness. She sat motionless, as if she could not prevail upon herself to fold the paper. But at length she sank gradually to her knees—a sinless Magdalen; her brown hair fell about her bending face, and she said, although her lips did not move, "To each, in his degree, the cup is given. Oh, Father! strengthen each to drain it and believe!"

She rose quietly and folded the paper, with the loving care and lingering delay with which a mother smooths the shroud that wraps her baby. She tied it with a pure white ribbon, so that it looked not unlike a bridal gift; and pressing her lips to it long and silently, she laid it in the old drawer. There it still remained. The paper was as white, the ribbon was as pure as ever. Only the flowers were withered. But her heart was not a flower.

"Well, Aunt Martha," said she, several months after the death of old Christopher Burt, "I really think you are coming back to this world again."

The young woman smiled, while the older one busily drove her needle.

"Why," continued Amy, "here is a white collar; and you have actually smiled at least six times in as many months!"

The older woman still said nothing. The old sadness was in her eyes, but it certainly had become more natural—more human, as it were—and the melodramatic gloom in which she had hitherto appeared was certainly less obvious.

"Amy," she said at length, "God leads his erring children through the dark valley, but he does lead them—he does not leave them. I did not know how deeply I had sinned until I heard the young man Summerfield, who came to see me even in this room."

She looked up and about, as if to catch some lingering light upon the wall.

"And it was Lawrence Newt's preacher who made me feel that there was hope even for me."

She sewed on quietly.

"I thank God for those two men; and for one other," she added, after a little pause.

Amy only looked, she did not ask who.

"Lawrence Newt," said Aunt Martha, calmly looking at Amy—"Lawrence Newt, who came to me as a brother comes to a sister, and said, 'Be of good cheer!' Amy, what is the matter with you and Lawrence Newt?"

"How, aunty?"

"How many months since you met here?"

"It was several months ago, aunty."

Aunt Martha sat quietly sewing, and after some time said,

"He is no longer a young man."

"But, Aunt Martha, he is not old."

Still sewing, the grave woman looked at the burning cheeks of her younger companion. Amy did not speak.

The older woman continued: "When you and he went from this room months ago I supposed you would be his wife before now."

Still Amy did not speak. It was not because she was unwilling to confide entirely in Aunt Martha, but there was something she did not wish to say to herself. Yet suddenly, as if lifted upon a calm, irresistible purpose—as a leaf is lifted upon the long swell of the sea—she said, with her heart as quiet as her eyes,

"I do not think Lawrence Newt loves me."

The next moment the poor leaf is lost in the trough of the sea. The next moment Amy Waring's heart beat tumultuously; she felt as if she should fall from her seat. Her eyes were blind with hot tears. Aunt Martha did not look up—did not start or exclaim—but deliberately threaded her needle carefully, and creased her work with her thumb-nail. After a little while, during which the sea was calming itself, she said, slowly, repeating Amy's words syllable by syllable,

"You do not believe Lawrence Newt loves you?"

"No," was the low, firm whisper of reply.

"Whom do you think he loves?"

There was an instant of almost deathly stillness in that turbulent heart. For a moment the very sea of feeling seemed to be frozen.

Then, and very slowly, a terrible doubt arose in Amy Waring's mind. Before this conversation every perplexity had resolved itself in the consciousness that somehow it must all come right by-and-by. It had never occurred to her to ask, Does he love any one else? But she saw now at once that if he did, then the meaning of his words was plain enough; and so, of course, he did.

Who was it?

Amy knew there was but one person in the world whose name could possibly answer that question.

But had Lawrence not watched with her—and with delight—the progress of Arthur Merlin's feeling for that other?

Yes; but if, as he watched so closely, he saw and felt how lovely that other was, was it so wonderful that he should love her?

These things flashed through her mind as she sat motionless by Aunt Martha; and she said, with profound tranquillity,

"Very possibly, Hope Wayne."

Aunt Martha did not look up. She seemed to feel that she should see something too sad if she did so; but she asked,

"Is she worthy of him?"

"Perfectly!" answered Amy, promptly.

At this word Aunt Martha did look up, and her eyes met Amy's. Amy Waring burst into tears. Her aunt laid aside her work, and gently put her arms about her niece. She waited until the first gush of feeling had passed, and then said, tenderly,

"Amy, it is by the heart that God leads us women to himself. Through love I fell; but through love, in another way, I hope to be restored. Do you really believe he loves Hope Wayne?"

