The Sutherlands
Author: Miriam Coles Harris
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE

SUTHERLANDS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

"RUTLEDGE."

NEW YORK:

Carleton, Publisher,

LATE

RUDD & CARLTON.

MDCCCLXII.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by
RUDD & CARLETON,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

THE SUTHERLANDS.

————

CHAPTER I.

TUESDAY IN WHITSUN-WEEK.

"What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue?
I cannot speak to him."———

As You Like It.

Tuesday in Whitsun-week, 1760, was no way inferior in point of sunniness and softness, to the Tuesday in Whitsun-week, 1860; indeed, as the past must always win "a glory from its being far," perhaps it may safely be said to have been a sunnier and softer day than any we can find in the long string of "now-a-days" through which our own experience reaches. There can, however, be no one to contradict the assertion that it was soft and sunny; it cannot possibly be proved that there was a cloud in the May sky, or that the sun went down with anything between him and the green earth but the faintest, lightest veil of haze, or that the tall poplars by the roadside did not throw their long shadows over greener fields than 1860 has seen, or is likely, with its drought and heat, to see; or that the hawthorn hedges were not thick with blossoms, or the air sweet with sweetest flowers of early summer: it has won at least that glory from its being far, that no one can deny or disprove whatsoever may be said in its praise.

The parish church of Borringdon overlooked the village; the eminence on which it stood was but a slight one, to be sure, but from the church porch, when the trees in the churchyard were not in too full leaf, one could see at the left, the last straggling cottage on the broad village street, as it terminated at the entrance of Hiltonbury Park, and on the right, the winding of the river that cut it short on that hand. English villages can hardly help being pretty, even in these steam-factory days; but in those, when the enterprise of a whole parish could vent itself in a trio of mills on the stream that wound through it, and beat out its strongest throes under the low shed of the village blacksmith, it is easy to imagine how much of picturesqueness and beauty the repose and ruralness added. And on that particular evening, the village of Borringdon lay so quiet under the quiet sunset sky, that any part of it, seen from any point, would have made a pretty picture, and necessarily the whole, seen from the grey church porch, with the thick shade of the yews, and the dark stone church itself for a background, was fair and peaceful and picturesque in the extreme.

Evening service was just over; the slender congregation passed out and down the hill. Slender the congregation was on week-days, even then; highdays and holydays, weddings and funerals, saw the church well filled with the well-dressed, decent, church going farmers and villagers of the neighborhood; but the piety that can consecrate each day, instead of each Sunday, to the Lord of them all—the piety that acknowledges no duty more binding than religious duty, no pleasure dearer than the pleasure of pleasing God, was rare, even then and even there. The parish school children, very glad to be released, bounded down the hill, the parish school teacher soberly followed, very glad too, perhaps; three or four old men, and half a dozen sad-looking women came out slowly, the peaceful service just ended within, finding its continuance in the peaceful scene without. What quiet, subdued faces those were! Through age and poverty and plainness, the light within shone out; they had learned the great lesson of self-abasement, of real renunciation of the world; they had learned of Him who was meek and lowly in heart, and they had found rest unto their souls.

A very different expression the face of the young lady wore who came out last, in her soft pink muslin dress and rose-colored ribbons, holding her fan and Prayer-book in her hand. She was handsome and spirited-looking, and her dark-brown eyes had much thought in them; but a shade of impatience and restlessness marred their light, and robbed her fine mouth of half its beauty. She stopped a moment in the porch; it was strange that the sight of the sweet picture framed in its dark walls, did not carry into her soul something of its own peace. But it rather seemed to stir a conflict there, to rouse, by its contrast, all manner of unrest.

Hers was not a face that told of much discipline; one would say she had had hardly any Past, hardly any pleasures that she valued, hardly any sufferings that she had not made for herself. But the sufferings that we make for ourselves are not unfrequently our severest sufferings; God is much more merciful to us in the way of discipline than we are to ourselves. Here was a pleasant, smooth, sunny life, perfectly free, so far, from any outward trial, steadily sheltered, prosperous and peaceful, but withal this girl had contrived to find no peace in it. The truth was, she was trying to do something quite beyond her power, to wit, get it right between serving God and loving the world. The strong religious instincts of her nature, the influences of her education, the stern rules of duty she had early learned, all held her in the path she recognized as right, but only by constraint, self-imposed but galling, only because she dared not leave it for the one she longed for. The "tinsel melodies of earth" were drowning the only music that could have satisfied such a soul as hers, the restlessness of ambition was driving away the peace that hovered, scared, above it. The church-going, the duty-doing, in which she was so faithful, these were but the body of her religion; the soul had not been breathed into it, the soul of love that would have given it a life, that would have transformed its cold obedience into living warmth.

"We shall miss you much. Miss Georgy," said old Richard Evartson, holding open the gate for her. "You go to-morrow, they tell me at the Lodge."

"Yes, to-morrow morning," she replied. "I shall leave some books for you with Adam; you can send Letty for them any time you choose. I am sorry I could not bring them up to you myself."

"You are too kind, miss; I am very grateful. 'Tisn't many young ladies going up to London their first year would think about the books an old man such as me would want. But you were always different, Miss Georgy. I wish you may enjoy yourself among the gay people up there, and have all the pleasure you're looking for. There's a great many wishes it besides me."

"Thank you, Richard," she said rather hurriedly, passing out of the gate. "I don't know whether I look for much pleasure, but I hope it won't hurt me. Good bye."

"What is that Richard is wishing you?" said some one beside her, whom she had seen coming, for she did not look up, or seem surprised, only answered, as they walked on together:

" 'All the pleasure I'm looking for.' How much is that, do you suppose?"

"It is beyond me to conjecture, I'm afraid. You are going to-morrow, it is settled, then?"

He looked at her for the first time, as he spoke, for an instant keenly, and the half hope that flashed through his eyes faded at her indifferent "yes." Indifferent, no doubt, he thought it; he was apt to think she knew how to use no other tone to him. Proud people are sadly at the mercy of their pride, and can see nothing but as it dictates. Georgy's face was not so perfectly indifferent as was her tone, or she never would have turned it away so quickly, and looked so intently across the river as they reached the bridge. There was nothing very novel in the river's flow that afternoon. The willows leaned over it, and dipped their drooping foliage in the water, the light breeze streaked it here and there with dark blue ripples, the sinking sun reddened and gilded it, the shadow of the bridge lay deep and still upon it—but Georgy knew all its moods by heart, and was not thinking of it then, for all her earnest gaze.

The path they were following lay along the river's bank, through what was called the Willow Walk, where the thick row of trees on one hand leaned over into the Briarfield pasture-ground, and on the other drooped down into the water, almost meeting overhead. Their talk, to a casual listener, would have seemed just the indifferent, unstudied talk of boy and girl—children who had sailed boats on this same stream together, and fished for minnows in it, as far back as their memories extended—who were too nearly of an age, and had been too intimately associated, to be careful of the impression they made upon each other by the words they used or the sentiments they acknowledged: but to one bent upon going below disguises, there would have been something in Georgy's averted eyes, and half uneasy manner, that would have suggested a doubt, if her companion's face had told no tales.

At a first glance, it was difficult to determine Warren Sutherland's age. He looked almost a boy, but there was a depth of thought in his grey eye, an intellectual refinement about the very exquisite beauty of his face, that belonged more to the man than to the boy. Something had developed him early—something had hurried him out of boyhood long before boyhood's healthy pleasures were exhausted. He had now, though but just of age, and hardly a year older than his companion, gained upon her all the distance that is generally accorded to her more rapidly maturing sex, and somewhat besides, perhaps. He was as disciplined and self-controlled as she was the reverse. Yet one would have said, hers was the stronger nature of the two—certainly the more impulsive, the intenser. What lay beneath his proud reserve and quiet self-control, but few had sounded; her strength, and perhaps her weakness, were patent to the most careless observation.

Young Sutherland's face, though it had worn much the same look for the last year, was sadder and more thoughtful that afternoon than Georgy had ever seen it before. And well it might be. Hardly a fortnight had elapsed since his father's death—hardly a fortnight was to intervene before his own ordination, two things of moment enough to sober any man. The old home to be broken up, a new one to be found—change to come on things that had hitherto seemed changeless, since he could not remember when they had not been—the charge of his young sister—the new responsibility—the sorrow that would be always new—these were making his heart heavy and his eyes sad. No wonder Georgy looked away from them when she remembered the different sort of life that would open for her to-morrow—the distance that it put between them; and no wonder, either, that through it all those eyes haunted her reproachfully—that she never could forget them—that she never, in her life, forgot that walk through the Willows on Whitsun-Tuesday evening.

"Then you have not yet decided what you and Laura are to do," she said at last, abruptly, leaving unfinished the commonplace subject that had just been occupying them.

"No," he answered, almost as abruptly, though in a lower tone. "Nothing is decided yet. I cannot tell what we shall do."

"There will not be any necessity for your leaving the Parsonage, though, I am sure," she went on, giving him a quick, inquiring glance. "You haven't thought of that?"

Again he returned evasively that nothing was decided yet.

"But," said the young lady, in the tone that was habitual to her when there was any unusual emotion to be covered, which emotion always covered itself with an unconscious imperiousness, "there can be no doubt my cousin means to give you the living—indeed, I have heard him say as much; and in case he does, there can be no doubt about what you ought to do."

"Can't there?" he said quietly, but with an emphasis that brought the color to her face.

"I mean," she went on almost angrily, "I mean it doesn't seem to me that there can be any doubt. Your plans, of course, I don't know anything of, nor your wishes, either; but I know Laura wants to stay. I know it would be cruel to take her from the home she has always lived in, and where we're all so fond of her. If you don't care at all for yourself, I should think you would for her, and if my cousin offers you the living, the least you can do will be to accept it."

"And if Sir Charles offers it to me, it is just possible I may not avail myself of it," he returned, with a cold, sharp ring in his voice.

"Well, as you will," she said, with a shrug of the shoulders. "I'm sorry for Laura, that's all."

"You are very kind, but I think Laura will do very well.

I am not sure that anything better than change of scene could be devised for her. The Parsonage can never be the same home to her again."

"I know it," said Georgy, in a softer tone. "But I should think hers was a sadness that change could not help. There are some griefs one cannot leave behind."

"Not leave behind, or lose sight of, but lighten for a moment, possibly."

There was a pause, which Georgy broke by saying, almost timidly:

"But you won't think of any change at present—not before the autumn?"

"No; I hardly think there will be anything definite this summer. Mr. Ralstone will be here till Christmas. You will be away through July?"

"Yes," Georgy said, recovering her usual manner, "through July, and possibly longer. There is some talk of my cousins going over to Paris for a few months, and they urge my going with them, but I doubt if mamma consents. Though it will be such an advantage to me, I cannot see why she should oppose it."

"An unspeakable advantage, certainly," he said carelessly.

"Of course it would; I never have been anywhere; never have seen anything. Twenty years of my life wasted in this dull place! You cannot blame me if I want to go. You cannot wonder"——

"I do not wonder," said Warren. "I only wonder you have been happy here so long. And as for blame—I long to go away too much myself to blame you."

Georgy bent the fen she held in her hands impatiently. "You can understand my feelings, then," she said.

"Yes, perfectly, I believe," he returned.

The impatience of the hands that grasped the fan, at that moment proved fatal to the pretty thing; it snapped sharply, and looking down confused and angry, she saw that she had broken it quite in two, and with a quick gesture she threw the fragments out upon the stream. The heavy ivory half, fell with a plash some distance off, and sunk almost as it touched the water, but the lighter part, cupids and roses on gilt paper, lit nearer to the shore, and floated uncertainly for a few moments, then yielded to the current, drifted out into the stream, and downward slowly toward the sea. Warren's eyes were fixed upon it as they walked along; neither spoke for some minutes, till the young lady rather hurriedly and awkwardly said, in a tone that was meant to be indifferent and easy:

"That's too bad, Warren; that's the fan you gave me on my birthday. Upon my word, I didn't mean to."

"Sir Charles will give you a finer, I have no doubt, if you spend your next birthday in Paris," Warren said so carelessly and coolly, Georgy hated herself for blushing at his words. But, in truth, it was the first allusion he had ever made to Sir Charles' evident and acknowledged admiration for her; till now she had fancied his jealousy lay too deep for words, but she began to think perhaps there wasn't any jealousy, and she had deceived herself.

"After all, he may not care," she thought, as they emerged from the Willow Walk into the road again. A few moments more brought them to a gate, which, while

Warren held open, Georgy entered, saying, as he did not follow, "Are you not coming in? You know it is my last evening at home."

But Warren was not coming in, it appeared; he leaned for a few moments on the gate, and Georgy, playing with the sash at her waist, now that she had no fan to play with, talked idly of the journey to-morrow, and of a hundred other things of which she was not thinking. A sound of wheels caught her ear, and glancing up, she said quickly:

"There's the Park carriage. Stay, Warren, and see my cousins. Ah, Sir Charles is following on horseback, I see," she added, glancing quickly at her companion's face, and blushing involuntarily.

"You must excuse me to them," he said, abruptly turning away. "I do not feel like meeting strangers just at present. Good night."

"Good night and good bye," said Georgy as she held out her hand. He touched it for a moment, coldly and lightly, hardly glancing into her face as he repeated his good bye, and turned and left her.

"What have I done?" thought Georgy, with a pang, as she watched him walk rapidly across the road and enter the Willow Walk. When he was with her, Georgy was always wondering whether he cared for her, generally concluding he did not, and she had been a fool ever to think he did; the moment he left her the doubt left her too; she had been a fool to be so blind, she knew he loved her; there was nothing she could remember in all their intercourse that did not go fully to assure her of it.

So, during the two minutes and a half that he was in right after he had said good bye, a strong rush of self-reproach, doubt, remembrance, came over her, and she started forward and half pushed open the heavy gate, and half called, "Warren!"

How cruel, how wrong to let him go so, even if they were nothing but the merest friends—to be separated for months, perhaps—and he in trouble, too. What would Laura say. Oh, Laura had always thought that she was worldly—but she wasn't; no, at that moment, if she had been sure he loved her, if he had only used the power he never guessed at, by reason of that blinding pride of his, he could have won her from the worldliness he accused her of, and which had kept them apart so long.

If he had once looked back, he would have seen the whole story in her face and attitude; but he did not turn, and with a half sigh she drew back, and let the gate swing to again. What a grating, cold sound it had as it fell into its place: "No, I won't be such a fool," thought Georgy, bravely, glancing down the road at the approaching carriage with a resolute composure, but with a cold, dull pain at her heart. "I'm glad he didn't hear; I'm glad he's gone. It's better as it is."

The sunset was fading out of the sky; the faint opal lost its hue almost as she gazed; and the tender grace of that day was dead to her forever.

CHAPTER II.

A DEAD DAY.

"And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But oh, for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still.

"Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, oh Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me."

Tennyson.

"Georgy, you should never wear anything but white and cherry," said Lady Frances, looking at her cousin with good-natured admiration.

"That's what I've been telling her," said Ellinor, the younger sister, moving toward the piano, but looking up again at the new comer after she had seated herself at it. "It's just the thing for her complexion. I never saw her look better than she does to-day."

"Merci, mille fois, mesdames," said Georgy, stooping over Lady Frances, and kissing her lightly on the forehead.

The ladies were in the drawing-room at Portland Place, awaiting the arrival of expected guests to dinner, and Georgy sat down by the open window, fresh from a deliberate, successful toilet, and a luxurious idle pleasant day, with the prospect of a delightful evening before her, with the consciousness of acknowledged beauty, the sense of power, the certainty of success.

What a pleasant sort of place the world was, after all. She began to wonder what made people so afraid of it. She was sure, now that she was in it, she was just as good as when she was at home. She never missed her prayers, or forgot to read the Psalms, no matter what time she came home at night, and she went out regularly to church with her maid, long before her cousins were up in the morning. She was quite certain all this showed she was unhurt by what had formerly looked so dangerous, and she was unconsciously sliding into a complacency and unconcern, as treacherous as new to her.

Her position at Portland Place certainly was a very pleasant one. Lady Frances was young enough and pleasure-loving enough to make her brother's house an exceedingly agreeable one. Her father had died before she was married, and she had only been a widow a year, when her mother's death left vacant the place that she now filled so well. Lady Frances being a clever, kind, easy-going person, had very cheerfully taken upon herself all the responsibility that the care of her young brother, not yet of age, and her little sister Ellinor, involved her in, having good sense enough to know, the benefits conferred by the position more than balanced the trouble that it brought. It was a much better thing to be the mistress of Hiltonbury Park and the Portland Place house, than to be poor Tom Osborne's widow, an unobtrusive member of her father-in-law's by no means luxurious establishment.

To tell the truth. Lady Frances had not married very well, and though she had taken a good deal of pains with Ellinor, Ellinor was not going to marry well either. It would have made old Sir Harry growl thunder in his grave, if he could have seen the sort of match his eldest daughter had made, and the sort of matches his second daughter, and his son and heir, proposed making. Ellinor was engaged to marry a young German count, who had made love to her the year before when they were abroad, who sang divinely well, but who did nothing else, divinely or humanly well, and whose possessions were as intangible as his talents. And Sir Charles proposed marrying his cousin.

Lady Frances, being several years older than her brother, and a good deal wiser, saw his folly, and did as much as she could to prevent it. But it was not upon record that any one had ever succeeded in preventing Sir Charles from doing anything he had set his heart upon doing, and upon marrying his cousin, he certainly had set his heart. He came quite honestly by his self-will and self-indulgent temper, and entered openly upon that portion of his inheritance long before he was of age, and even before his predecessor had quitted the estate. If Sir Harry had lived, "there would have been a tussle for it," as old Richard said, before either would have given up, but the chances were, the senior would have won the day, or at least have held the younger one in check. Unfortunately for the boy, however, he was left early with a field before him, cleared of all hindrances to the indulgence of his self-will, and he grew up precisely the sort of man that might have been expected. Sufficiently good-natured not to bully when there was no need for it (and no one ever had less need), he just quietly did as he wanted to, always, under all circumstances, making no account of the wills that died to feed his, and keeping steadily in view his own advancement and advantage.

The only one of all the womenkind at home who had ever dared show any opposition to him, had been his cousin Georgy, and this circumstance, together with her beauty, and the resistance of his family, made him thoroughly in earnest to obtain her hand. He never doubted his success, such a doubt lay on the side of absurdity; but there were just obstacles enough in the path to give it a spice of adventure and to make it acceptable to his blasé taste, palled with the too ready submission of all around him. Mrs. Gregory, he knew, could not long resist the temptation of seeing Georgy mistress at Hiltonbury Park, however stoutly she might oppose it now, on grounds of pride and conscience. For old Sir Harry had been none too tender a kinsman, and none too delicate in expressing his mind, and had said, many years before, when the question of Georgy's being educated at the Park with Charles and Ellinor, had been raised and put down, the girl might have come, and welcome, if she hadn't been so deuced good-looking; but he'd seen enough of cousins being thrown together, and, for the matter of that, he thought Margery Gregory had too; and he only wished he might see his boy looking once at any beggarly cousin, and he'd disinherit him before he was a day older.

Poor Mrs. Gregory: there was more in that hit about the cousins than met the ear. If what the local gossips said was true, she had been the first and firm choice of Sir Harry's older brother, who was only stopped by death from marrying her through all the opposition of his high-handed family. Sir Harry never forgave her the alarm she had given them, and the narrow escape he had had; and though, years after, when she was left a widow with one child and a pinchingly small income, he had had the humanity to offer her the rent of the Briarfield farm, he never could quite overcome his suspicion and dread of her as a dangerous and incendiary person.

It must be confessed, seeing how things had developed in later years, there seemed more of the spirit of prophecy in this apprehension of the old man's, than one would have supposed could have resided in such a portly, plethoric person, and such a beer-befogged intellect as his. At all events, Sir Charles the younger was fallen into the same snare that had involved Sir Charles the elder, and was about to sacrifice all matrimonial ambition for the love of his pretty, penniless cousin. Lady Frances had given up all opposition long ago, and now furthered her brother's suit very submissively, and made a great deal of Georgy, partly with a dutiful view of pleasing him, and partly with a prudential desire of propitiating the future Lady of Hiltonbury. And as for Ellinor, she was in that stage of romantic enthusiasm about her German lover, that she would have despised any one who would have thought of marrying sensibly and advantageously, and gave her brother her most ardent sympathy, and lavished upon Georgy all manner of endearments.

In this way the young lady's position in the family was made a very agreeable one, and one which she could not well help enjoying. Not that she meant to marry Sir Charles—at least not now, though it was very pleasant to keep that fine picture of future glory in view and think of it covertly; and not, either, that she had altogether forgotten Warren and the walk through the Willows on Whitsun-Tuesday evening; but, somehow, there was nothing very much to call that romance into recollection, and it was not quite convenient to think of it at Portland Place, where there were so many other things to think of, and where it seemed in a measure treasonable to think of it, when her cousins did not know of its existence, in fact, thought her head filled with a very different fancy. Besides, in a short time she should be at Briarfield again—two weeks at farthest—if mamma did not consent to the Paris plan, and then she could think as much as she pleased of it. So she let herself be entertained and amused, and the days were slipping away in a very delightful manner amid the fascinations of the gayest London society, till that eventful evening when Georgy came into the drawing-room early, looking prettier than a picture, in cherry and white.

Sir Charles did not take her down to dinner himself, but he delegated that office to a very safe person, to wit, his much lauded friend, Mr. Edward Barclay, a young lawyer of great promise just established in his profession; but of so much more promise than performance, that no one could accuse Sir Charles of temerity in allowing him Georgy's ear and hand for that brief space. The truth was, Mr. Barclay never had been, and never could be, a lady's man; good looking, sensible and well-informed, he lacked whatever it is that makes a man a favorite among women; confidence, perhaps, and a desire for their admiration, the quality that is coquetry in a woman; and so he was overwhelmingly popular with all young men, who took him enthusiastically into the bosom of their families, and wondered loudly why their sisters didn't fall in love with him, and introduced him unhesitatingly to their fiancées, and were sure that their fiancées would be bored.

Georgy's neighbor on her other hand, was a dull divine who had in some way drifted into the current of the Portland Place hospitality, and not unfrequently enjoyed a meal at its expense, whose taciturnity and tiresomeness had passed into a proverb with the ladies, and at sight of whose propinquity Georgy had made a well-bred, well-concealed grimace at her cousin, and then had graciously begun to entertain him. But with Mr. Barclay on one side, and Dr. Drawl on the other, what wonder that her smiles soon began to fail and her vivacity to flag? She took to listening to the other people, and wondering at Sir Charles' spirited conversation.

"He is cleverer than I thought," she pondered, as the young host, feeling safe about her, blockaded as she was, and seeing her half-admiring eyes turned from her stupid neighbors to his face, grew clever and complacent, and talked better than he had ever done before. Mrs. Erastus Randall, a delightfully worldly, witty person, was keeping him up to the effort, and Georgy, feeling she had done her duty in trying to "make talk" with her neighbors, dropped them altogether, and amused herself with the conversation at the other end of the board.

Dinner was more than half over, when, in a momentary lull of talking, Dr. Drawl, who had been gathering himself up for the effort for some time, said to his host in his slow, strong voice, which boomed heavily across the temporarily silenced table:

"That young man of whom you spoke to me some time ago, I see by the papers, sailed yesterday. I suppose he told you, I got him the appointment you wanted from the Society. I had no trouble. The bishop thinks very well of him."

There was nothing in the reverend gentleman's communication to excite any particular interest in Georgy's mind, but there was something to excite it in her cousin's manner; he glanced involuntarily and uneasily toward her, and hurried to change the conversation. What was it that he did not want Dr. Drawl to talk about? But Dr. Drawl saved her the trouble of much wonder on the subject, for he had no mind to change the conversation: having been all this while loading his gun, nothing should stop him from firing it off.

"The venerable Society," he said, "have appointed him catechist to the Indians and negroes in the vicinity of New York, and assistant minister of Trinity Church. I should have thought a living might have been obtained for him at home, seeing he is a young man of very considerable promise; but his mind seemed so set that way, and you, sir, seemed so to desire his appointment to the mission, that I did everything in my power to promote your views."

"You are speaking of young Sutherland?" said Mr.

Barclay, rousing, and looking across Georgy to the doctor, who had now got fairly under weigh.

"The same," he answered. "Son of the late Rector of Borringdon—a very old friend of mine."

"You can't mean Warren?" faltered Georgy, involuntarily.

"Warren—yes, it strikes me that is the name," he repeated. "Warren—that was it, was it not, Sir Charles?"

"Yes," answered Sir Charles faintly, "he has given up the living I offered him, and gone to America. He has relatives there, I believe."

"Warren Sutherland gone to America!" cried Ellinor. "Why, how odd you never told us anything about it!"

"If you had as much to think about as I have, you wouldn't wonder I forgot it," returned her brother, with as much of a snarl as a man can allow himself at the head of his own table, and with two rows of disinterested eyes upon him.

"But where's Laura? What's become of Laura?" went on Ellinor, with unfortunate curiosity.

"I can't say. I believe she's gone with him. I think he told me she was going," said Sir Charles, doggedly and with a lowering brow, for he had caught a sight of Georgy's face.

"A trying voyage and a strange home for so young and delicate a lady," Dr. Drawl resumed, by way of making himself agreeable. "But the young man tells me she will not consent to be separated from him, and as he has determined upon making the New World his home, it was apparently the wisest plan for them to go together."

"She's a brave girl!" cried Mrs. Randall with a shiver. "She hasn't my prejudice against scalping, I am sure."

"But when do they mean to return?" persisted Ellinor.

"Never, I fancy," returned the reverend doctor, comfortably. "He says they have no ties in England, that they are going to make a home for themselves there. I was quite interested in the young man."

"At any rate, Laura might have come to tell us good bye, I think," said Ellinor.

At this moment Lady Frances made a hasty effort to divert the talk into another channel, and succeeded in leading even the clumsy ecclesiastic after her.

Mr. Barclay, however, at home on the deserted subject, and seeing perhaps that his neighbor was at home on it too, turned to her and said:

"You know Sutherland, then? He was a friend of mine at Oxford; there wasn't a better fellow there. It's a burning shame he's gone off to bury himself in that dismal wilderness; he has first-rate talents, and might have done well at anything."

"Was his going sudden?" Georgy asked, but so low Mr. Barclay had to ask her to repeat it.

"I don't know, but I rather fancy it must have been. I had a letter from him about ten days ago, saying he had made up his mind to accept the appointment, and would hope to see me in London at this time."

"And you saw him?"

"Oh yes, several times. He was in the city nearly a week. I went down to the ship yesterday to see him off; and, upon my word, I never felt much worse. You see,

Sutherland never has been very robust, and he looks dreadfully now. And it's such a risky thing, such a voyage as this, anyhow. Parting with a friend in that sort of a way is all one with saying good bye to him forever—there isn't one chance to a hundred we'll ever meet again. He never means to come back to England, and nothing's further from my intention than going to America. And that poor young lady, his sister—you know her. Miss Gregory? She was as white as the wall. I saw it nearly killed Sutherland every time he looked at her, but she kept up wonderfully, and never shed a tear or gave way in the least."

Georgy was very still through the hour that remained of that long dinner, and sat silent, turning over the leaves of a book during the time the ladies spent alone in the drawing-room; but just before the gentlemen came up, she whispered some excuse to Lady Frances, and went out of the room.

Sir Charles glanced eagerly and angrily around as he entered, and Lady Frances felt a dull foreboding of evil as she read his face; even Ellinor grew nervous and ill at ease as she glanced at him. Georgy did not reappear, and while Lady Frances presented her excuses as plausibly as possible, she was in an agony till she should be free to go to her. When at length her visitors departed and she found herself at liberty to leave the drawing-room, she did not wait for Sir Charles' sign, but hurried up to Georgy's door.

Entering softly, she started to find a trunk dragged into the middle of the room, and dresses thrown around as if a hasty departure were designed, while Georgy herself, lying face downward on the bed, neither moved nor spoke when she approached her, and repeated her name gently.

Sitting down by her on the bed, Lady Frances drew one of the hands that were clasped above her forehead toward her, and stooping over her, whispered:

"Why Georgy, child, what does this mean? What are you doing? Why are your trunks out? Is anything the matter?"

"Oh, Frances," said the girl, raising herself and speaking quickly, "I must go home—I must go to-morrow; you must let me. Don't say anything against it. I shall die if I can't get to mother. Oh, mother, mother!" And a burst of sobs wound up the homesick cry of wretchedness.

"Why Georgy, darling," said Lady Frances, putting her arm around her, and speaking soothingly, "I can't bear to see you cry so. Tell me what it is. Perhaps I can help you."

"Help me—oh!" And with a miserable groan she hid her face again. Lady Frances had an uncomfortable apprehension of what the truth really was, and she almost dreaded to hear Georgy's confession; so she only smoothed back the heavy, fallen hair from her forehead, and spoke to her caressingly, but not questioningly.

"You are a little homesick to-night," she said. "You'll feel differently to-morrow. Let Janet come and put your things away and undress you, and I will put on my peignoir and come and sit by you till you get asleep. Your forehead is so hot; poor child! What could have brought on such a headache? Let me go and get something to bathe your temples with."

But Georgy shook her head and said brokenly, "I don't want anything. Don't send Janet; I don't want anybody to come in the room. I can do everything myself. It's all nearly packed."

"But, my dear child," said Lady Frances, uneasy lest the idea of going home should get too strong a hold of her, "but, my dear child, we cannot let you go. We shall stupefy to death without you; you are the life of the house, Charles thinks, and Ellinor and I can't possibly do anything right when you're away. And everything's so pleasant now! There's Lady Bellenden's ball day after to-morrow, and the opera, and Sir Arthur's dinner. Oh, you can't go, Georgy!"

"Oh, don't," she cried in agony, as if the very sound was pain. "Don't—don't talk about those things. Oh, how I hate them all! If I had never come—if I had only stayed at Briarfield! Oh, I have deserved it all, but it is too cruel! I can't—can't bear it!"

Her passionate wretchedness quite terrified her quiet, unexcitable auditor; and, uncomfortable and uneasy, Lady Frances said hesitatingly, "I'm very sorry for you. If I only knew what made you so unhappy, perhaps I could"——

"Shall I tell you what it is that makes me so?" exclaimed the girl, starting up and pressing her hand to her forehead, while she spoke with a hurried vehemence of manner and a terrible actuality of suffering that made Lady Frances more than uncomfortable and uneasy. "Shall

I tell you what I've done? I've killed myself—I've killed my own happiness forever. I've just got to repent—repent—all my hopeless life. I've just got to go on, horrid years perhaps, as deadly wretched as I am to-night; remembering always that I've done it all myself, that my worldliness has brought it on me; that I've given up the man I love for a moment's vanity and folly that all eternity can't cancel—all eternity can't bring me back. Oh! I've thought I was serving God all this while—I never dreamed how I was living. I see it all now—I never knew myself before. Frances, did you ever feel as if you were going mad? I feel so to-night. At the table, and till I got up here, it was all like a dream. I don't think I knew at all what anybody said or did. All I felt was, I must keep myself from crying out or saying anything strange—must be still and not think till I was by myself. Oh, Frances! after that"——

And, shuddering, she sank down by her cousin and hid her face upon her shoulder. She had been all her life, in exemption from suffering and in affectionate protection from annoyance, such an entire child, that in this, her first real vivid pain, though it hurried her into the sternest stage of womanhood at one step, she still craved hungrily the pity and caressing that had soothed childhood's troubles. Poor girl! she found that this pain went a little too deep for such healing. She lay for a few minutes quiet, with her cousin's arms around her, trying to listen to her well-meant sympathy and to be comforted by its assurances; then, stung by some new phase of the trial that had but just begun, and in which each day she lived she would discover some fresh sting, she started up, and with her hands pressed before her face, paced hurriedly up and down the room.

"Oh, isn't it cruel," she burst out, "isn't it unjust, that for a sin not half intended—almost unconsciously committed, one should be punished a whole life-time?"

"Hush, Georgy," said Lady Frances, vaguely shocked at her rebellion. "You know we must submit"——

"Submit!" she cried, her eyes flaming passionately; "how can I submit to what is just a long horrible death—how can I submit never to see him again—never—never to—— Oh, God help me!"

"Georgy, my child," said Lady Frances, anxiously, "don't talk so, you'll feel differently in a little while about it. It is natural you should feel so at first, but it will go over by and by. Don't let anybody but me hear you—think how you'd feel to have anybody know it."

"I don't care who knows it," she exclaimed. "I don't care what the world thinks now. I've cared too long. It may know and gloat over what it has made me do. I've done with it forever!"

"Hush, hush, child. Think of poor Charles, think how wretched it would make him to hear all this."

"Sir Charles must never attempt to speak to me again. I will never see him. I cannot bear to hear his name. I am trying my best to forgive him, but he must never come near me—it would kill me to see him. He must never speak to me again."

"Georgy!"

"I can't help it. God knows I try not to hate him; you must tell him I prayed from the first minute to be able to forgive him, and in time I know I shall; but he must keep away—he must never let me see him."

"But Georgy"——

"Don't talk about it, Frances, and don't look so hurt. You know I love you just the same—and you have always been so kind! But I never could have married Charles, even if he had not done this thing. I used to think about it sometimes, and imagine I could learn to like him; but I couldn't. I know I couldn't when it came to marrying him, even if I had not known Warren. It was very wrong to let you imagine there was any chance, very, very wicked—but this is my punishment, and oh Frances, isn't it hard enough! Don't be angry with me! Don't turn away! Oh, you ought to pity me, you never suffered anything like this! If I could only die."

And she flung herself upon the bed with a hopeless misery that went to Lady Frances' heart, heavy as it was now with forebodings of the storms that this must breed, and of the painful scenes that this one was the precursor of. How it would all end she did not dare to think: how Sir Charles would bear the thwarting, even for a moment, of his pampered will—what Georgy must pass through before she submitted to it, she did not trust herself to fancy.

"Poor child!" she thought with a sigh, as she left her late in the night, quieter, either from exhaustion or submission. "She has a hard lot before her either way. Heaven help her through it!"

CHAPTER III.

THE NEW HOME IN THE NEW WORLD.

"Fair scenes for childhood's opening bloom,
For sportive youth to stray in;
For manhood to enjoy his strength,
And age to wear away in!"

Wordsworth.

Supper was late in being served to the men that evening at the Sutherland farm: there had been a threatening of rain about three o'clock, and all hands had been hurried off to the thirty-acre lot below the creek, to help bring in the heavy crop of hay that lay there; the great wagons had come home groaning with its weight, and now stood around the farmyard, mountains of promise and future comfort to the patient beasts, who, released and resting, were enjoying their well-earned meal in peace, while their no less patient guides and counsellors were enjoying theirs in the wide, low kitchen of the large stone house that stood at the right of the farmyard and somewhat elevated above it.

The threatening of rain had not been fulfilled, and the sun had just gone down from a particularly unclouded and finely colored sky, leaving the farmers in good temper on account of to-morrow's promised haying, and the whole landscape in a mellow, golden, luscious glow.

The negroes were evidently enjoying their supper: good, strong, likely men they were, too, fit to work such a farm as Ralph Sutherland's, and no doubt they worked it well, considering just the sort of master they had; for if the neighbors knew anything about it, Ralph Sutherland's negroes were the best fed, the best housed, and the hardest worked in all the country round. At any rate, they were having a good time of it that night, if they had had hard work of it that day, and old Salome, ladling out a third trencher of succotash from the great pot over the fire, growled at them for their greediness, and they "he-he-d" their low negro chuckle back at her from over their replenished bowls.

Through the door that opened into the apartment beyond, however, at this sound, there issued a much more portentous growl, whereupon Salome, waving her ladle threateningly, waddled over to the door, and shut it, saying—

"There, ye noisy niggers! D'ye hear that? Ye'll have the Massa 'bout yer years afore ye know it."

"And he's next worst to Slomy's ladle!" chuckled Dave.

"No, no," snickered a lithe lad of twelve from the hearth. "Massa's a heap worse'n Slomy. We could git to the tavern'n back and git old Martin's porridge off his fire 'fore Slomy'd got across the kitchen arter ye; but Massa! he'd know what ye's at a'most afore ye knowed yerself, and wouldn't he come down thwack!"

"Oh you—sarpint!" cried Salome, lunging at him across the hearth in great wrath, for the young rascal had taken the occasion of her journey to the door to replenish his bowl largely from the pot, and was now enjoying it ostentatiously, stopping on his way to the table to take a sip at it, dodging dexterously the heavy ladle, and swinging himself round the corner and into his seat before it was within reach of him again.

"O you chile of the Evil One hisself!" panted out Salome, sinking into a seat beside the fire. "You take my word for it, you'll come to grief yet."

"We'll be well off ef he don't take some of us along with him," said Dave, looking half distrustfully at the impish Indian boy, a third of whose lean, lithe body seemed at this time to have disappeared into his bowl.

"Well, it does 'pear to me," said old Rube, and he was the most conservative and temperate man at the table, "that that 'ere Amen is the worst boy I ever come at yet. What the Massa seed in him worth buyin' I never hev foun' out."

"D'ye hear that, ye limb!" cried his neighbor, lifting him up by the shoulder, and giving him a shake.

The truth was, Amen was far from popular among his comrades. The master had purchased him about a year before, at a bargain, from a Yankee preacher abroad on his travels; whose travels were undertaken, Salome had always maintained, for the simple purpose of getting rid of the little imp he had succeeded in saddling them with, and who, she was dead certain. "he'd have been glad to have given away, ef Massa hadn't been such a tarnal fool as to ha' bought him."

Besides his natural disposition, which was one calculated to create a prejudice even in an unbiased mind, his Eastern extraction went very much against him among all the slaves, for being strongly tinctured with the good old Dutch conservatism of the neighborhood, they held in great abomination that innovating and gouging crew who tenanted the adjacent States, and from nutmegs to niggers, distrusted everything emanating from that quarter. Amen was as bad as bad could be, however, and did not need this prejudice to secure for himself the entire detestation of his fellows, and, if the truth could have been arrived at, perhaps the slight disgust of his master—for in point of utility, no one could deny, he wasn't worth his salt, and work to the value of a dollar had never been got out of him in all the year he had encumbered the Sutherland farm. But Ralph was not the man to own up, even if he had been taken in, and grumbled less at, and beat not much more frequently, this sorry bargain than more valuable possessions.

Before supper was over. Amen had committed another extravagance, and created another disturbance, which this time was succeeded by the opening of the sitting-room door, and the appearance of a slim, pretty looking mulatto girl, who closed it carefully behind her, and holding up her finger, said softly:

"You'd best take care, you Amen, and the rest o' you niggers. Massa's awful riled to-night. He's swearin' dreadful at the noise. Salome, any more cakes for Massa Larry?"

"Oh, yes, Massa Larry, Maasa Larry! nothin' too good for Massa Larry!" growled Salome, turning the last cake of the griddleful she had been perfecting for him for the past ten minutes. "Nattee thinks if Massa Larry has his full, taint no odds if we all starve on corn-cobs."

Nattee laughed a low laugh, and picking up the plate, went back into the room with it, closing the door carefully behind her, but giving an admonitory glance back upon the feasters before she did it. The table on which she set the plate was a well covered and abundant one, rather superfluously so, it might be thought, seeing only three people sat down to it, but then two of the three were men fresh from the hay-field, and one of them, Lawrence Sutherland, the only child of Ralph, and the heir apparent of all this comfortable estate, was such a tall, strong, broad-chested fellow, that nothing that the table bore seemed too prodigal or too generous for him. He said, "Ah, Nattee!" in a tone of satisfaction as she set the cakes before him, and applied himself to them, as he did to whatever he undertook, with an honest good will and an unblushing appetite. Nattee looked on with pleasure, while his mother watched his every movement with a trembling affection that was almost painful.

Indeed, though, it was not very wonderful she watched him, he was a much pleasanter thing to watch than her lord and master opposite. How such a thin, bent, grey, ill-favored man, came to have such a fine, browned, well-made, manly-looking son, was subject of more legitimate marvel. Larry's hair was light, and lay in short, loose curls about his head, his eyes were blue, and his skin smooth and fresh, though browned with much exposure to the sun; his mouth was an exceedingly handsome mouth, capable of a very fine smile; but when there was no smile upon it, there was something about its firm lines, as well as about the steady look of the blue eyes, that suggested a will that did not bear opposition, and the better part of valor hinted the futility of dashing one's self against such a rock as that, which, though it was not a frowning angry ledge, but a clear, bold crystal, was still a rock for a' that.

He was evidently a good son, though, for all his spoiling, at least to his mother, for his voice was many tones softer whenever he addressed her, and his manner had a sort of half chivalrous, half affectionate protection. Mrs. Sutherland had probably been a beautiful woman in her youth, but her youth lay many long years back in the past, according to the accepted signs, for her hair was very white, and her figure slightly bent and trembling, but her eyes were large, and brown, and soft, and her skin fresh as a girl's. She was surely a very gentle woman, perhaps a woman wanting in force of character, rather timid and undecided, for there seemed a habitual flutter about her movements, and a vague alarm in her soft eyes, that hardly ever left them. Hers seemed an affectionate and trusting nature, bent under a life-long bondage, dependent, from its gentleness, on some will at once tyrannical and rudely capricious.

She gave her directions to Nattee in a low, almost a meek tone; she spoke to Larry more with her eyes than her voice, but when she answered or addressed her husband, it was plain to see the struggle that eyes and voice were involved in.

There was not much talking at the table that night.

The master of the family, for some cause, was gloomier and blacker than was his wont, and that is saying that he was very gloomy and black indeed. Before the meal was over, Nattee, by some hasty movement, was so unhappy as to displease him, and he lifted his grizzled, bent head up from his plate, and growled such a threat at her as sent her trembling to the furthest corner of the room. Mrs. Sutherland tried not to look as if she pitied her, or was frightened herself, but she looked both very unmistakably, and her hands fluttered nervously about among the tea-things, without accomplishing anything but an exasperating racket, which did not seem to soothe her husband; for raising his head presently, he said, half turning toward the corner where the girl stood trembling:

"Go down into the lot and catch Grey Dirck, and if he's not saddled and ready for me by the time I'm ready for him, I'll give you the thrashing you've been needing for a month."

A look that was related to the look in Ralph Sutherland's face, came into Larry's as this was said, but he was silent, while his mother, startled into indiscretion, said hurriedly:

"Oh, Ralph! the men are nearly through their supper—let one of them go. Nattee can't manage Dirck, he's so wild"——

Ralph fixed his eyes on her for a moment, and the sentence was never finished. Nattee shrunk noiselessly out of the room, and not a word more was said. She did not go through the kitchen, where the men still sat over their supper, but out into the hall, and through the back door into the yard. There was a cowed and frightened hesitation about her that was a strange contrast to the lithe, careless tread with which she had gone into the kitchen fifteen minutes before. She was usually fearless and rapid, much used to outdoor work, and often intrusted with the entire care of the animals when the men were away in the field, and she and Salome were the only servants left at home. A very fearless horsewoman she had proved herself hitherto, and her Indian blood, which made so good a cross with the mulatto, had given her an intrepidity and skill that rendered her as useful and dexterous as a man about the farm, and nothing but her unusual cleverness and tidiness in the house, and perhaps a little shame at so using a woman, kept Ralph from employing her as a field hand whenever there was need, and working her with the men.

But now, as she crept with cowardly and shrinking steps down to the creek, she looked very far from dexterous or intrepid, and as if she were totally incapable of the task that had been put upon her. The creek was unusually high for that season of the year, owing to the great rains that had fallen recently, and the water looked deep and black as she pushed the boat off upon it and struck it with her oar. The sun had been down some time, and the sky was growing so pale, she cast a fearful eye toward it; it might take her half an hour to catch that horse, it would be dark before she reached the house—and—but just then she heard the branches on the bank crackle, and some one sprang down upon the flat rock that ran out into the creek. What if it were her master, angry at the time she had already wasted? And half blind with terror and excitement, Nattee glanced toward the bank.

"Here, Nattee, I want to go across, come back," called out Larry's voice.

"Oh, Master Larry!" and she pulled back with a good will.

Larry sprang in, and Nattee rowed across to the opposite bank of the little creek, while he stood thoughtfully in the stern of the boat.

"You're not going for Dirck, Master Larry?" she said, hesitatingly, as he sprang out. "Massa'll be dreadful angry if you do."

He hardly gave her a look as he strode on across the field, while she apprehensively and humbly, but very relievedly followed. Catching Dirck was never an agreeable pastime, and one look at his fiery eyes accounted satisfactorily for Nattee's cowardice. He was as vicious a brute as ever trod, and every movement, from the restless turning of his abominable eye to the sharp strike of his heavy hoof into the sod, told the story. Coming of the famous breed of draught horses for which Ulster County was then so famous, it was rather to be wondered at that Ralph Sutherland had reserved the best specimen of the kind he possessed for his own use instead of working him on the farm. But for this, there were some reasons chargeable to his own native perversity, and some more to the native perversity of the animal himself. No attempt to drive him in harness had ever been crowned with the slightest success; broken heads and dashboards had resulted, but nothing of a more satisfactory nature. He just submitted to the saddle, and that was all; and after the first vexation of losing his services upon the farm, Ralph took a kind of savage pleasure in riding about among his neighbors on a horse whose known attributes of ugliness, invested him, the rider, with an added shade of rather questionable importance, but an importance peculiarly acceptable to his peculiar disposition.

Nattee climbed up, in mortal terror, on the stone wall at the lower end of the lot where Dirck was monarch, and watched with apprehension the rare chase he was giving to his pursuer. He was not monarch long, however; Larry, though angry and determined, was light of foot and very powerful, and in a few minutes Dirck's strong head was writhing under the halter, and the whilom monarch was led along an ungracious captive.

As Larry, now half soothed by his success, approached the wall where Nattee stood, she involuntarily swayed herself backward in alarm, and almost fell; but in an instant, by a quick gesture with her arms, recovered herself, and kept her balance by clinging to the narrow ledge with her soft, supple brown feet. Her young master did not often look at her with half the interest that he looked at his setter Kelpie or his brown mare Bess, but this evening he looked at her with much more; indeed, with a half surprised and involuntary admiration. For if Nattee had chosen her attitude and surroundings with the skill of an ingenious and cultivated lady, she could not have chosen any better calculated to awaken admiration and attention. The peculiar pale, clear light of a sky from which the sun had been gone for half an hour, made the creek a band of silver through the dark green fields it crossed, and brought out everything, from the far-off mountains in the west to the dark outline of Nattee's graceful figure, in the most delicate, but clearest relief. Her striped woollen skirt and dark blue short-gown lost their color against the pale sky, and so, almost, did her bronzed, rounded limbs, naked half-way to the knee, and her straight glossy hair knotted low in the neck, and of her face, Larry only saw the well-cut outline for which she must thank her Indian father, and the startled look of animal fear which dilated into positive beauty her great dark eyes.

"Why, Nattee, you little fool," he said, leading the horse up to the fence; "why are you so afraid of this great brute? He'll never hurt you. Get on and ride him up to the barn."

"Oh, no," she cried, shrinking back; "oh, Master Larry, I can't, indeed I can't."

"Nonsense," he said, slipping the bridle over his arm, and coming up to the fence. "You must get used to him; you'll not mind after you are on. Don't be silly, girl, I'll lead him."

A cold chill ran through her, but habitual obedience made her unresisting as the young man, putting his strong arm around her, swung her up upon the horse's back. For two minutes she clung shaking to the mane, and felt, with horror, nothing but the heavy tramp of the heavy-limbed beast beneath her, and the hot flesh of his muscular neck against her arms; but soon the regularity of his movements and the reassurance of Larry's presence and protection relieved her from her fears, and reconciled her to her strange position.

The only spot where the creek was fordable was some distance above them, but the young man did not appear in any haste to reach it and whistled as he walked along, and talked to Dirck, and sometimes threw a word at Nattee, and did not seem to think at all of his father's anger at the delay; but only to be indifferently and indolently content. When they reached the ford, Nattee would have got down, and said, "Oh, Master Larry, don't go through the water with your boots;" but he did not take any notice, and kept on, plashing down into the creek without even looking at her. How cool the water sounded, as the man's feet and the horse's feet dashed it up about their limbs; and as they came up on the other bank, and brushed through the tall beds of white clover that lined the water's edge, there came such a delicious scent of the crushed flowers, that Lawrence stooped and picked a handful of them as he walked along.

The forgotten terror, however, came back to Nattee as they reached the lane. How long they had loitered, how dark it was growing! What if master were waiting now for Dirck! But as she glanced aside at Larry's handsome, careless face, she was sure she need not fear; he would not let her be punished for what was not the fault of her cowardice alone.

"What can father want with Dirck this evening?" he said at last, echoing her thought, but speaking, more to himself than to her.

"I think," faltered Nattee, timidly, for she was always timid, when she spoke to him, "I think he's going down to the Stadt to see if he can hear anything of the folks that's coming from—from over sea, you know."

"Oh, yes." And Larry fell into a state of musing, and poor Nattee began to wish she hadn't set him thinking about those tiresome cousins, that he might have gone on whistling and jerking Dirck's bridle when he put his head down into the clover, and looking carelessly around at her when the sudden motion of the horse threatened to unseat her. Never before in all her life, though she was born upon his father's place, and had grown up from a child in his father's kitchen, had Lawrence ever looked at her with any glance that was not the most casual and indifferent, and never repeated till she came unavoidably under his eye again. And ever since he had come home from school, a handsome lad of seventeen, she had longed, in the secret depths of her heart, for some such glance as he had given her to-night, some notice, however slight, that might be a fitter recompense for her services than the shining lavish coin he tossed about among the slaves at Christmas. Larry was generous and kind, though determined and high-handed, and the family servants loved him with the same sincerity and fervor with which they hated his father. But to Nattee, brought up by her tender-hearted mistress more like a child of the family than a servant, he was a hero, a young king: and sitting in loving docility at his mother's feet, she eagerly imbibed, along with much of her gentleness and refinement, the whole of her indiscriminating love and blind adoration for her boy. Kind Mrs. Sutherland, yearning always for something to lavish her affection on, had not the foresight to recognize the danger of this ill-judged kindness to her favorite slave. In one way or another, sooner or later, the smallest departure from the quiet, even path of justice and propriety, will make itself felt, and though the departure may be on virtue's side, it is a departure, nevertheless, and will put things out, and grate, and jar, and breed discomfort and confusion, long after the error itself has been forgotten.

Larry stopped suddenly, as a winding of the lane brought them in sight of the gate. Before it was a large covered country wagon, and by the head of the stout horses stood a plethoric Dutchman, whom Larry recognized as the landlord of the inn at the Stadt.

"What brings him here?" he said thoughtfully.

"Oh," cried Nattee, slipping down from the horse, "they must have come—I know it's them, the English cousins from over sea. And look, there through the lilacs, they're going into the house."

Larry looked, and a slight flush on his brown face, and a slight compression of his well-cut lips resulted from the look.

"I see," he said, rather shortly pulling up Dirck from the clover, and nodding a good evening to Mynheer Vanderhouser, as he passed him on his way to the barn. He told Nattee abruptly she might go into the house and help Salome, he'd put the saddle on Dirck, and leave him at the farmyard gate. Nattee was going away with a disappointed look, when he called out to her, "If my mother says anything about it, you may tell her I am gone down to Martin's. I shan't be back till late."

With all his manliness and native lordliness, there was a touch of the rustic in young Sutherland; he dreaded with a cowardly dread the first interview with these foreign-bred relations; he felt their intrusion upon the ease of his home as an intolerable constraint, and from the first notice of their coming, all his generous-minded hospitality and habitual good humor had quite forsaken him. The idea of the homely farmhouse and homely family ways passing under the eye of this dainty young lady, used to such very different ways, and his own manners and acquirements criticised by this young scholar, of whose Oxford career he had heard so much, had made him as thoroughly uncomfortable and ill-tempered as it was at all possible for him to be, every time he had thought of it for the past two months, and now things had culminated, and he was savage as he turned his back upon the house, and saddling Bess, dashed off toward the asylum that older and wiser men had sought before him—the tavern. Women, not having any tavern or club to rush to from the presence of domestic infelicity, have to learn a little self-control, which, perhaps, stands them in as good stead, after all, though the idea of flight is seductive at a first glance.

As Larry disappeared within the barn, Nattee turned toward the house feeling quite wretched and unsatisfied, but the indication of some unusual stir in the kitchen, and the recollection of the long-expected arrival somewhat revived her spirits. Salome met her with a volley of reproaches on account of her long absence, and sent her off to look up Amen, who had been sent off to look up eggs, which were to be cooked for the strangers' supper, and which were still probably lying warm and undisturbed in the nests under the mow, Amen being the untrustiest of messengers. In fact, after a long search, Nattee found him, quite unconscious of eggs and time, playing mumble-peg on the barn-floor with the knife which had fallen from his master's pocket as he mounted Bess. He dodged Nattee's provoked slap, and slipped off to the creek for a swim, leaving her to hunt the eggs and swallow her indignation as best she might.

CHAPTER IV.

HOMESICKNESS.

"Think on th' eternal home
The Saviour left for you;
Think on the Lord most holy, come
To dwell with hearts untrue:
So shall ye tread untired His pastoral ways,
And in the darkness sing your carol of high praise."

Keble.

When Nattee reëntered the kitchen, some ten minutes after, with her hardly-earned basket of eggs, Salome did not give her time to anathematize Amen, but pointing to a pile of extremely white towels lying on the dresser, told her to hurry up with them to the spare bedroom, where the young lady was to sleep, and to look if there was fresh water in the pitcher. Nattee caught up a candle, for it was genuinely dark by that time, and ran up the back stairs and across the open garret to the side door that led into the spare bedroom. The ceremony of knocking was not much attended to in that place and generation; besides, Nattee had not the least idea that the young lady had gone up to take possession of her room, so she hastily opened the door and entered, not perceiving, till she was half across the floor, that there were candles lighted on the mantelpiece, and that beside the bed some one was kneeling, with hidden face, in an abandoned attitude of wretchedness. Nattee dropped the armful of towels, and retreated hastily to the door, but her ready woman's sympathy drew her half way back again. What should she do for her, this poor young thing, so homesick and so far from home. She could not leave her, crying that way, as if her heart was broken. Perhaps she'd better go down and tell her mistress; but no, the door by which she had been brought to her room was bolted tight, and she had thought herself alone no doubt, and had not meant any one should know how dreadfully unhappy she was. After a few moments, Nattee, unable any longer to restrain her pity, ejaculated:

"Oh, my dear young lady, don't—don't cry so—it'll make you sick—I can't bear to see you cry so."

The young lady started violently to her feet, and her first look, as she grasped the post of the bedstead and supported herself by it, was one that told, even to Nattee, the cruelty of the intrusion. All through the terrible voyage that was just over, though half dead with sea-sickness and home-sickness, she had never once given way to the misery poor Warren tried not to suspect, and ever since they landed she had struggled bravely to keep up and give him constant smiles and reassurances; but this was the end—she had promised herself only to bear the terrible suppression of emotion till she reached her journey's end; she had longed more hungrily for one moment by herself than for any other consolation—one room into which she could shut herself, and sob out the devouring misery she had so long smothered in her heart.

And here she was; here was the home to which this dreary journey had tended; in this low, dark house, with its stern, unfamiliar, un-English look, the grey, dusky twilight growing greyer and duskier as it settled round it—here she must live, and forget England—here she must be happy. Coarse and uncongenial companions, no doubt, all she would have, must be. The repulsive face of her uncle, the thick, dull faces of all the Dutch travellers they had encountered on the road, almost obliterated the impression of the gentle, brown-eyed matron who had met her with so motherly though so timid an embrace. The truth was, poor Laura was so overdone and wretched that everything looked black and hopeless, she could not be reasonable or wise; and when this strange, rude creature burst in upon her sacred privacy, she could only think, with miserable resignation, that there was nothing else to be hoped for here.

Nattee, too, was quite as much frightened, and quite as uncomfortable as her victim, and was stammering some incoherent excuse, and retreating, when something in Laura's face overcame her afresh with pity, and made her forget her chagrin and awkwardness.

"Oh," she faltered, clasping her hands together as she approached her, "oh, if you only wouldn't mind me, if you'd only let me stay by you and take care of you. You can cry just the same—I won't tell mistress. I'll lay you on the bed and bolt the door, and keep everything so quiet. I'm so dreadful sorry for you."

And the slow tears that gathered in her eyes looked very much as if this naïve sympathy came from an honest heart. Whatever sort of a heart it came from, however, it went with a startling power to Laura's, and throwing one arm round the girl's brown neck, she flung herself upon the bed and gave way to an uncontrolled burst of weeping. Nattee stooped tenderly over her, holding with a loving reverence the "white wonder" of her hand, caressing it almost fearfully as it lay in her own, then smoothing back the wavy, dishevelled hair on the pillow, and laying in straight folds the heavy, clinging, black dress on the white counterpane. The words she whispered were probably of not much avail, of themselves, in dissipating the sorrows of the unhappy stranger; but there was something soothing in her tone and touch, and by and by the sobs subsided to a low, convulsive catching of the breath at intervals, and the suffering face regained a quiet look, while Nattee stole away and busied herself with adjusting the disordered room, and folding up the cloaks and wrappers that were flung down near the door. There is always a sense of comfort in being taken care of, that penetrates insensibly the heaviest dejection; the sound of a guarded step about the room, the smothered opening and shutting of a door, the low whispered question, all tuned to suit the aching ear of suffering, have a charm that may not be recognized, but can hardly fail of being felt. Love never goes unfelt, or is bestowed in vain, except when the cup of life is full already to the brim with happiness; empty, aching hearts find ready room for even the humblest affection offered. If Laura had been at home, and happy, as she was six months ago, and this poor Nattee had shown her this devoted homage, she would have looked down at her with half amused interest and gentle kindness, but without anything of the gratitude and tenderness she experienced now.

Presently there came a tap at the door, and a man's voice outside said, "Laura." Laura started up, and putting her hand to her forehead, exclaimed in a low tone, "Warren must not see me so. What shall I do?"

While Nattee, laying her finger on her lip, stole across to the door and opened it a-crack. "The lady's lying down," she said in a whisper. "Perhaps she'll go to sleep, she's so tired. Did you want anything, sir?"

"No," the young man answered, in a tone of some relief. "I'm glad she's lying down. Ask her if I shall come in a moment."

"Would it be good to disturb her, sir?"

"Perhaps not," he replied, a little hesitatingly. "You'll be by her, I suppose, if she rouses, and will call me if she desires to see me."

Nattee dipped a graceful courtesy to him as he turned away.

"I'm glad poor Laura has such a nice creature about her," thought the careworn and troubled Warren as he went downstairs. "What a beautiful young gentleman!" thought Nattee, as she softly closed the door. "But oh what a difference between him and Master Larry!" And the beautiful young gentleman's end of the beam kicked the air, of course.

It was very late on the following morning when Laura started up from her heavy sleep. The chintz hangings of the high-posted bed were between her and the sunshine from the window, and for a few moments she gazed bewildered at the gay, grotesque birds on them, uncomfortably uncertain whether she were in the tropics or at home with a bad headache, of which these gaudy things were the result, but Nattee's eager face appeared presently at the opening, and she sank down with an "oh!" that told it had all come back to her. She could not have cried then, though everything looked even blanker than it did the night before; but she was too unelastic and flat for the mental effort it would have required. Even the fancy for Nattee had faded, though she got up languidly and dressed herself with her help.

"It's ever so late!" Nattee volunteered.

"Is it?" said Laura, remembering indifferently she had not wound up her watch the night before, a recollection which always gives one a sense of discomfort and out-of-jointness.

"It's most nine o'clock."

"Ah!"

"Your brother's just had his breakfast; he slept late too. And he's gone out walking over the place with master. And Salome's got your breakfast all kept hot for you. You like your cream cakes nice an' brown, don't you?"

"Oh, I don't care particularly; I'm sorry to have put any one to trouble, for I am not hungry. I don't think I can eat any breakfast."

It was quite a blow to Nattee to find the young lady so dead to the pleasures of the palate; she gave up the breakfast question, but, resolved upon interesting her at all hazards, she began upon family topics.

"Mistress has been frettin' about you so, all the morning, for fear you was sick, and didn't sleep good, and wouldn't be happy here, and would be hankering after your own home, and all that."

"Oh, what a bother that's going to be," thought Laura, languidly. "To be teased all the time about my looks and my appetite and my home-sickness. If they only let me alone"——

"Ain't it a pity," Nattee said, "you can't see Master Larry, till to-night? He's gone over the mountain with a couple of men, to see about drawing some logs for the new barn, and he won't be back till supper. You've never seen Master Larry?"

"Larry?" repeated the young lady, absently. "Oh, my cousin—no, I've never seen him."

"And the young gentleman—that's your brother, I mean—didn't see him neither. He went before he was up. What a pity he's going to be gone all day!"

"Thank Heaven," murmured Laura, under her breath; for in her secret heart, though she was too gentle and too kind to encourage the thought, much less to give it expression, the one she most dreaded of her new associates, was this young farmer. Her uncle and aunt were English born, and though, perhaps, roughened by and inured to this different life, must still, she was sure, retain some of the softening influences of the old; but the younger one, born and brought up among the hardy settlers of this new land, must, she felt intuitively, be on a level with them in roughness and want of refinement, while his near relation to her, and the similarity of their ages, would naturally bring them more together, and make him more familiar with her. She shrank so uncomfortably from the thought of this, that

Nattee instinctively felt she had touched a disagreeable subject, and that for some reason Master Larry's praises did not find any echo in her listener's mind.

"See what a nice day it is!" she said, at last, drawing back the curtains and pushing up the window.

"Very nice," Laura answered, hardly glancing out, and after a moment added, "May I trouble you to drop the curtain again: the light hurts my eyes so."

Poor Nattee! There are some people who are constitutionally incapable of doing anything right, and in despair she went downstairs to prepare for the young lady's arrival at the breakfast table. It was a very long half hour before Laura descended the stairs herself, and even then, she did not immediately direct her steps toward the sitting-room. She walked slowly and thoughtfully through the low stone hall, glancing with some curiosity at the dark, heavy beams overhead, and the rows of stiff, high-backed chairs on each side, and the rather rough "Map of Ulster County" on the wall, and the huge brass spyglass hanging beneath it, not much comforted or encouraged by the contrast it presented to the cheerful pleasant hall of Borringdon Parsonage, pictured, and carpeted, and sunny. But at the open hall door she paused, and, leaning against the post, took in her first draught of the delicious summer morning. Not even Borringdon itself could have shown a fairer phase of it than lay before her. The low stone porch had an untrained wilderness of sweetbrier and trumpet-creeper wandering over it, through the festoons and crevices of which, at the side, were glimpses of deep blue sky and deeper blue mountains, while in front, beyond the shrubbery and the grass-plat, lay the wide-stretching Flats, here white with buckwheat, there yellow with com, or stacked with the newly-cut and fragrant hay; while, in and out, the creek wound its devious course, sometimes unseen, but always marked by the thick trees that skirted it. It was lovely: she was in God's land even here, and a faint reviving sense of pleasure stirred her worn-out, home-sick, hopeless heart. She put up her hand and pulled down a branch of the sweetbrier that hung above her, to bring nearer the evanescent floating sweetness that filled the air, and her movement startled from an adjacent cluster of the trumpet creeper, that wonder and darling of the New World, a tiny humming-bird, who, hanging suspended in palpitating indecision, for an instant, over the rich heart of the dark-red flower, darted terrified away, piercing the air with his swift flight.

While she was standing with the branch of sweetbrier in her hand, following with delighted eyes the flight of the wonderful bird, her uncle and Warren suddenly came in sight. A dutiful resignation made her drop the sweetbrier and step down into the path to meet them. Ralph favored her with his hand and a piercing long stare from under his grizzled shaggy eyebrows.

"You're monstrous pale this morning, lass," he said letting go her hand and passing on into the house, while the pale lass shrank timidly to the side of her brother, who laid his hand upon her arm and looked anxiously and silently into her face, as she followed the old man.

Laura did not hear his low sigh, nor did she see the look of pain upon his face, as he turned away and went back into the porch, for she had caught sight of her aunt through the sitting-room door and was moving forward to meet her. Mrs. Sutherland embraced her hurriedly and nervously, for Ralph, laying down his pipe, was eyeing them attentively.

This was not lost upon the quick-sighted and quick-sympathied English girl; and though it deepened her aversion to her uncle, it diverted her morbid homesick fancies a little from their recent objects of devotion, and inspired her with a very healthy and profitable affection and pity for her gentle and uncomplaining aunt. She still felt blank and lonely, but the first grappling-iron of sympathy had been thrown out that would soon draw her toward and attach her to this new and untried life. She had crossed the great ocean of separation and self-sacrifice, and whatever the haven proved to which her duty had led her, no doubt the spirit of submission that has been her guide throughout would reconcile her to it, and in time, perhaps, bring its own reward of contentment and satisfaction.

CHAPTER V.

IN THE ORCHARD.

——"A beauty, gay
And pure as apple-blooms, that show
Outside a blush, and inside snow."

Warren Sutherland's task, in reconciling himself to this new life, was incalculably harder than his sister's. Apart from the fact that women always accommodate themselves to changed circumstances more aptly than men, there was that in his trial that Laura knew nothing of, save through her sympathy for him. He had left all hope and pleasure behind him in England; that is, all the hope and pleasure that this world can offer or bestow; he had put it out of his power to be tempted again by these things, and he had hoped to have forgotten that they existed. He had hoped that the great sacrifice by which he had cut himself off from worldly advancement and earthly interests, would have resulted in a self-conquest and peace that would have repaid him for the effort—that the entire consecration of his life, talents, and affections to the service of God would have brought with it an immediate release from the temptations he renounced. He was beginning to see that one great act of renunciation will not win Heaven nor Heaven's peace at once; it maybe the starting-point in the right direction—it is not all the journey.

"Think not prayer and fast were given
To make a single step 'twixt earth and heaven."

If they were, how easy a solution of all life's difficulties would lie within our reach; how sure a cure a monastery or a desert would become; how infinitely easier than to struggle on in the state of life in which it hath pleased God to place us, continually mortifying all our evil and corrupt affections, daily conquering what is daily tempting, daily renouncing what is daily loved, and daily proceeding in all virtue and godliness of living.

Not that Warren's motive had been a cowardly one, a desperate resolution to fly his temptation and be done with it forever: but he had unconsciously hoped that, having done his duty at so terrible a cost, he might reap some present peace from its performance. Everything had pointed to his acceptance of this mission. No desirable home had presented in England for Laura, a home and relatives were to be had in America. Sir Charles had not offered the living, though half-promises and rumors of his intention to do it had reached him; a necessity for some decision was pressing, when, unexpectedly, the appointment to this post had arrived. Convinced of the importance of this much neglected field of Christian labor, conscious of his own power to perform the duties of it well, cut off from all binding ties at home—what lay in the way of his accepting the post, and fulfilling to the letter his ordination vows of self-renunciation and devotion? Nothing but a love that was at once hopeless and unprofitable; and with a manly resolution he put it aside forever.

He had hardly answered the bishop's letter accepting the appointment, when one arrived from Sir Charles, acquainting him, in sufficiently courteous terms, with his desire that he should retain the living which his father had so long and so honorably held. It was not too late, he could write and recall his decision, and for one moment, Warren wavered, and that moment was the most critical of his life. But his mind was too clear and well-balanced, his heart too pure, his conscience too well instructed to suffer him to waver long. If the mission to America had been his duty, before he had any inducement to stay at home, it continued to be his duty after he had had such inducement, the sacrifice had been made in his own mind, the resolution taken; what right had he to trifle with his own conscience, and say, Laura's comfort, or his own health, or respect to his father's memory, required him to stay and fill his place?

All such considerations he recognized as the suggestions of his ghostly enemies, and with resolute heroism, he refused to listen to them. His own health he had no right to favor at the cost of the smallest duty; his father's honor would be best served by his son's faithfulness in whatever field God appointed for him; Laura had already resigned herself to the change, and had begun her preparations for it, and though her pleasure and her temporal advantage might be better consulted by remaining at Borringdon, his sober judgment told him, in one respect at least, she would be safer under the care of her aunt in America, for she was still very young to have the care of even so modest an establishment as the Parsonage, and such a position would devolve upon her many duties for which she was totally unfitted. Besides, reasoned Warren, why should I be indulgent and worldly-minded for her any more than for myself? I must help, instead of hinder her in giving up the world. I have no right to guide myself by the wisdom it dictates, the rule that I own is foolishness in its esteem. I must be contented with the approval of my own conscience and with the hope of God's approval.

And so they came to America: here they were at the end of that long, weary journey—here was the home to which he had brought poor Laura, and here, in a few weeks, he must leave her. Doubts and misgivings beset him cruelly that first day, as he saw more and more of his uncle's unaccountably perverse and tyrannical disposition, and his aunt's want of firmness and self-reliance. What guardians were these for a young girl brought up as Laura had been? What companions they and their son would prove for these most important years of her life! What an atmosphere in which to develop her character! Ah, what had he done? what if he had been selfish in his self-sacrifice? Were his motives pure?—or was this all a mistaken duty? What good could he do among the poor Indians and slaves he had sacrificed so much to teach? He felt more ignorant and impotent than they, and the zeal and earnestness that had sustained him till now, failed him in this hour of need. Everything seemed giving way and changing—in himself—in his surroundings—in his judgment of things.

And coming suddenly, that afternoon, upon Laura, sitting idly on the stone step of the porch, her work on her lap, and her eyes fixed absently on the distant mountains, full of tears and unspeakably sad, he turned away from her with an exclamation of despair so unlike his usual quiet self-control, that she started up, and, throwing her arms around him, burst into tears.

"Oh, Warren! Forgive me, I am not so unhappy. Oh, how wretched I have made you! Don't look so, dear Warren. Oh, what have I done?"

"My poor sister! What have I done? Ah, Laura, Laura, how shall I make up for this cruelty to you?"

It would have been happier for them if this had never passed between them; for weeks they had kept up the mask of cheerfulness, and at times had half deceived each other; but from this moment they could not conceal it that their smiles were never anything but a loving deceit, that there was but one homesick heart-beat between them; and all pretext for cheerfulness was gone.

