Aytoun
page: (TitlePage) [View Page (TitlePage) ]AYT0N. A ROMANCE. PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 18" page: -3[View Page -3] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. LippicooTT 's PRMES. Plsiladel Aia. AYTOUN. CHAPTER I. "And yet they think that their houses shall con- tinue for ever, and that their dwelling-places shall endure from one generation to another." AYTOUN lies at the very edge of Bridgeford, near enough for a pleas- ant walk for the young people by the hedges and under the lindens which skirt the greater part of the road. It offers a pleasant change from the dust and noise of the busy manufacturing town, and at the end of that walk a hearty welcome and a somewhat old- fashioned hospitality. For though our manners and customs have decidedly changed since our grandfathers' days, yet here and there in some corner of the land there are still traces of the old ways, and the owner of Aytoun is not the only one who prides himself on keeping up the ancient style of things. Although busy, dirty Bridgeford is only half a mile from the gate of Ay- toun, you would never suspect it, for the house is shut off from sight by a small forest of trees, and no sound reaches it save the mill-whistle, which, robbed of its shrillness by the distance, sounds almost musical. Originally, the house was shapely enough, but from time to time there has been added to it a wing or a bow win- dow, as the needs or tastes of the pos- sessor dictated, until now there is not much form or shapeliness left to the old building, though its exterior is sug- gestive of cozy rooms and pleasant nooks, as well as of stately drawing- rooms and chambers. A home-like house, yet with some display of elegance and ornament-such a house as our grandfathers understood how to build much better than we do now. But one would scarcely stop to look at mere bricks and mortar when there are such grand old trees to rivet one's admiration-trees which tell plainly of the growth of centuries, and which quite dwarf their foreign connections, who are doing their best to grow tall, and not to 3 page: 4-5[View Page 4-5] appear mere shrubbery under the shade of the huge oaks. Aytoun is not kept in the perfect order it once gloried in. The hedge is no longer closely shorn to seem a vivid green wall. The turf is short and vel- vety, for it never needs a scythe, the trees demanding the full vigor of the soil, and permitting no superfluous growth around them. But they cannot prevent the vio- lets and dandelions from showing them- selves in the early spring, and no one has the bad taste to root them out. Money is scarcer at Aytoun than it used to be in the old times, and the place begins to show its poverty. Per- haps the very lavish hospitality it once boasted of has helped to impoverish its present owner. It used to be said there was more corn eaten by the horses of its guests than would satisfy most farmers to send to market as the sum-total of their crop; and every one knows farm- ers are not easily satisfied. Fortunately, customs have changed since those days, and Bridgeford is no longer a mere village not boasting even a well-kept tavern, so that whenever a stranger arrived, if he looked respect- able, he was expected to be sent to "the house," to enjoy its hospitalities so long as his business or pleasure detained him in the neighborhood. Now, the furthest that is expected of Aytoun is to offer a hearty welcome' at any hour, a plate at the dinner-table for any one who may chance to drop in at the old-fashioned hour of three, an occasional dance in the hall, a game of croquet on the lawn, and a mount for half a dozen equestrians when there is a, riding-party. Aytoun has still its pack of hounds, but they are kept more for the name of the thing than for-any use that is made of them. The fox seldom shows him- self in the neighborhood of noisy, din- ning Bridgeford, and when he does steal out the farmers grumble at the hurry- skurry scamper over green wheat-fields by men on nags of every description, following the baying hounds. But in former times none had asked leave or license to follow the fox if they could jump the high worm-fence; a Philip Dunbar had always led-the way, whether through his own broad fields or those of his neighbors; and many a time had the horse been taken out of the plough and mounted by its owner to join in the pell-mell race. Philip Dunbar, the present master of Aytoun, does not possess one half the acres his forefathers did, because of this same hospitality and fox-hunting. He is the last of his race, with the exception of his sister Hortense,/a girl barely out of her teens, who does the honors of the old place for him gracefully, as she is bound to do, and who wins hearts, when she chooses, by her courtesy as well as by her beauty. My story opens on a glorious October day, and every available hack at Aytoun is called into requisition to mount a numerous party of young people who are bent upon a ride to the rapids. These rapids are a succession of small falls in the river some miles above Bridgeford. They are not only picturesque, but have proved useful in hurrying the water down the stream, thereby furnishing a considerable water- power, which has been the means of transforming the once pretty village into that abomination of abominations, a manufacturing town. Every one seems slow to move to-day, whether because it is comfortable under the great trees, which have lost so many of their leaves that they do not keep the. warm sun from diffusing its grateful rays, or because there is some trouble in de- ciding which of the horses can best put up with the one-sided seat and flapping skirts of the ladies. There is a good deal of noise, much laughter, some shifting of saddles and an occasional mis- hap in mounting, with not a few pretty fears and terrors on the ladies' parts, and needless anxieties and assurances of safety on the men's. But at last every one is ready, and Philip Dunbar, as he has the right to do, leads the way down the long avenue of oaks to the iron gate which opens on the high road. In these days of photography, when one expects a picture of every acquaint- ance, it will be as well to give a slight sketch of some of the riding - party. Philip Dunbar is the rider of that bay horse. He is evidently a good one, though there is no chance of exhibiting his horsemanship in the quiet pace at which he is going: he gives you the idea that the horse and his rider are not distinct animals, but one and the same. He is certainly a handsome man, but of a type of beauty which is neither Saxon nor Spanish. The charm of his face consists in its coloring, for the eyes, hair, eyebrows and lashes, as well as the short curly beard, are all of the same shade of red brown, which some call chestnut, but which has more warmth in it than that nut ever shows. Exposure has darkened by many shades the natu- rally fair complexion, but it cannot hide the rich color which seems burnt ihto the skin. The nose is small and shape- ly, and the mouth is wisely hidden by the red-brown moustache-wisely, I say, for as an index of character it might be perplexing. Smiling, it might be hand- some; in anger its expression would grow sinister, perhaps a little cruel. By the side of Philip Dunbar rides a pretty blonde. Hers is a style of beauty men often rave about, but women seldom admire, unless they prefer camellias to violets. Grace Robson wins more hearts, it is said, than any girl in Bridgeford. The women say her stock-list helps her, but then women are often more keen than just in their decisions on such points. There is no need of describing every couple riding down the avenue; so we will let the others go by, and look only at the last. The lady is Hortense Dunbar, who, with a certain old-fashioned courtesy, keeps behind her guests until they are well out of her domain and on the pub- lic road. In her position as hostess she can see better the needs of every one by being the last in the long line of eques- trians. She is not very watchful, how- ever, but is listening to the remarks of her cavalier, as of course she should do, for every one knows she has been engaged to Bryan Bonham for two years at least -so long, indeed, that no one thinks it worth while to notice them. Hortense is wonderfully like her bro- ther. She has the same brown eyes and hair. \ Her complexion is dazzlingly fair, and the color comes and goes fit- fully. There is no need to hide the mouth, for it will be tender whether it smiles or not, and there are certain /curves at the corners which tell you that in prosperity or adversity Hortense may be depended upon. Her cavalier is dark and handsome- a little too fond of his own will, possibly, both with mistress and steed, if one may judge from the way he manages to make both fall behind the rest of the party. The road is narrowing now, winding through a-long stretch of woods. Either the shadows are suggestive, or the party have wearied of making superhuman efforts to keep up a general conversa- tion; for now the different pairs are drop- ping into confidential whispers, though perhaps most of them could still shout out their words and tell no secrets. With Hortense and Bryan you can judge whether a whisper is needful. He is saying in a low voice, "I have had a letter from my grandfather which I should like to show you, only every one will be wondering at the confidential terms we have dropped into should you be seen reading my letters." "'A letter from my grandfather!"' repeated Hortense. "It sounds formid- able, much like Sir Wgfter Scott's pretty but dry history - lessons. I suppose, though, if one has a grandfather, it is natural that he should write to one." "I suppose it is-at least that has been my experience. If those people ahead would only be sagacious enough to quicken their pace, so as to be beyond seeing as well as hearing, I should like to show you the letter." "I wish they would then, for I should like ever so much to see it, if only as a specimen of what my own grandfather might have done. Could you not smug- gle it to me under the disguise of a drop- ped handkerchief or riding-whip?" "I do not want to show it as a speci- men. I did not look at it critically, and it only seemed to me a commonplace, gentlemanly letter, not at all fine nor page: 6-7[View Page 6-7] worth examination as a curiosity. It is not the style, but the matter, of the letter that I wanted your opinion of." "I beg pardon," replied Hortense, meekly: "I meant no disrespect. I have no kinsfolk older than Philip, no one else to write to me, and he does it but seldom. Not more than half a dozen notes has he ever written to me in his life, and they are by no means common- place, or, I suppose, in the strict sense of the word, very gentlemanly. At least, there is some slang in them, with a good many inquiries about the horses and dogs. I take it for granted your grand- father's style is somewhat different." "I should hope so. I can't imagine Philip writing letters such as mine is. As I can't show it to you, I must tell you the contents as well as I can. The old gentleman is very anxious that I should settle down as-" "I hope he has not heard anything to make him anxious?" interrupted Hor- tense, turning a mock-serious face to- ward her lover. "Nothing special, I fancy. At least he does not find any fault. Yet it is a sorry, worthless life I am leading, without a home or any one to look after me, and the old gentlemen is wise enough to see it." "' Sorry and worthless!' Don't over- throw my belief too suddenly. I thought only young women led worthless lives -young women who have nothing spe- cial to do, I mean." "If we are both making honest con- fessions, it is time we should mend our ways," retorted Bryan, with a little twinkle in his eye at the prospect of tripping her on her own words. "There is but one way to improve matters for both of us, with any likelihood of success." "But I rather like my worthlessness," Hortense maintained, coolly. "Philip is used to it, and you-" "And I must wait Philip's pleasure. Is that what you would say, Hortense?" asked Bryan angrily. "His convenience would be a better way of putting it," Hortense answered with a little nod. "Then I tell you, plainly, I am some- what tired of being pushed aside for this same Philip Dunbar." "Pushed aside, indeed!" exclaimed Hortense. "I only wish I had the strength to try it actually, not figurative- ly. There is a great talk just now about woman's influence, but for my part I am sure you men would be much better managed by hard blows and drivings, if we women only had the power to try it." "There is an easier way than that. But I do not intend to follow Samson's example and show you where my weak- ness lies. What I wish to do just now is to prove to you that there is some one in the world worth