"I don't know," was the low reply.

"I know, Amy."

The two women had risen, and were walking, with their arms clasped around each other, up and down the room. They stopped at the window and looked out. As they did so, their eyes fell simultaneously upon the man of whom they were speaking, who was standing at the back of his lofts, looking up at the window, which was a shrine to him.

"There she stood and smiled at me," he said to himself whenever he looked at it.

As their eyes met, he smiled and waved his hand. With his eyes and head he asked, as when he had first seen her there,

"May I come up?" and he waved his handkerchief.

The two women looked at him. As Amy did so, she felt as if there had been a long and gloomy war; and now, in his eager eyes and waving hand, she saw the illumination and waving flags of victory and peace.

She smiled as she looked, and nodded No to him with her head.

But Aunt Martha nodded Yes so vehemently that Lawrence Newt immediately disappeared from his window.

Alarmed at his coming, doubtful of Aunt Martha's intention, Amy Waring suddenly cried, "Oh! Aunt Martha!" and was gone in a moment. Lawrence Newt dashed round, and knocked at the door.

"Come in!"

He rushed into the room. Some sweet suspicion had winged his feet and lightened his heart; but he was not quick enough. He looked eagerly about him.

"She is gone!" said Aunt Martha.

His eager eyes drooped, as if light had gone out of his life also.

"Mr. Newt," said Aunt Martha, "sit down. You have been of the greatest service to me. How can I repay you?"

Lawrence Newt, who had felt during the moment in which he saw Amy at the window, and the other in which he had been hastening to her, that the cloud was about rolling from his life, was confounded by finding that it was an account between Aunt Martha, instead of Amy, and himself that was to be settled.

He bowed in some confusion, but recovering in a moment, he said, courteously,

"I am aware of nothing that you owe me in any way."

"Lawrence Newt," returned the other, solemnly, "you have known my story; you knew the man to whom I supposed myself married; you have known of my child; you have known how long I have been dead to the world and to all my family and friends, and when, by chance, you discovered me, you became as my brother. How many an hour we have sat talking in this room, and how constantly your sympathy has been my support and your wisdom my guide!"

Lawrence Newt, whose face had grown very grave, waved his hand deprecatingly.

"I know, I know," she continued. "Let that remain unsaid. It can not be unforgotten. But I know your secrets too."

They looked at each other.

"You love Amy Waring."

His face became inscrutable, and his eyes were fixed quietly upon hers. She betrayed no embarrassment, but continued,

"Amy Waring loves you."

A sudden light shot into that inscrutable face. The clear eyes were veiled for an instant by an exquisite emotion.

"What separates you?"

There was an authority in the tone of the question which Lawrence Newt found hard to resist. It was an authority natural to such intimate knowledge of the relation of the two persons. But he was so entirely unaccustomed to confide in any body, or to speak of his feelings, that he could not utter a word. He merely looked at Aunt Martha as if he expected her to answer all her own questions, and solve every difficulty and doubt.

Meanwhile she had resumed her sewing, and was rocking quietly in her chair. Lawrence Newt arose and found his tongue. He bowed in that quaint way which seemed to involve him more closely in himself, and to warn off every body else.

"I prefer to hear that a woman loves me from her own lips."

The tone was perfectly kind and respectful; but Aunt Martha felt that she had been struck dumb.

"I thank you from my heart," Lawrence Newt said to her. And taking her hand, he bent over it and kissed it. She sat looking at him, and at length said,

"Mayn't I do any thing to show my gratitude?"

"You have already done more than I deserve," replied Lawrence Newt. "I must go now. Good-by! God bless you!"

She heard his quick footfalls as he descended the stairs. For a long time the sombre woman sat rocking idly to and fro, holding her work in her hand, and with her eyes fixed upon the floor. She did not seem to see clearly, whatever it might be she was looking at. She shook out her work and straightened it, and folded it regularly, and looked at it as if the secret would pop out of the proper angle if she could only find it. Then she creased it and crimped it—still she could not see. Then she took a few stitches slowly, regarding fixedly a corner of the room as if the thought she was in search of was a mouse, and might at any moment run out of his hole and over the floor.