Warren drew Laura's arm within his, and led her down to the grape-vine arbor, under the thick cover of which they walked and talked, with mingled tears and confessions on Laura's part, and sadness and tenderness on Warren's, till Nattee summoned them to the house to supper. Larry did not return, and his mother, who in all his rambling adventurous career had never become used to bearing without anxiety half an hour's tardiness in the time of his return, made herself very miserable about him, and together with Nattee, put away refreshments enough for his supper to have sufficed a whole platoon, and gave Ralph some excuse for his ill-tempered sneers. These, however, he abruptly ended by quitting the room, and inviting Warren to go with him. Like all self-willed, hard-headed opinionated men, he loved a quiet listener, and this he found in Warren, and it formed the basis of his decent treatment of him. His peculiar propensity to threaten and oppress his family and the members of his household had given them the impression that there was something in the tie of blood that acted on him in an inverted and monstrous way, and that whatever or whoever came under his roof as guest, as dependent, or possession, would incur his diabolical malevolence. But there seemed to be something in the young clergyman's self-respect, self-possession, and good sense, that insensibly called up all the gentleman in him, if anything of the gentleman could be considered to be left in him after thirty years of conscious endeavor to root all traces of such a disposition out.

Laura thought—"Oh, poor Warren, to have to talk to that dreadful man so long!" and finding her aunt and Nattee busy about the arrangements for Larry's comfort, she slipped out into the yard and wandered about in a sort of negative content, absent and dreamy, only happy at being let alone, and having a half hour to herself. At the right of the house there lay an orchard, which looked, as the declining sun sent its long, slanting shadows across the level sward under the thick, low-hanging boughs, more tempting and secluded than any other spot; so climbing, with infinite pains, over the high-barred gate, which her strength was insufficient to open, she picked up her pretty, modish Leghorn hat, which had fallen on the other side, and walked on into the very heart of the orchard.

This was the oldest orchard on the place, and, looked at agriculturally, was fast becoming a tolerably worthless one, but looked at picturesquely was a particularly valuable possession. In its day, whenever that had been, it bore evidence of having been a very fine one: the ground inclosed was very large and perfectly level, and a well built stone wall separated it on three sides from the adjacent fields, and from the farmyard, while a thick hedge of lilacs, within a similar wall, shut it off from the lane that led from the highway to the house. The great age and growth of the trees added as much to their beauty as they detracted from their marketable value. They were placed at considerable distances from each other, and the grass beneath was short and velvety, almost as trim and clean as an English lawn, shaved every morning, upon which each fallen apple rested like a ball of gold or of vermilion. Laura wandered slowly through the ranks of grotesque old trunks, admiring, with her quick, appreciative sense of all that was admirable in nature, the grey gnarled branches, from which it seemed an actual miracle that such green leaves and such rosy fruit should spring, and the bent, hollow trunks, that seemed, for all their age, to keep so firm a hold of earth, and to drink in such pleasure from it.

How soft and still the evening was, and how quiet all around. The barn-yard clatter seemed for a space to be lulled; the men were at their supper, the cows stood ready for the milking below the barn, and their occasional lowing, and the twitter from a bird's nest in the hollow of a tree above her head, and the plash of the creek below the sheep lot, where it fell over a ledge of rocks, were the lonely country sounds that soothed her ear.

"How delightful it is," she thought, stooping to pick up a yellow harvest apple at her feet. "I shall come here always when I want to be alone, and after Warren goes, that will be nearly all the time."

The apples looked so clear and golden, that as she went slowly forward she picked them up, until she had an armful, and without the slightest appreciation of anything but their beauty, and not having the least use or desire for them except because they looked so pretty, she was lifting her hand to shake the fruit from a low bough that drooped within her reach, when the sound of an approaching footstep in the lot beyond, and the sudden vaulting of some one over the stone wall, made her start and relinquish the branch. It was a tall, well-built young man, in rough working clothes, with a short axe in the belt at his side, and a gun over his shoulder. He stopped for a moment to whistle up his companion, a setter dog, who followed him presently over the wall, and ran on beside him with panting sides and lolling tongue, that proclaimed her more weary than her master. He had not the least appearance of fatigue or discomfort, as he strode on through the orchard with his favorite at his heels, whistling carelessly and looking nowhere.

Laura knew intuitively that it was her cousin. "What shall I do—where shall I go," she thought in an agony of alarm, dropping her armful of apples on the ground, and turning to fly. But there was no escape, with the high wall all around, and that horrible five-barred gate. He would overtake her before she could get over. There was no use, she must face it bravely and speak to him, as well now as any other time. Once must be the first, and there was no advantage in putting off the evil day.

The heavy fall of the apples on the ground had brought the intruder to a sudden stand-still, and glancing around with a surprised look, he saw a very unwelcome but a very pretty sight. For one moment he, too, thought of flight, and turning uneasily on his heel, took a step in an opposite direction, biting his lip, and looking disturbed and awkward enough. But his manliness and common sense returned presently to his help. There was no use in this absurdity. He wasted several wordless curses on his awkwardness and folly, and lowering his gun from his shoulder, faced about, and walked resolutely toward the young lady, who, having come to a similar decision, had advanced a step to meet him. Larry's face was rather flushed, and his usual easy confidence had suffered a great shock, for he took off his straw hat, and walked up to her with anything but easy confidence. In fact, he approached as nearly to awkwardness and clodhopperism on that occasion as it is possible for a well-made, athletic, handsome man to do. Laura looked a shade paler than usual, her alarm having resulted in giving her additional coldness and dignity of manner.

To make matters worse. Kelpie, sniffing about with much sagacious inquiry, rushed along a foot and a half in advance of her master, and, as she reached Laura, broke into a short, unamiable bark. Laura shrank back, and Larry, stepping forward, bestowed a heavy kick on the dog, and sent her yelping away. The satin feeling of the slim hand laid for an instant in his rough palm, anything but reassured him.

"My cousin Lawrence, I suppose?" And the young lady courtesied, very coy, and quiet, and cold. And the young man very briefly, and rather clumsily, acknowledged his identity with the Cousin Lawrence of her imagination, and added some commonplace and insincere expression of satisfaction at her arrival. "Thank you," she said dutifully, and thereupon ensued a very uncomfortable pause, broken presently by Laura, who hazarded the observation that this was a very pleasant orchard.

"You have dropped your apples," then said her new acquaintance, bending down to pick them up.

"Oh, don't gather them again, please," cried Laura, with sudden alacrity of manner, afraid of nothing so much as prolonging the interview. "I don't want them at all. I only picked them up because they looked pretty. I'd rather not have them, if you please."

He bowed, and threw down the handful he had gathered, while she added, with more candor than courtesy:

"I am only walking here by myself till the sun sets; I shall go in before twilight. Do not let me keep you from your supper."

Another bow, and he strode across the orchard to the fence, and flung himself over it with an ease that quite raised him in his cousin's eyes.

"He's better looking than I thought," she pondered, "but vastly clownish and underbred, and how cruel to that poor dog. Ah, how I wish he might go away and leave as here in peace!"

If a similar wish in regard to herself passed through the mind of the young man as he left the orchard, it cannot be very much wondered at, nor can he be very much blamed for it. When he reached the house, he was in an exceedingly irritable frame of mind, and he bore with less fortitude than usual his mother's lamentations over his late return and unnecessary provisions for his comfort, and being too dutiful to vent it openly on her, poor Nattee had to bear the weight of it, and choking down her tears, obeyed his order to leave the room and go about her work if she had any. He hated to have the whole house turned topsy turvy if he stayed out an hour beyond supper-time; he hated to have all the women in the family waiting on him as if he were a paralytic. Tell Salome he had as many muffins as he wanted, and let Nattee go about her work, "and, mother, you sit down, will you."

So Nattee was sent off wretched, and the fountains of Salome's sympathy were staunched, and Mrs. Sutherland was overwhelmed with contrition and dejection; and all because of this new cousin! Quite unconscious of the cause of the offence, however, Mrs. Sutherland humbly began to cast about for some subject to amuse him with, and very unfortunately hit upon the very one that had caused the trouble. He bore it as long as he could with patience, then rising from the table, he pushed back his chair with no very gentle emphasis, and exclaimed with indifferently concealed irritation:

"My dear mother, I hope you will excuse me, but I am very little interested in this arrival. Let us talk of anything else, just now; it wearies me."

This silenced the poor mother effectually; she watched him with deep concern as he walked heavily two or three times up and down the room, turning presently to leave it, when, by another door, enter Ralph and the young clergyman.

"Lawrence," said the old man shortly, "here's your cousin."

"Well, I see him," Lawrence felt inclined to say, and to walk straight out of the room; but he did not; he only set his teeth together for an instant in an angry way, then turned quickly toward them, walked up to his cousin and held out his hand in anything but a clownish manner, in fact, in rather a soldierly and determined manner.

"I hope you will excuse my absence to-day, sir," he said in a tone that did not attempt to be a soft one. "I have been obliged to be away."

"I have regretted your absence very much," Warren returned, giving him his hand cordially. "We have so much lost time to make up for as cousins, that I feel we cannot begin too soon."

Lawrence bowed rather stiffly and they both sat down, one on each side of the shining mahogany table. Lawrence looked a little more flushed and handsome than usual, and spoke less like an honest-hearted and manly fellow than he ever did before in his life; while Warren, in his black clothes, and with his pale and aristocratic face, looked much more like a grand gentleman than he had any right or any desire to look. Therefore, it were needless to say, the two were not favorably impressed with each other, notwithstanding Warren's earnest efforts to that end. The stiffness threatened never to wear off. Mrs. Sutherland left the room, busy about some household duty; Ralph took off his boots; and settled himself in a certain old-mannish easy chair that was consecrate to him especially, and neither addressed nor answered any one, but kept a grim surveillance over all within the room. Nattee removed Lawrence's supper from the table, and put the dark-red homespun cloth upon it, and presently brought in a couple of lighted candles, for it was growing dark. The two young men were left necessarily to each other's mercy, but only talked in a desultory stranger-like manner, of things that strangers generally talk about, and naturally grew less familiar every moment.

At the expiration of an hour, Mrs. Sutherland returned with her knitting in her hand, and sat down near her son. She looked around with some surprise, and said, "Why, where is Laura?"

"She's probably in her room," said Warren, getting up "I'll go and ask her to come down."

But in a moment he returned, looking a little anxious, and said she was not there. At the same instant Nattee came in and whispered to her mistress, she could not find Miss Laura anywhere. Mrs. Sutherland, always prone to alarm on all occasions, started up quite pale and trembling, and followed Warren into the hall, Nattee bringing up the rear with a lantern which she had set down near the door. "The creek," Lawrence heard his mother say faintly, as they left the hall. Next to the fear of Indian depredations, the nearness of the creek was the most undying source of misery the poor lady knew. A dozen times a day her heart sank at imaginary cries of distress coming from that quarter; she never began a day without a dreadful conviction that before its close either Lawrence or Nattee, or one of the men or boys, would be fished up from its treacherous depths, stark and stiff; nobody or nothing was ever missing, from colts and calves to men and boys, but her imagination flew to that unconscious and smiling stream. That Lawrence had grown up to manhood beside it, was nothing short of a miracle; his boyhood had been one long term of misery to her on its account; and now, from the moment Warren said Laura was not in her room, the conviction flashed upon her she had fallen in the creek—they would be too late to save her—it was just what she had been always dreading.

"Nonsense!" muttered Lawrence, getting up and shaking himself, as the door slammed after their hurried exodus. "I could have told 'em where to find her if they'd stopped to hear me. The girl's safe enough; it's only some of her fine airs; she's so monstrous fond of walking by herself, I think I'll let her enjoy it a little longer."

After the lapse of a few moments, however, his better feelings conquered, and going into an adjoining closet, he reached down a lantern, lit it, took up his hat and went out. The night was cloudy, and a thick close fog had come up since sunset, so the lantern was quite a necessary accompaniment to the search. Indeed, he could not have seen two feet ahead without it, and he went directly toward the orchard, quickening his pace as he went on, and thinking somewhat more charitably of the young lady since he himself had come out into the darkness. Surely she did not stay out voluntarily such an evening as this.

After he was over in the orchard, however, he began to feel a little awkwardly about his errand; he did not see anything of her, and though he wanted to call her name, he did not know exactly what name to call. He couldn't begin right away to Laura her, and he'd see her hanged before he'd call her Miss Sutherland. So he went along swinging his lantern and whistling carelessly, hoping she would hear him, and give some intimation of her presence if he approached her. But the carelessness of the whistle rather declined as he went on and saw no sign of her in any direction. Where, to be sure, had she gone? What, if for once, his mother's foolish fears had some foundation? She might have strayed down toward the creek after he left her, and been tempted to get in the boat. The boat was a crazy little thing at best, and ought to have been split up for firewood half a year ago. He would give another reconnoitre round the field, and then go and join the others.

He had scoured faithfully three sides of the lot, and now directed his steps toward the lower corner, in which was a spring, surrounded by marshy, boggy ground, a favorite resort of the cattle in early spring, when they had the entrée of the orchard. As he approached it, he heard a plashing and trampling that surprised him somewhat; but the scene he fronted, as he neared the spring, and held the lantern up above his head, astonished him much more. Amen, following close in his wake and watching him, writhing with silent laughter, from behind a bent old apple tree near the spring, perhaps could have elucidated it considerably. For that abominable and crafty youth, watching about at twilight for some mischief for the occupation of his idle hands, had caught sight of Laura sauntering through the orchard, and being certain she was afraid of cows, had determined upon giving her a fright. Instead, therefore, of driving the cows down into the lower lot, he resolved to turn them into the orchard and put up the bars softly, which would at once terrify the young lady, and save himself the trouble of escorting them to their usual dormitory.

With much skill and demure enjoyment, he carried out his plan. Laura was kneeling down on some stones, pulling a tuft of moss from the edge of the unused spring, and feeling secure and very much isolated, when a sudden trampling of hoofs, and the shaking sort of lowing that cattle make when running, caught her ear, and starting up, she saw a dozen cows or more making straight for her; for, impelled partly by sticks and stones from Amen in the rear, and attracted partly by the prospect of a drink from their favorite spring, the deliberate troop agreed in making unusual speed toward that corner of the lot. Never imagining that their motives were of this innocent nature, however, she sprang up, and with a terrified shriek ran to the wall and essayed to climb it. But unhappily her fright deprived her of the little strength of which she was ordinarily mistress; the close built wall presented an almost impassable barrier; but clinging desperately to it, she had nearly mastered it, when her foot slipped, the stone by which she was supporting herself gave way, and she fell backward, the stone falling too, and for a moment lay almost senseless from the sudden shock.

But a sharp pain in her foot, and the warm breath of an inquisitive young heifer in her face, made her start up and attempt to regain the wall. She was fain, however, to sink down again in agony; the stone had fallen on her foot, and besides the sprain she had given it in slipping, it was badly cut and bruised. Her screams could not reach the house from where she was; indeed, she soon grew too faint to try to make herself heard, and when, after a long and dreadful hour, the welcome rays of Larry's lantern streamed upon her, she was half-clinging to, half-crouching against the wall, in the very corner of it, just where it intersected, her white dress torn and stained, her straw hat lying at her feet, the motley group of cattle standing in a semicircle round her, some trampling the marshy ground as if to enjoy the plashing of the water in the bogs, one or two sniffing in the spring itself, others chewing the cud, all looking huge and clumsy and strange by the lantern's light compared with the slight, white figure shrinking away from them in such mortal terror.

When she caught sight of Lawrence, her strained, excited look of alarm gave way, and sinking down, she hid her face in her hands and burst into tears. Larry scattered her unwelcome attendants right and left, and with two or three quick strides, annihilated the distance between them.

"How did they get in here? Have they frightened you?" he exclaimed, bending down to her.

"Oh, take me away, take me out of this horrible place," she sobbed.

He thought her babyish and silly, though he could not help being sorry for her, till setting the lantern on the ground, he caught sight of the blood staining her stocking and skirt. With an exclamation of alarm, he picked up the little high-heeled shoe, lying half a yard off, muddy and stained, and with the buckle broken quite in two.

"You are hurt," he cried, kneeling down by her. "What has happened?"

She tried to tell him what had happened, and how she was hurt, but she did not make much headway, and ended by burying her face in her hands again and begging him, in the most spoiled-child way, to take her to her aunt, to take her away from this horrible place.

There was nothing for it but to carry her; it was plain she could not walk, so taking the lantern in one hand, he lifted her up in his strong arms and walked quickly toward the house, rather silent, of course, but occasionally saying something reassuring and kind.

Could it be possible this was the fine lady he had been so much in awe of but two hours ago? She felt so light and childish in his arms, with her head against his shoulder and every half-soothed sob recording itself on his relenting heart, that he began to wonder he had not seen at first how sweet and unaffected she really was.

As he put down the lantern in the hall and entered the open sitting-room door, he did not feel at all the bad-tempered fellow he had felt when he went out from that apartment only ten minutes before by the great clock in the corner.

CHAPTER VI.

SMALL THINGS.

"Hearts good and true
Have wishes few
In narrow circles bounded,
And hope that lives
On what God gives,
Is Christian hope well-founded.
Small things are best,
Grief and unrest
To wealth and rank are given:
For little things
On little wings
Bear little souls to Heaven."

Lawrence began at last to think his pretty cousin was inclined to make great capital of her sprained ankle; she had totally upset the household on the night of the calamity, and had hardly allowed it to resume its tone through the whole of the next day; the zealous Nattee suspended all her ordinary work, and Mrs. Sutherland looked as anxious and dejected as if her young charge had broken all her available limbs, instead of only having slightly sprained one. For three days she remained in her room, with Warren, Nattee and Mrs. Sutherland in faithful attendance, so it cannot be wondered that the young autocrat left alone below stairs began to show signs of impatience and rebellion. It is all very well to consider the attentions of the womenkind at home as something of a nuisance, and to bear them with a sort of lordly noblesse-oblige endurance; but it is very ungracious and uncomfortable to have them suddenly withdrawn without permission or solicitation of any kind, and without one's having placed any just cause or impediment in the way of their continuance. Larry had not been obliged to go over the mountain since that first day, and now that the haying was over there was not any very pressing work to engage his attention. Such a thorough-going young farmer as he of course was not idle; but he came in the house long before supper-time now, and was at leisure the whole of the evening.

He had imagined that perhaps she of the sprained ankle would grace the settle in the sitting-room occasionally during her convalescence, and though he did not acknowledge to himself that such a circumstance would render that apartment more attractive, still he felt considerably irritated at the disappointment. No doubt she stayed up stairs because she preferred it; that trashy sprain never could require all that care; no doubt she thought he had been altogether too cousinly and careless when he carried her in that night, and meant to put him at his proper distance again. Coy little minx! he'd show her that the distance he desired was even greater than the distance she dictated; he would speedily convince her of how small consequence he considered the cousinship between them, and how very little difference her advent in the family made to him.

Three days after this he came into the house half an hour before supper-time. Having been superintending the cutting of some timber below the creek, he had taken his gun with him, and had employed the intervals of time in which his superintendence was not required, in beating up the neighboring thickets for partridge. Kelpie had started more than one covey, and he had had some very good shots, and had returned in that particular mood of easy good humor that generally accompanies the feel of a heavy string of birds over one's shoulder.

He came through the hall, whistling, as he went and hung up his gun opposite the open sitting-room door, then tossing his hat upon a chair, entered the room, swinging the birds down from his shoulder and crossing over toward the kitchen.

The table was arranged for supper; he gave a little start as he glanced beyond it, and saw Laura on the settle by the open window. Laura gave a little start, too, and blushed a faint rose color all over her cheeks and forehead and throat, but turned to alabaster again as he approached her.

"I am glad to see you're better," he said looking down at her from his sublime height, but not offering to take her hand.

"Thank you," she answered, faintly, very much relieved that he did not; for her clever cousin had come pretty near the truth in his speculations. Her recollections of the adventure were very misty, but very mortifying.

"Which was the worst, after all, the fright or the sprain?" he went on, with a wicked sort of smile playing about the corners of his mouth. Laura had been made such a heroine of and her sufferings treated with such respect, that this seemed intolerably presuming; she colored up again and said distantly:

"It is difficult to choose between two such disagreeable things," and turned away her head. Lawrence replaced the book which, in her agitation, had slipped down at her feet, and turned again toward the kitchen door. He left it half open as he passed through, and the young lady involuntarily glanced after him. Salome stood by the wide fireplace, Nattee, on her knees before the coals, was making toast. He flung the birds toward Salome, but Salome was not quick enough, and they would have been prematurely roasted, entirely au naturel, if Nattee, by an adroit gesture, had not caught them before they fell.

"Let's have 'em for supper, Salome," he said carelessly, going over to the dresser for a mug, and thence out a side door across to the well, which was in full view of the window where Laura sat, so she saw and heard the indifferent laugh with which he returned Salome's indignant protest against his unreasonable request. Supper would be ready in ten minutes—master would blow her head off if he had to wait.

"Don't waste any more time scolding," he said, as he drew up a dripping bucketful of water from the depths of the deep well. "I must have 'em."

Salome scolded vehemently, but went about her preparations, while Nattee flew across to the step of the kitchen-door with the birds in her apron, and sitting down without a word, began to pick them. Her nimble fingers paused though, once or twice, as the trickling blood warned her she had reached the tiny death-wound that her master's hand had dealt. No ragged, mangled flesh; there wasn't such a shot in all the country round as Master Larry; she could tell the birds he'd taken down, if half the men on the place had been out shooting with him. But the poor things, with their drooping, dangling heads!

There was within the roughly inclosed well, a coarse brown towel on a roller, and a great tin basin stood below it on a bench, where the men washed nightly when they came in from the field. The towel was renewed every afternoon, and hung fresh and crisp, with the folds still on it, and the basin was shiny and clean; so Larry, after he had filled his mug and drank it off with relish, filled this too, and stooping down, with both hands dashed the water into his face, and deliberately washed his hands, and then as deliberately dried both face and hands on the coarse brown towel, and shaking back the short, wet curls on his forehead, and turning down his sleeves, he reëntered the house, seeming to consider his toilet made. There was possibly some bravado about this, for he generally went into his own room to wash, and he was not ignorant of the view the sitting-room window commanded.

When he reëntered that apartment, he reached down, from the deers' horns over the sideboard, a fishing-pole and reel that resided there, and seating himself, began tinkering at them with much appearance of interest. It was not fair to say he whistled; it was not an actual whistle, only a low occasional suggestion of a tune from lips pressed together with their earnestness over the work in hand, but it was sufficient to make Laura feel almost angry enough to cry. He had so entirely forgotten she existed, she was fully at liberty to look at him now, and that with all the dislike he merited.

Kelpie came whining and snuffing about his legs, and got a careless kick for her pains, after which she withdrew under his chair, and with her nose on the lowest round, and one silky ear dangling over it, watched him silently, and started and looked fondly sympathizing when something broke with a snap, and a low "bother!" escaped his lips.

"Nattee," he called out in a louder tone, "run up to my room and get that box of tackle on the shelf, it's on top of a lot of books and things, I think."

"I know, sir;" and Nattee was on the stairs almost before the sentence was finished. When she came back with the box, she stood a moment looking at his work with interest and appreciation.

"You'll have to wax that thread," she said after a moment.

"Yes," he returned, meditatively. "It would be better. Get me some, will you?"

While she waxed the thread, he asked her if she had picked the birds.

"Yes, sir, and they're on to broil."

"Well, then, stay and hold this for me."

Nattee understood the work quite as well as he did, and slipping down on the floor at his feet, lashed the broken line together very dexterously, while he held the other end tightly on his knee. Kelpie put her soft fore-paws a little too far out from her retreat, and Nattee, in the pride of her heart, gave her a sharp reprimand, and went on eagerly with her delightful work. While Laura, in her stately heart, despised both dog and slave.

Nattee's pleasure, however, was but short-lived, as is the nature of pleasure. A heavy, shambling step in the hall made her start a little and pause uneasily.

"Master'll be wanting his supper; he's coming in. I guess I'd better go."

"Well," said Lawrence, acquiescently, "I can as well finish it by myself."

The young Indian was as good at making haste as most of her race, but fate was a second too quick for her this time. Kelpie had been quietly gnawing at the line, and untwisted it a yard or two; in starting up, her feet got entangled in it, and as her master appeared at the door, the box of fishing tackle became involved in the general ruin, and hooks, lines, reels, floats and sinkers spread themselves entirely across the entrance. With trembling haste, poor Nattee, kneeling down, stretched out her hands to collect and restore them to order.

For one moment the old man stood still in the door and watched her. Laura had followed his eyes from the unready table up to the tall clock in the corner, then back to the trembling girl on the floor. Her very blood seemed to freeze as she saw the dull glare of rage that filled them as they settled on her, and his grasp tightened on the heavy riding-whip in his hand. He brought it down on the bare, extended arms below him with a quick, galling cut, and Laura only saw the girl press her arms to her breast, and with a face convulsed with pain, dart from the room, before a sickening faintness came over her, and forced her to hide her eyes in the pillow. She did not see the glance of menace and wrath that passed between father and son; the stolid look of ugliness with which the former turned away, and going to the sideboard, poured out a heavy glass of liquor, and drank it off at a draught; nor the suppressed scorn on the young man's face, as he strode angrily once or twice across the room, then stooped to pick up the scattered contents of the box.

When the horn sounded for supper, and Warren came in, Laura put her arms around his neck, and begged him to take her to her room; she did not want anything to eat, she only wanted to be by herself. Poor Mrs. Sutherland was infinitely distressed at the change of plan, but Laura had not yet learned self-control enough to endure the sight of the ugly old man, so fresh from such an act, nor the idea of being served by poor Nattee, yet smarting from his cruelty. The recital of it to Warren, when he came up after supper to sit by her in the long, gradual twilight, brought on a new burst of homesickness, for she was still weak and unnerved since the accident that had confined her to the house.

"I am so afraid of him," she whispered, "the cruel old man! Oh, Warren, you will not go away and leave me!"

"No," Warren said, sadly. "I am not going yet. I will write to-night to the Rector for a longer leave of absence. Perhaps I can be excused from entering on my duties in New York till after Christmas—perhaps altogether. Do not despair, Laura. Let us watch if some good does not come out of all this darkness. Let us see what is our duty here. Beginning from this very night, can you not see how much you may be able to achieve? Think how Aunt Andria needs your affection and sympathy; and this poor Nattee, who has attached herself so strongly to you—you may be able to teach her the only truths that can reconcile her to her lot. As for myself, I begin to doubt whether there is any place that needs me more. The wretched ignorance of the slaves on this farm and on the neighboring ones, and of the scattering Indian settlements around, make me sometimes feel I have no right to go away—no right to turn my back upon this first field to which I have been led."

"But what can one do?" said Laura, almost fretfully. "Such a horrible old man as this—he will retard any good work he gains a suspicion of—he will do everything to hinder you. And that selfish, tyrannical, overbearing Lawrence—oh, let them alone—let us go to New York!"

"Laura, this is not like you; this is not like the courage and devotion that brought you here. Think a moment, my sister, of the danger of refusing any duty that lies before you. Think if you can honestly say, 'We are not needed here: we can do no good.' Do you know that we are needed in New York? Do you think that there, in the very centre of the missionary interest of the country, there can be as dreary a dearth of Christianity as here? And can you persuade yourself that a city such as that has as natural and clear a claim upon you as this, the first home in America of your father's family? This vast tract of land has borne our name for many years, and will bear it, no doubt, long after we have left it, selfishly or righteously. And with our name, our influence and responsibility will continue to exist. We cannot shake that off: we must settle it in our own minds whether we will brave the danger of the sin. Are you strong enough for that, Laura? Are you ready to say you give up, your burden here is heavier than you can bear—right or wrong you will be eased of it, right or wrong you will escape this discipline, turn your back upon this trial?"

"Warren," murmured Laura, turning away, "you are almost cruel."

"Perhaps I am, Laura," he continued, speaking quickly and huskily; "perhaps I have been cruel to you always. I don't know how it is all to end. I thought I meant well. I think we came honestly away from pleasure and temptation. I know you put your hand in mine and followed me humbly and obediently. The fault is mine, if I have led you wrong. Go yet a little further, Laura. Let the sacrifice to duty be entire. Don't shrink from giving up a little more where you have staked so much. Think of the nothingness of it all, Laura—all this tempting world! Think how little it will seem in the day that may be mercifully near to you and me! Comfort, pleasure, ambition, love—what will they seem then in comparison with the dreadful sight of one neglected duty, with its long train of evil—one unconverted soul that lay uncared for within our reach? Think a moment, Laura; what is this trial that we think so cruel, to the trials of that noble army with whom we hope one day to stand? Will you be willing then to think any have loved Christ better than you—any have served him more entirely? That will be the one ambition then. All hope, all desire, will have but that one object; all memories will be worse than blank that have no coloring of love to Him; all pleasure will be pain that was enjoyed without His blessing; all ease be torture that usurped the place of duty. The woe, the terror, the shame—Laura, can you bear the thought?"

He had risen and walked up and down the room while he was speaking, and now stood still before her by the window, the fading light all centring on his pale, compressed features and dilating eyes. It was not fear of him, though, nor love of him, that gave her voice the steadiness it had when at last she answered him, turning her face away, and gazing out into the gathering gloom:

"No, Warren, I cannot bear the thought. I will stay here—I will try to do my duty."

Trying to do one's duty, however, is notoriously easier business than actually doing it; it is child's play to resolve compared with the dire work it is to do. Laura's thoughtful eyes, though they saw as far into futurity as young eyes often see, were not open to all the weary way that lay before her in the path she had resolved to take. To be the patient enlightener of poor Nattee's rayless night, the cheerful companion of her aunt's sad lot, the unprovoked witness of her uncle's wanton ugliness of speech and look, required the grace of the saint added to the gentleness of the woman. And though her great sacrifice and her daily efforts brought her nearer to it every hour, Laura was not a saint yet.

In due time, a reply to Warren's letter came. He was released from his engagement as assistant minister of Trinity; the former incumbent had determined still to retain his charge, and he was free to remain where he was. He had not waited for this, however, to review the ground for the scene of his new ministry; and more unpromising ground, it would seem, could hardly have been found. In his uncle's house, he had to encounter the callous stubbornness that years of indifference to religion in master and dependents had bred—a stubbornness far more formidable than the genuine ignorance of the Indians and early settlers. Ralph Sutherland had left all care for the things of his soul behind him when he came to America. His was a household governed by no principle more safe and holy than his own unshackled will; and his wife had early learned that the inmost cell of her homesick heart was the only chapel where she could ever hope to worship the God of her fathers. How it came that Lawrence was correct and well-balanced in matters of faith, could only be accounted for on the supposition that he rejected upon principle all the prejudices of his father, and learned sympathetically from his timid and silent mother the creed she had hardly dared to teach him to pronounce.

A tremendous freshet of Methodism had flooded the country a few years before the commencement of this story, and had swept along with it all the floating faith of the neighborhood. It had eddied harmlessly, however, round the homes of the sturdy old burghers, who had brought over their Dutch faith as well as their Dutch tile from Holland with them, and beat harmlessly at the doors of the Sutherland mansion; but the scattering emigrants from the old country, who had followed in the train of the wealthier settlers of these rich bottom lands of the Catskills, and the Indians and negroes, who owned no other faith, had been entirely carried away by it. A small meeting-house, beyond the bridge, had been at first filled to overflowing, and was still filled with a fluctuating crowd, according to the gift of the resident preacher.

The present pastor of this mongrel flock was esteemed a man of more than ordinary talent. His predecessor had been a mild, patient preacher of a very useful but unexciting Gospel, and his hearers had thinned so surely from Sunday to Sunday, that about a year before a little new leaven had been esteemed a necessity. And very strong leaven the Reverend Pertinax Pound had proved, and in an incredibly short space the whole lump had fermented beyond belief. The Rev. Pertinax, being too working an ingredient for the better regulated, slower masses of the mother country, had early, from prudential motives, it was presumed, emigrated to this more congenial clime, where, after some twenty years of conscientious agitating, he found himself a leading and controlling member of his zealous sect. He possessed, floating somewhere around, now in New England, now in New York, now in Virginia, a wife, who did not forget him, and some half dozen well-grown, stalwart sons. Some of them preached and some of them ploughed, but all were unmistakable fractions of the stout old block from which they had been chipped. The strangest part of all the strange history of this family was, that after all their notorious slighting of the ties of nature that bind families together, they neither forgot nor ceased to love each other.

The mother, a great, gaunt, iron-willed woman, lived sometimes for months together in her dreary cabin in the mountains, utterly alone and unprotected, save when an occasional son dropped in upon her, with his axe on his shoulder and his Bible in his pocket, en route for some new field of labor; or when sometimes she put the key of the cabin in her pocket, and tramped off, hundreds of miles, till she reached her husband, and heard of the wonders the Lord was working by his hand. There was but one purse and one heart between them all, and though the purse was but a slim one, and the heart but a grim one, there was a majesty and strength about the union.

Incendiary and agitator as he knew him to be, Warren Sutherland felt, from the first moment of their meeting, that he stood in the presence of a man who, however mistaken and misled, was as sincere as himself, and perhaps more earnest, in the business of saving souls. There is no fear, between two men solely and unselfishly devoted to such a cause, and serving the same Master, only from unworldly love of that Master, of personal enmities and petty strifes. Between two such there can be no dissimulation; they recognize the badge that each wears in his heart; they both are enlisted in a service that breeds jealousy only as the original love for it dies out; they may hate the errors that mar the creed of the other, but,

"Christ's mark outwears the rankest blot;"

they cannot hate each other. And so it came to pass that the young English divine, fresh from the straitest school of his religion, and the staunch old hero of a hundred heretical fights, grasped each other's hands on the threshold of this new field, and read "Christian" in each other's eyes. Not that one lost sight, however, for a moment, of the other's errors of belief. The Reverend Pertinax pounded new anathemas from his well-worn pulpit against the pomps and vanities, the forms and ceremonies of the dying church from which he had come out; while the Reverend Warren, gathering his little flock about him, bade them pray earnestly the prayer against heresy and schism, and showed them the true beauty of the form of sound words they held, and the safety and sublimity of the faith that had descended to them from the Saints. Not much headway, however, did the younger man for awhile seem to make in the propounding of his more refined and quiet creed to his untaught hearers. It was very much easier to rant and rave and shout glory, than to learn rationally what glory meant, and what was the best and wisest way of gaining a hope of it. And besides the natural opposition of the unregenerate heart to the exact discipline it requires, was to be added the wholesale opposition to all religious efforts of the great man of the place, and the great man of the preacher's family.

Ralph Sutherland was not one to bear quietly the emanating from his household of anything that savored of the system to which he had long avowed his hatred, and Warren was soon taught what he must expect. They were welcome to a home in his house, they might spend their lives there if they chose; but as to tampering with his servants, starting schools or holding services on his premises, he warned them to desist from any thought of it; he forbade the least suggestion of it. The moment he caught a hint of it, his hospitality should end; they must seek another home. Family prayers, catechism of the slaves, Sunday services, were severally and distinctly refused and placed under the ban of his heaviest displeasure.

"I can but wait and try to melt his prejudices," thought Warren, with a patient sigh. "He is the head of the house; I must submit while I am here. If he remains inexorable, I must find Laura and myself another home."

And to waiting, that hardest kind of service, he was faithful for two long, weary months; when, at the end of that time, his uncle suddenly and ungraciously gave in to his desires, and agreed to relinquish his determined opposition. Warren knew there must be a moving cause for such a revolution as this, but was at a loss in which direction to look for it.

Perhaps if he had been at Grey Dirck's heels on the evening of the 28th of August, as the morose old man untethered him from the white birch by the creek, half way on the lonely road from the Stadt to the village, he would not have been at so great a loss to divine his uncle's motives. If he had seen the diminished package of letters replaced in the saddle-bags, and the cautious look around the old man gave before he stooped down and scattered the handful of tiny white bits of paper he held, on the tumbling, foaming creek as it hurried by, he might have hazarded a conjecture that news from home had something to do with his uncle's sudden yielding; that news from home had made their staying at the farm a thing to be desired and plotted for. And if he had seen the ugly look of satisfaction that settled round his hard mouth, uglier even than his look of anger, as he mounted and rode away, glancing back through the gathering twilight at the white flakes hurrying down the creek, he would at once have feared and wondered.

The saddle-bag was lighter by three of the weight of letters with which it had started from the Stadt, and the Catskill was heavier by two. They did not seem to lie heavy, though, on the seared conscience of him who knew their whereabouts; the law document buttoned up within his surtout was only a burden as it had to be concealed, only a sin when it should find him out.

Nor did they seem to lie heavy on the heart of the Catskill either, as they fluttered and danced and hurried away with its swiftly receding waters. Pale ghosts of the love that had sent them, cold phantoms of the hopes that hung on them, they had stopped just short of their haven, and sailed faithlessly back toward the great river that had brought them from the sea. Now lagging in some smooth inlet, now eddying round some jutting rock, or drawn shuddering over some swift waterfall, they glanced and flashed all night long in the moonlight, ghost-like and white and faithless. And ghost-like and white and faithless grew the hope in Warren Sutherland's heart, as this night chilled it with vague disappointment and renewed regret.

CHAPTER VII.

THE LITTLE WHITE GHOSTS ON THE CATSKILL.

"There was a hardness in his cheek,
There was a hardness in his eye,
As if the man had fixed his face
In many a solitary place,
Against the wind and open sky."

Wordsworth.

Since Ralph Sutherland had started for the Stadt at three o'clock that afternoon, Laura had been counting the hours with ill-controlled impatience. She had not allowed herself to hope for letters from home till now, but to-day must bring them. Last week's mail had come without bringing news of any foreign arrival, but every one said some ship must have reached ere this. Ralph had held one of his long old-country talks with Warren in the morning, and at dinner had announced his intention of riding down for the mail himself, instead of sending Amen, whose weekly duty it had lately been.

"Would he be back before supper?" Laura had asked timidly of Lawrence after dinner. "Doubtful," he had answered, carelessly, as he walked off toward the barn. But the doubt had settled into a certainty as the long afternoon wore away, and the horn for supper sounded, and the twilight came slowly and surely on.

It had been a genuine August day, thick, close and hot, and the sun had gone down looking dusky red and giving every promise of repeating himself to-morrow; the family had one by one strayed out among the grass and shrubbery in front of the house, and tried to imagine dew where there was none, and refreshment that was not to come that thirsty night.

The sleepless insects filled the thick air with their hot dry chirp; not the faintest breath of wind stirred the languid flowers; rest and motion, idleness and occupation, were alike discomfort. Mrs. Sutherland was the only one of the group who did not yield to the impatient, fruitless impulse to better herself, and sat quietly knitting just within the door; Larry walked about the paths or lay at full length on the grass, equally uncomfortable and equally irritable in every attitude; Warren, resolutely self-controlled, looked wan and ill as he paced up and down the walk before the door, while Laura, quite renouncing self control, pulled the flowers of the creeper to atoms where they grew within her reach, or clashed her fan open and shut impatiently, as she sauntered to the gate and back twenty times in the course of a half hour, looking vainly for the desired approach of Grey Dirck and his grisly rider. Nattee, leaning out of the dining-room window, or stealing about on unnecessary and self-imposed embassies around the yard, perhaps did not feel the heat so much through her clear, thick, sun-proof skin, as she felt the intangible magnetic oppression of the night, so full of some inexplicable discomfort. Nattee's clothes did not feel too tight for her, either, as her well-dressed betters' clothes felt, for they barely touched her free limbs anywhere; but sympathetically and unconsciously, she felt uncomfortable and unhappy, restless and impatient. Master Larry was cross, Master Warren was silent. Miss Laura neither noticed nor spoke to her.

At last, however, a hope flashed through the darkness of her discouragement. Her quick eyes caught sight, far down the road, of her master's approach; to be the bearer of that intelligence surely must bring the reward of a smile from Miss Laura. So darting through the shrubbery that intervened between her and the family group, she startled them by appearing suddenly before them and exclaiming, "Massa's 'most here, Miss Laura!"

She was rewarded by seeing Miss Laura start forward excitedly, spilling the glass of water she was just taking from Lawrence's hand, and hurry toward the gate, utterly ignoring gratitude to the bearer of the intelligence and apologies to her cousin. Nattee saw the ominous dark red flush dawn on his face as he watched the flutter of her white dress down the path, and gazed fascinated at his gathering wrath, till, as usual, it burst on her own head. Spoiled Mr. Lawrence Sutherland did not like to be looked at when he was out of temper, as who does? And when he found the dark, eager eyes of the slave bent silently and curiously on his face, no one at all at home in his position can wonder that he sent her fluttering off to the house with a ringing reprimand for her loitering and impertinence, and despised himself for it the next instant, and hated the sight of her for the next week, as suggestive of a self-reproach.

The self-reproach, however, she never heard of; the sudden, harsh rebuke was never softened, and choking back her tears, poor Nattee crept miserably into the house, only certain of one thing in the perplexing, uncomfortable world in which she found herself, and that was, that, do what she might, she was certain to do wrong.

Laura's courage failed as she reached the gate; she did not dare to stop her uncle and ask him for the letters, and without looking toward her, he rode past, and up to the barn. There were none of the men in sight, so dismounting, he fastened Dirck's halter to the nearest post, and walked slowly down toward the cow-yard, ostensibly to superintend the milking, but really to work up as much as practicable the temper of the young lady he had seen waiting at the gate. After some ten long-drawn minutes, however, he walked slowly back again, purposely avoiding the front gate, and going in at the kitchen door. This was unendurable; running across the grass, Laura followed him over the threshold, and coming up behind him, said, timidly:

"Uncle, did you find any letters for us?"

He said, "What?" looked as if he did not know who she was or what she was talking about, but finally remembered, gruffly, there were some in one of the saddle-bags on Dirck's back.

For no permission did she wait, but flying out again, paused neither for breath nor reflection till she stood by the stable door. Just outside of it, haltered to a post, stood Dirck. And a more unassuring object to approach, with the one exception of his master, the young lady never remembered to have confronted. She made a little motion to advance, but the great brute, with one effort straightening the halter out to its extreme length, stood with his head slightly raised, one hoof just lifted from the ground, and the villainous intelligence of his eye fixed full upon her. She shrank back of course, and looked hurriedly around for somebody to help her; but Warren, with his back to her, was pacing the walk as she had left him, suffering inward tortures of impatience, but outwardly self-controlled and quiet. Lawrence she would not call, though he was within sound of her voice, which Warren was not. He always had a laugh in his eye when her fear of the animals was alluded to; besides, she would never stoop to ask any favor of him, and she was ashamed, too, to let him hear her call to Nattee. None of the men were in sight; they never were when they were wanted.

She stood for some seconds, fluttering with fear and indecision, not daring to advance and not resigned to retreat, when it occurred to her she should be braver if she got that horrible eye off her; so she described a small circle, and essayed to approach him from the rear. But with Satanic sagacity, just as she neared him, he backed off, and twisted the halter till he brought a three-quarter face to bear upon her. She retreated two steps and gasped for breath. This was aggravating, indeed, but she must, she would have those letters. With parted lips and quickened breath, she advanced two steps and put out her hand, at which Dirck backed again, more suddenly and more portentously than before, bringing each individual iron down upon the ground with an emphasis which shook it sensibly.

This time she fled, in palpitating terror, to the adjacent shelter of the barn; half crying with vexation and half fainting with fright, she leaned against the door-post and looked fearfully back upon him. Her curiosity and impatience, however, at length sustained her in another sortie. On this occasion, Dirck made no demonstration with his hoofs, but as she stole up toward him, he slightly lowered and advanced his head.

Not suddenly, not violently; but before the expression of that fiery eye and that distended nostril, iron and muscle paled their ineffectual fires; she screamed and clasped her hands together and ran back, only checked in her precipitate retreat by Lawrence's approach. Leaning over the gate, he had watched the little farce, till he had forgiven, on the ground of her extreme prettiness alone, the pretty coward who had just aggravated him so bitterly; and resolving he didn't care a rush who her letters came from, nor why she wanted them, and voting himself a good fellow for his resolution, he had come to the rescue.

"What is it you want from the saddle-bag?" he said carelessly, as she stopped trembling before him.

"The—the letters."

"Wait a moment, I'll get them for you."

"Thank you," said Laura meekly, and waited.

Lawrence went up to Dirck, who had begun to move restlessly up and down, and pull at his halter, and bringing his open hand heavily down on the horse's muscular haunch, he arrested all further movement effectually, and plunging his hand into the saddle-bag, brought up the coveted package. He watched narrowly the young lady's expression as he approached her; gratitude, kindness, coquetry, no; her eyes never got above the package in his hands. He raised it for a moment, and held it from her, as if to make her speak or look at him; but the childish, hungry eyes followed it alone, and almost tossing it into her hands, he turned contemptuously away.

It was nearly dark, and Laura, springing into the hall, cried—

"A light, Nattee, a light—quick!"

And Warren, after a moment, quietly followed. If he saw at all the superscription of the letters, as he bent over them, he saw them with the eyes of his soul, for his actual vision was blurred and dim with the strong excitement that he held in such stern check.

"There are yours, Warren," cried Laura, pushing three over to him, and eagerly tearing open her own.

He sat down and leaned his head back on the chair for a moment, then put out his hand and took up the first letter it touched. It was from the Society's secretary, and he read it through twice without deriving much satisfaction or enlightenment from the reading. The fact was, the reverend gentleman hadn't much to say, and he said it wordily and pompously. The second letter was from the old clerk of Borringdon church, quaint and prosy; but each toppling, high-backed word sent a homesick pain through the reader's heart; the old parish names, that were so ringingly familiar, and the old parish troubles and bickerings, that were lately of such interest, took him back, all through the weary length of his trial, to the home and pleasures that were dead to him forever. Beyond parish difficulties, however, the writer did not get, except to record the intelligence that the family had not yet returned to the park, and were not expected for some time, and then he signed himself, "Your Reverence's obedient servant, Abraham Murdoch."

The third and last letter was from Mr. Edward Barclay, and was dated Genoa. The gouty uncle, on whom all his hopes were fastened, had suddenly found himself restlessly inclined, and Edward had concluded to be restlessly inclined too. So they were jogging about the continent as suited the caprice and comfort of the old gentleman, and how long it would be before they returned to England, the nephew could venture no sort of calculation. "It behooves me, my dear fellow, you see," he wrote, "to put my impatience in my pocket, where humoring mon oncle is concerned. I only hope he will not take it into his head to spend the balance of his days abroad, and ruin my prospects at the bar. In any case, however, I know you'll agree, I have honestly earned whatever little souvenir he may accord me in his will, even to the whole of his estate. Apropos of uncles, I see by the papers from home to-day, old Col. Sutherland is dead. I think, however, you gave me to understand, you had nothing to hope for in that quarter, so I need not build upon seeing you recalled from your Quixotic enterprise, to take possession of his comfortable acres, and preach the gospel to English sinners, who, taking him for an example, I can't help thinking, need it as much as Indian sinners.

"A few days before I left London, I dined with our common friends in Portland Place. You and your recent departure were spoken of and generally regretted. I had the honor of taking to dinner Sir Charles' pretty cousin, Miss Gregory. What a beauty she is, to be sure! I do not wonder at Sir Charles."

"Who is your letter from, Laura?"

Laura felt the weariness and disappointment of his tone, and there was weary disappointment in her own, as she said, handing the open sheet to him—

"Only Mrs. Holt."

Mrs. Holt, her dear old governess, wrote a very kind and affectionate letter, but it did not fill up the measure of her anticipated pleasure; it just showed her, other letters might have come, and had not—that other people might have remembered her, and had not. Rather a silent and lifeless party sat around the table, for the hour that remained of their accustomed evening. Lawrence read the "Independent Reflector" of the week before, and made no comment, and Warren read the English papers, and offered none. Laura read the unsatisfactory letters over and over again, and at last, silent and spiritless, went across the room, and sat by the open window, leaning against the casement, and looking out into the hot, still night. Her uncle, lying back in his great chair opposite, slept, or affected sleep, and there was no one to see or to reproach her for the slow tears that gathered in her eyes. The darkness without was welcomer than the light within, and she did not move from her first attitude, till startled by a pair of eyes gleaming through the bushes beside the window.

It was only Amen, and nobody was ever surprised to see

Amen anywhere, so she took no further notice of him than to say—

"Where have you been since dinner, boy? Nattee has been hunting for you everywhere."

The imp sniggered and twisted, and availed himself of that weighty arm of defence wielded solely by them of Africa, a grinning silence. White servants generally ruin themselves by their bungling excuses and evasions, but black ones, richer in inherent cunning, hold their tongues, and drive their accusers to the wall. It was useless to interrogate Amen. He wriggled and chuckled and remained speechless, even under the lash, and old Sutherland, held to be a master in the art of reduction, had never got a word out of him when he chose to play that part. There was no higher satisfaction in thrashing him than in thrashing so much india-rubber, and the old man was too thorough a sensualist to pursue what gave him so little gratification, and Amen, now-a-days, not only shirked the work, but shirked the whipping too, and held his tongue or talked, just as seemed agreeable to him. On this occasion, after finding that holding his tongue did not aggravate Miss Laura, he began to talk with a view to that end.

"I've been so scared, Miss Laura," he whimpered, "I've seen ghosts."

Miss Laura's eyes looked as if she saw ghosts too, out in the darkness, ghosts that saddened more than scared her, but she did not speak. He crept along up to the window, and putting his arms on the sill, and peering into the room, went on speaking in a stage whisper, which was audible in every corner.

"When I was comin' across lots, from the mowin' field down there, I stopped at the creek to get a drink, just by the ole white birch—and what d'ye think, Miss Laura—what d'ye think? Little white ghosts was floatin' all over the water, jumpin' up an' down, some of 'em flying in the air, some of 'em stickin' to the stones an' grass. Oh, ye never see the like. I'm all of a tremble, I'm so scared!"

And laying his head down on his arms, he leered about the room, and shook with silent laughter, as he saw the old man in his chair start and mutter, then compose himself hurriedly to his pretended sleep.

"Would you like to see one. Miss Laura?" he went on, with his eye on his master's face. "I caught a lot and put 'em in my pocket. I've got 'em here—put out your hand—don't be scared"——

But at this moment the sleeper rose and shook himself, and throwing a muttered curse at the boy, bade him take himself off to bed. The boy whined, as he limped off, casting a villainous look back at his master.

"You never seed'm, them there ghosts, I s'pose, massa, did ye?"

Seeing his uncle fully awake, Warren rose and handed him a paper containing the news he felt uncomfortable about communicating; not that he anticipated any demonstration of grief from the old man at his brother's death, but that he dreaded hearing some gross and angry imprecations on his memory, and to Warren the defenceless dead were sacred. In this, however, he was somewhat disappointed. His uncle sat down and read the announcement silently, pondered thoughtfully on it for several minutes, then pushing the paper away from him said grimly as he rose:

"Well, he's gone to his long account, and his going or his staying makes little odds to me—and little odds to you, either, I'm thinking, lad."

He did not desire or wait for an answer, but after he had left the room, Warren said thoughtfully, "That is truer than I like to think." Lawrence, laying down his paper, asked, "How long since you have seen Col. Sutherland?"

"Never since I was a lad; nothing could induce him to come to our house or to be reconciled to my father; but he once sent an invitation to my mother to let us come to him on a visit. Do you remember it, Laura? It was a grim time, and Laura cried night and day till she was taken home. I was braver, and stood it out a little longer, but neither of us felt any inclination to try his hospitality again; though I have sometimes thought the old man was hungering more than he chose to own for sympathy and companionship. I really think he yearned after little Laura, though she was so homesick, and liked her honesty in not concealing it more than resented its occurrence."

"Poor, unhappy gentleman!" said Laura, coming to the table and leaning against Warren's chair; "how strange that we should know so little of him, and care so little for his death."

"I do not think we can blame ourselves; his prejudices, to call them by their mildest name, were such as necessarily cut him off from our companionship. No one, calling himself a Christian, could submit to be guided by him, and guide he would all whom he admitted to his hospitality."

"What becomes of his property?" asked Lawrence.

"His intention, I think, has been to found a hospital, though I am not sure that he had fully developed the plan before his death. He has made no secret, however, of his firm determination that not a farthing of it shall come to any one bearing the name of Sutherland; so I presume we are not at all interested, personally, in the matter of its disposal. But one cannot help feeling a wish that so much money should be well bestowed, and a curiosity to know the result of such a man's hours of solitude and reflection."

Long after Laura had given her good-night kiss to her brother, and her good-night courtesy to her cousin, the two young men sat together talking over this family news, and the reminiscences it awakened. Both, however, were very imperfectly acquainted with the history of the last generation of Sutherlands; Warren had only heard his father's story, and Lawrence had heard nothing but what was casual and inadvertent. If they could have known the truth, they would have saved themselves some wonder and perplexity.

Colonel Sutherland was the eldest of three sons of a well-born country gentleman of ———shire, the entail of whose estate stopped with this generation. Fortunately, perhaps, for successive growths of extravagant owners had worn it down to the quick, and to have restored it to its proper state would have required more money than the whole property of the Sutherland family, personal and real, would have brought under the hammer of the auctioneer. The heir, disgusted at the barren acres and bare coffers coming to him, entered the army, and was absent many years on foreign duty. At the age of thirty-two he returned to find his parents dead, his second brother settled as rector of a country parish not many miles from their native shire, and his youngest brother, Ralph, the self-appointed agent of the family estate. The acres were not quite so barren as formerly, but the coffers were barer, if the thing was possible; woodland had been cleared, the boundaries of the farm had been curtailed, tenants had been oppressed and ground down, all that the land could yield had been extracted from it, young Ralph had lived in a niggardly and pinching manner in one of the smallest houses on the estate, the family mansion had been long closed, and all the family servants had been dismissed, and yet there was no accumulation of rents or produce to be rendered to the suddenly-returned master; no account to be made to him of the five years' income of his farm.

Colonel Sutherland, though not a man of business, was a man of keenness and decision, and from the moment he saw the old young man, whom he had left an undeveloped boy—with his hard dry manner and his ugly eye—he distrusted and despised him, and resolved to leave no stone unturned, and to spare no vigilance, in investigating and bringing to the light his transactions since their father's death. And the result was the discovery that he had been cheated and outwitted, that he had hardly a third of his estate remaining, and that, without a hopeless blackening of the family name before the world, he could have no redress, and must bear, with what patience he was master of, the villainy of his brother and the loss of his property. Whispers, to be sure, of the cause of Ralph's sudden departure for America got abroad; forgery and manifold villainies, it was rumored, had aroused the high-tempered heir beyond reason and endurance, and in the stormy scene that had ended their reckonings, the life of the younger had nearly paid the forfeit of his foul deeds.

However that may have been, Col. Sutherland was from that time a changed and embittered man. He had come back from his long wanderings, through all of which he had carried a soldier's love of home deep and sacred in his heart, to find treachery and meanness waiting for him there, and the blow that this disappointment dealt, he could not meet with Christianity nor bear with humbleness. Honor had been his only god, and insulted, now cried day and night in his ears the dangerous lesson of implacable resentment. The large-hearted, charity-loving rector never could be brought to think the evil of his younger brother that the elder thought. He was unworldly and trusting, and Ralph had always been obsequious and brotherly, and though he did not feel that satisfaction in him that he had hoped for, he could not easily condemn him; and so, Col. Sutherland swore they had played into each other's hands; the "mealy-mouthed rector" was the partner of the swindling knave; they were both liars and villains at heart; they had disgraced the name of gentleman, and outraged all the laws of honor and religion, and though the surplice shielded the one, and the name of Sutherland the other, from the open obloquy they merited, neither should cross his threshold again, or share his hospitality or forgiveness; implacable, deadly hatred, while life lasted, between him and his father's sons.

Perhaps, though he never acknowledged it, time did in a measure wear these resolutions out. For many years, while there was work to do, in retrieving what had been lost, in bending his whole life to the repairing and restoration of his fortune, he had nursed his hatred, and had found it gave him strength to work; but when all was done, when by long years of retrenchment and industry he had brought his estate into value once more, and found himself a richer man than any of his name had been for many generations—when he sat down in his great, lonely, cheerless house, where no child's laugh ever echoed and no woman's smile ever shone, perhaps he found his revenge had hurt himself more than it had hurt any other. He had much time for thought, many lonesome hours in which to ponder over his past; indeed, he had not much other food for thought, and though the heathen plan on which he had begun his life, had not brought him much inward peace or satisfaction, he was not prepared to give it up.

The letter of his resolution he still must hold to; he never would see his brother, never would forgive him; but he heard with a jealous ear all that concerned the two children who made the humble rector's home a happier one than his, and stepped down from his grim pedestal to receive them, and would fain have won their affection if he could. But the children were much fonder of their own home than of his, and their father was too honest and simple-minded to oblige them to deny it. The gloomy old man, though, never forgot the change that visit made in his dreary home, and night and day plotted to gain them back without a compromise of his heathenism. Years passed on, and he seemed no nearer the attainment of his wishes than he had been at first, when the news of his brother's death suddenly cleared the way for him. Greedy yet crafty, he resolved to wait till they should have gone through the bitterness of their mourning, till they should have been perplexed which way to turn in providing for themselves, till they should have given up all hope of help from him, and then, he would step in, and offer them a home and full provision for the future. He gloated over his plan, gave his long unoccupied days and sleepless nights to the preparing and perfecting it, and just when it was ripe, the news came, that hopeless of any other home, they had accepted the hospitality of their uncle Ralph, and had sailed two days before for America. The blow proved too much for his weakened faculties; a levelling stroke of paralysis resulted, which was soon followed by his death.

And Ralph Sutherland, since he read the news of his brother's death in that thick, August twilight, by the white birch on the Catskill, hankered greedily after those rich acres and overflowing coffers. Though he had always professed a scorn for the land he had left, and a love for the land of his adoption, in his secret heart, the old family-place, the old home where long ago he had lived innocent and unremorseful, were better to him than all the promise of the West. He did not love his new home, rich and productive as it was; it was bought with the first wages of his dishonest life, and even to his seared taste, that recollection gave it a bitter flavor. He hated with the whole force of his nature the brother who had so humbled and insulted him; and the sweet hope of gratifying at once his avarice and his rancor, seemed suddenly to have given new life to his prematurely decaying faculties. To secure Laura for Lawrence, and to bind the young clergyman firmly to his duties here, were his present strongest purposes; and some very darling hopes seemed to hang upon his success in their accomplishment.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE LIGHT GOES OUT IN STEADY'S HOME.

"Dark grow the windows
And quenched is the fire;
Sound fades into silence—
All footsteps retire.

"Darker and darker
The black shadows fall;
Sleep and oblivion
Reign over all."

Longfellow.

Miss Laura Sutherland, though as well disciplined and properly disposed a young lady as even those days of discipline and propriety often produced, still cherished covertly a good deal of the romance to which her age and sex are ever prone. The darkness in which those old-time hearts were kept, indeed, could not but be favorable to romance, not half so blasting to it as the shadowless, broad noontide of maiden meditation now-a-days. Pull down the bars, let in the sunshine, and the haunting phantoms of fancy are gone; shadows and dimness and dreaminess are their surest strength and safety. And little else they need, as Laura's case exemplified, for one good honest flood of daylight would have shown her the unsubstantial nature of the tenant "her heart's most secret cell" had harbored for a year, a tenant who had taken possession solely on the strength of a most melting pair of black eyes, a dazzling uniform, and an ardent admiration for herself. An admiration of course smothered under the most chivalrous and reverential politesse, according to the manner of the day, and the manner of the young lady who was the object of the well-bred passion, but which suggestive system, nevertheless, set her heart beating quite as fest, and filled her head quite as full of "foolish notions" as the most free and easy fashion of the present could have done. Inasmuch as it left more room for imagination, and less space for common sense, it may be said to be the more effective system of the two; and perhaps our grandfathers, in their stilted love-making and finger-tip devotion, showed more knowledge of the female heart than we have given them credit for. At all events, they were successful lovers, or they would not have been our grandfathers; and though we have spun so far ahead of them, it is barely possible, if we could snatch the leisure, a little retrospection might mellow and enrich our shiny, brand-new wisdom, by comparison, if in no other way.

This Captain Lacy, who had been so successful in making himself remembered by the pretty Laura, had had but very short grace to suggest his admiration and secure her favor. Two or three never-to-be-forgotten days while his regiment was encamped near Borringdon, two sets at the county ball, an hour at the next day's archery meeting, a moment's glance, bending from his saddle, as the Park carriage passed him, on parade, were the only, but the golden opportunities he had found for making himself master of the sweetest, coyest little heart that ever beat, and giving it food for long hours of dreaming and hoping and fearing, and occasion for frightened starts and guilty flushes whenever any careless lip or prying eye questioned of or intruded into its sacred, foolish secret. This fancied trial, standing in the background of the real ones, of course, just then, had yet made doubly hopeless the adieu to home: for the graves of these "darlings of blind fancy dead and gone," though they are soon overgrown and neglected, and very willingly forgotten, have many bitter tears shed over them at first, and are not at all cheerfuller of contemplation because they are unwise and inexcusable.

What precise portion of the habitable globe Captain Lacy had made glorious with his presence since the period of the encampment of the 47th at Borringdon, Laura had had no accurate means of informing herself, for being too timid and too conscious to suggest the question to any one who could have enlightened her, she was obliged to grope blindly about the papers for any intelligence she could glean in respect to that gallant company. But newspapers were unsatisfactory things as regarded personalities, she found; compounders of them seemed to have such widely different views from herself of what were subjects of interest and importance, and only a very occasional paragraph now and then, choked up in weary columns of politics and markets, gave her any clue to the whereabouts of the only detachment of his majesty's army in whose whereabouts she felt any interest. A month or two before she left England, however, she had lost track of it entirely: she had probably missed the paragraph that recorded its transfer to some foreign station, and now it might be months again before there was any news of it. Poor Laura was quite sure there was never any girl so unhappy before, and looked pale and pretty as she bent over her embroidery, dreaming idly, and living over and over again the few gay scenes of romance that had opened upon her quiet life.

"A thousand little shafts of flame," indeed, "were shivered in her narrow frame," when, one rainy evening, the candles being lighted early, and the family early assembled round them, Lawrence, reading the "Gazette," stumbled upon some war news that seemed to strike him as of sufficient interest to read aloud, and which proved of sufficient interest to make Laura turn red and white, and tremble and drop her work, and make herself generally noticeable. The 47th, it appeared, were at present assisting at the siege of Quebec; last month had distinguished themselves in a skirmish with the Indians, which had resulted in great destruction to their barbarous foes, and was only to be regretted inasmuch as several men and two or three valuable officers had been seriously wounded in the engagement.

Warren looked interested, made some comment, but after a moment resumed his book. Mrs. Sutherland looked distressed at the mention of bloodshed and suffering, thought a moment "how must their poor mothers feel," and went on with her knitting. Very inadvertently, Lawrence's eye fell on Laura's agitated, guilty face, flushing and paling as he had never seen it flush and pale before, and her breath coming quick and short through her parted lips. A long, steady glance he fixed upon her, and lifting her eyes suddenly, she caught it, and from that instant the crimson was victorious, and flung its banner over all her fair white skin. She had betrayed her secret, and betrayed it to the last one from whom to look for generosity or mercy. Oh, if it were only back again safe in her own keeping, deep down in her miserable, cowardly heart! It looked like such a strange and dreadful thing now that it was dragged out into the light, and gazed at by other eyes, and made a reality of, and handled as a fact. It had seemed harmless enough when it was shut tight in by fear, and pride, and shame: it was unmaidenly, sinful, humbling, when it saw the light.

The ball of worsted over which she was bending slipped from her fingers and rolled across the floor. Lawrence got up coolly and followed it to the corner where it had stayed its flight, picked it up, and winding it slowly, came back to where she sat. It was deliberately cruel, for she had nothing to do but sit submissive and condemned before him while he looked steadily at her and wound that dreadful worsted. She could not raise her eyes, nor say "thank you," as he held it out to her, and the hand she extended for it shook so that it nearly fell again.

Oh, the misery of that long evening! But whether the tears that fell when she reached her room owed their origin to vexation, or sorrow, or shame, or joy, or all, Laura could not have decided for her life.

It was a soft, warm September afternoon; the air outside was rich with the mellow ripeness of an autumn atmosphere, but within the stone house there was a feeling of chilliness and dampness that had not got out since the early morning, and Laura, who had bent perseveringly over her embroidery for three conscientious hours since dinner, gazed longingly out of the window. All the morning she had spent over her books, as Warren had recommended, and now she looked unelastic and languid enough to have frightened that strict young disciplinarian out of his rules forever, if he had been by to see. But he was not; no one, in fact, was, and with a weary sigh she leaned back in her chair, and pushed the hair away from her forehead. What good was all that work, "red with the blood of murdered time," ever to do her, she wondered. What use was there, either, in the dull dry books she tried to be patient over so long every sunshiny morning—books out of which she did not get a single thought, or the suggestion of a thought that gave her pleasure—dull, stale, chaffy records of dull, stale facts? They might be good as discipline, but for some cause she fretted against discipline to-day. She pined to feel like Nattee, and be at home in the fields and woods; she was thirsty for the sunshine and the freedom of the air outside these walls. What if there were another hour's sand to creep through the slow hourglass above her on the shelf before her task would be completed! It might take its own time in going through, she should look at it no longer; and starting up, she flung the covering over her tapestry frame, put away her books, and catching up her long grey cloak, pulled the hood of it over her head, and went out, passing through the kitchen on her way.

That apartment, in its scrubbed, sunshiny afternoon phase, was tenanted only by Salome and her Indian handmaid, and Laura, seeing the advanced state of the day's work, ventured to say:

"Salome, can't you spare Nattee to go into the woods with me a little while?"

But Salome, somewhat jealous of the favor lavished by the young lady on her rather flighty assistant, shook her head, and said she was sorry to misoblige Miss Laura, but Nattee was getting more shiftless every day; she hadn't done work enough since breakfast to pay for her keep, and she couldn't, with any conscience, think of letting her go away till the afternoon chores were all done up, and they were hardly begun as yet.

Nattee, bending over a milk-pan, and scrubbing it with all her might, did not look up while Laura was in the kitchen, but dropping it hastily, she followed her to the gate, ready to cry with disappointment, but keeping up a brave behavior. She pointed out the road into the woods that Laura was to take, and leaned over the gate, watching her till the winding of the lane shut the grey cloak from her envious eyes.

The grass felt warm and pleasant to Laura's slender feet, numb with their long day's inaction, and the autumn sunshine was so bright, yet so undazzling, that every chilled pulse seemed to warm into new life. The sky overhead was purely blue, not the ghost of a cloud from horizon to zenith; the wind was still; the woods were tinged with the first touch of autumn, and yet green with the lingering summer; the Flats, shorn of their recent wealth, or stacked with their year's produce, looked peaceful and harvest-like as they lay smooth beneath the slanting rays of the afternoon sun; the air, balmy as early summer, was just that shade and tone more perfect than early summer, that the woman's beauty is softer and more alluring than the girl's, richer and riper, and fuller of repose, mellow with the experience of a thoughtful past, quiet with the consciousness of a coming strength. This suggestion of bracing, invigorating days to come, that steals through September's softest breezes, stole through even the noiseless wind of that perfect September day, and whispered of new hope with every breath, to the young exile from the softer but duskier skies of England.

What a day for the woods! She grudged the long hours she had wasted in the house, as she found her way along the rocky road Nattee had indicated to her. This was the first time she had been so far from the house alone, but there was nothing, she assured herself, to fear. The men talked of this piece of woodland as the "Five-mile Woods," and the suggestion of their extent had rather disinclined her to frequent them hitherto; but Nattee's directions had been so explicit, she had no fear of being lost, at least while daylight lasted.

She had not pursued the path into the forest very far before, looking down below her, over the ledge of rock beside the path, she saw a solitary log cabin, standing by the edge of the wood. Such a snug, cosy little home it seemed to be, nestled down at the foot of the woody hill, with a little patch of garden beside it, and the great pine-trees leaning over it. And a child's pleasant voice, singing a familiar song, attracted her still further. Ah! the child just matched the voice—a little girl about eight years old, tanned and healthy looking, with brown hair cropped short all round her head, and a long, blue frock coming down to the tops of her heavy shoes. She had great, brown, honest eyes, and a serious, unchild-like mouth, and withal there was a straightforward simplicity about her face, and a matter-of-fact regularity about her motions that made her as prepossessing as she was odd.

"She's a darling little English child, I know," thought Laura. "Who can live in that house? I've half a mind to go down and see."

She watched some time longer, while the little girl, standing in the sunshine at the side of the house, cleaned her knives on a low bench, and sung her cheerful, simple song. No one else appearing while she watched, the young lady at length proceeded to descend the rocks, at considerable disadvantage, owing to the burden of hoop and cloak she carried, and her entire unfamiliarity with rocks; but at last she reached the mossy ground below, and gathering her cloak about her, approached the child, who, surprised, laid down her work and dropped a courtesy.

"Your little house looked so pleasant, I concluded to come down and see it," she said, with her pretty smile.

"Won't you come in," said the little girl, leading the way.

Laura followed, saying hesitatingly: "Is your mother in the house?"

"Mother's dead," the child returned, placing a chair for her.

"Who do you live with, then?" asked Laura, sitting down and glancing around the marvellously tidy, cheery room.

"Father and I live here together," answered the little woman, standing straight before her.

"And who does the work, and keeps it all so nice, pray?"

"I do the work indoors, and father splits the wood and keeps the garden orderly."

"You! oh, you little marvel! Why, how old are you, I should like to know?"

"Eight this Michaelmas, ma'am."

"I'm sure you're a little English girl!"

"Yes, ma'am. I was a year old when we came from home."

"How long has your mother been dead?"

"She died on the passage out, and father brought me all the way here in his arms."

"Have you no relations here? Did nobody ever live with you, to take care of you?"

"Nobody, ma'am. Father took the care of me always."

"You haven't told me what your father's name is?"

"Mark Eberley, ma'am."

"Oh, yes, I've seen him at the farm; a strong, tall man, with eyes like yours. And what's your name, pray?"

"My name's Mary; but father don't ever call me so. He calls me 'Little Steadfast,' or 'Steady' sometimes, for short."

"Little Steady! What a funny name. I think I see the reason, too, you got it. Do you know?"

"I don't know, only if it isn't because mother's name was Mary, and he don't like to be saying it round the house always."

"Ah! Little Steadfast, I shall come and see you sometimes, and you shall show me how to bake bread, and make the milkpans shine, and how to be happy all the time."

Little Steadfast looked pleased and rather laughed, though not exactly as if she were in the habit of laughing, and laid another stick on the bright little fire on the hearth, over which she had but just swung the kettle.

"You've got the kettle on early, Steady," said her visitor.