caring for besides Philip." "And the headings of your arguments are-" "First, that this same Philip, though known to have some influence over mis- guided womankind in consideration of his good looks, ought to have none what- ever overyou where one Bryan Bonham is concerned." "But what if I don't care to argue the point?" "You can certainly say which ought to have the most influence with you- Philip or I." "Philip, by all means. Has he not been a mixture of grandfather, father, guardian, brother, companion and play- mate these many years? and would you have me leave him in the lurch now, when he needs me most?" "A sort of natural protector, by your own showing, but not at all better able to fill these numerous offices than I am." "But you cannot take my place with Philip." "He can get another housekeeper, if you are thinking of his creature com- forts. Besides, he will find a wife soon if you leave him to his own devices." "He will do that some day without my urging," said Hortense, with a little jealous feeling at her heart, "and he will not ask my leave. It is never con- sidered hard for a woman to uproot her- self. I suppose we are regarded as a species of air-plant, which can grow to whatever gives the necessary support." "I am sure I am anxious to give you the needed support," replied Bryan. "I have not the smallest objection to your putting out as many pretty clinging ten- drils as you will, if they only draw you closer to me." "But I dislike vines and all such silly expedients in Nature," Hortense re- sponded - "trailing, helpless things, which bear with their full weight, though they break or bend what they lean on. I would rather be a bare telegraph-pole than yonder handsome trumpet flower, which is killing the tree it seems to be beautifying with its gay flowers." "It is well you are engaged, Hortense, and thus give contradiction to your ex- pressed opinions; and it is well, too, you are telling them to my ear only. Most of the Bridgeford people would think the cant of the day was cropping out of your talk. Gerald Alston would have a fling at you, and your dearly beloved Philip would frown you down most cer- tainly." "Fate forbid such a misunderstanding of my plain meaning! Not that I fear Mr. Alston's fling or Philip's frown. I should be more apprehensive that on some bitterly cold night my ghostly kins- women at Aytoun would turn me out of doors as an unworthy daughter of our Adam-loving race." "I wish some of your grandmothers would punish you by turning you out, and I could find you just chilled enough to care to warm yourself by my fireside." "You would like to pick me up as charitable people do beggars. As a class, they are said to be terribly un- grateful, and I may be no better than the worst of them." "I would run the risk. Here we are in sight of the river, and we have come to no definite plan. You. have gone round and round like a horse in a circus ring, and we are no nearer our wedding- day than we were when we began our talk; I have not an idea what answer to give my grandfather." "He has not a thing to do with our vexed question. You can't bring in your revered relative in that way, Bryan, trying to play upon my ignorance." "But it should not be a vexed ques- tion, and you should give me a serious answer to my serious question." "And you frighten me at once by your serious manner. Let us drop the sub- ject, for to-day at least." "No, I will not drop it, but press it boldly. Hortense, when shall the wed- ding be?" "Philip's, do you mean, of which you were warning me a little while ago?" "No, certainly not: I mean our own." "Oh, ours? Let me see: this is Oc- tober and Wednesday. It shall be to- morrow year. That will give us both breathing-time." "To-morrow year, indeed! I will take the whole matter in my own hands, and fix the day myself." "And it shall be-" "Let me see," Bryan said, mimicking her: "this is October and Wednesday. It shall be to-morrow month." "November? Nonsense! Only a man could think of such barbarity as to propose such a freezing glimpse of Niagara as one would have next month." "But a glimpse of Niagara is not necessary." "There you show your ignorance. A veil, a ring and a trip to Niagara make a wedding now. In our grandmothers' time it used to be a vow, a blessing and a punch-drinking, but of course they are obsolete." "The veil and the ring, by all means, but we are strong-minded enough to forego the waterworks." "All or nothing," Hortense says, and whips her horse surreptitiously, thus forcing him to join the group, who are dismounting, with a bound which looks a little vicious to those who do not see the lash. Bryan reins in his horse somewhat impatiently. He is not one who likes to be foiled even in trifles, but there is no help for him; so he comforts himself with the knowledge that there will be an opportunity to resume the conversation during the morning in spite of Hortense's desire to avoid it, and that there is also the ride home, when"he will manage page: 8-9[View Page 8-9] better and keep his betrothed jogging quietly in the straight road. If Hortense had been mounted pillion- fashion behind Philip, as in the days of her great-grandmother would have been seemly and maidenly, instead of holding the reins in her own hands, she would have listened with more patience to Bry- an's entreaties to fix a day for their wed- ding. She might even have acceded to his own proposition, in spite of the in- convenient hurry it would entail. But, riding as she. was a half mile behind, she did not catch a word of the love- making Philip was doing so bravely. Poor Hortense! She was willing to put off her lover and the sound of her own wedding-bells until it suited Philip's convenience to part with her. She would never have dreamed of giving up her place as housekeeper at Aytoun with the month's warning which is required of the hired servants. Yet Philip, without a thought for her loyalty, was as impa- tient to oust her from her position, and as anxious to fix his own wedding-day for November, as was Bryan-Bryan who had been engaged, Rumor said, at least two years. But two years, two days or two hours alike seem of long duration if we are 'very eager for a thing. It is the one childish feeling we-never quite outgrow, and just now Philip Dunbar is very eager for a speedy wedding, and is urging it without a thought about Hortense, who is as painfully put to it to manage com- fortably for her lover and brother as was the man who had to cross a river with his fox, his goose and his bag of corn. She has -indeed no fear but that her woman's wit will help her through. But then she knows nothing of what Philip is saying to Grace Robson, nor how warmly he is urging his suit. And Grace is listening to Philip's love- making with no desire to laugh it off or to avoid straight answers. She has her longing, her ambition, as well as the rest of womankind, and will be a little un- scrupulous, perhaps, in attaining it. It is rather a silly one, some may think, but there is nothing more humiliating to tmost of us than to confess the object of our ambition. It is such a high-sound- ing word, and we use it for such a poor end if we are honest enough to own it. The consummation of some women's wishes lies in making a good pudding, and Grace Robson thinks she should have all that is desirable in life if she *were mistress of Aytoun. What more could Grace Robson need than she has now? is a question most who know her Will ask. She is pretty, rich in her own right, petted by the wo- men, adored by the men. Surely there is nothing she longs for? Yes, one thing -just what Philip Dunbar can give her, and what, in her opinion, no one else can. It is not his love: there are half a dozen men she could like just as well if there were no other consideration. Nor his money, for he is poor almost to a proverb. But to be mistress of Aytoun is her heart's desire. To have the name of Robson blotted out by the more eu- phonious one of Dunbar. To be no longer known as the proprietress of Blidale Mill, but as the wife of the master of Aytoun. Grace's own home is much more cost- ly and showy than Aytoun ever was in its young, palmy days-showy with fresh paint and new gilding, costly with up- holstery and expensive knick-knacks; whilst Aytoun is rather dingy in regard to paint, and most of the furniture was brought across the sea to the colonies by the Dunbars themselves-very grand in its day, but then its day is over. People are perverse in this world, and it is just the newness of her house and the freshness of its gilding which makes Grace dissatisfied with it. But what could she not do with her money at Aytoun? How she would reign there, bringing back by the magic of this same money the old-fashioned hospitality there were still so many pleasant traditions of in the county! And she could introduce, also, many of the gayer fashions of the present day. Out of all the din and bustle of Bridge- ford, scarcely within hearing of the shrill whistle of the Blidale Mill, too remote for any suggestion that the wife of Philip Dunbar has any special reason to dis- like the sound, Grace thinks she espies Eden through the iron gate at Aytoun, and she is as ready to listen to the whis- pered invitation to enter as was Eve to the temptation that was to thrust her out. Philip Dunbar is on the winning side to-day. A handsome man on a hand- some horse, which he rules with bold- ness and skill, has always a certain power over the woman he is riding with, especially if she be a little timid. And Grace certainly is so, perched up on her uncomfortable seat. Her reliance is that Philip is near enough and expert enough and anxious enough to manage her horse as well as his own. Then, too, the day is delicious, and makes the match seem all the fairer. Fair in the strict sense of the word, too, for though Grace has her father's sharp- ness for a bargain, she is honest in the main, and she would shrink back if she were sure Philip wanted only her love, and that her money was nothing to him. If the scales do go down a little more heavily on her side, she is not to blame. There are other mill-owners in Bridge- ford with pretty daughters, but there is not another family as old as the Dun- bars in the county. So Philip can make love without fear of an ungracious No, and ask the ques- tion which needs so simple an answer, and which every woman expects to an- swer at least once in her life. But further than this Grace will not commtit herself. She has her ideas of dignity and pro- priety, and it will take more than half an hour for Philip to argue them away, if he ever does. But the whole party have dismounted now, and the horses are fastened to a tree or sapling as it chances to be found. There will be an hour spent in strolling or lounging on the cliff, in flirting and jesting-an hour in the pleasant October sunshine, which will beam down regard- less of whose lives are marred or made under its warmth. Hortense and Grace keep together as closely as the Siamese twins, though heretofore there has been no intimacy between them. A common danger draws them together. Bryan is gnashing his teeth, and wish- ing in his wrath that Grace was between her own mill-wheels rather than in his way. He little dreams that in her hands lies his future. For is she not about to push Hortense out into the cold, and had he not wished her there if he were only near to find her? Philip is sulky, and he is blaming Hortense as much as Bryan is Grace, only not in such a bloodthirsty, impetu- ous way. But both the men are com- forting themselves with the thoughtthat the ride home will be a specific, and so at last they grow better tempered. "Have you two vowed to keep to- gether to-day, as Sisters of Mercy do, for mutual protection? or are you trying what strong contrasts will do?" asks Bryan, stretching himself at the feet of both, for the simple reason that if he would play faithful dog to Hortense he must also to Grace. "We only wish to prove that it is a slander on the sex to say we prefer the society of men to that of each other. I do not see anything at all in bad taste if Grace and I prefer each other to you and Philip," Hortense replies. "In the belief that you can have either of us if you please. But let any other fellow come in sight, and your pretty intimacy will not last very long." "If you mean to hint I am here be- cause I cannot help myself, you are mistaken. I have had an invitation to stroll in the woods, and another to go down to the river; and I can testify to Grace's having had still greater chances, though she will not speak for herself," returned Hortense, finding, for some un- known reason, Grace wonderfully silent. "You know well enough that there is not a man here you care to exchange a word with. I never saw such a stupid party ride through the gates of Aytoun," Bryan