And after all the looking, she shook her head intelligently and fell quietly to work, as if the mystery were plain enough, saying to herself,

"Why didn't I trust a girl's instinct who loves as Amy does? Of course she is right. Dear! dear! Of course he loves Hope Wayne."



CHAPTER LV.

ARTHUR MERLIN'S GREAT PICTURE.

Arthur Merlin had sketched his great picture of Diana and Endymion a hundred times. He talked of it with his friends, and smoked scores of boxes of cigars during the conversations. He had completed what he called the study for the work, which represented, he said, the Goddess alighting upon Latmos while Endymion slept. He pointed out to his companions, especially to Lawrence Newt, the pure antique classical air of the composition.

"You know," he said, as he turned his head and moved his hands over the study as if drawing in the air, "you know it ought somehow to seem silent, and cool, and remote; for it is ancient Greece, Diana, and midnight. You see?"

Then came a vast cloud of smoke from his mouth, as if to assist the eyes of the spectator.

"Oh yes, I see," said every one of his companions—especially Lawrence Newt, who did see, indeed, but saw only a head of Hope Wayne in a mist. The Endymion, the mountain, the Greece, the antiquity, were all vigorous assumptions of the artist. The study for his great picture was simply an unfinished portrait of Hope Wayne.

Aunt Winnifred, who sometimes came into her nephew's studio, saw the study one day, and exclaimed, sorrowfully,

"Oh, Arthur! Arthur!"

The young man, who was busily mixing colors upon his pallet, and humming, as he smoked, "'Tis my delight of a shiny night," turned in dismay, thinking his aunt was suddenly ill.

"My dear aunt!" and he laid down his pallet and ran toward her.

She was sitting in an armchair holding the study. Arthur stopped.

"My dear Arthur, now I understand all."

Arthur Merlin was confused. He, perhaps, suspected that his picture of Diana resembled a certain young lady. But how should Aunt Winnifred know it, who, as he supposed, had never seen her? Besides, he felt it was a disagreeable thing, when he was and had been in love with a young lady for a long time, to have his aunt say that she understood all about it. How could she understand all about it? What right has any body to say that she understands all about it? He asked himself the petulant question because he was very sure that he himself did not by any means understand all about it.

"What do you understand, Aunt Winnifred?" demanded Arthur, in a resolute and defiant tone, as if he were fully prepared to deny every thing he was about to hear.

"Yes, yes," continued Aunt Winnifred, musingly, and in a tone of profound sadness, as she still held and contemplated the picture—"yes; yes! I see, I see!"

Arthur was quite vexed.

"Now really my dear aunt," said he, remonstratingly, "you must be aware that it is not becoming in a woman like you to go on in this way. You ought to explain what you mean," he added, decidedly.

"Well, my poor boy, the hotter you get the surer I am. Don't you see?"

Mr. Merlin did not seem to be in the least pacified by this reply. It was, therefore, in an indignant tone that he answered:

"Aunt Winnifred, it is not kind in you to come up here and make me lose my time and temper, while you sit there coolly and talk in infernal parables!"

"Infernal parables!" cried the lady, in a tone of surprise and horror.

"Oh, Arthur, Arthur! that comes of not going to church. Infernal parables! My soul and body, what an awful idea!"

The painter smiled. The contest was too utterly futile. He went slowly back to his easel, and, after a few soothing puffs, began again to rub his colors upon the pallet. He was humming carelessly once more, and putting his brush to the canvas before him, when his aunt remarked,

"There, Arthur! now that you are reasonable, I'll tell you what I meant."

The artist looked over his shoulder and laughed.

"Go on, dear aunt."

"I understand now why you don't go to our church."

It was a remark so totally unexpected that Arthur stopped short and turned quite round.

"What do you mean, Aunt Winnifred?"

"I mean," said she, holding up the study as if to overwhelm him with resistless proof, "I mean, Arthur—and I could cry as I say it—that you are a Roman Catholic!"

Aunt Winnifred, who was an exemplary member of the Dutch Reformed Church, or, as Arthur gayly called her to her face, a Dutch Deformed Woman, was too simple and sincere in her religious faith to tolerate with equanimity the thought that any one of the name of Merlin should be domiciled in the House of Sin, as she poetically described the Church of Rome.

"Arthur! Arthur! and your father a clergyman. It's too dreadful!"

And the tender-hearted woman burst into tears.