"Yes; but father'll be home in an hour, and he likes his supper at five o'clock, sharp."

"Where is he?"

"He's with the men from the farm, raising the new barn over the other side of the woods. It's a long way off, and I'm afraid he won't be back as early as he is most days."

"Well, Steady, I must go; but I think I'll come very soon to see you, and bring you a picture-book, if you'd like it."

It was very evident little Steadfast would like it, and Laura resumed her walk, with a half-envious look back at her, as she stood contentedly in the door of the little cabin.

What a day for the woods indeed! The sunlight flickered down through the many-colored leaves overhead and lighted up the dim aisles of the forest with a softened splendor; here and there a late bird sang; and over the smooth ledge of rock beside the path, a Virginia creeper, dyed gorgeous crimson, hung its careless fringes. And, whether following with wondering eyes the towering height of some majestic tree, or kneeling with almost childish ecstasy before some strange and lovely bed of moss, Laura's heart was telling her, this was the life to live, these were the books to read, this was the embroidery over which to bend—this soft, rich, dainty covering that Nature weaves over rotting trunks of fallen trees, or around tinkling springs and tiny waterfalls, dripping through the rocks. This is the solitude that does not chill, the silence that does not sadden, the idleness that does not enervate. Thank God, there is one sort of love for earthly things that does not cramp and dull the heart—one sort of love that has no sting, that brings no self-reproach and shame, that one can remember at one's prayers, and make the prayers the purer. The beautiful woods, the mountains painted against the sky, the sea stretched out vast beneath it—these we can love and not love God the less—these, till He makes a new heaven and a new earth for our eternal joy, are the safe and holy pleasures that He offers us.

Laura, led on from one delight to another, had wandered deep into the woods before she remembered it must be growing late, and she was far from home. There was a chilly feeling in the air that warned her of the hour, so, pausing, she pulled her cloak closer round her throat, and resolved to retrace her steps. It was too sweet a scene to leave, though! A huge grey rock, crested with moss and draped with vines, frowned above her head, while from a crevice at its foot a stream of water fell down into a mossy bowl, and all around, the rich, woody earth was green with the dark squaw-vine and bright with its red berry; and green moss, and grey moss, and cup-moss, and slender ferns, made a marvellous miniature forest around the fairy spring in the heart of the great forest. The path rather widened about this spot, and led up the hill quite distinctly in sight for some distance. Laura did not feel quite so lonely when she saw footprints along it, and remembered from Steady's story that the men had gone this way to their work on the new barn, which must be about half a mile from where she now was. She need not hurry, it could not be supper-time, or they would be returning. She bent over the little forest at her feet, and with a handful of squawberries was turning away, when she started back with a little shriek. A bright-red lizard, some two inches long, redder and brighter than the berries, lay looking at her with his bead-like, black specks of eyes, human and horrible in their significance. It was such a shock, among the mute, simple children of the forest, to find such an eye as that; and while she hung fascinated and terrified above it, a snake wound silently through the dead leaves at her feet, and disappeared beneath the rock. She started up, chilled with fear, and dropping her berries, hurried out into the path.

But, hark! from over the hill, through the still evening air, at that moment there burst a stunning, deafening sound, booming through the forest, reverberating from hill to hill, heavier and more dreadful as it rolled away. And distant as it had seemed, Laura knew she heard a cry, a terrible, sharp cry, lost in faint echoes long before the deafening cannon-like report had died away, but ringing in her ear with tenfold more appalling horror. What could it mean? What dreadful judgment had fallen to close this peaceful day? Had some swift thundercloud mounted the heavens and burst upon the woods? She looked fearfully up, but through the leafy arch above her head the sky was clear and soft, still glowing with the splendor of the sunken sun; and now, while she listened, all was silent, silent as death. She could not, dared not go away; every step she put between her and this spot was so much longer wearying suspense, and her faint limbs refused to advance and meet the news, whatever it might be, that must come from over that doomed hill. She clasped her hands around a slender birch stem beside the path and tried to calm herself and wait, while the stillness grew heavier and the light above grew paler. Day indeed was dying in the heart of the still forest; would that her fear were dying, too!

At last! Voices from over the hill, faint and distant, but gradually approaching, struck her ear, and soon, winding down the path, she caught sight of the workmen coming. But not as workmen come from an honest, hearty day of labor, with home and supper near, and welcome of wife and child, and the night's rest before them; sad and slow, with heavy, lowered voices, they defiled down the path, and on the shoulders of four ———. Ah! It needed not to have seen that burden before for Laura to know what was stretched upon the rough litter, and covered with its hasty pall of coarse white canvas, trailing nearly to the ground; her horror-struck eye had only to catch the outline of the head, the arms crossed on the chest, the droop of the canvas about the pointed feet.

Lawrence, walking slowly beside the bier, caught sight of her, and starting forward, motioned the men to drop back, while taking her hand, he led her forward, saying:

"Don't be frightened, Laura. An accident has happened to one of the workmen, over the hill, in blasting rocks for the foundation of the new barn."

"Warren wasn't there?" she whispered.

"Oh no, he went home two hours ago. It is poor Eberley, Mark Eberley, who lives just at the edge of the wood here."

"Oh! Not poor little Steady's father!" cried Laura.

"Yes," returned Lawrence, with a sigh, "poor little Steady's father. It's a dreadful thing."

There was a long pause, while Laura and Lawrence walked silently on and the men followed, slowly, at a little distance.

"How did it happen?" at last Laura asked, through her tears.

"The rock was drilled and ready an hour ago, and the match had been lighted, and the men all went across the lot and waited, but it did not fire the train of powder. It was growing late, and they were getting impatient to go home, and at last Mark said he'd go across and see; but just as he reached the rock and stooped down to look, the explosion came"———

And a shudder finished the story.

"Poor little Steady! And has she no relations?"

"None; she must come home to us. I'd rather anything than take her this bad news, poor little woman! Poor Mark hardly thought this morning, when he went over the hill, we'd be bringing him home dead to his little daughter at sundown!"

"Was he a good man, Lawrence?"

"Yes, better than any of us, I'm afraid. A good, honest, strong-hearted man, and tried to do his duty all the way through. We'll wait a long while before we get another man at the farm that's half his worth. Poor Mark! I've never seen reason to doubt he was a Christian in all the time since he first darkened our door, with his bundle strapped over his shoulder, and his motherless baby in his arms, seven years ago this coming Christmas."

At this moment an opening in the trees showed the ruddy blaze of the firelight through the window of Mark's cabin, and involuntarily Laura and Lawrence stopped and looked with painful sympathy in each other's face. Lawrence pressed his hand for an instant before his eyes, and ejaculated: "I cannot tell her, I cannot."

He motioned the men to halt, and walking to the edge of the rock, leaned against a tree, and looked down at the quiet little home with an actual groan. "Laura, would you mind breaking it to the child? It might be better coming from a woman—but I ought not to put it on you."

"Yes," said Laura, sadly. "I will go and tell her. No one can know better how to pity her."

"Thank you," he said, almost inaudibly, and descending the ledge, he lifted her down after him. Once out of the woods it was still quite light, though the twilight was increasing every moment. They followed the little path worn by Mark's patient feet from the wood-pile at the side, round to the low gate in front of the cabin. Little Steadfast was standing in the door, but seeing the young lady approach and falter, she went down the path to meet her, and said:

"I was afraid you had got lost. Is anything the matter?"

For Laura's face was white, and her hands so trembling she could hardly raise the latchet of the gate; Steady helped her, saying:

"Oh, how cold you are! Come into the house, won't you? I've got a nice fire for father." And she glanced around toward the woods behind the house to see if he were yet in sight.

Laura felt a pang when she saw the glance and remembered the burden on the shoulders of the four men just within the wood. There was a bench at the foot of the pine tree by the gate, where Mark smoked his pipe on summer evenings; sinking down on it, Laura drew the child close to her, and in a choking tone, said:

"Steady, I know you say your prayers. Let me hear you say 'Our Father.' "

The little girl, simply enough, knelt down by Laura's lap, and putting her hands together, with a reverent face and voice, repeated the Lord's Prayer. Laura put her arms around her, and kept her kneeling when she had ended it, and stooping over her, whispered:

"I used to say that when I was a little girl; my dear father used to hear me say it every night; but he's dead now, and I have to say it by myself."

"Oh, I'm sorry for you," said the child, lifting her serious face.

"But, Steady," and Laura's voice shook; "I love that prayer, because, though it reminds me my father is gone out of the world, it tells me that the dear Lord is my Father, and loves me and will take care of me. And he will take care of my father that is dead, too, and will bring me into Heaven to meet him at the last, if I am good. Steady, I think so much about that time! It's the time all Christians will be happy."

"I know," said Steady. "It's the Resurrection. Father told me all about it only Sunday night, and about mother, who was waiting these seven years for us in Paradise."

"Should you be very unhappy, my little girl, if God called you to go to your mother, and be at rest in that holy place?"

"Without father?"

"Yes, without him."

"I don't know; I shouldn't like to be without him, but then he says it's a great deal better there."

"Oh I am sure he thought it was a great deal better there. And if you heard, Steady, that he had gone there to be with your dear mother and wait for you, I am sure you would not murmur."

"But I don't want him to go," she said quickly.

"But if it were God's will, my darling"——

"I—I don't know—I wish he'd come home;" and she glanced uneasily toward the wood.

"My darling, he never will come home," cried Laura, folding her arms about the little girl, and bursting into tears. "He is in that better home he told you of, with the saints and angels and your dear mother. I don't know how to comfort you—I know your little heart is breaking—but God will comfort you, my darling—God knows how hard it is, and He is very sorry for you."

"But—but—tell me how—he"—stammered the stunned child, before the great sob rising in her throat stopped her utterance.

"They have been blasting rocks over the hill"——

The child's low groan showed she knew the worst at once.

"If you will come home with me, I will tell you all to-night. Mr. Lawrence knows—he will tell you."

"Yes, my little girl," he said, approaching her and stooping down to kiss her. "I will tell you all. Oh, Steady, it makes me almost as unhappy as it does you. But I must not talk about it now; you must come over to the farm with me."

Laura felt the shudder that went through the child's frame, as lifting her head, and turning to Lawrence, she said huskily:

"Let me see him, won't you?"

"No, not now. Steady. It isn't best just now. I want you to come with us."

After a moment's pause, she said, "I must cover up the fire, and take the kettle off first."

And walking with a slow, heavy step up the path, she went into the house and closed the door. Laura leaned her face down against the trunk of the pine, and Lawrence walked restlessly up and down the path, watching gloomily the slow darkening of the little window, while the light flickered up fainter and fainter, and then died altogether, as the unsteady hand of the child heaped the lately blazing fire with ashes.

Ah! the light of that happy little home had gone out forever; no wonder that many long minutes passed before poor little Steady, with her cloak and hood tied on, came out again. Laura could imagine well the pang that every care had cost the thoughtful child, taking off the steaming, singing kettle, putting away the unused plate and cup, extinguishing the cheery sparkle of the fire, leaving to cold, dark solitude the home she had never in her life left for a night before; and no child could be so precociously painstaking and sober as Steady, without an accompanying development of intellect and heart. Whatever burst of grief, however, that sad parting with her home had occasioned, it had all subsided when she came out again, and latching carefully the door, went down the path. Laura took her hand in hers, and drawing her partly under her cloak, led her out of the gate as Lawrence held it open. He signed to the men in the wood to come down, and then walked on beside Laura and the little orphan, on their slow, sad walk toward what must now be home to both.

Changings and partings and sorrows are the rule this side heaven, Laura thought, and perhaps, after all, it was best little Steady's trial should have come before the fully matured heart and intellect had grown up to their perfect capacity of suffering. For the future, the poor little girl had as yet no fears. She did not look further ahead than we are told to look, and for which distance we have strength promised us, but for no more. She was a child in faith as well as a child in years, and so a child in suffering, and her great sorrow came to her mercifully divided and lightened, as our sorrows would come to us, perhaps, if we would but take them as we are told to take them.

What mortal strength can be sufficient for the weight of the great chain of discipline that goes through every life, and binds it to the eternal shore beyond the waves of this troublesome world? No mortal strength can; its accumulated weight, only for an instant, would sink the stoutest struggler; but, link by link, not looking impatiently beyond, but looking patiently down, humbly and faithfully accepting it as the only means of safety, hard and rough and heavy as it may be, it can be borne, and it will bring us surely to the haven where we would be. But, greedy of our sorrow as of our pleasure, vehement and unreasonable, we drag a weight upon ourselves we have no warrant to suppose we shall have power to bear, and struggling, half crushed, beneath the selfishly and morbidly retained burden of yesterday, and the dreaded but yet unbestowed calamity of to-morrow, we question, in our intolerable distress, if God has not broken His promise that we shall not be tempted above what we are able to bear. No, verily; but we have broken faith with Him. We have not believed that one day's evil was sufficient for it, but have pulled down upon it the evil of many; and so, very likely, our punishment is greater than we can bear.

Laura, bending over the newly orphaned child's even sleep that night, thought sorrowfully of her own want of faith, when she was orphaned and exiled from home. How much unnecessary foreboding, indeed, she had burdened herself with; how many miseries she had anticipated that had never come; how much she would have spared herself if she had, like little Steady, only taken up the loneliness and bereavement of the moment, and lain down to sleep, not knowing but that the night might end it, and the morning might find her trouble ended or her strength increased.

CHAPTER IX.

ROUND THE TAVERN FIRE.

"But when Death calls, and thou shalt cease
To pace the gritted floor,
And laying down an unctuous lease
Of life, shalt earn no more:
No carved cross-bones, the types of Death,
Shall show thee past to heaven;
But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath,
A pint pot, neatly graven."

Tennyson.

The new barn over the hill went on to its completion with rapid strides, but a wonderful change in its destination had transpired. It was but a rough building, constructed of unhewn logs, and floored with the flat stone that was more plentiful even than logs in that mountain neighborhood; but rough as it was, it would never have slipped from Ralph Sutherland's grasping fingers, if his crafty brain had not dictated the sacrifice from avaricious motives. Warren, he had found, could no longer be contented with his present life of inaction; either he must consent to the formal beginning of a ministry he hated, in his neighborhood, or lose the links he now held between him and his brother's wealth, and it was not long before his resolution, gruff and against the grain as it had gone, was made known to Warren. If nothing but preaching the gospel would suit him, he shouldn't complain he had denied him a place to preach it in; he was welcome to the new barn, if it would serve his turn, and being out of earshot of the farm, he might preach as loud as Brother Pertinax himself, as long as he didn't do any private preaching in his hearing. The crops had not been as heavy as they had anticipated this year, and the barn wasn't really wanted, and if Lawrence chose to hurry up the men, it might be ready before cold weather.

Lawrence had taken hold of the project with much zest; Laura could think of nothing else. Mrs. Sutherland hardly dared believe her hopes were so near their consummation, and held her breath for fear they should be crushed at last, while a new light dawned in the young minister's eye, and a new hope filled his heart. October had but just begun, and Lawrence promised Warren might read the service for All Saints' Day in the new chapel. This chapel had given a marvellously invigorated tone to the quiet life at the farmhouse; it was something to work for, to date from, to consult over. Not one member of the household, from Steady up, save the grim head of it, but felt the inspiring influence of the good work in hand, and the cheering and drawing together that united good work always effects.

It was a sharp, cold October evening, and Ralph, shuffling off to bed some half hour earlier than his usual early period of retirement, left the family group in an unrestrained and easy state of comfort. A great fire was roaring up the chimney, taking much heat and many sparks with it, but throwing out into the room enough warmth for the season, and a great glow of light. The heavy, low-browed room was cheerfuller than it had been for many a long year, and the people in it, too, were cheerfuller than they ever hoped to be, some of them. Mrs. Sutherland's wheel, at one end of the room, spun its quiet soothing song, while Nattee knelt beside her earnestly assisting her. Laura, at one side of the fireplace, was bending over her embroidery-frame, lighted at her work by a lamp above her on the shelf. A use had been found for the beautiful crimson vanity, and now she never shook the hourglass when she worked, and sometimes forgot to look at it. It was to cover the board of the reading-desk, the foot of which Lawrence was carving at that moment, seated on the opposite side of the fire, with his arms on his knees, and stooping down to get the benefit of its light, till the troublesome curls tumbled about his eyes and the blaze deepened the color of his bronzed cheeks to a dark red.

"I think you'd be puzzled, Warren," he cried at last, tossing the curls back, and lifting up his work, "to decide what school of architecture that belongs to. It looks like nothing, in nature or art, that I'm familiar with!"

"Not quite so bad as that," said Warren, with a little laugh, looking up from the shaded lamp by which he was reading in the other corner of the room. "It's a little irregular as to model, I confess; but really, original as the plan is, I think it's quite a success. At any rate, it will do vastly well till the Venerable Society vote us a replenishment of chancel furniture, and the organ Laura has set her heart upon."

It was so pleasant to hear Warren laugh again, that Laura echoed it very quickly, and Lawrence said:

"I'm afraid we shall be a venerable society on our own account before that devoutly-to-be-wished consummation crowns our waiting."

"That is very possible," Warren said; and Lawrence, stooping over his work again, finished the sentence for him:

"And by no means undesirable. I wouldn't give a rush for a chapel I had to thank a missionary society three thousand miles away for. We're not heathen; let them send their charity where it is needed. If we can't swim on our own account, the sooner we sink the better, I say."

"I think you'll find the 'own-account' principle an unprofitable one in the matter of church, my good fellow," said Warren, resuming his book. "I know nowhere that it is more out of place; that is, if the 'communion of saints' means anything."

"I never understood it to mean anything but a vague spiritual bond, that nobody thought much about or was much influenced by," returned Lawrence, doggedly, heretical principally for Laura's provocation. The young clergyman possibly divined the motive, and dismissed the budding argument with—

"I commend that article of the faith to your study, then."

"Steady," said Laura, reprovingly, to that little girl, who, sitting on a bench on the floor, at the confines of the young lady's dress, was thumbing inattentively her primer, and gazing about her idly. "You will never learn to read, if you don't pay more attention. It's an hour since I gave you that lesson, you know."

"Yes, Steady," cried Lawrence, "you'll never grow up to be a well-behaved young woman, if you don't learn to keep your eyes under cover of your eyelashes, and never to look up from your work, under any circumstances, and to count your stitches straight ahead, no matter what's going on, and never by any chance to say anything to anybody."

Steady looked very much bewildered and very uncomfortable, and bent her eyes on her book penitently; while Laura, stooping over her shoulder, pointed out the lesson to her afresh, and rewarded the young Lawless' careless disrespect with the silence it deserved.

Now, a girl who can't be teased, and who won't retort—who will, in fact, do nothing but look infinitely pretty and grow very distant—is an extremely uncomfortable person to deal with. Lawrence was unspeakably angry with his cousin a dozen times a day, and vowed he'd never look at her again, or lose his temper about anything so cold and spiritless; but a dozen times a day he saw something to make him doubt if she were cold to any one but him, or spiritless except upon principle and with design. Amiability and simplicity alone, he knew, could not make a perfect woman; there must be spirit kept down by amiability, and intellect feminized by simplicity of character, to make a perfect woman, whose sweetness will not pall, whose companionship will not weary, and whose beauty will not fade. And every day he watched her added to the conviction he rebelled against, that his cousin was maturing into such a woman. There was nothing of the doll about her, with all her prettiness; there was a dignity in her movements that came from something deeper than natural grace of manner, a gentleness and yielding that did not argue weakness, a coldness and reserve that were not born of heartlessness or narrowness of soul. Lawrence would have tired of her in a week as he had tired successively of all the blooming inanities of the neighborhood, if she had been the half-childish little coward he had tried to think her; but sorely against his will, he began to find he could not tire of her—she never gave him a chance; she froze him with her coldness, and maddened him with her loveliness, and stole daily further from his grasp.

And at last, when he found what stood in the way of his success, when he discovered that there was not only a rival, but a favored rival, between him and the woman that he coveted, there had been a struggle of pride to renounce her, but not a victory. No; like the determined, self-willed, self-reliant fellow he had always been, he resolved to win her, though an army of rivals filled the path; he would hardly have chosen them to stand there, but he never was cowardly enough to wish them away: he comprehended his difficulties at a glance, but they never damped his courage. Laura should be his, clodhopperism, cousinship, coldness, notwithstanding; she should be made to love him even against her will. He was not afraid of her; one dash of fear or hesitation would have ruined all; but the night in the orchard had melted the only unsound tenet in his admiration. He never could have been her lover if he had retained it; she was but a woman: while he was in the flesh, he was not capable of loving an angel. The only sort of worship that was consistent with his thorough manliness he gave her; he reverenced her for the purity and goodness that made her better than other women, and he loved her passionately for the follies that showed she was yet but a woman. The refinement, the cultivation, the delicacy that at first had seemed to place such a gulf between them he had spanned; his strength, his self-reliance, placed him far beyond it: she was a perfect woman, but his heart told him the perfect woman finds her master in the thorough man.

So while Warren Sutherland was trying to wear his passion out by penance and by prayer, and cure himself of his hopeless love by all the arguments his religion and his reason could afford, his braver cousin was going to work in a very different way, and was showing in his plan the superior wisdom that is vouchsafed to the children of this world.

And, while his tone was careless and his manner cold, there was an occasional gleam in his eye that Laura could not understand. To-night, as she bent her head again over her work and stole a glance at him from under her eyelashes, his eyes had just rested on her as she looked up. "I will possess her or will die," they said, while his mouth, half sneering, half smiling, wholly indifferent, belied their passionate protestation, and roused and fascinated her curiosity by the strange inconsistency they showed. But she would have been more puzzled and less pleased if she had seen the triumphant laugh that lighted them, as, a moment after, she bit her lip, and with a slight impatience began to pull out the stitches that had gone wrong while she had been wondering. One cannot think of two things at a time, if one is a perfect woman.

"Nattee," cried Lawrence, "shut the kitchen door.

Those noisy rascals out there disturb Miss Laura. She cannot think about her work."

"Thank you," said Laura, very distantly, "but you need not shut the door for me. I like to hear them laugh. I have not thought of being disturbed."

"No? Well then, Nattee, you may leave it. Halloa, you Amen, what's the joke? Come here, you rascal, and tell us."

A smothered burst of merriment from the kitchen had preceded this, and at his master's summons Amen came over to the door from the hearth where he had been presiding, and peeped around the corner of the door with much affectation of humility and embarrassment, but with much real cunning in his eyes.

"Well, what is it?" said Lawrence, laughing as he looked at him.

"Where's massa?" he whispered, glancing in.

"Gone to bed this half hour. Come, nobody'll scold you. What deviltry have you been about since supper?"

"Deviltry? Oh, Mass' Larry," cried the young imp, deprecatingly, "I've been runnin' of arrants ever since dark. I've only jes' come in from Martin's."

At this there was another chuckle from the kitchen, while Lawrence said—

"If you're so long about telling your story, I'll send you off to bed."

At which threat Amen recovered himself enough to begin.

It appeared that immediately after supper, Salome, finding herself out of yeast, had dispatched Amen to get some from a neighbor's, and that, contrary to all precedent, Amen had gone straight to the place to which he had been sent. Perhaps the little circumstance of the place being the village tavern, may have had something to do with this unusual obedience, as it certainly did explain the fact of his being very tardy in coming away from it. The chilliness of the night had influenced similarly some dozen neighboring worthies, young and old, and the bar-room was so filled with their solemn and unceasing smoke, that Amen's eyes blinked and smarted for some minutes after he had stowed himself comfortably away under the table, lying on his stomach, with his feet on the pile of wood in the corner, and his woolly head next the fire. He laughed silently as the men told their slow jokes, and replenished their long pipes; and engrossed by the festivity of the scene, never cast a look on the empty kettle beside him, nor a thought on the empty bread-trough waiting at home. The being where he had no business to be, was pleasure enough in itself to Amen, and when to this inspiring circumstance was added the comfort of having his head within two feet of the fire, at a temperature of 92° Fahrenheit, and of inhaling the delicious fumes of the mugs of ale above him on the table, it is not strange that he forgot his "arrant," and gave himself up to the temptations of the hour.

He was of an appreciative and quick intellect, rather, it must be owned, in advance of the rest of the company in point of speed of thought, and while mine host lumbered heavily through some of his heaviest stories, or Caspar van Hausen "norrated" pompously, between puffs of smoke and sips of ale, Amen flew to the end of the story and back, before either had got half way through, and valued himself much on the feat he was capable of performing. The position he occupied demanded a silence very contrary to his taste, and when the conversation straggled into the channel into which it almost invariably straggled at the inn, it became such a self-denial to him to hold his tongue, that it almost destroyed his pleasure. No one had reason to feel more strongly than he felt on the subject in hand, and it was doubly cruel to him to hear them thumb it over with so little force. The manifold atrocities and impositions of the people of the adjacent States, their iniquities and extortions, their bare-faced cheating and their smooth-faced lying, roused the honest Dutchmen into a sombre strain of eloquence.

"Aye, aye," said Martin, mine host, sucking at his pipe, and helping his robust right leg over his robust left. "It's risky pusiness, lettin' 'em get a vootin' on the Vlatts. The only ting's to geep 'em off, to durn our backs on 'em, and let 'em take der truck home again."

And Martin's broad back, as Amen saw it, did look like a discouraging thing to have turned on one. There was a grumpy chorus of assent to the suggested suppression of the nutmeg trade, and waxing valiant with the comfortable security of closed doors and distant foes, a solemn league and covenant was entered into by the assembled Hollanders, never again in any way to encourage or abet, trade with or protect, any Yankee, live or dead, of either friendly or hostile professions or designs. They bolstered up, with much eloquence, their traditional faith in the power of their High Mightinesses, the States-General; in short, having nobody to oppose them, they talked themselves into the belief that they were an invincible and progressive nation, and that their opponents and rivals on the soil were far too feeble and insignificant a race to cause them much discomfort.

"Dey're too mean to live," said Caspar, taking his pipe out of his mouth to say it, "and de best ting dey can do's te die."

"Trust 'em for that," cried a young man of wider views. "They won't die, they're tough as leather. You never hear of one dying."

"What becomes of 'em?" asked another.

Caspar shook his head.

"I know," cried Amen, from under the table. "They salt each other away for pork every year or two—the old 'uns that can't work. Massa never buys pork of 'em, he's too sharp."

Martin moved uneasily on his bench at this suggestion, for he had made his supper off a sinewy ham he had been forced to take as compensation for the lodging of the last Yankee who had tabernacled among them, and passed his hand thoughtfully over the vast doublet beneath which it was sepulchred.

"I trow not—I trow not," he murmured; "it was lean, but it wasn't lean enough for that—not half lean enough for that."

Then giving a scowl at Amen, who, turtle like, drew in his black head at the sign, he got up, with the effort that it costs a man encumbered with three hundred pounds of mortal coil to get up, and took a turn or two about the room, taking the beer-barrel in his way, and trying to allay the suspicion within by a long draught at it. "It's only vun of old Ralph's lies to keep the men vrom eating their vill," he thought, trying to reassure himself, as he took another swig; that was all very well, but it was a notorious fact, that ham had made Gretchen and the boys sick both times they had eaten of it, and, beer notwithstanding, had never set well in his own case. Old Martin's stomach was of a loyal and steady-going character, little given to rebellion, without the least tendency to squeamishness, and but for that unhappy and uncalled-for allusion of Amen's, would have submitted to a far worse and tougher ham than the one off which he had supped. He joined no further in the talking, but the sanded floor of the room bore tracks of his great feet as he crossed it uneasily ten or a dozen times, then murmuring indistinctly, it was "treatful hot," he made rather abruptly for the door.

After the lapse of several minutes, he returned somewhat hurriedly, looking a little pale about the gills, and wearing an expression of considerable alarm. "Dere's von of 'em," he said in a shaky voice, closing the door hastily after him; "dere's von of 'em outside. Vatt—vatt's pest to pe dun. eh?"

A sudden hush fell on the company; the Dutch intellect is an unwieldly intellect, not so good on occasions of emergency as on many other occasions; no one seemed ready with any advice, and time passed.

"Vatt's pest to pe dun?" murmured Martin again, fumbling with the handle of the door. The men looked from one to another, and did not say what was best to be done; did not even look as if they had a definite idea on any subject.

Amen rolled out from under the table and whispered, "Bolt him out—bolt him out"—and then rolled back again. And Martin mechanically obeyed the suggestion; it is so natural, in a moment of uncertainty, to do what anybody tells you briskly to do, even if he is an Amen. But he did not quite succeed in obeying the little African's direction, for the stranger, while Martin was mussing clumsily about the lock, put a scrawny shoulder to the door, and pryed it open, as it were, in the face of the stupefied landlord and his guests.

The face that followed the shoulder was a very sharp and intelligent one, and not a disagreeable one either in its way, but its way was very Yankee and very hard, very square about the mouth, and very inquisitive about the eyes, just the sort of face, in point of fact, to throw the honest landlord into a cold perspiration.

"Hay!" he stammered, retreating a step or two, but still holding to the door, although the stranger was by this time comfortably inside of it. "I—vell—vatt, vatt tu you vant?"

"Want; why my good friend, I want to warm my hands a bit, and sit down by this fire o' you'rn, and get a bite o' supper, maybe, if there's any round," the newcomer said with astonishing sang-froid, as, rubbing his hands together, he walked over to the fire, nodding familiarly to the petrified smokers around the room, and slinging his pack down from his shoulder in the corner next the table. It was wonderful to watch the clever way in which he kept his ground. After a while the astonishment and silence of the men began to thaw, and there were some scowls and growls bestowed upon him as he drew up his chair in front of the fire, and stretched out his lean legs to the heat.

"Pretty fire, that," he said, expanding his bony hands upon his knees; "remarkable pretty fire. Takes Ulster County to grow hickory. Never saw a log blaze like that over our way."

A pause, during which Caspar grunted and the rest of the party smoked.

"Hickory like that," he continued, meditatively, "would fetch—well—lemme think—would fetch—twelve shillin' a cord, cut and drawed, any part o' Connecticut."

"Ne-o," cried Caspar, thrown entirely off his guard, for he had acres upon acres of the finest hickory that ever nodded, two miles back from the creek, and flesh and blood could not stand unmoved the history of such prices as that. Two or three of the men who had less woodland said "whew!" and those who had not any, sniffed contemptuously and did not say anything.

"Fact," said the stranger, bringing his lips together with a smack, and making his unhandsome mouth a straight line during several seconds of impressive silence. "Fact; I've paid that much hard money down for it myself, many's the time. An' with as many yoke of oxen as some of you big farmers roun' here have got, 'twouldn't be a bad speculation, to my notion, to draw a lot of it over 'cross the line, and peddle it among the folks our way."

"Peddlin' ish not our callin'," growled the landlord from the further end of the room, where, astride of a half-barrel of beer, he was gradually recovering himself.

"Might have a wuss, friend," said the Yankee, laughing all over his hard face. "You'd fine it a sight better'n entertainin' peddlers," no doubt he would have added if he had not been restrained by prudence.

From timber he edged on to garden-seeds, and meeting with less and less opposition at every step, he at last resolved upon pushing a bold move, and stooped down to open his pack, talking volubly all the time. But this was premature. A well-defined "Na, na," rose from the smokers; so he covered his failure with the remark that he was looking for some cards he had, to show 'em a trick he'd learned yesterday from an old French sergeant who was coming down the river on a raft. Now a trick with cards the Yankee knew would carry any bar-room instantly, pledged to no matter what hostility; and many a night's lodging had this same "new trick" obtained for him. Indeed, the cards had grown grey in the service, grey and grimy too, and they almost shuffled themselves and slid into their places on his knee, so familiar were they with the rôle they had to play, and the fiction of the old French sergeant had long since ceased to raise a blush on the greasy faces of the royal family. The men slowly gathered in a circle round him, old Martin, even, plucked himself up from the beer-barrel, and approaching, looked over his shoulder with cautious wonder. The "new trick" was a success, and was rapidly followed by other tricks, to the full as wonderful and as original; the audience were thoroughly excited and warmed up, and at length a little mild betting grew out of the enthusiasm kindled. The Yankee was so unfortunate as to lose; on two separate occasions he had to hand out a shiny shilling to his delighted bettee.

But at last, as it seemed, driven to desperation by his losses, he started up and exclaimed, Wall now, there was one more bet he was willin' to make; he didn't care who took it up, he'd show they couldn't beat him every hand; he was willin' to swallow the biggest man in the room for two pound ten. He had the money ready; let any man put it up, an' he'd show him.

An incredulous ha! ha! greeted this; but the thimble-rigging spirit was so a-flame, there was little difficulty in persuading Martin, as the biggest man present, to take up the bet, and in the enthusiasm of the moment, he went out into the lean-to, and from the chest under the bed, brought back an old stocking, and from it counted out the money. The peddler, too, produced his from the bottom of his trowsers pocket, and Caspar van Hausen held the stakes.

"Well," cried the men eagerly, as they watched the cadaverous Yankee's deliberate survey of the huge Dutchman's solid front. "Well, why don't you do it?"

"Aye, vhy ton't you?" muttered the old man, suddenly remembering, with a little sinking of the heart, the suspicious ham and Amen's abominable suggestion.

"Why don't I, eh?" he returned. "I didn't engage to swaller his clothes. He's got to strip, I'm a waitin'."

"Come then, Martin," laughed the men, crowding round him. "No backin' out. Come."

"Na, na," protested Martin, making a stout resistance.

"I'll none o' dis. I'll e'en take pack my moneys. Gif it to me, Caspar. I titn't say I'd strip."

"Pooh, pooh! ye're in for it. Ye're pound, or ye losh yor moneys," cried Caspar, fully bent on seeing all the fun.

"Ye can't take back the money now," the others echoed.

Martin, looking very miserable, glanced at the emptied stocking and offered no further resistance, as his zealous friends assisted him in getting rid of the major part of his clothing. Setting all pecuniary anxiety aside, he had a great deal to distress him: his personal dignity was much outraged; he began to feel the utmost uneasiness at the contemptible position in which he found himself, as steadying himself against the wall, he barely kept himself from falling, while a brace of giggling lads drew, first one long blue hose and then another, from his ponderous limbs.

"There, there," said the peddler compassionately, "that's enough. I don't mind the underclothes. It's only the thick woollen things I can't stomach. Now, my man; are ye ready? Draw out the table, then, and git him up on it."

But upon this, Martin sat plump down on the floor, and refused to budge. He wouldn't git up on the table for no man, not he. Then the stranger made a feint of taking the money from Caspar's hand, and the company all declared he was in the right of it if he did; and at last, with a groan, Martin suffered himself to be helped up on his legs again and led over to the table, which, with all the pomp and circumstance of war, the Yankee had drawn out into the middle of the room, and the strength of which he had tried repeatedly, by vaulting up on it, and shaking and thumping upon it with impudent familiarity and assurance. It is not probable that any person, not actually suffering capital punishment, ever endured worse pangs than this unhappy landlord did, as with infinite exertion he was hoisted upon the table and exhorted to stretch himself out at full length upon it.

The Yankee, passing his lank fingers through his hair and pushing up his sleeves, then said impressively: "Now, gentlemen, I must ask ye to step back a-ways; stand a little to the left of the body, and gi' me plenty o' room. Now, all ready?"

"The body" gasped faintly, "Ye'es," and shut his eyes. A silence fell; curiosity held the breath even of Amen. For the space of several seconds, it is no figure of speech to say, the dropping of a pin would have been a startling and audible occurrence.

Then the solemn operator, after surveying him from all points, halted at length at the foot of the table, stooped down and applied his capacious mouth to the great toe of his victim. It must have been a dainty mouthful! but the New England taste was not proverbial for its delicacy at that period of our colonial history, and the peddler even seemed to enter with relish on his undertaking.

An instant after, there came a loud crack of the huge toe-joint, and contemporaneously with that event, came a vigorous kick in the face of the peddler, which sent him sprawling on his back, and a volley of oaths thundered from the lips of the enraged landlord, as he regained a sitting posture, and shook his fist at his fallen foe.

"De sneakin', teivin' Yankee! Catch him! He's proke my pig toe-joint! I'll murter him! I'll have him hung up py de hair! I'll"——

"Why," said the Yankee, picking himself up and hitching up his trowsers with unshaken assurance, "what did ye want? Ye didn't expect I'd swaller ye whole, did you? I thought ye knowed I'd have to crack the bones!"

But above the roar of laughter that this called forth, thundered the heavy artillery of the landlord's imprecations; he rolled down from his table in hot wrath, and made for his antagonist as fast as his maimed member would permit, and would no doubt have fallen upon him and done him mortal injury if the more peace-loving of the assembly had not restrained his violence and held him back by force. Seizing which favorable moment, the Yankee, who was as prudent as he was clever, sidled over to his pack, and talking pacifically all the while, strapped it to his shoulder, and then held out his hand to Caspar for the money.

"I've arned it, you know," he said very nasally, but very logically. "I've arned it, ef he won't let me go on an' finish up the job. I'm willin' an' waitin'. I call you gentlemen all to witness ef I hevn't arned it lawful."

There was a temporary silence, but nobody could say he had not earned it. He was willing to complete his part, but the landlord was not willing to go on with his; who could say he had not a right to the money? Nobody could say it, and nobody did say it, and so, with many apologies to the company for leaving them so soon, he laid five very quiet but very irresistible fingers upon the leathern pouch in Caspar's half unwilling hand, and worming his way to the door, scraped a graceful good-night to his host, now foaming at the mouth with rage, and with an inward chuckle, resumed his travels, defrauded of the lodgings he had expected, but richer by two pounds eight shillings, and by many a future laugh.

"And what did you do meanwhile, Amen?" said Larry, laughing. "I'll lay a wager you didn't keep your black fingers altogether out of the pie."

Amen hung his head with a beautiful modesty and he-he'd in a minor key, while Dave called out:

"Ask him what became of old Martin's clothes, Massa Larry!"

"Well, what did, Amen?"

"He couldn't find 'em, Massa Larry."

"Well?"

But Amen was incapable of being straightforward on a question which involved any transaction of his own; so, more by inference than admission, the rest of Martin's misfortunes came to light. It appeared that some ten minutes after the departure of the stranger, the fury of the land lord having in a measure expended itself, the ignominy of his demi-toilet suggested itself to his mind, and he began to look around for his clothes.

"Vind me my toublet, zum o' ye," he said, hoarse with swearing. "Ye was handy enough to get it off me."

Smitten with this reproach, two or three of the loungers turned to look for it; but, alas! it was nowhere to be seen. The same held true as regarded shoes, hose and breeches. There were many astonished and uncomfortable looks exchanged as this amazing piece of effrontery was disclosed, and it became evident how accomplished a villain they had had among them.

Martin's wrath knew no bounds; half naked as he was, he bolted out of doors, swearing vengeance and demanding a pursuit. But as he was disabled, for obvious reasons, from heading it himself, and as no one else in the company showed the slightest intention of seconding him, he was at length obliged to retire to the stronghold of the lean-to, and to the great scandal of Gretchen, his wife, hide his defeat under the bed-clothes; and the sharp tones of her scolding voice were the last the dispersing revellers heard as they took up their tardy march toward their respective Gretchens.

All this Amen acknowledged to have seen, flattening his nose against the window-pane outside.

"Well, Amen, do you think the Yankee took 'em?"

"He, he, massa, I guess not."

"Where are they, then?"

"I guess they'll fine 'em when they come to bake. I shouldn't wonder ef they foun' 'em in the oven."

"Oh, you limb!" said Lawrence, laughing, as he waved him off. "Get out of my sight—to bed with you this minute."

"Aye," cried Salome, waddling across the kitchen to get the men their candles. "Limb indeed. I wonder anybody kin feel safe wid him in the house. Whatever he was made fur, I can't think, except it was to show folks the devil didn't confine himself to Yankees. He'll blow us up or drownd us, 'fore we know it, if we don't look out."

"Lookin' out won't do much good," muttered Rube, clumping off toward bed. "That imp with the Scriptur name'll be the death of us all, you mark my words."

And thoroughly impressed with his manifest destiny, and very much delighted with its importance, Amen, grinning and chuckling, followed in the rear of the retreating phalanx, and left his betters to the enjoyment of his wickedness and his wit.

Note*.—This story is related and believed in the neighborhood of its occurrence. The old tavern is still standing, and mine host of to-day takes great pleasure in showing to the curious visitor the ancient table on which his predecessor stretched his unwilling length on that memorable evening.

*[From the 1871 edition.]

CHAPTER X.

IN A CELLAR.

———"Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass
And silent was the flock in woolly fold."

Keats.

It was always a cosy hour round the sitting-room fire, that last one before bed-time, after the men had all gone to their loft, and Salome had put her bread in the "last position" before the smoldering fire and left it to its fate, and Nattee had closed the shutters and bolted the doors and put a fresh log on the andirons, and dropped her last courtesy (with the chance of nobody seeing it), and taken her lonely way up to her lonely little room. It was very cosy for those who stayed and drew up round the fire, but it was very chilly and forlorn for Steady and for Nattee, who didn't stay. On this particular evening, it had been harder than ever to go away from the light and warmth of the sitting-room; Steady was a little sleepy, and bobbed her courtesy and trudged very uncomplainingly up to bed, but Nattee was so wide awake, and so interested in the talking, how could she go?

After exhausting every possible excuse for staying in the room, and being hurried off at last by a half-impatient "Nattee, don't be all night tinkering at those shutters!"

from Larry, she hastily picked up her candle and retreated. Not very far, however. She sat down for a minute to recover breath on the top step of the cellar stairs, and glancing back into the room, found the position commanded so fine a view of the circle at the fire, she forgot to go any further, and sat leaning forward on her elbows, resting her chin on her hands, and gazing into the room, while the draught from the cellar made terrible work with her flickering candle, and dashed the melting tallow into many fantastic molds.

How handsome Larry looked as he bent over his mother, and forcibly disengaging her hands from her work, led her over to the great chair he had drawn up for her by the fire.

"No more of that tiresome wheel to-night!" he exclaimed, throwing himself down on the settle and leaning on his elbow. "Come, Warren, give the Fathers a holiday. Come over to the fire."

And Warren, with a smile, shut his book, extinguished his little study lamp and came over to the fire. This was only an intermission in his night's toil; more hours than any one in the house guessed, that faithful little lamp burned under his weary eyes, but for this hour, the last of their evening, and almost the beginning of his, he was always glad to lay the books aside. But how pale and thin he looked, as, leaning back in his chair, he fixed his eyes dreamily on the fire. The delicacy of his face had grown almost startling; not effeminate, not unmanly, not even sickly and wan, but spiritualized and refined from sense, and infinitely sad. Thought and study and discipline had added their subtle beauty to his eyes; there was immortal youth in the fairness of his features, but keenness of intellect and strength of soul in the indescribable repose and thoughtfulness of both.

"Laura, my child," said Mrs. Sutherland, in the half-anxious, trembling tone that was becoming almost querulous, "why will you strain your eyes over that work at night? Do put it up, I beg. Let Lawrence move your frame back to its place."

Laura submissively obeyed, which Lawrence also did, but with a little show of indolence and want of alacrity, and pushed a chair up for her by the fire. She altered its position till she could lean on Warren's and a short silence ensued, broken by Larry's sudden laugh, "That villainous Amen! Laura, there's a home mission for you without further search."

"That would be no charity in the end," said Laura, "for it would be taking your work away."

"Mine? not a bit of it. I wash my hands of all the farm. After the first November I make over all my share of the moral responsibility of it to Warren."

"That sort of stock is not transferable, I think you will find, my friend. I should be very happy to relieve you, but I am afraid it is not in my power, nor in the power of any mortal man, for the matter of that."

"Nonsense!" cried Lawrence. "Do you mean to say a man has no way of ridding himself of the moral responsibility of his slaves as long as he owns them? Not that I really think of shifting them upon you, but I might, if we were both agreed."

"I doubt it. There are few duties that can be shifted. Do you think a mother is ever rid of the responsibility of her children? Do you think a pastor is ever rid of the responsibility of his people? Never, believe me, whatever deputies they may put between them and their duties. People cannot do alms by proxy, cannot practise self-denial by proxy, any more than they can go to church, say their prayers and praise God by proxy. It is a personal matter, it cannot be shifted; with our own hands, in our own hearts we have to work it out. And half of us spend half our lives in trying to get rid of what we never can be rid till God decrees. I do not mean to preach, Larry; I know you're not in earnest, but you'll let me tell you this: not I, nor the whole bench of bishops, could ease you of the responsibility of governing or misgoverning those whom God has set you over. We might save their souls, you would peril yours. The government of households rests with those whom God has placed over them, and personally the heads of families are responsible. It is the disregard of this, the indifference of men to these directions of Providence in the government of the world that puts things so awry. If men would only attend to their personal duties and responsibilities, and let all philanthropy alone that went outside of the circle of those duties and responsibilities, the anarchy, the insubordination, the irreligion would be cut down by half."

"The Pertinaxes would be out of fuel in that case," said Laura.

"And a happy day it would be for the world," muttered Lawrence. "That fanatical old incendiary has set afire all that is combustible in the neighborhood. If our slaves hadn't been 'seasoned timber,' they'd have been all in a flame by this time. Such stirring doctrine as he gave 'em last Sunday, by all accounts, would have put any ordinary intellects in a ferment; but, happily (with a laugh), Rube's and Dave's are no ordinary intellects. They know on which side their bread is buttered, and that implies an extraordinary degree of intelligence, I am sure."

"It is rather an unsafe tenure to hold them by, though, my friend."

"Yes, a little depression in the butter market, and they're off, whizz—like partridges, I suppose. But a master's care must be, I take it, to keep the butter supply generous and invariable, and then the chances are in his favor that his slaves stick by him and serve him well."

"Did it never strike you it would be a safer plan to teach the slave his duty, besides giving him his bread and butter? To give him some simple, reasonable instructions about the relation that exists between you and him and what is expected of you both? To explain to him the position he is in, and tell him who put him in that position? For men are not born by chance, showered about the world at random; a slave who is born in that condition, has been made a slave by God, and has as clear a line of duty to follow as his master, or his fellow-laborer, born a freeman. Teach him that duty, instruct his conscience with the light of Christianity, give him some weapons, no matter how rough and simple, as long as they are weapons of truth, to defend himself against such mistaken and unhappy preachers, and you need not fear them. They will be preaching insubordination, rebellion against the authority that holds him in the lowest grade of life, but his wiser heart will be preaching patience: endurance, at the least, of the condition in which it has pleased God to place him, and faith that God will make it all right for him, if not in this world, in the next. Such homely maxims will sound very flat and tame, no doubt, after the ranting eloquence of abolition preachers, but they are God's truth, and it is safe to believe, that can live and do its work without the help of fine words from any mortal preacher."

"Well, Warren, may you succeed in getting some of that truth into their minds! Heaven forgive me, I'm afraid they've heard little enough of it yet! I am afraid their self-interest has been the only principle that has been appealed to. They, as well as we, will have cause to bless your coming, if you can put things on a better foundation than they are on now. I have always felt that somehow it was all wrong, but I haven't given the subject thought enough."

"And, Lawrence, I know no subject that, for us, requires more thought. You were born the master of slaves; I have assumed to be the teacher of slaves; so, both of us this question touches nearly. And it is such a sad question, in its best phase, to every thinking man, that we shall not be tempted to treat it lightly, I am sure."

"Lightly!" repeated Laura, with a shudder.

"But the world is so full of great evils and great sadnesses that we must not cry out, This cannot be borne—this is the worst evil that has ever been! Who knows whether this outward bondage that they wear is any more cruel than the plague of many a free man's secret heart? Every man who has suffered knows what discipline means; he knows no soul can be saved without it. What if this discipline is for the saving of their souls? And there might be harder ways, God knows! As long, then, as slavery exists by God's permission, we must take it as one of the sadnesses that He has placed before us in our fallen world, to remind us of our impotence and our ignorance. We cannot see why it should be permitted; we cannot see why plague, and famine, and war should be permitted—why thousands upon thousands of unready souls should be swept to death, without a moment's grace—why millions upon millions of heathen souls should live and die in ignorance worse than death; we cannot always see the reasonableness of the Divine Reasoner, nor the justice of the Immutable Judge, but we can submit, we can acknowledge our own ignorance, and believe in His wisdom. And what remains for us is to keep our own hands pure from the blood of all men, our own hearts attentive to the duties that lie around us. We are not responsible for the world, we are responsible solely for ourselves."

"Old Pertinax would tell you, you take a narrow view."

"Then he would give me the key-note of his own errors: he takes too broad a view. He overlooks his own personal duties, in looking out so far upon the duty of the world. He preaches what the pity of his own kind heart suggests, instead of what the higher wisdom of God's pity commands.

The Bible he professes to live by commands submission to the ordinances of man for the Lord's sake—obedience to those who have the rule—contentment with our lot in life, whatever it may be; and he, in his blind zeal, and indiscriminating pity, preaches to his hearers of their rights as men, their wrongs as slaves—holds up rebellion as a virtue, resistance as a duty. Is this man preaching out of the Bible, or out of his own heart? I can tell him there is nothing harder than to shut up one's own yearning human heart, and turn to the stern rules of God's eternal Law. I pity the enslaved, to the full, as much as he pities them; but I should hold myself guilty of a deadly sin, were I to let my pity for them warp the message that God sends to them by me, in ever such a slight degree. And I have still to find in that same Law the warrant that he finds to tell their owners that they sin in holding as their own the inheritance of their fathers. The man that would extend this evil, that would seize and bend under this sad bondage fresh and helpless victims, would be so vile and hard a man, no message, though one rose from the dead to deliver it in his ears, would reach his heart. But the man who, if his conscience so allows him, chooses to retain and faithfully discharge the heavy duty that is owing to his slaves, cannot receive my censure. He must, though (forgive me, Larry) he must have my pity."

"Save it, my dear parson, save it for those who need it more," cried Larry, with an uneasy laugh, as he got up and walked across the room and back, his short rôle of seriousness quite played out. "I wouldn't trust you with the offer of a brace of likely hands to work the perspective glebe, nor the gift of pretty Nattee, even, to keep the Parsonage in order!"

"Indeed!" cried Laura, warmly, "you might trust him, without the smallest danger to your property—he would never touch it"——

"Ha!" said Lawrence, stopping short in his walk, and looking down at her intently. "You, yourself, would never own or keep a slave—you are resolved, then?"

"Never" began Laura, with unusual warmth; but Warren put his hand upon her mouth.

" 'Sweetest my sister,' none of that. Vows should never be born of excitement and sudden feeling. Make your resolutions coolly and dispassionately; there will be more chance of having some warmth and vitality left to keep them, if you have not expended all on the making."

"You are not so cold as you profess, though," Laura said, looking down, much humbled, and paying the penalty of her unwonted fervor with unwonted blushes. "You know you would not own a slave; you know you do not blame my feeling so about it."

"I don't blame you, but I don't applaud you, my dear Laura, for I know your enthusiasm comes all of feeling, and not at all of reflection. You take a very feminine, unreasoning view of the case, and judge, as women generally judge, in the most unreliable, yet the most natural, and perhaps the most subtly true manner."

"Make that clear, if you please, my dear brother,"

"He can't make it clear to you, if your instinct don't catch it at once," cried Lawrence. "A woman can't reason—a woman can't be convinced. If you can make her feel a thing, you can convey it to her; if you have to present it to her reason, you have a hopeless task before you. I'd sooner teach Amen the alphabet, any day."

"Aunt Andria, let me get a screen for you, the fire burns your face;" and Laura moved across the room, quietly and gracefully, yet with a chilling queenliness, and in her voice, low and musical as it was, there rang the shivering of a myriad slender icicles; and between her cold eyes and her cousin's, when at length they met, there was a frost-work of disdain that the moment had created, but which he could not melt, fairy-like and fragile as it seemed.

Impatient of the subject that had caused all this trouble, yet longing to provoke another flash of spirit from her, Lawrence launched into another and a nearer source of difference between them, to wit, the glorious Revolution, and their Orange Highnesses of blessed memory. But he had frozen the pretty wrath he longed to listen to, perhaps forever—who could tell? Women were such wayward, unaccountable creations, and this one was the most wayward and unaccountable of all. Not one word, good or bad, did she speak again; not one look, gracious or ungracious, did he get for all his ingenious impudence and well-affected heresies. With her pretty white hands lying idly in her lap, she sat quietly gazing into the fire, not a vestige of emotion of any kind marring the admirable repose of her face. She neither looked dreamy, nor absent, nor angry—she looked nothing. Warren's pithy reasoning, Lawrence's clever sneering, failed to wake the faintest change of feature; they might as well have bandied jokes across the white shoulders of the Venus of the Tribune, for any effect apparent on the statue.

It was not the fire alone that had burned Mrs. Sutherland's face. She was uneasy and perplexed at Larry's boldness and self-will, and though she could not enter into any of the arguments that had arisen, she could feel the right and wrong of them most deeply, and had felt them many silent years. And she saw, too, that Laura was angry, worse than angry, down to the very depths of her woman's heart. What did it mean, this unreasonable prejudice of Larry's, generally so generous and good-hearted? She longed to break off his provoking controversy with Warren, and, in the very first pause which occurred, she said:

"I am sure, Warren, you and Larry have forgotten the cider you were counting on so last week. You haven't so much as tasted it. I've a mind to go down to the cellar and get you a pitcher full; and Laura will get that plate of cake from the side-board. Won't you, dear?"

Laura got the plate of cake from the side-board, and then quietly taking the pitcher and candle from her aunt, insisted unanswerably on going down for the cider. Gentle Mrs. Sutherland yielded to everybody, so it was not wonderful she yielded to Laura, but she watched her rather anxiously as, burdened with the candle and the pitcher, and a plate for some apples, she reached the door.

"Lawrence, my son," she said, uneasily, for the young men were again engrossed in talking, "can't you help your cousin? She will have more things to bring up than she can carry."

"I don't need any help, Aunt Andria," Laura protested.

"Oh, I beg your pardon—of course," Lawrence said, and following her, he took the candle and pitcher from her hand. He went down first, holding the candle high to light the young lady's descent, and, when he reached the bottom, turned and offered her his hand. But she could not be made to see it; her eyes were downcast, and all her mind seemed bent on the matter of saving her white dress from contact with the rough staircase down which she was obliged to pass. Lawrence bit his lip as he turned away. Here was a contest hardly worth his trying; yet he was resolved, before she went up those stairs again, he would be master of that hand, if but for an instant, and look into her eyes, if but to reiterate the story of his indifference and contempt.

"Which barrel does my mother mean?" he asked, setting down the candle on the head of one, and turning to his cousin, who was standing in the middle of the cellar.

"I think she intended to have that used first," the young lady returned, indicating, with a very slight gesture, a barrel in the opposite corner.

"There's no difference in them," said Lawrence, perversely, stooping down and examining the coopering. "I saw them headed up myself; they are precisely alike. This one will do just as well;" and he proceeded to remove the plug.

Now any one who has ever gone down into the cellar after dark on an errand of this kind, knows that it is no easy task for one pair of hands to hold the candle where it will light anything but the beams or the bare ground, and the pitcher where it won't spill the cider, and the plug so that it can be replaced at the critical moment. One pair of hands is manifestly insufficient, and Lawrence meant it should appear so. When the candle was on the barrel head, for all purposes of illumination it might as well have been in the attic, and when he set it on the ground, it flickered, and sputtered, and did not throw a ray of light upon the barrel, or upon anything but the ground and the half raised skirt of Laura's white dress, and the piquant little foot below it, that tapped the ground in absence or impatience.

"Be kind enough to hold the candle for me, Laura, will you?" he said very matter-of-factly, handing her the candle.

"You must excuse me," she answered, in the same tone, not approaching and not offering to take it.

"No, upon my word I can't excuse you," he said, between his teeth, as he looked down at her. "Why won't you take it, pray?"

"Sir!"

And Lawrence got the glance he wanted; but such a glittering look, such a subtle, chilling hauteur as informed that delicate and speaking face. He had time for a full gaze into the eyes he had been so long trying to meet; but such freezing eyes! And then she moved away as a young queen would. She seemed to think the path would clear before her of itself, and that it did not matter who was between her and the stairs, there was no one of temerity enough to stand where she chose to pass.

"No! One word, my pretty cousin," said Lawrence, placing himself before the entrance.

But at that moment there came a crash, so near, so sudden, even strong-nerved Larry gave a start, and with the start the treacherous candle, meeting some new gust of wind, expired abruptly, leaving them in utter darkness and unutterable astonishment. That it might be something worse than astonishment on his companion's part, however, Lawrence guessed from the quick gasp that caught his ear, and starting forward, he exclaimed:

"Don't be frightened, Laura; it's nothing. Give me your hand; here are the stairs."

And grasping the cold hand that neither resisted nor yielded, he led her to the stairs, realizing, through all the perplexity and surprise of his position, the triumph he had promised to himself. But before they reached the stairs, the outstretched hand, with which he was groping through the thick darkness of the cellar-way, struck something human—warm, smooth, breathing flesh. Holding Laura back peremptorily, and suppressing the exclamation that rose to his lips, he laid a firm grasp upon the stealthy intruder, and called in a stentorian voice:

"Warren! bring us a light, will you?"

The cellar was under the unused half of the house; the cellar door was a tolerably heavy one, and the hall was not a narrow one, added to which, the sitting-room door had fallen, or been pushed shut since they had left it, all of which presented but a slim chance of success for even Larry's lusty lungs. He called again with tremendous strength, but not a movement in the hall above indicated that his voice had penetrated to the sitting-room.

Here was a situation never matched for awkwardness, he thought, as he listened vainly for an answer to his call, supporting Laura with one hand, and keeping down his unknown enemy with the other. Of what sex, age, or condition that enemy might be, he could not form any satisfactory conjecture. That it was human he was sure, and almost inhumanly strong he was equally and uncomfortably sure. It was a throat he grasped, or one hand would never have sufficed to hold such muscle in check for the space of half a minute; and except that all effort was for release, and none for attack, he should have doubted his power of sustaining the struggle till help came. The necessity of keeping Laura in ignorance of the presence of a third and hostile party, increased rather than decreased as time passed. She was trembling all over, he felt distinctly through the cold hand by which he supported her, and he listened rather apprehensively to the vain attempts she made to command voice enough to answer his careless questions. It was by no means an easy thing to put careless questions in a natural voice, with such an unremitting strain upon one's nerves and muscle going on; but Larry managed to do it, and to keep his companion in a blissful ignorance of the little circumstance, the least suspicion of which would have sent her off in a fainting fit.

"There's no use in stumbling up those stairs without a light," he said, quite nonchalantly. "Strange we can't make 'em hear. Warren! What a night it is! Hark! do you hear the wind blowing? Could it have been that Rube didn't fasten up the shutters well, and that they were what blew down. Stand back a little, Laura, you are just in the draught from the window. I say, Warren! Bring a light, will you? Ah!" with a sudden relief in his voice, "there he comes, we shall soon see our way out of this."

In an instant after the first sound above had apprised him his voice had reached the fireside, the cellar door burst open, and Warren, carrying the large lamp from the table, descended three steps hastily, followed by Mrs. Sutherland, and then both stood still, transfixed with wonder at the scene before them. The place was flooded with light, to the remotest corner, and no item, from the extinguished candle lying on the ground, to the overturned barrel and shelves beside the stairs, escaped the amazed, and speechless spectators. But the group, of which these things were the surroundings! Larry, holding back his cousin, pale and fainting, with one hand, while with the other, he held a grasp on the throat of Nattee, crouching at his feet.

"Lawrence! Have you lost your senses?" exclaimed Warren, when he could speak for wonder.

"Nattee, by Heavens!" exclaimed Lawrence, in a tone of thunder, starting back and flinging her from him. "What does this mean? Speak—quick—speak, or I'll make you. What were you doing here—what does this mean?"

"Let me go, oh, let me go!" she prayed, for he had laid his hand again upon her shoulder as he spoke, and held her back; "let me go. I'll never come near you again—I'll never trouble you any more. I didn't mean to do anything wrong—I'm—oh! I'm so miserable!" and covering her face with her hands, she burst into tears.

"You shall not escape with that," he muttered. Then, in answer to Warren's reiterated question, what does it all mean? he exclaimed angrily: "Mean! why it means just this, as far as I can tell you. That girl there, skulking hidden about the cellar, eaves-dropping, or pilfering, or both, upset a pile of lumber in the corner, and nearly frightened Laura to death with the noise, and in the melee I dropped the candle, and we were left in total darkness. I started to grope my way and lead Laura up the stairs, and stumbled over something at the foot of 'em; and you may well believe, a human something isn't a pleasant thing to stumble over in the dark. I didn't want Laura to go off in a faint on my hands, and she was so precious near it all the time, I didn't dare to let go her hand for a moment, so I had to manage my friend with my left, and she struggled like a tiger, I can tell you, and I had concluded you had all grown as deaf as posts, for I shouted till I was hoarse. Go up, Laura; I think we've had enough of the cellar for to-night."

"Poor Nattee has, at least, I think," said Warren, sotto voce, as he led the way up into the hall.

"Yes, and poor Laura, and poor Lawrence," muttered the latter impatiently, as he strode into the sitting-room, "Mother! send that girl up to bed. I'll settle my account with her to-morrow."

"You are unreasonable, Lawrence," murmured his mother, following anxiously with her eyes the girl's retreat. "No one ever dreamed of accusing Nattee of eaves-dropping or pilfering before. I cannot believe it of her."

"I am no more anxious to believe it than you are," he returned, going to the fire. "But I am puzzled to give any other explanation to her appearance in the cellar, when she was supposed to have gone to bed an hour before."

"There are a good many puzzling things in this world, Larry, my friend," said Warren, as he sat down to his books. " 'Judge not by the appearance, but judge righteous judgment,' which is all one with saying, appearances are snares."

"Yes. But we of the laity have to depend a little on them," Larry retorted, thoroughly out of temper. "We haven't your light, you know, we can't see into people's hearts."

"You miss some very pretty views, then," said Warren, with a slight laugh. "Where's Laura?"

"Gone after Nattee, I think," Mrs. Sutherland said, with an apprehensive glance toward Lawrence.

"Nattee, Nattee—let me in, won't you?" Laura whispered at the door of Nattee's little room in the attic. No answer; but the absence of bolts and bars was in Laura's favor, and she softly lifted the latch and entered. The window had not been shut, and a strong current of air was rushing in from the cold night; so Laura closed it, and then went over and sat down on the foot of the low trundle-bed, where Nattee lay sobbing. As Nattee would do nothing but sob, and would neither look up nor answer any question, Laura sat still for a few minutes, and looked about the room. It was an odd corner of the attic, partitioned off, and roughly plastered, with great beams overhead, and a narrow window, with a deep stone ledge. Scanty and simple as the furniture of the room was, it all looked as if it all belonged to pretty, neat, quick-handed Nattee's room.

"One could tell Aunt Andria had brought her up," thought Laura, looking at the coarse, but white and well-made bed. "Poor Nattee! I'm afraid she will find it has been mistaken kindness, if she survives her tender-hearted mistress!"

"Nattee, look up, and tell me what you are crying for. I'm not angry with you. I do not believe you were meaning to do wrong, and neither does your mistress. Look up and tell me if you were."

"I cannot tell you. I don't care what anybody thinks. I wish I were dead! I'm so miserable!"

"Nattee, Nattee! that does not sound like you. I am sure you are sorry if you have done wrong, and there is nothing else we need be sorry about, you know."

It would have been a stauncher obstinacy than poor Nattee's yielding nature ever sustained her in, that could have withstood the magic of Laura's sympathy and kindness. She told her at last all her misfortunes, and the causes of them: how hard it had been to come up to bed, and how she had loitered on the cellar stairs, till their sudden approach had thrown her into a great flutter of alarm. They had been almost upon her, before she realized her danger, and no retreat was left her but the cellar, down into which, without a second's pause, she had bounded, blowing out her candle as she went, and crouching breathless behind some barrels under the stairs. An incautious movement, as they approached her, had thrown the barrels down; and all the rest Laura knew before, and how sharply the poor girl had paid for her loitering and love of listening.

"Well Nattee," said Laura, as she rose to go, "it's all over, and you did not mean to do wrong, I am sure. I will explain all about it to my aunt."

"I'm not afraid of her," murmured Nattee.

"Mr. Lawrence then? I will make it all right with him. You need not be afraid. Good night."

If Laura thought she had healed the wound in poor Nattee's heart, it was only because she knew nothing at all about it, and had not seen any farther into its troubled, dark recesses than most people ever see into their neighbors' hearts, or know of their neighbors' deepest, sharpest, most enduring pangs.

CHAPTER XI.

BLACK, BROWN AND FAIR.

Nothing so true as what you once let fall,
'Most women have no characters at all,'
Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear,
And best distinguished by black, brown and fair."

Pope.

Making it all right with Mr. Lawrence was a thing easier in the promise than in the performance. Mr. Lawrence evidently had not the slightest design of rendering the matter of the explanation an easy one. At breakfast, he was just as curt as was consistent with good-breeding, and possibly a little curter, and left the table before any other member of the family, and was absent all the morning. At dinner, he was a suspicion less brief, but more indifferent and unapproachable even than in the morning; and Laura, in a miserable, contrite frame of mind, watched him striding down toward the creek, with a gun over his shoulder, and Kelpie at his heels. She had not kept her promise to poor Nattee—she was as foolish a coward as Nattee was herself; all this while Lawrence was doing the girl injustice in his heart, an injustice which she had power to remove by half a dozen words; and every glance at her unhappy face added to her remorse. It was too late now, though; she must wait till he came back from shooting.

A patient afternoon, with Steady at her feet, stumbling through her spelling-lesson, Nattee at her side, learning with less readiness than usual some new stitch her mistress fancied, and her own embroidery progressing slowly under her weary eyes; and then at four o'clock, Laura got up from her work, and bidding Steady put her book away and get her cloak and hood, prepared to take the last of the fast declining sunshine. Steady was an admirable walking companion, and was to Laura what Kelpie was to Lawrence, with the additional advantage of answering in English when she was spoken to. But only then; and hour after hour she followed Laura through the woods or across the fields, or along the windings of the creek, as silent and as faithful as her master's dog. Laura told her stories when they were in the house, and taught her faithfully all day long; and sometimes when they sat down to rest under the bridge or on the rocks, she told her about the mosses and the grasses at their feet, and described the wonders of the woods at home; but with these exceptions, she rarely had to talk to Steady, and it was an instance of the child's good sense and premature intelligence that she never interrupted, by word or gesture, the thoughtful silence of her companion, or made herself in any way a burden or a responsibility. If Laura loitered, she loitered just a step behind; if Laura hurried at a break-neck pace, she followed at a pace to match, breathless but uncomplaining.

"Steady, shall we go the High Rocks this afternoon?" Laura asked, as they went out of the gate.

"Yes, ma'am," Steady answered, and the programme was settled, and not a word more was spoken for a mile.

Very rare and well timed words they must be that harmonize with those rare and lovely afternoons in autumn; if one has a soul, that's the time to let it breathe, to let it listen to itself and Nature. Companions are all very well in their way; speech is a noble and a genial gift; but on a still, clear October afternoon, under the vast, blue, silent sky, with the quiet fields at one's feet, and among the unwhispering trees, the faint pulse of the year's completed life beating slowly, calmly out—surely repose is the thought of Nature, silence is the soul's best sanctity.

The path to the High Rocks was rather a devious one, after they left the lane. Steady had been pilot on the occasion of their first walk there, and being very much more at home in the fields than in the highway, and being economical and thrifty even in her recreations, she had advised and pursued the "cross lots" policy. It was a little shorter to be sure, and infinitely pleasanter, but most people would have gone by the highway. Laura, having ceased to mind fences and begun to dread people, eschewed proximity to the road upon principle, and loved beyond expression the feel of the soft; yielding earth beneath her feet, and the crisp, dry crushing of the close-mowed grass lots that they crossed. And where the creek was on the line of march, and could possibly be followed, it was double pleasure to keep close to its edges, whatever it led through, and watch the pictures of the clouds sailing slowly over it, and the reeds and grasses drooping into it. Through the Flats, the creek wound still and deep and unruffled, expanding, just below the High Rocks, into a miniature lake, then taking a last farewell to placidity and repose, and with strength gathered from the interval of peace, leaping swiftly over one obstructing ledge after another, and hurrying downward, with narrowed channel but stronger current, till it approached the river.

The High Rocks that rose precipitately from the little lake, were crowned with a primeval forest of pine, great old, majestic trees, that had gazed for centuries at the verdant Flats and the smooth lake and the sudden tumult of the waterfall, and had watched generations of wild flowers bloom and fade about their feet, and had sheltered whole dynasties of singing birds in their evergreen branches, and for which dead and dying things they breathed an undying requiem. And Laura, feeling

"So young, so strong, so sure of God,"

so full of life in soul and body, loved to come here when the day was dying, when the year was dying, and listen to the slow mass they chanted for the thousand dead days and dead years they had seen fade into the past. Youth alone finds fascination in the gloom of Nature; when the decay has begun within, the signs of decaying life around are cruel prophets to the soul. The falling of the leaves, the coming of winter, the earliest snow, that strike a chill to the heart of age, send a new glow of vigor through the pulses of youth. They touch no chord of fear within, and lead to aspirations vague and undefined, but free from littleness and gloom.

Once among the pines, Laura stopped for the first time since they had left the farm, and Steady stopped too; standing back from the precipice her mistress overlooked, panting stealthily, and gazing straight before her. Steady always looked straight before her; it was the rarest thing in the world to see her peering about and giving a side-glance or a back-glance or any sort of a glance that was not full, direct, simple and honest. It was impossible to associate playfulness or coquetry with those great brown eyes, at once sad and innocent, childish and earnest, with a shade of unconscious, troubled perplexity in their depths, that haunted one uncomfortably. "She ought to play with other children more," thought Laura, as her glance fell upon her little attendant.

"Steady, why don't you run down into the ravine, and look at the waterfall? You may play on the rocks below the fall for half an hour; I shall not be ready to go before that."

"Yes, ma'am," said the little girl, and docilely went away, but with so steady and unenthusiastic a gait, that Laura almost laughed at the idea of having sent her off to play. No doubt, as she had been sent to do that, she would obediently play; but what odd playing it would be. Laura almost longed to follow her and see it.

She had been gone twenty minutes, perhaps, and Laura had paced up and down the smooth ledge of rock, and watched the fading of the sunset out of the sky, and the faint gathering of the twilight, when the silence was broken by voices subdued by no reverence for the quiet hour and solemn grove. How clear and careless they were, too, and after the first moment of surprise, how familiar one at least was. The talkers soon emerged from the ravine that led up from the waterfall, Larry, with his gun over his shoulder, and as Laura instantly surmised, Cicily van Hausen, Caspar's youngest, prettiest daughter by his side.