retorts. Hortense raises her eyes and glances around her a little disdainfully. There are a few of her acquaintances, but none who belong to her circle of intimates. And Grace glances around too, with a page: 10-11[View Page 10-11] little flush on her face, for she sees many friends and some ardent admirers. She is tempted to turn on Bryan for his ar- rogance. But Philip answers instead, knowing the party is pretty much of Grace's own arrangement: "Hortense need not be so confoundedly proud: there are men here good enough for her -at least they are for me." "Men who can buy us out twice over," Hortense returns, with a little shrug. And then she could have bitten her tongue out for her speech, for the flush on Grace's cheek, called up by Bryan, burns into scarlet. Philip too notices Grace's heightened color, and he feels savagely toward Hor- tense, who, for the life of her, cannot see why he minds so much her little in- advertence: he at least ought to know she did not mean anything. "Why, Gerald, where did you drop from?"Bryan cries out to a new-comer on the field, equipped with gamebag and gun, whose opportune appearance offers an opportunity for giving another turn to the conversation. "Not from Bridgeford, certainly," the owner of the gun and gamebag answers, "or I should have known of your party, and should not have joined it so uncere- moniously. I have been gunning since day-dawn, and have been fortunate in more ways than one, it seems." "Your early start accounts for your not being one of us. I sent word to you I had a horse for you," Philip says. "I should not have been one of you, even if I had received the message, which I did not," Gerald replies, coldly. "I am not surprised at your preferring gunning on such a day as this," is Phil- ip's careless rejoinder. "Preferred not accepting the invita- tion," Gerald says, very distinctly. Philip's face darkens, and there seems a likelihood of stormy words at least. But the cloud passes, and he replies in- differently, "Make your peace with Miss Robson the invitations were hers;" and then he walks away. "Is the party yours?" asks Gerald of Grace as he takes off his gamebag. The girls are sitting on the cliff, on the very edge of which Bryan is reclining. It would not be pleasant to go spinning down a hundred and fifty feet and end in the fretful waters of the rapids, or perhaps be sucked into the small whirl- pool just at the foot of the cliffs. But Bryan does not seem to be apprehensive of such a tumble, nor is Gerald Alston afraid of risking his precious life, for he is about taking a position by Bryan's side at Grace's feet. The two girls are using an old gnarled tree, which conveniently offers itself to be leaned against, as a back for their seat on the grass, and Gerald has placed his gun against the tree before he takes his leaning posture beside Bryan. "Oh, Mr. Alston, please move your gun!"Hortense cries out in a fright. "There is not the slightest risk." "Of course not to you and Bryan, who are some distance off, but Grace and I are uncomfortably near." "It will do no mischief: it is not cocked," Bryan testifies. I "I suppose guns are never cocked when they kill people accidentally. I would not sit so near the cruel thing for worlds," Hortense persists. "But indeed there is no manner of danger," Gerald asseverates, unwilling to move from his position at Grace Rob- son's feet. "I think if I am uncomfortable that is reason enough for moving the gun," Hortense says, a little haughtily; and then adds apologetically, as Gerald rises with rather a bad grace to do her bid- ding, "My fear is constitutional, and no amount of common sense brought to bear upon it can overcome it." "Does your brother never hunt?" Grace asks. "Yes, but he keeps all his firearms out of my sight, in his own special room, and if he does chance to leave one about, I give it as wide a berth as I can." "If he would only respect all her feel- ings as he seems to respect her silly fears!"Gerald whispers to Grace as he resumes his seat. The words fail to reach the ears of Bryan, about whose hearing them or not Gerald is indifferent. But they are heard by Hortense, for whose ears they are not meant. Grace blushes a little, for she forgets that Philip's love-making has not yet been published; and Hor- tense blushes too with anger, but dis- dains to answer what was evidently not intended for her hearing. "I tell you what, Hortense," Bryan says, unconscious that there has been any by-play going on, "you ought to be strong-minded enough to cure yourself of your nervousness about guns. You ought to learn to fire a pistol, and then you would see it isn't so wonderfully dangerous." "It would not cure me. I should be just as much afraid the next time." "No, you would not. And it may be necessary some time for you to handle one. I have heard of women making good fight in an emergency." "I would rather succumb than fight if I could only use firearms. I cannot tell you the actual pain it is to me, and I cannot imagine my overcoming it." "I suppose most of us have a fear if we were only honest enough to confess it," says Grace. "I acknowledge mine is a cat. I am in deadly terror of being in a room alone with one." "What is your terror, Alston? I haven't found out mine yet," says Bryan. "Yet you have one, notwithstanding," asserts Hortense. "And it is-" "A fear of not having your own way." "It is one I often suffer from, then. But I am wiser than you, and am deter- mined to get rid of it." Hortense laughs, but does not take the threat much to heart. "Have you been to Grafton's to-day?" Gerald asks Bryan, after a little silence which had fallen on the party. "No, I seldom go there." "I thought not," Gerald says, with some significance. "You have not seen Raymond nor Harwood this morning?" "No; and, by the way, neither of them is here. Some prior engagement keeps them, I suppose." "And yet you are here," Grace says, turning quickly to Gerald, as if surprised he should be, since his two friends are not. "I only stumbled on you, you know; and after Dunbar told me the party was yours it would have been rude in me to leave," Gerald answers. "I should have excused you, as I have done the others of your set," replies Grace, curtly. "They did not know the invitations were yours," apologizes Gerald. "Neither are they, but Mr. Dunbar's, I cannot see that that makes any differ- ence," says Grace, hotly. Hortense is a little amused at Grace's evident feeling at the slight the absentees have put upon her. And that she should fight for Philip too she thinks a little un- necessary. Therefore she hears more plainly than she cares to, Gerald Alston dropping his voice into a whisper as he says, "There is a difference, though. A gentleman would not refuse your invita- tion, and he would scarcely accept Mr. Dunbar's." "Come, Bryan, it is time for us to be going. It is nearing our dinner-hour, and Mr. Alston seems only up to a tete-a- tete this morning. One has a disagree- able consciousness when one hears whis- pering-not always merited, I suppose, but none the less unpleasant for that." Bryan is. quick enough to obey Hor- tense's move, for has he not been look- ing forward to this ride home for at least two good hours? But he seems born to disappointments to - day, for no sooner is Hortense in her saddle than she urges her horse into a mad gallop, and does not slacken her speed until she is at the gate of Aytoun. It is impossible for Bryan to remonstrate, for his words would be scattered to the wind: they would never reach Hortense's ear. Hortense's leaving is a signal for the whole party to be on the alert, and the sound of horses' feet behind him tells Bryan there is no hope even of a last word at the gate. He consoles himself, however, in the remembrance that there is a dance to-morrow night at Aytoun, and that then Hortense must listen to him. He does not fear that his eloquence will be without effect. page: 12-13[View Page 12-13] Grace rises to leave as soon as Hor- tense does, but she has to wait until Philip comes to her and then goes for her horse. She hardly notices Gerald as she busies herself in arranging her skirt. But he keeps near her, neverthe- less, until Philip brings her horse. Then Gerald comes forward to mount her, holding out his hand. But Grace draws back and will not accept the privilege of stepping on it. "This is my right," Philip says. "Miss Robson is in my charge, and must look to me for all such courtesies." "I suppose she can make a choice," returns Gerald with a frown on his face, and not giving way an inch. "Of course I can," answers Grace quickly, "and I prefer Mr. Dunbar to mount me." "You are not very wise in your choice," says Gerald coldly. "An old friend is always more worthy of your trust." Grace opens her eyes in surprise at Gerald's speech, but fails to see anything at all suspicious-looking about Philip; and Philip flushes angrily for a moment, and then laughs as he says, carelessly, "It is hard on Gerald to see me preferred before him. But, honestly, I only insist upon my right." And Gerald mutters a little loudly, "Honestly, you have no such right." But no one seems to hear him, for there is much movement and merriment, and the whole party are in haste to be in the saddle again. In a few minutes Gerald Alston, having no horse to ride away on, is sole possessor of the late pleasure-grounds. :P A. : T 'II. CHAPTER II. Who frowns at others' feasts had better bide away. ANOTHER bright day has succeeded the one my story opens on, and Hortense is eagerly devising the ways and means for the dance expected at Aytoun to-night. It is no new festivity, for the young people of Bridgeford are rather fond of dancing in the old hall, and the arrangements are always neces- sarily few. The piano will do duty for an orchestra, and the impromptu sup- per, such as only the housekeeper at Aytoun can concoct, will be sure to be a success. Hortense is restless to-day: why, she scarcely knows. Perhaps she feels she was rather hard on Bryan yesterday, and that she ought to have answered his irgings not with banter, but with mild arguments. We are so apt, when we are attacked, to seize the first weapons of defence we find within reach, and afterward we see that we should have done much better if we had left them alone altogether. But Hortense is not much cast down by her yesterday's experience. She has resolved that she will be kinder to Bry- an to-night, but she has also decided not to leave Philip too hastily. Bryan must be patient, and not urge such a speedy flitting. If she left Philip uncomfortable and lonely, she would be unhappy, no matter how many pretty vows Bryan might make to console her. So she resolves very, decidedly and very blindly, as mortals are apt to do. Yet she does not conquer her restless- ness, and, the glad, bright sunshine in- viting her, she goes out to cut roses to deck the drawing-rooms in honor of her expected guests, and whilst doing so to hasten, if possible, the hours, which somehow lag greatly to-day. -In amongst the rose bushes, Hortense forgets her desire that time should fly faster. The blossoms are so lovely, so perfect, each leaf folded over another as if at its heart there were something pre- cious it would hide, unlike the sweet June roses, which are more open-hand- ed, and ready to scatter their bright leaves at the sighing of any wind or at a careless shaking of the branches. But in June, with the whole summer be- fore them, they can afford to be liberal. Hortense loves her roses, and whilst she is cutting them she has an eye for every straggling spray, and a helping hand to twine it. She is nearly hid in the bushes as she stands there, but she hears a man's step on the gravel, and she peeps out through the boughs to see who is coming. i It is only Philip, booted and spurred for a ride to Bridgeford. But he has a word to say to Hortense before he goes -a word which he seems to find some difficulty in speaking, for he begins bunglingly, though with seeming care- lessness. "Have you any message to Grace Robson?" he asks, stopping in the walk near Hortense among her rose - bushes. "I am going to Bridgeford, and shall call there." "I have none," replies Hortense in- differently. She has failed to notice the rather familiar mode in which Philip speaks of her yesterday's friend, or per- haps she knows that gentlemen have a habit of dropping the conventional Miss. She does not dream there is any special reason in this case. "Of course you can tell her I expect her here to-night," she adds. "You two seemed to take a great fancy to each other yesterday," Philip goes on, gathering, as he talks, the rosebuds within his reach, and making a tiny nosegay of them-"a mutual liking, I should think, judging from appear- ances." "Bryan was disagreeable," Hortense explains, "and I found a third party necessary." "You