But still weeping, she waved the picture in melancholy confirmation of her assertion. Arthur was amused and perplexed.

"My dear aunt, what has put such a droll idea into your head?"

"Because—because," said Aunt Winnifred, sobbing and wiping her eyes, "because this picture, which you keep locked up so carefully, is a picture of the Holy Virgin. Oh dear! just to think of it!"

There was a fresh burst of feeling from the honest and affectionate woman, who felt that to be a Roman Catholic was to be visibly sealed and stamped for eternal woe. But there was an answering burst of laughter from Arthur, who staggered to a sofa, and lay upon his back shouting until the tears also rolled from his eyes.

His aunt stopped, appalled, and made up her mind that he was not only a Catholic but a madman. Then, as Arthur grew more composed, he and his aunt looked at each other for some moments in silence.

"Aunt, you are right. It is the Holy Virgin!"

"Oh! Arthur," she groaned.

"It is my Madonna!"

"Poor boy!" sighed she.

"It is the face I worship."

"Arthur! Arthur!" and his aunt despairingly patted her knees slowly with her hands.

"But her name is not Mary."

Aunt Winnifred looked surprised.

"Her name is Diana."

"Diana?" echoed his aunt, as if she were losing her mind. "Oh! I beg your pardon. Then it's only a portrait after all? Yes, yes. Diana who?"

Arthur Merlin curled one foot under him as he sat, and, lighting a fresh cigar, told Aunt Winnifred the lovely legend of Latmos—talking of Diana and Endymion, and thinking of Hope Wayne and Arthur Merlin.

Aunt Winnifred listened with the utmost interest and patience. Her nephew was eloquent. Well, well, thought the old lady, if interest in his pursuit makes a great painter, my dear nephew will be a great man. During the course of the story Arthur paused several times, evidently lost in reverie—perhaps tracing the analogy. When he ended there was a moment's silence. Then Aunt Winnifred looked kindly at him, and said:

"Well?"

"Well," said Arthur, as he uncurled his leg, and with a half sigh, as if it were pleasanter to tell old legends of love than to paint modern portraits.

"Is that the whole?"

"That is the whole."

"Well; but Arthur, did she marry him after all?"

Arthur looked wistfully a moment at his aunt.

"Marry him! Bless you, no, Aunt Winnifred. She was a goddess. Goddesses don't marry."

Aunt Winnifred did not answer. Her eyes softened like eyes that see days and things far away—like eyes in which shines the love of a heart that, under those conditions, would rather not be a goddess.



CHAPTER LVI.

REDIVIVUS.

Ellen Bennet, like May Newt, was a child no longer—hardly yet a woman, or only a very young one. Rosy cheeks, and clustering hair, and blue eyes, showed only that it was May—June almost, perhaps—instead of gusty March or gleaming April.

"Ellen," said Gabriel, in a low voice—while his mother, who was busily sewing, conversed in a murmuring undertone with her husband, who sat upon the sofa, slowly swinging his slippered foot—"Ellen, Lawrence Newt didn't say that he should ask Edward to his dinner on my birthday."

Ellen's cheeks answered—not her lips, nor her eyes, which were bent upon a purse she was netting.

"But I think he will," added Gabriel. "I think I have mistaken Lawrence Newt if he does not."

"He is usually very thoughtful," whispered Ellen, as she netted busily.

"Ellen, how handsome Edward is!" said Gabriel, with enthusiasm.

The young woman said nothing.

"And how good!" added Gabriel.

"He is," she answered, scarcely audibly. Then she said she had left something up stairs. How many things are discovered by young women, under certain circumstances, to have been left up stairs! Ellen rose and left the room.

"I was saying to your father, Gabriel," said his mother, raising her voice, and still sewing, "that Edward comes here a great deal."

"Yes, mother; and I am glad of it. He has very few friends in the city."

"He looks like a Spaniard," said Mr. Bennet, slowly, dwelling upon every word. "How rich that lustrous tropical complexion is! Its duskiness is mysterious. The young man's eyes are like summer moonlight."

Mr. Bennet's own eyes half closed as he spoke, as if he were dreaming of gorgeous summer nights and the murmur of distant music.

Gabriel and his mother were instinctively silent. The click of her needle was the only sound.

"Oh yes, yes—that is—I mean, my dear, he does come here very often. I do go off on such foolish fancies!" remarked Mr. Bennet, at length.