Cicily bid fair to eclipse her two elder sisters, good-looking as they were, one being of the "large, languishing and lazy" school, but with no capital besides her pink cheeks and white teeth, and pink cheeks and white teeth were at a discount in that Dutch neighborhood; and the other, well-looking enough in her way, was too thrifty and energetic to be a breaker of hearts. It remained for Cicily, the third and last, to upset all her sisters' plans, to throw her steady-going, simple-minded father and mother into endless perplexities and amazements, and to rule the entire family with a rod of iron. Her hair was as black as it ought to have been flaxen, and her eyes, dark, wicked, coquettish, were totally out of place among her blue-orbed kith and kin. Her features were not regular, and her skin was dark; but that was neither here nor there; she was pretty, and nobody thought of denying it. Her figure, also, though she was tall and slight, had in itself no particular merit, but she unquestionably made the best of it, carrying it haughtily and well. In this first flush of girlhood, she was almost beautiful; but speculative fancy darted ahead, and wondered at her ugliness when the red should be faded from the olive, and the roundness should be shrunken into thinness, and the badness of the soul should look out from the dark eyes, unveiled of their coquetry and mirth, and the vindictive mouth should have forgotten to wreathe itself with smiles and hide its selfishness and cunning. She was but just sixteen, just emerging from awkward adolescence, and Lawrence had but recently begun to notice her and acknowledge her claims to admiration. Even the slight admiration of such a coveted youth, however, had already brought its accompaniment of envy and ill-will, and Cicily was not backward in using all honest endeavors to foster both the envy and the admiration. It is very possible she may have fancied herself in love with her admirer, but that was nothing to the purpose; he was by far the most desirable match in the country, and if she had "hated him with the hate of hell," she would have conducted the case very much as she conducted it now.

Even unsuspicious Mrs. Sutherland, seeing with a mother's keen, apprehensive quickness, the aim of her clever young neighbor, grew uneasy whenever Lawrence's evenings were abridged at the fireside, and dreaded the snares and quicksands under Caspar van Hausen's friendly roof, even more than the toils and temptations of the tavern. She had hinted enough of her fears to Laura to make that young lady perfectly certain whose saucy laugh it was she heard mixing in such noisy, clashing, merry music with her cousin's as they came up the ravine.

"That horrid Van Hausen," flashed through her mind, and her attitude as at that moment they suddenly came upon her, had much of the wild grace and impotent defiance of a startled fawn. She wore her long grey cloak drooping down to her feet, the hood half fallen from her face, which had not a tinge of color in it, the golden shade of her hair had gone with the sunshine; she looked as if she were made of twilight and autumn evening sky, not a color or hue of earth about her.

What a contrast to the vivid young creation at Larry's side! The scarlet cloak about her shoulders seemed to have concentrated the vermilion of the autumn foliage, and retained its brilliance in the face of the declining daylight; brown, red, flashing white and glancing black, mixed in rich-toned picture that the loose hood encircled.

"Laura! You here!" exclaimed Larry, in a tone of surprise, starting back as they came upon her, then recollecting himself, he said: "Cicily, you know my cousin, don't you?"

"Oh yes," cried Cicily, quite nonchalantly. "We've seen each other before, haven't we?"

"I have had the honor of being presented to Miss van Hausen," Laura said, courtesying slightly, while the younger, nowise abashed, sprang up upon the ledge beside her, refusing, with confident coquetry, Larry's offer of assistance, and exclaiming:

"Why, ain't you afraid of being out so late alone? I thought I was the only one who didn't mind these lonesome woods."

"Oh, as to that, Laura out-Hausens Van Hausen," said Larry, with an easy laugh, leaning against a tree and resting his arms upon his gun. "She don't mind solitude and darkness; she's only vulnerable on the question of animated nature."

"I am not alone," Laura said, quietly, looking at Cicily and not at Larry.

"Why, who? Your brother?" And Cicily glanced around with interest, for she longed unutterably to test the hardness of the young minister's heart.

"No; I am waiting for Steady to come up from the falls."

"What, that tiresome little sober-sides? A deal of protection she must be, indeed!" exclaimed Cicily, with her noisy, pretty, sixteen-y laugh.

"I like her very much as a companion," returned Laura, coldly.

"Yes, upon my word, they're marvellously suited to each other," cried Larry. "I've often wondered, Laura, what you would have done if Fate hadn't bestowed that little maid upon you. Poor Nattee has a tongue, and sometimes a faint will of her own; she never could have served you acceptably, besides, she is a slave; but this demure, dumb, docile little wench presents none of those objections, and suits you like your shadow. Like mistress, like maid. Every pretty woman ought to have a maid that fits her, that's like her, that's becoming to her, just as she ought to have a gown and a hat that are. Cicily, Nattee would just fit you; I think I'll have to give her to you."

"Do," cried Cicily, with dancing eyes; "I promise you I'd make her good for something if you did! Wouldn't I break her in!"

"I don't doubt you would," laughed Lawrence. "The girl's in a fair way of being spoiled where she is; what with Laura's theoretical commiseration and my mother's practical compassion, there will be soon nothing worth giving away left in her. If it weren't for my father's corrective influence, she would have been intolerable long ago, I fancy. She wants a firm, strict hand over her. She can't bear indulgence."

"Now I wish you were in earnest," Cicily said, who, for a person of sixteen, had a marvellously developed acquisitiveness of disposition, and who, moreover, hated work. "I wish you meant what you said. If you'd only hire us Nattee low for three or four years, say, I know I could coax mother into taking her. It would be the best thing you could do with her; everybody says she's learning nothing, and that you don't get half the work out of her you could. You talk to mother about it to-night, see what she says. Besides," said the girl, with an injured look at her small hands, "it would be a mercy to get some of the work off me. Nobody knows how much mother puts upon me."

"Poor little oppressed!" cried Lawrence, with mock pity, but with an admiring glance at the small hands.

"Oh, you always laugh at me!" And Cicily turned her head away with a pout that looked much prettier on her crimson lips than it does on paper.

"Laugh at you! You'll see how much laughing there is about me; you'll see if I am not in earnest. Why, I'll prove to your mother that she's a Goth and a Vandal if she makes you do anything but braid your hair; I'll make your father sit in sackcloth and ashes for every batch of bread he's ever made you put your pretty hands in"———

Cicily pouted again, but this time with a lurking glimmer of dimples. "I don't know who you mean by Goths and Vandals, but I don't believe they're half as cross as mother is. I think you might talk to her about it, I think you'll be a Goth and a—what's the other? if you don't."

"You shall not have to accuse me of Vandalism, though Nattee may, perhaps. Cicily, you'll have mercy on the wench, if you do take her."

Cicily looked spiritedly indignant at this, and appealed to Laura to know if she did not think he was too impertinent for anything.

"Am I impertinent? Say, Laura; you ought to know."

A handsomer, more impudent varlet certainly never lived than Lawrence looked at that moment, as shaking back the brown curls from his forehead, and leaning idly forward on his gun, he glanced into his cousin's face, for the first time since Cicily and he had been talking. Now, if Laura had been human, she could not have helped resenting every other word he had said, and being justly angry at the total indifference to her presence that the two vivacious talkers had shown; but she was not human, it was evident, for her face was as pale and shadowy and quiet as before, and her voice was shadowy and quiet too, but not a whit colder than before, nor in any way different from her ordinary voice:

"I have not had Miss van Hausen's opportunities of judging; she knows you better probably than I do."

Cicily, half angry at the delicate sarcasm, and half pleased at the implied progress she had made toward the acquisition of the desired Lawrence, protested against the injustice of supposing she knew anything about him, except that he was the hatefullest tease in the world, and laughed at her all the while he talked to her. Laura waited politely for her to finish her very young and very missish protestation, and then, with a slight bow that might equally well serve for assent or dissent, she stepped down from the rock where she stood, and begged they would excuse her, it was time she called Steady.

"Yes, high time," said Larry, carelessly glancing at the sky. "You'd better make haste home. It is too late for you to be out alone."

"Well, then, good night, Miss Sutherland," cried Cicily; "I hope Steady will take good care of you."

And Lawrence followed her into the path that led over toward Caspar's farm, while Laura, hurrying down into the ravine, called Steady in a voice not quite so uncolored as it had been in the presence of the two who had just left her. "Yes, ma'am," said Steady from the depths of the ravine, and the young lady stood still to wait for her. What a pleasure her face would have been to her cousin just then, if he had been there to see. How delightfully feminine and human he would have found the quick passion that overspread it; how he would have gloated over the impatience of her foot upon the rock, the tightening of her hand against her stomacher. She was angry, the pretty, impassive thing, as angry as heart could wish; Lawrence had not the satisfaction of knowing it, but she was. Cicily van Hausen he could drive into a passion any hour he pleased; but her anger was no more like this than a wild September gale is like a still, deep December snow, shrouding earth, hiding heaven, choking all life and warmth and hope with its dumb and muffled power.

What a walk home that was tor Steady! It was so dark before they left the woods, Laura took her hand to keep her close to her, and she held it so tight, and walked so fast, the little girl was breathless and scared at the darkness which she supposed had scared her silent protector. Mrs. Sutherland was looking out for them anxiously at the door, and kissed Laura with a look of relief, and said she must not stay out so late again, particularly when the creek was so high as it was now, and drew her to the light and said she looked pale, and in the same breath inquired if she had seen anything of Lawrence.

"Yes," said Laura, flushing suddenly, "I saw him in the woods half an hour ago."

"Did he come home with you?" Ralph asked suddenly from his corner.

"No," said Laura, trying in vain to regain herself; "he went with Cicily."

Oaths were less startling in Ralph Sutherland's mouth than in most other persons, owing to their frequent occurrence and great familiarity there; but Laura never had become fully acclimated; she shrunk away from her uncle's brutal profanity that evening with a feeling of horror, not quite, perhaps, as acute as that she experienced on the first day she listened to it, but with a sensation if possible more wretched and depressing. The Van Hausen family, to its remotest branches, incurred his evil wishes, and Cicily, as a brazen fool, came in for the largest share of his maledictions. The storm had scarcely subsided, and the family were just settled at the supper table, when Lawrence entered, looking handsomer than ever, after his quick walk in the cold air, and bringing in with him a rush of freshness and vigor and spirit, that Laura had failed to derive from her walk, or Warren from his books. He kept the talk so exclusively where he wanted it, that even the old man was baffled in his attempts to renew the recent philippic, and was forced to growl menacingly, and turn his back upon the table, without having injured anybody's comfort further than his presence inevitably injured it.

Lawrence was in noticeably fine spirits; he talked so well that even his father listened, and even Warren was roused to repartee. His fresh, crisp, short sentences had quite a vigor of their own; Warren could crush them into fragments by the subtlety of his thought and the strength of his reasoning, but still the apparent victory rested with the more extravagant, prononcé talker, who never acknowledged defeat or the possibility of it, and always kept a laugh ready to cover a retreat with. That night he fairly cleared the board, both of opponents and edibles. Warren laughed and left him at last, after every one else had moved away from the table, and said he saw Lawrence had to walk a dozen miles and gorge himself at supper before he could do justice to an argument; if he had lived a century later, he would have thrown in a hit about muscular Christianity.

After Warren had gone to his room, and Nattee had removed the supper, Ralph shambled out into the kitchen to examine the curing of some hams, and called his wife to follow him. Laura, who had left the supper table at an early date, had taken her book and seated herself beside the fire, and Lawrence, with sumptuous sang-froid, leaned against the mantel-piece and gazed into the flames. Laura knew without looking up when the last one left the room; what could be more hateful than to be left alone with him? what would she not have given to have been on the other side of the hall door? Unconscious Lawrence, however, did not seem to notice or to mind it in the least; changed his attitude carelessly several times, but did not leave the fire. In a few minutes Nattee came into the room, and crossed over to put something on the sideboard, and then went out, but with such a wretched, shrinking, apprehensive glance toward Lawrence as she passed him, that Laura's heart smote her. Now was the time to speak to Lawrence; she was breaking her promise; it was dastardly, mean; she could not believe it was herself. Such strong silent pride as hers, however, bends hard, and it was several minutes before she had it under enough to rise and approach her cousin.

"Lawrence," she said, "I want to speak to you a moment, if you please."

Lawrence turned in some surprise, and said, looking at her steadily and inquiringly:

"You want to speak to me? Certainly; is there anything I can do for you?"

"No; nothing you can do for me," she returned, so quickly that it would have seemed almost like throwing his words back in his face, if so well-bred a person could have been suspected of so rude an action. "I only want to tell what I promised Nattee to tell you. It is not my affair at all; I only speak of it to you to keep my promise."

"Ah!" said Lawrence, looking down at her critically. "An excellent reason for speaking, I must admit."

"And, of course, I do not wish to bias you in your judgment of her."

"Of course not."

"She is very sorry she was so unfortunate as to vex you last night, and wants me to tell you how it happened—and"——

"I am listening."

"She says she did not mean to hide away—she had no idea of listening—she—she"——

"Well?"

"It was very foolish of her, but she was so afraid you would be angry because she had not gone to bed, she ran down into the cellar to—to"——

"To hide; precisely what you just said she declared she did not mean to do. Excuse me, Laura, but you have undertaken a case you're not quite equal to. A little stiff lying is all that would have got Nattee out of the scrape, and if you couldn't have gone that length for her, you should have let it alone—you should have told her to put her cause into somebody else's hands."

"I own I should have warned her she had not much to hope for from her judge."

"Nothing, i' faith, if the office of judge involves the administration of justice."

"The righteous administration of it involves more humanity and disinterestedness, to be sure, than I had a right to look for."

"Ha! my fair Portia, you have outstripped the march of the case—you have begun to taunt before the time. You should have exhausted all the persuasives to mercy before you began with the invectives. Depend upon it, you are bungling sadly. Shylock begins to doubt whether you are a second Daniel."

"You seem to have misapprehended me. I did not begin this conversation for the pleasure of it; I cannot attempt a contest of wit with you. I only wanted to make known to you, as shortly as possible, Nattee's excuses and regrets."

"You must do me the justice to say I have been listening attentively for them. It's not my fault if I have failed to get at them."

"I have told you, or would have told you if I had been allowed, that Nattee is very sorry to have caused you vexation, and desires nothing so much as forgiveness."

"Very naturally."

"You may look at it as you please, but there is nothing in the fact of her being in the cellar last night that cannot be explained."

"Ah!—explain it then, will you?"

"She loitered a little after the others went up to bed."

"A little? Yes, an hour and a quarter, perhaps."

"I know that was not right, of course."

"A little irregular, it must be confessed."

"But she has always been allowed a great deal of liberty about that."

"About what has she not been allowed a great deal of liberty, I should like to ask?"

"And when she heard you coming into the hall"——

"I don't like to interrupt you, but I didn't understand what you said she had been doing in the hall during the hour and a quarter she spent there before she heard me coming."

"I didn't ask her—I don't know what she was doing."

"Possibly listening?"

"And, in a foolish fear of being discovered, she hurried down into the cellar."

"To listen, perhaps, a little longer? But I interrupt you; pray continue."

"I have nothing to continue about; there is nothing more for me to tell you, only that she is sorry."

"I think you told me that when you began."

"And I will tell you it again, hoping you can appreciate the state of mind."

"It is a state of mind we're all apt to be familiar with, I admit; but somehow its familiarity doesn't seem to have much bearing on the case in hand."

"Except that it might incline a generous mind to pity."

"Ah! Portia again. But all history and tradition go to show the Shylocks have not generous minds, and are not capable of pity. So waiving the quality of mercy altogether, you'll do better to appeal to the selfishness inherent in me. How, pray, shall I gain by restoring this girl to favor? What probable advantage will it be to me to pass over her abominable impertinence and deceit?"

"I don't ask you to restore her to favor—I don't expect you to forgive her; I am not so wild. I only ask you not to be cruel in her punishment—not to vent your anger wantonly upon her."

Lawrence's face, up to this date, had been only a very cool and provoking face, but a dark flush of genuine wrath at these words overspread it, and he bent a very flashing pair of eyes upon his cousin's.

"Your eloquence has been exerted, then," he said between his teeth, "only to save your favorite from the lash? You have been trying to shield her from my brutal rage? You have thought, perhaps, she was in danger of some punishment that made your blood run cold to think of; that some scene was brewing to turn you sick with horror, like that in which my father bore the part I was to act in this. Yours is a noble, appreciative nature, my cousin! You humble me with the beauty and greatness of your soul! It's well worth a man's while to make you understand him!—worth any pains to make you know him for a man and not a brute! Let me tell you in plain language—let me disarm you of your fears. Nattee is quite safe, as safe as you are, from the effects of my resentment. She has spent her life in this house, and I think she will tell you, if she has not forgotten how to speak the truth, she has never seen me raise my hand to any menial in it. I did not realize you needed to be told of this. I could not estimate the narrowness and falseness of your education. Only your own words could have convinced me of it. My gracious cousin, know once for all, the paltry refinements of the home you are languishing for, have little to do with fostering true manliness of soul; they oftener unmake than make the gentleman. It is possible for a man who has never touched the outmost skirts of what you look upon as civilization, to measure himself with the men within it, and to make them, and to make the world, acknowledge his equality. I excuse your misapprehension. You cannot understand me; I am not written in your language; we shall derive no pleasure from each other; we have no cousinship of soul. Disabuse your mind of any fears that have disturbed it; all who can claim womanhood and weakness are safe from my oppression. Nattee has nothing to fear from me whatever. You have nothing to fear from me beyond the necessity which obliges you daily to see me. You have pleaded your favorite's cause to so good purpose, you have helped me to understand your own. Is there anything further I can explain or promise for your satisfaction?"

"No, nothing further," said Laura, in a low voice, as, very pale, she hurried from the room.

CHAPTER XII.

THE RAIN IS ON THE ROOF.

"And the hooded clouds, like friars,
Tell their beads in drops of rain,
And patter their doleful prayers!
But their prayers are all in vain—
All in vain."

Longfellow.

"There's something to help you through this rainy day, my wench," said Ralph, with unprecedented civility, throwing a package of letters on the table as he passed through the sitting-room to change his wet clothes. It had been a rainy day of the most unequivocal kind, a pelting, pouring, pitiless storm, that no man but Ralph, and no beast but Dirck, had thought of braving. The farm hands had been lounging in the barn in inglorious inactivity, endeavoring to fill up the vacuity of life with shelling corn, weaving baskets, mending nets; but withal, it was neither work nor play, and the day had been a long one.

In the house it was very different. To working womankind Nature brings no holidays; storms without but redouble the work within; heat, cold, feast days and fast days, the household drudge's weariness is but a question of degree; the same mean things to be done over and over and over again, the same tiresome trifles to be remembered, the same weary burden to be carried. The drudge or drudges of a household should always be as free from mind as possible. It has long been a question with intelligent persons, whether some useful domestic animal, answering to that name, in the melee that followed the debarkation from the ark, did not stray away from its fellows, and become lost forever to humanity. There are indubitable traces of the existence of such an element in the well-being and long living of the antediluvian families; and the deep-seated want of something that can work forever and not mind, is felt in every household capable of feeling. Some higher order of beast, something between a beaver and a woman; think what it would have been. How it might have been driven without compunction: how it might have baked and brewed, mended stockings, marked clothes, counted linen, cleaned house, settled closets, been on its legs from morn to dewy eve, and given no superior being a twinge of conscience in the beholding. What generations of pale, dragged mothers it would have rescued, what scores of overworked sisters it would have saved! Benefactors of the race, in bending their efforts to the recovering of this lost animal, would do more for the advancement of human happiness than they are in the habit of doing in the prosecution of their favorite projects.

"Aunt Andria, do sit down!" pleaded Laura for the dozenth time, as her aunt passed wearily through the room on her way to the store-room, followed by Nattee with a trayful of sweetmeat jars, just freshly labelled and tied up.

"Oh yes, my dear, in a little while," returned her aunt, with a pale smile. She had commenced promising it early in the morning, and it was now four o'clock, and Laura had arrived at the conclusion that as nothing but night would put a stop to household wants, the sooner it came the better. The amount of work that had gone on within that house in those ten hours was wonderful, passing belief. Dairy-work, chamber-work, kitchen-work, and all done at disadvantage on account of the storm. There had been baking, ironing, cooking; Salome was "thundering" cross, and Nattee was "apt to lose her head;" Steady was slow, and Laura was inexperienced; and upon the poor mother had come a weight of actual work and intangible worry that was just as surely breaking her down as the comfort it insured was building up and pampering those who formed her household.

Laura had tried to do her duty faithfully all the morning, had beaten eggs till she nearly fainted, had tortured her unaccustomed fingers with the ladle and the butter-bowl, and only had succeeded in convincing herself that she was a worthless and superfluous creation, and had made her aunt miserable at the sight of her fatigue. The kind lady had a vague feeling that Laura was only made to be waited on and to look pretty; she thought nothing that their house afforded half grand or good enough for her, and never dreamed that she was doing anything extravagant and uncalled for when she waited on her with her own hands and studied anxiously to anticipate her wishes and enhance her comfort. The finest linen in the press went weekly on Laura's bed, the best dimity curtains graced her room; its old, swallow-haunted chimney was startled with the unheard-of luxury of a daily fire; in short, there was nothing left undone to show the love and reverence in which the young guest was held.

And the burden of this honor was wearily oppressing the young guest. She was bitterly humbled at the sight of her own uselessness and inexperience, and longed beyond expression to redeem herself from the character of fine-ladyism which she knew she must be bearing. It had become her high ambition lately to distinguish herself as a good housewife, but everything seemed to have conspired to thwart her of its gratification, and she was thinking gloomily that afternoon, as she sat by the window watching the storm and neglecting her embroidery; "it's no wonder they all look down upon me. I cannot do anything. I don't see why they never taught me anything when I was at home. That Cicily van Hausen, with her red cheeks, knows twice as much as I do! Even Salome treats me like a child; my aunt thinks I can't be trusted to make a pudding by myself; Lawrence despises me; my uncle only doesn't because I am not worthy of his notice. I am nothing but a burden and a trouble in the house!"

The time of the arrival of the letters was four o'clock. Warren had brought his books downstairs, Lawrence had just that moment come in from the barn, and was drying his wet boots before the blaze. He did not look up when his father threw the package of letters on the table, but Warren did, and a faint color came into his face.

"Well, Laura, I suppose you're very happy," he said, quietly getting up and going to the table.

Laura did not look very supremely happy, however, or very much excited as she put out her hand for her letter.

She broke the seal and commenced it with a slightly knit brow, which did not relax during the reading. It began:

"My dear Laura: "We all think it was very strange you went away without telling us good bye, and Frances says I am very foolish for writing you a letter. But I am sure you will be interested to hear I am going to be married in the spring—it is decided at last; my dear Adolphe declares it is cruel to put him off any longer, and swears he will not wait another year. He has conscientious scruples about eloping, or (I may say to you in confidence) we should have been married long ago. It is nothing but Charles' ugliness about the settlement that has kept us in this state; but now he promises to attend to it before spring, and make it all satisfactory. I suppose it is being engaged himself makes him better-natured about it. People are always a little softer then, Frances says.

"Were you surprised to hear of the engagement? They are to be married on the first of November, you know. It will make a great change for us, but Frances cares more about it than I do, I think. Did I tell you Adolphe met us at Brussels, last month, and afterwards went up the Rhine with us? Oh, what a sweet time we had! I never enjoyed a journey so much in my life. I cannot tell you how many funny things happened. I was the only one of the party, except Adolphe, who spoke decent German. You ought to have heard Charles! Adolphe says my pronunciation is really surprising for a foreigner. I hope we shall go abroad as soon as we are married.

"Frances sends her love to you. She is busy preparing the house for its new mistress. You'd hardly know the drawing-room—it's really grand. Charles' own rooms are all refurnished in such beautiful taste; and the little study, where we've spent so many happy hours over our French, is done in pink and gold, and turned into a morning room for my lady. I often ask Adolphe if it is not strange that people can care for such things when they are rejoicing in a first and absorbing affection. I wish you were to be here for the wedding—it will be a very grand affair: very different from what mine is to be, though. I am sure you would rather be here for mine. I wish Warren were here to perform the ceremony. I can't bear this tiresome Dr. Drawl. He is staying with us now, and Frances declares she'd rather have an elephant in the house. He is always in the way, and is sure to block up just the door you want to pass through, and is so heavy and slow he never gets out of the way till you've got over wanting to go by him. Would you believe it, he hasn't sense enough to leave Adolphe and me by ourselves, but comes up and joins us wherever he finds us, and is very disagreeable. I must not make my letter any longer now. I forgot to ask you how you like America? Do you have a piano at your uncle's? You are living with your uncle, are you not? You must write me all about it.

"I suppose Georgy has written to you; she has been so much occupied when I have seen her, lately, I have forgotten to ask her. I think she's very different since the recent change in her circumstances; but, as Adolphe says, that's all very natural. I am sure I should never have let it make any difference in my feelings toward her, neither would

Frances; but she don't seem to feel the same, and I'm sure I can't help it. Wait till you have a lover, my dear, and you'll see how little you care for other people. Good-bye.

"I am your ever affectionate friend,

"Ellinor."

"How unlovely love makes people!" thought Laura, as she laid down her ever affectionate friend Ellinor's letter, chilled through with its selfishness and folly. "Georgy—Ellinor—it seems as if they were all dead. Oh, how weary it is! How lost home seems to me now!"

"Laura, will you exchange with me?" said Warren, giving her his letters, and putting out his hand for hers.

"Oh, no! I can't," murmured Laura, involuntarily drawing it back. It was so cruel to give that letter to Warren to read; every line of it would be a stab to him. And yet, he must know—there was no use in keeping it back; he was prepared, she was sure; and conquering her reluctance, she gave it to him.

The interest of the letters he had handed her was not so absorbing that she forgot to watch him while he read it. He read it through the first time hurriedly and hungrily, then again with a slow, determined mastery of the woe it dealt. His was not a face given to abrupt and apparent changes; it had a language, but it was a classical and silent one, "not understanded of the people." The assembled family might have been around the fireside, with greedy eyes fixed on his face, that dull rainy twilight, and have seen no more on it, with all the help of the wide blazing fire, than weariness and quiet.

But Laura saw more: she saw the slow death of the long dying hope, the cruel certainty that had sealed the secretly cherished uncertainty. There was no struggle, no rebellion—it was too late for that; but it was the utter extinction of life—the patient descending into the dull grey sepulchre of his earthly hopes, in which he must wait for years, perhaps, till the rising of his heavenly hopes; the falling of a gloomy night which had the promise of no dawn,

"Till from the east the eternal morning moved."

It was long before Laura, watching him secretly, with tender, pitying eyes, dared break his rigid revery. Stealing to his side, she passed her arm around his neck, and said softly, hardly knowing what she said, simply longing to make him speak to her:

"Did you read the letter? Ellinor seemed very happy."

"Yes, Laura," he said, putting his hand on hers, and looking up at her with a sweet, patient smile; "they all seem very happy."

Laura could not speak—that smile hurt her like a knife; she leaned her head down on his, and caressed the hand she held, with that speechless sort of sympathy that sometimes goes straightest to the source of pain.

"Is it not strange, Laura," he said, after a moment, in a low, musing voice, "that while God's love for us, and care over us, is the one only thing of which, in this uncertain world, we can be certain, it should yet be the thing hardest to be kept in mind—the thing hardest to be believed? It is well we are not left to choose our own discipline; we should choose very differently from God, I am afraid. But

He remembers whereof we are made—He accepts our submission, even though He wrings it from us. My sweet sister, we have a more merciful Lord than we deserve."

Long after, Warren thanked God he had had strength to say so then; that he had remembered, even at that dark moment, that the last wave of desolation had not swept over him—that he was not parted from all earthly love, while Laura's hand clasped his, and Laura's true heart beat against his own.

CHAPTER XIII.

WHIST.

"He needs strong arms who is to swim against the stream."

Fuller.

Laura soon found that though Nattee might not have anything to fear from her cousin's resentment, she herself had. She began to realize what a man's resentment might be; his cold avoidance of her, the sternness of his voice and face whenever he was obliged to address her, the control he put upon himself not to make his change of manner toward her noticeable to others, made her heartily penitent for the share she had had in producing that change. She began to realize the difference between a tantalizing, half-feigned petulance, and a strong, deep-rooted anger, and to wish heartily for the restoration of the former, little as she had seemed to like it.

Two or three evenings in the week, his mother was made entirely wretched by his absence; no one asked where they were spent, but no one doubted, it was at Caspar van Hausen's. A stormy scene had occurred between him and his father, one night after his return, which seemed but to have strengthened the one in his perversity, and the other in his opposition. A little obstruction often puts the whole machinery of a household out of tune; this little escapade of Nattee's seemed to have deranged things so, it looked as if order and harmony had taken their eternal flight from that locality. Ralph was black as a thunder-cloud—not partaking at all of the transitory nature of that phenomenon, however, but lowering perpetually in the domestic horizon; poor Mrs. Sutherland looked pale and depressed. Laura felt everybody's discomfort, multiplied by ten, added to her own vexation. Warren thought Laura out of spirits, and was disturbed accordingly. Steady was her mistress' shadow, and felt its darkening. Nattee cried her eyes out in secret, and blundered and fluttered in public; while the high-handed young tyrant, the withdrawal of whose smiles caused all this eclipse, at home looked lordly and nonchalant to an insupportable degree, and shone with added lustre at the Van Hausen hearthstone.

One windy evening, about a fortnight after the commencement of this state of things, immediately upon the clearing away of supper, Lawrence, as usual, got up from his chair, and after loitering a little by the fire, reached down his pipe and tobacco-box, filled and lit the pipe, buttoned his coat tight across his chest, and turned to leave the room. The family were assembled around the fire, and Laura looked with apprehension when she saw Mrs. Sutherland follow him to the door.

"You're not going out again to-night, Larry?" she said uneasily, laying her hand timidly on his arm.

"Why, yes, ma'am, I'd thought of it," he returned, stopping, but looking quite unmoved.

"Why do you—I mean—can't you—don't you think it would be pleasanter to stay at home just this once?"

"I hadn't thought so, ma'am, I acknowledge."

"I wish, my son"—— she began, and then stopped.

"Come, Larry," said Warren, laying aside his book and getting up. "Come, make an exception in our favor to-night. Stay home and have a game of whist. I have not played a rubber since I came to America."

Laura looked in admiration, for she knew that Warren hated cards, and that in old times there had been no more dreaded penance for him than to be called from his book to make up a table in default of any more enthusiastic player. The Rector had loved his game of whist with a truly pastoral affection, and it had held a place in his evening as undisputed as his nap or his cup of tea. Warren and Laura had been early instructed in the doctrines set forth by Hoyle, and relished their practice about as much as they did the rendering of their Latin themes, and the writing of their first French exercises. Warren's proposal, therefore, Laura looked upon as a wonderful instance of self-sacrifice, but quite in character with his habitual, unostentatious renunciation of every personal comfort and pleasure. Some pious men make an example to their other lusts of some one favorite, and go on crucifying it alone, and remunerating themselves by a half grumbling indulgence of the others all their days; but Warren's self-denial was the habit of his mind, the uppermost thought, so constant that it had ceased to be a thought and grown to be an impulse; so habitual, that his own gratification came, if it came at all, only as an afterthought; so thorough, that he hardly had a wish.

His aunt gave him a grateful look, and said beseechingly:

"Do stay, Larry, my son. It would be so pleasant to have a game!"

"Why mother," he cried, half impatiently, "I didn't know you cared for cards. It's a new entertainment for you."

"Perhaps she cares to see the rest of us entertained," said Warren. "Come, Larry, don't be a perverse."

"You can play without me, good people, just as well as with me. I know I shall not add much to your entertainment."

"I don't think it probable you will, but still we cannot play without you, such is the importance you derive from the fact of the existence of but three whist-players in the house. Aunt Andria does not play, and there are only Uncle Ralph, Laura and myself. It remains to be seen whether three people shall be deprived of an evening's entertainment solely on account of the selfish disposition of the fourth. Oh, most hard-hearted, it shall not be. You shall stay; put down that pipe, and resume your seat."

"Upon my word!" cried Lawrence, half impatient and half amused, as he reluctantly relinquished his pipe, and approached the chair his mother placed for him.

"Laura, find the cards, will you?" said her brother. "Uncle, are you not coming to the table?"

Ralph was very well pleased with the arrangement, but true to his principles of opposition, growled, and raised a dozen objections, before he hitched his chair over to the card table, and took up one of the packs Laura laid on it.

"How shall we arrange ourselves?" said Warren.

"Father, cut, if you please," said Lawrence, quickly handing him a pack.

The cards were perverse, however, and sentenced him to Laura, and she felt her cheeks burn at the involuntary compression of his lips as he took his place at the table. His temper, however, was destined to a further trial. All that a young lady could do in the way of trumping her partner's tricks, returning her adversary's leads, forgetting what cards were out, and being generally aggravating, Laura did that night.

"Why, Laura, I never saw you play so badly!" Warren said, after one horrible mistake.

"I can't help it, Warren," she said, ready to cry, and immediately making one much worse.

Whist being a game which, for anything like success, requires the most collected state of the female mind, was naturally a failure in Laura's case; for besides having a silent, aggravated, and bitterly polite partner, she harbored a morbid dread of putting her uncle in a passion, and making Warren ashamed of her. Warren played an irreproachable game; so well-trained and clear a mind as his, of course could not fail to master anything of the kind he undertook, and Ralph smacked his lips with fat satisfaction as he watched the development of his plans. Lawrence played well too, not perhaps so scientifically and thoughtfully as his cousin, but with equal clearness and boldness, and as the game advanced, the three men began to feel an interest in it, that two at least had lacked at the outset. Lawrence had the disinclination to be outdone, common to persons of his temperament, and was concentrating his mind upon what he was about, and, by the help of tolerable cards, was keeping up against pretty heavy odds, when the following most trying circumstance occurred:

A run of rather poor cards had kept down the grasping ambition of Warren and his uncle for the last two hands, and their opponents (though Laura hardly deserved the name) only needed the odd trick to put them out. Laura had had a short suit of diamonds, which Lawrence had led her twice, and which she had, very respectably, trumped. But the third time round, knowing from the state of his own finances, that it could not possibly pass both adversaries again, and feeling in the keenest manner all that hung upon the winning or losing of that card, Lawrence said involuntarily, "Look out, Laura, what you do." And Laura, thrown into utter confusion and bewilderment by her desire to comply with his request, looked out most effectually, and played the lowest trump in her hand.

"You little fool!" chuckled Ralph, as he put his queen upon it with saturnine satisfaction; while her brother said, "Laura!" wonderingly, and Lawrence, with compressed lips, exclaimed: "That settles it; you have the card," and threw his down upon the table. While Laura's dropped into her lap, and covering her face with her hands—she burst into tears. The fact was, she had been bothered, and frightened, and intent, and had her mind upon the stretch for the last hour, and this climax had called for a self-control beyond her present powers.

"Laura, don't be foolish," said her brother, quietly, laying his hand upon her arm, and preventing her retreat.

"Do you desire another game, sir, or are you tired?"

"No, no," said Ralph, "give 'em another beating; they'll be the better for it. Here, it's my deal; cut for me, Lawrence."

Laura had made a violent effort to recover herself and had succeeded so far as to take up her cards and assort them in rather an unsystematic way, when a loud knock thundered from the front door, and an accompanying emphatic clearing of the throat, heralded the advent of some strong-lunged visitor.

"Pertinax, as I'm a sinner!" cried Larry, laying down his cards to listen. "I should know that 'hem' if I heard it in Jerusalem. Warren, you're a lost man if he catches you at the card-table! He'll preach you into ribbons; he won't leave you a shred of reputation to go home in; he'll ruin you, my poor boy—fly, if you value your good name: throw down your cards, if you have any mercy on yourself! Why, what's the matter with the man? I vow he's so scared he can't move! Look at him!"

"You're half right," said Warren, with a smile. "I am in a sufficiently awkward predicament, I must confess; it's lucky I don't want to run, for I could not get very far! You needn't give me any credit for standing my ground, for I haven't strength to get away from it!"

"I haven't seen father look so pleased in a year," said Lawrence, laughing, as Nattee went to the door. "Warren, I know you wish you could go through to China, but meet your fate like a man, my good fellow!"

"Lawrence, do be careful, my son," murmured Mrs.

Sutherland, anxiously, as a great rush of cold air from the hall announced that the door had been opened.

"I am careful, mother; I'd have put the cards under the table if I hadn't been prevented."

"At least we will not disedify Mr. Pound, by going on with our game," said Warren. "Put down your cards, Laura. You are released."

"Put down your own," whispered Larry, as the guest made his appearance at the door. But Warren evidently had no intention of putting them down; he kept them rather ostentatiously in his hand as he rose and advanced to meet the new-comer. It required all his self-command, however, to keep a perfectly unmoved face and easy manner as he encountered the astounded Puritan. Entirely unrestrained by the shackles that encumber people in polite society, Mr. Pound experienced no compunction in letting his horror and astonishment sit openly upon his expressive face. Silent rebuke formed no part either of his vigorous creed; he would have esteemed himself shamefully derelict in his duty, if he had ever held his tongue at the sight of any of his neighbors' sins. He seemed to hold himself personally responsible for all the evil that was done upon the earth, and went at its chastisement as if the entire annihilation of it by his hand were his only chance of escaping eternal damnation. It seemed to be his solemn conviction that he held a special commission from the court of heaven to pitch into everybody; no churchman vowed to belief in the Apostolic succession, ever proclaimed or felt a more towering apprehension of the importance of his office. With this difference, though, that the arrogant churchman, however fond of power, acknowledged that it had a bound, as far as temporalities went, while the Reverend Pertinax thundered alike at Jew and Gentile, friend and foe, the dweller in his own parish, and the dweller in his neighbor's parish. It becomes rather a dangerous thing in a community, when a member of it clothes himself at will with such unlimited powers; Mother Church, assuming as she is regarded in other cases, is rather a safeguard in this. The world has circled round her for many ages in spasmodic expansions of thought and uncertain rushes of spiritual advancement and philosophic progress; but the wave that beats about her base to-day, is little different from the wave that dashed itself into foam upon her firm foundation hundreds of years ago; "she is founded upon a rock, but is planted in the sea." The light she lifts on high and that streams so steadily now across the tumbling waters, has sometimes flickered and wavered and burned low, but the death of time alone shall witness its extinction; "the sacred, high, eternal noon" of glory alone shall quench its faithful flame.

Mrs. Sutherland followed anxiously in Warren's wake, and tried to make the visitor welcome, but he entirely refused to be made welcome, merely waving his hand in acknowledgment of her civility, and flashing his eyes about the room in a very scathing manner.

"It is a very windy night," said Warren, anxious to break the oppressive pause that had followed his aunt's meek hospitality. "You must have had a cold walk across the Flats. Will you not come to the fire?"

Still no answer, and a dreadful glare at the card-table.

"Well, but won't you sit down anyhow, Mr. Pound?" cried Larry, putting a chair so very near him, he could hardly help sitting down.

"No, young man," he said, in an awful voice (joking apart, it was awful, for there was a tremendous power in the man's sincerity of purpose and entire faith in himself). "No, young man, I'll not sit down till I have spoke my mind. I'll not sit down among gamblers and breakers of the law, without tellin' 'em the message the Lord sends 'em by my mouth. I should be a careless watchman if I didn't warn 'em; I should be a wicked shepherd if I let the sheep wander off into all sorts o' wildernesses, and didn't strive to bring 'em back."

"That's very true," said Warren; "but don't you agree with me, it is only in your own station you are to sound the trumpet, only your own flock you are responsible for? Think what confusion would arise, my good friend, if every watchman's eyes were fixed upon the distant towers of the adjacent cities, when he was only set to guard his own—if every shepherd left his own sheep, and went to oversee his neighbor's flock."

"Aye," said the heretical parson, stoutly; "but in the Lord's vineyard there are no such distinctions—there is no mine and thine—we all do the Lord's work, in the Lord's strength, and in the Lord's time, just when He sends us to do it."

"In a word, then," said Warren, "Heaven's first law is outraged on earth by God's appointment? Law and order are necessary for the heavenly hosts, but are superfluous among the children of men!"

"The word of the Lord is not bound," said the Reverend Pertinax, shaking his head. "He can save by many or by few. He doesn't need the ordinances of man. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body; the natural body, it is the corruptible church you swear by; the spiritual body, it is the Lord's people everywhere, of all kindred and peoples and tongues scattered abroad upon the face of the earth."

A slight expression of pain contracted Warren's face; the sacred words that never crossed his lips without a reverent humbling of heart and voice, struck him almost with horror, coming from the hard-voiced, uncompromising dogmatical preacher. With the promiscuous mixing up of Holy Writ and unholy prejudices, the liberal twisting of scriptural language to secular application, he had been entirely unacquainted till he had made Mr. Pound's acquaintance, and that acquaintance had not been as yet sufficiently familiar to wear off the edge of his discomfort. Warren had still a great deal to unlearn, a great deal of reverence and refinement to get rid of, before he could meet his opponent on equal ground. To stand there, leaning against the card-table, with Laura listening, with Larry's laughing eyes upon him, knowing his uncle's brutal pleasure, openly expressed, in seeing the Christians fight, was a trial quite beyond even his powers of endurance.

"At any rate, we'll make a compromise, Mr. Pound," he said, with a smile of indestructible good breeding. "If you will not acknowledge I have a right to set my parishioners an example of which you disapprove, at least you will accept my apologies for having offended your conscience, and my assurances that I did it unwittingly."

"I don't suppose," said the preacher, somewhat mollified, as Warren collected the cards, and putting them into the drawer of the table, pushed it back, "I don't suppose you did it with an evil mind; you are as one that gropeth for the wall, and as one that stumbleth at noonday and hath no light. Your church hath blinded your eyes to the truth; therefore, as it was not your willful error, I have spoken."

"I am sure I appreciate your kindness," Warren said, with such a sweet-temperedness that Pertinax melted down into the chair he placed for him without a murmur, and the family subsided into their seats.

"I'm hanged if I do, though," growled Ralph, indignant at the pacific tone the conversation threatened to take, and exasperated at once by the loss of the fight and the interruption of the game.

"Oh, dear uncle, please!" murmured Laura earnestly, leaning over his chair and touching his lips with her cool, soft hand, "don't say anything about the cards; it will distress Warren so extremely—it will make him so uncomfortable."

The old man looked at her for a moment without speaking; perhaps there was something in the unusual touch of a woman's hand upon his hard and ugly lips, that sealed them for the moment; perhaps there was something in the control he seemed recently to have put upon himself in regard to Warren and Laura; at all events, with an oath uttered so low, even Laura did not catch its full profanity, he sank back in his chair and made no further protest in the matter of the cards.

But the earnest-minded parson could not let them drop; he had not had his say, his conscience or his loquacity were still unsatisfied. Lawrence, who admired his cousin infinitely, watched with great enjoyment his quiet, well-bred endurance of the guest's impertinences, his simple refutations of the charges he advanced, his startling clearness and perspicuity when he was driven to defend his cause. No one could say, when at last the argument wore itself out and sank down into its own embers, that Warren had not had the best of it; even Pertinax's stoutest champion would have had to own he had suffered considerable damage at his adversary's hands. Warren had been used to dealing with much more practised intellects than Pertinax had ever had the advantage of encountering, and all that training could do for him had been done. When it came to the handling of such a question as this, as a simple matter of argument, Pertinax was "nowhere." Warren could out-think him any day, though perhaps he could not have out-lived him nor out-preached him. The crowning glory of his triumph on this occasion was, however, that at the close of the engagement, he set his adversary on his feet again, and made him half uncertain who was victor, and soothed him into a temporary oblivion of his sprains and scratches.

This, however, had but just been effected, and some inoffensive and unexciting subject brought under discussion, when the tall clock in the corner bawled out "Nine!" and threw Warren into a new perplexity. About a week before, he had obtained with infinite effort the consent of his uncle to the regular reading of family prayers in the household, and though at the striking of nine and the entrance of the servants, he always shambled off to bed with a most disedifying and ostentatious scorn of the proceedings, his nephew was not in the least disheartened by it, nor indeed did it seem to have much effect upon any one who witnessed it. Warren could not help thinking his uncle's disapprobation tended rather to prejudice the slaves in favor of, than against the service; at any rate, they were attentive and well-behaved, and trooped into the sitting-room with great punctuality and grave decorum at the striking of nine o'clock.

On this ill-starred night, the last syllable of the announcement had not died upon the air, before Warren's anxious ear caught the shoving back of the kitchen chairs and the clumping of Rube's heavy shoes across the kitchen floor. There remained now no hope that the reverend gentleman would leave the field; indeed, nothing remained for Warren but to do his duty, and probably give him mortal offence. He had heard enough of the spiritual etiquette of Methodism to know he was expected to ask his visitor to make a prayer, and probably to select and read "the chapter." Now, though Warren had no doubt, in his humble heart, that his visitor's prayers were just as acceptable to Heaven as his own, as far as their individual piety could make them acceptable, he had no doubt, either, that he would be committing a sin in permitting him to officiate in his stead—a sin quite as heinous in his eyes as the sin of card-playing was in his brother's eyes. Apart from the probability of his profiting by the opportunity to thrust some wild and unsettling doctrine into his petition, if he had been permitted to make it, Warren's strait-laced interpretation of his creed forbade such an encouragement of heretical intrusion; he ached at the bare idea of giving pain and causing misapprehension, but he did not harbor the least idea of doing evil that good might come.

When old Ralph had gathered up his shoes and his vest and his candle, he walked over to the door, then pausing before he opened it, and glancing back upon the quietly assembled servants and apparently devout circle around the fire, he said, with a most unprepossessing laugh, "You've been doing some pretty hard fightin', and now I suppose you're going to do some pretty hard prayin'; but I doubt whether the prayin''ll be as much to your liking as the fightin' was. It takes you Christians to maul each other!"

As the door closed upon his ugly face, a moment's silence fell, as Warren, a thought paler than usual, shaded his eyes from the light and bent over the great Bible, open on the table; then, in the beautiful voice that suppressed feeling only made more beautiful, he began that sublime Thirteenth of First Corinthians. It was the Evening Lesson, but if he had had all the books of the old and new Dispensation to choose from, he could have chosen none more fitted for the evening's trial. No sermon more impressive was ever preached than those thirteen verses; into every heart the wonderful voice that read carried the wonderful words of inspiration, with the magnetic force of faith and feeling. And when they rose from their knees, and the impressed and quiet servants left the room, the great-hearted old

Methodist laid his rough hand in Warren's delicate palm, and said with a somewhat husky and unsteady voice: "We get our religion out o' the same book, if we don't go the same way to get it; and I'm thinkin', the same Lord is rich in mercy to all them that call upon Him, whatever words they take to call upon Him with. He can hear you when you pray to Him in the words He's given to your church, and He can hear me when I pray to Him in the words He's put into my heart. An' it seems to me, we'd be shaming the Lord we both believe in, an' shortenin' His arm, if we couldn't trust Him to bring both out right, an' to make us work His will, just as He wants to have it worked, without quarrellin' wi' each other about the way it's to be done. We ain't much after all, my brother; we may know a good deal as far as men can see, but we're cryin', crawlin' babies in the sight o' God—we're so near to nothing, we'll die with shame when the Great Day comes, if we've been countin' on ourselves. Maybe I'm right, and maybe you're right, and maybe we're both wrong; God knows. We won't quarrel. He can see through an' through us; let us spend what time we've got to spare from workin' in praisin' Him, not in pickin' at each other. The best merit that we've either of us got, is that we're servin' Him; and we ar'n't servin' Him when we're livin' in malice an' envy, hateful an' hatin' one another. I'm willin' to leave all our differences to the Lord to settle, an' hold myself your friend an' brother while I'm in the flesh."

"God knows," said Warren, as he grasped his hand, "my heart is not so narrow as ever to distrust you, and yours is great enough never to misapprehend me. When my duty leads me to oppose your teaching, you will know it is the creed I cannot sanction, not the man I cannot reverence. When my church forbids my joining with your worship, you will know it is not that I doubt the holiness and fervor that animates it. We will, as you have said, put all our differences of creed into God's gracious hands, and serve Him in simplicity of faith and in charity of feeling. You have spent your life in a service which I have but just begun; you have a claim upon my reverence and affection, and all but my allegiance, and I have a claim to your forbearance and your gentle judgment of all the rashnesses and inconsistencies my youth may lead me into. Whatever comes, believe me, I hold you in high regard and honor, and hope to prove to you by my life, if I cannot by my words, that we have a common faith and serve a common Master."

"We understand each other, then," he answered, turning away and going toward the door. "We'll keep this in our minds against our next temptation." And without another word, or a single salutation, the strange old man was gone.

CHAPTER XIV.

ALL SAINTS' DAY.

"And blest are they who sleep; and we that know,
While in a spot like this we breathe and walk,
That all beneath us by the wings are covered
Of motherly Humanity, outspread,
And gathering all within their tender shade,
Though loath and slow to come!"

Wordsworth.

It was the eve of All Saints—a sweet, still Indian summer afternoon—and Laura and Warren, having just completed the pious work that had occupied their hearts and hands so many weeks, turned the key of the chapel door, and turned toward home. Warren walked forward slowly and thoughtfully as was his wont, but Laura, as was her wont, found something beautiful and admirable in every step, and was constantly calling to her brother to stop and share her younger and more demonstrative enthusiasm.

"It's so seldom," she cried, reproachfully, "that you walk with me, I think it is unkind, when you do, that you cannot remember I am with you, and enjoy the things that I admire."

"Well," he said, stopping, and trying to look interested, but only succeeding in looking very patient and affectionate, "Well, what am I to admire? I am sure I am ready to enjoy anything you want me to."

"Oh, yes, but that's so cold and mannish; you have no enthusiasm. I am sure you did not use to be so. You used to see things of yourself, and didn't need to have them pointed out to you. Why, often in the woods at home, do you remember? you and Georgy used to say, you did not think I had a soul, I was so quiet. A view like that, then, would have made you eloquent.——Ah! what have I done!" she thought, a moment after, glancing at his face.

"Forgive me," he said, laying his hand on hers, and looking at her with most sad eyes, "Forgive me, if I disappoint you. The world is not beautiful to me any longer, Laura: the dead can ask but peace. Did that sound like ingratitude?" he continued, as he watched the look of pain upon her face. "I did not mean it so; God knows there is nothing better, or safer, or holier than peace. Laura, after a great sorrow, a sharp trial—before the resurrection to a later happiness—there intervenes a rest, a silence, a Hades of the soul on earth, which pleasure and pain are both powerless to invade. I dread its ending!"

They had left the clearing on which the chapel stood, overlooking the woodland below and the distant Flats, and were just entering the path that led through the forest toward the farm, when Laura's eye fell upon a newly-erected cross, at the head of the single grave, in the little churchyard.

"Look, Warren," she said, "that has been put there since morning!"

"Ah! how like Lawrence!" he exclaimed, returning with her to poor Mark's grave. "That memorial has taken up many an hour I have feared was wasted in a worse occupation. I am just beginning to know Lawrence. I see something unlooked-for in him every day."

The beautiful hazy Indian summer days come the earliest and "the longest tarry" around those Catskill Mountains; and All Saints was a day much to be remembered for its loveliness and stillness. The dead and yellow leaves hung yet upon the trees, waiting for the chilly blast chained still up in the mountain gorges: the faint haze, that to-morrow might be scattered, hung yet about the lowlands, hiding the work the frost had done, drawing a veil between the autumn's fading and the winter's fury. "Silence and peace on that high wold;" perhaps it was the eve of desolation and gloom—but the gloom and desolation had not yet descended.

The first service in the chapel! Laura's heart beat thick and quick, as she knelt down among the handful of children who were to be her charge. How would it seem to listen again to the prayers she had not heard since her father's voice read them in the old Borringdon church? how would it seem, to see Warren in his place—Warren, her playmate and companion? It was strange; but as she sat waiting for the opening of the little vestry-room door, she could not think of Warren as he now was, but only of him as he had been—the clever, high-spirited boy of old, the daring leader of wild pranks among his schoolmates, the ingenious contriver of all the home amusements, the dictator of the little circle at the Park and Parsonage. Warren and Georgy in secret session over the Christmas tableaux, Georgy dressing Warren for his part in the "Twelfth Night" play, or Warren teaching Georgy how to emphasize the epilogue—these were sort of pictures that her memory restored of the dear old times at home, the dear old times that were so fatally, so hopelessly dead to them both. She could not think of Georgy, proud, cold, and self-contained, sold to a life her better nature scorned; she could not think of Warren, pale and sanctified, parted forever from all earthly pleasures and ambitions; she could only think of the handsome, happy children who had made the Hiltonbury woods ring with their careless songs, the clever boy and girl who had studied and thought together till there was not a thought in either's mind that was not associated with the other.

She knew the summer's grass was sere and dead on the Easter-made grave in the Borringdon churchyard; that the dust lay thick on the vacant chair in the silent Parsonage; that a new voice read the prayers in the grey old church; that new friends and new interests filled up their places in the homes where they had once been familiar; that pleasures and rejoicings, in which they could bear no part, were even now blotting out their memory more completely—she knew all this, but she could not feel it; she could only think of the old times, the old pleasures, the old faces. She wondered if Warren was thinking about them, too; if he remembered what a different service was going on in Borringdon church that day; in what dress his beautiful companion would soon be standing before the altar, with the rich light of the chancel window falling on her sweeping veil, and crimson cheeks, and shining hair. What crowds would fill the aisles, what murmured blessings would follow her as she passed out, what insincere good wishes and empty flattering would meet her as she entered her new home?

Yes, Warren had thought of it all; as he stood for a moment looking from the little arched window of the vestry-room, before he came into the chancel, he said: "On earth as it is in heaven;" he was "martyr yet monarch;" he had conquered the last throe of rebellion, the last struggle of nature; and when Laura caught the gleam of his white surplice as he entered, she started from her dreamy revery, but her brother's face and figure, as she looked up, seemed more dreamy and unreal to her than her revery. It was the face she loved, but glorified, "stricken by an angel's hand," white and worn with the earthly conflict, but beautiful with the distant brightness of the heaven toward which it was ever turned.

"God will hear him," murmured Rube, involuntarily putting down his head to pray, as the young minister knelt before the reading-desk.

"I wonder if they look so where father went," thought Steady, watching him with wistful eyes.

"I believe in him," was the quick strong impress that a glance at his face flashed upon Larry's mind.

"A young saint," said the Reverend Pertinax Pound, below his breath. He sat on the rough bench nearest the door, with his stick between his knees and his chin resting upon it. His knees were at the only angle he meant them to assume in this place, while he was master of them, and his stubborn old head had suffered all the abasement he meant it to suffer; therefore, his searching grey eyes were not hindered in their scrutiny by any suggestions of reverence or decorum. If the prayers woke any sympathy in him, why of course he'd pray, but he didn't think it at all likely that they would. He was willing to listen to all the young man had to say; he didn't anticipate much that savored of sound doctrine; but if he happened to hit upon any, he was not the man to refuse to say "amen" to the Lord's truth, come from whom it would.

It was hard to strike Pertinax through the eye, but perhaps there was more than he chose to own, even to himself, or fully understood, in the contrast between his own rough meeting-house, with its half-peeled walls, gritty floor and mongrel smell, a cross between tavern and school-house, and this strange achievement of beauty and refinement in the wilderness. There was nothing, either, violently to shock his partisan prejudices. It was simple enough, in all reason. There was no attempt to cover the rough brown logs; the daylight came in through long, narrow strips of windows, one small pane above another. The floor was paved with broad, flat stones, the benches were of dark, unpainted wood, the chancel was railed off with a simple railing of the same. The reading-desk was covered with a rich embroidered cloth of Laura's working, and an altar cloth of crimson with a heavy fringe swept the stone floor of the chancel. There was a cross upon the altar of carved wood, and the three narrow windows above it were, by suggestive gradation, Gothic in their tendency. The door of the little chapel was a double one, and was standing open now, framing a beautiful picture of sky and forest and mountain for the young minister's eyes when he rose from his knees and faced his little flock.

"An uncommon little flock," thought Mr. Pound, with unconscious satisfaction as he glanced around. Yes, but to a little flock, Warren thought as he glanced around, our Lord once promised the kingdom. It was their hardness of heart more than their littleness of number that he saw cause to fear. He must aim straight at their souls; there was no cultivation of intellect to help or hinder him, no delicacy of feeling through which to reach them, no sacred associations to be touched; it was all new, strange and wonderful to them, and by that newness, strangeness and wonderful ness he must seize them. His aunt, Laura, Lawrence and the Methodist preacher were his only intelligent hearers; children, slaves and Indians formed the rest.

The question, should he cut down the service, shorten it to suit their patience and their comprehension, never occurred to him, or occurred to be rejected, and so unapproved as left no stain or blame behind. Of course they did not understand it fully; perhaps they understood it in very small part; perhaps the only music that they caught in all the wonderful harmony of that day's service, was the music of his beautiful voice; perhaps that most rich First Lesson had no merit for them but its shortness; perhaps the Collect was Greek to them; perhaps the prayers were all unmeaning; but to the steadfast mind of Warren, this was no insurmountable discouragement. He could look through and beyond worse barriers than ignorance and dullness; he trusted more to the church's wisdom than his own; he was humble enough to believe more in the accumulated wisdom of ages than in his own discretion. He would not go around the barrier that their ignorance and their dullness placed between them and their salvation; he would not go around it and meet them on their own ground, and leave the barrier still standing, but he would patiently destroy it, he would level it, they should walk over its ruins to receive the salvation waiting for them in God's appointed, unchanging, sufficient way. He, for one, did not underrate the labors of the fathers; he did not care much about the spirit of the age (for they talked a good deal about the spirit of the age even then); he did not flatter himself that he could find out a scheme for saving souls better than the one Cranmer and Latimer, Wilson and Taylor, Leighton and Andrews had worked by. He was very certain that if he brought to his work anything like the faith and steadfastness that they brought to theirs, it would be as effective in the eighteenth century as it had been in the centuries that had come before the eighteenth.

In His sight, to whom a thousand years are as one day, these many changes, this advancing "spirit of the age" which claims such mighty license, must look pitiably insignificant. Heaven and earth may pass away, we are assured, but not one jot or one tittle of His law shall.

There was no pulpit, happily, for Warren to go into, so leaning one arm and hand upon the reading-desk, and holding his father's heavily bound red Prayer-book in the other, he preached his first sermon, if that can be called a sermon which has neither texts nor heads, and is not delivered from a pulpit, and is not read from a MS. A sunbeam struggled down through the narrow strip of window, and fell across the red altar-cloth, and lost itself in the folds of his surplice, and shone out again across the white, transparent hand that drooped upon it. An occasional dead leaf fluttered down from its tree and fell among the dead leaves on the ground; sometimes an acorn dropped with a little plash into the brook that tinkled through the forest, but these were all the sounds that stirred the solitude. With those few sheep in the wilderness hanging on his voice, with that vision of the land of Beulah lying there before him in the hazy sunlight, with the memory of the churchyard at home, with that Seventh of Revelation ringing in his ears, it was no wonder his words had a power and clearness about them that no eloquence born of earth can have; it was no wonder that while they had a dignity and fitness that would not have disgraced the scholastic halls where he had learned them, there was a simplicity and spirituality in them that woke a chord in every soul that listened.

Steady listened, with slow-gathering tears, as he told them for whom this day was set apart, the multitudes of unchronicled, uncalendared dead throughout the world who have gone from us, and whose going we have taken for utter destruction, but whose departure, this good day reminds us, is not misery—whose hope is full of immortality—who are in peace. And each grave, on the broad breast of the whole earth, whether men have marked it or forgotten it, is in God's care; briers and weeds cannot hide it from His eyes, neglect and desolation cannot cover it from His care.

His care for His dead saints, for His living, sinning, struggling servants; the great love wherewith He loved us, the great joy He has in our obedience, the patience He had with our slow progress and our many falls; what strange, bewildering news this must have been to Nattee, leaning forward, with deepening, darkening eyes fixed on the preacher's face, and groping blindly for the faint and far-off glimmer of the truth that alone could solve the miserable problem of her life.

What peace and pleasure to poor old Rube, to hear the dumb faith of his whole life put into such clear words. What deep and silent thanksgiving must have filled gentle Mrs. Sutherland's worn and aching heart at this beautiful fulfillment of all her patient prayers. How many prayers, indeed, found their fulfillment in that day's service; it was one of those brief days of comfort and of grace that if sent too often would

———"Tempt the heart
From sober walking in true Gospel ways."

"Choose to believe, not see," is our best wisdom here. It is not safe for saints to see the good they do; they are most subtly tempted when they are above temptation; all hell is gathering itself to assault their faith and spoil their patience when they shall descend from the mount of beatific vision into the midst of the cold, careless, faithless, idolatrous world again. And Warren Sutherland, saint as he was, could not live always in the glorified calm of such a day as that: "the joy of heaven accepted prayer," the triumph of resignation, the conquest over the flesh, the momentary vision of the true, was soon to be clouded and marred again; but the memory of that quiet, holy day was one of the most sacred he cherished through all the remnant of his saddened days.

CHAPTER XV.

UNDER THE GRAPE-VINE.

"She is most fair, and thereunto
Her life doth rightly harmonize;
Feeling or thought that was not true
Ne'er made less beautiful the blue
Unclouded heaven of her eyes."

J. R. Lowell.

After dinner, on the second of November, Laura, in pursuance of those good resolutions credited to her earlier in this history, brought down a great basket from the attic, and dutifully went out to gather some few remaining grapes that had been left on the vines to ripen, or had been forgotten by the gatherers, and about the safety of which her aunt had that morning expressed anxiety. She had no very definite idea how to reach that large proportion of them which grew above her head; but she had an abounding faith in the efficacy of trying, and as the men were all busy, and Nattee had work enough for two days assigned her for that afternoon by the undying prejudice of her ancient foe and constant tyrant, old Salome, she determined to rescue some at least from the long delayed but surely impending black frost.

The rough arbor over which the grape-vine climbed was on the southern exposure of the low hill upon which the house stood, and was a most sheltered, sunny spot. The trees around it had shed nearly all their leaves, so that from the sitting-room window Mrs. Sutherland had seen Laura go down the path, and had defined her object. She could not see her when she reached the arbor, but she looked out for some minutes, and then said anxiously to Lawrence, who was doing a little after-dinner lounging, and was looking idly out of the other window:

"Lawrence, my son, won't you go and help your cousin?"

"Yes, mother," he cried, in a tone that would have been saucy if anybody else had used it, "I'll go and help my cousin."

And taking up his cap, he sauntered out of the house and down the path that Laura had followed. Apparently, she had been soon discouraged with her task, or the sunniness and seclusion of the spot had seduced her into revery, for when Lawrence came in sight of her, the basket, with half a dozen purple bunches in it, stood at her feet, and leaning against the rough beam that supported the rustic framework, she was gazing absently before her, a broken branch of the grape-vine drooping from her hand, and the most far-off dreamy look in her eyes. The balminess of the autumnal noon, the hazy richness of the landscape, the perfect quiet of the hour, the impossibility of intruding eyes, seemed to have allured her into an indulgence very rare for her then.

"What news from Canada, perhaps!" thought Lawrence, with a curl of the lip, as he approached her, and the rustle of the dead leaves beneath his unequivocal tread brought her back to reality with a violent start and blush.

"My mother desired me to come out and help you," he said, pausing and leaning against the great locust-tree that stood on the other side of the path, and looking down at her with a composure that was much more becoming to him than reassuring to her.

"My aunt is very kind," she said, trying, in a way that ought to have touched his heart, to regain her self-possession. But it did not in the least have that effect. She had done too much to hurt his self-love to let him pity her at all. He was glad to give her pain; it was the best pleasure he had had for weeks to feel her at his mercy, to watch her fluttering color and pained eyes, to listen to the unsteadiness and faltering of her voice, and to know he had the power to make her feel anything. He had put to flight her douce rêverie by his unwelcome presence; he would do his rival this despite at least, he would drive him from her thoughts by whatever means he could, and for as long a time.

"Why, no," he said, still looking at her, "I don't see that my mother is particularly kind. She knew you had undertaken what you couldn't do, I suppose, and wanted to help you and herself and the grapes out of the scrape."

"T thought I could have reached them," said Laura, hurriedly, and with a most lamentable want of spirit.

"Well, I must confess I don't see the ground you had for thinking so," he answered, moving toward the grape-vine. "If you'll hold the basket for me, I'll be very much obliged to you."

When Lawrence said a rude thing, he said it in a tone that made it for the moment not rude, but only lordly and unanswerable. It was impossible to be as angry with him as he deserved, till you were out of his presence and came to think it over. So Laura, like a very foolish, submissive girl, did as he desired, and held up the heavy basket with both hands. While he swung himself up the lattice, and deliberately pulled and threw down into it the bunches that had so long hung there ripening in the sun. Very deliberately, for he looked down through the twisted, gnarled old vine-stems and dry, yellowing grape-leaves, upon so ravishingly sweet a picture, that he wouldn't have been half a man if he had not used every honorable stratagem to keep it in his sight till he could keep it there no longer. If Laura's hair was crayony and shadowy when there was no sun upon it, it waked into soft golden lustre when there was, and her face was very far from cold and pale when that vivifying glory rested on it. The sunbeam that fell on it now seemed to go as deep through her transparent flesh as through an evening cloud, and to color it with as delicate a rose. Did it stain her eyes with a deeper violet, Lawrence could only wonder, for she never raised them to him. The loose sleeves fell back from her white arms, and he watched with a keen eye their increasing unsteadiness under the continued weight of the heavy basket they supported. She shifted slightly the burden once or twice, but made no other sign of weariness or of impatience; there was nothing but the throbbing of those slender wrists by which he could mark the fleeting of these tempting moments, the approaching end of this most selfish pleasure. How long could she stand it? He moved slightly, anathematized the unsteadiness of his support, called Kelpie sharply off from a raid upon the chickens, commented carelessly upon the grapes as he threw them down into the basket, and kept a quiet eye upon the fluttering wrists.

"Two minutes longer by the watch," he thought, "and not a second more." As nice a calculator as Larry was, however, he was destined to find himself in error on this one occasion. He had somewhat underrated the feminine power of endurance Laura possessed, though he had not underrated her weakness. Of course he did not know how tired and faint she was, though he did see her lips were growing pale, and that she pressed them tight together. Two minutes—honest long ones—three, four, five, and still she did not make a sign of giving up. "What pluck, upon my soul!" he thought, in wonder. "How her arms must ache!"

Yes, and there was not a nerve about her that did not ache. If Mr. Lawrence Sutherland had had to endure the same amount of pain, spread over the same length of time, he would have roused the family, thrown the kitchen into a panic, thundered at Nattee, agonized his mother, anathematized his fate, and shown himself most manly in his entire behavior.

But the impending crisis came at last. A sudden failure of the strained wrists, and down came basket and ripe grapes and all. A smothered ejaculation, that wasn't an execration, and wasn't a reproach, and yet was something that suggested both, fell from Lawrence's lips as he let himself down to the ground, and stooped over the basket to remedy the disaster. Laura was stooping over it too. Her cloak had fallen off her shoulders, and the bright coil of hair that was confined at the back of her head, had escaped from the comb, and slid down like a golden snake about her waist. The grapes lay scattered all over the ground, under the great plantain leaves and dead tufts of grass that grew about the place, their ripeness having proved a most disastrous circumstance, for in the shock of the fall the bunches had nearly all dropped to pieces, and individual grapes were rolling down the hill and out of reach with maddening irregularity and rapidity. Laura stretched out her arms and grasped the nearest bunches, the few faithful among the faithless that had not broken into fragments, while Lawrence, stooping down two or three times to pick up what had proved but the skeleton forms of former fairness, at last gave one a contemptuous toss, exclaiming:

"They're good for nothing; there's not the slightest use in picking any of them up."

Now Lawrence did not care a rush, at that moment, for all the grapes that ever had grown or ever might grow on the place, and it was an evidence of his great power of dissimulation that he put into his voice such smothered vexation as entirely overwhelmed his companion with despair. Her aunt's disappointment, Lawrence's vexation, her uncle's displeasure if ever he came to hear of it, the dejecting failure of all her efforts to be useful, in close conjunction with her nervousness and weariness, made her bury her face in her hands, and leaning down on the empty basket, burst into tears. Oh, but she was fair to see! Of all the attitudes a woman's figure is capable of assuming, that abandoned, face-hidden, heart-broken one is the most distracting and insnaring, and Lawrence's face must have told he yielded to its power, for Nattee, who had approached unnoticed, caught from its look the first tangible pang of acknowledged jealousy.

Yes, whatever there was of shame or horror in the fact that she had dared to love her master, it came upon her fully for the first time then. How far her sin was born of the unconscious sins of others, how much or how little of it she would have to answer for herself, whether her hell ended, as it had begun, on earth, the records of a juster world alone can show. The justice and equity of this seemed ever strangely warped toward her; her warm and generous life was but a tissue of errors, as involuntary as they were incapable of retraction; her faithfulness and humbleness and ignorance were a threefold cord to drag her down; the rash, unhappy love by which she found her soul usurped, had grown up without her suspicion and without her sanction. A child's ignorance of good and evil, and a woman's strength of passion, an aristocrat's acuteness of sensation, and a savage's restlessness of law—these made up a sort of character most unfitted to meet the world's contempt, and to feel, without revolting, its iron foot forever on her neck. A strange, distorted, misapprehended life poor Nattee's was shaping into; one of those lives whose contemplation brings only this one hope, that "heaven holds the sequel."

Lawrence gave an angry start when he caught sight of her.

"What brings you here?" he demanded sharply.

"Mistress sent me for—her," she said with a gasping of the breath as she reached but could not master Laura's name: "there's some one come to see her." And following her slight gesture he looked toward the house, and saw that Cicily and Katrina van Hausen were even then coming down the path.

"Laura," he said quickly, going forward to intercept them, "here are the Van Hausens come to see you."

And while Lawrence met them half way from the house, and cleverly prevented their further progress toward the object of their pursuit, the object of their pursuit, springing up, glanced anxiously round for some way of retreat. She was too much engrossed with her own distress to notice the change in Nattee's face; she only exclaimed, hurrying toward the hedge of lilacs at the left, "Pick up those things, Nattee, and take them to the house," while she made the best of her way there herself, to slip up by a side door to her room, and bathe her face and smooth her hair before she was subjected to Cicily's sharp eyes.