women will play off any one if you have an end to gain. I thought I3 page: 14-15[View Page 14-15] with your feminine sharpness you had made a discovery, and wanted to win appreciation for it." "I made no discovery, except that Grace was rather stupid and taciturn, you decidedly sulky, and Mr. Alston in- clined to be impertinent. That was my yesterday's experience of our party." "Grace and I were preoccupied, and could afford to be silent, and to let Ger- ald's insolence pass. She is a dear girl- Confound the thing!" The change of voice is so sudden as sufficiently to betoken a change of sub- ject. But Hortense does not care to mark intonations, so she asks, "What has the dear girl been doing to make you so fierce in your expletives?" "Do you not see what the thorns have done to me?" he returns, holding up a torn palm to view. "I cannot see how you manage to handle the things." "The roses are very much like the 'dear girls:' both are apt to hurt you if you give them a fair chance. I know enough of my roses to handle them in gloves. Let me gather yours for you. Are you York or Lancaster in your col- or? If they are for Grace Robson's wearing, let them be red by all means." Hortense has come to the edge of the gravel-sweep, and she is reaching for a splendid Giant of Battles, so that Philip cannot see her face when he says ab- ruptly, "Grace and I are engaged, and I supposed you would like to hear of it at once." The gorgeous rose still blooms on its stem, for Hortense has brought her two hands together suddenly, dropping the scissors in the act. She repeats, as if she doubted her own hearing, "Engaged!" "Yes," Philip answers; "and it is a good thing for me. Grace is pretty and good-tempered. I can't expect you al- ways to take care of me. We can't be perpetually like Charles Lamb and his sister." Philip has left out what most men consider Grace's greatest charm-her money. He is too much of a gentleman to mention it just now. "Of course we could expect nothing of the kind, seeing there is a certain Bryan Bonham in the world," Hortense says quickly. "But I did suppose I should have had some intimation of what was going on before everything was decided." "And so you would if I had had any myself. I had not thought of going quite to the length I did yesterday." "The delicious day and the ride and Grace's blue eyes made you lose your head, I don't doubt," Hortense says, mockingly, knowing none of these things have ever influenced Philip before. "Not exactly," answers Philip, and then he stops. He might have told what had really urged him-some trying let- ters received in the morning's mail. But as he never showed Hortense such letters, it was not to be expected he would make any such confession. "And Grace likes the wooing?" asks Hortense, finding Philip has come to a halt. "Of course she does. You do not take me for an unsuccessful swain, do you?" "No," Hortense answers, glancing up at her handsome brother. "I am not surprised at her Yes-only at your ask- ing for it." Philip may take this as the silly speech any sister may make, so he asks coolly, "What fault have you to find with Grace?" "None whatever. She is pretty enough and rich enough, and yet she is not ex- actly the style of girl I should suspect you of fancying." "I did not know I had shown any preference for a particular style. Grace is a lady, and will do credit to any po- sition," Philip says shortly. "I suppose she will. Will you bring her to Aytoun, or live round the corner from Blidale Mill? Either position may be convenient." Philip shrugs his shoulders: "I ex- pected something kinder than sarcasm when I told you such a piece of personal news. It is better to tell a woman a fact and not wait for comments, for you will be sure of being hurt if you do." "I will not again," Hortense says. penitently, if not quite intelligibly. "Is the wedding arranged, or only the en- gagement announced?" "I would name a day next month if I had my own way," Philip says, not look- ing at all like the rash lover his words imply he is; "but Grace will not even let our engagement be known." "I always think a woman has not quite made up her mind when she is afraid to announce her engagement," Hortense says, suspiciously. "You and Bryan seem to have acted on that idea. But I am not sure that Grace is not really wiser. She does not care to set the gossips of Bridgeford talking before she can help it." "It need not be a long engagement if Grace does not wish it to be," Hortense says, knowing there is no difficulty in the way, as there has been in her own case. "It won't be a long engagement, you may depend upon it. You can comfort Bryan with the certainty;" and Philip stalks off, forgetting the roses he had scratched his hands to pluck. Hortense lingers amongst the flowers, her face telling a very different tale from that of half an hour ago. She is a little pale, and there is a troubled look in her eyes. She is not thinking of Grace, but of Philip, wondering how this sudden fancy to marry Grace Robson had come upon him. If Grace had been a stranger to him, and he had met her for the first time, she thinks she could have understood it. But as they had always lived within a mile and a half of each other, Hortense confesses to feeling puzzled. Yet she is sorry she was not more cordial and in- terested when Philip spoke to her. Why will people tell unpleasant news abrupt- ly, and then, when you have no breath to speak, expect you to pour out your delight? There is a comfort in thinking that Bryan will be pleased at the match. Hortense cannot gainsay anything he may propose now. She will be cordial to Grace to-night on Philip's account, and perhaps he will forget she did not receive the promise of a sister-in-law with rapture. And so she goes back to her roses, cutting them off from the parent stem sharply when she remem- bers they will soon belong to Grace, and then again more gently and tenderly as she hears her own wedding-bells keep- ing time with the nodding flowers. Hortense has gathered up her spoils now, and has gone into the house. And Philip has left his horse at a livery-stable, and is walking up the principal street of Bridgeford to Grace Robson's fine, new- looking brick house. Grace has visitors this morning-so many visitors that if Philip had had a hint of them he would have turned round the corner instead of entering. He could have taken an inventory of the windows and doors in his future property, Blidale Mill, and if he had waited a few minutes would have seen the swarm of work-people come out as the whistle shrilly told them of their dinner-hour. But he does not know who are in Grace's drawing-room, and he is in some haste to arrive there. There are somewhat more than a dozen people in the long, handsomely- furnished room. The greater number of them are ladies, but there are a few gentlemen, who seem to be constant vis- itors, judging from their knowledge of the most comfortable chairs to lounge in. All but Gerald Alston, who is seated uncomfortably enough on the music- stool. He seems to be the chief speaker just now, and what he is saying is evi- dently unpleasant to Grace, for her face wears an irritable expression not often seen on it. "I think the whole thing had much better be given up,". Gerald is saying. "Of course none of us can possibly go after what i have told you, and I do not see how you ladies can, without any gentlemen." "Neither do I," one of the matrons answers. "Of course none of the girls will care to dance with each other, and where the gentlemen cannot visit is, I am sure, no place for us." "I can't see any point to your argu- ment," answers Grace hotly. "Gerald's generalities may have influence with the gentlemen, who seem to have unbound- page: 16-17[View Page 16-17] ed confidence in his opinion; but why we can't dance at Aytoun because they see fit to decline, I don't see exactly." "It is better sometimes to keep from particular accusations," Gerald replies in a lower voice to Grace., "Philip Dunbar has behaved in an ungentle- manly way, and I, for one, do not care to accept his hospitalities." "Philip Dunbar ungentlemanly!" ex- claims Grace with scorn. "If our sur- roundings help us to our breeding, his should be perfect." "As a carpet-knight, I grant. But that he is an upright, honest gentleman, as his forefathers were, I deny." "But your proof?" says Grace, still hotly. "We require something more than mere assertions if we are to be rude to Hortense." "It may be difficult to make you la- dies understand. But every gentleman knows how a man is regarded who ignores a debt of honor." "Oh! a debt of honor!" says Grace with curled lip. "I think I, for one, comprehend you, though you pay me but a poor compliment upon my astute- ness. One cannot help recalling the retort of the unlucky wife of a man who kept a gambling-table at one of our Springs when she was cruelly shunned by the virtuous ladies in the house for her husband's misdeeds. 'Oh, there is but a small difference in our husbands' positions,' she exclaimed one day to them. 'Mine stands behind the table, and yours before it.' So with your debts of honor. The wrong is in the playing, and the man who wins is no better than the man wholoses." "Certainly not: there I agree with you. But the man who cheats comes under neither of these heads." Gerald Alston's words have somewhat the same effect that a clap of thunder would have upon the light merriment of a ball-room. Grace would fain make a bitter retort, but she- is speechless, as much at Gerald's audacity as at the vile- ness of the charge. "We cannot countenance a cheat, and my daughters cannot possibly go to- night," remarks the same matron who had thought the girls having to dance together an insuperable objection. She is too immaculate a person to counte- nance cheats. Perhaps she does not know that her own liege lord is notorious for mixing refuse cotton in his cloth. "But what will Hortense think? We certainly can't disappoint her at the very last moment," says one of the young ladies, who likes to dance and likes Philip's handsome face also. "She will not care if Bryan Bonham is there," one of the men answers. "I hope not," Grace says wrathfully. "And if she wants to dance, I have no objection to play for her." "Will you go, Grace?" asks one of the more timid of the womenkind. "Certainly I shall. I wonder you are not all of you ashamed of being led so meekly by the nose by Gerald Alston." "I can prove what I have said," Ger- ald replies coolly, "though you seem to doubt it, First, there is-" But what there is he does not explain. For just then the door opens and Philip Dunbar enters. I wonder that in the old, old times, when people were so beset by their fond- ness for treason, and very often lost their heads for their foible, they should have been so foolish as to meet and talk over their intentions. It may be they had more control over features and voice than we have in these degenerate days. For I defy you to pull to pieces your neighbor's character, and, if he or she should chance to walk in, give no hint by voice or manner who had been under discussion. Philip Dunbar, as he stands in the doorway, knows very well that he has been passing through the ordeal, and that the verdict is against him. Every one is looking guilty and ill at ease. Even Grace, who has done some small skirmishing for him, is a little stiff and formal from being taken by surprise, and she will need time to recover herself. Gerald Alston alone is cool and col- lected. He swings himself round on the music-stool, and plunges at once into conversation with the girl nearest him. His defection as chief speaker has left the rest of the party like sheep without a leader, until the honest shoddyite's wife bethinks herself of taking leave, and the rest gladly follow her example. Not much does Philip Dunbar care for being left out of all the handshaking. Neither does he seem to notice the very cold shoulder Gerald Alston is pleased i to turn on him. He is waiting very pa- tiently for these gay butterflies to take ,wing, and he will not trouble himself to sweep them away by a rough word. Grace waits until the door is shut on the last of them, when she exclaims: "Do you know what they have been talking about?" "Hardly, as I have only heard their adieus." "They have decided not to go to Ay- toun this evening," says Grace, with a scared look on her face, as if she were talking treason. "Indeed! what a misfortune! It is well there is no supper to be spoiled. Only Hortense's roses are wasted. By the way, I had some of those roses for you, but I lost them." How he had lost them he does not say. "But you do mind .their not going after they had promised?" says Grace, thinking what seemed an insult to her womanly feelings must be felt as such by Philip too. "Why should I? If they do not wish to dance, I do not care to force them." "But Hortense will care. What has made them behave so?" asks Grace, turning suddenly to Philip. "How can I tell? I only know their decision as you repeat it to me." "It is something Gerald Alston has heard, and he repeated it to the men- something about what he calls debts of honor," says Grace hesitatingly, hardly knowing how far she can venture with- out being caught in a storm. "It is Gerald Alston's work, is it? I thought it was a mere whim of the ladies. Of course, if Alston has had a hand in it, that-makes all the difference in the world." "How does Gerald Alston make it different?" asks Grace, becoming fright- ened after having done the mischief. 