"He comes very often when you are not at home, Gabriel," said Mrs. Bennet, after a kind glance at her husband, and still sewing.

"Yes, mother."

"Then it isn't only to see you?"

"No, mother."

"And often when your father and I return from an evening stroll in the streets we find him here."

"Yes, mother."

"It isn't to see us altogether, then?"

"No, mother."

Mrs. Bennet turned her work, and in so doing glanced for a moment at her son. His eyes were upon her face, but he seemed to have said all he had to say.

"I always feel," said Mr. Bennet, in a tone and with an expression as if he were looking at something very far away, "as if King Arthur must have lived in the tropics. There is that sort of weird, warm atmosphere in the romance. Where is Ellen? Shall we read some more in this little edition of the old story?"

He laid his hand, as he spoke, upon a small copy of old Malory's Romance of Arthur. It was a kind of reading of which he was especially fond, and to which the rest were always willing and glad to listen.

"Call Ellen," said he to Gabriel; "and now then for King Arthur!"

As he spoke the door-bell rang. The next moment a young man, apparently of Gabriel's age, entered the room. His large melancholy black eyes, the massive black curls upon his head, the transparent olive complexion, a natural elegance of form and of movement—all corresponded with what Mr. Bennet had been saying. It was evidently Edward.

"Good-evening, Little Malacca!" cried Gabriel, gayly, as he rose and put out his hand.

"Good-evening, Gabriel!" he answered, in a soft, ringing voice; then bowed and spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Bennet.

"Gabriel doesn't forget old school-days," said the new-comer to Mrs. Bennet.

"No, he has often told us of his friendship with Little Malacca," returned the lady calmly, as she resumed her work.

"And how little I thought I was to see him when I came to Mr. Newt's store," said the young man.

"Where did you first know Mr. Lawrence Newt?" asked Mrs. Bennet.

"I don't remember when I didn't know him, Madam," replied Edward.

"Happy fellow!" said Gabriel.

Meanwhile Miss Ellen had probably found the mysterious something which she had left up stairs; for she entered the room, and bowed very calmly upon seeing Edward, and, seating herself upon the side of the table farthest from him, was presently industriously netting. As for Edward, he had snapped a sentence in the middle as he rose and bowed to her, and could not possibly fit the two ends together when he sat down again, and so lost it.

Gradually, as the evening wore on, the conversation threatened to divide itself into tetes-a-tete; for Gabriel suddenly discovered that he had an article upon Hemp to read in the Encyclopedia which he had recently purchased, and was already profoundly immersed in it, while Mr. and Mrs. Bennet resumed their murmuring talk, and the chair of the youth with the large black eyes, somehow—nobody saw how or when—slipped round until it was upon the same side of the table with that of Ellen, who was busily netting.

Mrs. Bennet was conscious that the chair had gone round, and the swimming eyes of her husband lingered with pleasure upon the mass of black curls bent toward the golden hair which was bowed over that intricate purse. Ellen was sitting under that portrait of the lady, with the flashing, passionate eyes, who seemed to bear a family likeness to Mrs. Bennet.

The more closely he looked at the handsome youth and the lovely girl the more curious Mr. Bennet's eyes became. He watched the two with such intentness that his wife several times looked up at him surprised when she received no answer to her remarks. Evidently something had impressed Mr. Bennet exceedingly.

His wife bent her head a little nearer to his.

"My dear, did you never see a pair of lovers before?"

He turned his dreaming eyes at that, smiled, and pressed his lips silently to the face which was so near his own that if it had been there for the express purpose of being caressed it could hardly have been nearer.

Then slipping his arm around her waist, Mr. Bennet drew his wife toward him and pointed with his head, but so imperceptibly that only she perceived it, toward the young people, as if he saw something more than a pair of lovers. The fond woman's eyes followed her husband's. Gradually they became as intently fixed as his. They seemed to be curiously comparing the face of the young man who sat at their daughter's side with the face of the portrait that hung above her head. Mrs. Bennet grew perceptibly paler as she looked. The unconscious Edward and Ellen murmured softly together. She did not look at him, but she felt the light of his great eyes falling upon her, and she was not unhappy.

"My dear," began Mr. Bennet in a low tone, still studying the face and the portrait.

"Hush!" said his wife, softly, laying her head upon his shoulder; "I see it all, I am sure of it."