Nattee sunk down on the ground as her young mistress disappeared among the lilacs, and rested her clenched hands upon the empty basket. Yes, that was the way always. Nattee must do the work. Miss Laura must have the pleasure. Miss Laura had come out to play at gathering grapes, Master Larry had come out to help her; they had wasted all their time and made all this trouble, and then turned their backs upon it, and ordered Nattee to do all their work and undo all their mischief. This was like the Christianity Master Warren preached about, for Master Larry to say, "What brings you here?" as if it hurt him to speak to her at all, and for Miss Laura to cry, "Pick them things up, Nattee," as if she spoke to Kelpie! This wasn't what she had hoped for when the young lady first arrived, to be turned away from waiting on her and walking with her, to give place to stupid little Steady; slow and stupid little Steady, who was always put before her, who ate at a table by herself and slept in a room by herself, because she was a white man's child.

Oh, there was nothing left for Nattee but hard words, hard work, hard wishes. And it had come of this new cousin, that they were all turned against her. Had it ever been so before she came? Had Master Larry ever given her an unkind word before his English cousin stole his heart? Had he not always been kind and gentle to her, and praised her to his mother, and taken her part against his father? Yes, yes; all the change had come since she had come; how different everything had been since that evening she had ridden Grey Dirck up from the meadow and found the strangers' wagon waiting at the gate. Oh, that sweet evening! How often had she lived it over, how thoroughly she knew by heart each careless word her master had spoken at that careless time; the scent of the white clover, as Dirck trampled it under his heavy hoofs, the plashing of the water as they crossed the creek, the fading of the sunset, the faint, chilly damp of the coming evening; how few kind memories poor Nattee must have had, to have cherished these so sacredly!

They were enough, at that dark moment, to fill her eyes with tears and to soften into more than forgiveness the momentary resentment that her master's harshness had aroused. It was not his fault; he did not do it of himself; his cousin it was who had turned him into what he was; and she hated her—she hated her!

And Nattee rose and went about the work that had been left for her to do, with eyes not far off and dreamy, as Laura's eyes had been when she first went about it, but dark and eager with a restlessness kindled at the forbidden fire within.

CHAPTER XVI.

TARES.

"Invidia festos dies non agit."

"Nattee," said Mrs. Sutherland, hurrying into the kitchen, "where have you been all this time? Your afternoon's work is hardly begun. Everything's lying about just as it was an hour ago, and here's company coming to supper; biscuit to be set, pancakes to be made, the silver to be rubbed, eggs to be looked up, the best room to be opened, the andirons to be polished, a fire to be lit, and yourself to be made tidy to serve. I don't know what's the matter with you now-a-days, Nattee, you want looking after like a child."

Nattee did not raise her eyes to her mistress' face; she bent them on her work, and muttered between her teeth, "I'm not the only one needs looking after, though I'm the only one's to get it, in this house, it seems."

"Nattee!" exclaimed Mrs. Sutherland, looking at her in astonishment, for this was the first word of disrespect or impatience she had ever heard from her. She had not time to investigate its cause, though, for this impromptu supper party held out a bewildering prospect for the afternoon. Cicily and her sister had come for Laura to join them in a chestnutting expedition into the woods, where they were to meet half a dozen more of the flower of the country-side, and Lawrence had proposed they all should return to the farm to supper. Suddener calls upon her hospitality had often occurred, and the old stone house had been the scene of much livelier preparations on many former occasions. But there was, besides the strain upon the good mother's energy and ingenuity, an abiding vexation and anxiety that she could not shake off in Cicily van Hausen's presence; her confident coquetry, her insupportable appropriation of Lawrence's attention, her unmistakable consciousness and satisfaction, were as irritating and exasperating to the gentle lady, as they were captivating and acceptable to her double-minded son. That he had not quite made up his mind about her, Mrs. Sutherland had latterly begun to hope; his evening absences had become somewhat less a habit, and his interest in things at home had seemed a little to revive; but her hopes were destined to receive a check. Lawrence's manner, when they met that afternoon, had a familiarity that startled and a devotion that alarmed her. It could not be, the relaxing of his assiduity of late meant he had good reason to be at ease; that it was all understood between them, and he had no suit to push, for all the suit he had was settled! If it were so, she could not blame him that he had not asked her sanction; she had never made a secret of her disapproval; she could not blame him, but it was a wound she hardly had strength to bear.

" 'Tis nature's law." Mothers should hold that cross before their eyes till they grew familiar with it, they should put it between themselves and their too lavish love from the time that love commences; they should remember what a mother's love must be at best. All children that fulfill their destiny, must, in that regard, be thankless. Love goes forward and not backward: the gentlest son that lives, cannot separate himself from his mother's heart, and acknowledge there is another life before him filled with another love, without convulsing bitterly the heart he leaves. He may, by years of dutiful affection, soften the separation he has created, and comfort the desolation he has made; but it never ceases, for all that, to be a separation and a desolation.

There was a little flush on her mistress' cheek, and a little tremor in her voice, that Nattee did not interpret rightly; and though there existed no actual impatience in her manner, there was less of gentleness than ordinary in it, when she gave her orders for the afternoon, and Nattee's smothered jealousy was not slow in taking fire. It was, indeed, anything but a sweet thought to her, as she hurried through her trebled work that afternoon, with the new sense of her mistress' injustice irritating her at every fresh command, that Laura was sauntering idly through the autumn woods, and that Steady was following in meek enjoyment of her liberty.

But hard work takes the edge off even such discontent as this, and by the time the house was ready for the arrival of the guests, Nattee was in a much more reasonable frame of mind. The best parlor, dusted and in order, looked bright and cheery with its new-kindled fire, the supper table was shining with its best phase of china and of silver, Salome, hoarse with scolding, was serving out their supper to the men, Mrs. Sutherland, in her best black satin gown, was giving her last anxious review to the ranks of sweetmeats, cakes, and biscuits, before the approaching action, when it occurred suddenly to her mind, she must have another jug of cream for the west end of the table. The churning in the morning had left them but a scant supply for such an increased demand; she should have to send over to neighbor Vandervleeck's to borrow some for the occasion. Nattee, very trim and tidy, was leaning against the doorpost, looking toward the gate, momentarily expecting the arrival of the party from the woods.

"Nattee," called out her mistress, "run out into the kitchen, and tell Amen I want him to do an errand for me."

But by the time Nattee reached the kitchen. Amen, who always fled "like withered leaves before the autumn gale," at the distantest echo of the word "errand," had eluded all pursuit, and was swinging from the top branch of the elm behind the house before the sentence was well out of his mistress' mouth. After a fruitless search for him, Nattee came back, breathless and indignant, to the sitting-room.

"That whelp's up i' the mow, or down i' the cellar, or somewhere safe, ma'am. He shot out o' the kitchen when he heard me coming, and I can't find him high or low."

"Well, Nattee, then you'll have to run for me yourself; I am sure you can get back before they come. Ask Vrow Vandervleeck for a jugful of sweet cream for me, if she's got it to spare, and don't waste a minute on the way."

It was already five o'clock, and the brief November day was very near its close; the hungry pleasure-seekers no doubt would soon be home, and it behooved Nattee, as a faithful caterer to their tastes, to make all convenient speed in the execution of her errand. But Nattee did not seem to view it so; an unusual want of zeal characterized her every movement, the chilly evening air inspired her with no briskness, it only made her pull her shawl tighter round her, and sent a shiver through her frame as she loitered along toward the house of the Vrow Vandervleeck. It was not a short walk by any means: "field and fountain, moor and mountain," almost every conceivable natural feature intervened between these two neighbors—features in miniature to be sure, but still weary enough to traverse at the end of a long day's work, and against a rebellious and discontented will.

"I don't care if I am late!" she thought, as she crept through a gap in the hedge on the outskirts of the Vandervleeck farm. "I wish I may keep 'em waiting. I hope they'll all be tireder than I am, and twice as hungry before they get their supper."

There was every prospect of their being, as the serving of supper depended in a measure on Nattee's presence, and she took a malicious pleasure in reflecting how much of the comfort of the family was in her hands. How they would miss her, if she should choose to run away. Who, since she had been tall enough to reach it, had ever set the table there? What a hand Steady would make in waiting on it! The oaths and scowls the old man would give her before she got broken in! Nobody but Nattee knew the places of things in Master Larry's room; nobody but Nattee had ever kept his clothes in order. He never knew where a thing was himself, he couldn't find anything without calling out for her; she did more than he knew to maintain his comfort and to keep him in good temper.

"Perhaps," thought Nattee, with a gleam of triumph, "he'll begin to think of it if I go away: perhaps he'll want me back."

Just before Nattee reached Cuyler Vandervleeck's house, she passed a low log cabin, standing dogmatically up to the road, without the ceremony of a fence before it, and with a most uncompromising squareness and harshness about its rough exterior. Nattee was so absorbed with her own thoughts, she did not look around at it as she passed, till startled by a solemn "hem," and, glancing up, she saw the Methodist preacher sitting in the door, with his stick between his knees, and his chin on his stick. She dropped a courtesy and was passing on, when he called her back. She approached without any reluctance, for there was something that promised well in his tone. He wasn't going to order her around, it was evident. Perhaps he was going to tell her something that she'd like to hear, for it was whispered about among the slaves that the preacher called himself their friend.

"Well, my girl," he began abruptly, "so you liked the young man's sermon yesterday? I noted ye; I saw ye had hard work to keep from cryin' out before 'em all. I saw how the good news of God was news to your poor soul. I saw how that de'il incarnate, that calls himself yer master, had been starvin' and freezin' it, till it was fain to fill itself with even the husks the old-country swine devour. I saw ye was just ready for God's grace, and I was glad the minister put in the sickle. I was glad to see ye coming to be numbered among the Lord's people, no matter who called ye to come. The young man means well; he lives to show that even out o' Nazereth somethin' good can sometimes come. I suppose he has been followin' up his victory, and has been praying with ye and exhorting of ye, through the day?"

Now Nattee, beyond feeling vaguely unsettled and wretched after the service yesterday, had not experienced any particular emotions of repentance that she could remember. The Egyptian darkness of a whole lifetime had not lifted at once. There is darkness in the dawn; and though a better day might be at hand, it was breaking slowly and chillily. She knew she had been wickeder this very day than she had ever been before in her life, and she was very much alarmed at what the parson said. She hadn't known that crying when Mr. Warren preached about heaven and forgiveness, committed her in any way; she hadn't had the least idea of numbering herself with the Lord's people, or doing anything different from ordinary, and she was very much embarrassed at the inference Mr. Pound had seemed to draw.

The idea of Mr. Warren praying with her and exhorting her, threw her into a cold perspiration. She wouldn't go to the chapel, if there was any danger of that. She was unspeakably afraid of being talked to about her soul, as all ignorant, sensitive, imaginative people are, and the wise young minister would no more have thought of doing it than he would have thought of tearing open the petals of a wild rose, to let the light reach its heart. The light, he wisely thought, was strong enough to do its own work on the flower. So it happened, that while he often talked with Rube in a way that would have done Pertinax's heart good, and not unfrequently, as occasion offered, "exhorted" the careless younger men about the farm, he never had spoken a word individually to Nattee about the matters of her soul, and did not mean to either, till the time should come. She interested him far more than any of the others did, not excepting Steady, even, and perhaps, if he had allowed himself to think of those things, she moved his pity so, he would have found it in his heart to wish that that childlike, darkened, blundering, misread soul might be the first fruits of his ministry, might be the first jewel of the crown laid up for him. He had not overlooked the tears that his reverend rival built such hopes upon; possibly the sight of them had helped to make that day the much-to-be-remembered day it was; but it was very distant from his purpose to let the poor captive soul find out it was so closely watched and its throes so rigorously counted. Young as he was, he had divine and human wisdom enough to recognize the folly of such a course, the unhealthiness of a forced and fostered penitence, the unreliableness of a conversion having its foundation in excited feeling; he was perfectly aware of the incompetency of man to perform God's work, and "he let that alone forever." He knew his own part, and he did not spare himself in the performing of it; but within his own part, his reverence, his fine sense of right restricted him. He did not allow himself to think how many he should turn to righteousness, how many he might be the means of bringing to the truth; it was for the Lord of the harvest to count the sheaves, and accord him his reward; it was for him to do all the work he could before the evening fell.

Perhaps it was well for his continued patience that he did not see the tares that his enemy was sowing in poor Nattee's mind that night. She had approached the cottage-door in a frame of mind that was innocence and safety compared with the state of mind in which she left it: she had been vaguely rebellious and unhappy when she came; her new teacher gave her a reason for her rebellion, and helped her to understand its nature; he dignified her unhappiness, roused her self-consciousness, excited her sensibilities. Circumstances seemed to favor him as much as they seemed disposed to thwart his brother minister. Here was this girl, just dropping into his mouth, as it were, at the very moment he was thinking about her—here she was, fresh from a recent humiliation, the worst a human heart knows anything about, bleeding from new wounds, stinging with fresh smarts; what time could have been happier for the purpose of turning her as he wished; what moment more auspicious for the planting of the word he wished her to believe. She would have blessed any hand that had ministered to her then, she would have bent to any will that would lead her away from where she stood.

And as if still further to aid the wrong-minded teacher, while she was listening with newly roused interest and startled wonder to his perverted piety and unsettling pity, there came a sound of voices from the woods beyond; voices of careless loiterers, merry pleasure-seekers—and such voices will always grate on the ears of heavy plodders, weary laborers. The preacher saw the start she gave, and the pained contraction of her face, and he did not fail to follow up the train of thought that it suggested to him. She was standing on the door-step, and he offered no remark as she shrank out of sight behind the door-post while the merry-makers passed below them.

"Ha! Good evening to you, Mister Pound," cried Lawrence's fine voice. "You seem to be playing at solitary still."

"What luck have you had in your nutting?" said the preacher, looking down solemnly and thoughtfully at the group who halted before the door.

"Rather indifferent luck," returned Lawrence, holding up a half-filled basket. "We haven't turned up many trumps to be sure, but then we've made the game all the more profitable by our judicious reception of adversity; sweet are its uses."

"Ah!" ejaculated the preacher, sniffing contemptuously.

"You don't think so now?" cried Lawrence, putting his handsome head on one side with an argumentative pose. "You don't think a game of cards or a chestnutting excursion may be turned to great account in the improvement of"——

"Oh, don't now!" cried Cicily, pertly, moving on. "Don't get into a discussion. I'm for discussing supper, I vote we go home."

"Yes, yes," cried Nick van Vechten, joining her "I don't believe anybody but Larry cares for preaching now. It's growing dark: we'll leave him to settle it with the parson about the uses of adversity and cards."

Cicily, who couldn't bear Lawrence to talk to anybody but herself, and who had so little real love for him that she had no pride in his cleverness, walked on with Nick, casting back at him a very disdainful and missish look, while, with a straggling, undemonstrative good night, the rest of the party moved on after them. Laura was the last, for Steady had had the misfortune to drop her basket of chestnuts (by far the fullest in the company), and her mistress was trying to help her pick them up. But it was rather too dark, and they were in rather too scattered a state to afford her much hope of success; the shiny, brown things had hid themselves in grass and sand beyond mortal ken and human fingers' reach, and Steady was just trembling on the verge of a downright cry, when Lawrence, strangling his argument with the preacher in its sweet infancy, seeing the state of things, started forward, saying:

"What's amiss, little woman? Lost your chestnuts? Well, I think it's rather lucky; I'm so tired of mine, I'll give 'em to you to get rid of 'em. Come, pick yourself up and don't care anything about the rest," he continued, lifting her up and pouring the contents of his basket into hers. "There! it's all right now; brush the sand off your apron and run on. Don't let the others get out of sight of us. You had better let me carry that shawl for you if you are not going to put it on, Laura," he continued, in a grave, quiet tone, most new and unlooked for in him.

"Thank you," Nattee heard Laura say, faintly, as they turned away, and those low, mingling voices rung in her ears with anything but low and quiet music, till dispelled by the rough growl of her forgotten host.

"A hot-headed, high-strung, unconquered dog!" he muttered. "A rebellious fellow, a thorn in the side of piety and decency. I'll e'en teach him what it is to thrust his jokes at Parson Pertinax; I'll show him what comes of throwing his dice and counters always in my face; I'll magnify mine office till he learns to respect it, too; I'll teach the young dog manners, that I will." He caught Nattee's uncomfortable eyes upon him, and he added: "Aye, girl, that's what I'll do for that precious young Hotspur that's just gone down the road, and there's more than you might thank me if I put him to the blush for once. He shall be sorry for this, you shall see, my girl. He shall be sorry for his overbearing ways wi' me, as well as his wicked ways wi' you and wi' all that are oppressed and down-trodden. He's a tyrant, and he shall reap a tyrant's reward—he shall"———

"Master Larry don't mean to be ugly," faltered Nattee, "He's only got that sort o' way sometimes—he's always been good to me till—till—lately."

"Ha!" said Pertinax, turning his keen grey eye upon her, and scenting afar the secret of her soft-heartedness. "Ha! he's always been good to you, you say?"

"Always," returned Nattee, eagerly. "He's never said an ugly word to me till now of late."

"And why should he be ugly to you, I should like to know? Why shouldn't he speak as kind to you as he does to that pert young minx who flaunts her black eyes and her red cheeks i' the face o' decenter and better people? Why ain't Christian folk as well set to work talkin' to you as to that bold-faced Jezebel? She shames her honest old father and her sober Dutch blood by her unseemly vanity; and I never heard it said as yet that half-breed Nattee wasn't as modest and as decent a young wench as any in the country. If I had a daughter, I'd rather she'd a black skin than a black heart, and nobody that's out o' long clothes can doubt the complexion o' Cicily van Hausen's heart, after a look into her eyes."

"Oh," cried Nattee, "Master Larry knows that as well as you. Master Larry's safe enough from Cicily van Hausen. It isn't her. I know Master Larry well enough to know he's tired o' her a month ago, and wishes he'd never seen her. Oh, it isn't her."

"Who is it, then? The cousin, I suppose. Ah, well, she's a sweet young gentlewoman, and may do him good."

"She do him good!" exclaimed Nattee, speaking thick and quick. "She's turned him into what he is—she's false—she's worse'n Cicily van Hausen. She's made 'em all ugly to me. Oh, I wish she was away!"

And Nattee turned her face to the wall with a miserable groan.

"Hist!" said the preacher, thoughtfully; "maybe you're mistaken; maybe she's only thoughtless; she don't look like a haughty lady. Are you sure she's ugly to you?"

"She's turned 'em all against me—she's turned Master Larry against me," groaned poor Nattee, leaning her head against the doorpost and beating with her foot upon the floor.

The great-hearted old man looked at her compassionately and read her story through at a glance. He saw how hopeless and how fatal was the snare into which she had innocently fallen; he saw what a dreadful life lay before her in any event. His sympathies were strong, his discernment quick; his heart ached for Nattee as if she had been his child, and in her wrong he saw the wrongs of her whole class. He burned to avenge her misery on those who had inflicted it; in his overweening pity for her, he never doubted that the wrong, at least on the young man's part, had been intentional. Those proud, stiff-necked Sutherlands had always withstood and galled him, the spirit and the flesh both sanctioned his opposing them. Nattee did not guess the depth of feeling from which his counsel came; she only knew he was good and was sorry for her, and never guessing she had betrayed her secret to him, hardly knowing she had a secret to betray, she listened to his sympathy and eagerly drank in its dangerous suggestions.

He talked to her of the matters of her soul, too, and exhorted and prayed with her, and she listened, with a tempest of strange emotions swelling in her heart, and with such bewildered excitement of brain, that when she started out on the now dark road home, she could remember nothing of his words, and only was tangibly richer in discontent. She had promised to come again to-morrow evening and listen to her new teacher, and though she did not know why it was wrong and why she ought to feel ashamed of it, she certainly did feel it was wrong and was ashamed of it. She had such a guilty dread of meeting her mistress again, that only a superstitious dread of the darkness pushed her forward. Fiery eyes glared at her from every bush, and pricked her on till, breathless and exhausted, she reached the farm-yard gate. She lingered for a moment in the shadow of the barn, looking with dread at the kindly lights that shone from the narrow, deep windows of the house, now all ablaze with hospitality; she knew the wrath that they portended for her; coward flesh and blood began to shrink at the thought of the rough old man within kept supperless so long. Ah, there he came; the kitchen door opened suddenly and fell shut with an ill-tempered bang. Nattee turned to fly, but Amen dropped from the clouds above, or emerged from the bowels of the earth, and grasped her wrist.

"Here she is, massa," he cried, leading her toward old Ralph. "I've most run off my legs looking for her. I brought her all the way from Vrow Vandervleeck's orchard ahold of her han' here. I guess she'll get enough o' playin' hookie afore she's through."

The cruel old man's cruel lash was never laid on more unresisting shoulders. Not a cry escaped her, not a struggle showed her suffering; but her master felt a dull presentiment, as he caught a glimpse of her face by the light from the kitchen door, that he had waked a devil into being that might give him trouble in the end.

CHAPTER XVII.

CICILY VAN HAUSEN.

"Wed not one woman, my son,
Because you love another one!
Oft with a disappointed man,
The first who cares to win him can."

Coventry Patmore.

"Cicily's too tired to dance," cried Lawrence, as they left the supper-table, and crossed the darkish chilly hall toward the shining open door of the "best room."

"Oh, yes, Cicily's too tired—Cicily never wants to dance," cried that young person, looking archly back at him. She was so glad to be free from the restraint imposed by the presence of her elders, left now snugly in the sitting-room, that she danced across to the fireplace, with a reckless disregard of public opinion and common politeness.

"Cicily!" expostulated Katrina the thrifty, with a rumbling rebuke in Low Dutch.

"Katrina!" retorted Cicily the saucy, with a spluttering blaze of defiance in the same tongue.

"Bravo!" cried Lawrence the lawless, with a merry English laugh. "Cicily, you shall dance, parson or no parson."

"Oh," cried Miss Cicily, melting down into great humility, as she glanced at Warren, "I am sure, sir, Lawrence is mistaken if he thinks I can't be happy without dancing—I don't want to dance at all."

"I am very sorry to doubt your sincerity, Miss Cicily," replied Warren, with an amused smile. "But it strikes me you want to dance very much. Your eyes have opened the ball already, and it will give me great pleasure to know you mean to follow their lead."

"You don't really think dancing's wicked, then?" she asked in a very deferential tone.

"Oh, no; I used to think it very pleasant," he returned. "I have never had any scruples on the subject; but if you have had, pray do not understand I mean to undermine them."

"I don't think it's wrong, of course, Mr. Sutherland. It's only the strait-laced people that follow Dominie van der Spiegle and Parson Pound that do. I'm sure I think it's the nicest thing in the world."

She quite turned her back upon Lawrence and the rest of the group, and devoted her eyes and all her available powers to the captivation of the clergyman, who, if the truth must be told, was a subject fully requiring them all. He was just handsome enough, too, to excite her admiration, aristocratic and refined-looking to a degree that powerfully excited her ambition, stimulated but not satisfied with its rustic conquests, and indifferent and cool to an extreme that much exasperated her inherent coquetry, not yet quite exorcised by the "emotion" that was supposed to have usurped her soul. But her touching humility, her flattering deference, though a very pretty study for the moment, were thrown away upon the clear-sighted young divine. To him she was a gaudy transparency; he saw the blank canvas on the reverse side, and the glaring light of vanity within that illuminated the brilliant picture, and he caught himself wondering, with a shudder, how Lawrence came to be so blind. Then, as he glanced again at her piquant face and flashing eyes, the wonder changed, not that Lawrence should be so unwise, but that he himself should be so overwise.

"Heaven send, my cousin's heart's not in this girl's keeping!" he ejaculated, as he watched her wonderful hypocrisy.

"Heaven help us! If Warren isn't making love to the Van Hausen!" ejaculated Lawrence, coming up to end the tête-à-tête. "Cicily, Dave's waiting for your orders: shall we have a reel?"

"Oh, I don't know anything about it—don't ask me," with a flattering look at Warren.

"Well, you may be sure I won't, then," thought Lawrence, turning on his heel. "Come, Dave, stop that vile scraping; strike up the 'Blue Bells,' and do your bravest. Nick, Katrina I know'll accept you; the others are all partnered, I believe. Are we ready? Laura, will you dance with me?"

And so it transpired that, much to her chagrin, Cicily was left out in the cold, without even Warren to console her; for, at the first sound of the negro's fiddle, the young minister had vanished. Whether the familiar dancing-tune was unbearable in the recollections it suggested, or whether he was unwilling to give any offence to his dissenting brethren that could possibly be avoided, or whether he was tired of an uncongenial scene and retired willingly to his quiet books and faithful lamp, Cicily never knew, and Lawrence never cared to know. It sufficed for that young autocrat's enjoyment to see his dissembling inamorata biting her lips with sheer vexation at the fireside, while the hearty rustics and the blooming lassies who composed the set, throwing themselves wholly on Dave's mercy, bowed, and bent, and turned, and twisted, galloped and chasséed, in unquestioning obedience to his enthusiastic music. Laura, after one bewildered look, regained her self-possession and endeavored to conform.

"No fine-lady airs to-night," thought Lawrence, watching closely every movement. No, there was nothing to complain of in her; she could not help looking as exquisite and refined as her companions looked blooming and hoydenish; she had dressed herself

"With care and cost, all tempting, fine, and gay,"

only to do honor to her aunt's young guests, and without a thought of vanity. She seemed only bent on pleasing them, and doing nothing to displease her cousin. And her cousin's jealous indignation certainly did not appear as ready to take fire as usual on this evening; his manner since the noonday crisis had been graver, and quieter, and kinder than of late. Her full toilet became her so extremely, he could not choose but look at her occasionally; and Cicily, gazing surreptitiously at them from her lonely corner, raged with jealousy at her unconscious beauty, and his too conscious notice of it.

There was a moment's lull in the dancing; Laura and

Lawrence, standing at the head of the room, were waiting for Dave, who was gathering himself up for a new figure; Laura's hand was in Lawrence's, and a pretty look of expectation and just-readiness was parting her lips, when there was a slight shuffle of feet and murmur of voices outside; the door suddenly opened, and Nattee came into the room.

"Here's a gentleman," she said, "asking to see the master of the house. Master Larry, can you speak to him?"

Dave's bow hung suspended in his uplifted hand, the envy died out of Cicily's eyes, and curiosity assumed its place. Nick forgot Katrina, Katrina forgot Nick, and all forgot the dance; every face turned to the door, "as sunflowers to the sun."

But Lawrence's was quickly turned back again to his partner's after the first sharp glance at the new-comer; she had forgotten the hand that lay in his, and he felt the start and flutter that passed through it as she recognized the stranger. The first moment,

"She went red as any rose, then pale as any lily;"

her lips parted as if to speak, then closed as if in pain; and Lawrence had to see it all!

The stranger was now within the room, and gazed about him with the bewildered look of a night-overtaken traveller thrust suddenly into a blaze of light and festive gaiety. He raised his hands from the folds of the military cloak that hung about him, and lifted his travelling-cap respectfully, then seemed to seek among the dancers for one who should claim to be the master of the house. Lawrence made a movement forward, and the stranger's eye that instant fell upon the lady at his side. If his look had been one of bewilderment before, it was one of wild incredulity and confused nightmare now. He gave a start, passed his hand across his eyes as if to reassure himself of the actuality of their vision, advanced a few steps and said, "It cannot be—Miss Sutherland!"

Laura's breath came rather quickly as she faltered: "Captain Lacy—I am so surprised!"

He murmured something inaudible even to Larry's attentive ear as he bent over her hand, something to which her only answer was a devouring blush and suddenly abased eyes. She almost recovered self-possession, though, as she presented the stranger to her cousin; there was something in Larry's manner so matter-of-fact and straightforward, that it very much recalled her to her senses. This was not dreaming after all, misty and unreal as it seemed: there was Lawrence, looking quite as tall and very much stiffer and manlier than usual, making the guest welcome to his father's house, and that guest, unconquerable petit maître and thorough fine gentleman as he was, through all his hardships and fatigues, was no other than the man of whom she had dreamed so long and for whom she had shed such bitter tears and sighed such weary sighs. It was like waking from a strange and extravagant dream, and finding its dramatis personæ standing coolly and dispassionately by your bedside, clothed in flesh and blood.

It did not take Captain Lacy many minutes to explain the chance that had thrown him upon Mr. Sutherland's hospitality. A hurried journey to New York, on matters of importance, undertaken without a guide and with no companion but his African attendant, had resulted, very naturally, in a most adventurous and uncomfortable manner. They had lost their way through the false counsels of a self-appointed Indian guide; they had on every occasion taken the most circuitous route to reach the nearest point; they had marched and counter-marched, forded creeks, labored through thickets, plodded through marshes, spent nights in the open air and days in the open country, and now, at the end of a hard-spent month, they found themselves very far from their journey's end, and very much bewildered as to their whereabouts and general surroundings.

"I hope," Lawrence said, with very magnificent courtesy as he paused, "that your troubles have ended here. I trust it will be in my power, after a few days of rest, to furnish you with a guide and letters that may render the remainder of your journey easy."

"The trials of a journey that brought me to your house, sir, would be insignificant if they were thrice the trials that I have just endured."

And Lawrence did not doubt at all his sincerity, following his glance to Laura's lovely face. A man might well consider himself repaid for a month of worse travelling than this, to stumble upon "the girl for whom his heart was sick," and to find her gracious and beautiful as ever, and capable of such intoxicating blushes on his account. Larry, possibly, two months ago, would have doubled Cape Horn or attempted in good heart the Northwest

Passage for half the remuneration. But let bygones be bygones.

The festivities of the evening suffered a serious interruption in consequence of the arrival of Captain Lacy and suite. Lawrence, on hospitable cares intent, was absent for some time, accompanying him to his room, and leaving his guests to the care of his young cousin, who for obvious reasons was a very unfit person to leave them with just now. She tried most heroically to forget who was in the house, and what had happened, but her efforts were crowned with very indifferent success. In the midst of the Dutch girls' "drowsy frowsy" talking, she found herself looking absent and uninterested, and she found too that Cicily was making a note of the circumstance, and in her extreme haste to get back into the subject discussed, she stumbled and blundered and got quite entangled in inaccuracies. Nobody seemed in the humor for dancing till the gentlemen should come back; indeed, the music had gone off to the barn to make acquaintance with the captain's suite, so it was a happy circumstance that the visitors did not care to dance. They lounged around rather uncomfortably, with the ill-at-ease look of people who are not much used to having their limbs and their time unoccupied; and poor Laura felt as if she were personally responsible for the heavy hanging of both. Nick and Katrina ate apples and whispered in a corner, and Laura wished from her soul they'd all eat apples and whisper in corners; but the others were of that loggy, unmanageable manner of guest that lies back to be entertained, and only goes when it is wound up to a game or a dance by the industrious entertainer, and stops with a click when the music or the game does. Cicily was in a most vicious temper, and would have spoiled the pleasure of a much more harmonious and convivial circle. Laura's pretty, timid efforts to conciliate her were quite unfortunate in their effects; instead of soothing they seemed to exasperate her, and comparative amiability only returned when the door opened and the reëntrance of Lawrence and his visitor, accompanied by Dave, proclaimed the resumption of festivities.

Cicily's eyes fairly danced at the sight of the red coat and gold lace of the stranger; she almost forgave him for staying away so long, and keeping Lawrence, he had made himself so magnificent. He would ask her to dance, and she would dance with him and make him fall in love with her, and in achieving this she would spite Laura and make Larry repent he had left her standing in the corner through that first set.

This assumed programme suffered a little derangement from the captain's going straight toward Laura when he entered the room, and beginning a conversation with her that seemed to have no reference to Cicily whatever. Lawrence gave a look around, and seeing the dead lock things were at, motioned to Dave to begin to play, and begged his rustic guests to resume their places for a dance. Cicily was forced to accept him in default of the captain, but was much mortified to find him too much preoccupied to notice her hauteur.

Now this dance was a most trying one to the young host, and taxed heavily his philosophy and manliness. He knew perfectly well the impression that it must make upon the stranger; he knew it showed his guests in an awkward light, and placed him in disadvantageous contrast with the well-bred man of cities. He had once boasted to Laura, in a never-to-be-forgotten interview, that he could measure himself with the men of old-world civilization and refinement, and make them and make the world acknowledge his equality. Now the time had come to verify his boast; here was the man who was to her the embodiment of civilization and refinement, and he must show her he could bear the test of contrast with him or must sink forever in her eyes. So while self-respect would not allow him to make any change in the programme for the entertainment of his guests provided before the arrival of this most unwelcome one, neither must pride and consciousness be suffered to affect in any wise his own behavior. He had never had much occasion for acting before; the people among whom his life had been chiefly spent were very glad to take him in whatever mood he happened to be, or with whatever manners he chose to assume. Lawless and easy, he was very sure of applause and admiration without seeking them in any way, and so it came doubly hard upon pride and self-love to begin for the first time to trim his behavior with his rival and his mistress looking critically on.

For mistress of his heart, though he did not acknowledge it to himself in the remotest manner, Laura was still, and would be, whoever he might attempt to install there in her stead. His arbitrary pride and mad self-will would only overthrow his own peace of mind, but would never banish her. He might make Cicily his wife—wiser men have done wilder things; he might hold her children in his arms, call her interests his, see her face before him daily, learn to require her presence, and to desire her love; but Laura would be mistress still. The tame, common household affection that he would have to give to Cicily would resemble love no more than the second childhood of man's life resembles his first. But Larry was too proud and too reckless to see this. Cicily was too confident and too selfish to see it, and Laura's seeing it could have done no good.

"Shall that man dance this dance, or shall he stand there by the fireplace leaning over Laura's chair, and watching us with a superior stare?"

Lawrence thought it over rapidly, and then decided he should dance. So he strode across the room and made him a short speech, in substance much as follows: There being a reel about to begin, Captain Lacy would be kind enough to take a partner. Miss Sutherland not being otherwise occupied. Captain Lacy would be kind enough to take her, and Miss Sutherland taking Captain Lacy, would be kind enough to instruct him in the Catskill fashion of rendering that dance.

Now Captain Lacy had not had the distantest intention of participating in that dance; on the contrary, he had promised himself the most sweet talk with Miss Sutherland by the fire, and Miss Sutherland herself had been confidently counting upon an escape from courtesy, and shuffle, and jig. Lawrence's invitation, however, admitted of no equivocation, and though the captain could have found it in his heart to have broken his stalwart young host's head for his impertinence, he could only make a most courtier-like and highly perfumed bow, and solicit the honor of Miss

Sutherland's hand for the reel. That poor young lady, looking very much frightened, glanced uncomfortably toward her cousin as she took her place, who made a short, stiff bow at her acquiescence, and returned to his partner.

Lawrence's dancing was quite as much of an improvement upon the dancing of the countrymen of those parts, as his general character was an improvement upon theirs. An occasional visit to Albany and New York had taken the edge off his social simplicity, and had given him glimpses enough of polite life to make him equal to almost any emergency, though it is very possible his clever, discriminating tact would have been sufficient of itself to have kept him from any offensive gaucherie. He did not suffer himself to be influenced by the damp awkwardness that fell upon the others at sight of the magnificent gentleman at the head of the room, but he determinedly entered into the honest, hearty, homely reel with a careless, manly freedom and abandon that Captain Lacy himself might have coveted.

The captain, indeed, it must be conceded, on this occasion came off second best. Larry had the advantage of entire familiarity with what he was about, and the help of a spirited and sprightly partner; while the captain, feeling very much above his business, proved himself quite unequal to it, and before he had completed it, lost much of his magnificent complacency, and much of the reverence of the beholders, besides extremely bewildering and distressing his partner. And in proportion as the lustre of the couple at the head of the room waned, the brilliancy of the couple at the foot of it increased. Cicily, all piquancy and animation, danced with her whole heart and soul, and Lawrence, catching new inspiration from her coquetry and confidence, threw a gaiety and wildness into his movements that saved them from being rustic, and gave them a picturesque extravagance. Nobody could help looking at the two, they were such a handsome pair, Cicily, in her red bodice and dark tunic, with face and eyes all aglow with spirit, and Lawrence, malgré top boots and brown jerkin, looking the very picture of a merry, manly, masquerading young aristocrat: the rustic, a stranger would have sworn, was put on with the dress, and would come off when it came off. Indeed, they were soon the objects of the room's admiration; the irregular reel began to drop apart, one after another stopped, and looked laughing and applauding at the two so spiritedly endeavoring to dance each other down.

Dave, entering fully into the spirit of the occasion, threw himself enthusiastically about as he played, and kept time with his entire body. Amen, peering in at the door, giggled, and chuckled, and whistled in a manner that was quite inspiring; and half a dozen woolly heads outside the window, with rolling eyes and shining teeth, added to the strangeness of the scene in Captain Lacy's eyes, and to its jollity in the eyes of the others. Laura looked wistful, and perplexed, and half admiring; and when Larry, laughing and panting, threw himself on one knee at the feet of the unconquered Cicily, and acknowledged his defeat. Captain Lacy said, involuntarily and with energy:

"As pretty a picture as I ever saw. Pray, who is the young woman?"

The young woman, at that moment, swept a destructive glance across the room as she accepted Larry's homage, and threw herself into a pretty attitude, giving him one hand, and with the other playing with the string of beads about her neck. But the strain upon the string was somewhat too sudden; it snapped, and the red baubles went rolling about the room in mazy recklessness.

The captain started forward in pursuit of them; Larry bent down to recover those within his reach; Nick scrambled off in another direction, and every man in the room was soon active in the service. This was a situation quite to Cicily's taste; she would have enjoyed scattering beads for them to pick up all night; she loved to be the prominent figure in a room, and to engage all devotion. It would have made Laura wretched to be giving so much trouble and attracting so much attention, but Cicily was in her element. When Captain Lacy brought gallantly back to her the handful he had rescued, she was so charming he could not go away from her again. If he had been twice as much in love with Laura as he was, he could not have resisted Cicily's insnaring coquetry. Neither did Lawrence choose to resist it for the moment, and the humbler swains stood gaping round, looking with unconscious admiration at the pretty dispenser of smiles, and wondering, in their clumsy minds, at the easy way in which she talked to the grand gentleman who had quite struck them cold. It would have taken a much grander gentleman than had then been built to have struck Cicily cold: her indomitable levity of character would have risen to the surface under the severest pressure of majesty imaginable, and the vanity that ruled her soul and body would have asserted its supremacy in the face of the most imposing presence that it could anywhere have met.

Laura was not given to jealousy; she had too much dignity and sweetness of soul to harbor long or often that most mean emotion; but it could not have been a pleasant sight, even to her, that lavish waste of manly homage upon unwomanly assurance. She only showed, however, when her cavalier returned, by a shade of paleness on her face, and the faintest tinge of hauteur in her manner, that she had felt at all the slight.

About that turn in the tide of affairs, Nattee came in with a huge tray of olecakes and apples and nuts, and Steady followed with a great tankard of spiced wine, and a multitude of jingling glasses. Cicily managed to have a good many wants, and to keep Lawrence pretty busy; but Captain Lacy had had too great an alarm on seeing the change in Laura's manner, to venture within the charmed circle of her coquetry again. He kept at a safe distance, and humbly tried to regain his mistress' favor by all possible arts of flattery and devotion. But Laura was not a transparency; people who knew her much better than this gentleman did, were constantly puzzled by her, and it was not strange that at the end of the evening, when the guests were gone, and she bade good-night to him and to Warren and Lawrance, with the sweetest possible grace and without the slightest apparent feeling, he was thoroughly perplexed to know whether he had lost her favor forever, or secured it entirely, or whether, after all, he had ever had the smallest claim to the possession of it.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE NOISELESS SNOW.

———"The gods approve
The depth, and not the tumult of the soul."

Wordsworth..

"Steady, you're to make Miss Laura's fire this morning, and you'd better be about it," Nattee called out to her young rival the next morning as she brushed past her with an armful of wood for the dining-room. It was very early, an hour before the early breakfast, almost in the grey dawn of the morning, and the house was very cold. Steady stood shivering by the sideboard, holding six well-rubbed knives in her hand, her one duty accomplished, and nothing more to fill up the time till breakfast. There was not the least use in the child's getting up so early; Salome and Nattee only scolded at her; but at the first movement in the adjoining room, the little Steadfast tumbled out of bed, and groped about for her clothes and said her prayers in the dark, and went down to rub her knives and to bring the kindling-wood for building the kitchen fire, and then to stand about ready to do anything or to get out of anybody's way, or to go anywhere she was told to go. She had never "slept the sun up" yet in all her faithful little life; she had said her prayers every morning before he came, ever since she had been old enough to say her prayers at all: it was no wonder that her days were such innocent and unoffending ones. It is very possible, that when she put her hands together and said, the last thing before she got up from her knees, "Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep me this day without sin," she did not know distinctly the meaning of the first and longest word in the petition, but the Lord to whom she made the prayer knew, and that was quite enough. Children bear sealed dispatches often to the Court of Heaven, their innocent fidelity and ignorant obedience being their surest passport to the royal hearing, so steadfastly denied to arrogant wisdom and self-reliant merit.

"What are all prayers beneath,
But cries of babes that cannot know
Half the deep thought they breathe?"

Steady's prayers were heard, her life told, and beyond that she had no need to look.

To-day, Steady was to make Miss Laura's fire and go and wake her up. She had never done it before, so she was a little slower of movement than ordinary, and stood pondering whether she should take up the shavings first, and then go out to the woodpile for the wood, or wait till she had got the wood and take both up at once. Salome was not in a mood to tolerate pondering, and she ripped out a fierce threat about "giving it to her" if she didn't stir herself, and Nattee gave her a push out of her way as she came through the sitting-room door. Steady sighed humbly, did not dodge the blow, but tried to "stir herself" in accordance with Salome's counsel. She raised the latch of the kitchen door and opened it, and a sheet of soft, cold, plumy snow blew into her face. A real look of childish enjoyment lighted her eyes as they met the welcome sight of the first snow of the year lying a foot deep on the ground. It had been falling steadily since midnight, not falteringly and caressingly, but in honest earnest. The wind was blowing and the air was thick with the flakes, careering about in every possible direction, snowing up as much as snowing down, Steady thought, whirling about as madly as they could before they reached their inevitable grave.

There was not a symptom of the path to the woodpile visible; but in she plunged boldly, going over the tops of her woollen stockings at every step, and feeling the light snow dance uncomfortably about her little naked legs. Her teeth chattered and her ears stung with the cold, but wrapping her fingers up in her long blue apron, she trudged on till she reached the site of that ancient pile. The light wood and chips she wanted, however, were deeply buried from human eyes; she had to uncover her stiff, red fingers, and prepare to disinter them. She had just dug down, with patient perseverance, to the spot where she had reason to hope to find them, and was struggling like a little woman to keep the snow out of her eyes and fill her apron with the chips, when, from some unknown quarter, a huge lump of snow descended, burying them again completely. Poor little Steady sighed, but meekly set to work at the task of disinterring the household treasures afresh. Her numb fingers had just reached the welcome sharp edge of the topmost chip, when down came the avalanche again. Three times the little unsuspecting renewed her work, and three times was it swallowed up in that mysterious descent. But the third and last time a dark suspicion seemed to enter her mind, and rising slowly she shaded her eyes from the drifting snow with both hands, and gazed in the direction from whence the avalanche had seemed to come. And there, by the well-pole, crouched Amen, too black to be hidden in such a white surrounding. He laughed a most villainous laugh, rising up out of the snow, and turning two consecutive somersaults, he looked back at her only to make that "odious, vulgar sign" mentioned by Mr. Thackeray, and then ran whooping off to the barn.

"You are a bad boy," said Steady, with distinct and solemn emphasis, standing perfectly still and looking after him. Her chest heaved with a smothered indignation, but that slow, measured sentence was all the expression that she gave to it. Then stooping down again, she renewed her labors, and secured at last her desired supply of incombustible matter. Poor little girl! when she got into the house, Salome scolded her for being so long, and Nattee rated her for bringing so much snow in on her feet. With a few dry shavings and a great many wet chips and an armful of damp wood, she arrived at last before Miss Laura's door, and, at infinite pains not to make any noise, reached up and raised the latch. But with a miserable fatality, the whole supply of wood slipped from her uplifted arms and fell with a stupendous crash upon the floor. Not only Miss Laura, but every soul in the house must be awakened by it, and Steady stood petrified amid the scattered ruins of her enterprise.

"I'm not asleep, Steady, don't be scared," said her mistress' encouraging voice. Steady gave a little sigh of relief, and glanced toward her. She had pulled the curtains of the bed aside as well as the curtains of the window, and with her half-raised head resting on her hands, was gazing out at the white snow-shrouded landscape. She had not at all the air of a young lady who had just waked up, she had evidently "shaken off drowsy-hed" long before Steady's advent. The nicest time in the world for thinking is while one's fire is being made; who would give a rush for a maid so velvet as not to wake one till the room is ready and there is nothing to do but to get up. The brightened blessing of one's pillow is never half so sweet as when the title to it is past, the luxurious sensation of repose is never near so exquisite as when its knell has sounded; that half-hour between waking and rising is worth all the peaceful night beside.

By and by Laura sank down on her pillow again and watched Steady light the fire, or rather attempt to light it. But scanty shavings, wet chips and damp wood are not a happy combination when ignition is desired. Steady wearied herself to strike a spark that would live long enough to produce a blaze in the tinder she held over it; but either Steady was clumsy or the tinder was poor, or the damp had infected both flint and tinder, for not once out of six times did the latter take fire, and when it did, it generally went out before it reached the shavings. At last, however, the shavings caught and roared up cheerfully; but even while Steady's brown eyes gazed affectionately at the flame, it sank down ignominiously, and having consumed the shavings and blackened the chips and drawn a few sighs from the wood, it expired in a little doleful smoke. Steady did not cry:

"She was not prone to weeping as her sex
Commonly are;"

but her great, disappointed eyes quite overcame her mistress.

"My little maid," cried Laura, conquering a smile, "I think you have done your very best; I think it is the fire's fault altogether. If you go down and ask Nattee, she will bring up some coals from the kitchen and start it quickly."

Steady went down, and Nattee soon made her appearance with the coals, but so sullen and silent as to provoke Laura's wonder. Nattee had a hundred things to do just then; Salome was storming furiously because the table was not ready. Lawrence had just called to Nattee for a shirt that had a button on it. The old man was growling portentously about his breakfast; the strange gentleman's attendant was waiting in the hall below for hot water, sweet cream, and nobody knew how many other requisites for his master's toilette; Mrs. Sutherland had one of her worst sick headaches and could not leave her bed, and upon Nattee all the hard work of the day promised to come. It was not balsamic, then, to see the dainty young lady lying so luxuriously in her bed, waiting for her room to be warm and pleasant before she ventured to set her foot upon the floor; to think that it was her right and her inheritance to be at ease and pampered, while it was her right and her inheritance to toil and get no thanks. Why was she made to differ? What was it but injustice and oppression that kept her where she was—subject to the caprices of Christian tempers, to kicks from Christian feet and cuffs from Christian hands? "On the side of their oppressors was power," Nattee thought, remembering last night's lesson, and through her mind went drifting blindly and uncertainly the words her teacher had read out of the great, grim, well-worn Bible on his knee: "Behold the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth, and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbaoth." Strange, wild reverberations the words awoke in her darkened soul, hardly thoughts, for she faintly comprehended them, but dumb, instinctive echoes of the denunciations of the prophet, fierce longings for the coming of the miseries of which he spoke, fierce thirstings for the revenge he never meant to teach.

"How strange and sullen the girl's eyes are this morning," Laura thought, watching her with half uneasy wonder. But when the door closed after her, and the new-built fire roared up the chimney, Laura turned her eyes to that, and her thoughts to the stuff of which her dreams, waking and sleeping, had latterly been made. It was not selfish, exactly; a woman is not always responsible for the way her thoughts turn and the color her dreams take.

The breakfast had been on the table some minutes before Miss Sutherland entered the sitting-room. The three young men stood around the fire, waiting for her appearance; old Ralph had had his breakfast half an hour, and had betaken himself and his pipe off to the workshop to do what in him lay to make the day a hard one for the men engaged there. Nattee stood behind her mistress' vacant chair, and fixed her quick eyes on Laura as she entered. A more careful toilet than usual, undoubtedly, a more timid, conscious, vacillating manner. What if, after all, this brave young officer, with his fine laced coat and bright black eyes, had come to marry her and take her off; Master Larry would get over it after awhile, for all he looked so stiff and ugly now, as the stranger stepped forward with officious gallantry to meet her, bending low.

"Laura, I'm afraid you'll have to take my mother's place this morning," he said, rather abruptly, as she approached the fire.

"Mayn't I warm my hands first?" she said, holding her pretty hands toward the blaze, while Captain Lacy, gazing at them, murmured something about

———"The fanned snow
That's bolted by the northern blasts twice o'er,"

and made a swift aurora tinge the whiteness of her face by his ill-timed compliment. Larry, rustic as he was, would never have committed the folly of saying a tender thing with two dispassionate male auditors between him and his mistress. He would be sharp, pungent, racy in his courtship, almost sneering, beyond dispute indifferent, when the world was listening; his touches of tendresse would be for her alone, when her heart was listening, when the world was out of hearing. Instinctively he would have known he had lost ground when he made her blush that sort of a blush; he would have known it had associated him in her mind with something uncomfortable and malapropos. A woman is always uncertain of herself when the world is certain of her conquest and is thumbing it curiously over and putting it in all lights before her; a wise man will keep the world as much in the dark about his passion as is convenient till he is pretty sure of its success. A lover who sits down before his mistress' heart and lays premeditated and acknowledged siege to it, may wear it out, but will not enter it in any way more gratifying to his pride. The attitude of a suitor is an unbecoming attitude; it must be assumed suddenly, tellingly, half unexpectedly; for only for a very brief space can a woman safely look down where she ought only to look up.

Laura took her place at the table very quickly, and experienced a sensation of relief when Larry began to interest himself in the matter of breakfast. She was sure he wanted to laugh about the "fanned snow:" she wondered what Warren thought of the whole affair, she wondered whether there would anything else occur to make her blush so; she wished herself out of the reach of criticism with all her heart. The conversation was some minutes in getting into an oily groove: Lawrence was scrupulously attentive to his guest, but stiff and silent; and this was his first meeting with Warren, so that, with the best intentions in the world toward each other, they did not fall into intimate social relations on the spot, which, considering their nationality and the characters of the two men, is not a circumstance to excite astonishment. If Laura had been at ease, all would have gone merry as a marriage bell, for a woman generally has it in her power to govern table-talk, however limited her authority may be in matters of more consequence.

If she has her wits about her, she can make herself a trait d'union between uncongenial talkers of the other sex, and bridge over the widest differences of sentiment between them with an artless laugh or an unconscious question. Her supposed inferiority, her simplicity of character, her ignorance of the causes of their uncongeniality, make a common ground upon which they may meet in harmony. But Laura had never been less at her ease in all her life, and so she did not mend the stiffness of the breakfast table in the least degree; neither did Lawrence mend her confusion by sending back his cup in the matter-of-factest way, with the intelligence that it had no sugar in it.

"I'm sure I'm very sorry, Lawrence," she said, with a blush.

"I'm sure I don't know why you should be," he said, as if he did know very well.

Warren, who caught then a suspicion of something uncomfortable, began to bestir himself in the way of talk, and introduced the war, and its happy termination. Captain Lacy was at home there, and talked so well as to inspire the young clergyman with a respect he had not felt at first sight of his fine gentlemanliness. From the war in Canada, they advanced by easy stages toward England and English politics, and still the military man was the best man of the three; in truth, he would have been a very poor man indeed, if he had not been at home on what he had principally been drilled, since his pastors and masters had begun his education. Lawrence had entered but very little into the political workings of the mother country; indeed, at that precise period there was nothing of sufficient dramatic interest to arrest the attention of one of just his mind; there was nothing in the latter part of that unheroic reign of the second George, to stir up his young blood to enthusiasm of any kind. When an ocean rolls between the stage of the theatre and the house, there must be some thrilling thing upon the boards to bring it down. Larry was of the second generation, and nothing bound him to England save a very slim sentiment of patriotism; but try to interest himself as he would, it seemed that he was partly weaned. He knew the leading events, the leading men, and had a general grasp of the political tendency of the age—but he felt no more personal and actual interest in them than the hot-blooded Young America of 1860 does in those same events and men. The great struggle was some fifteen years off yet, and Lawrence's heart was in the present.

Probably neither of those three young men, so nearly matched in years, so widely different in soul, had much anticipation of the tribulation coming, but of the three, Warren would catch the faint and far-off gleam the earliest. His was almost a prophet's soul, in cleanness, in clearness, in steadiness, in faith.

"Heaven only knows, sir, how you get at that!" cried the officer, half-impatiently, as in answer to some stuffed, self-sufficient assertion of his about the future of the colonies, Warren had said, thoughtfully, it seemed to him, their destiny, whatever it might be, was a destiny to be accomplished by itself, whole and entire, detached from any old world sovereignty, free and unrestrained to run its own course to glory or perdition, the greatest or the saddest chapter in the history of the world; and that the silence that intervened before its opening had already fallen.

"Heaven only knows how you get at that, sir."

"Heaven does know, I make no manner of doubt," Larry thought, then said aloud: "I wish you may be right, Warren. I should begin to love my country if I thought you were. I'm hanged if I've much affection for my stepdame; affection for stepdames is an acquired taste, any how; it doesn't bud i' the breast. And but that the dowager is such a keen old crone, I should have hopes of getting from her clutches and shaking off her powerful gripe. But she knows her cards too well to let us slip—such a lusty young daughter as Columbia may make her a great name yet, may stay her failing fortunes, and be the prop of her old age. If she doesn't love her, she'll coax her, she'll wheedle her, with chattering and toothless hypocrisy, into anything she chooses to dictate. She'll cuddle and fondle all the spirit out of her—she's begun to do it already"——

Warren shook his head, Laura looked white with horror, and the captain looked choked with wrath, and Lawrence went on enchanted:

"Yes, my dear parson, she's begun at it already. There isn't spirit enough to say her 'nay' in all the land; as Pertinax would tell you, Jeshurun has waxed too fat to kick—he'd lay down and roll before her in the dust, but he wouldn't, couldn't, daren't kick. No, no—she's stuffed our consciences with her maxims of loyalty, and our pockets with the gold we could have got without her, and our mouths with the bread which she chooses to call hers, and we must e'en be grateful and lick the hand that binds the halter round our necks. Ah! The good day isn't coming, Warren, yet awhile at least. Yankees, mean and lean, Dutchmen, fat and dull, Virginians, fawning, cringing, toadying—they're all the stuff we've got to make our heroes out of—the heroes that are to give us a land of our own to be patriotic about, not somebody else's land that we're allowed to live in, while we pay our rent and please our landlord."

"It will be some time before the heroes will be needed, in my humble judgment," said Captain Lacy, with a slight but lofty laugh. "My acquaintance, imperfect as it is, with the policy of the mother country, and with the matchless organization and efficacy of her forces by land and sea, makes the idea of resistance to her authority on the part of these scattered, thinly-peopled, defenceless colonies, something almost ludicrous in its extravagance."

"But it is just possible they may grow, you know, if she doesn't put a stone upon their heads," said Warren.

"Oh, she'll be ready with the stone, you may be sure," cried Larry. "Only let her look out it don't slip off and get fastened round her own neck in the struggle."

"She will look out," said Captain Lacy, significantly and shortly.

"May Nattee take the breakfast things away, Lawrence?" said Laura, rising uneasily.

"Yes, certainly," Larry answered, pushing back his chair and walking toward the window. Captain Lacy followed Laura to the fire, and Warren did not move.

"A dismal storm!" said Lawrence, turning from the window, and coming back to the fire. "Nattee, more wood, more wood!"

"Mr. Sutherland," said Captain Lacy, "I am afraid I am at your mercy to-day. I am afraid I am not brave enough to face that storm and turn my back upon this pleasant fire."

"The storm has only seconded my suit, Capt. Lacy. I should not have consented to your going if it had been the finest weather Catskill is capable of. You are surely entitled to a little rest, after so hard a journey, as also I am sure is your esquire, not to mention your horses, about whose melancholy plight I am much concerned. Why, sir, I vow I don't think the roan will be fit to leave the stable in a fortnight—I never saw a beast more thoroughly knocked up."

"You're speaking seriously?" the officer asked, with an anxious look.

"Most seriously. I went out to the stable before breakfast, to see if the men had looked properly after them, and I assure you I'm in earnest when I say, they're both in tolerably bad case. The filly your man rides, I find, is badly lamed—these rough mountain roads play the very deuce with the horses' feet. I ruined a fine young mare, some three years ago, on an expedition to Fort Hunter, late in the fall; and between the ice and the rocks, she hadn't a sound leg to bless herself with by the time we got there."

"You quite perplex me," said the captain, knitting his brows and walking once or twice across the room. "My errand admits of no delay—I should even now be at New York. I had only meant to indulge myself with a day's rest here, at furthest, and even that is of doubtful propriety. Could no horses, do you suppose, be found in the neighborhood that would serve our purpose? I shall be most unfortunately placed, if none can be obtained."

"Oh, as to that," answered his host, "you shall not want for a couple of horses, while there are so many standing idle in my father's stable; but you will find the roads almost impassable for the next few days. I give you my word, if this snow does not hold up, you could not get from here to Sopus to-day to save your commission. I haven't seen a heavier storm in years, and it's beginning to drift tremendously. You may be thankful you weren't overtaken by it up in the mountains. I sincerely advise you to make yourself as comfortable as possible here for the present; no conceivable blame can attach to you for not starting on in such a storm, and I promise you my most zealous assistance whenever it is suitable weather for your journey. A dull period, no doubt, you will find it; but, sir, consider it is better than being lost in a snow-drift on Round Top, or being storm-bound in an Indian wigwam. I can offer you chess, draughts, and cards, a good many old books, and a very few new ones, some tolerable ale and some capital tobacco, the 'Independent Reflector,' and a good fire. Be counselled, sir, and accept my offer."

Laura took this occasion for a quiet exit from the room; and when the guest, after his deep bow, raised his eyes to ask his mistress' permission to accept the tempting hospitality, there was no mistress present to accord it.

Laura knocked gently at, and entered noiselessly, her aunt's darkened apartment. She knew enough of headaches to be very unobtrusive, and peeped through the curtains of the bed as silently and softly as the first ray of dawn. The poor patient lady on the bed faintly extended her hand and begged her to sit down by her.

"I am very sorry, my dear," she said, speaking as if it hurt her, "I am very sorry to leave everything and go to bed, just when this gentleman's here. I hope Salome will take pains with things, and Nattee won't give any trouble. I tried to get up, but I could not. Was the breakfast nice, my child?"

"Oh, very nice, dear aunt. It could not have been nicer if you'd seen to it yourself. I think the coffee was the best we've had for a month—the cakes were as light as snow, and the birds were done to a charm. Larry, I know, was pleased with them, and Captain Lacy was helped twice."

"I am very glad," said the poor lady, with a sigh. "I only wish I were as sure of dinner."

"Oh, now, my dear Aunt Andria, please leave that to me, and don't think about it once. Salome's delightful to-day; I haven't heard her say a cross word (principally because she had not listened, it is to be feared, however), and Nattee's uncommonly steady. Everything will go on right, you may be very sure. Captain Lacy has been roughing it in camp for six months, and he will not be apt to notice whether everything is in perfect order or not."

"But your uncle will," murmured Mrs. Sutherland; "he's sure to find fault if I haven't attended to everything myself."

"He's sure to find fault either way," thought the niece; but she only said, "I think we are all used to my uncle, and will not mind it if he does."

"And I'm so worried about Larry," said the mother, turning her troubled eyes on Laura. "I'm afraid he won't be civil to the stranger. He's so self-willed, and takes such strong prejudices, and there's no turning him."

"Why, aunt, that's the last thing to be afraid of," cried Laura, quickly, and with animation; "he is wonderfully polite to Captain Lacy. He urges him to stay most earnestly, and pays him every possible attention."

"I'm very glad," sighed Mrs. Sutherland, in a relieved tone; "I was afraid he wasn't pleased last night when he came out into the sitting-room."

"Did he seem vexed?" Laura asked, rather hesitatingly, looking at her aunt.

"Why, yes, I thought he did. But perhaps it was only because he was afraid that Cicily would be taken with his fine uniform. Ah! poor boy!"

The tendency of Mrs. Sutherland's mind was so hopelessly to afflict itself, and the view she took of everything was so dark a view, it seemed useless to attempt to reason away her troubles; and Laura very wisely said,

"Let me read to you a little in à Kempis, Aunt Andria, won't you?"

"Yes, dear child. If you do not mind it," said the poor sufferer, gratefully.

And Laura took down from the high shelf above the fire place the old well-worn à Kempis, over which the poor lady's sad head had so many times been bowed, and which had filled up so many gaps in her hard, weary days. "Of the Highway of the Holy Cross" Laura read, and, it is needless to say, was the better for the reading. Young and old, rich and poor, scholar and peasant—all find they can sit at the feet of the humble-minded monk of Mount St. Agnes, "whom Jews might bless, and Protestants adore," and learn of him the things that make for their peace. With Laura, the book had the dearest associations, and was a daily study; it had been, for many years, poor Mrs. Sutherland's secretly-cherished comforter; Warren read it nightly, after he had put away his books of study; Pertinax read it aloud to himself, walking up and down his dismal cabin, and muttering his occasional approbation; and even Lawrence read it when he was restless, and "could not please himself" with either more learned or lighter books. That silent recluse has had a vaster audience, perhaps, than any mere mortal preacher ever had: different kindreds, and peoples, and tongues have heard him speak in their own language the wonderful works of God, and daily, it may be, have been added to the Church, through him, such souls as would accept salvation.

The look of trouble and despondency passed out of the listener's eyes, as Laura read; the best of us have memories so short, it helps us vastly to con our spiritual lesson over every day, to put plainly before our eyes every day whose we are and whom we serve, what we have renounced and what we must expect. If we trust solely to our memories, we shall be very apt to find them much fuller of the "things seen," most treacherous of the "things unseen." Poor Mrs. Sutherland, indeed, had found her life "signed on every side with crosses," and seemed in no danger of forgetting its grim lesson; but the teaching of love and grace, that was the key to all the gloomy problem, sometimes she failed to reach. She never ceased to be patient, she was of too gentle a nature, and too meek a faith for that; but sometimes the cross was ground too deeply in her soul to suffer her to see its meaning and be thankful for its pain.

"And how dare I seek any other way than this royal way, the way of the Holy Cross?" thought Laura, as she shut herself into her own room, to master her discontent.

And again and again she read, but could not yet assent: "Assure thyself thou canst not have two paradises: it is impossible to enjoy delights in this world, and after that to reign with Christ."

CHAPTER XIX.

FINE OR SUPERFINE.

"Dis-moi qui tu aimes, et je te dirai qui tu es."

Laura had been in to report the successful termination of the dinner anxiety to her aunt, and to cheer her with assurances of the entire neutrality of her uncle on the question of the stranger's visit, and his encouraging abstinence from insulting criticism on home matters, and had comforted and cheered the poor lady not a little; when, as she left the room, thinking of some fresh order for Salome, she hurried through the hall, and had opened the door of the sitting-room, and was half way across it, before she saw who was its only occupant. Now the storm, contrary to Larry's predictions, had begun to abate before twelve o'clock, the wind died away, the snow-flakes lessened every minute, and about one o'clock they had ceased altogether, and the sun came palely out, and the storm was a thing of the past. Capt. Lacy's spirits had not appeared to rise with the mercury, however, nor his content to shine with the clearing sky; and Ralph's remark that there had been just snow enough to make good sleighing, and the highway would be well-beaten before sundown, had thrown him into a very abstracted and uncomfortable mood. He endeavored manfully to interest himself in the table-talk, and to sustain his part, but he was evidently pre-occupied and uneasy, and glanced occasionally out of the window with an anxious, absent look, that clever young Mr. Sutherland was not slow in interpreting.

It was most perverse and unaccountable in this young gentleman, but he seemed to have no desire stronger than the desire to retain his guest. He was not contented with offering all necessary hospitality and entreaty, but he really seemed bent upon undermining his guest's conscientious scruples, and drowning all suggestions of duty with his subtle and seductive reasoning. Of course, he had too much intuitive good-breeding to press his hospitality or zealously urge his invitation, but it was very clear to Laura he was determined upon retaining him for another day at least. Now perhaps Laura ought to have thanked him very much for his assistance, but very perversely and unaccountably, she did not thank him in the least; indeed, it piqued her very much to see how cordially he seconded the stranger's suit. Perhaps he did not know the stranger was her suitor? It was not probable he had so soon lost the clue he had been so quick to seize the night he wound up that long, long ball of worsted, with his eyes upon her face. It was not probable that so clever a spectator had failed to see the little by-play that he was not meant to see; there was not the least chance that he had not seen all, and was not doing what he did designedly. And supposing Laura to be indifferent to all but the flattery of the devotion of both these men, she could not have been a woman, and not have resented the utter indifference that marked her cousin's course; for little as she may have desired it, she could not help knowing he should by right have been her lover, and had paid her a very poor compliment by falling in love with Cicily van Hausen. No woman thanks a possible lover for furthering the suit of one who ought to have been his rival, even if she wishes to have the suit furthered; the sweetest, fairest, most womanly woman that ever lived, has a strong, unconscious element of vanity in her composition that rises to resent the failure of a homage to which she feels herself entitled.

After a lengthened dinner and a prolonged smoke, Lawrence had proposed to Captain Lacy to go with him to the stable, and judge for themselves of the condition of the horses. There Laura now supposed them to be, until her abrupt entrance into the sitting-room, roused from his thoughtful attitude by the fire, the very last person with whom she was prepared to hold an interview. Not yet, not yet, is the thought that springs between a woman and her lover's declaration, be it welcome or unwelcome.

"How shall I escape," Laura's eyes said, as they met Captain Lacy's for an instant, in desperate confusion.

"Miss Sutherland," he said, starting forward, and speaking agitatedly and low, "may I see you a moment by yourself? You will not refuse me that, I trust!"

"Oh, no," said Laura, hurriedly, turning very white. "If you will excuse me for an instant, while I deliver a message from my aunt."

And she dissolved from his sight, and assumed bodily shape on the other side of the kitchen door. But what a palpitating, fluttering, frightened bodily shape it was, to be sure. Lawrence had just entered from out-doors, and was knocking the snow off his feet on the kitchen mat, when he found himself suddenly confronting his cousin, reddening and whitening, trembling and panting from her recent most imminent adventure. He knew who was in the sitting-room, ergo he knew what had agitated her so. It was not evident in his manner, for he was unusually self-possessed and easy—a sort of self-possession and ease which his ill-wishers might have called, on that occasion, impudence, perhaps, or at least, assurance. He kicked the snow very deliberately from his feet, and looked attentively at her, while Salome, lifting herself out of the bread-trough, said graciously:

"Well, Miss Laura, chile, what's wanted now?"

Why, what was principally wanted, was an asylum from the terrors of the other room, but for obvious reasons, Laura could not tell Salome so; and as for the errand on which she had come, she could not for her life remember it. What was it, what did her aunt want Salome to make for supper?

"I came to—I mean—my aunt wants—I've—I've forgotten what—for supper," she stammered, in confusion, while Salome stared in amazement, and Lawrence checked himself in a slight amused laugh.

"Better go back into the sitting-room and think it up, Laura," he said, carelessly, emptying his pockets slowly of some samples of grain and dried ears of corn, and doing nothing whatever to relieve her embarrassment. Nothing intentional that is, but in reality, that careless laugh had reinstated Laura's pride, and helped her memory considerably.

"My aunt wants you to make something for supper that she was speaking to you about last week—some new sort of warm bread, I think. I don't believe I ever tasted it: she said you knew the recipe."

"Love the chile! What is she talkin' about," murmured Salome, in bewilderment.

Now Laura had recalled the name very distinctly, but to acknowledge that, would be to admit that she had been in a state of embarrassment and agitation before, and that would be tantamount to admitting, either the gentleman she had left so abruptly in the sitting-room or the gentleman she had encountered so suddenly in the kitchen, had the power to excite and agitate her greatly, and such admission she could not allow.

"I don't think you have made it since I've been here," she went on rather quickly, but quite composedly. "I believe you used to make it last year. My uncle likes it very much; it is raised with yeast, and has eggs in it, if I remember right."

"The chile can't be talkin' 'bout pumpkin bread, you don't think, Massa Larry, now?" cried Salome, throwing herself into an attitude.

"Upon my word, I can't think anything about it, Salome; but as a matter of speculation, I might say, I didn't much believe 'the chile' knew exactly what she was talking about herself."

"The chile," a very pale one at that moment, turned her back upon the speaker, and picked her way daintily to the fireplace, saying:

"Yes, it was pumpkin bread my aunt wanted, I remember. She told me this morning, but I forgot to tell you."

"Pumpkin bread! Three o'clock! Ready 'gainst supper-time!" ejaculated Salome, in a voice bristling all over with exclamation points. "Massa Larry, what d'ye think o' that—what d'ye think o' that, for a young woman goin' on twenty? Cicily could tell her better, eh, Massa Larry? Cicily wouldn't be askin' to ha' pumpkin bread raised up in a couple o' hours, now would she, massa—come, now would she?"

Larry gave a short laugh, and said he didn't believe she would. "But since when did Cicily get into your good graces, Salome, I'd like to know? If I remember right, you didn't adore her formerly."

Salome, cunning old hypocrite, did not adore her then; but she had cleverness enough to see she was likely very shortly to call her mistress, and that the sooner she conquered aversion and began devotion the better for herself. She had had a glorious easy life under Mrs. Sutherland, senior, but she saw rocks ahead, when the black eyes should come into power. She would see, however, what flattery could do, though her whole soul revolted from the change; she would hold by the administration while her powers of dissimulation lasted. Salome was a shrewd, selfish old woman, not destitute of good feeling and a certain sort of faithfulness, but quite unembarrassed by anything like principle or sincerity. She was fond of Massa Larry; he was "her boy," and the only living thing she did care for, except a superannuated hound who had the freedom of the cellar, and who was honorably lodged in the chimney-corner whenever he would accept that hospitality. She hated her master with the most generous and unstinted hatred, and was not sparing in the expression of it, except in his very presence, knowing that it was the sentiment of the household, and an understood thing. She was ungracious and surly half the time with Mrs. Sutherland, knowing quite well how far she could go, and going to the very end of her rope. Of Larry she had to beware, and perhaps that was the reason why she was fond of him and flattered him and petted him to the last degree. Laura she had at first made much of, as the possible mistress of the house, but recent indications guided her wisely to pay her court to the young termagant of the black and flaming eyes.