2 "It is a question between men, and the ladies have nothing to do with it. Let us talk of something else. I came hoping to hear pleasanter words than Gerald Alston's slanders." "What did you come to hear?" asks Grace absently, for she is thinking just now more of Gerald Alston's words than of Philip's. "I came to ask what I was bent on yesterday, only some troublesome body prevented me. I want to know how long you intend to keep me uncertain and from being the happiest man in the world?" "It is not well for mortals to be too happy," Grace says, sententiously. "Then you are harder on me to-day than-you were yesterday, for certainly you were more encouraging." "But to-day I may change my mind." "So Hortense says. She thinks until a woman is willing to acknowledge her engagement she is reserving a corner to creep out at." "Hortense! What does she know of yesterday?" "I told her of my good luck, this morning," Philip says, carelessly. "Told Hortense! Is that the way you keep your promise?" "I did not suppose you included Hor- tense. She is very harmless, and will keep our secret if I ask her. Except, of course, from Bryan: you would not like such a precedent, I suppose." "And Mr. Bonham will tell his friends, You might as well have told it in the market-place at once." Philip does not say that he would have' preferred that, and, not being able, has taken the next best mode of proclaiming it. "What did Hortense say when you told her?" asks Grace, in a tone that betrays her curiosity in regard to the point. "More than I should like to repeat to, you," Philip replies, not able to recall. anything very pretty that Hortense had said. "She is a good child, and always likes what is for my special good." "But she must have said something you can repeat," urges Grace. page: 18-19[View Page 18-19] ",Of course she did, but she shall tell you herself what. she thinks. Bryan wants her, fortunately, so she .will not be jealous of you." "Jealous! I should think not,' Grace says. She has no sisters or brothers, so is ignorant of the bond that binds them, but thinks she understands it and all others perfectly, and that only lovers like Philip and herself are ever jealous. "Hortense does not like to leave me alone, and so she thinks you will not mind naming the wedding-day soon," ,Philip says artfully. "If she feels so anxious she can defer her own," Grace replies, a little nettled at being hurried for Hortense's conve- nience. "Poor Hortense! She has waited al- ready two years, and seems doomed to1 an indefinite tarrying." "I can't be in such hot haste. Why, it was but yesterday you told me you cared for me, and to-day you would have me fix the wedding-day. Such breakneck speed takes away one's 'breath." "But if I need you, Grace?" "Oh, of course you need me: I take that for granted. But my comfort is something to be thought of, too." "I don't look forward to making you uncomfortable. The Dunbars have al- ways been passably good husbands, and I flatter myself I am no renegade of my race." Philip's words take Grace at once to Aytoun, where the Dunbars had brought home their brides for generations. And a little glow comes into her cheeks as she thinks that she too will call the olcd place home. She will do the honors there as the best of them did, if she does bring the money from Blidale Mill to pay the fiddlers. "You will be the fairest bride ever brought to the old home," Philip says, reading her weakness in her flushed cheeks. "And you will bring back the old hospitality and the old customs. Hortense is shamefully negligent about :such things." It flashes through Grace's mind that Philip cannot complain that Hortense's negligence has prevented the guests from dancing at Aytoun to-night. With the thought comes the old distrust, for she says abruptly, "You have not told me yet what Gerald Alston meant by keep- ing every one' from Aytoun to-night." "How can I tell you what I do not know?" answers Philip shortly. "It was something he told the men about a debt Qf honor, as he called it." Philip's face darkens: "That throws no light on it. Alston and I may have very different ideas of honor." Then he adds, more lightly: "You must ask Alston himself if you want to know what he means." "So I did," Grace answers, simply. "You did?"Philip sneers. "I like your confidence in me, it is so pretty and tender. What dil your friend tell you to my discredit?" "Nothipg very definite," she confesses. "Then you may safely argue there is nothing to tell. Alston would out with his gossip if he had really anything to go on." "I mean, he would not enter into any particulars. And yet what he said has kept our party from going to Aytoun to- night." "You can't hold me to account for what Alston only hints. He may, by an innuendo, keep a parcel of silly peo- ple from a little wholesome amusement, but I Can't plead guilty or not guilty when there is no charge made against me." "But you do know, you must know, what he means," says Grace impatiently, growing uneasy at Philip's mode of fen- cing off her blows. "I tell you I do not, and you seem to doubt my word. Grace, how can you be so unreasonable?" "I am not unreasonable," Grace says hotly. "I have no one to look out for me or to advise me, so I must be doubly careful. Until this disagreeable rumor is cleared up I cannot think of consent- ing to your request." "Which request?" asks Philip with an angry gleam in his eye-" yesterday's or to-day's?" "To-day's," answers Grace quickly. She does not care to let her pleasant bargain slip through her fingers if she can possibly help it, and yet she will not be hasty and imprudent. Just now Ger- ald Alston spoke only vague, unproven words, and Philip Dunbar and Aytoun are palpable and within her reach. So she would willingly temporize a while. 'Then," says Philip, rising from the sofa where he has been sitting by her side, "you must pardon me if I tell you I do not fancy the role you would have me play. Engaged to you, and yet mis- trusted; having the first right in your house, and yet hardly spoken to by your guests; Gerald Alston pouring into your ears what slanders he pleases, and you heeding them and taxing me with them." "I did not let him tell them to me," Grace cries quickly: "I was very angry with him. Only I see no harm in asking you to explain them." "No harm in insulting me, and letting your friends follow your lead! We might as well understand each other at once. I will not visit you, as Gerald Alston and your Bridgeford admirers do." Grace looks surprised. She has had always docile, obedient lovers-never one to deal with like Philip Dunbar. Perhaps the novelty is not unpleasing. "Do you intend to give up visiting here?" she asks. "You appear weary of our engage- ment of twenty-four hours' standing, andseem willing to drop me," he an- swers. "Otherwise, you would not care to fill your room with these people when I come." "But how could I tell you were com- ing?-you gave me no warning." "I suppose it is not an unexpected visit this morning. At least, you might have some cause for censuring me if I had not come. But until you can make some arrangement by which I shall not stumble in upon all your acquaintance, I will stay at home." Grace has half a mind to tell Philip she will arrange her own visiting-hours, and then she cools down a little, and thinks of telling him he can come when he pleases and find the parlors empty. Halting between two such opposite speeches, she says nothing at all, but lets him go, feeling that the quarrel is not a hopeless one, and that either can heal the breach if disposed to do so. Philip's ill-humor is not so great as it appears to be. He is playing for two important points, and he thinks he has won one of them at least. A long en- gagement would be a folly on his part, and he is determined not to meet Grace's Bridgeford acquaintances just now. He is quite sure he will not again find them in his way. But he grows mbre ill-humored as he walks down the street for his horse. Several of his own acquaintances look diligently into the shop-windows, there- by turning their backs upon him. Others are in too great haste to do more than nod as they pass him. "Confound them!" he mutters. "There is not one of them whose father would not have held my grandfather's horses for a shilling. I wonder if they think I care for their insolence?" Bryan Bonham is coming down the street as Philip mounts for his ride home. "You are just the one I want to see," Philip calls out to him. "Miss Robson tells me the ladies will not dance at Ay- toun to-night. Either yesterday's ride was too much for them, or they don't feel like dancing. Hortense will be dis- appointed, I fear; but I thought I would tell you, to save you the trouble of com- ing out." Bryan looks annoyed. "I can't im- agine what it means," he says. "I thought it was a fixed fact we were to go to you to-night." "Nothing is fixed in this world," Philip says lightly-" especially the mind of a woman." And he leaves Bryantnot so much an- noyed that there is no dance to-night- for the gates of Aytoun always stand open to him-as at the sudden change which has come over the Bridgeford people, who are always eager for a dance in the old hall. There is some reason, and he is determined to fathom the mystery. page: 20-21[View Page 20-21] "There is no party to-night, Hortense," Philip says to his sister a half hour later. "You have gathered your roses for noth- ing, for the Bridgeford folks are out of dancing humor, and they have declined to come, en masse." "What is the matter with them?" asks Hortense in surprise, never having been disappointed in her guests before. "Ask Gerald Alston. It seems to be of his devising," answers Philip indif- ferently. "One likes to ask questions of gen- tlemen!" replies Hortense curtly. And then she consoles herself for no dancing to-night with the hope of seeing Bryan. She can tell him her tidings just as well under the gas-light in the library as in treading the measure of a dance. But she is doomed to another disap- pointment, for Bryan does not come: why, she cannot tell. CHAPTER III. Ever so many flashes of lightning do not make day- light. PHLIP has kept his word. He has made no more visits to Grace; and as for the town of Bridgeford, nothing would induce him to walk down its principal street again. In the seclusion of Ay- toun he cares very little for any strictures the manufacturing people may make upon his conduct. Even Grace may hold a court of inquiry in her showy drawing-room daily if she pleases, and so that he does not happen in inoppor- tunely, it does not matter to him. What people think of him is of but small importance to Philip Dunbar: how they behave to him is of much more consequence. If his Bridgeford ac- quaintances had had a civil good-morn- ing for him, they might have gossiped and abused him as they chose, and he would have only laughed at them for their pains. But the walk from Grace Robson's house to the livery-stable has cured him of any desire to go to the town again. Then Grace Robson's pretty face and long stock-list are nothing to him? They are a good deal to him, especially the latter item. But having woven his web, he can afford, cunning spider as he thinks himself, to let the silly fly en- tangle herself. Perhaps he would not take it all so coolly if he had not Hor- tense to serve him in an emergency-- Hortense, who would not willingly move her finger to help him in his mercenary expedients, and who shares his contempt for mills and spinners. It is four days now since Philip's visit to Grace-four days since the Bridgeford people refused Hortense's invitation. Philip has been moody and out of tem- per all the while. Some quarrel between Grace and himself, Hortense thinks, having occasionally had some such ex- perience herself during her two years' engagement with Bryan. And she has no doubt, from the same experience, that there will be a mafing up of the difficulty soon. Philip must be harder to manage, though, for Bryan never kept away from Aytoun for four days--at least, never until now-and Philip, to her knowledge, had not set foot out of Aytoun all this time. As for Bryan, she