Gabriel turned at this moment from his Encyclopedia. He looked intently for some time at the group by the table, as if studying all their thoughts, and then said, gravely, in a loud, clear voice, so that Ellen dropped a stitch, Edward stopped whispering, and Mr. and Mrs. Bennet sat erect,

"Exactly. I knew how it was. It says distinctly, 'This plant is supposed to be a native of India; but it has long been naturalized and extensively cultivated elsewhere, particularly in Russia, where it forms an article of primary importance.'"



CHAPTER LVII.

DINING WITH LAWRENCE NEWT.

Gabriel Bennett was not confident that Edward Wynne would be at the birthday dinner given in his honor by Lawrence Newt, but he was very sure that May Newt would be there, and so she was. It was at Delmonico's; and a carriage arrived at the Bennets' just in time to convey them. Another came to Mr. Boniface Newt's, to whom brother Lawrence explained that he had invited his daughter to dinner, and that he should send a young friend—in fact, his confidential clerk, to accompany Miss Newt. Brother Boniface, who looked as if he were the eternally relentless enemy of all young friends, had nevertheless the profoundest confidence in brother Lawrence, and made no objection. So the hero of the day conducted Miss May Newt to the banquet.

The hero of the day was so engaged in conversation with Miss May Newt that he said very little to his neighbor upon the other side, who was no other than Hope Wayne. She had been watching very curiously a young man with black curls and eyes, who seemed to have words only for his neighbor, Miss Ellen Bennet. She presently turned and asked Gabriel if she had never seen him before. "I have, surely, some glimmering remembrance of that face," she said, studying it closely.

Her question recalled a day which was strangely remote and unreal in Gabriel's memory. He even half blushed, as if Miss Wayne had reminded him of some early treason to a homage which he felt in the very bottom of his heart for his blue-eyed neighbor. But the calm, unsuspicious sweetness of Hope Wayne's face consoled him. He looked at her for a moment without speaking. It was really but a moment, yet, as he looked, he lay in a heavily-testered bed—he heard the beating of the sea upon the shore—he saw the sage Mentor, the ghostly Calypso putting aside the curtain—for a moment he was once more the little school-boy, bruised and ill at Pinewood; but this face—no longer a girl's face—no longer anxious, but sweet, serene, and tender—was this the half-haughty face he had seen and worshipped in the old village church—the face whose eyes of sympathy, but not of love, had filled his heart with such exquisite pain?

"That young man, Miss Wayne, is Edward Wynne," he said, in reply to the question.

It did not seem to resolve her perplexity.

"I don't recall the name," she answered. "I think he must remind me of some one I have known."

"He is as black as Abel Newt," said Gabriel, looking with his clear eyes at Hope Wayne.

"But much handsomer than Mr. Newt now is," she answered, with perfect unconcern. "His eyes are softer; and, in fact," she said, smiling pleasantly, "I am not surprised to see what a willing listener his neighbor is. I wish I could recall him. I don't think that he resembles Mr. Newt at all, except in complexion."

Arthur Merlin heard every word, and watched every movement, and marked every expression of Hope Wayne's, at whose other hand he sat, during this little remark. Gabriel said, in reply to it,

"The truth is, Miss Wayne, you have seen him before. The first time you ever saw me he was with me."

The clear eyes of the young man were turned full upon her again.

"Oh, yes, I remember now!" she answered. "He was your friend in that terrible battle with Abel Newt. It seems long ago, does it not?"

However far away it may have seemed, it was apparently a remembrance that roused no especial emotion in Miss Hope Wayne's heart. Having satisfied herself, she released the attention of Gabriel, who had other subjects of conversation with May Newt than his quarrel with her brother for the favor of Hope Wayne.

But Arthur Merlin observed that while Hope Wayne listened with her ears to him, with her eyes she listened to Lawrence Newt. His simple, unselfish, and therefore unconscious urbanity—his genial, kindly humor—and the soft, manly earnestness of his face, were not unheeded—how could they be?—by her. Since the day the will was read he had been a faithful friend and counselor. It was he who negotiated for her house. It was he who daily called and gave her a thousand counsels in the details of management, of which every woman who comes into a large property has such constant need. And in all the minor arrangements of business she found in him the same skill and knowledge, combined with a womanly reserve and softness, which had first so strongly attracted her.