"Ah," she cried, not slow to notice she had interested him by what she said, though he was busy about the grain, of course, "ah, Massa Larry, I didn't use to like her when she was a rompin' tomboy thing, wi' jest the wickedest ways o' any critter goin'; but now she's growed up inter sich a likely young woman, I say let bygones be bygones. Such a thrifty, tidy housekeeper as folks says she is! It'ud be a shame to be a twittin' her with it, that she used to be wilder'n a hawk. I don't think so much o' her bein' handsome; there's plenty o' handsome ones as isn't worth their salt (a back-handed slap at Laura); but she's a gal's as is good for something 'bout the kitchen, and keeps things goin', so I've heard folks say. I can't abear to see young women tendin' o' their white hands, and bein' waited on. Let 'em put their shoulder to the wheel, I say, and"——

"And the wheel'll be apt to go round," said Larry.

"Exactly," Salome responded, not quite pleased with being helped to the end of her sentence so fast, however, and with a very doubtful sense of the good faith of her assistant. She ceased rather abruptly singing Cicily's praises, and turning round, exclaimed in a scratchy, snarly sort of way, that that Nattee was the pest of her life. Why didn't she go about her business, and not stay pottering over that kettle of coffee all the afternoon. It was scorched blacker'n Rube's face half an hour ago; and sniffing around wrathfully, she proclaimed it was burnt to a cinder. There were grounds for such an assertion. Nattee, who had been stirring the coffee absently for some time, looked up with keen interest when Laura came into the kitchen, and the coffee had a vacation during the dialogue that ensued. She did not move or speak, but still half-kneeling, with her hand suspended over the fragrant kettle on the fire, and her head turned over her shoulder, she watched with keenness alternately Lawrence's and Laura's face. And when Laura came toward the fire and stood before it, and thinking herself unwatched, with an irrepressible gesture twisted her hands together and bit her lip, Nattee's eager eyes, burning on her face, recalled her sharply to self-control. An indignant, startled look the girl got for her impertinence, much such a look as Lawrence had given her under the grape-vine yesterday. She was guilty of having seen her master's passion in his eyes and her mistress' emotion in her gestures; by every law of justice and humanity, she should suffer for her wonderful audacity. Her eye did not sink under Laura's glance, it flamed that "old wrathe" back upon her of which her heart was full.

Salome, sniffing about portentously, scented unmistakably the burning coffee, and waddled over to the fire; standing with arms akimbo before it, she delivered herself of a scathing rebuke to the lackless priestess of Mocha, and commanded her to take the kettle over to Massa Larry for his further conviction of her enormities.

"I won't touch it," she muttered, rising sullenly.

"You won't!" cried Salome, with a scowl of rage and a falter of astonishment. "Ef you don't take that there kettle this minute over to Mass' Larry, I'll see you well thrashed 'fore sun down. I'll tell ole massa every word."

"Tell him, then!" cried Nattee, with sudden passion, flinging the ladle across the kitchen and glaring like a young tigress. "Tell him I don't care for him nor his thrashings, ner for you ner your lyings. Tell him I'm glad I burnt the coffee, an' I'll do it next time, if I choose."

"Massa Larry, hear that, now, will ye!" exclaimed Salome, with a wicked sense of triumph.

"What good will my hearing it do?" he returned, going on with his work.

"No good," cried Nattee bitterly, "for he don't care whether I'm thrashed or not. He wouldn't raise a finger if the ole man was killin' me. No good; you needn't ask him to listen."

"Raise a finger, indeed!" ejaculated Salome, scornfully, "Ef he sarved ye right, he'd raise a horsewhip over ye. It's all along o' his an' the missus' easy ways that ye're the good-fer-nothin' that ye are—the pest o' the house, lazy, shiffless, pryin' thing, meddlin' in everybody's business but yer own."

"Salome, that's enough," Lawrence said, with quiet authority, turning to leave the room.

"Yes, yes," muttered the old woman in a suppressed tone, not able to head off the stream quite so suddenly, "it's all very fine now; wait till there's a new missus here, we'll see ef Nattee won't have to stan' round then."

"I'll die first," cried Nattee, with flashing eyes. "Ole missus or new missus, you'll see if I'll be put upon—you'll see if I'll bear it any longer. I won't lie an' cheat like you, but there's other ways beside lyin' and cheatin' to show I'm made o' flesh an' blood, an' can sting back when I'm hurt too hard."

"You young cuss!" hissed Salome between her teeth.

"Nattee knows better than that," Lawrence said, as he passed out of the door. "Nattee knows she's had as much kindness as she has deserved all her life, and more, most people say. You have been a good girl and faithful so far; don't spoil it all now."

There was something in his tone, kind but firm, determined but forbearing, that brought a sudden tempest of tears to poor Nattee's eyes, and as the sitting-room door closed after him, the attic door fell to after her as she bounded up the stairs, blinded and panting, to fling herself upon her low bed and sob out her misery alone.

"Aye, aye," muttered Salome, tightening her fat fist and looking most satanically ugly in her soliloquy, "aye, aye, mighty soft-hearted is Massa Larry. Wonder how it 'ud ha' been ef Amen, or Dave, or ole Salome, had sassed him so. A purty mulatter wench's a different sort o' thing from a nigger boy black as a coal, or an ole woman ugly as the devil. Oh yes, my massa, bless yer heart, I know ye—I know ye. Let Salome alone for seein' through folks; while they ain't a lookin', she's a readin'. She knows a thing or two; she could tell 'em more'n they could tell 'emselves, maybe. She knows what makes Nattee's eyes blaze so, and what makes Massa Larry so terrible forbearin'!"

She had almost forgotten that she had an auditor, till an indignant "Salome!" escaped from Laura's lips, and the old woman glanced at her, and started to find a look of unutterable surprise and anger on her face. Salome, after a moment's scrutiny, gave an inaudible chuckle, and subsided into good nature. Possibly she thought she had found something new to read.

"I don' mean nothin', my chile," she said, "nothin'. Salome gits a little crossish onst in a while—a little crossish when she sees the young folks doin' jist what they're a mind to do, and the ole folks bein' put down. An' it ain't i' the natur' o' a fine young man like Massa Larry not to feel a little sort o' sorry for a wench that's allers been workin' her fingers to the bone to please him, ever since he was a laddie. He thinks more o' her naturally than o' ole Slomy, who's sarved him all her life, and who'd die fur him any day—any day."

And Salome sighed like a great black furnace as she was. But all her sighs could not simulate the loyalty, and misery, and devotion of poor Nattee's tears, and Laura turned away, doubly disgusted and dismayed.

"Stay, Miss Laura, chile," quoth the old woman, softly, following her. "Stay a minute. Don' you go now and say anything 'bout my bein' out o' temper, will ye? Don't twit Massa Larry 'bout his not scoldin' now, my chile. It might make trouble. It's all nothin'—nothin'."

"Your master would be very angry if I should tell him what you've said," Laura returned, shrinking with involuntary disgust from the familiarity of the great black hand laid on her arm.

"Oh," said Salome, a little alarmed, and a good deal "riled." "Oh, ye mustn't take all Slomy's jokes to heart. Massa Larry wouldn't know what ye was talkin' 'bout ef ye did tell him. Massa Larry never thought o' sich a thing—never!"

"If he did!" thought Laura, as, with a haughty step and a very pale face, she left the kitchen.

Oh, that she could have escaped the sitting-room just then! How could she look at Lawrence, and endure his presence after what that dreadful old woman had suggested. She could hardly control her face, or govern her voice as she entered the room. Captain Lacy, a glance told her, was leaning against the mantelpiece, watching anxiously the door; Lawrence was sitting before the fire, leaning forward, holding Kelpie between his knees, and laughing oddly and merrily at her failures to sustain herself in an upright attitude. Somehow, that scene with Kelpie and Nattee, and the fishing-tackle at his feet, flashed across her mind. If Salome had been right!

Captain Lacy gave a despairing look toward Lawrence, and started forward to place a chair for her. At that moment Warren entered from the hall, and blasted her hopes of retreat.

"Do you want your embroidery-frame?" he said, as she sat down with a nothing-to-do, uncomfortable air, in the chair the captain placed at one side of the fire.

"Yes, thank you," she said, gratefully, feeling that if she had to stay it would be unspeakably a relief to have occupation for eyes and hands.

The frame stood in the farthest corner of the room. Warren and Captain Lacy both started for it at once, one dutifully, the other enthusiastically. It was rather a light thing to be carried by two able-bodied men, and there was something in a faint degree funny in the scene. Lawrence caught it, as he always caught the ludicrous, before any one else, and looking up, he said, with a laugh in his eye:

"Excuse me, Laura, for not going too. I didn't see till 'twas too late."

Laura flushed angrily, not feeling a bit disposed to laugh—anything else—and accepted her admirer's service without looking up.

"Steadfast—let's have some more wood," cried Larry, pulling Kelpie's silken ears and glancing over his shoulder at the little maiden by the side-board.

Larry had a passion for a jolly fire, and his calling for wood then showed he meant to enjoy an idle hour before it, and Laura's spirits revived; she was safe from the tête-à-tête at least for that time. Warren sank down languidly upon the settle, and the captain was obliged to content himself with a chair opposite, commanding a good view of Laura bending over her embroidery, and Larry beside her pinching his favorite's ears. Steady's replenishment of wood blazed up lustily, doing the little woman's heart good as she leaned against the jamb and gazed at it. Altogether, the room, homely though it was, was quite attractive enough to make the idea of starting out in the face of the cold wind extremely distasteful to the traveller. He did not think he had ever seen anything more ravishing than the contour of Laura's head bowed over her work, and the shade of her hair with the firelight playing on it; he had never known anything more tempting and homelike than the whole air of the room; its snugness, and warmth, and comfort appealed to his indolence and self-indulgence, its picturesqueness and oddity seduced his cultivated eye. He was spell-bound, enchanted; how should he break the spell? Every glance out at the sunbeams slanting across the snow gave him a goading thrust; every glance in upon the head stooping over the embroidery riveted his chains. He could not, would not, stir till he had had his answer; à bas conscience, à bas all but love.

"I am glad to see," said Warren, by way of being civil, "that you have concluded to remain. It would have been a most useless exposure to have started this afternoon."

"Upon my word, I don't know that I have concluded to remain," exclaimed the military gentleman uneasily, getting up and walking to the window. "I don't know but it is best to start to-night. If we got under weigh immediately, I think we could make a few miles before dark, and be ready to start earlier in the morning than I should choose to disturb you, if I accepted your hospitality for another night."

"Captain Lacy, you are incorrigible," cried Larry, tossing back the brown curls from his forehead, as he lifted himself up, and pushed Kelpie away. "I never threw away so many arguments upon any one before. I see you don't intend to be influenced by me. What more can be done? If my mother were here, she would throw the weight of her entreaty into the balance; and perhaps a woman's pleading might turn it in our favor. In her absence, what shall we do? Laura, can't you speak to him? See if you can move him?"

Laura looked up with a most unaccountable coldness, and an unwarrantable, though almost imperceptible, curl of the lip, and said steadily:

"Is there anything I can say, Captain Lacy, to induce you to remain?"

"Say that you desire it and advise it, Miss Sutherland," he said, eagerly, in a tone that failed notoriously in its intended rôle of nonchalance and trifling.

"I do desire it and advise it," Laura answered, quietly, without raising her head again, but feeling Lawrence's searching blue eyes on her face.

A few moments more of faintly urged objections and the matter was ended, and Captain Lacy threw himself into his easy-chair by the fire with undisguised satisfaction.

"You should rough it in a Canadian forest for a twelve-month, Mr. Sutherland," he said, "to appreciate the comforts of such a home as this; though I dare say you do not undervalue it now."

"Alas! my good sir, I fear I am of the 'always-to-be-blessed' school. I acknowledge to finding a farmhouse a lamentably slow abode at just my years. Entre nous, I'm tired to death of doing nothing, and as my mother isn't within hearing, I may venture to say, if there's any prospect of business at Quebec, you may count on seeing me before the opening of the spring campaign."

"Thanks to the 8th of September, my dear sir, I am afraid you'll find Quebec a duller place than this: Canada is ours; Monsieur will never raise his head again there, though he swears and gesticulates at a fearful rate, helpless as he is. I feel the fun is over, and heartily wish we may be ordered home before the spring opens. But it is a thousand pities, if you longed for action, that you did not set your face northward a year ago. You would have seen a glorious day, sir, if you had—a day worth twenty years' of exposure, fatigue, and disappointment."

"Ah, if!" exclaimed Larry, impatiently, bringing his hand down on the arm of has chair, resoundingly, "The business of my life has been to miss opportunities; nothing but the merest chance detained me at home. Two years ago this autumn, I had every arrangement made for joining the army—family matters alone stood in the way of my plans."

"Alone!" repeated Warren. "It strikes me, Larry, it must be a pretty loud call from king and country that drowns the call of family in an honest man's ears. I do not think you can reproach yourself for your decision; it was love of adventure sacrificed to filial duty, and though I've never had an opportunity of telling you before, let me say, I have honored you for it, ever since I heard of the occurrence."

"Ha! Master Parson, have you taken to fine speeches? Upon my word, I thought better of you. I begin to suspect you wear the badge of one Ignatius Loyola somewhere beneath your garments. Reserve your praise till my virtue is a little older; I won't do to swear by yet. Please heaven, I am off before two months are over to hunt Cherokees in the Carolinas, sail before the mast to the West Indies, or failing those occupations, to turn highwayman or pirate. Anything to blow off the cobwebs."

"Anything to get rid of your duty, you mean."

"Yes, that's what I mean, parson."

"Well, we will not quarrel, Larry; but you cannot frighten me, I know you much too well."

"No, I'm hanged if you do!" cried Larry. "You're a very decent fellow, and very clever, as parsons go, but you haven't seen through me yet. Thunder! I shouldn't wonder if he'd put me down on his list with Steady and Rube, under the head of hopeful."

"You give me credit, then, for a larger charity than I deserve," said the young clergyman, quietly, but in a tone that was quite divested of badinage. Warren never gave the impression of being strait-laced and unbending; he had not forsworn laughter, but his wit was held in strictest curb, and never, even in the remotest degree, trenched on the ground his office covered. The care of souls was too rigid an employment to allow of much relaxation, and his relaxations, whenever he took them, must be most distinct from that employment. No light or trifling word must ever be admitted in connection with it; no foolish talking or jesting ever be allowed to lower the sense of its importance in his own mind or in the minds of others. It required a firm and delicate hand to draw the line; but Warren's hand was firm and delicate, and he drew it most correctly. If he had been a man of the world from his youth, he could hardly have had greater knowledge of the world than his intuitive perception of character gave him. Such clearness of sight is apt to make a man keen, and cold, and sneering; but the star of Warren Sutherland's heavenly wisdom had early risen, high and pure above the lights of his earthly wisdom; his faith had eclipsed his shrewdness, his charity had outgrown his wit, his earnestness had overtopped his mirthfulness.

"The only minister," as Captain Lacy had said to Lawrence that morning, after breakfast, through clouds of smoke, "the only minister I ever saw who did not tell funny stories about his brother ministers, and recount the blunders of clerks, and choirs, and sextons."

"I like to see a man that has the sense to magnify his office, or at least to dignify it," Larry answered. "Warren Sutherland would have added consequence and strength to anything he might have undertaken; he has undertaken the greatest duty that a man can undertake, and he fills it greatly."

Short, strong, and sudden, certainly; and he of the red coat was not entirely sure he heard aright; it was a very extraordinary sentiment to come from such a highhanded, laughing, reckless, prodigal-son style of fellow as his young host. But before he had rammed the idea through his buckram and broadcloth, Larry was back again to commonplaces and he only remembered the remark that afternoon, to wonder still more at the familiar disrespect with which the young man treated the object of his veneration.

"Warren," he cried, snapping his handkerchief in Kelpie's eyes, who lay with her nose upon his boot, "Warren, I was wondering, the other day, what you'd do with a huge fortune, if you had it. It was a question with me whether you'd buy up and send home all the slaves in the British dependencies, and enjoy the sight of a black streak of colonists all the way from here to Africa, or whether you'd get communion-services and altar-cloths for all the English churches in the colonies. I can't make out whether you stake your hopes of salvation upon your churchmanship or your philanthropy."

"Shall I say it has been equally a question with me whether you most pride yourself upon your irreverence or your insincerity?" said Warren.

"Why, no, I wouldn't have you say it," Lawrence returned, with a laugh, "for it might raise a doubt in my own mind, and at present I am equally balanced about the matter of self-respect. I have no particular bias in favor of either hypocrisy or heathenism, but grow both under the same glass."

"Then I will not attempt to unsettle your complacency," said Warren, in a voice that was quite end-of-controversy in its tone, though thoroughly well-bred and quiet. Lawrence accepted the edict, though he would not have received it from any one else, and contented himself with a wicked look of significance at him and another twist of Kelpie's ears. Laura, commendably anxious to change the theme, asked Captain Lacy, abruptly, if he had often books from home, and if papers reached him regularly in Canada.

"Very irregularly," Captain Lacy said. "I fear, Miss Sutherland, I shall get very rusty in all that appertains to letters. It is the worst feature of this business of expatriation.

One feels wretchedly lost, when one gets home, to find even the children ahead of one in the literature of the day. I have left strict orders to have all the periodicals and new books of note forwarded to me, but I find I am very indifferently supplied. Out of sight, out of mind, even with booksellers, Miss Sutherland."

"If it only stopped with the booksellers!" said Laura, half involuntarily.

"By the way," remarked Captain Lacy, "I have not thought before to ask you of our friends at Briarfield and Hiltonbury Park—do you hear often from them, and are they well?"

"I do not hear very often," said Laura, looking down. "They have been on the Continent this summer, and in travelling, you know, one does not find much time for letter-writing."

"How many regrets you must feel for that beautiful Parsonage!" said Captain Lacy, with truly remarkable awkwardness of judgment. "Into whose hands has it passed?"

"It is unoccupied," Laura returned, in a low tone; and Captain Lacy went on to recall his memories of it, and of the church and neighborhood, while Warren sat looking steadily and quietly into the fire, not expressing by look or gesture the pain it gave him to hear that discussed which even with Laura he did not dare fully to revive. After the first shrinking in Laura's mind, however, there was a reaction; it became a delight to talk with one who knew and admired those scenes so much, and who only remembered them with pleasure, not as Warren did, to whom her most innocent recollection was a pang. Larry watched her thoughtfully, as she was gradually drawn into the current of reminiscence; she dropped her work from her hands, and leant forward on her embroidery-frame, with a look of animation on her face that he had never seen there before.

"Was not that a sweet morning," she said, forgetting that she had any auditor but Captain Lacy, "the morning of the archery meeting. I never shall forget it; the lawn was so green and velvety, and the people were so gaily dressed, and everything had such a festival look."

And the officer forgot he had any other auditor, as he said in a low voice, "And the walk through the silver birches."

"Ah," exclaimed Laura, "there are no such woods here as the Hiltonbury woods. These vast forests are so strange, so wild, I am half in awe of them. I shall never learn to love them as I did the woods at home. The tangled underbrush and briery thickets give me a sense of desolation and strangeness. I long to see the sunshine flicker down upon the sward once more, and to catch glimpses of the sky through the dark stems of English oaks! But I suppose it's only because I am timid and foolish; I often think how different it would be with Georgy. She used to drag me away with her to a desolate old estate adjoining Hiltonbury, where there was almost a primeval wilderness of beeches and firs, and enjoy nothing more than the wildness and solitude of it, and the danger which my fears helped her to believe in. She hated parks and pleasure-grounds, and longed to be away from them all. But Georgy was always impatient of home."

"How great a contrast Miss Gregory formed to you!" said Captain Lacy. "I have often thought of it. Do you remember the morning after the archery ball, when I was so happy as to be admitted to the library, where you and she sat reading?"

"Oh, how well I remember that morning!" exclaimed Laura, with lustrous eyes. "I was trying to make Georgy read the 'Faerie Queen' and like it; but she could not; she never seemed to understand it, even though she read it so well. Don't you think she read very well, Captain Lacy?"

"Why, no, Miss Sutherland. It seemed to me she read almost too impatiently, too rapidly; her thought ran before her voice and left it to do its work alone. I noticed it particularly when she read what she most admired, that passage from 'Rasselas.' "

"Ah yes, I remember that; 'Rasselas' was just new, and we had finished it only the week before. But is it not strange, one with so strong feeling as Georgy and such a fine fancy, should not love Spenser?"

"I remember," said Captain Lacy, "that she said of him, she exhausted herself with disposing of his eccentricities and reducing his metaphors to reason before she got at his thought, and when she got it it was hardly worth the pains. She had thought it herself, in common language, half a dozen times."

"That was more than half perversity though, because Warren and I liked it so much; but it was partly honesty; purely imaginary works never gave her real pleasure, only strong, stirring human things kindled her enthusiasm. She never would read my fairy books when we were children, and stuck pins in the pictures of Christian in 'Pilgrim's Progress' when her mother condemned her to it on Sunday afternoons. Poor Georgy! I wonder if she wouldn't prefer Allegory to Reality now!"

"Is she still at Briarfield, Miss Sutherland?" asked the gentleman.

"No," faltered Laura, casting a frightened look toward her brother, remembering for the first time what pain she must have been inflicting, "I think—we heard—that is—she was to be married on the first of this month."

"Ah, indeed! Not to Sir Charles?"

Laura made a gesture of assent and bent over her work.

"I am surprised at that," went on the unconscious torturer. "I could not help seeing Sir Charles' devotion, short as my stay at Borringdon was. But I thought her reception of it anything but indicative of hope for him. She liked the love, but not the lover; and though I thought time perhaps might wear her resistance out, I never could have believed she would have sacrificed herself so soon."

"It did not surprise me. Captain Lacy," Laura said, in a low tone. "I knew Georgy was ambitious."

" 'The infirmity of noble minds,' " he said. "Nevertheless, Miss Sutherland, does it seem to you in character for Miss Gregory to marry her cousin, of whom she was always sure, before she had tried the world at all, or received her meed of homage, or indeed before she knew her own mind? I cannot but be surprised at it; I thought there was too much romance and self-will as well as worldly wisdom about her; though perhaps she has suffered some reverse of fortune, some disappointment that has brought her to it in desperation."

"No, none that I know of," Laura said sadly; but before she had ended her sentence, the door closed after Warren, and Lawrence, striding after him, would have left them to the dreaded tête-à-tête, had not Steady, who had stolen to the window and was gazing longingly out into the snow, exclaimed, startled out of her habitual decorum, by some unusual apparition, "Oh, Miss Laura! oh, Master Lawrence! Look, look what's coming!"

And Lawrence, in no mood to be pleased with anything that might come, and Laura, unable to think of anything just then but the Hiltonbury coach in all its familiar and well-remembered glory, turned away from the window after their hurried glance out, with a disappointed "Oh! is that all?"

CHAPTER XX.

A SLEIGH-RIDE.

"The world belongs to the brave."

Lawrence was a notoriously ungrateful rascal, or he would never have said, "Is that all?" when he looked out of the window, for he beheld Cicily van Hausen being lifted from a mass of buffalo robes and blankets, by the stout arms of Nick van Vechtin, and set upon her feet inside the gate, upon the shovelled path that led to the front door. Cicily looked as bright and pretty as possible as she glanced coquettishly back upon the sleigh-load of youths and maidens outside the gate, who cried out to her in Dutch to make haste, and to whom she responded in the same clumsy speech, that she should be just as long as ever she could be. The horses shook their great jangling bells, the youths and maidens laughed their merry, careless laughter, the sun was just going down clear and golden, behind the icy Catskills, leaving the vast white glittering lowlands still aglow; and all the scene, with Cicily, rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed, in the foreground, should have struck Master Larry with delight and admiration. Instead of which, he ground his teeth and swore an inoffensive oath under his breath, and then met Cicily and Nick half-way down the path with a most hypocritical smile of welcome.

"Quick, quick!" cried that imperious young beauty. "Where's Miss Sutherland? We've come for her; we're going over to Vrow van Bokkelin's—such splendid sleighing—there's two loads of us, and we're going to stop for the Schunemans. Quick! don't waste time; they'll be out of patience."

Lawrence saw in a moment how it stood; there was no help for them, they must go; so after conducting the two pioneers into the sitting-room, and enjoying Laura's blank, overwhelmed speechlessness for one or two minutes, he said: "Oh, well, we'll go, of course. Laura, you had better wrap up well, only be quick."

"But, Lawrence, my aunt"——

"Oh, Nattee can do everything for her; you must go."

"But Warren may not want"——

"Oh, Warren will understand; there's no use in asking him to go. Captain Lacy, there is a fur cloak at your service, but you are used to the cold. Nick, won't the rest of 'em come in while Miss Sutherland is putting on her wrappers?"

"No, no," said Nick, sturdily. "They can't unpack again."

Poor Laura gave a troubled glance out of the window at the promiscuously packed sleigh-loads, and Lawrence's heart was smitten with compassion for her.

"I'll tell you, Cicily," he said, "there isn't room enough for three more people in either of those sleighs. Let them drive on, and the men shall get the black nags before ours in no time; you stay and go with us, and we'll overhaul 'em in less than a mile."

"Very well," said Cicily, contented with any arrangement that bestowed her upon Lawrence.

"And Katrina?" murmured Laura, hesitatingly, full of the haunting horror of a tête-à-tête, "Will she not go with us?"

"Perhaps so," said Lawrence. "I'll go and see. Come, Nick."

In marvellously quick time it was all effected; the spur of Lawrence's strong will never was applied to better purpose; in ten minutes the black nags stood before the gate, shaking their unaccustomed bells with more curiosity than complacency, and jerking the narrow, high-backed sleigh alarmingly with their spasmodic restlessness. Rube held their heads with the hand of a master, while Lawrence lifted Laura in, buried to the eyes in fur, then handed Katrina to the seat beside her. Cicily sprang in and appropriated the front seat and seized the reins, while Captain Lacy was condemned to that intermediate state which, in old-fashioned sleighs, was no imaginary purgatory, being a narrow, backless, uncushioned board, ordinarily consecrate to such minors or servitors as were obliged to travel with the family.

"Captain Lacy, I am afraid you have not a very comfortable seat," said Lawrence, looking back the first minute that he could spare from the horses.

"On the contrary, it is most comfortable, Mr. Sutherland," returned the guest, seeing only that it was opposite to Laura's.

The black ponies, famous alike for their ill-looks, bad temper and good going, had put down their shaggy heads, and were making telling use of their shaggy and uncouth legs. They were going like the wind—indeed, the wind proper, of which there was not much, was at their backs; enveloped in furs and wrappers as the party were, it was impossible to feel the cold. Laura sank down in this warm wealth of furs, and leaned her cheek against the protecting back of the sleigh, towering three feet in the air, with the sensation of luxury and exhilaration that nothing but sliding over the snow in a well-lined sleigh can give. There is no other way of traversing

"The land's lap or the water's breast"

with so little motion, with such a swift sense of flight, with such a magic smoothness. Boats have oars and paddles, or sails and ropes—must gibe and tack and luff and reef; carriages, the easiest of them, bounce and joggle and bump and tip, if the road is anything but adamant; nothing save a sleigh can glide along for hours and hours without a suggestion of the earth it passes over, with the swiftness of flight, with the tranquillity of sleep, with utter luxury and abandon.

The sun had gone down, and the sky was fast assuming an evening tone, bright, still, about the horizon, but deepening and darkening toward the zenith, and right before them, far in the north, hanging over their distant path, came out a star, "with royal beauty bright," fabulously fair and lustrous. Laura, gazing at it, felt as if it were their destination, as if they would glide on—on to the music of those low murmuring bells, till "starlight mingled with the stars," and the vast, white plain of earth lay far below them; a delicious dreaminess stole over her, from which she could not endure the thought of waking, Katrina, always dull, was thankful that she did not have to talk, and Captain Lacy, gazing at Laura's fair, white, dreamy face, found his pleasure in silence, too. If the lovers beyond had voices, they were too low to reach them, and on they flew, past fields of unsullied white, and groves of icy-crested trees, and cottages covered with snow without, and twinkling with lights within; and more stars came out, and the horizon grew dark blue like the upper sky, but still the great north star shone in splendor, and still they sped on through the night, directly in his very eye. Once there came a jar, a confusion of conflicting sounds, as they shot past their fellow voyagers, and were greeted with shout and laugh and challenge. But soon the sounds died away far behind them, and the charm asserted itself but jarred, not broken. Laura wished it never might be broken; she never wished to rouse from this enchantment. The star seemed to grow brighter and nearer and then further and fainter; one moment it seemed to stoop almost within her grasp, at another it seemed to slide away—away—and, lapped in softest dreams, she slept.

"Laura, wake up! we're here."

"Where?—oh!" exclaimed Laura, roused by the rude shock of pause, and impatient and fretful as a baby waked by the stopping of his cradle's motion.

"You've been asleep behind there, I vow," cried Cicily, springing out into the snow and tottering rather helplessly into the path, as they paused before the gate of the Van Bokkelin mansion.

"I don't know who has been asleep," said Laura, pettishly, rubbing her eyes and trying to regain some familiar sensation in her limbs that should assure her of their identity with the limbs she had left home with. But they were so stiff and helpless and odd, and she felt so thoroughly cross and chilly, that she could hardly answer Captain Lacy civilly when he asked her if she was cold, and said pettishly to Lawrence, when he came to lift her out of her environment of fur,

"What place is this? What's the use of getting out?"

"No particular use, if you don't mind sitting out here two or three hours in the cold, till the ponies are rested and the people ready to go home."

Laura turned her head petulantly away and laid her cheek against the fur; she was not more than half awake, and did not feel more than ten years old. Captain Lacy was assisting Katrina to alight from the other side of the sleigh, so Lawrence, sitting down on the edge of the seat, said deliberately, and as if he had all night before him:

"Well, Laura, what do you say? Shall I help you out, or shall I tell the man to drive round to the barn?"

"I don't care," she said, twisting her head deeper in the fur.

Lawrence, perhaps, had grown a little weaned from the beauty and elegance and loveliness that was so far above his reach,

———"Love's heroic strain
Had tired the heart and brought no gain,"

but now he stooped, eased and relieved, before this childish, pouting change of mood, enslaved afresh, but desperately reckless of his chains.

"You don't care? Well, then, to the barn, Pompey."

He had the reins over one arm and with the other held himself in the sleigh, sitting on the edge of it with his feet in the snow. The sobered ponies started toward the barn, the man leading them; at which motion Miss Laura started up and said, "Stop! Oh, take me out!"

"Oh, ho!" cried Larry, pulling up the horses, "I can take you out, can I? Well, come, then."

He pushed aside the furs and lifted her in his arms. He did not put her down upon the snow, but held his arm very firmly round her as he strode toward the path, some distance down which the others stood waiting for them.

"Let me walk," murmured Laura hurriedly.

"Why can't I carry you? I've carried you before, you know."

His face was so close to hers she heard him, husky and low and strange as his voice was, but she did not try to answer him.

"Well, I hope you are awake now!" cried Cicily, with a spiteful sting in her voice, as Lawrence placed Laura in the path and approached them. Yes, Laura was awake, most thoroughly awake, though she answered rather low, and started forward to the side of Captain Lacy and Katrina hurriedly and confusedly.

"Larry, you and Cicily go first and meet the vrow; see, the door is opening," cried Katrina, pushing her younger sister forward. Cicily naturally took precedence of her sisters when there was any speaking to be done; the "you're-a-scholar" feeling always prompted them to shrink behind her, and her unwavering sense of superiority always prompted her to take the lead.

Vrow van Bokkelin was a big, broad-faced, loud-voiced, good-natured matron, always ready to further the wishes of "the young folks," always ready to turn the house inside out for their amusement, and the very one, in short, to be surprised agreeably by a descent of thirty hungry pleasure-seekers at an unheard-of hour of night. She had no children of her own worth mentioning; a lank, shy, unmanageable son, who always took to the attic when there was company, and a peaked little girl of nine, who generally hid in her mother's skirts and cried when anybody spoke to her. The good man of the house was one of those chimney-corner saints who always marry big women and lead uncomplaining lives of servitude; though, as he was well-clothed and well-fed in return for his services, and was under a thrifty rule, perhaps, according to the laws of natural justice, he had nothing to complain of.

"Vail noo, vail noo, 'dis is goote!" cried the vrow, standing open-armed in the door, followed by a wondering train of swarthy retainers. "Cicily van Hausen and Larry Sutherland! Vail noo, vail noo, I knew you'd come; I've been a lookin' for you all de day."

And she folded Cicily to her capacious bosom before the latter could deliver herself of her intended speech. Indeed, Vrow van Bokkelin did not require much of her guests beyond a wide power of receptivity.

"And dis is de pretty girl from England, ish it? Oh my, oh my, how white she ish! Come in, come in, my dear; I'm glad to see ye. And here's Katrina! Vall noo

Katrina, it dosh me goote to see ye. Where's Nick, eh? Comin'? Ah, vell, he von't pe long pehind you, I know dat. And dis is a strange gentleman as I don't know at all; vell, dat's no matter, sir, I'm glad to see you jis the same, jis the same. Come in all, come in all; dere's a goote fire noo, and dere'll be a goote supper before long. Des lazy winches, noo! Stir yourselves and get de fires a blazin'; be quick! be quick! light de big lamp and snuff de candles; des folks am frozed, I know."

And talking loudly and unceasingly, and hovering as many of the stranger brood as she could gather under her broad wings, she led them into the family room, where they were met by a meek greeting from a thin man at the fireside, and by the hasty bang of a side-door, through which they caught a glimpse of a retreating pair of cowhide boots and the flutter of a flying coat-tail. There certainly was a glorious and hospitable fire upon the hearth, and light and warmth and supper enough got up to have sufficed for the entertainment of the whole country side, before the last detachment arrived. Such greetings, such laughing, such noise! Laura tried not to look strange or uncomfortable, though, indeed, it did not make much difference how any body looked. The hospitable hostess did not stop to see what impression her hospitality produced upon her guests, but bustled and scolded and welcomed and questioned all in the same breath, and without expecting any result or waiting for any answer.

Most of the entertained were accustomed to the manner of their entertainer, but it quite appalled the English strangers, who could hardly recover themselves enough to talk to each other. It was even worse when they sat down to supper. Fate (for no one else had any hand in the arrangement of the visitors at the board) threw Laura between Nick van Vechtin and Katrina van Hausen, both blessed with the most unloverlike and undainty appetites, and both most anxious for the temporal well-being of the young stranger. They urged vociferously upon her the strange, uncouth, unsavory Dutch dishes which were their own especial favorites, and made her quite faint with the prodigality and persistency of their attentions. Accustomed to the farmer-like profusion, but substantial elegance of her uncle's table, thoroughly English in its style and tone, she was entirely bewildered by this first glimpse at Dutch farm-life. "Is this the sort of life Cicily van Hausen leads?" she pondered; "can it be that Larry finds her in such a home as this? The love must be pretty strong that reconciles him."

But there is a great deal in familiarity with repulsive things: after the supper-table was cleared away from the floor and the chairs pushed back against the wall, and the negro fiddler summoned, Laura's shyness began to thaw considerably; she became acclimated to the loud tones of the vrow, and the noisy manners of the young women, and began to think that, after all, they were very good-natured, and perhaps at heart as modest as the ladies to whose society she had been accustomed. They were very pretty, too, some of them. The Van Hausens were, par excellence, the belles, but there were, besides them, several strikingly fine pieces of flesh and blood, all of the Dutch type, but varied considerably by English intermixtures. They were all, however, quite as shy of her as she was of them, and much less graceful in the expression of their feelings. The youths, who evidently regarded her as a marvel of beauty and unapproachableness, were rendered unspeakably gauche by their admiration, and most of them let her alone altogether, and kept as far out of the way as possible. She was quite ignorant of their approval, however, and of the envious wonder of the young fraulein, so her manner did not lose its pretty timidity and unconscious humbleness, which formed, perhaps, her principal charm.

There was something in the thought of dancing, no matter to what music and with what spectators, quite exhilarating to one so long exiled from pleasure, and Laura found herself actually happy when she accepted Captain Lacy's hand for a reel, and took her place upon the floor. Profiting by the experience of the previous evening, the military hero was much more humble and unassuming, and soon showed his really good dancing and ready faculty of imitation.

"Miss Sutherland," he whispered, after the first set, "you will not dance with any of these—these persons; promise me that. Let me be your partner."

"If you choose," she said, with a brighter smile than any he had had before. Lawrence, coming to her side that moment, said in a low tone, "Laura, I want you to dance with me this one reel."

Lawrence's manner had been different from his habitual easy one all the evening. He had been silent and moody, interesting himself little with the amusements going on, talking with no one but his frightened, meek-looking host, and watching the dancing silently by his side.

"A quarrel with Cicily," was Laura's interpretation.

"A jealous fit about the red-coat," was Cicily's reading.

"The deuce is to pay with young mine host!" thought Captain Lacy.

"He's such a thundercloud, he'd turn milk by looking at it once," the damsels whispered, and the swains indorsed, but none dared rate him, or amuse themselves at his expense in any but the lowest tone. Whatever the cause of his mood, however, it was evidently a vindictive and unapproachable one, and Laura, not at all strong-minded nor at all strong-nerved, made her refusal to dance with him in a very uncertain and frightened voice. Captain Lacy had gone away for a moment, to be devoured by his hostess, who had just learned he was a hero fresh from the French war, and Lawrence, leaning back in his place against the wall, looked down with folded arms and lowering brow upon his cousin, who stood playing with the ribbons of her stomacher, and looking as if she longed to have him go away.

"Well, then, I will come for you to dance the next dance with me after this."

"I can't—I promised," and then she stopped and blushed.

"Who—did you say you promised?" he asked, stooping his head, and speaking in a most uncomfortable voice, Laura glanced around miserably to see if no one were at hand to help her out of this, but Captain Lacy was not in sight at all, and all the rest were as far off as they could get conveniently, so she faltered, "Captain Lacy," and then her cousin strode away, and left her standing all alone and perfectly wretched. What had she done; what should she do? If he only would come back, she would dance forty reels with him, and do exactly anything he told her. But he was gone; she and Cicily both watched the door in vain for his return, and the pleasure of the evening was over for both of them.

Not until the revellers, cloaked and hooded, stood in the hall ready to depart, did he make his appearance. It was curious to note the different effect of the occurrence upon the two women most interested in it. Cicily was flashingly, tempestuously piqued and angry, Laura was quiet as a statue, with a shade of anxiety and wistfulness upon her face however, not often expressed in marble. She slid from the embrace of the great vrow with a noiseless evasiveness, and hurried down the path. The Sutherland sleigh stopped the way, but Cicily was there before her, coquetting most audaciously with the military gentleman, and asserting that she would ride inside, come what might. Katrina was already comfortable in her former corner, and as there was no one to contradict Miss Cicily, of course she had her own way and her rival's place.

Laura stood undetermined a moment, while Captain Lacy urged her taking the middle seat, and not exposing herself to the cold wind by riding with Larry, and Larry stood waiting in a most indifferent do-as-you-please way.

"What shall I do?" she said, hesitatingly looking from one to the other. "I don't mind the wind, and the front seat's more comfortable."

"It's much colder than when we came, Miss Sutherland."

"But I am so wrapped up, and I like to be where I can see the horses."

A moment more, and she was reigning in Cicily's vacated place, but to all appearance, rather a triste young queen. After they were fairly under weigh, Larry vouchsafed not more than a sentence per mile on an average, and that on no suggestive or productive plan.

The moon had come out excellently bright, but the star was at their back, and all the dreaminess and magic had gone with the sight of it. But if the companions outside had nothing to entertain each other with but jealousy and anger and reserve, those inside were "jolly companions every one," and were making the most of each other. Cicily was wild with fun and spirits, real or assumed, Katrina, even, was waked to jollity, and Captain Lacy fell readily into the prevailing mood. Fag ends of their jokes strayed on to those in front, and Laura turned often, half curious to know what made them so vociferously merry, but either from pique or absent-mindedness, they were oblivious of an outside circle, and confined their merriment within themselves.

It was a long, long ride; how long, none knew so well as Laura. She did not feel sleepy now—so far from it, she wondered how she could have slept before. She was cold, too, and tired, and a great deal more than that. Every burst of laughter from the party behind her, made her uncomfortable in one way, and every stolen glance at Larry's stubborn face beside her, made her wretched in another. The very glitter of the moonbeams and the music of the bells were all so many torments and discomforts.

How strange the woods and rocks looked! Was it possible she could have slept all this way before, or did it look so differently by starlight, or was it another road?

"How many miles have we come?" she could not help asking of Larry at last, in a very weary tone.

"About fourteen, I think," he said, glancing carelessly around to see his whereabouts.

"And it is nineteen from the Van Bokkelins' to the Flats?"

"Yes, nearly twenty."

An involuntary, irrepressible sigh escaped her. "You're tired," he said, looking down at her.

"A little."

"You'll be much more comfortable inside. I'll stop the horses and put you over there."

"No, thank you," very shortly, and they went on in more solemn silence than before. By and by, however, they approached a turn in the road, around which the wind whistled pretty strongly, and Laura put her head down in the furs.

"You'd better take my advice," said Larry, laconically.

"Very well," said Laura, with a flash of spirit which perhaps the young gentleman had not fully expected. He drew up the reins very suddenly, and Laura, turning around, said quickly:

"Captain Lacy, it is cold out here; may I change my mind?"

"À la bonne heure!" cried the gentleman, starting forward with empressement, and speaking in French and quickly. "Have you punished me enough, Miss Sutherland?"

"I have not punished any one but myself," she returned, in the same language, manifestly embarrassed.

Now Cicily did not know French, but the gentleman's tone was one which nobody at all familiar with the language of flirtation could misunderstand, and she felt herself bitterly ill-used at such a requital of all her pains. For fourteen miles she had lavished smiles upon him, and this was the return he made her. The very instant Laura condescended to address him, he was back at her feet again more devoted than before. When she got tired of Larry, forsooth she called the captain again! It must not be supposed Cicily kept her temper; a serener girl would have lost hers under such a trial.

Larry said "whoa" several times very emphatically, but the ponies did not whoa at all, and then he stood up, and gave them more emphasis in connection with his whiplash. At length they seemed to acknowledge his authority, however, and with many shakings of their bells, and after much uneasy motion of their shaggy feet, they stood comparatively still. The spot they had chosen for their momentary halt, certainly was not a happily chosen one. The road they were travelling then was not the one by which they had gone to the Van Bokkelins', but a by-road, into which Lawrence had turned after Laura's weary-toned question. It was shorter by two miles than the highway, but rough and uncertain at all times, and doubly so with a foot and a half of snow over it, and the track perfectly unbeaten. But Larry was of fearless blood, and in a reckless mood. He had driven all sorts of horses over all sorts of roads at all sorts of hours, and had never broken his own neck, nor the necks of any of those intrusted to him. The thought of Laura's discomfort was insupportable to him in just his present mood, and he was so thoroughly desperate, his good judgment suffered a temporary eclipse, and he turned doggedly into the dangerous road, with the unwise confidence that he would get out of it "somehow," and no doubt it would all come out right.

Nothing was further from its intention, however. The road where they had stopped wound around the base of the mountain; above them, on the right, was an unbroken forest; below them, on the left, descending sharp down from the road, was a deep ravine, where a clearing had been lately made, and where the gaunt trees, still standing, threw gaunter shadows on the snow beneath. Some brushwood and logs lay on the edge of the road a hundred yards beyond the present-stopping place, and at these phenomena, in their envelopment of white, the ponies were casting fearful glances, and were moving their ears to and fro with apprehensive nervousness. Larry cast a glance at them that was not without apprehension, but "guessed he could do it," so planting his feet firmly, he drew the reins over his arm, held his hands out to Laura, and was just helping her over the seat, when Cicily, with some saucy preface, burst into a ringing laugh.

That was just all that was needed. The half timid, half vicious brutes gave a violent start, then, before Larry could recover the reins, plunged forward, swinging the sleigh after them, and throwing Larry forward with Laura on his arm, upon the seat. A cry burst from the frightened girls in the rear, and a deep imprecation from the lips of the helpless driver, who struggled in vain to recover the reins, realizing more than his companions, the dangers upon which they were rushing, and realizing, too, most fully, his utter helplessness. He was supporting Laura with his right hand; if he withdrew that, in her present position, the next sudden motion of the sleigh would throw her out, and very little progress he naturally made in getting the mastery of the fiery horse flesh in front of them with his left hand, entangled and impeded at that. Laura gave one fearful look ahead at the horses, with their ears laid back, their necks strained forward, and then she shut her eyes and lay quite still.

What a horrible moment of suspense and silence, as they dashed forward—choked, stifled, paralyzed with fear; nothing to be done but to wait for whatever might be coming—to meet their fate, whatever it might be—their lives at the mercy of those devil-ridden beasts. It seemed hours instead of minutes. Then there came a sudden lunging of the sleigh to the right, the sharp branch of an over-hanging tree struck heavily on Larry's arm, and with an exclamation of pain he relaxed his hold for an instant. Only for an instant, but before he could regain it, the sleigh was swung violently back to the other side of the road, and with a jar and wrench that made all things swim before her, and turn black, Laura found herself lying half-buried in the snow upon the edge of the precipice, just tottering on the very brink, while down the road beyond, she caught the last glimpse of the fleet sleigh, and heard the last jangle of the receding bells. It was an appalling sensation, the ghastly solitude of the silence that fell after the jar and shock of being hurled away from the flying sleigh.

Midnight in the wilderness! How Laura's heart died in her at the thought: alone, in such a spot, and with such fears for her companions; no longer at the mercy of those living furies, but at the mercy of terrors hardly less appalling. How long should she be there alone? Her companions might not live to return for her; it was miles out of the highway; there was no chance of any passers-by; the night was bright and still, but growing colder every minute, such a deadly cold—dumb, deep, penetrating. The breath froze on the muff against her face, almost before it left her lips, and the snow on which her bare wrist pressed, first stung, then numbed it instantly. She was so stiff and chilled, and so encumbered with wrappings that she could hardly move; why should she move? There was no use, she could reach no one; then came an impulse to bury her face in her muff and keep it from the cold, and lie still just where she was, and then the thought darted suddenly through her mind of what she had heard of death by freezing—of the horrible, insidious sleepiness—and with a pang of fear she started up and tried to regain her feet.

But that sudden start was the fatal move; the snow on which she had been lying was just toppling over the ravine, her hasty movement had broken the frozen crust, and it was giving way. She uttered a terrified shriek, and grasped at the nearest twig, it broke in her hand; she caught the next, but it was iced all over, and it bent and slipped treacherously through her fingers. It was all slipping—slipping down slowly, surely. She looked at the bank above, and it was growing further off; when she reached out despairingly at the bushes, she found she was passing them, and was going down—down—stealthily and steadily. She could not pray, nor cry, nor think—a most magnified bodily fear, a helpless, half-senseless shrinking, a cowering animal dread, paralyzed imagination during those intense minutes of suspense. There was a creaking, crackling sound for an instant, as the miniature avalanche detached itself finally from the embankment, and then the motion grew quicker and quicker, and in another moment—it had leaped down into the ravine below.

The horrible stifling sense of falling, and the stunning shock of meeting earth after such a fall, even earth smothered and muffled in a thick snow, took away her breath and consciousness at first. When at length, however, she began bewilderedly to ponder and wonder and remember, and in consternation to look about her, it was to feel first a dull pain from a blow upon her temple, and then to realize that she was lying, otherwise unhurt, upon a drift of snow, not three feet from a pile of jagged rocks, and almost within touch of a giant beech tree, whose stiff and naked branches stretched above her head. Many trees stood about at irregular distances, and several huge felled trunks showed the recent clearing; but over these the snow spread white and smooth, and through the naked branches, the clear, full moon shone down, almost with the light of day.

But what a frozen, petrified silence! Not a sound, not a motion—no wind among the icy trees, no murmuring of the arrested rill, no shivering of the taper icicles that hung from the sides of the ravine; nothing but a ghastly, unearthly, freezing stillness, that seemed to creep into her very soul. She tried to raise herself, and look about for help, but dulled, and faint, and weary, she sank back and shut her eyes. Then came the fear about the sleepiness, but this time fainter and more familiar, and she tried to rouse herself, and to remember about it and keep awake. She said her prayers, the words of them, at least, over and over again, and tried to mean them, and to grasp their sense, but it seemed floating from her, drifting beyond her reach, and she caught earnestly at it, and roused herself, and then sunk back into forgetfulness again before she had attained it.

How cold the snow beneath her felt! Fine, thin veins of chill ran through her frame—she longed to get up, but she lacked the power: she tried to resist the torpor, but she felt it gathering over her: duller, and dimmer, and more helpless her will grew every moment. She was so tired, there was nothing sweeter than rest, no matter what came after it; she was so sleepy, there was nothing better than sleep, even if it never ended.

And that treacherous peace stole the last tinge of rose from the cheek that lay "snow on snow" in the silent ravine, and drove the reluctant blood slowly in from the faint, chill veins. The still moonbeams played over the shrouded blue of her eyes, and glittered mockingly upon her pale, fixed lips: there would be little left, in two hours more, for death itself to do,

CHAPTER XXI.

PERTINAX'S CABIN.

"He who wants least is most like the gods, for they want nothing.""

The Rev. Pertinax Pound was not a light sleeper; being a vigorous walker and an early riser, having the appetite of a day-laborer and the digestion of a school-boy, he rarely misapplied the hours appointed for repose, and upon few nights failed to read the book of oblivion from cover to cover, and to rise renewed and refreshed from its perusal in the morning. He never felt the dreariness of his dingy cabin, for he knew little of it but by daylight; it resounded in the early evening to his sonorous praying, then, until the early morning, to his no less sonorous snoring; it knew much more of him for those ten hours than he knew of it. But the night after the snow-storm formed an exception to the general rule, the old man had gone to bed early, and, during the first half of it, had needed no narcotic. A little after midnight, however, either increasing cold, or some unusual state of body, had rendered him restless and wakeful; he wooed Sleep in vain, and finally resolved he would have none of the coy wench even if she chose to come, but would pay his court to her easier sister, Warmth. Easy she was not on that night, however. He got up and put on his clothes, but, tough old woodsman as he had esteemed himself he found them insufficient to procure him anything like comfort.

"Winter's here and no mistake," he muttered, as he walked uneasily around. "Either I'm getting old, or it's an awful night, one or both."

He rubbed the frost-work off the little pane of glass that formed his window, and said involuntarily: "God ha' mercy on the men or beasts abroad to-night."

There was no sound without to prompt him to do it, but he unbolted the narrow door, and stepping out, looked up and down the road. The full moon was shining on it almost with the brilliancy of noonday, everything lay as silent and peaceful as death. The great black shadows of the trees behind the house stretched across the snow like dumb and solemn mourners; no wind wooed them, and no sound, however faint, stirred the clear air, which cut like a knife, for all its clearness and repose, and the old man drew in with a shiver and shut the door.

"Give me a good, honest blow," he muttered, "from any two o' the four quarters o' heaven, and a drenchin' rain to boot, or even a peltin' hail, before ye give me sich a night as this, stingin' like a serpent, and lookin' peaceful as a sleepin' baby. There's death in its breath; it has an uncanny feel in my nostrils, somehow."

There was nothing for it but to build a fire; it grieved him sore to yield to such an effeminacy, and he stood it out stoutly for some time, slapping his hands together and walking up and down the narrow cabin to keep his blood astir, but at last he succumbed to a warning twinge of rheumatism in his left shoulder, and in a few moments a great fire was blustering up the chimney.

"Aha!" ejaculated Mr. Pound with ineffable satisfaction, as he drew up his rush-bottomed chair before the fire, and planted his feet on the uneven hearth. "Aha!" It was comfort enough for awhile to sit and thaw before it and realize its abounding excellence, and by and by he reached down the sad-colored Bible from the shelf in the corner, and opening it on his knees, stooped down to see if he could not read it by the blaze. A much finer print and a much less familiar text would have been readable by the light of those well-seasoned hickory logs, and leaning forward, with the book between his knees and his elbows resting on them, he began to read aloud, moving his finger along the page. It is probable he had never assumed the possibility of reading in any other way, and that he was firmly settled in the belief that the proper understanding of any written form of words required the active exercise of three of the five senses bestowed upon the human species.

The book opened of itself to Isaiah; there was a grand, rough spirit of poetry deep down in the old man's soul, that made him love that book beyond the rest of Holy Writ, and the constant reading of it had given to his rude speech a sort of majestic rhythm that was very foreign to his station or education. He did not read it with any view to its study or elucidation, simply for his own delight and comfort; he did not in the least understand it prophetically or historically, but received it all as a purely personal communication. Its denunciations were hurled at his enemies, its pleadings were addressed to his flock, its promises were made to him, "As manna," says Donne, "tasted to every man like that he liked best, so do the Psalms minister instruction and satisfaction to every man in every emergency and occasion." Parson Pound loved the Psalms, too, but the Prophet Isaiah was his manna, his daily food. There was not quite enough of the anathema maranatha spirit in the songs of the sweet Psalmist of Israel to make them entirely satisfactory upon all his emergencies and occasions; besides, the church he hated read them daily in her services, but she had no exclusive right in the majestic Prophet.

The sympathy that the last night's interview with Nattee had aroused, had by no means lessened since he had had time to think her story over. Her bitter resentment jumped with his mood so entirely, he had brooded over her wrongs till he had worked himself quite beyond her pitch of wrath. The slaveholding, arrogant, popish-tending Sutherlands had long represented the enemies of the Lord in his readings of the Bible; sometimes he even inserted their name into the text, and now, to-night, as he stooped over the tattered leaves and made out the stirring words of the Prophet by the red blaze of the firelight, repeating the familiar words with strong and vivid emphasis, he stopped more than once and looked around, startled at the living, awful way in which the words seemed to fill the cabin and echo about him, even when he paused.

"Surely, that was some one spoke," he said, at last, getting up and walking to the window; but no, all lay still as death about his isolated little habitation, and drawing up his clumsy chair again before the fire, he muttered, as he seated himself, stooping down and turning over the leaves:

"Fear and snare and the pit are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of the Lord shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up, and he shall be brought low . . . . And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day."

He paused for a moment, and lifted his head, for a strange distant sound penetrated the walls of the cabin. What could be stirring at this hour of night? He listened long, and then, hearing nothing, resumed his interrupted reading, laying his broad hand on the page for which he had been seeking, and repeating more from memory than sight, the fifty-first chapter. He had nearly reached the end of it, his voice rising with the terror and beauty of which it is full.

"These two things are come unto thee, who shall be sorry for thee? desolation and destruction, and the famine and the sword; by whom shall I comfort thee? Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets as a wild bull in a net; they are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuke of thy God;"——when against the door there came a sudden jar, as of some one falling on it, and an indistinct cry or groan. The old man put aside his book, and started up, hurrying to the door in amazement and alarm; drawing the bolt he pulled it open abruptly, and across the threshold fell the senseless body of a girl, while prostrate on the stone behind her lay a man fainting and half dead, with a gash across his forehead, from which the blood streamed fresh from his heavy fall; and the minister started back with a cry of consternation as, trying to rise, in the livid face upturned he recognized Lawrence Sutherland. Raising his hand with a gesture of supplication, he murmured:

"Take her in, for the love of heaven—see if you can save her."

And Pertinax, speechless with astonishment, stooped over her and lifted her in his arms. "Poor child, poor child!" he murmured as her icy hand fell back on his, "I said it was an awful night."

He laid her on the rough settle that answered for his bed, and dragged it back from the fire, throwing open the door, and heaping ashes on the flames, and then, with a sorrowful and little-hoping charity, he bent over her and rubbed her slender fingers between his own rough palms. By this time Lawrence had staggered into the house, and supporting himself against the bed, was trying to undo the fastenings of her cloak, while the old man, laying down the pretty hand, with a hopeless shake of the head moved across the room, saying:

"My poor fellow, you had better take thought for your self; let me get you a glass o' such wine as I have, and lay ye down and rest."

Lawrence ejaculated earnestly, stretching out his hand in entreaty:

"Leave me alone, only think of her. I tell you, man," he went on passionately, "she must—she shall live—there is no mercy nor justice in Heaven if she cannot—this is but a swoon—come back to her—help her, old man. Save her, for you can—I, I am past it. Oh, merciful Heaven! that my strength should give way now, when a few minutes more"——

And with a groan he sank down fainting, while a livid, death-like look came over his features.

"As a wild bull in a net," muttered the old man, going across the room and glancing back at the prostrate form, powerless and inanimate, with the words of defiance and rebellion hardly cold upon his lips. " 'The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down.' There is justice in Heaven, poor sinner. I pray there may be mercy too!"

There was nerve and promptness in all his movements now; both the sufferers thrown upon his care equally needed him, and though he had little hope for one, he left no means untried for the restoration of either, going about his work none the less effectually that his lips moved in half-audible prayer the while. He brought out a glass of some strong liquor and poured it down Lawrence's throat, then wet the pale lips of the girl with the same, and rubbed her temples with it. The fastenings of her cloak, that had resisted poor Larry's agonized attempts, yielded to his steadier hand, and nothing was left to stifle or impede the breath that he prayed might once more flutter through those silent lips. But the heart seemed as silent, too; he put his ear down to listen at the white still breast in vain; if it yet beat, it was audible only to nicer ears than his.

"God help the poor thing!" he muttered, folding his own cloak over her; "I doubt I shall be able to coax her back again. Most like she's better off than we; it's no great charity to balk her of her rest. She looks as if she belonged to Heaven now."

Notwithstanding this, however, he in no wise remitted his exertions; the few restoratives that were at his command he applied with vigor and discretion, and with the animation of a more eager hope than he acknowledged to himself. Hard old Puritan as he was, he could not look on those white limbs, and not grudge Death such a lovely prey; there was a magic in the pureness and beauty of the lifeless form before him, that even softened his heart toward the errors of the man for whom he would save her, if saved she could be; he almost forgot Nattee and her burning wrongs, while he chafed Laura's slender hand, or listened breathlessly for the beating of her heart, and then glanced down at the baffled and humbled lover, unconscious at her feet.

"It's hard," he thought "and they both so young and both so fair and full o' life. God ha' mercy this one time, and spare her a little longer!"

Pertinax had left the tenderest and best love of his heart buried with his only daughter under the sod of a distant New England churchyard, and perhaps that memory helped his Christian charity and his general philanthropy in the earnest labors of that long night—for a long night of suspense and anxiety it proved, and it was not until dawn had begun to streak the gloom of the eastern sky that, lifting himself up from his anxious vigil, he made a sign of hope to Lawrence, who leaned against the wall below the couch, and ejaculated, "Thank God!"

And "Thank God!" Lawrence's white lips seemed to echo.

CHAPTER XXII.

TWILIGHT IN LARRY'S ROOM.

"When on the lip the sigh delays
As if 'twould linger there forever:
When eyes would give the world to gaze,
Yet still look down, and venture never:

* * * * * *

If all this is not real love,
'Tis something wondrous like it."

Moore.

Two weeks had passed since Larry Sutherland drove the black ponies home from the Van Bokkelins, by way of Chalford's Clearing, and a longer two weeks, according to that young gentleman's estimate of time, had never been recorded. Of the first part of it he knew comparatively little, just as little, in fact, as people ever know of the employment of their time and the occupation of their thoughts, during a high fever and a strong delirium. But after those had worn off, and he began to recover enough to be perfectly wretched, and to realize he had a dislocated shoulder and a gashed forehead, and sprains and bruises innumerable to be taken care of, the days grew to be most spun out and endless affairs, and the nights most interminable penances.

Patience, as has been hinted, was not the virtue on which Larry's friends staked their hopes of his canonization; but those who now attended him began to think he possessed more of it than they had given him credit for. Nattee wondered secretly at his silent ways, and his poor mother blessed him in her credulous and tender heart for his submission: his father rarely came to his apartment, but when he did, it was to marvel at his cowed and spiritless behaviour; while Warren only saw with fear the sullenness and gloom they all mistook for submissiveness of temper. He had been in no real danger after the fever yielded; there was nothing for him to do but to keep quiet while the work of restoration and renovation went on of itself. As skillful doctoring as the country and the times afforded, and as tender nursing and devoted care as any country or any time could have afforded, had been lavished on him, and at the end of a week there was, as has been said, nothing left for him to do but to get well. It ought to have been, and doubtless was, much consolation to him to know that his companions in misfortune had been even more lightly dealt with than himself. His first eager, half-trembling inquiry, after his delirium had subsided, had been for news of his cousin. Nattee happened to be the person watching by him when he roused and asked the question. Miss Laura? Oh, Miss Laura was very well now; she had come down to dinner for the first time yesterday; she was looking a little pale, but was a great deal better.

Had she been in to see him, or was it a dream he had had of her standing below the bed there, looking at him Larry asked.

"You must ha' been dreamin'. Master Larry," Nattee said quickly, glancing sideways at him as she spoke, "But

I can call Miss Laura, if you want her. She's in the sitting-room wi' Captain Lacy, fixing the bandage on his wrist. She'll come in a minute, I know, Master Larry, if you want her."

"I do not want her," Larry said, quickly and huskily and Nattee shrunk back, half frightened at what she had done, half triumphant at her unlooked-for success. The devil, they say, puts the ace, king and queen into a beginner's hand, and some such policy seemed to obtain with whatever leader Nattee's course of deception was beginning under. She hardly dared hope her rude and unpractised net could have a chance of insnaring, when she found her master entangled in it, and the way open for more and more vital play. Few could have resisted such an easy sin—least of all, poor untaught, passion-led Nattee, who actually hardly knew what she was doing, hardly gave a name to what she did. To estrange Laura from the affections of her master, to excite his jealousy and distrust of Captain Lacy, were things she would hardly have thought dishonest, had she stopped to think them over. But she did not stop to think, she only went on, day by day, led forward by her strange success, and not reflecting there must some day be a reckoning and a counter-movement.

Mrs. Sutherland, worn out by her anxieties, again succumbed to her old enemy, and was confined to her room by a headache that threatened longer battle than it ordinarily gave. Warren had little encouragement to come to his cousin's room, being met with nothing better than morose indifference and dullness; Salome only waddled up there once or twice a day, to croon over and bemoan him, and in consequence, the care of him devolved, in a very great degree, on Nattee. A dangerous duty it had grown to be, and with a peevish fear, she dreaded the time that it should end. She almost longed to see him once more burning with fever, raving with frenzy, that she might feel he was safe from the care and presence of the others—that he would need her care and presence for a long while to come.

And, indeed, he seemed in no haste to exchange it for a wider liberty. The doctor had said he was fit to go downstairs whenever he might wish, and Nattee watched anxiously to see him avail himself of the permission; but two days had passed, and he was still moodily and sullenly moping in his room. On the second day, as she set his dinner down before him, he said abruptly:

"When does Captain Lacy go, Nattee?"

"I haven't heard anything said about his going. Master Larry," she answered carelessly, "Wasn't it unlucky that it should ha' been his bridle-arm was lamed?"

Seeing he gave her no answer (though, indeed, he rarely did give her any to such gratuitous remarks), she went on after a moment:

"His man says he's had a letter from New York, and that he won't have to go there now. He don't think he's in very much of a hurry to go away from here. He says he's only bent on getting a discharge, and bein' at liberty to take Miss—I mean—to go home to England. I don't know anything about it—that's what Richard says."

"You'd do well to have less gossipping with Richard," the young master said impatiently. "You may go now. I'll call you if I want anything."

That afternoon, toward twilight, Larry paced his solitary room, restless and unstrung. He was not quite the master of himself he had been before this illness; it had told upon his nerves considerably, though he could not endure to acknowledge it to himself; it galled him as it always galls a strong man, to find he had so much in common with the weak and the irresolute. He had resolved to face the family to-night, but every time he put his hand upon the door to open it, he found himself so far beneath the sway of his sick fancy, as to tremble and turn back, with a longing to stay still a little longer in his moody solitude. But at length he murmured, with an impatient vehemence, "Enough of this. There is no more excuse. I will go down now, and try to brave it out. The devil himself shan't see I have a rival."

He gave himself no more time to think, and strode out of the room. The hall was dark and chilly, for the sun was down, and it was a dun and gloomy place at noonday, even, having no windows of its own, and being lighted only per favor of the rooms that opened into it. His right arm was in a sling, and with his left he groped slowly down the stairs, feeling strangely uncertain of his footing, giddy and uncomfortable. When he reached the lower hall, he took one or two turns up and down it, before he approached the sitting-room door.

As, in moments of dire and sudden peril, it is said that one's whole past life will flash before one, clear and well defined even in the smallest and longest forgotten detail, so at that moment, when he least craved the reminiscence, there rushed across Lawrence's mind all that he now most wished to forget. An hour ago, he had thought himself the master; now, the traitor, Memory, had slipped the leash, and had darted, with the speed of lightning, back over ground he had sworn her dangerous foot should never touch again. All the humiliation of his defeat, all the bitterness of his disappointment, all his unconquered love his unavailing tenderness, rushed back upon him as he stood with his hand upon the door that bounded him from criticism and contempt. Could he, with all that dancing before his eyes, crowding in upon his brain, overflowing from his heart, meet the woman he had lost, the man who had supplanted him, as his pride and his manliness alone dictated he should meet them? No, this was not the hour to face their curiosity: he would yield this once to a weakness he could not conquer; another day should find him stronger in mind and body; the sanctuary of his solitary room was open to him still—he would seek its charity to-night, and come forth from it refreshed and restored to-morrow. Coward! The indistinct murmur of voices within the sitting-room, the gleam of light from the cracks below the door, unnerved and shook him as no danger, tangible or imaginary, had ever done before, and he fairly panted and shivered as he regained the second floor and crossed the threshold of his own apartment.

"A fool—a cursed fool!" he muttered, walking impatiently up and down a few times; then crossing to the mantelpiece, he leaned his head on his arm upon it, and groaned aloud. The fire had blazed up brightly since he had left it, and made such a light within, that the soft, new twilight without looked dim and grey in comparison.

The room was such a self-willed, incongruous, arbitrary one, as could have belonged to no man but Larry Sutherland. The antique piety of the jambs, and the unnecessary magnificence of the great brass andirons, were things hereditary, things forced on him; the comfortable beauty of the bed, the good taste and prettiness of the cloth and cushion under the greenish-looking, queer-shaped glass, were refinements he had submitted to rather than accepted from his mother; but the great uncouth leather-covered chair drawn up by the window, the rough, irregular shelves, crammed with books and boxes, ink-horns and chessmen, the walls, covered with deer's antlers and fishing-rods, tobacco-pouches and game-bags, charcoal sketches al fresco, and colored prints, in frames and out of frames, showed the master's taste and will. Good housewives would have called it a den, and good fellows would have found it a paradise. It was a large room, too, with three narrow, deep windows, and a blundering, aimless recess at the left side of the fireplace, which served Lawrence as a repository for his guns and hunting coats and boots, and which was an enduring grief and trial to his mother, by reason of the wild confusion and disorder which reigned continually there. The firelight did not penetrate its depths, but the panther-skin, which hung above the entrance, vibrated slightly when Lawrence entered, as if the draught, perhaps, did. Kelpie sat up on her haunches with an attentive, inquiring expression of face, as if she were not quite clear in her mind about what was going on, and seemed to suppress with effort a short, suspicious bark. She might have gratified herself, however, without damaging her interests with her master, for it would have been a furious burst of canine excitement that would have roused his attention at that moment. Presently Kelpie appeared to conclude, at any rate, it was no business of hers, and after nosing around with diminishing interest, she unjointed her erect forepaws, and laid herself down upon the scarlet-bound fawnskin that formed the rug, but cocked up her eye attentively, as if awaiting further developments.

Lawrence did not move from the attitude he had first assumed, but another groan and a lower one presently escaped his lips, and Kelpie was again much excited, raising her head and putting it a good deal on one side, then suddenly flashing it around toward the door, as a soft step crossed the threshold. She did not salute the new comer with a bark, however, but half rose, and swept her fringy tail in welcome back and forth across the rug, and looked up rather reproachfully in her unmoved master's face. But the timid footsteps of the visitor failed to arrest his ear, as did her first no less timid salutation. She had stood beside him on the rug some seconds, and had faltered more than one low question, before he raised his head and saw her.

"Laura!" he exclaimed, with an involuntary start.

"You did not hear me knock," she said confusedly. "I ventured to come in."

A pause; Larry for his life could not have spoken then. Laura was the first to break it.

"I thought you were coming downstairs to-day. Are you not as well?"

A quick suspicion darted through his mind: "She was in the hall, she saw me go down and guessed why I came back so soon. Pity has brought her—pity!" And in a tone in which there was much both of coldness and distance, he answered he was better, and nothing but indolence kept him a prisoner in his room. Nattee had taken such good care of him, and it was so much trouble to dress, while he knew he was restricted to the house.

"I feared you were worse, or I should not have come," Laura said, pained at his tone and frightened at what she had done.

"Oh, thank you."

"Is there nothing I can do for you? I should be very glad to"——

"No, I don't think of anything. You are very kind."

The words weren't anything—but the tone! Every inflection was a wound, none the less cruel that it was intangible and vague, like the pain and discomfort of a delirium. What made it hurt her so? Why did she feel so miserably pained and chilled? On the whole, there was no reason for it, but she wished herself away most unreservedly. She took a step toward the door, then turned back again irresolutely; she had not made him understand at all.

"I have been so un—uncomfortable about you," she said, with the most enticing timidity of voice and manner. "I am sure you must be lonely here. Won't you come down?"

"I'll come down to-morrow," he said quickly. "I am more comfortable here for this evening. Nattee will bring my supper up."

All this while Lawrence was remembering, "My unpardonable carelessness nearly killed her, and she is trying to show me she forgives it." And Laura was thinking, "Here is the man who saved my life, and he is trying to show me my gratitude is not acceptable."

Which cross-purposing did not tend at all to simplify and pacificate the relations between them. As Laura turned her head away, something in her face or expression seemed to strike Larry, for he added hastily:

"And you? I haven't asked you whether you are over the effects of this miserable adventure. Are you quite recovered?"