does not know whether his absence is accidental or not, but she has no intention of noticing it. If he is still offended at the result of his grandfather's epistolary efforts, she will be able to set that matter right, now that Philip does not need her much longer. The truth about Philip is, he has been waiting for a message from Grace every hour for three days at least. He did not think he had left her feeling very resent- fully toward him, and so he has been expecting a summons; and now he is uneasy at not receiving it. If he had seen how frequently Gerald Alston vis- ited Grace, he would have understood the state of things better. As it is, he is waxing impatient. "Hortense, are you going to Bridge- ford this morning?"Philip asks as he is leaving the breakfast-table on the fourth day of his uncertainty. "I did not intend to go, but I can if you want anything," Hortense replies, unsuspicious of any lurking idea in Philip's mind of making a cat's-paw of her. "I wish you would, then, if you do not mind it. There is some money due me at Lancaster's. It isn't a very common thing with me now-a-days."' "Why can't you go yourself?"Hor- tense asks. "I am so stupid about money-matters. I always get into a rage with myself for having to listen to explanations I ought to comprehend at once, and which I never manage to un- derstand at all." "There is nothing for you to under- stand. It is Lancaster's business, as he is paid for it. I can't go to Bridgeford this morning, for Hill wants me in the five-acre field." "I must, then, I suppose, if Hill needs you," Hortense says, not much caring to execute his commission. "And, Hortense, if you would call on Grace, it would only be civil in you, as she is to be your sister, and I have told her you knew of it. Do say something pretty to her, as you can if you choose, and ask her to come and see you. Per- haps she would like to see the house. Can't you ask her to come to-morrow?" inquires Philip, lighting his cigar as he gives his instructions. "Oh, that is what you want?"Hor- tense answers dryly. "I am to draw on the bank of love as well as on your fac- tor. Have you any special commands for the fair owner of the Blidale Mill if I make up my mind to call upon her?" "You can drop the mill, if you please," says Philip shortly. "Any message for Miss Grace Rob- son?"Hortense asks, correcting herself as desired. "None. I don't care for you to men- tion my name even. The visit is strictly on your own account, remember." "Is it? It is a pity you had to prompt it, then." "You had better go early, or Lancaster may be out," suggests Philip. "Has any change been made in the business-hours at Bridgeford lately?" asks Hortense. "I will start soon, though, for I do not care to call at Grace's when there is any chance of meeting visitors. I suppose she will not mind seeing me early, as I am Hortense Dunbar, sister to Philip." Philip in his heart hopes Hortense will be too early to meet any of Grace's friends, for he is not at all sure how his sister will bear any rudeness if they should chance to treat her as they had treated him. But he says nothing to warn her, and saunters out to the five- acre field to talk with Hill about crops and manures. Hortense dawdles a little longer over the breakfast-table, and then goes to dress for her visit, for that is the real business she has to do this morning. The day is so bright and sunshiny she concludes to walk to Bridgrford. She likes the exercise, and she dislikes driving by herself in a close carriage. Certainly the fresh October air has given her a color, and she looks more than pretty as she stands on Grace Robson's doorsteps with her hand on the bell. Hortense dearly loves her brother Philip, the only one she had to love be- fore she knew Bryan Bonham. Most girls have mothers and fathers and sis- ters to lavish their first fresh love upon. But Hortense remembers but the one tie of blood, and she is not cold-hearted enough to meet Philip's betrothed with- out a little flutter and excitement. She has determined to be very cordial to Grace. Certainly, if Philip loves her, Hortense can have no fault to find with her. And yet-alas for the perversity of womankind!-she finds herself con- tinually seeing faults. "One ought to dress like the pictures in a fashion-plate to be in keeping here," Hortense thinks as the servant shows her into the long, showy drawing-room. "I feel extinguished in my plain black silk, surrounded by so much gilt- and red velvet. Ah, poor Aytoun! the Bli- dale Mill money will regild you until your best friends will not know you. I don't believe the new paint will stay on your walls, though." And so she com- forts herself. There is a rustle of silks, a dainty vision of ruffles and furbelows, and page: 22-23[View Page 22-23] Grace Robson stands before her future sister-in-law. "Have you been expecting me?" Hortense asks. "I thought I would give you breathing-time, but Philip sent me this morning. I suppose we may kiss in a sisterly fashion." "Mr. Dunbar sent you?"Grace re- peats. "Yes. I should hardly have ventured to call at this hour if he had not sent me. I wanted to see you before visitors came, though." "Is Mr. Dunbar in town?" asks Grace, her curiosity getting the better of her pride. "No: he had some business-some- thing urgent, I suppose, as he has sent me to Mr. Lancaster's, instead of going himself." Hortense thinks some excuse must be made for her delinquent brother. "But I would not have let him come with me, even if he could have done so, as I want to have you to myself a little while." "I am glad to see you," Grace says heartily, carried away, as most are to whom Hortense is at all cordial. "Thank you," replies Hortense. "I hope you will always be glad to have me. You know I have no sister, so I ought to be very much obliged to Philip for kindly holding out the hope that I shall have one some day. I hope it will not be'very long, either." She ought to be glad, yet Hortense cannot say from her heart that she is. "And I have neither brother nor sis- ter," says Grace, a little sadly. "Then you have missed one torment in a brother. I am afraid you will spoil Philip, though, if you have had no broth- 'er to break your hand in a little." "Mr. Dunbar will take his own way, I imagine." Grace is still piqued at the remembrance of their last interview. "He comes of an obstinate race, and is sadly spoiled," Hortense replies. And then she lays her hand on Grace's shoulder, and says softly, "Make him very happy, dear. It is the best work we women can do, to keep a bright, cheerful home for those we love." Grace is surprised at the sudden change in Hortense's manner, but warms under it as she says, "I will try, I prom- ise you." Just then the door-bell rings loudly and fiercely, as if to give warning to the whole house of the arrival of a visitor. Hortense rises at once. "I do not want to be caught," she says. "I hoped I was too early for visitors. Cannot you come to see me? Promise me to come to-morrow. We shall be safe from in- terruption at Aytoun, and Philip is anx- ious for me to show you the house. You will come?" Grace has no excuse: perhaps she is glad to receive the invitation; and so she promises. "To-morrow, then, I will expect you;" and the two girls kiss and part as if they were already sisters. "She is very pretty, and I think sweet- tempered. At least, she has forgotten her quarrel with Philip, or forgiven him at the first overture. She is lady-like too, in spite of her taste for finery," Hortense says to herself as she goes down stairs to the hall door. The servant is just opening it to the visitor who gave such a noisy sum- mons. "Mr. Alston," Hortense says coldly as she bows a little stiffly in pass- ing him. Gerald starts at the sight of her, and forgets to be civil enough to return the bow, for she is the last person in the world he cares to meet visiting Grace, except Philip himself. Hortense draws a long breath when she is once more in the street. "I am glad I have but the one brother," she thinks. "I wonder if Jacob's daughters had to make such visits of ceremony when their twelve brothers were be- trothed? But of course they did not: such affairs were better managed in those days. One cannot help longing to wear a veil and be a nonentity. To think of one's thoughts being answered in that way!" and Hortense laughs a silvery little laugh, which causes a small child who has escaped out of a house near by, and is playing in the forbidden gutter, to look up and laugh too. It was not much for either to laugh at. Only one of Hortense's acquaintances had passed her with a blank look of non-recognition. It never struck Hor- tense that this was intentional-for she knew of no reason why any one should ignore her-or perhaps she would not have been so much amused. But she is at Mr. Lancaster's door now, and has quite forgotten, her merriment. "Philip is busy, Mr. Lancaster," Hor- tense says, "and has sent me for some money. Please do not give me a mes- sage to understand; I can learn it by rote if it is necessary." "I wish you would understand your brother's business," Mr. Lancaster says, looking down on the bright face he loves, as all do who know it well. "You might do a great deal of good if you would only try to enter into his concerns." "Is Philip extravagant?" asks Hor- tense. "He is embarrassed, and, I fear, reck- less," Mr. Lancaster answers gravely. "The poor boy has had a bad bring- ing-up so far as economy is concerned," Hortense says, by way of excusing Philip. "But I cannot think there is very much extravagance at Aytoun," she adds, remembering how differently the place must have been kept up in the days of her forefathers. "'There is bad management some- where," Mr. Lancaster says, "for there are more notes due than there is money to meet them with. Perhaps a word from you may be useful. You have always had influence with Philip." "Not in important matters. But why , not speak to him yourself? He has confidence in your judgment," she urges. "I have said as much and as strongly as I dare, without any effect. But if you will only watch and see for yourself, you may do some good." "I will, if you think I ought," Hor- tense promises, little dreaming to what this watching will bring her. Mr. Lancaster has a keener vision into the future, and he feels some compunc- tion as he looks at her standing there putting the money he has given her carelessly into her purse, without glan- cing at it to see if the sum is right. Then she holds out her hand to bid him good-bye, and he takes it in a lingering, pitying way, which surprises Hortense and makes. her uneasy, fearing Mr. Lan- caster sees more trouble ahead than he cares to tell her of. His warning has brought a grave expression into her eyes, which those who know her best have seldom seen there. No'w, the whole of Bridgeford might pass her without speaking and she would never perceive it, for she is look- ing straight before her with a little frown, on her brow. She is planning retrench- ments, and has lessened every expense at Aytoun, from the stables to the kitch- en-department. So there is a likelihood of starvation and cobwebs in old Aytoun under the new regime Hortense is pre- paring. She is so absorbed in her calculations that she never hears a footstep which is hastening to overtake her-never heeds it until Bryan, panting somewhat from his exertions, comes up. "What are you in such a hurry for?" he asks. "I have been trying to join you ever since you left Lancaster's." "Have you? I had not an idea I was walking fast. I suppose I was trying to keep pace with my thoughts." "I should like to know, what your thoughts were about," Bryan says, think- ing of course he has some part in them. But Hortense is not going to tell tales on Philip, especially as she knows noth- ing from her own observation. So she turns the conversation a little abruptly, and inquires, "By the way, Bryan, have you your grandfather's letter with you? You know you promised to show it to me." "I don't remember doing so, but I should like to talk to you about it." She does not answer, leading Bryan to infer that she is still refractory, so he says decidedly, "You may as well take my arm, for you cannot possibly get away from me, and you will be obliged to hear what I have to say." They are on the road now, under the linden trees, which, though they strive to wear a brave look, yet cannot help showing marks of the battle they have page: 24-25[View Page 24-25] had with the frost, to which before many days they will have to succumb. How many hopes may die before the next spring decks the trees again, Hortense cannot foretell; and Bryan is not think- ing of them, but says reproachfully, "Why would you not listen to me the other day? Why are you at times so difficult to understand?" "Because I had only an ungracious No to