"Oh, I am better to-day," she said, catching at the softening in his manner, and hesitatingly attempting to continue with something that did not come, and then breaking down and blushing.

Lawrence gave her a hasty, searching look, and called himself a brute for not seeing before how pale and changed she was. Indeed, it was but too apparent that that most miserable adventure, as he rightly termed it, had been no trifling accident to her. She looked slighter and more fragile far than formerly, her eyes were heavy, and an ill-concealed languor marked her voice and manner. "This is the work of my besotted temper and mad jealousy," he thought, remorsefully; but he said aloud, in a voice more stern than sorrowful:

"You are looking worse than I expected to see you. I imagined you were quite recovered."

"Oh, I am vastly better," she persisted ("to spare me," he thought bitterly). "I came down to my dinner to-day."

"Not for the first time?" he asked quickly.

"No, I attempted it a week ago, but did not feel quite so well for it."

"And you have been in your room ever since?"

"Till to-day at noon."

"I understood—I—that is—I imagined you were thoroughly yourself again. I don't know, Laura, how I am to make amends to you for what I've done. I believe you will have to be satisfied with my regrets; they are very sincere, though they won't do you much good."

"Regrets! That I am better? That's ungracious," Laura said, not exactly knowing what else to say, but knowing that what she did say was not quite wise nor strictly true. But Lawrence was so strange and stern, she did not know what to make of him; she longed to tell him all the gratitude she felt for that night's services; but he looked so dark and moody, and spoke so distantly, the words died on her lips. She would go, she would not thrust herself upon him; he did not like her thanks, and it was not her fault.

She turned to leave him, murmuring something about good night, and her hopes that he'd be better in the morning, when he exclaimed suddenly, "Don't go, Laura; I am sure you might see I'm very lonely here."

"Is it my fault?" she said, in a changed manner, not offering to come back, though not going further toward the door.

"I did not accuse you of it," he said, with a sigh, turning away, and leaning his forehead down upon the mantelpiece again.

"No, you did not say it was my fault," she returned, after a moment; "but you implied"——

"What did I imply?" he asked; and Laura's woman's wit deserted her upon that one occasion; she could not tell exactly what he did imply.

"I'll tell you what you thought, Laura," he said, raising his head. "You thought I implied it was a penance to you to stay here and help my solitude—that it would be only from duty you would stay if you did stay; that you would long to be downstairs among the rest. Isn't it so? Didn't you think I meant that? And didn't I mean right?"

"No," said Laura steadily, "for no one wants me downstairs. Warren is not come home yet, and my uncle never notices whether I am in the room or not."

"And Captain Lacy?" Lawrence said.

"Captain Lacy is not here."

"Not here! when did he go?"

"An hour ago."

"And when does he come back?"

She raised her eyes and looked at him steadily for a moment. "Never, Lawrence, I believe."

"Never!" he echoed, in a strange, satirical tone. "It costs you dreadfully to say that, I can see."

"Yes, it does cost me dreadfully," she said, with sudden feeling. And with inexplicable passion she buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.

"Laura!" exclaimed Lawrence, catching her hands and drawing them from her face as he bent his own down to her, "you are not crying because he has gone away. I know you are not."

"Let me go! let me go!" she murmured, with a wild struggle.

"No, Laura," he whispered, as he held her fast and looked into her eyes; "never, never again."

Never, never again. Captive to the sweetest, fondest rule, slave to the bondage from which no woman's heart rebels, bent under the tyranny that blesses beyond liberty; the long struggle conquered, the long doubt ended, the new, sweet, full life begun.

And while the lovers stood, intoxicated with the strange new happiness that they found on each other's lips, in each other's arms, the fitfully shining firelight glinted for a minute on a stealthy figure with lurid eyes and tight-clenched fingers, stealing cat-like to the door; and then the blaze fell and when it started up again, only the panther skin, swinging faintly back over the untenanted recess, and the erected ears and attentive eyes of the dog upon the rug, showed there had been any added to or detracted from the inmates of the room.

But the young lovers took no heed; their ears were open to nothing but their own low whispers, the firelight only showed them the new light in each other's eyes, the new beauty on each other's face. All was night outside the halo of their love; shadows might thicken, misery might weep, despair might dash itself to earth, they saw, heard, felt it not; blinded by their own great happiness, dazzled by the nearness of their own delight.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE ENEMY'S WORK.

"Night brings out stars as sorrows show us truths;
Though many, yet they help not; bright, they light not.
They are too late to serve us; and sad things
Are aye too true. We never see the stars
Till we can see nought but them. So with truth."

Festus.

The dark house was hushed in its first sleep; only one light waked in all its many chambers, and that one was shaded and hidden in a corner of Nattee's little room. Nattee herself crouched in another, as if afraid of it herself, and listened, breathless, to every sound that came through the partly open door. Many sounds will always come to any listening ears, in an old country house, in the stillest and most breathless night; rats will revel in the wainscot, crickets will chirrup on the hearth, snappings of the half-smothered fires, creakings of uneasy hinges will occur; and at each and all of these had Nattee started and trembled since she commenced her vigil. She had heard Salome's deafening snore begin, and had seen, through the crack in Steady's door, the little girl's hands crossed upon her bosom in childish, quiet slumber, and yet she feared to stir. What if they did not sleep below; what if those low, uncertain sounds were the restless steps of some wakeful member of the household? But she must take her chance; there was no safety or hope in waiting longer; the old clock in the sitting-room had long ago struck one—it was three hours since the last door had shut—she would wait no further, there never would be a safer time. With cautious, hesitating step, she crossed to where the shaded candle flickered, and stooping down, after a moment of irresolution, blew it out; then, as if that had been the decisive point, she started up with new resolution, and catching up the little bundle that lay upon the bed, she stole through the door and toward the stairs without a glance behind.

She had gained the second story hall before she stopped to reconnoitre. The attic door fell to noiselessly; she held her breath to listen, but all was still here as it was above. The way lay clear for her; another minute, and she might be beyond the house, but an impulse stronger even than her wild desire of flight drew her toward Larry's door. Ah! the dangers that she ran! He might be waking; lovers do not find wakefulness a penance, or her step might rouse him from his light and dreamy slumber, and then she was undone. But had the dangers been a thousand fold more imminent she would have braved them all. She pushed the door open slowly and softly and crept within the room. It was flooded with moonlight; from the narrow window opposite the bed a broad stripe of silvery white light streamed, and lay across the stone window-seat, the rough matted floor, and the low, white bed itself; noonday could hardly have shown Nattee the face and form she had come to look her last upon, more clearly than this soft moonlight did.

Careless and brave and bonny, even in his sleep, a dreaming smile playing about his handsome mouth, and a manly grace making good any attitude into which he chanced, to throw himself. No wonder poor Nattee's heart died in her as she thought it was the last time she should ever again look upon him, sleeping or waking, while she lived; the last time that she could feel that nothing but a quickly-broken sleep debarred her from the sound of his brave voice, the glance of his kind eye; he was the master she had been taught to love, to look upon with pride; she had learned her lesson but too well, and here was the cruel end. The kindness and manliness and generosity of his boyhood all came back to her; oh, that she could have died to serve him, that she could have shown him a better return for all his long forbearance than she should show him by her flight.

"Oh, Master Larry, if you only, only knew!" she murmured, sinking on her knees beside the bed; "if you only knew what made me go, you wouldn't be hard on me for going! Oh, it kills me to think he'll be angry with me when he comes to know I'm gone—it kills me to think he'll never gi' me a kind thought again, for all I've never done him ill, and would die, die, die to do him any good!"

It was so cruel, so impossible to tear herself away from the sight of what had always been best and dearest to her since she could remember, that more than once her resolve gave way, and she abandoned the purpose she was pledged to. To serve him, to live always in his sight, would be better than a life of ease away from him. No one should coax her from him, no one should make her go. But then came the thought of those two lovers by the fireside, of their low whispers, their fond looks, and she started up, lest the terrible, blood-thirsty, jealous pang of that first sight should seize again upon her. She dared not stay; she fled, poor wretch, as much from herself as from her bondage; she was so pursued and tortured and beset with misery, she knew not what way to look, she cared not what fate overtook her, so that it freed her from this abiding pain and fear. Another moment of passionate weeping, with her face pressed against the floor—another glance that spoke the bitterness of death—and she was gone. Her light foot woke no echoes as she stole past her mistress' room, the hall-door closed behind her without a sound, and she was standing, before she paused to think, in the clear moonlight and the fresh, cold air.

She did not feel, till that chill struck her, that she was actually a fugitive, that she had voluntarily abandoned home and protection, and was roofless and solitary under the open sky. But there was too much danger in the present to leave time for anticipation or reflection; how to get outside the precincts of the farmhouse and beyond the outbuildings and inclosures without rousing either of the dogs who watched around them nightly, or any of the men who slept in the barn or workshop, was the present vital question. That their slumbers were unusually light about this period, and their vigilance extreme, she had remembered with apprehension from the first. A stealthy band of Indians had for a fortnight past infested the neighboring farmyards by night, and the adjacent woods by day, and only three nights before had driven off in triumph one of Ralph Sutherland's finest heifers and several of his most cherished sheep, which loss had so enraged the old man, that he had deeply sworn the villains should be tracked and caught if there was any justice left in Ulster. And much to the surprise of all the men, he had backed his threatened vengeance with the liberal offer of a sovereign to the first one who should discover the retreat of the marauders, or lead to their arrest. The men were greatly excited by the unusual munificence of their master, and were stimulated to most painful vigils. Nattee's only hope was that three nights' watching would have worn their enthusiasm out a little, and that their natural and inborn sleepiness would by this time have begun to prevail over their newly aroused cupidity.

She stole around the corner of the house, trembling at her own shadow in the moonlight, and at the light sound of her footsteps on the frozen ground. Creeping along below the shrubbery, she gained the wall beyond the grape-arbor, and, raising herself, cast an eager glance around. There might be eyes in every window, lurking spies in every bush! Her blood curdled at the thought of what miscarriage would cost her; if she were but safely out into the lane!

She threw her bundle over the wall, and climbed up cautiously herself, then slid down as quick as thought upon the other side; but below the wall was an irregular growth of bushes and tall weeds, now crisp, and dry, and brittle, and, light and cautious as it was, her descent among them caused a crackling and rustling so unexpected that she uttered a low cry of consternation, as she caught up her bundle and sprang clear of them out into the orchard.

No time now to listen whether any one else had heard what had so startled her, but, run as swiftly as she might, she could not help catching the sound she so dreaded in the distance—the low growl, and then the sharp bark, of the watch-dog by the barn. Heaven have mercy now! A hundred yards lay between her and the stone wall that separated the orchard and the lane. Once clear of that she could defy them all, for there was neither man, nor boy, nor dog upon the place could match with her in speed. Her wild Indian blood was up; she would fight like a tiger, whatever crossed her path.

She had reached the wall, and had just put out her hand toward it, when the fleet, light-running of the wakeful dog coming down the lane made her spring back and stoop down. The mastiff had not yet bellowed out his alarum; he was only reconnoitering the ground and muttering out his dark suspicions in a low, uncertain growl. He had dashed out from the barn, and reached the lane by a short cut, and now would just effectually head her off. Ah! His quick ear had not played him false, the growl was deepening into a bark as he approached—his unerring instinct had brought him to the actual stone, where, half a minute before, Nattee had laid her eager hand; but as his paws touched the wall, and his quick head appeared above it, a large stone met it, from the waiting hand of Nattee, whose hand and eye had never missed their aim, and with a deep howl the dog fell back in his death-agony.

She crouched down a moment more, and listened for some sound that would indicate pursuit; but no, evidently the sleepy negroes had lost in dreams all memory of the reward, and Nattee recollected now that the other dog had been taken away with Dave, on a journey of a couple of days into the mountains. Dead dogs tell no immediate tales, and Nattee cleared the fence with an easy bound, and shot across into the shadow of the hedge-row of lilacs on the other side. She then abandoned the mad pace at which she had traversed the orchard, and fell into a rapid, cautious run, pausing every half dozen yards to ascertain if she had roused pursuit, and then speeding ahead, neither fast enough to exhaust herself, nor slow enough to put herself in danger.

At the end of the lane she made a longer pause, looking up and down the highway, into which it led, before she dared to cross it. What did she expect to see abroad at that deep hour of night? It seemed a needless caution, night and silence reigned so absolute.

Silent and safe as it all looked, however, the girl shivered as she cowered in the shadow of the hedge, and glanced ahead at the broad patch of moonlight she had to cross before she reached the friendly darkness of the woods. Delay, however, could not make the danger less, so catching up the bundle that had fallen at her feet, she sprang boldly across the highway, and struck into the unsheltered cross road that led into the Five Mile Woods, instinctively bending low, however, and skimming along the ground as near the fence as possible. A natural, but an unavailing caution, for her lengthened shadow stretched far across the bare, unshaded road, too conspicuous an object to be missed by any eyes, even the most inattentive, and none but the most watchful were likely to be open at such an hour as that. When she reached the woods, she made eagerly for the dark path that led into them, forgetting, till she was deep in the forest, all that train of fearful fancies with which her superstitious mind was filled. The alternate gloom and ghastliness of the way, now leading through dense evergreens, meeting, black and impenetrable, above her head, now passing under leafless and lofty trees, shedding strange and wavering shadows at her feet, would have chilled her with terror, if her errand had had no other terrors. There was a fearful stillness when she paused, there were more fearful noises when she moved; the dead leaves rustled audibly, the icicles and fallen branches broke and crackled startlingly beneath her tread, and presently, far beyond her, deep in the woods, a hoarse owl began his hideous screech.

This was no time for repentance; it was unavailing to look back—she must pursue unflinchingly this dangerous experiment of liberty that had looked so tempting in the promise, that stood so thick with perils even at the outset. She carried in her bosom the letter Pertinax had given her that evening, which, he had told her, once safe in the hands of his charitable brother, the minister, at ———, would insure her protection and safe conduct to whatever asylum she might choose—either refuge with a powerful tribe of Indians in the Northwest, of whom her father came, and who would willingly receive her, or safety among the sympathizers and well-wishers of the old dissenter, to whom she should be forwarded, in that most Christian and most Quaker province, named for him of landed charity and well-heralded good deeds.

"Courage, courage, girl! There isn't a Christian in the land, but holds thee wrongly bound, there's hundreds o' kind hands will help thee on; there's hundreds o' true hearts that ache for such as thee. Be quick, be brave, be cautious, thou'll have naught to fear."

Nattee murmured the words over to herself and tried to think that she believed them. Indeed, she did well to remind herself of all that was comfortable in her future, her present was unpromising enough. She had not estimated the dangers she would run, when, in her moment of mad despair, she had besought the restless preacher to help her to escape. Encouraged, and kept up to her desperate resolve by his sympathy and eloquence, she had not flagged till the moment of her parting with her master: from that point to the present, necessity of quick action had goaded her forward; but now, in this ghastly wilderness, with her journey just begun, with all her plans to form, there was a moment for reflection.

And instead of spending it in prudent and intelligent deliberations on the measures she should adopt, and the route she should pursue, this most unwise and most unreasonable fugitive sank down, overcome with terror and regret, and hiding her eyes from the dancing shadows that the moonlight shed, wept bitter and unavailing tears over her new liberty, and its unlooked-for charms. Most irrational and illogical, but most characteristic, the undisciplined, impulsive mind of the poor slave reverted at that moment of supernatural terrors and bodily fears to the safety and comfort of the home she had abandoned; the present discouragement overbore all the promised advantages, the little spite and venom that her otherwise affectionate heart had lately harbored, had exhausted itself in this short effort—she was humbled, repentant, abject—she had done enough to satisfy herself. The recollection of her young master's kindness her indignation had never clouded, but now returned with it the memory of her mistress' thousand gentle favors and continual forbearance, the easy, pleasant life she had led, the good nature and merriment of the kitchen, the gaiety and interest of the sitting-room. She forgot the brutal ugliness of the tyrant, from whose unkindness, though, to do him justice, she suffered no more than his whole household did; she forgot Salome's taunts and persecutions; she forgot, or overcame, her jealous bitterness against Laura—she was willing to go back in humbleness, and see her happiness and her lover's tenderness, anything—anything—to be out of all this horror, and to be home again, and to be within sight of the faces to which she was accustomed, and from which she was forever separating herself. And the young clergyman—how her faith died in her last instructor when she thought of him. He was a Christian, she was very sure, and yet she knew he would not have given her a helping hand in this ungrateful flight, which the Methodist had said all Christians would encourage. She had no idea what was the ground of her belief but her quick instinct told her, Warren's Christianity would have shown itself in a very different way. What if he were right after all, and her leader wrong—wrong—and had led her wrong! Her entire incapacity for dealing with the question in any other way than as it touched her passions; her bewilderment and weakness when it came to deciding it by reason, threw her into wild distress; she had no stay at all. Like all persons of uneducated mind and conscience, she was subject to the most harassing changes of feeling, and the most unmanageable doubts. Rudderless and unready, her bark seemed at the mercy of a black and engulphing sea; the shore was already but a dim and distant line.

And mixed up with these bitter thoughts, entangled, knit in with their bewilderment and consternation, came the recollection of the frightful stories that were told about these very woods. Her blood had curdled many a time by the warm chimney-corner, only to listen to the recital of them, and now she was braving all the terrors of the place, alone at midnight, and on a questionable errand, too. Low moanings, faint whisperings, distant sighings, were all that seemed to justify her fears, till——

Nattee raised her head with a wild throb of terror, and started to her feet; superstitious alarm died away in the dim distance at the approach of such substantial danger as that sound implied. A smothered, wary step, often pausing, reconnoitering stealthily, but approaching swiftly, following closely on her very track. Blind, deaf, giddy with fear, for a moment she staggered back; then the strong, sharp reaction of a clearer terror shot through her, and she bounded forward with a fleetness almost fabulous. She darted out of the path she had been following, and made directly for the bed of a stream, about half a mile deeper in the woods upon her right. The recent rain and melting of the snow had filled it pretty full, and in following it the sound of her footsteps would be drowned by the rushing of its waters.

She knew it pretty well, too, and could safely follow it for miles, for it led up the mountain that lay partly in her route. At any rate, it was better than the beaten path that her pursuer now was in, where every step was audible, and it was better than the thick, tangled brushwood through which she made such tantalizingly slow progress. At last she reached the stream, and only pausing for an instant to know if she were followed, she sprang lightly along from rock to rock, sometimes plashing through the water, sometimes clambering along the bank. She did not make the headway she would have made in the clear path, however. Her mind began to misgive her—this was a perilous experiment; the stones were so coated with ice, it was an effort constantly to keep her feet. She was so exhausted with her exertions to keep herself from falling, that, panting and trembling, she at length sank down to recover breath and look around her. The stone on which she sat was lying at the foot of a little waterfall, which, tumbling over a ledge of rock far above her head, fell noisily down into the stream beside her. Indeed it was only from this point the brooklet began its even, peaceable course; above, it tumbled down the steep side of the mountain, of which this was the legitimate base.

Nattee cast a fearful look up the rocky and precipitous path that lay before her, and then bent eagerly forward in a listening attitude. Ah, the treacherous brook! While its roar had drowned her steps, it had hidden her pursuer's as well; for a stealthy shadow, creeping through the thicket, not a hundred yards from where she sat, caught her eye. Could she hope to win at this close game? Mortal terror has no hopes, no expectations, no calculations; it saves itself till Death has it by the throat. A steep and perilous ascent, indeed, it was that wound upward from where poor Nattee had taken her momentary rest, and in daylight she would have thought twice before she risked it; sharp sudden rocks, glazed treacherously with ice—huge fallen trees, with their rough and scraggy branches still upon them, lay across and beside the stream; the sides of the gully which it had worn were even steeper and rougher than the bed of the stream itself. For a few moments it seemed as if the courage and fleetness of the Indian girl were more than equal to the dangers of the way; by marvellous strength and stratagem, she distanced her foe at every step—owing to this, perhaps, that she took no care to avoid the cuts and bruises and blows the dangerous way presented, while her adversary, if one of flesh and blood, must have lost much time in saving himself from them. But at last, even the desperation and cunning of the fugitive stood baffled—a more complete trap than the one into which she had fallen could hardly have been devised by the most malignant ingenuity. Above her, the rocks rose to the height of twenty feet—a perpendicular wall across the little gully, over which the water was rushing noisily, scattering spray upon the rocks that turned fast into ice as it fell. The sides of the ravine were absolutely impassable for thirty feet on both hands, and it was madness to think she could run back a distance of thirty feet, and struggle up the first accessible rock, before her pursuer met her. Must she fall into his hands—was she, indeed, brought to bay?

She cast a frenzied look around the glittering walls of her prison; oh, her cursed folly and forgetfulness! Why had she not remembered the waterfall! If she had but scaled the bank a few rods below it! There was not a crevice, not a ledge behind which she could hide, nothing to shelter her from her foe, from the instant he gained the turn that led into the fatal den. She caught one wild hope, as she glanced up: a great tree, fallen across the gully, rested on the opposite rocks, and made a bridge twenty feet above her head. One branch hung from it, almost within her reach; she might gain it by a spring—there was a chance it was decayed and weak, and indeed it looked too slight at best to hold her; but it was the only hope. She flung her bundle into the stream, in which she was standing ankle-deep, and giving a spring like a wildcat, grasped the bough with both hands and struggled up it. It swayed and creaked—in another instant it would have given way; but Nattee's bruised and bleeding arms were clinging to the rough trunk of the tree before it parted; and swinging herself up, she crept along on hands and knees upon it, and gained the bank just in time to look down and see through the rocks a black shadow in the moonlight standing underneath the waterfall. No time for exultation—where should she turn next? If she left the stream, she left the only guide through the wild forest, and yet it would be a guide as well to her pursuer; and how long could such a flight be kept up? But, clearing the bank of the stream about a dozen yards, she resumed the ascent of the mountain, keeping within sound of the brook, however, and within sight of the rocks that lined its course. Farther up, she hoped there might be some asylum, where she could obtain a short respite, and indeed she sorely needed it, for her strength was almost spent. She lagged painfully, as she toiled on, glancing constantly behind, and half-expecting every moment to see her swift adversary at her heels. Now she began to feel the misfortune of her tender rearing; for, strong and supple by nature, she had never learned the endurance and hardness that field-labor would have insured to her; out-door and really hard work had never been imposed on her; and so, though she had begun her flight so bravely, it seemed to threaten she would not keep it up as well as she had begun it.

A ledge of rock just ahead of her seemed to promise difficulty of attainment, but security of retreat, if once attained. Wet, and bruised, and panting, she reached the foot of it, and essayed to climb it; but the excitement that had attended her escape from the peril of the waterfall below was paying for itself upon her nerves just now. She lost her usual steadiness of hand and eye, and the climbing became a difficult and a dangerous experiment. Half way up, she lost her balance; grasping a projecting stone for support, it gave way at her touch, and she fell backward to the ground, the loosened stone striking heavily upon her foot, then rolling slowly down the descent. For a few minutes, the agony she endured from the wound it had inflicted made her lose the sense of danger; she writhed upon the ground, and pressed her hand upon her mouth to suppress her scream of pain. But as the first sharpness of the suffering passed over, the real peril began to assert its nearness: she raised her head and listened.

Coming from the direction of the brook she heard steps; there were too many trees and too much underbrush between to allow her to see any one, but she felt the cat-like tread within a stone's throw of her, and turned sick with fear when she tried to rise and found that she was worse than helpless. The steps came on, cautiously and swiftly—they were within a rod of her retreat, when suddenly they halted. The stone that was rolling down the mountain caught, for the first time, the intruder's ear; and well he might be startled at the sound. It had increased in velocity as it went on, and now, at this distance, seemed like nothing so much as a person running heedlessly and swiftly down the hill, springing over obstacles, crashing through underbrush, falling against trees, pausing, then dashing on. For one moment there was a pause that seemed to Nattee ages of suspense and terror, and her heart gave one bound, and then almost stopped its beating, when she heard the quick steps of her pursuer hurrying down the hill in the direction of the distant sound that had deceived him.

Yes, thank Heaven, she was safe! Safe—but for how long?—how many hours could she hope to remain undiscovered, within two miles of her master's house, in a tract of woodland well known to every man upon the place? Once in the mountains, she could at least have had an equal chance with them; or once well on the road to Kiskatom—but now! Every movement cost her unbearable agony; she might as well have been manacled and fettered as to lay there, crippled and helpless, two miles at least from safety, within hearing of the treacherous landmark that had so nearly worked her ruin, and almost within sight of the spot where she had thrown away her bundle. By day light, her absence would be known to all the house; and she shuddered and hid her face, as she remembered whose unchristian ears the news would first meet, and what wrathful vengeance was brewing for her even then. Poor Nattee!

"Oh, if I were only, only dead ! Oh, if I only dared!"

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE DISCOVERY.

"Anger's a hurricane inbred;
Meekness, a calm in heart and head;
Revenge, of war runs all the ills;
Forgiveness, sweets of peace instills.

"The wicked, like the troubled sea,
Are ne'er from storms of conscience free.
They outrage God's all-seeing eye,
Till they the devil's martyrs die."

Bishop Ken.

"Steady!" cried Salome in a voice which caused some agitation in that little girl's mind, "Steady, you run right upstairs and tell that lazy piece she'll hear of it ef I hev to send for her agin."

Steady dropped her knives, cast a frightened look at the unready breakfast-table, and hurried up, knocked faintly against Nattee's door, and waited for an answer. Now Steady was snubbed by everybody in the kitchen, and had grown very shy of conveying messages between the unfriendly parties in it, having found she was quite sure to do wrong whatever she did, and that the blows were more apt to fall on her than on anybody else. So after thumping some time on the door and getting no answer, she contented herself with delivering Salome's message at the keyhole, and going downstairs again.

"Did you tell her, you snail?" cried Salome, as she entered the kitchen.

"Yes, I told her," said little Steadfast, not doubting but she spoke the truth. She did not like to say Nattee was ugly and wouldn't answer her, for fear of getting both Nattee and herself into trouble.

After she had cleaned the knives to the last degree of cleanness, she bethought herself, "Can't I be getting the table ready for breakfast till she comes down?" It was quite as much for the pleasure of doing something that she had never done before, as to help Nattee, that she set about it, but either motive would have been sufficient to give a zest to the employment. She succeeded in it beyond her hopes, however, and when Salome, still storming at Nattee's lazy ways, and threatening vengeance in the intervals of her work, dished the breakfast and actually allowed Steady to carry it in and put it on the table, it was the proudest moment of the little girl's life, and she forgot to be sorry for the rod that was pickling for Nattee.

She was allowed to wait upon the breakfast-table, and acquitted herself so unobtrusively that no one (Mrs. Sutherland not being present), noticed the change from the ordinary attendant. Laura indeed said, "Why, Steady, are you here?" But, besides an inquiring smile, she did not embarrass her with questions upon the reasons of her presence.

It so happened that the family were late in getting en route in the day's duties; the old man had overslept himself, and was as cross as possible in consequence, and the slaves seemed to have had a premonition of his tardiness, and came lagging into the kitchen for their morning meal a full half hour later than usual. Consequently, they were still lingering over it, when the family on the other side of the dividing partition sat down to theirs, and Salome, taking breath between their last griddleful of buckwheat-cakes and their betters' first installment of muffins, growled out some pretty hard things of Nattee, and vowed massa should hear about her the very minute he got through his breakfast. Reasons of state prevented her going in person and hauling her down to judgment; the attic stairs were steep and narrow, and one journey a-day was all she ever attempted; besides, she always preferred avoiding a personal encounter with Nattee, and handing her over to the secular arm when it could conveniently be done. Nattee's eyes had a flash in them occasionally that made the old hypocrite uncomfortable, for like all blusterers, she was a profound coward, and she never railed on her enemy so unreservedly as when she was out of hearing.

"The lazy, spiled, shiffless thing!" she vented her vexation that morning by muttering. "Ye're all a wuthless set, if massa only knowed it, every one o' ye; but she heads ye all. She ain't wuth her salt—she's a nuisance to the house. And there's another," she went on venomously as Amen, with a hang-dog look, crept in at the kitchen door. "Where you been all this time, you little sarpint? Comin' snoopin' in to breakfast this time o' day! D'ye think ye're goin' te git it, say? D'ye think so, now?"

"Who wants yer breakfast?" muttered Amen, crawling toward the fire; and indeed he looked as if he wanted heat much more than anything just then, for his clothes were wet and muddy, and the skin of which he was guilty had that peculiar hard, dry look that is consequent upon exposure to the cold in them of Africa.

"Missable little cuss!" cried Salome, looking at him disdainfully. "Jess you wait till Nattee comes down, and I'll have ye in, both on ye, before the massa. I'll see ef ye can't come to yer breakfast when I call ye."

"Who wants yer breakfast?" growled the limb again.

This was unusual; for however audacious at other times, Amen was ordinarily very suave at meal-times, being fond of his stomach, and knowing that its interests would suffer materially from Salome's disaffection. "Who wants yer breakfast?" therefore sounded as if he were either too much preoccupied to want it, or as if he felt himself, for some cause, temporarily invested with an importance that rendered him independent of her favor. Salome could hardly keep her hands off him at this, she was so bitterly enraged; but she contented herself with hurling a few reproaches at him, which broke no bones and seemed to occasion him no disquiet.

"Jess you wait," she reiterated, "jess you wait till that there Nattee comes down, and ef you two don't feel the heft o' massa's lash, my name's not Salome."

"I'll hev to wait a while, then, ef I wait till she comes down," Amen mumbled, poking his toes into the ashes.

"No ye won't, neither," cried Salome, "fur ef she ain't here in a couple o' minutes, I'll go up fur her myself."

"Ye can save yerself the trouble," responded Amen, with great sang froid, "fur ye wouldn't find her."

"What d'ye mean?" snapped Salome, looking at him sharply. "Speak up this minute—what d'ye mean by sayin' that?"

But Amen, being sure that now he had the ear of the kitchen, was in no hurry to speak up; he thrust his feet further into the ashes, and spread his hands before the blaze, and muttered impudently that he meant "jess" what he said, and beyond that no satisfaction could be got out of him till Rube, of whom he stood in some little awe, rose slowly from the table, and walked over to where he stood, and collared him firmly.

"What's that ye said 'bout Nattee, hey?"

"Lemme 'lone," muttered Amen, struggling in his grasp. "Lemme 'lone, or I'll never tell ye nothin'."

The old negro took his hand off him, but kept his eye on him, and bade him gruffly to proceed. Amen shook himself and cast a furtive glance around to ascertain the chance open to him of securing better terms and a more dignified position in which to deliver his intelligence; but Rube "had him on the hip;" he might as well surrender his news without any further ado, the powerful old negro would shake it out of him if he did not. He growled something about Rube's half choking him, rubbed the back of his neck, looked much injured, and then informed his audience they might look upstairs and downstairs for Nattee, but they wouldn't find her, and that it 'ud be one while, he reckoned, 'fore massa had the pleasure o' layin' the lash again on her.

"Ye lie, ye whelp, I know ye lie," Salome said, hoarsely "She daren't run off to save her"——

"He'd better try lyin' to me," Rube ejaculated, approaching his right hand to the youth's throat again.

Amen dodged him, and cried, "Well, if ye think I'm lyin', whar's the use o' talking te me?"

"I'll show ye whar's the use," muttered Rube, bringing his hand down upon his neck.

"Le' go, le' go," cried Amen, squirming away from him. "Ye know I ain't a lyin'. Look here; ef I'm a lyin', what d'ye make o' that?" And he flung down before them a wet and muddied bundle, tied up in one of Nattee's familiar bright plaid aprons. There was a dead silence as Salome snatched it up and eagerly tore it open.

"Where'd ye fine it?" she said at last, in a hoarse, low voice.

"Ye'll likely know when I tell ye, ole woman," the imp answered, with an elfish look. The men glanced from one to another with slow wonder and alarm; the possibility of such a thing as this had never crossed their minds before. Rube broke the silence, by starting toward the attic door, and the whole group waited breathlessly till his step was heard stumbling down the stairs again.

The old man sat down on a chair beside the door, and shook his head mournfully. "Well?" cried Salome, impatiently.

"He's spoke true," he said at last. "He's spoke true. Her bed ain't been slep' in. The poor girl's gone; she's listened to evil counsels; I might ha' knowed it. She's been too much over at the Methody's. Where's it all goin' to end! Poor girl, poor girl!"

"And who's to tell massa?" Salome asked, in a subdued voice.

"Aye, who?" whispered the others, with a shiver. "Not I, for one,"—"Nor I"——

"Amen, you come along with me," said Rube, after a pause, getting up and going slowly toward the door. "And mine you tell the truth to massa, or it'll be the wus for you."

"I'll mine," muttered the imp, and slunk along after his mentor. The rest of the group pressed on after them, and stood around the door, gazing with mingled wonder and alarm upon the scene. Laura, Warren and Larry were still at the table; Ralph had moved over to the fire, and was smoking his pipe in his accustomed corner. It was a part of his creed never to look up when a door opened or any noise occurred, but to swear at it "on suspicion," without raising his eyes. So the slight disturbance caused by the entrance of Rube and Amen, he greeted with his ordinary growl, and smoked on without turning his head.

The hope of the holding out of the golden sceptre was evidently dimming in poor Rube's mind; he looked anxiously at his master, and twice essayed to speak; there certainly was nothing encouraging in his face.

"Well, Rube, what is it?" said Larry, after a pause. "You seem to have something to say to my father."

"I've got bad news to tell him, Massa Larry," Rube began, and then stopped. Larry had suspected as much from the portentous faces around the kitchen door, but his apprehensions had not travelled beyond the rifling of the hen-roost, or the loss of a dozen more of sheep.

"That's a pity. Rube, but bad news don't improve by keeping, so you'd better let us hear it."

"I wish to goodness I didn't hev to tell ye, Massa Larry, but—but—Nattee's run away"——

Old Ralph raised his head with a horrid oath, and told him that he lied.

"I wish I did, massa," said the old man. "I wish you may fine out it ain't true—but I'm powerful 'fraid there ain't no hope o' that."

"Nattee!" exclaimed Lawrence, rising quickly. "I can't believe it; Rube, there's some mistake."

"Massa Larry, I tell ye I wish there wus—but there ain't no chance o' it. She must ha' gone las' night. Her bed ain't been slep' in, and here's her bundle Amen found somewhere in the woods—an—he kin tell ye what he knows."

Ralph, after the first moment, had sunk down into his ordinary slouching attitude, and after fixing his wolfish eyes for a moment on Amen, turned them to the floor, and smoked on as if he neither heard nor saw. Larry, approaching the boy, with an appalling sternness bade him tell shortly and truly all he knew, on pain of his heaviest displeasure.

Amen, thus adjured, began his statement of the night's adventures, going back to Nattee's visit early in the evening, to the house of Mr. Pound, of which fact he had surreptitiously possessed himself, and upon which he had based his suspicions of her fidelity. He related pretty clearly the circumstances of his arousing, tracing her down the lane, finding the wounded dog, and following her into the woods. In fact, the only points, in all his narrative, in which he deviated from the truth, were, first, as to the exact spot where he had picked up the bundle; second, the distance he had gone before he lost track of her; and third, the way and manner of his losing it. All which deviations were to be referred solely to his desire to make himself out astonishingly fleet and dexterous in his pursuit, and to give his audience the impression that all that could have been done by one person had been done by him. So that, in reality, he conveyed the idea that the fugitive was already beyond pursuit, in the mountains above, guided and sheltered by some of the Indians of her tribe.

Lawrence walked up and down the room with knit brow and compressed lips, Warren leaned upon the table and watched the narrator with an anxious face, and Laura trembled and turned pale. Only the master of the house showed no agitation and no interest, smoking his pipe and swaying himself very slightly backward and forward as he smoked. But when the boy had finished his story, and had answered two or three hasty questions put to him by Lawrence, and there had been a pause of several minutes, the old man arose, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, laid it on the shelf, and walking forward, rested both hands on the table, and raised his eyes and fixed them on the group.

"Ye're likely niggers, all of ye," he said, in a slow, deliberate voice, "likely niggers, and as quick to scent your game as any Indian devil of 'em all. I turn ye out into the woods this minute, to hunt 'em till ye find that wench, and I trust ye to bring her back to me alive or dead. He that does, has twenty pounds; he that leaves a stone unturned, had better look to it that I don't find it out. And he that in the smallest way shall favor her escape, will have good cause to thank his luck if he comes out alive from underneath the lash. You, saddle me

Dirck, and you, make all the haste you can, 'cross lots to Caspar's, and ask him how many men he'll spare me for this business. Let Dave mount Jess, take the short cut to Kiskatom, and put 'em on the scent. Neighbor Vandervleeck I'll see myself; Amen, stay where ye are till I give ye leave to stir. Go now, the rest of ye—and lose no time."

The negroes slunk away quickly from his malignant eye, to huddle together, frightened and uncertain, in the kitchen, loathing and fearing their cruel errand, yet fearing more to disregard it. Lawrence continued his quick walk up and down the room, with a sterner and darker face than Laura had ever seen him wear before. Warren got up, as his uncle left the room, and following him, said:

"May I speak to you a moment, sir?"

As the door closed, Lawrence brought his walk to an end. "This is a dreadful business, Laura," he said quickly. "I must be before him—there is not a minute to lose. You will tell mother about it—poor mother! I wish she did not have to know!"

"But, Lawrence!" faltered Laura, as he embraced her, "you must not go, you are not fit—it is madness"——

"My darling, I have no choice. If I were ten times more unfit than I am now, I should have to go. You must not mind—I will take care."

And in a moment more, Laura was left alone by the window, watching anxiously the hurried preparations at the barn. Brown Bess, saddled and bridled, though, was the first horse led out, and Lawrence, waving her an adieu, galloped down the lane before old Ralph issued from the house, spurred and booted for the chase.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE CHAPEL.

"All that He asks on Israel's part,
Is only, that the captive heart
Its woe and burden feel."

Keble.

But the chase was destined to prove anything but satisfactory to its leader. A more diligent and thorough one had never scoured the Five-Mile Woods, nor the adjacent wilds above. Whatever reluctance the poor fugitive's own comrades may have felt at assisting in the hunt for her, it was fully overcome by their terror of their master's wrath, and the neighboring negroes who were enlisted in the service had no scruples to overcome, and much to animate them in the proposed reward. There was no stone left unturned; the whole country, far and near, was beaten up; neighbors were warned and placed on the lookout, and such was the sympathy among those early advocates of the peculiar institution, settled by the mother country upon the colonies before they were old enough to choose for themselves, that one and all, for miles around, lent readily their influence against the fugitive.

Her chance seemed slim, indeed. Men, and dogs, and horses were trampling down every inch of swamp and thicket between the Sutherland farm and the outskirts of the county; hunters, familiar with the mountains, were beating up every lair and cavern; bonfires blazed at night from Round Top and Pine Orchard; no money, nor men, nor vigilance was spared. If the price of the girl were twice expended in her capture, Ralph Sutherland would not have grudged the money, but he would not be balked of his revenge. A most blood-thirsty rancor possessed itself of him; all his evil passions went to feed it. This girl, as the household favorite, had long been his aversion. He saw that every member of it, Salome, perhaps, excepted, longed to see him thwarted in recovering her, and at once to torture his wife, startle the new comers, baffle Lawrence, and strike awe into those who might be tainted by her example, became his engrossing resolution.

And as the first night closed in, and the returning scouts brought no intelligence of her capture, and the second day was ending with no happier result, his resolution deepened into a vindictive purpose, from which he vowed he never would turn back. Alive or dead, he would again obtain possession of her. It was Ahab lusting for the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite; Haman loathing his life because of Mordecai the Jew. It was nothing to him that she was a chattel, easily replaced and personally indifferent to him; that he was sinking all her worth upon this ill-starred expedition; that she was below revenge; that he would be none the richer, none the easier, when he had regained her. His wicked life was drawing to that point that answers to perfection; "his vices were unalloyed by a single virtue;" he had got rid, it had begun to seem, of all mere human frailty, and had become all over fiendish; and just at this high point of sin, the Arch-Enemy himself deserted him, as he principally does his votaries, betraying them at last to ruin by some most paltry, most transparent snare, and leaving them to lead the horrible remnant of their ill-spent lives stripped of the strength and courage he has till then supplied.

Those two days were slow and dreadful ones to the women who watched at home for the news they so much feared. Poor Mrs. Sutherland was very much overcome at the intelligence of her favorite's ungrateful flight; but she had loved her too many years not to lose all resentment at her ingratitude, in solicitude for her safety, when she came to see the heavy wrath brooding in her husband's eyes. The most painful presentiments of evil, indeed, filled the minds of all who saw him. He hardly tasted food, and half the night his heavy tread across the chamber floor proclaimed his restless vigil.

Through the second day Mrs. Sutherland wandered about the house like one in a dream, quite neglecting her ordinary household duties, starting at every sound, and stealing to the window to watch, trembling for the coming news. She turned instinctively to Laura for support; but Laura, pale and anxious, was suffering hardly less. Lawrence was gone all day, and his return at night brought no encouragement, except what could be gathered from the quiet resoluteness of his manner, and the unshaken determination that his eye expressed. It was a gloomy, gloomy evening, and the next day was worthy of its fellowship. Little Steady went about her work with red eyes and choking voice, and Salome, triumphing in Nattee's downfall as she did, could not forbear a shivering apprehension of what must come upon her.

The men straggled in at irregular intervals, and ate their chance meal standing by the cupboard or sitting down silent by the fireplace. All regular work was intermitted, and a greater contrast to the usual noisy, merry kitchen, could hardly be imagined than it now presented. They talked in whispers of the strange event—the unaccountable disappearance of all traces of her they sought, the wonderful fact of her long concealment, but the no less positive certainty that sooner or later she must be found. Their master's strength of will and unshrinking hardihood of purpose had impressed them more than anything else within the range of their experience, and the half smothered conviction, which more than one among them cherished secretly, that he was in league with the Evil One himself, did not tend to raise their hopes for Nattee.

But of all the household, Warren, perhaps, suffered the most acutely from this strange occurrence. His conscience, refined and enlightened beyond that of any others who were connected with the event, felt more keenly the many sins that had gone to bring it about. Close contact with such wickedness as his uncle's was unspeakable pain to one who had the power to fathom it as he had; he shuddered as he gazed down the black abyss, knowing too surely where it ended. Nor had he spared to warn him of the danger; but an angel from heaven could not have restrained the old man then. And for his cousin, Warren had many fears. How much he had to do with the present perversion of right and order in the family, he could only conjecture; but his self-will, and his imperious temper, seemed inevitably to Warren to be working out some heavy retribution for him. Perhaps, unacknowledged to himself, he had very much the same fear in regard to the reward of his haughtiness and lofty looks that his brother in the ministry so loudly proclaimed and prophesied, but softened by the great affection he felt for him, and the strong hope he had of some gentler way of change. But deep as was his love for him, and entire as his admiration for the thorough manliness and strength of his character, he could not help seeing reliance on it had been his bane; it was placing him at war with religion, and blinding him to its inevitable, only, simple way to lasting peace and real strength.

It seemed to Warren as if the household were all wrong—a good and prosperous edifice founded on shifting sands, and surrounded by treacherous and engulphing seas. The timid and fluttering faith of the poor mother had been the only safeguard it had had thus far—the only charm that had stayed the proud waves at its base; but now the storm was rising in which it should be tried. Warren's thoughts went back to the past—the purchase of this vast estate. What was it but the reward of iniquity? What had every year's record of it in heaven been but "the wicked in prosperity"—a house established in unrighteousness? He could not keep his faith and not feel apprehension for its future.

But the sins of others, though they oppressed and saddened him, did not form the burden, he knew, appointed to him to bear. He realized most bitterly he had had a part to fill, since he had been a member of this family, that he had filled but tamely and lukewarmly. If he had felt as strongly as he had seen clearly the dangers by which they were surrounded, would he have laid his plans so quietly and gone to work so calmly? Would he not rather have had the zeal and fervor of him he had looked upon with something like contempt? Would he have spared day or night to tell them of their errors? Would he have trusted so much to time, and the working of his system? Ah! but a little flock had been committed to his care, and here was one lost already. How should he answer, at the great day of account, for that neglect? How would that wail cry forever in his ears! He had prayed for her—he had striven silently to reach her heart; but had he put the passion into his prayers, the earnestness into his efforts that he would have done if her mortal body, instead of her immortal soul, had been in danger of perishing before his eyes? How cold and dead his faith must be, never to have awakened him before to this dreadful possibility. Whole days and nights of prayer and self-abasement seemed utterly powerless to express his deep contrition, as they were incompetent to atone for his omissions, but a truer penitent than he never strove to humble soul and body before heaven, and to bring both down to the dust. Very little, the rest of the family would have said, he had to reproach himself with, in this or any other matter, saintly, self-denying, devotional, as his whole life seemed to them. They never guessed the tortures of self-reproach and penitence that he was passing through during those two days of miserable suspense, and he never dreamed in what esteem they held his life; but it is well, perhaps, both for themselves and others, that, as Bishop Taylor says, while the saints are like lanterns in the world, the dark side is toward themselves.

It was nothing of unusual occurrence, when that evening after supper, some one inquired "Where's Warren?" that Laura answered, "he is at the chapel, and told me not to expect him home to-night."

The little vestry room had latterly become his favorite retreat, a great proportion of his books were there; Rube's care had supplied him with an inexhaustible supply of dry and easily kindled wood, and the isolation and dreariness of the spot were so much to his taste, that there seemed a danger of his being too much in love with his little hermitage, and shunning the home circle more than accorded with his duty. At first, Laura had dreadful dreams when he did not come back at night, and his aunt remonstrated earnestly. But he soon convinced them he was more comfortable there; there was no fireplace in his own room at home, and he could accomplish twice as much study over there alone, as when he attempted it in the sitting-room among the family circle. And it was much more exposing and uncomfortable to walk back late at night through the woods, than to throw himself upon the little lounge beside the fire, and sleep till morning. To all this they finally gave in, and it was now a regular thing for Warren to leave them after supper, as often as three nights in the week, and not to return again till breakfast time.

Mrs. Sutherland, however, looked up uneasily that evening, and said:

"Has Warren gone without his supper? I must send him some."

"I don't think he wants any, dear aunt," said Laura, listlessly, sitting by the window and looking earnestly for some sign of Lawrence's return.

"Steady must surely take some over to him though," her aunt returned, glad, perhaps, of something to divert her thoughts momentarily from their gloomy source of anxiety. She busied herself about preparing something for him, and filling a little basket, set it down out in the hall, telling Steady to hurry through her work and take it to him, and then did not give the subject another thought. It was very unlike Mrs. Sutherland to give so careless a direction; she would, at any other time, have reflected that by the time little Steady had completed her unusually heavy work, removed the supper, and arranged the room, it would be perfectly dark, and every way unfit to send her out into the woods. But in truth the poor lady's mind was so absorbed with her anxieties and apprehensions, that she did not give the matter a second thought, and did not even miss Steady, when, an hour later, the child, with trembling hands, tied on her hood, grasped the basket, and stole out into the night. She was not habitually timid, but she would have been more than human, if, in those superstitious days, and among those ignorant dependents, she had not caught something of their terror of the darkness. The horrid stories that were whispered round the kitchen fire at night did not lose any of their effect upon her mind, because they were not intended to meet her ear. She said her prayers, poor little woman, over and over, as she hurried along toward the dreaded woods, and past her own deserted little home, and tried not to think of what Salome said, and what Dave saw further on, and where it was Joe heard that awful groan.

She knew the path so well, it was not very hard for her to keep it, notwithstanding the darkness and her fears; she never thought of turning back, the possibility of not doing as she had been told to do had never occurred to her mind; the most she dared do was to wish the wood were shorter, and to hope Mr. Warren would not send her back alone. At last, however, she emerged from them upon the open hill, and caught the glimmer of a light from the little vestry room window.

The woods behind the chapel looked very black indeed, but the sky, now she was used to the darkness, was nearer to a pallid grey than the black she had supposed. Ah! And there was that solitary grave, of which no one had as yet taught her any fear, and the little wreath of immortelles that had hung upon it since All Saints. There was light enough to see it quite distinctly, and she stopped a moment by it, resting her hands upon it, serious and subdued. Mr. Warren had taught her to say, "I believe in the Communion of Saints," when she stood by her father's grave, and to repeat part of the thirty-ninth Psalm. The obedient little formalist did not forget his teaching; it had been her faithful service every time she had come there since his burial. And, half aloud, half in a whisper, she repeated the solemn words of the funeral anthem, made forever holy in her ears since that sad day. Poor child, there was more pathos in her recital of those last verses than she guessed, more meaning in them than she had learned to read:

"Hear my prayer, O Lord, and with Thine ears consider my calling; hold not Thy peace at my tears:

"For I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner as all my fathers were.

"O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen."

When Mr. Warren, starting up at her low knock, opened the door, he met Steadfast's own serious, literal eyes, as sober and unagitated as if she had been standing by the cheerful fireside of her home.

"Steady!" he exclaimed in wonder, admitting her, "what are you doing here this dark night? Did any one come with you?"

A few words explained her story, and Mr. Warren passed his hand kindly over her brown hair, as he said:

"You are a little Steadfast, there is no room for doubt. How did you like coming through the woods?"

"I didn't like it, Mr. Warren, I ran."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Steady. I should like to think you were not afraid."

"But I was, Mr. Warren."

"You'll know better one of these days, I hope, Steady. However, I cannot send you back alone. Sit down there on that bench by the fire, while I finish what I am about, and then I will take you home."

It was quite a self-denial to him to give up his quiet night, but he could not think of letting the child go back alone at such an hour, and with such wild doings in the woods as they had lately witnessed: so while she sat demurely down beside the fire, Warren hurried to finish the abstract he was making, preparatory to putting up his books and extinguishing his light and fire. She was so quiet, however, that in a few moments he forgot her presence, and became entirely absorbed in his pursuit.

A half hour perhaps passed by before he was recalled to what he had promised to do, by the sight of her. A slight unusual noise, as of something softly slid along the stone floor of the chapel, had caused him to look up. There lay Steady, however, fast asleep upon the hearth, with her arms upon the bench, innocent of any movement, quiet as a shadow.

"It must have been my fancy," Warren thought, as he resumed his writing. Presently something like it came again.

"It is no fancy now," he thought, laying down his pen and listening. But there succeeded such a silence he began again to doubt himself.

Whether fancied or real, however, it had effectually broken up his train of thought; so closing his books, he pushed them back, and leaned his head upon his hands. The isolation and dreariness of the place came over him very strongly as, for the moment, he listened to the wind sighing through the trees outside, and looked at the sleeping child and the dying fire within. Perhaps, also, weakened by his long fast, and his recent strong emotions, he listened a little more to the whisperings of fancy and the suggestions of the hour than he was apt to do. The sight of the quiet little sleeper, too, perhaps, recalled the sad event that on this spot had made her friendless and orphaned, and had left her so peculiarly in his care.

"If I neglect you too, poor baby!" he said, with a groan, covering his eyes with his hands. Mark's sad, reproachful face came before him, mixed with the memory of poor Nattee's eager, wistful eyes, as he had caught them fixed on him during the All Saints sermon; and he felt, for one dreadful moment, a faint foretaste of that pang that at the very gates of Heaven even the righteous must endure, as, entering them, he parts forever from the lost multitudes without, and, looking back, catches on the ghastly faces gazing after him, despair, reproach, and anguish. It came upon him so suddenly and vividly that when he raised his head his forehead was wet, and his cheek ashy pale. He conquered himself with effort, and rising, walked hurriedly back and forth across the narrow room.

"Good Master! help me to remember it!" he murmured; "help me to keep the vow I make, never to forget that vision, never to suffer it to pale. I will bind it as frontlets between my eyes; I will write it on my heart; I will think upon it lying down and rising up; I will work to save the souls of men as I would wish I had worked at that day; I will wish myself accursed from Christ if by my means the lowest of my brethren be; I will pray never to be admitted to those holy courts if there must be shut out one soul whom I have failed to warn, one wretch whose eyes can turn reproachfully on me!"

He went into the chapel, and throwing himself upon his knees, bowed his face upon the chancel rail, and remained in that altitude for a long, long while. When at length he rose he found himself utterly in darkness, the vestry-room door had fallen shut after him, and so little light was there outside that he could hardly trace the outline of the windows in the wall. He descended the three steps that led up to the chancel and tried to grope his way toward the vestry-room. He could see the light under the crack of the door and was going toward it, when his foot struck on some obstruction on the floor, which, stooping down, he discovered, with a chill of undefinable alarm, was one of the flat stones that paved the aisle, half raised from its place, and lying with its edge upon the next in order to it.

This accounted instantly for the strange noise that had aroused him from his studies—it had not been fancy, after all. He now remembered rapidly, this stone had been left loose as a sort of entrance, if there should ever be necessity, to the excavation underneath the chapel. The heavy spring rains, it had been feared, might at some time undermine it, and the precaution had been taken to leave some way open to examine occasionally into the state of the foundations. Warren was not given to superstition, neither was he easily brought under the power of material terrors, but he could not help acknowledging there was a look about this that he did not like. What companion might he not have had here during his solitary vigils! What guilt might not have hidden there while the little congregation worshipped quietly above! Surely no purpose but an evil one could prompt such secrecy and the choice of such a spot. These thoughts suggested themselves to him in rapid succession, as he made his way to the vestry-room door. He pushed it open, and a flood of light streamed across the chapel. He followed rapidly with his eye its illuminating path till it showed him, crouching down against the wall, and clinging to the chancel rail, the figure of a woman.

He started involuntarily, then said in a low, strange voice, coming toward her after an instant's pause:

"Nattee! is it you? I have just been praying for you."

Yes, it was Nattee; but what a wreck, what a transformation! Warren's heart smote him as the figure of the lithe pretty mulatto girl rose up in his recollection and placed itself beside this haggard, wild-eyed fugitive. Her cheeks were sunken, her mouth had that ghastly, inexpressive look that comes from protracted pain of mind and body, and her eyes were those of a hunted wild beast. The torn and tattered dress that hung about her, the heavy, straight, black hair falling about her shoulders, the stains upon her neck and arms—what a contrast to the trim and tidy maid of one short week ago!

"Nattee," said the clergyman, as she shrunk away at his approach, "you need not be afraid of me; have I not always showed myself your friend?"

"Nobody is that now," she murmured in a strange, hollow voice, averting her face from him. He sat down on the chancel steps a little way from her, and resting his arm upon the rail, bent slightly forward and looked at her with earnestness.

"We are all better friends to you than you are to yourself, my poor girl. You have been listening to evil counsels, and have been nearly destroyed by them; but I thank God, He has brought you back and kept you from the ruin they designed."

There was a pause, and then Warren went on: "It is not the destruction and danger of your body that I mean, Nattee; it is the peril to your soul. If you were a thousand miles from here to-night, secure in ease and comfort, you would be in more real danger than you are now in this place, for you would be further from a state of repentance; you would not have it in your power to atone for your sin as you have it now. Oh, Nattee, my poor girl! if you knew how I had prayed for you! How I had wept for you! I believe God has heard me, after all. I believe He has sent me here to-night to tell you He forgives you, and loves you, and will receive you as His child forever. Oh, Nattee! take this great mercy! Throw yourself down at His feet and ask Him to forgive you, and save you and direct you! You don't know how much better the service of God is, than all the freedom of the world. You would never hesitate between them if you did."

An inarticulate ejaculation of despair escaped her as she buried her face in her hands.

"I know what you would say, Nattee: you would say you did not have the choice; no one told you of God's service, and you had no chance of trying the freedom that the world enjoys. I take shame to myself for the first, but for last, depend upon it, you are best without it, since God did not give it to you. And He does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men: like as a father pitieth his own children, so is the Lord merciful to them that fear Him. Think how hard it must be for Him to punish us, Nattee; think how He is pitying you to-night, how He has pitied you through all these dreadful days. How it must grieve Him that you have gone wrong and turned away from your duty."

"I couldn't go any way that wasn't wrong," she cried, with a sudden flame of desperation; "it was all miserable and tangled, every way. Some told me this way was right, and some told me that way was right, and God didn't tell me how to choose. Oh, why won't they let me alone! Why won't they let me die and be out of their way forever!"

Warren waited till the burst of passion that followed this had subsided a little, and then said quietly: "You say God didn't tell you how to choose; perhaps He is telling you now. Perhaps He is showing you how hard the way of transgression is, and how little happiness is gained by going out of the way of duty after it. Perhaps He means to bring you back to the right way by making the wrong way seem hard. Do not think I blame you, Nattee; my heart aches for you, poor child! I know it is ignorance and misfortune that has led you into sin. Listen to me now, and answer me afterward if you do not think I am right; if your heart does not tell you I am speaking truth and justice. Somebody has made you believe, Nattee, somebody kind and well-meaning, too, but terribly mistaken, in his kindness, that you are wronged and injured by being held to service without your own consent; that your rights are trampled on by being placed in charge of another, not given to yourself. Well, if this man who tells you so is right, how many wise and righteous men are very wrong, who tell a totally different story. They take it for granted that God, putting you by birth into a certain station in life, knew it was the best one for your soul's salvation (souls are to live forever, Nattee, and bodies live but a little while); and so, instead of quarrelling with Him for putting you in it, or with your master for keeping you in it, they go to work to help you to make the best of it while you are in it. They tell you to be humble and not think you deserve a better lot than has been assigned to you; every minute of our Great Master's life was a lesson of uncomplaining humbleness. They tell you to be patient, and to remember that your light affliction, which endures but for a moment, will one day work out for you a far more exceeding weight of glory, to be your portion through all eternity. They tell you to be just and reasonable, and not to look for what never happens to the children of men—freedom from a yoke more or less hard, and a discipline more or less uneasy to flesh and blood. They tell you there is no man living whom God does not chastise in some way; some He binds whole years to beds of pain, wasting them with pining sickness; from some He takes away all hope and happiness, and leaves them bare of everything but freedom; others drag out their lives in such disappointment, misery and gloom, that they long wearily for the end; toil and anxiety and ill success make many a freeman's nights and days harder and longer than the weariest slave's that ever worked. And all for the saving of their souls; all to accomplish the work that the Son of God began for them upon the Cross. He did His part in our salvation patiently, but it is lost to us if we are impatient of the part we have to do ourselves. I have never found but one way to peace, and that is, the way of submission. In the matters of our souls and of our bodies, in the affairs of this world and in the mysteries of the next, I know no wisdom so sure as God's wisdom; no will so powerful, no heart so merciful, as His. Leave it all to Him, both rewards and punishments; our thinking about their justness can do us no possible advantage: just or unjust, the dealing of them lies with God, and always will lie with Him. What remains for us—for you and me, Nattee—is submission to His will, patience under His hand. Tell me, is there any—any other way?"

Nattee made a broken murmur of assent, but did not raise her head, and after a pause, Warren went on speaking: "Perhaps what I have said is not so pleasant to believe as the advice others have given to you, but believe me, Nattee, it is nearer to the truth. No one pities you more than I do, no one longs more to see you happy, but I cannot tell you wrong is right—I cannot let my pity come between me and my duty. You are one of those placed in my care, one of those whom I am bound to teach. I am obliged, if I see you do wrong, to tell you of it, and to show you what is right. Nor must you think it hard in me, and cruel, if I tell you that your duty is plainly this—to go back to your master, acknowledge you have done amiss, and submit to any punishment he may choose to lay upon you."

"I can't—I can't—oh, Master Warren—don't say I must go back!" cried Nattee, shuddering.

"But I must say that, Nattee, I dare not say anything different. I should be conspiring with you to commit a robbery if I did. For your time, your labor is not your own; the laws of the land give it to your master. He has given you a home, protection, subsistence, from your infancy—you are bound to give him through your life, your service in return. If this seems hard, do not blame him—do not blame me. The laws of a great, just, Christian kingdom sanction it; and we are bound to respect them till we are empowered to change them. I know, Nattee, you have not a kind master, but neither has your mistress a kind husband, nor Mr. Lawrence a kind father, and yet they have never, to my knowledge, rebelled against his government. He has been severe with you, but never, I believe, sufficiently so to justify your leaving him. I can regret this very much, but I cannot see it has any remedy but patience. The uneasiness of our relations to each other in this world alone cannot sanction our dissolving them; if it could, think of the misrule that would soon prevail—children breaking away from parents, servants from masters, wives from husbands, subjects from rulers. And believe me, Nattee, the lot of those in your station is far less sad than you have recently been taught to think. You have the same moral rights that others have, the same relation to God, the same title to salvation. The faithful performance of your duty will win the same reward from heaven, the same respect from men; what do you lack but the grant of personal, present freedom, the privilege of going where you please, doing what you please, subject to no will but your own. It is a privilege, I grant—a great privilege; but besides slaves, many—wives, children, apprentices, soldiers—have to be guided by the will of others; the proportion of those who are appointed to guide and direct themselves, is very small. This thing of liberty, considered by itself, is not so indispensable to happiness after all. Tell me, Nattee, had you ever thought about it—ever longed for it—before you were pitied and condoled with for the want of it?"

"No," said the poor girl, hesitatingly; "I don't think I used to mind—I don't remember whether I knew anything about it then."

"Then, Nattee, the best thing for you to do is to go back to the way of those happier days, and forget all you have heard about it since, and be as you were then, only wiser and faithfuller."

"I can't go back to those days," poor Nattee murmured, with fresh tears. "I can't be like I was then—I don't expect to be happy again, ever, but I want to do what's right, even if it's hard—I want—I want to get God to forgive me."

"Then, my poor girl, God is ready to forgive you. He is ready to help you to do His will, if you are ready to give up your own."

"I haven't got any will of my own any more. I'm so miserable I don't care what becomes of me. I'd rather die if God will let me—but I'll try to bear it if I have to live. Oh, Master Warren! if you only knew how I've tried to find out what it all means! how I've wanted to be good—you'd help me—I know you would."

She stretched out her hands with a passionate gesture, and went on, hurriedly: "I don't know how to pray; I don't know how to make God hear; I haven't got any words that's fit—but my heart is breaking—I shall die if He don't listen, I shall die if He don't help me—I'm afraid of all my sins—I don't know where to go."

"Our merciful Saviour says, 'He that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.' Is it not to Him you ought to go?"

"But I don't know how, I don't know what to say. I haven't been baptized and made a Christian—how can I know He'll hear me till I am?"

"Has any one ever told you about baptism, Nattee? do you know what is required of persons who come to be baptized?" asked Warren, thoughtfully.

"I heard you talking about it to the men, one day, and I've listened when Miss Laura's been teaching Steady—perhaps I don't understand—but, oh"—— She stopped with a bewildered, wistful look.

"If you understand, you mean you wish you were baptized yourself?"

She gave an eager, anxious motion of assent, and Warren said:

"Listen, then, and I will make you understand it. You believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, and that He died to save you, and lives now, and knows and watches you?"

"Oh, yes; I believed that long ago."

"And you are heartily sorry for your sins?"

With a groan she turned her face away, and said: "Yes, I'm worse'n sorry."

"And you know He is the only One who can forgive them?"

"Yes, I know it."

"And you want to be better, and to serve God faithfully, and to keep His commandments honestly?"

"If He will only help me!"

"Then, Nattee, I know no reason why you should not be baptized. It is your only safety, and I dare not refuse it to you, even though you have not been instructed for it. Come to me to-morrow"——

"To-morrow," she interrupted, hastily. "Why must you wait till then?—why don't you save me now, to-night? Oh, Mr. Warren, you don't know what may happen—perhaps I may die before to-morrow—perhaps you won't be here yourself—perhaps they won't let you. You don't know, and I am afraid to wait—I am so afraid. You won't turn me away from what's to save me—you won't keep away from me what God says I have a right to. Oh, Mr. Warren! think how you would feel—think how awfully sorry you would be"——

Warren turned hastily away from her, and paced the aisle thoughtfully for a minute or two, while she watched him anxiously. At length he approached her, and said:

"You shall have your wish, Nattee, I will baptize you now. Kneel down and say your prayers till I come back."

At the vestry-room door he paused, for Steady, wide-awake and wondering, stood listening beside the fire. "Steady," he said, taking her by the hand, "You have heard what Nattee says, and I am going to baptize her now. You and I shall have to be her witnesses, and remember you pray for her with all your heart."

The first baptism in the chapel was a strange and solemn one. The light that little Steady held was not strong enough to make anything but dim and flickering shadows about the building; all was shrouded in darkness, or at best, uncertainty, save the three figures around the font. The silence and reverence of the little torch-bearer, the abject posture of the poor penitent, the spirituality and purity of the young priest's face—carried the fancy back a thousand years and more, to the dim and dripping vaults of Rome, where the early Christians celebrated in solemnity and secrecy their holy rites. There was an actual vitality in the words as they fell upon the silent air; there was a startling reality in every gesture, as if, indeed, a fresh soul, delivered from wrath, were being admitted, in the sight of men and angels, into the second ark, Christ's Church,

———"Therein to float
Over the billows of this troublesome world,
To the fair land of everlasting rest."

Familiarity and security had not brought down their faith to the level of their sight; to them it was not merely the prescribed mode of entrance into a religious life, more or less important as an act of obedience and submission; but it was the mystical washing away of sin, the regeneration to another life, the adoption to sonship, the title to the kingdom of Heaven. Believing in their souls what easier Christians do but assent to with their lips, it was unto them according to their faith; that which they asked believing they received.

Little Steady, in her simplicity of faith, almost looked to have seen the cross traced still in living light on her companion's forehead, when she raised her reverent eyes as Warren's voice ceased; but Nattee's face was hidden in her hands—her whole attitude spoke only passionate self-abasement and repentance.

"Christ's soldier till her dying day," why should she be afraid? And Steady looked wistfully up to Warren for triumphant assurance that the words conveyed. She found it on his upraised face, but chastened and subdued by knowledge to which she had not yet attained. It was, indeed, no wonder the child gazed spell-bound and half awed; the young minister stood with one hand on the stone edge of the font, the other lifted over the kneeling penitent. All the light in the dark chapel seemed to radiate from the folds of his white surplice, and a glory truly rested on his face—not the glory of ecstasy and triumph, but the glory of a holy confidence, and a faith that burned steadier and stiller for the storms that had passed over it.

When the little sacristan had put out the light, re-covered the font, and replaced the books, she went back into the vestry-room, and found Nattee standing, downcast and trembling, by the outer door, and Warren talking to her earnestly.

"What would another night's shelter be, Nattee? I could not give it to you without offence to my own conscience, and it could do you no possible good. Go back to your master, surrender yourself voluntarily to him, compelled by none; it is the surest way to disarm him of his anger. My presence would only hurt your cause—it would seem as if I had discovered you and forced you to return. I know how hard it is, my poor girl; but do not shrink from the first hard step in your Christian life. Remember baptism doth represent unto us our profession, which is to follow the example of our Saviour, Christ, and to be made like unto Him. And you are dead, I trust, to sin; rise now to righteousness and strength; mortify your evil fears and your corrupt inclinings, and follow the right path, even if it lead you to your death. Nattee! coward flesh and blood has had a brave example. Think of Him who counted not His life dear unto Himself, so He might serve you, and do not count your sufferings dear, when you are called upon in your turn to serve Him. Do not hesitate, my girl; do not give the devil credit for a moment. He will assault you worse than ever, now; but remember Whose you are, and Whom you serve."

"I do remember," whispered Nattee, creeping toward the door. "I am going, Mr. Warren—I am truly going; but, oh! if I could only wait till morning!"

"Nattee! who put that thought into your mind? Who is always coaxing us to put our duties off until to-morrow?"

The poor girl shuddered, and then giving one wistful look back at her instructor, raised the latchet of the door.

"Steady will go with you," he said, as the little girl obeyed his gesture, and held out her hand. Nattee took it mechanically, and grasped it tightly, as she stepped out into the darkness.

Warren's heart ached, as, with a low benediction, he closed the door upon them.

"Innocence and Penitence," he murmured, "I have a right to think God will protect them both."

CHAPTER XXVI.

"HEAVEN HOLDS THE SEQUEL."

"I ask not why, with hills so high,
He bounds our earthly vision:
I ask not why, beyond the sky,
We wait for our Elysian;
Nor why the stones before me lay,
O'er which my feet are falling;
Nor why so narrow seems the way
From which His voice is calling."

Without distrusting God's providence, however, the remaining hours of that night were anxious and troubled ones to Warren. There are few men so assured and well-balanced as to be unaffected by the reaction that invariably succeeds a prompt and irrevocable decision; the resolution and intrepidity that carry them beyond the turning-point generally desert them as soon as they have passed it, and leave them a prey to doubts and misgivings of the most tormenting kind.

"I could have done no otherwise," thought Warren, as he paced the floor. "I can't think I could ever have reconciled it to my conscience, to have connived at her concealment even for a day; but it is a horrible thing to have sent her back unguarded to the cruelty of that infuriated man; it is almost more than I can bear, to think what she may be passing through, even now. Would it not have been better to have tempered my rigidity a little—to have gone myself to him, and told him of her return? But in his present state, nothing from me would be received—it would only have irritated him the more bitterly against her. To Lawrence I could not have sent her; my judgment warns me, the less she owes to him the better; and the intercession of her mistress would be worse than useless to her. Still, it was a hard alternative. God forgive me if there was too little pity in the measure that I dealt her!"

At the end of two hours, unable to bear the anxiety till morning, he resolved upon going to the house, and ascertaining what her reception had been. But upon reaching it, he found everything in darkness and quiet—not a light anywhere about the place; and reassured by its appearance of tranquillity, he resolved to return to the chapel for the remainder of the night, and not risk arousing any of the family by attempting to enter and to reach his own apartment. The worst was past, he had no doubt, and poor Nattee was ere now safe in her little room, wretched enough, assuredly, but through the hardest of her punishment, and in the way of reaching contentment and security. He returned to his little hermitage, and worn out by his long and anxious watch, he threw himself upon the lounge, and slept till a late hour the following morning.

He approached the house with a feeling of some uneasiness, not diminished by the sight of his uncle mounted on Grey Dirck, coming rapidly down the lane. The old man passed him with no token of recognition beyond an angry scowl; certainly, there was not much encouragement for Nattee's cause in that vindictive face. He hurried into the house, and was met at the sitting-room door by Laura, pale and in tears.

"Oh, Warren!" she whispered, "we have had such an awful scene. I don't dare to think about my little Steady; he has whipped her terribly, and locked her up in his own room, and gone away"——

"And Nattee?" said Warren, quickly.

"That is what I am going to tell you—it is all about poor Nattee. It seems she has been heard of"——

"She has not come back?"