give you. I dislike the spiteful little monosyllable, and will never use it if I can decently get round it." "That is right," rejoins Bryan heart- ily. "There is no word so unbecom- ing to rosy lips. Let us have a Yes always." "I dislike hearing the word as much as I do saying it, so let us have only affirmations." "It is a bargain, then," Bryan says. "You will listen to me-patiently, no mat- ter how long I talk?" "Yes," Hortense replies, obediently. "And will let me name the wedding- day?" "Yes." "Even if I say just after Christmas?" "Yes." "And you will give up Niagara?" "Yes." "You certainly mean what you prom- ise?" asks Bryan, looking at her doubt- ingly. "Are you longing for a dissent? You have not been at Aytoun for nearly a week, so you do not know I am to ab- dicate." "To do what?" "I have been to Bridgeford this morn- ing to see the future mistress of Aytoun," Hortense says, trying to make herself understood. "And who may she be?" he inquires, not yet quite taking in the drift of this bit of information. "Grace Robson is the happy woman," Hortense answers. "Is Philip thinking of selling?" asks Bryan, knowing Grace can very well pay a good price for the old place if she chooses to buy. "Hardly. He will be a beggar before Aytoun is sold, I hope. This is a matri- monial transaction, not a monetary one. I have been calling on my future sister- in-law this morning." "When was it decided upon, Hor- tense?" "It was one of the fruits of the ride to the Rapids. It is odd how some quarrel and some make love under the same sun." "Are you sure it is so?" questions Bryan. "May not Philip be quizzing you? Gerald Alston told me that it was at Grace Robson's house the decision was made not to go to Aytoun the other night. She would hardly have allowed it if she is engaged to Philip." "Mr. Alston's story is not altogether likely, as Philip has sent me to call on Grace to-day, and she received my con- gratulations as a modest maiden should. You may believe the Alston story if you can." "Philip is lucky," Bryan remarks. "He has chosen the prettiest and the richest girl in Bridgeford." "Is that your idea of luck? You ought to have looked out for Grace yourself, if only luck was to have won her." "I don't need money as much as Philip does," Bryan answers. That reminds Hortense of what Mr. Lancaster had said to her, and her face wears the same grave look it had when Bryan overtook her. But she says noth- ing of her fears and anxiety. Bryan would be more apt to find fault with Philip than to sympathize with her. "If Philip is to be married, there is no stumbling-block in my way, I suppose. I do not see why we should wait until after Christmas." "Only we must know what Philip's plans are before we quite decide on our own." "Always Philip! Am I never to be first with you?" "Yes, some day, of course. But it seems only just that I should have the poor fellow's comfort a little longer in my thoughts. Grace may not like as short an engagement as Philip wants to make it. We can see what her plans are, and then we can easily form ours." "She might as well know what ours are, and then form her own," Bryan suggests. But Hortense thinks this is quite out of the question, and that she, as Philip's sister, cannot hasten matters. And Bryan does not demur at last, for he is confident that Philip will not have a'long engagement if he can possibly avoid it. "I shall be glad to get you to myself," Bryan says. "I have played second fiddle so long to Philip-two years now -I am rather weary of it." "It is good for you," replies Hortense. "I have-spoiled Philip, and I have no idea of having two of you on my con- science. And as to the secondary part you complain of taking, I am sure that until four days ago you were not able to insist upon having your own way, and you have now bravely atoned for your patience of two years' standing." They have come to the iron gate of Aytoun now, and Bryan stops there, as if he has reached his goal. "Are you not coming in?" asks Hor- tense. "There is Philip: he will be glad to see you. He has not been off the place for days." Seeing Philip does not decide Bryan to go in, even though Hortense has pleaded his voluntary banishment. Bry- an has to go home and do some writing: at least he says so. "To your grandfather?"Hortense asks. "Yes: now that I have something definite to tell him, it is worth while to write." "Don't ask him to the wedding until the day is fixed. It is the worst of luck," she asserts. There is a little longer waiting at the gate, a little more chatting under the bright October sun, though nothing is said worth repeating. Talking nonsense must be a pleasant pastime, for Hortense joins Philip on the porch with a brighter face than the mere walk to Bridgeford would ever have given her. She has forgotten Mr. Lancaster's grave warning-forgotten that Aytoun is no longer popular with the Bridgeford people. She forgets, too, to marvel why Bryan has suddenly found so little time to come to Aytoun. It is well for us 'hat at times we have such a flood of sunshine that there ap- pears no dark corner of our lives which is not for the moment lighted up. The glory is ephemeral, and therefore seems the brighter. page: 26-27[View Page 26-27] E AM..vIT III- CHAPTER IV. "Will you walk into my parlor?" says the spider to the fly: "'Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy. The way into my parlor is up a winding stair, And I have many pretty things to show you when you're there." T is not until Hortense ought to be quietly sleeping that the day's events are recalled by her. Her visit to Grace she remembers carelessly. She had never seen Grace looking prettier. Per- haps the novelty of her situation had given her a color, and had thrown more expression into her statue-like face. Grace was cordial enough, and Hor- tense has no doubt that Philip will, after a fashion, be happy. And having reach- ed this conclusion, she is ready to fall asleep with only a little sigh over Philip's having chosen a wife at all, when-why she does not know-Mr. Lancaster's cau- tion comes into her thoughts, and rouses her into broad wakefulness, keeping her eyes wide open until the birds twitter in the early dawn, in a vexing way. What could Mr. Lancaster have meant by his grave words? They come back to her tormentingly, because she does not fully understand them. "More notes due than there is money to meet them," he had said. Had this been the reason for the hasty love-making and engage- ment? Is Philip marrying the girl for her money? No: Hortense will not be- lieve it. There may be some pecuniary troubles. Philip may have to take mat- ters into his own hands, and work as never a Dunbar has had to work before. She will economize and manage-put off her own wedding, which she has just promised Bryan shall take place after Christmas. She will use her own small fortune to aid Philip, but Grace Robson must give no help in their difficulties. She must live on in her showy house in Bridgeford until money is more plentiful at Aytoun, and come to the old home not when the clouds hang over it, but in the full sunshine. 26 Presently recurs the recollection of what Bryan had told her concerning the decision made in Grace's drawing-room. She wonders if Gerald Alston had any foundation for his story. If it was dis- cussed whether there should be a whole- sale refusal, there must have been some reason, and Grace must have been privy to it. And yet if there had been any- thing intentionally rude, would Grace have allowed it to be talked over in her house, she standing in the connection she did to Philip? That there had been some quarrel between Philip and Grace she is sure. For Philip has not been to Bridgeford since the day he told his sister her roses were all wasted. But then, again, he had sent her to see Grace, and Grace on her part had been cordial, and had prom- ised to return the visit the next day. Hortense is puzzled, and inclined to blame Grace as not altogether loyal to Philip. And she falls asleep and dreams that the house is on fire, and Philip has stolen Blidale Mill from Grace, and Bry- an is angry, and Gerald Alston jeers at her. But life is not so worrying by day- light as it is in the darkness of night, and Hortense is not so perplexed after her uncomfortable sleep as she was in her watch. One thing she has deter- mined upon-and that is, to have a talk with Philip, and to discover if Mr. Lan- caster's fears have any foundation. There is not a particle of cowardice in her composition, so she begins her onslaught upon Philip at the breakfast- table, without any preliminary man- ceuvring. "Philip," she says, behind the coffee-urn, "Mr. Lancaster was warn- ing me yesterday that money is rather tight--is that the expression?-with you." "Was he?"Philip answers carelessly. "I should think you are astute enough yourself to see, without Lancaster's hint, that I do not run the Bank of England.' "If money is not plentiful, we can easily draw in. No doubt we are living too extravagantly. I have been think- ing it over, and we can make a reforma- tion in every department." "I don't see much extravagance," Philip says. "We live barely as gen- teel people should, and in a style our grandfathers would have called poverty- stricken." "But you are not so rich as they were, thanks to their spendthrift ways, and we ought to come down a little. I don't care at all for the carriage, so you can put it down, and all the horses, except King Harold, can be sold; I can dis- miss most of the servants, and take the management of the house more into my own hands; and-" "And waste more from your inexperi- ence than the servants ever did," Philip interrupts her to say. "I think-thank- ing you all the same for your offer-that things had better stand as they do now. I have, I acknowledge, some money- difficulties, but they do not worry me over-much, as I see my way plainly out of them." "But until you are out of them we had better economize. I can do won- ders with the housekeeping, I am sure, if you will let me send away most of the servants," Hortense urges. "There is not the least use in making any changes yet,' Philip replies. "Grace will make some, I suppose, when she is mistress. I would prefer she should take possession of the old home just as it is. She may like it better." Hortense winces a little, notwithstand- ing her cheerfully-paid visit of yesterday, and her philosophical decision that Grace will make a very nice wife for Philip. To know that Aytoun is to pass. entirely out of her keeping and management, and that the old ways and customs must necessarily pass away also, gives a little inevitable pain. "Philip," she asks bold- ly, after a few minutes' silence, "is it Grace Robson's money you expect to use to help you out of your difficulties?" Philip pauses as he is in the act of breaking an egg. Perhaps he cannot decide quite to confess the truth fully to Hortense; for though he does hector her a good deal, still he has a certain respect for her good opinion, and knows from experience that she is very downright and uncompromising where she sees simple right and wrong. So he breaks his egg very deliberately before he an- swers her question. "I suppose Grace will have no objection to free theeold place of some of its encumbrances," he says at last, thinking it is better to tell part of the truth at least. "And it is your love for Aytoun, not for Grace Robson, which has made you such an eager lover?" "I do not object to Grace's being rich and able to put the old place out of debt, as I confess myself fond of it," replies Philip. "I can't say I am perfectly indif- ferent to Grace, though. If she were old and ugly and disagreeable, I am sure I shouldn't be, as you say, an eager lover." "But if she had not a penny in the world you would wish to marry her just the same?" asks Hortense. "I can't say. But I do know if Grace was poor she would never care to marry me." "I should imagine you would be a good match for her under any circum- stances." "Grace is not a girl who would like to share a man's penury," Philip answers coolly. "Aytoun is a fine old home, but I doubt if she would fancy figuring out necessary retrenchments for my good, or Aytoun's either, as you evidently have been doing." "Do you mean that with her eyes open she is willing to be taken instead of a mortgage on Aytoun?" asks Hortense. Philip finishes his egg without a word. Somehow, he in his turn winces under Hortense's speech. But he answers presently: "Grace has her ambition, and it is to be mistress of Aytoun. And as she is pretty, and will do credit to the old place, I am not the one to quarrel with her whims." "How humble we are!" says Hortense with a laugh, looking across the table at Philip, and thinking his handsome eyes have more to do with Grace's predilec- tion than Aytoun has. "I should not page: 