"Come back? Oh, no! but—Warren, what's the matter? Oh, I'm sure you're ill!"

His sudden paleness had so unnerved her that she could with difficulty obey his entreaty to go on.

"Come in here," he said, leading her to his room, "and tell me all they know about this miserable girl."

Laura's story was but a short one: it appeared that some informant (Amen, probably, for he seemed at the bottom of all poor Nattee's troubles) had brought at daylight the intelligence that a strip of linsey-woolsey, evidently freshly torn, had been found in the vicinity of Mark's little cottage, and that Steady had returned home from that direction late in the evening, and had stolen up to bed without a word to any one. Steady was sent for, and a terrible interview had taken place. The little girl had refused to answer any questions; no threats had been effectual in extracting anything from her beyond the acknowledgment that she had gone over the hill to carry Mr. Warren's supper, and that she had come back late, and had gone straight to bed without stopping in the kitchen. It was impossible to call her stubborn, she was so manifestly terrified; she was evidently braving her master's vengeance, from nothing but the straightforward sense of duty that had governed all her life. Ralph's rage seemed perfectly to master him; the child's self-control and endurance and his ungovernable passion formed a strange contrast, though through it all, it was easy to see she was half dead with terror.

Only once, when he was beating her unmercifully, Laura had heard her call out for Master Warren, begging him to save her, and to tell her master that it hadn't been her fault. This involuntary error the poor little child had paid dearly for, however, for Ralph, roused by fresh suspicions, had inflicted fresh cruelties upon her to oblige her to confirm them, but in vain, and at length had dragged her off to his own room to find what virtue there might be in the dark-closet system. The result, of course, Laura could only guess at; her uncle's face had expressed neither satisfaction nor enlightenment as he turned the key upon the little captive, and strode off to the barn, and Laura had little doubt she had remained faithful to her trust, whatever the trust might be.

Lawrence had been off an hour or more, since first he heard the story, hoping to be before his father in Nattee's apprehension, if indeed she really were about the neighborhood. Amen's representations had led to the belief that in the course of the first night of her flight, she had accomplished a great distance, and was, without doubt, many miles beyond the farm before pursuit was started. This idea, of course, had saved the chapel from a rigorous examination; though Ralph had ridden over there and looked into it, he had done it idly and without the smallest anticipation of discovering any traces of her. He had walked up and down the aisle, and had lifted the altar-cloth, and looked under the altar, and poor Nattee had heard his heavy tread echoing upon the stones under which she lay, and had heard the crack of that dreadful riding-whip as he mounted and rode off. But now that her presence in the vicinity was so strongly suspected, the whole force of the investigation would be brought to bear upon so small a space, Warren could not help confessing, her chances of escape were less than insignificant.

If he could but see Steady for a moment and ascertain the truth from her, there might be some chance of bringing the poor wretch again to reason, and saving her from the fate with which she seemed so much in love. But Warren's conscience, though a high church conscience, had no affinity to Jesuitism; doing wrong that right might come was utterly at variance with its promptings. He knew too well his own position in the family and his duty to the head of it, to attempt to obtain an interview with his little protegee by violating his uncle's orders. Moreover, it could not be done without forcibly breaking into the room where she was confined, and setting an example of insubordination and violence that would do far more evil to the others, than by his influence with Nattee he could hope to do her good. Meantime, he must bear patiently the suspense and the anxiety, and trust that, as he could do nothing, all would yet work well without him.

A long and anxious day it was, as had been its predecessors. Everything was unsettled and uncomfortable in the household, now that Steady too was gone, and that poor Mrs. Sutherland had so little heart for its direction. Salome could not keep her mind upon her work, and if Laura had not tried to interest herself in the matters of the ménage, it would have been at a dead stand-still.

Toward evening Ralph returned; supper was on the table, but he did not even make a feint of partaking of it. He had evidently something of engrossing weight upon his mind, some new and definite plan before him. He even forgot little Steady's incarceration, till timidly reminded of it by Laura, just as he was leaving the house. He looked at her a moment scowlingly, then tossed her the key and went out.

Laura ran joyfully to emancipate the little captive, whom she found sitting on a bag of wool far back in a dark closet, with her hands folded and her face expressing its usual tranquillity. Her eyes blinked a little when Laura hurried her out into the light, and she was somewhat paler than ordinary; but beyond that, she was far less moved than her mistress.

"Mr. Warren wants you, Steady," said the latter, taking her by the hand. "Come with me to his room."

Steady followed, and Laura responded to his permission to enter by opening the door, pushing Steady through it, and retreating. Warren's face lighted up as he saw the child, and laying aside his book, he went to meet her, saying, "What does all this mean that I have heard, Steady? Why would not you mind your master this morning?"

Steady hung her head: "It wasn't my fault, Mr. Warren, How could I break my word to Nattee?"

"But how came you to pass your word to Nattee when you knew that she was doing wrong?" said Warren, seating himself and drawing the child beside his knee.

"She coaxed me, Mr. Warren, and I was frightened; besides, I didn't know it wasn't right. She said she would come back by daylight—he said she might if she had a mind to."

"Mr. Pound, you mean?"

Steady nodded.

"Where did you meet Mr. Pound, Steady?"

"Right there by our old house, Mr. Warren."

"Was Nattee surprised to see him?"

"I don't know. She didn't want to, she tried to hide away from him; but she couldn't, and he saw her, and he was surprised."

"What did he say—do you remember?"

"He said, 'Nattee, what does this mean?' And he pointed to me, Nattee began to cry, and made me go away, and they talked low a long, long time, and then Nattee came to me and told me she was going to let me go home alone to-night, but she was coming early in the morning; and then she made me promise solemnly I wouldn't tell anybody I'd seen her or knew anything about her. And I didn't know, and I promised."

"I understand, Steady. You did not do anything wrong, you could not help it. And so you came home?"

"Yes; I came 'cross lots as fast as ever I could."

"And they—which way did they go?"

"Along the road to Mr. Pound's, I think; but I'm not sure."

"That's enough then. Steady. You may go and get your supper. I think for the present you had better keep your promise to Nattee, and not say anything about what you know to anybody. Be faithful, and I will see that you are not punished any further, if it is in my power."

Warren retained his composed attitude till the little girl had made her courtesy, reached up to the exalted latch of the door, opened it and disappeared behind it; then he started up, turned the key upon his desk, and prepared himself for his walk with all possible expedition. He found little difficulty in avoiding observation in the dusky twilight, and was beyond the creek and half way to the parson's house before Laura had sent up to call him down to supper. It was a grey, mild twilight, the weather had been softening through the day, but not enough to thaw the frozen ground, or diminish in a great degree the ice along the creek; shapeless vapory clouds had obscured the setting of the sun, and now seemed spreading a veil over the whole heaven; a veil too thin to darken it, but dense enough to hide the stars, though not to quench their light. The moon was not due till nearly nine o'clock, so that when Warren reached the little cabin of the preacher, there was only a very dim and uncertain light to show him that he had come on an unavailing errand.

All was still about the house, and the padlock on the door was firmly locked. He knocked loudly, and asked admittance in a voice distinct enough to assure any one within that it was he who spoke. But no movement or response showed that he spoke to anything more intelligent than logs and boards, and with a heartfelt sigh he slowly turned away. He went home by a different route, hoping faintly he might encounter Pertinax, or in some way obtain a clue to Nattee's whereabouts. Of course, the hope proved a vain one, and he had no heart, as he neared the house, to enter it just then and bear a meeting with his uncle, and the angry and dangerous consequences that might result from it.

To the Chapel! A few hours there before midnight would quiet him, and give things at home time to quiet, too. There was nothing for him to do, he thought with a sigh, as he took his way toward it: he was deeply disappointed, but not quite disheartened—he never should give up hope for her till he had lost confidence in her sincerity, and that, notwithstanding the blackness of the case, he had not yet done. She was weak, she was cowardly, ignorant, but she was not untrue. The power which an enthusiast like Pertinax might gain over such a mind as hers, he easily saw, might be unbounded; and that to him she owed the idea of flight, and the means of protection and sustenance during her concealment, he had no doubt. To surrender herself to her master, he was sure, had last night been her honest, though fearful resolution, when she left him, and she had needed all his encouragement and assurance to keep her up to it; but when she was thrown, against her will, apparently, into the way of her former adviser and protector, and was subject to his contradictory influence, it was natural she should be again unsettled, and that her fears should at last overcome her resolution.

"If I had only gone with her myself!" he thought, with a groan.

That he did not go, was the step upon which all the succeeding trouble hinged, but he need not have held himself accountable for it. Its failure to benefit her was all of a piece with the rest of poor Nattee's fate, that seemed to turn into misfortunes the good intentions and good efforts of those who wished her well. Her mistress' injudicious tenderness and indulgence, Lawrence's kindness and consideration, Pertinax's interest and compassion, had all, in turn, proved mischievous and hurtful to her, and now, it seemed, Warren's earnest efforts to restore her to her duty had acted in an equally unexpected manner. But he could not give her up: though he was perfectly at a loss where to turn to do her any good, he yet felt as if some way would surely open, and he should see some answer to all the prayers he had said for her salvation. It was with a weary sense of disappointment and dissatisfaction that he shut himself into his little study, remembering the hope and courage with which he had left it in the morning.

Nattee's fate had passed out of his hands, indeed, but it was still the care of One to whom it could not be indifferent; and "no man may deliver his brother, nor make agreement unto God for him; for it cost more to redeem their souls, so he must let that alone forever," but "neither is God unrighteous that He will forget their works and labor that proceedeth of love, which love they have showed for His name's sake."

Prayers that are defeated of their purpose, return with a doubled blessing to those of whose charity they were born.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE WISDOM OF THE CHILDREN OF THIS WORLD.

"O watch and pray ere morning dawn!
For thinner than the subtlest lawn
'Twixt thee and death the veil is drawn.
But Love too late can never glow;
The scattered fragments Love can glean,
Refine the dregs and yield us clean
To regions where one thought serene
Breathes sweeter than whole years of sacrifice below."

Keble.

"Lawrence at last!" said Laura, starting up as she heard his welcome step upon the flags outside. The clock was striking nine, and his long-kept supper was waiting on the table. Laura had been almost crying with disappointment and apprehension for the last long hour:

"I thought you were never coming," she whispered, as he folded her in his arms, lingering a moment in the hall to murmur a few words that were not in answer to her salutation, nor in reference to the subject that engrossed the attention and anxiety of the family; but only concerned the one that had power to cover and extinguish and obliterate all others.

Lawrence had to thank this state of apprehension and alarm, however, for demonstrations and confessions he would otherwise have been long in gaining; but the certainty of trouble and the possibility of danger had brought her quite out of herself, and she hastened to lavish unreservedly upon him the love and tenderness that under other circumstances he would only have been able to hope for and imagine. As they came into the light of the doorway, and she glanced up into his face, she exclaimed:

"How pale and tired you look! How long have you been in the saddle?"

"Since six o'clock," he said.

"And what—what news, Lawrence?" said his mother, timidly and anxiously, coming forward.

"None, mother, or worse than none," he said, throwing himself into a chair. "I cannot get the slightest clue to her, nor can I find that any one else has, except my father. I had begun to hope that at last she was safe beyond the river, when, not a mile from here, I met my father, riding for dear life toward Kiskatom, and with a worse determination than I have seen since the beginning of this trouble, and Rube told me just now, that when he was rubbing down Dirck, after my father last came in, he called out to him not to water him, for he had been going hard, and that he had a good many miles before him yet; 'and they're the last he'll do in this business,' he added, with an oath. Rube, honest fellow, thinks he means to give up after trying this once more, but I'm afraid I know him far too well. He is sure of success, you may depend."

"Oh, my poor Nattee!" groaned Mrs. Sutherland. "Is there no hope, Lawrence?"

"None, mother, that I can think of. I should have turned and followed him, but Bess had lost a shoe, and was lamed already, and he was going like the wind; you'd have thought Dirck wasn't ten minutes out of the stable. And I find there isn't a horse that's fresh enough to do a half hour's work to-night; Bess is entirely spent, and Dick and Dave have got all the going out of the black nags that can be coaxed out of them in this twenty-four hours, and the farm-horses, you know, have had their shoes off these two weeks. If my father doesn't have to pay for his cursed ugliness in any other way, he'll find he's damaged horse-flesh enough to make it a tolerably dear business."

"If that were all!" sighed Laura.

"Aye, if it were," said Lawrence, passing his hand across his forehead. "I have had a horrid presentiment ever since this wretched affair began—but what's the use of groaning about presentiments!" he interrupted, glancing up cheerfully into Laura's face. "What with the things that do happen and the things that don't happen, we have our hands full enough without filling them with the things that we're afraid are going to happen."

Laura tried to return the smile, but there seemed a spell upon her smiles that night. Perhaps it was the effect of the day's anxiety, that she was so thoroughly unnerved and spiritless; Lawrence whispered he should know why she was pining, if her cheeks kept growing paler at the rate they had been doing since——

But the flush that his words and glance called up faded quickly, and he himself had not any heart for jesting. He looked, indeed, very haggard and worn; and though he stoutly denied that he suffered any pain from his sprained shoulder, it was not difficult to see, by the caution of his movements and the contraction of his face when he was obliged to stir, that it still gave him extreme discomfort, He made an effort to eat the supper that had been so carefully kept for him, but it was evidently an effort, made only to appease the anxiety of the eyes that watched him.

"There, Steady, take those things away," he cried, pushing back his chair. "Your mistress thinks I have had enough."

When Steady had taken the things away, and left the room, Laura obeyed Lawrence's gesture, and came beside him to the fire.

"Most foolish mistress!" he said, laying his hand upon her shoulder, and looking down in her face. "Spoiling your lover with pity and tenderness, when you could have kept him at your feet with half a smile, with half a word! Don't you know you are ruining him—making him insatiable, tyrannical"——

"I don't care what I make him," murmured Laura.

"Unreasonable, selfish, exacting?"

"He is that without my help, already," she would have said at any other time with a bright smile, but now she only murmured, yielding to his embrace: "Yes, unreasonable, selfish, exacting—anything—anything, so he loves me always!"

"Always," he repeated with a shiver as he held her close within his arms. "How short our always may be, after all! Laura, when a man holds that for which he would have died, within his grasp, that which he has sworn to win, for which, almost, he would have sold his hopes of life eternal—why is it that he shudders and turns faint with fear—why is it that at the very moment of his bliss, a terror lest it should be short, a cowardly shrinking dread of death should enter—death that he never feared before—why should the worm, the clod, the shroud, all images and horrors of mortality, creep in to chill him, when life is at the fullest, at the best?"

Laura did not answer for a moment, then looking at him wistfully, she said: "The longest happiness here is so short, is it worth desiring if it goes no further? Oh, Lawrence, it is no blessing if it is not fit to go on in another life!"

"My darling! it is the only thing in my life that is pure enough to carry with me to a better—do not take it from me—help me to profit by it—I hold my better hopes through this dear one."

"Not through it. Oh, Lawrence, you frighten me—it is not right. We cannot have two paradises—we must not love God only through His creatures—He will not accept it, I am sure."

He released her suddenly, and walked hastily back and forth across the room. "You cannot understand, you do not know how it has been with me," he said, as he paused. "Why may not God lead us to Him even through the gratification of our own self-will? Why may he not bind us to Him through indulgence as safely as through subjugation? We cannot limit Him."

"No, only as He has limited Himself. Oh, Lawrence, do not say you are not willing to submit; do not resist Him till He breaks your will, and saves you by punishment at last."

There was a pause, and Laura, frightened at her own earnestness, turned away from his fixed, thoughtful look, and drew back from beside him, as his mother came into the room. Lawrence held her hand firmly and drew her down into a seat at his side, while Mrs. Sutherland sank into a chair opposite to them. Looking at them and realizing their happiness was the only comfort she could claim just then, and her anxious face softened as she watched them.

"Mother," cried Larry, throwing himself back in his chair with a half-weary, half-willful look, "Laura has been preaching to me. I appeal to you, should a woman preach?"

Mrs. Sutherland smiled doubtfully, and looked remonstrative: Lawrence always frightened her with his talking. But though there was a good deal of the old tone in his manner now, there was a good deal, too, of one that was strange and half sad, and it perplexed her simplicity as much. Lawrence was not wont to let any anxiety or perplexity influence him beyond its momentary pressure; it was strange that he did not throw this off, now that he saw its hopelessness. And amid his new happiness, it was doubly strange to see it retain such influence. All the evening he seemed subdued by fits of thoughtfulness and abstraction, that were broken occasionally by flashes of the old spirit, but these grew fewer and fainter as it advanced, and at length ceased altogether, and the three sat silent, listening apprehensively, or talking in low, quiet tones that attempted no disguise. It was impossible to go to bed: Lawrence once, indeed, said; "It is folly, mother, for you and Laura to sit up."

But he could not resist Laura's imploring look and his mother's unhappy sigh; "I cannot sleep, Lawrence, till he comes. Why should I go?"

The clock had struck eleven; Lawrence had walked many times to the window and looked out, and had again thrown himself in his chair by the fireside, gazing at Laura as if he hoped to find self-control and patience in her quiet eyes, and courage and endurance in the touch of her soft hand: for a few moments, nothing had been said—the ticking of the tall clock in the corner and the crackling of the fire upon the hearth had been the only sounds that had repaid their watchfulness—when suddenly a horse's hoofs clattering sharply upon the frozen ground, coming rapidly up the lane and pausing before the barn-door, brought Larry to his feet, and made his mother hide her eyes and tremble, while Laura stood motionless, petrified with apprehension.

For several minutes they did not stir, though they heard nothing at the barn—then the gate swung open heavily, and Ralph's well-known step echoed upon the flags. Alone? They glanced from one to another, listening breathlessly—yes, he was alone. He entered the house, crossed the hall with a heavy tread, groped along the passage for the door of his own room, pushed it open and bolted himself in.

Lawrence's face grew dark. What did it mean? There was neither fire nor light in his father's room; it was his invariable habit to come first to the sitting-room on entering the house, no matter at what hour of night, take off his boots there, and linger by the fire before he went to bed; Lawrence never remembered when this rule had offered an exception; there was something significant of trouble in this change. He took up the lantern from the sideboard, muttering something about looking after Dirck, and lit it at the fire.

"My son, you can't do anything—don't go!" faltered his mother, following him tremblingly to the door.

"There's nothing to do, dear mother," he said with an attempt to speak reassuredly. "I'm only going to see if all's right at the stable before I go to bed."

Laura did not wait for or ask permission, but picking up the cloak he had thrown down as he snatched his fur cap from the peg, she followed him out noiselessly but closely. He strode down the path so rapidly he did not see her till she reached the gate.

"You here, Laura!" he said, as he held it open for her; but he did not tell her to go back, only took the hand she slipped in his, and hurried on. He was unconscious of the grasp in which he held it, but it told a story of preoccupation and dread that made Laura's heart sink. She held the lantern while he undid the bars of the stable-door and pushed aside the clumsy fastenings. There was not much need of the lantern while they were outside, at least. The night was singularly light, though there was neither moon nor stars in sight. The moon, however, was at its full, and filled the thin sheet of cloud that was spread over the whole heaven, not brilliantly nor luminously, but with a grey, spectral light; the air was soft and mild for that late season; not a breath of air stirred; all nature, indeed, seemed strangely still and listening.

When Lawrence had succeeded in withdrawing the bolts, the heavy double-doors fell open of themselves, and taking the lantern from Laura's hand without a word, he entered the barn and hurried across to Dirck's stall in the further corner. The brute's eyes shone like balls of fire, as he stood with his head stretched across his manger, stamping heavily upon the ground at intervals, and pulling restlessly at the halter round his neck. Lawrence glanced in at him hastily; his head-stall had been taken off, but the saddle was still on, the girths not even loosened; flakes of foam lay about his mouth and neck; the manger was empty; the hard-run horse had neither been rubbed down, fed nor watered.

"Stand back, Laura; you may hold the lantern up for me, if you will. The men are worn out and are fast asleep. I must groom the brute myself."

He vaulted over into the stall, unfastened the halter and led him around through a side door upon the barn floor itself. Laura shrunk back timidly as the towering beast, letting his great hoofs down heavily on the resounding floor, approached her at a measured pace.

"Are you afraid?" said Lawrence, reaching up to a beam overhead for the curry-comb and pail. "Set the lantern down if you are. I can see so, very well."

"No," said Laura, faintly, "I'd rather hold it."

She came a little closer, and held the lantern up; Larry stooped down to loosen the saddle; the girths had been overstrained, and the buckle would not give; he said—

"A little closer, Laura; I can't see," and Laura crept a little nearer, and held down the light to where it shone directly over his shoulder, and full on the muscular and heaving haunches of the horse. Lawrence gave a violent start, let go the saddle-band, and striking him suddenly above the fetlock, seized the hoof he raised, and examined it hurriedly.

"Closer, closer, Laura," he said, huskily, and Laura, kneeling down, held the lantern close against the hoof.

A cold chill ran through her as she saw what made him drop it, pass his hand hastily over the wet fetlock and the spattered flank, and stagger back with such a fearful groan. There was blood, half dried, upon his heavy, sharp shod hoof, blood dripping from his shaggy fetlock, blood staining his white flanks—a rope knotted in the crupper hung dangling down upon the ground.

Lawrence raised it for an instant—a fragment of a dark blue linsey-woolsey dress was drooping from it.

"I knew it! Oh, it is too horrible!" he muttered between his tight set teeth.

"Tell me—tell me," whispered Laura, clinging in terror to him.

"He has found her—somewhere away from any help—lashed her to this rope to lead her home—the horse has taken fright—she is dashed to death upon the rocks"——

For several minutes no word was spoken: Lawrence stood leaning against the manger, supporting himself with one hand, with the other mechanically grasping Dirck's halter, his face bloodless and rigid, and his eyes fixed on the ground, while Laura's head was between her hands and bowed down on his arm.

At last he started, saying hoarsely:

"I must know the worst. Go in, Laura, but do not tell my mother till there is a certainty. I shall soon be back."

"Oh don't, don't go, Lawrence!" cried Laura, clinging to his arm, "you will not mount that dreadful brute—you will not be so cruel to me!"

He hardly seemed to hear her, as he strode out of the barn, leading the reluctant horse, who struggled fiercely as they reached the doorway, planting both feet firmly on the floor, and throwing back his head.

"You will not trust yourself to him?" exclaimed Laura, shrinking back in terror. "Remember how weak your arm is yet—wait for another horse"——

"There is no other, my darling, fit to go. Do not be frightened—I am strong enough for Dirck. One kiss, and let me go."

They were outside the barn now, and the horse stood passive for a moment, as he held Laura in his arms and pressed a kiss upon her lips. Even after his foot was in the stirrup, he turned and passed his arm around her once again, whispering some loving reassurance. Dirck, impatient of the tenderness, stamped restlessly and pulled strongly at the bridle over Larry's aim, who, after an instant, vaulted into the saddle and gathered up the reins.

"Come down and open the gate for me," he said.

Laura walked silently beside him down the road to the great gate that led into the lane. He reined up Dirck as he passed through it, and bending down from the saddle, whispered, as he left another kiss upon her forehead,

"Go in and comfort mother, Laura, and do not think of me. God knows"——

The broken sentence died upon his lips; he started up, and Dirck, with a quick bound, dashed from under the loosened rein. Laura stood gazing after the horse and rider till they were lost in a winding of the lane; then turned back toward the house, with a blank, cold sense of vacancy and desolation. The night was so still and grey, the light was so strange and spectral, she longed to shelter herself from it in the house; but when she reached it, the house had gloom and dreariness as great. Her aunt met her at the door, pale and trembling, hardly daring to ask what she had learned, and what had taken Lawrence away so suddenly.

"He is afraid something has happened; he's gone to see if he can learn anything," she said, pressing her hand over her heart, and trying to speak quietly.

"But, Laura—but, my child," murmured Mrs. Sutherland, with a wild look of alarm, "what does he think has happened? what is he afraid of?"

"He cannot tell, dear mother," Laura said, putting her arms around her. "He said you must not be alarmed, he would soon be back. You know it was not strange he should want to go and ascertain himself, if possible."

Laura's white face belied her reassuring words; all life and strength seemed to have gone out of her limbs, and she caught hold of the nearest chair to keep herself from falling.

"I've walked so fast up from the gate, I am a little faint," she faltered as she met her companion's frightened eyes. "I want to unfasten this, it is so heavy."

But it was not the cloak that oppressed her, though she breathed freer as it fell back. Poor Laura! The words "Go in and comfort mother," were ringing in her ears, but her heart seemed a stone within her, soul and body both had fainted under the heavy pressure that had fallen on them—how could she rouse them up to keep her promise—to fulfill her lover's parting charge?

Love is a stirring stimulant, a powerful master over souls and bodies both; in five minutes Laura was quiet, controlled, and thoughtful, watching tenderly over her confused and agitated companion, soothing her distress, reasoning away her fears.

"Dear aunt," she said, taking the poor lady's hand, as she seated herself on a low stool at her feet, "dear aunt, do not give way to such alarm—think how it would distress Larry. He will so soon be back we can afford to be composed at least till we hear whether he has bad news or no."

But it was a dearly bought composure; every minute seemed to Laura like an age of suffering; her words of comfort sounded in her own ears like a horrible hypocrisy, listening, as she was at the same time, for what her heart told her would belie them. She did not dare to stir away from her aunt's side, nor relinquish for a moment the fluttering hand she held, though a wild impatience throbbed in every nerve, and a restless fire seemed burning against her brain. It would have been such immeasurable relief to have walked the floor, to have started to the window at the distantest indication of a sound, to have pressed her hands against her temples to still their dreadful aching; it might not have done away with her distress, but at least it would not have chained it up so tightly, and made it press itself so frantically against every vein and nerve. Actual bodily pain resulted from the control she put upon herself; every limb ached as acutely as if she had been chained to that one spot by tangible and real fetters. Sometimes it seemed to her she could not bear the constraint another instant, and she found herself going on, speaking quietly, looking calmly, under her aunt's fixed, wistful eyes; every minute of her own endurance was a fresh surprise to her, but every minute was more racking than the last.

"Hark!" whispered Mrs. Sutherland, at last, in a tone that made Laura shiver: but Laura had heard, long before she spoke—long, that is, as those dire seconds counted.

Far off down the road, miles away, it seemed to her, she had heard the rapid running gallop of a horse: nearer and nearer, now softer over the turfy roadside, now louder on the frozen ground, now clattering across the rocks—nearer and nearer, but the women never stirred; grasping each other's hands, and staring blankly in each other's pallid faces, they sat as if spell-bound by the sound.

Even when it grew so near they could count every stroke of the rapid hoofs upon the ground, they did not breathe or turn or change a feature. The flying steed rushed homeward at a fearful pace—the whole still night seemed resounding with the thunder of his hoofs, as he came tearing down the lane, through the open gateway, along the flags, up—up to the very door. Why did not Laura fly to meet her lover? Why did not the mother hurry to her son's embrace? The one crouched speechless at the other's feet, locked in a close embrace of terror.

There was no sound without for the space of a whole minute, save the restless trampling of the heavy-limbed beast before the door. Laura lifted her head, and rose shuddering from her knees, releasing herself slowly from the vice-like grasp of her companion's hands, then crept fearfully toward the door, and out into the black, still hall. She groped her way bewildered through it; her hand struck on the great iron bolt that secured the entrance, half unconsciously she mastered it, turned the key with both trembling hands, and pulled it open.

There, ghost-like in the grey light, half a rod from her, stood the riderless steed. Her eye fell on the empty saddle—she made one step forward and stretched out her hands, then clasped them to her forehead and shrunk back. There was a heavy fall beside her, and a low groan; she started, and bent down and whispered, "Mother!"

She raised the poor stricken head upon her knee, and chafed the lifeless hands, and called upon her beseechingly to look up at her and to speak. But when at last she did look up, and lifted her slow eyes, the light of reason had set in them forever: the last scorching bolt had driven everything before it—memory, anticipation, pain—and had left only vacancy and oblivion in her desolated mind.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

FIVE YEARS AFTER.

"To walk through sun-bright places
With heart all cold the while;
To look in smiling faces
When we no more can smile;

"To feel, while earth and heaven
Around thee shine with bliss,
To thee no light is given—
Oh, what a doom is this!"

Moore.

It was late in the afternoon of a fine June day; the setting sun was shining down the walks of a large, well ordered garden in the suburbs of New York; early flowers were open in the beds; the hedge was sweet with lilacs, and ceringos, and honeysuckles, and over the summer-house, that stood half way between the mansion and the river, a June rose climbed luxuriantly, and was just blushing into bloom.

The garden, however, presented anything but a picture of still life at that moment. Five children, three of the sex that bullies and throws stones, and two of the one that pouts and pulls hair, tore up and down the paths, and in and out of the summer-house, yelling, and whooping, and laughing, and fighting, as only childhood can. If anything else could, this planet would be an undesirable residence. Providentially, the young of the human species wear out their spirits and their enthusiasm inside of the first score of their allotted three, and give their elders a chance to get to their graves in peace. Fancy untold millions of people romping, and tearing, and hallooing through life in school-boy earnest; the earth would be complained of as a nuisance in the planetary system.

The two ladies who sat in the summer-house groaned as the five emancipated young savages burst out from the house and spread themselves over the garden. The younger and prettier of the two threw down the volume of "Evelina" she held, exclaiming, "There's an end to reading aloud!" while her companion gave a discontented glance toward them, and said, "If their father only had a little authority over them!"

The young lady's face, and the slight shrug she gave, seemed to indicate that she thought mothers were not entirely devoid of responsibility in the matter of authority, but she did not say anything.

The matron, meanwhile, laid down her work and turned toward the intruders with a feeble remonstrance, which was met by a mauling embrace from the two girls, who wanted permission to do something unheard of, and by a wild Indian yell from the three boys, who were already in a rough-and-tumble fight.

"Give us the key of the boat-house, mamma—give us the key," coaxed Christy, hanging around the wretched lady's neck.

"Yes, mamma—yes, you must," cried the younger girl, thumping heavily on her knee to insure her entire attention.

"No, don't you, mamma," shouted Rowly, picking himself up out of the dust. "Don't you let 'em go. I won't have 'em. I'm going to row myself. I won't have any girls along, I won't."

"Mamma, shan't he?" shrieked the girls in concert, while Rowly, turning a somersault out into the path, vowed he'd break the boat-house open if he couldn't get the key, and started off to put his threat in execution, with the two younger boys close at his heels, whereupon the two girls gave chase, rending the air with their shrill shrieks, and tearing pell-mell, helter-skelter, head-over-heels down the path. About half way to the river, however, Rowly's foot slipped, and he fell sprawling over a promising bed of hyacinths and tulips, and his pursuers, too close and too violent to arrest themselves in time, stumbled over the prostrate hero, and fell promiscuously, involved in a common ruin. Mrs. Templeton, at the dire sight, hid her eyes and groaned, but sat still, while Miss Birket, the pretty niece, exclaimed it served them right, and she hoped sincerely they were hurt.

At this critical juncture, there emerged from the house a tall, pale girl, with a very wearied look and a listless step, holding in her hand a book and garden hat, and drinking in a thirsty breath of the fresh air, as if it were the first she had had all day.

"There!" cried the young lady, in a tone of relief, as she caught sight of the new comer. "Do let her take them off for a walk or something. She's the only one that can keep them quiet."

The approach of the governess seemed to remove a great weight from the mother's mind. She looked up very much relieved, and said peevishly, as she came toward them:

"Do see what is the matter with those children, I beg. You may take them down to the water for an hour before tea-time, if you can keep them within sight of you. Don't let Rowly get into the boat-house, though, on any account, and be sure you bring them in before dark."

The governess paused a moment before the door of the summer-house, and opened her lips as if to speak, then turned her head away, and moved quietly down the path. Her approach seemed to have a composing effect upon the struggling heap of little humans: she picked up one, brushed the dust from the apron of another, and spoke with quiet authority to a third. All clamored their defences and complaints, and clustered about her skirts with incoherent declarations and accusations, but it was very evident they acknowledged her supremacy, and yielded her the best obedience they were able.

In the calm that succeeded their retreat. Miss Birket said, thoughtfully, looking after them:

"Do you know, Aunt Rache, I should not wonder if you had trouble with that young woman sometime. I think she has a temper."

A disinterested observer might have suggested Miss Birket had a right to know temper when she saw it, if anybody had. She was very fair and feminine looking, rather undersized, and by no means unattractive; but there was more willfulness than merriment hid under her pretty dimples, and a very domineering spirit shone at times from her blue eyes. In a word, if she had been a shade less pretty, she would have been detestable; but her youth, her fairness, her piquancy, saved her from termagancy, and rendered palatable her prononcée manners, her dashing freedom, and her startling willfulness. Few women liked her, and the ascendency she had gained over her aunt was owing more to the superiority of her mind than to the amiability of her household manners. Mrs. Templeton had assumed the charge of the young orphan rather unwillingly, but the idea of a companion in her exile from England, and one who was young and pretty, and beau-mondeish, reconciled her to the demands of sisterly affection, and the spoiled Fanny had to accept the favor of her protection, and affect gratitude for it, when she was inwardly rebelling against the fate it consigned her to. The best years of her life, that is, of her beauty, wasted in colonial society—the very prime and hey-day of her youth spent in the suburbs of a dull town like this! Her whole soul revolted, and a growing discontent sharpened every tone, and hurried every movement.

To be sure, the best society the place afforded met at Colonel Templeton's house, and in those anti-republican days, the society of New York considered itself very good indeed. The most intelligent men of the new country, and the favored emissaries from the old, breathed together the invigorating air of the new metropolis, and met on common ground—the one refined and polished by contact with conventionalities, the other enlarged and elevated by communion with free mind. Colonel Templeton, though by no means a shining light in this sphere, was sufficiently well-placed and well-informed to keep a tolerable position in it.

He had received the order to sail for America with rather a bad grace, being a quiet third-rate man, and hating great changes with all the heart he had. He had had the misfortune to marry an heiress, who was at once ugly and of good family. It was a fearful combination of circumstances; if she had been only rich, he could have equalized matters by talking up his family; or if she had been simply well-born, he could have weighed his purse against her claims, and made her feel its material advantage; but being before him in both these points, and being just acute enough to know it, the lady allowed no occasion to pass unimproved, but taunted him unceasingly with them. She had not force nor intelligence enough to make her attacks very telling; she only kept up a sort of guerrilla warfare that was exceedingly exasperating and wearing, but which could have been put down almost immediately by a prompt and decided hand. The unfortunate Colonel, however, did not wield a prompt and decided hand; he had some pomposity of manner and a slowness of speech that imposed upon the multitude, but not upon his family: from Christy up, they all knew they could ride over him without the slightest difficulty, if they made up their minds to do it.

Miss Birket was not slow to find out what a narrow mind her aunt had, and what a fumbling uncertain will her uncle's was, and that she might rule the household if she chose, and she did choose, it may be well imagined. The children she did not attempt often to coerce, but merely used her influence to banish them as much as possible from the company of their elders, and to keep them out of her way entirely. From the governess she had anticipated trouble; but, strange to say, the poor young woman had not yet revolted from the abominable tyranny that tied her, for fourteen hours of the twenty-four, to those wild colts; she had no moment of daylight to herself—a more wearing life of bondage it would be difficult to imagine; but she seemed sworn to submission, chained voluntarily to endurance. Miss Birket saw at a glance the governess was quite her match in will and spirit, and though the governess chose to put them both to school, and curb them into mute subjection, she never felt entirely safe.

"I advise you to keep your eye on her, Aunt Rache," she reiterated, musingly, as she watched the commanding figure of the young woman moving slowly down the path. "I wouldn't trust her too far. There is something about her eyes I do not like. She is deep—I am sure she is. My uncle is rather soft about her, she's so good-looking, and would have you let her come into the drawing-room, and make us treat her like one of the family; but if you take my advice, you won't allow anything of the kind. If she once got a foothold, you would never be able to get her back. She is very determined, I am sure, and would soon be utterly unbearable."

Mrs. Templeton, who was very jealous of her husband, as Fanny well knew, started a little at the allusion to Colonel Templeton's soft-heartedness about the governess' good looks, and said sharply, she did not believe Colonel Templeton remembered there was such a person in the house, except at breakfast-time, and hardly then, after he had helped her to omelette, and sent her a chop.

"Dear aunt!" cried Fanny, laughing, "I don't mean to say he's in love with the creature, only he notices her and thinks she's handsome, and feels as if we women were a little hard on her. Don't you remember how unusually animated he was when we were talking of going down to the seaside last week for a couple of days without her? And how he ordered you, absolutely ordered you, to ask her to come downstairs, on the birthday night? And she knows who to go to very well when she wants any favor. I must confess it provoked me a little, at Christmas, to see her walk straight past you in the hall and go into my uncle's study to ask him for two extra days for the children. As if the lady of the house were not the proper one to regulate those things! But she knew where to look for indulgence!"

Mrs. Templeton grew as black as a thunder-cloud, and twitched at her work nervously, while Fanny, with great unconcern and sweetness, picked up her book and turned over the leaves to find her place.

"You are very much mistaken, if you think your uncle is indulgent to—to such persons from anything but absent-mindedness and indifference," she said, tartly, after a pause.

"Oh, of course, I know that!" answered Fanny, pleased to see her shaft had taken such effect, and willing to smooth it over as much as she could, without drawing it out. "Of course; but then, you know, it is vexing to think she may presume upon it, and get his sympathy, and all that. Gentlemen are flattered by being appealed to, you see, and my uncle is so kind-hearted. All I want to urge upon you is, to keep her in her proper place—the school-room. And that absurd idea of my uncle's, of having the older children come to the breakfast-table—it has always provoked me. Of course, it involves having her, too; but if they took all their meals upstairs, it would be perfectly natural she should stay with them. At home, you never would have dreamed of having a troop of children and a governess in the dining-room at breakfast, any more than you would have had them there at dinner; it's only being in this outlandish place that makes things so out of joint."

"I have been resolved upon that change for a month past," said Mrs. Templeton, with energy. "It annoys me exceedingly to have the racket of the children at breakfast, and I mean they shall take all their meals upstairs, particularly when we have company. If that young Mr. Sutherland had come yesterday, as we somewhat expected, I should have had their breakfast served by themselves this morning."

"Do you think it possible for him to come to-day?" Fanny asked, well satisfied with the result of her diplomacy thus far.

"Very possible," her aunt said, looking at her watch. "I should not be surprised if he arrived before tea-time."

"Then I had better go and dress," Fanny said, glancing down at her frock. "I forgot the young Crœsus when I put on this muslin."

"I do not believe you need take much trouble," Mrs. Templeton said, ill-humoredly, being quite out of temper with everybody. "I don't believe he's such a Crœsus as they say, or he would not stay in this country. He'd go home to England and live like a gentleman."

"He's Quixotic, my uncle says, which is very bad, I grant; but one might cure him of that, you know. And he must be rich, or people would never treat him with so much respect, and talk so much about him. And my uncle says his estate at home is one of the finest he ever saw, and is steadily increasing in value; and he ought to know, I'm sure, being one of the executors. Oh, I'm not afraid he isn't rich—I'm only afraid he is a horror, and can't be swallowed, even through a golden tube."

At this moment a servant approached from the house with a card. Fanny met him at the summer-house door, and reading it hastily, cried:

"He's here, Aunt Rache; do you go into the drawing-room—you look plenty well—and I'll hurry up and dress."

"But I don't look well enough," remonstrated the aunt, looking at her rumpled dress and mauled cap-strings. "The children have torn me all to pieces."

"Nonsense!" cried Fanny, straightening her cap, and smoothing down her hair. "Nonsense! you look perfectly well—as nice as possible. Do go directly in."

And almost pushing her toward the house, she succeeded in having her own way—making a victim of her relative, and gaining plenty of time for her own toilette.

It was almost twilight when the governess returned from the river-side with her restless charge. She held two of them firmly by the hand, as she entered the hall, but the surplus, for whom she had no hand, rushed wildly before her, whooping and yelling, without the least regard to the threatening gestures of the servant, who impressively whispered there was company within.

"Company!" shouted Rowly, "who cares for company! Let's go see what kind of company it is."

Very torn and muddy and blowsy, looking much more like a coalheaver's boy than an English gentleman's son, Master Rowly bolted into the parlor, followed at a little distance by his younger brother Harry, with his hat over his eyes, and his hands in his pockets. Mrs. Templeton half rose, with an agonized gesture; Colonel Templeton sat still, as if too much stunned to speak, while Miss Fanny, sitting by the "company," in the window seat, was the first to break the silence with a ringing, merry laugh.

"Well, Rowly! you are a beauty, no one can deny."

"No," cried Rowly with spirit, advancing nearer, "it's you that's a beauty—ain't she now?" he continued, entirely unabashed, looking at the visitor.

The young gentleman laughed and blushed a very little, and Fanny laughed and blushed a good deal. The young gentleman said his young friend had taste and judgment beyond his years, and his young friend felt from that moment that they were one in soul, and immediately appropriated the vacant seat at his side and began to play with his watch-chain. No remonstrances could induce him to budge.

"You don't want me to go, do you?" he demanded, looking up with the clearest, truest blue eye into the gentleman's face.

"No," said the gentleman very decidedly and honestly, feeling, perhaps, that that eye was the most reliable thing he had looked into since he entered the house.

"There, you hear, now," he exclaimed, looking triumphantly around upon the family; "and I'm going to take tea downstairs with him. You needn't shake your head at me, Fanny Birket; I'm going to stay."

"Mamma'll let you, I know she will—just this once," said Fanny, with artless sweetness. "Please let him take tea downstairs to-night."

"Well," said his mother, miserably, "yes, perhaps, if he'll go up and be washed immediately."

"No," replied the boy stoutly, "that's just what I won't do. I know I won't be let down again. Don't I remember the dinner party! how Fanny coaxed I might be left while the people were by, and then sent Margaret up to lock me into the nursery while I was washing myself?"

"Why, Rowly!" exclaimed Fanny, with well-feigned perplexity, "what are you talking about?"

"Oh, you know what I'm talking about," he cried, putting down his head and looking very ugly at her; "and you ar'n't going to get me off again."

"My son," said Col. Templeton with feeble pomp, "my son, you are troublesome. Get down from Mr. Sutherland's lap, and try to be a gentleman."

"Well, I am a trying," said the boy, getting down; "but I won't go upstairs."

As no one but the governess had ever made any progress in subjugating Rowly, stratagem was always resorted to when it became necessary to manage him, and in consequence he had grown very sharp, and was always on the lookout for it. Harry was comparatively an easy subject, always bellowing like a young bull calf at any measures of opposition, but generally giving in to them at last, without vigorous resistance. So, at this time, when his father ordered him away, and his mother fretfully seconded the edict, he howled and kicked awhile, but at last submitted to be led away by John, and comparative peace was restored. Rowly had a pacific and honorable tea, holding fast to Mr. Sutherland's hand when Fanny waved him to the lower end of the table. Now it was an invariable custom of Rowly's to answer any such dumb show out in very plain language, and Fanny ought to have known better. He scowled at her again, and said with great distinctness:

"No; I won't go down there. You can sit that side of him, if you want to, but I'm a-going to sit here."

Pretty Fanny Birket! How she could have ground her teeth if it wouldn't have interfered with her dimples! How her slim fingers ached to be about the boy's ears, and how the boy's ears would have caught it if she could have got him by himself! But Rowly didn't mean she should get him by himself, he was a great deal too wise for that; so, shortly after the evening meal was completed and they had returned to the drawing-room, he anticipated his father's invitation, and announced his intention of going to bed.

"That's right, Rowly," said his father, very much relieved.

"Well, that's what I meant it to be," he returned, going up to kiss his mother. He bestowed the same compliment upon his father, and then walked over to his new friend, and holding up his face to his, said, "I'm going to kiss you good-night before I go."

Mr. Sutherland kissed him very seriously, quite principled against encouraging him in his brusqueness, but enjoying it very much, nevertheless. Fanny held out her hand as he passed her, but he walked out of the way of it, and said determinedly, "No, I don't want to." He saw she bit her lip as he looked back at her from the door, and it afforded him so much innocent gratification that he turned a somersault across the hall, and rushed up the stairs like an advance of cavalry, and burst into the school-room with an Indian war-whoop.

"You hateful, noisy boy!" cried Christy, spitefully, slapping at him as he sprang into the circle round the governess' knee.

"I'll knock you down if you don't keep off," growled Harry, who had been bursting with envy ever since he had been upstairs.

"Make the boys stop fighting," fretted little Hetty, with an odious whine, "and go on with the story, or I'll cry,"

The school-room was a great blank apartment, with five desks and a black-board at one end, and some chairs and a table at the other. The governess sat by the west window, which was open, and the children sat around her feet, Hetty leaning on her lap, and the others pressing as near to her as she would allow. Rowly made an attempt to insinuate himself into the circle, but was driven back amid a storm of protestations. For some reason, she of the ferule did not seem disposed to exert her authority to restore order, but leaned her head back wearily against the window, and looked thoughtfully out.

"Shall Rowly have my stool?"

"Mayn't he keep off?"

"Ought he to hear my story?"

"Won't you speak to him?"

"Look how he's kicking me!" rose in wild clamor round her, before she turned her eyes toward them, or seemed to understand their accusations.

"Well," cried Rowly, springing on the table and thumping a tattoo upon it with a couple of books, "if I can't hear the story, you shan't either!"

The hubbub that arose on this was deafening; the young lady exclaimed, "Don't, children, you torture me!" in a manner very different from her ordinary firm command; "Rowly, I did not expect this from you. It is not kind."

"Well, now, look here," said the boy, very penitent, getting down from the table, "what's the use of saying so to me? You know I didn't mean it."

Her unusual tone had quite melted him; she had not worn out entreaty by frequent use, so it availed her when she took it up from necessity. He said, "Hold your tongues, children," and stamped about in great earnest to get them quiet.

"They will not be that till you set them the example," she said, leaning her head down on her hands upon the table.

"I don't know how," said Rowly, dismally and candidly. In truth, there was nothing he knew less about. But his dismay at the sight of his best friend's attitude of dejection inspired him with something like good manners; he controlled his desire to kick Harry for his insubordination, and throttle Christy for her continued racket, and called out in conciliatory tones:

"Come, now, if you'll hush, I won't fight you any more.

You let her alone, Christy, and don't make her head ache any worse; or I'll tell papa about you. Hetty, let go her frock; here, take hold of my hand. Now, if you'll all come and sit down and be quiet, I'll tell you about the company."

"Who cares for your company? I saw him," muttered Harry.

"Tell me," cried Christy, with very sharp feminine curiosity, "what's his name, and how long is he going to stay? Is he nice, and does Fanny like him?"

"Fanny like him? Why, of course she does. Everybody likes him, and he's nicer than Major Titherly, or any of the gentlemen that come to see Fanny. He let me sit by him all the time; and I shouldn't wonder if I made him a present of my map of India before he went away."

"Whew!" whistled Harry, for he did not in the least believe it. Rowly's map of India, for which he had received a prize at Christmas, and no end of praise, was the very apple of his eye.

"You be quiet, will you?" he said sternly to Harry over his shoulder.

"But what does he look like?" questioned Christy, perseveringly. "Is he handsome and tall?"

"I don't know about his being tall, I didn't think anything about it, I'll look next time I see him. And he isn't handsome, like other people—he hasn't got any beard at all; he doesn't look like a boy, for all that—he looks as if he knew a great deal more than papa."

"I don't see why Fanny should like him so, if he isn't handsome, though," Christy said, thoughtfully.

"Did I say he wasn't handsome?" retorted Rowly, sharply. "Isn't she a little fool—just hear her," he continued, appealing to the governess, who had risen, and was standing by the window, leaning her face against the pane and looking out. "Didn't I say he was handsome, but not like other people? I'll tell you what he looks like—he looks like that picture of St. John you made me for my prayer-book—he looks just like it—I wish he was related to me!" he added, with energy.

"Well," said Christy, "perhaps he will be one of these days. Perhaps he'll marry Fanny."

"He shan't!" Rowly snapped at first, then seemed to think better of it. "He'd be my first cousin if he did, wouldn't he? And live here perhaps. Well, I don't know whether I'd mind. And he likes Fanny, I know. He talks to her more'n to anybody else, and she's so monstrous sweet to him! Ah!" he cried, deprecatingly, as the young lady turned round sharply, and touched the little bell upon the table. "Why need we have prayers yet? We ar'n't sleepy, one of us, and I've got so much to tell 'em!"

"It is past the hour already," she said, and there was no further remonstrance, for they had learned to respect that bell, if nothing else on earth.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE WISDOM OF THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT.

"Ill that He blesses is our good
And unblest good is ill;
And all is right that seems most wrong,
If it be His sweet will."

Faber.

The children's breakfast was served upstairs the morning following, and so it was the next day, and the next; the line of demarcation was drawn stronger than ever between seniors and juniors, no one but Rowly daring ever to break through it, and even he would not have been allowed to succeed in his attempts, if it had not happened that he had the favor and encouragement of the visitor, who had evidently taken a fancy to the rough little rebel, and liked to have him by him. And as Mr. Sutherland was a guest to be deferred to, Mr. Sutherland had but to say the word, and Rowly's sentence was remitted, and he was allowed to bask in the smiles of the drawing-room. Fanny bore it with a very sweet grace, as she always bore inevitable things before people. She anathematized him in her heart, but spared no pains to conciliate and win him. It was a very necessary step, for Rowly had such an unpleasant way of saying out whatever he thought, it was highly desirable his thoughts should be complimentary ones. Children are considered proof against insincere cajoling; but in this case, Rowly's honest instincts seemed temporarily hoodwinked: he showed himself, alas! not incorruptible; he was young, but he had his price, if paid down punctually, in burnt almonds and lollipop. He began to assume grand-seigneur manners in the school-room, and to resist, a little ostentatiously, the authority of his teacher; he was too big to have to mind like Christy and Jack—Fanny said he was; Fanny said he shouldn't have to stay much longer with the girls; she promised she would coax mamma to send him away to boarding-school, and then wouldn't he make 'em all stand round when he came back at holidays!

The poor governess felt as if all the world had turned against her, now Rowly had gone over to the enemy. There was more in him that was tolerable than in any of the others; Christy was frivolous and Harry was sulky, Hetty was peevish and Jack was commonplace, and all were a little underhand and skulking, owing to the miscellaneous and uncertain training they had had before they had fallen into her hands. All but Rowly, who was truth and stubbornness itself. No one had ever guessed he had an affectionate heart, till his governess guessed at it, and was repaid for her large faith by a most loyal devotion and a very robust championship. How much this had touched her, and how dear the young Troublesome had been to her, she did not realize, till she began to see there was danger he would be alienated from her.

"My last friend!" she thought, with a half bitter, half sad smile, as Fanny had put her head in at the door, and told him to go dress himself he was to go with her and Mr. Sutherland to drive, and Rowly, with a shout, had slammed down his desk and dashed after her, without asking leave or license of his preceptress. "My last friend; but it is all right—I should have known better."

How long the days seemed to the governess about those times, and how dull! The music from the drawing-room, the distant sounds of laughing and talking, only made the school-room dismaller and wearier. There had been less difficulty than was anticipated in suppressing the governess; Fanny began to think she might have saved herself the trouble, she would have suppressed herself. A morbid dread of meeting strangers seemed to haunt her, and the house was full of strangers now. Not one of them, probably, however, had ever caught a glimpse of her, or heard her name or thought of her existence there; she need not have shrunk within her prison so fearfully; they all seemed busy with themselves, and selfishness is marvellously blind.

It was on one soft evening, however, just about a week after the arrival of Mr. Sutherland and the guests who had followed him, that, seduced by the quiet of the house into a belief that it was vacant, she resolved upon a half hour in the garden by herself. It was the day of the governor's fête, the event of the season, and it was no wonder the house was quiet. Fanny had flashed into the school-room late in the afternoon, in a ravishing toilette, to deliver a message from her aunt, and to see if Rowly was ready, and the younger children, gaping through the blinds, had seen the carriage drive away, and had howled with discontent. It was the night of their weekly bath, however, and on such occasions, they were delivered over to the nurses an hour earlier than usual, and the governess had a holiday. She had a very odd, emancipated, self-indulgent feeling as she crossed the hall and stepped out on the balcony. The sudden quiet was almost as startling as when, midway on the ocean, the wearying sounds of a great steamer's machinery abruptly ceases; the shock is greater than a clap of thunder.

The young lady hardly felt as if she were in her right mind or her right body, walking through the silent hall, or descending into the tranquil, pleasant garden, without any children hanging on her skirts, or any sharp eyes following her steps. For the past week she had kept so nervously out of sight and in the school-room, she could hardly realize she was safe even in this solitude. With a most weary gesture she pressed her hand against her brow as she moved down the path: the cool air did not revive her, even fresh as it came from the river; she paused a moment at the door of the summer-house, then sank down languidly upon the seat beside it, and leaned her cheek against the lattice. How soft and cool the breeze was in her face; how placid the river looked, gleaming through the trees; how calm and quiet the evening sky bent over her. But it seemed to her, her heart was dead. They might as well have been shining on her grave.

The summer-house was an oblong building, with a table running through the centre and seats at both ends. The faint, dusky light, and perhaps her preoccupation, had prevented the young lady from seeing she was not alone in it. Some one arose as she entered, and making a hurried step forward, stopped and gazed steadily at her. Her face was very clearly visible, lying wearily back against the dark vine-covered lattice, and with the light from the door upon it; it seemed to convey some startling story to the stranger, for patting his hand to his forehead as if in pain, he murmured something half inaudible and leaned against the lattice for support. The governess started up and turned toward him; their eyes met for one long moment, then Warren sank down on the seat, and bowed his head in his hands upon the table. There was an unbroken silence for some minutes; at last she said, speaking low, but not moving from where she stood:

"I thought you were away; I did not mean you should have seen me."

He did not move or raise his head, and she went on after a moment, a little more quickly and huskily:

"I am sure you cannot blame me—no one can. I meant you never should have known that I was in the house. I have not left the school-room all this week. You cannot doubt"——

The river breaking with a low murmur at the foot of the stone wall below, the faint western wind whispering among the vines, were the only sounds of life for several minutes in the tranquil garden; the young man did not move or lift his head, his companion stood as if struck into marble, but with a most supplicating, sorrowful and wistful look upon her face as she turned toward him.

"You won't believe me," she said at last. "Oh, Warren, do not be so unkind, do but speak to me. Say you have no angry recollections of the past—say I have had nothing to do with your unhappiness, and you need never speak to me again; you can forget I am alive, you shall not see me while you live—you shall not hear my name again."

A low groan was the only answer; and throwing herself upon her knees beside him, she clasped her hands upon his arm and cried:

"Oh, Warren, do not be unforgiving! Think how long it is! Think how I have suffered! My pride is dead—long, long ago, ever since I asked you to forgive me first. You did not answer my poor letter then—you will not answer now. Oh, oh, this is worst of all! On my knees, Warren—after five dreadful years of penance, five years of labor, and loneliness, and wretchedness—I ask you to forgive me, to say you are not angry, and you will not answer."

"Yes, Georgy," he said, slowly raising his head, but turning it from her, "yes, I will answer you. I have nothing to forgive—it is all past long ago. I have forgiven you and prayed for you ever since we parted. I do not blame you, believe me, I do not blame you."

"But you do not love me," she murmured, bursting into tears, and burying her face in her hands.

"I have prayed God I might not every day since last I looked into your face," he said, huskily and low.

"You had no right to pray that—you had no right to put me out of your heart," she cried, starting up and turning from him.

"No right, when you had forgotten me, when you were given to another?"

"Warren, you cannot think, you did not dream"——

"Did not dream? What are you saying?—be quick," he exclaimed hurriedly, with a startled, strange look toward her, as he pressed his hand upon his heart and gasped for breath.

"You did not dream I could"——

"Georgy—the truth—quick. Sir Charles"——

"I have never seen him since the day he told me you had sailed."

"The marriage, then"——

"He was married three months after. What, do you doubt—do you not believe me! Warren, you are not generous. I have never doubted you through all your cruel silence. I know I deserved that; but I do not deserve this."

"Georgy, do not reproach me; have I not been punished bitterly enough? Tell me if you can forgive, and if I may believe this is not some wild, unreal dream!"

It was no dream: looking into the beautiful dark eyes he had loved so long and so long striven to forget, clasping in his own the hand he had never hoped to touch again on earth, Warren Sutherland's dead and hopeless heart awoke anew to living warmth. The long years of resignation that he had offered to heaven were the safest, fittest preparation for a bliss that too often proves a snare; a still, calm, deep happiness had come on earth to crown his patience, when he had only hoped for it in heaven—a happiness for which he had sacrificed no duty, and for which he had not even asked; it was purely the gift of the Master for whom he had renounced it, and it bound him to His service by doable ties of gratefulness.

The wisdom of the children of this world stood in strange contrast at that moment with the wisdom of the children of light: the one, confounded, thwarted, blasted; the other, crowned, rewarded, blessed.

————

"But, Georgy, I cannot take you home to England;" and Warren's smile was tenderer and sadder than lover's smile had ever been before. "Can you give up home for me?"

"I have no home, there or anywhere, except as you shall give me one," she said. "I have been orphaned, impoverished, expatriated too long to dictate my terms. Anywhere, Warren, so long as you do not give me up again."

"Then you will come to the Parsonage as soon as it is finished?"

"Oh, yes," said Georgy simply. "I shall count the days till you come back for me."

"They shall not be long, my dearest."

"But Laura—you have not told me about Laura. Is she there? Has she forgotten me?"

"Wait till to-morrow," Warren said quietly. "There is so much to tell; tell me of yourself to-night."

And so it happened, that the first hours of their new happiness were not stained with the sadness the recital of poor Laura's story must have brought to both. Georgy's story, full of stern discipline, heavy sorrow, deep humiliation, was a sad one; but it fell far short of the unutterable anguish of poor Laura's. The one had been punished bitterly for her pride, and all the errors of her girlhood; but, chastened, humbled, conquered, she had at last, with saddened but earnest eyes, seen the heavy cloud lift and the future calm before her: but for the other, what future could come after that awful night but a future of endurance, submission, death? God help her!

She had not rebelled. When Warren first found her, bending over the poor mother whose long trial had just ended, and whose night of unconsciousness had just begun, and heard, from the lips of the horror-struck servants that Larry lay dead below the rocks on which poor Nattee had met her cruel fate, he stood paralyzed at the sight of her tearless composure. Not a tear, not a murmur, not a shadow of oblivion.

This unnatural calmness must give way in time, he thought, as he watched her with yearning tenderness. But it never did give way. The first terrible weeks of desolation passed, and then the longer months of solitude, and still it never altered. Too quiet for despair, too marvellous for resignation; she breathes the air of heaven already, he thought; the angels have their arms about her, they are leading her softly away. One burst of grief, one human cry of pain, Warren would have given worlds to hear; remembering his own despair at the time of his great trial, his own ungovernable anguish, he could not believe her strength could so exceed his own. But it was a different trial, and a different strength; his strength was for life and hers was for death; the end was determined of God, each sorrow had its allotted outlet.

A strange household that was, that went its silent ways within those gloomy walls. The old man, blasted forever in the sight of men, was yet suffered to live unmolested, shunning and dreading those he met, yet safe from all but their execration and contempt. The form of a trial, indeed, had been passed through, but in those colonial days, the administration of justice was but an exceptional and uncertain thing; irregularity and tardiness characterized all the courts of law; the tribunal of the mother country seemed almost as distant and as vague as that of Heaven, and was not much more regarded, so that corruption and dishonesty frequented very high places without putting themselves in any danger of arrest, and equity and justice, indeed, seemed fallen in the streets. The high position, great wealth and extended influence of the Sutherland family, readily explained the extraordinary result of this trial; popular indignation was not heard of in those days, when we sucked the breasts of kings, when free and righteous Albion held the scales in which our justice was meted out to us; the people, whose blood had run cold at the old man's horrid crime, could now warm it at the fire of their righteous indignation.

Ralph Sutherland was convicted of the murder of his slave, and was sentenced, for the remainder of his life, to wear about his neck a halter, and to appear once every year before the assembled legal body of the province. But to give this mockery of condemnation a show of terror, and to satisfy the instinct that demanded blood for blood, a most extraordinary clause was inserted, providing that, if the accused should reach the age of ninety-nine, he then should suffer the extreme penalty of the law, and be hung by the neck till dead.

No doubt the old man breathed freer when he heard his sentence, and felt that life was sweet on any terms; no doubt he felt a faint restoration of hope when he found that the bitterness of death was passed and that he was assured of life. But his hope of satisfaction in it must have been short lived; it seemed to grow a heavier burden to him every day. He noticed no member of his household, he could be made to feel no interest in the management of his estate; it was not blankness and apathy, it was something infinitely worse to bear, it was the dread, clear certainty that nothing now could yield him profit, pleasure or amelioration of his pain.

The affairs about which he had once been so inexorably exact, were now utterly neglected and abandoned; if it had not been for Warren's persuasion and influence, not a slave except Rube would have remained to work the farm. As it was, since that dreadful night, not one of them could be made to sleep under the haunted roof. A neighboring farmhouse was repaired and rudely furnished for them, where they slept and took their meals, doing their work very much at their own option and according to their own judgment. Little Steady was the only assistant Laura had in the duties of the household. Superstition and remorse had aided selfishness effectually, and Salome had been the first to desert the roof that had so long sheltered and protected her.

The old man saw the breaking up his household and the scattering of his servants with simple unconcern. All ugliness and vindictiveness of temper were gone; they would have given an animation to his dead life which would have ameliorated its heavy burden. It was impossible to think, either, that his mind had received any damage from the shock of his son's death and his own revolting crime, for his faculties seemed all unimpaired, his memory vigorous, and his judgment clear. No dullness or oblivion had fallen to take the edge off of his punishment, no paralysis of the mind, no morbid melancholy, even, dimming the consciousness of what he had done and what he must endure, or diverting it into one distorted and arbitrary channel, but with acute possession of intelligence and reason, and with strangely sustained endurance, he saw his wrecked and blasted fortunes in the fullest, strongest light. Remorse—not violent, passionate, self-destructive and exhausting, but remorse that grew upon him, slow, steady, strong, fastening itself upon his soul, fitting itself into it, binding itself about it, this remorse was his companion night and day. His pain of mind was not intense nor racking enough to wear his body out, and his body, as yet, refused to prey upon his mind. The blankness and desolation of the present, the blackness and shamefulness of the past, the awfulness of the future, these he saw with eyes made clear and strong for the perfection of his punishment.

No groan, no transport of remorse escaped him. Sometimes, from the depths of his strange eye, Warren caught a gleam that made him shudder; but he could not preach repentance to him; this was a soul beyond his cure, beyond his care. God alone was preacher, pastor, now.

A strange household, indeed, from the stricken, speechless old man who had once been its despot, to the thoughtful, silent child, who was now its only servitor. The fair pale girl who stole like a shadow from room to room, now bending over the smitten and unconscious mother in her helpless imbecility, now following with womanly gentleness and consolation, the wayward steps of the old man, or ministering with silent and sisterly tenderness to the unselfish wants of her sad and silent brother—one and all attempted no disguise of cheerfulness, but trusted to Heaven to receive instead their patient resignation.

It seemed, indeed, as if but little separated them from the silent realm of waiting spirits, and when first the poor mother, and then her sad attendant, were laid in the little churchyard, with Larry beside them, and with Nattee at their feet, there were no tears shed over them by those left behind; Steady's eyes grew thoughtfuller and deeper, and Warren's face grew paler and more saintly, but the old man did not change, and the household ways moved on unaltered.

Summer shed its blossoms and winter spread its snows again and again over the gloomy house, but brought few other changes to the silent trio within. The discovery that, instead of being penniless wanderers, he and Laura had long been the heirs of almost princely wealth, came too late to Warren to bring him anything but pain. It was something more to estrange him from his uncle, and it gave him another regret for home, and a new pang for poor Laura's blighted life. The pleasures and possessions of this world never could entice him again, but they could encumber him with cares and vexations manifold, and it was with a very sad and unwilling heart that he left his mountain home, in the third June after Laura's death, and entered again, for the first time, the busy haunts of worldly men.

It seemed incredible to him that it was only five years since he had left England and been secluded in that wild region to which he had consecrated his life and talents; his whole life, his entire existence, seem bounded by those blue peaks; all beyond, all that had come before, was misty and unreal. There was another life outside them he began to see. There were beautiful women, strong-souled, grand and earnest men, there were intellect, luxury, refinement, from which he had been cut off so long they had become but names to him. He appreciated and enjoyed them, they answered to what was in himself unchanged, but they could not tempt him away from the post he had resolved to hold through life. Those few sheep in the wilderness were his dearest care, those lonely graves upon the hillside marked his real home.

And when, in the soft twilight of that beautiful June day, the chastening angel, whose heavy hand he had felt so long, led back to him his early, only love, saddened, purified, ennobled, her beautiful brows crowned with the same virtues he had striven to win, her eyes turned forever from the world in which he had thought her lost, her heart true to him through all—he only sunk a moment, stunned by the greatness of his happiness, then rose stronger, manlier, more earnest.

CHAPTER XXX.

RALPH SUTHERLAND'S HALTER.

"Long die thy happy days before thy death!"

Richard III.

The years came and went, with no giddy swiftness, no hurrying tumult, in Warren and Georgy's mountain home, but calmly, goldenly, tranquilly, rich with the "blessing of peace" with which they had begun. Children grew up around them, plans prospered in their hands, duties turned to pleasures, pleasures were sanctified by the benediction of heaven, and the few sorrows that fell upon their path, shadowed lightly but did not darken it.

But gloomier and most sombre by contrast was the dark home where Ralph Sutherland dragged out the weary years. Almost daily Warren went there, and Georgy's womanly care and thought showed itself in a thousand ways about the old house: she was the nearest approach to a mistress that Steady had, and Steady would never have been content if she had had no one to obey. Georgy never could quite understand why Warren had been so resolute not to make that their home—it seemed so cruel to leave the old man there with his single faithful little maid. But it would have been crueller, Warren knew, to have chained a fresh, elastic life within that dreary shade—to have brought up children under the blight and mildew of that gloomy roof. He never could shake off the oppression that the approach to that house occasioned; to the latest day of his life, he never entered it but with a shudder, and never left it but with a feeling of relief. He wondered as he watched his little children play fearlessly about the deserted rooms, and dance up and down the darkened hall. Poor Larry! whose sons and daughters should have frolicked there!

If the old man's life had an interest, it was in listening for the patter of those little feet. True to his old habit, he never would look up or notice them, while they struggled at the lock or romped across the room, but only turned his eyes upon them when they climbed his knee or hung around his chair. He never laid his hand upon their heads, or in any manner ever caressed or played with them: it was wonderful that they cared to be with him, used as they were to endearments and indulgences from every other hand.

But there was a charm in the seclusion of the old house, in its shut-up rooms, its musty pantries, its unexplored recesses and retreats. That was not all that drew them toward it, though. They would follow the old man about the fields for hours, or, in the dim twilight, sit clustering about his feet, chatting childishly and harmlessly, wreathing their baby hopes and fears and pleasures around the grim old shattered trunk to which they had attached themselves. Unmoved and silent, though, while the young tendrils knit themselves about him: he never told them stories or enticed their confidence, he only looked at them with his strange attentive eye, and let them pour out their childish hearts unchecked.

But there was a blot upon this intercourse, a poison in this, his nearest approach to pleasure. Continually they whispered, when they climbed his knee and hung about him—

"Why do you always wear this cord around your neck, and why do you hide it so?"

The touch of their innocent hands upon this token of his crime would seem to move him more than anything else had ever done. He would put them off his lap, hurriedly disengage their arms from around his neck, and walk unsteadily up and down the room, then turn perhaps and leave them for the remainder of the day. It seemed a matter of indifference to him that his neighbors shunned and feared him—that, for weeks together, no stranger would come near his house—that when he walked abroad, the very children shrunk away in awe. No emotion seemed to be awakened in his mind when stories of the people's superstitions regarding him and his grim abode came sometimes to his ears. The country people would walk miles around to avoid passing within earshot of it. Ghosts, they believed, were its habitual tenants: poor murdered Nattee, chained to her ghastly horse, dashed nightly past the old man's window—the clatter of his hoofs upon the rocks reëchoed there the whole night long—a pale bride, with her white veil drooping, and her hands clasped mournfully, wandered moaning through the vacant rooms; the maniac mother, beating upon her breast, pierced the air with shrieks of agony, bewailing her lost son.

The old man heard these stories and knew this belief but they never seemed to give him one pang more or less—the only earthly or superhuman agency that had power to move him, were those baby hands about his neck. Whole days together he would exclude them from his presence; and when, at length, he readmitted them, with unerring instinct they would clamor for his knee, and dart, perhaps, before he could arrest their eager fingers, upon this mysterious token. It was in vain that he hid it deep beneath his garments—that he taxed his ingenuity to conceal it from their touch: a nestling head would press against it, and a curious hand would be thrust in to drag it to the light:

"Why do you wear this always round your neck, and why do you hide it so?"

But the children grew into youths and maidens—some married and went to distant homes, and some lay down to rest in narrower but stiller homes in the churchyard on the hill; and yet the old man's breath was even and his eye unclouded. Changes, such as few men live to see, passed upon those around, and left him untouched. He saw the young let go their eager hold on life, and lay down dumb in death; he saw the old sink quietly into waiting graves, and the middle-aged give grudgingly up their careful idols, and obey God's summons. He saw revolutions convulse the State, a republic born, a nation started into life, wars rage and cease, great names made, and great men rise, and reign, and die; and still his worthless blank dead life clung round him—still his dreary burden must be carried.

The slow years grew heavier and slower, as they neared that once distant goal; each day had its own dire, distinct, increasing weight of dread; he felt life enough in his pulses to carry him beyond that point—vitality enough to hold him in the flesh, till Justice should have had her due.

But he need not have feared: men had forgotten, if God had not. A new government held the reins—a new generation had arisen—the old man and his crime were things long buried in the past. In the hurry and tumult of the present, old reckonings were lost sight of, old promises were obliterated: the appointed period of retribution came and passed, and Ralph Sutherland died quietly in his bed, undisturbed of men, and only judged of God, in the hundredth year of his strange and sinful life.

Note*.—The extraordinary sentence passed upon the murderer, his strangely extended life, and the manner of his victim's death, are traditions fully credited and widely diffused in the locality described. The author does not vouch for their truth, but there are many, better informed, who do.

*[From the 1871 edition.]

THE END.