28-29[View Page 28-29] think you could tolerate being married for the sake of your place, any more than Grace could for her money." "People don't manage these things in such a cold-blooded way as your words imply. Of course, Grace and I are in love with each other, and we are fortu- nate in our worldly concerns dovetailing together as well as our heart-affairs." "Are you so very sure of Grace? Bry- an told me an odd thing yesterday." "Bryan! Has Bryan Bonham been here?" "No: he walked home with me from Bridgeford last evening, and could not come in. Did you know the wholesale refusal to our party last Thursday was a concerted thing? and that there was a consultation at Grace Robson's?" This is no news to Philip, and no one understands the reason of the slight put upon Hortense better than he does. He does not confess his superior knowledge, but asks with a sneer, "Was Bryan one of the cabal?" "Hardly!" answers Hortense scorn- fully. "How, then, can he report what was done in Grace's drawing-room?" asks Philip. "Mr. Alston was there, and told him about it," answers Hortense innocently. "You must keep an eye on your own traitor, then," says Philip, rising to leave the room. "Our engagement is not known yet, and I suppose Grace has had to go through the ordeal of hearing the Bridgeford spinners' impertinence with- out wincing. I have heard women are brave under such trials. But your en- gagement is as well known in the town as the price of gold. I only wonder Bryan did not knock Gerald Alston down in repayment of his bit of gossip." Hortense wonders he did not, too, and is very glad Philip has walked away and left her alone in her discomfiture. As there is to be no dismissing of ser- vants, no beginning of-retrenchments to-day, Hortense can spend her morning as she chooses. Bryan might have sat for hours and told of his exploits, and his Desdemona would not have found that "still the house-affairs would draw her k thence." And Hortense is as eager to see Bryan as ever poor love-stricken Desdemona was to hear Othello's ex- ploits. She is eager to ask him why Aytoun is no longer the haven of his desires, and why she is bound to receive in silence Philip's sarcasm. Sitting still and wishing never brought a knight to his lady yet: the "girls of the period" have discovered that. Hor- tense grows impatient of waiting in vain, and weary of her own thoughts; so she catches up her hat and starts off for a walk. She has quite forgotten she is expecting a visit from Grace this morn- ing. Otherwise she would have told the servants to look for her when the visitor arrives, for she does not intend to leave the lawn. A half hour later, Grace, in the pret- tiest of fall hats, is spinning along in her carriage over the turnpike to Aytoun. She hardly knows whether she is wise in coming, or not, for Philip has kept his word, and has not been to her house since his somewhat stormy visit. And then there are more reports in Bridge- ford of his shortcomings, and Gerald Alston is kind enough to keep her in- formed of all of them. Grace has not had the spirit to silence him by avowing her engagement. She is at times afraid of Gerald, who can say bitter things on provocation; nor does she feel quite guiltless when he taunts her. For before Philip Dunbar showed his handsome face in her draw- ing-room, Gerald had been chief favor- ite, partly because he is the son of her quondam -guardian, and, until lately, because she liked him better than any of her admirers. These rumors Gerald is so fond of re- peating are all of Philip's private affairs, his embarrassments and makeshifts; and, though they always have a dis- agreeable ring to them, Grace knows very well if she marries Philip they would take to themselves wings, and she is shrewd enough to be sure they would soon be forgotten. Yet, for all this, Grace is a little afraid to meet Philip. She is glad there is a sister in the house she can fall ba'ck upon if she would avoid a tte-a-tete. She is glad of the opportunity of going to Aytoun, for heretofore she has only been there as a formal guest or as one of a large party. Now she hopes to take a quiet survey of all the surroundings. Grace will never have her coveted look at Aytoun if Hortense is her only reliance, for Hortense is quite out of sight and hearing. But Philip is on the lookout for the carriage, and appears just as it stops. He throws away his cigar, and comes forward, as in duty bound, to help his betrothed to alight. "Is Hortense at home?" asks Grace, a little taken aback by the prompt ap- pearance of her lover. "Yes, certainly: she is expecting you," answers Philip, hoping, however, in his heart that Hortense is safely out of the way, as he wishes to have a few private words with Grace. He leads her not into the drawing- rooms, where Hortense generally re- ceives her formal visitors, and with them Grace, but into the far more sociable library, where are the family pictures, for which Aytoun is quite famous. She has never seen them till now, so she drops into the first chair and takes a survey. Philip must see the inspection she is. making, for he says something about the rooms being "confoundedly dark," and opens the shutters so as to let in a flood of sunshine. "Oh, howr beautiful they are!" ex- claims Grace. And Philip asks, "Who are so beauti- ful?" being at a loss to know whether the admiration is expressed for his grand- mothers, or for Psyche and Hebe, who, winged and wingless, fill the recesses in the room. "Those dresses," is Grace's rather -feminine remark. "I never saw any- thing more lovely. One can see the gloss on the satin of that dark-looking lady's dress, and the lace of the one next her is perfect. Spanish point," she adds decidedly. "Oh, the dresses are your admiration!" Philip returns with a twinkle in his eye. "It reminds one of the artificial flowers the queen of Sheba had, or Solomon had, or somebody had, which were so natural that only the bees could discover they were counterfeits." Grace has never heard before of the Jewish legend, and perhaps Philip's ver- sion of it is not very clear. But she feels that she cannot be compared to a bee either for sagacity or industry, neither of these being her strong point; and she has no idea who the queen of Sheba was. "Some of these faces are handsome," Philip says, finding he has not made much impression by his illustration. "Very," replies Grace, taking the op- portunity thus given to look around her. "What a number you have I Are they all of your own family?" "They are all Dunbars, either by blood or marriage. But," he continues smil- ing, "I hope to add the prettiest face of all to them." Grace blushes, but her heart beats pleasantly at the thought of her portrait hanging amongst these fine ladies, who, she- does not doubt, wore their brave clothes in kings' courts and palaces. "Have you a picture of Hortense?" she asks after a pause. "Yes, a very good one. But Hor- tense does not care to see herself dis- played in state amongst her dead kin- dred, and so she hangs in my special room where I smoke." "You must be very fond of her," Grace says with just a twinge of jeal- ousy. "Of course I am;" and then he re- members that Hortense may come in upon them, and, taking the conversation into his own hands, he asks in rather a tender tone, "Have you thought hardly of my not coming to Bridgeford, Grace?"' She starts a little, though she answers quickly, "There was no use in thinking about it. You told me you would not come;" and then she adds, rather pet- tishy, "There are so many ill-natured things said about you, I should think it would be pleasanter for you to be out of town." "Are the good spinners worrying them- selves about my doings?" asks Philip page: 30-31[View Page 30-31] with a laugh. Then, remembering it is bad taste to abuse the bridge which car- ries you over, he adds, "I suppose you too blame me, Grace. Yet I cannot feel anything but amusement at the foolish stories the Bridgeford people try to black- en my character with." Philip forgets that though he can laugh at them at Aytoun, he felt little disposed to hilarity when last in the streets of Bridgeford. "I wish you would do something else than laugh at them," says Grace angrily. "It is dreadfully trying to hear such stories, and find you take no trouble whatever to contradict them." "What do they say?" asks. Philip, by no means knowing how much his affairs are the town's talk. "They say you have mortgaged Ay- toun, and cannot pay the interest on it; that your note has been protested more than once; that you ignore your debts of honor; and that you have spent every cent of your sister's money." "Anything else?" he inquires with a shrug. "I should think that is enough," an- swers Grace. "And you want me to contradict these falsehoods?" asks Philip; for, having found one in the list, he thinks he may as well make it plural. "Hortense will tell you, if you will ask her, that I can- not touch her money even if I would, and Heaven knows I would not, no matter how much I needed it. Tell me the truth, Grace: is it not Gerald Alston who tells you these sweet little fables?" Grace does not answer him, but he reads the chnfession in her face. "Can't you see it is all his malice? I acknowledge I am somewhat embar- rassed. It is the penalty paid for in- heriting landed property. The follies as well as sins of the fathers are visited on the third and fourth generation. But I am not embarrassed to the extent Alston would make you believe. Con- found the fellow's jealousy! why does he not keep a truthful tongue in his head? And yet I do not altogether blame him," Philip says softly, "If he had got ahead of me with you, I would promise not to malign him-that seems a weapon fit only for old women-but I would not promise not-" "To do what?" asks Grace. "Not to shoot him." "You would do nothing so wicked," Grace says, yet a little pleased at the bloody threat. "Do not try me, then, or- I may be as good as my word." "But if they do tell falsehoods about you," she resumes, going back to the real point of discussion, "it does not make it a less trial to me to hear all that they say." "I know it is hard on you, my poor child, but that is because we are not in the right position toward each other. Our engagement not being known, of course your acquaintances do not dream they hurt you when they retail their scandal in your hearing." Grace is not so sure that if their en- gagement is announced it will not make more scandal and gossip, instead of lessening it, and she says so. And Philip agrees with her, but adds: "There is a simple way out of all this trouble-only it may seem a little ungenerous in me to urge it, if the Bridgeford people are gossiping about me. Yet if you will hasten the wedding-day, Grace, and surprise the good people with the wed- ding-cards, I think you will stop their talking. Your friends will be as anxiouts' for your invitations when you are mis- tress of Aytoun as they are how." He does not say "more anxious," though he means perhaps to imply this. "You men talk of a wedding as if it were the simplest thing in the world," Grace says pettishy. "I wish you had all the trouble and thinking abaut it. I am sure I do not wonder that all brides are pale and weary-looking. The man has only to pull on his gloves and walk into church. And I have no one to ad- vise me but Aunt Charlotte, and she is so wonderfully helpless." "No matter about the dresses and other fine things," Philip says persua- sively. "I will be like the prince in the fairy tale, and will take my Cinderella just as she is." His Cinderella is in the latest style, and she glances down complacently, having no rags to blush for. She is sit- ting in the very haven of her desires, and Philip is pleading for a quick real- ization pf all her longings-Philip, who is looking so handsome as he pleads. To be sure, between her and Aytoun there are some disagreeable reports which before she came here made her feel anxious and' suspicious-suspicious that Philip's love-making was not all for her, but partly for her money. And yet it is but natural that Philip should want it. And in his anxiety he is not mak- ing a fool of himself, as so many of her lovers had done. Certainly, Philip is not making a fool of himself in his vehemence. Nobody could be cooler or more gentlemanly than he is, as he stands there leaning on the mantelpiece and looking down on Grace. He is very handsome, very earnest, but with no dash of the heroic or the melodramatic about him. "Perhaps you are right," Grace says, caught by the glamour. "But I will not fix 'the day this morning, though I will promise it shall be as soon as I can manage it. I am not coming to Aytoun in Cinderella-style, my prince, seeing I have no fairy godmother; and positive- ly I must have something fit to be seen in." Whether Philip is content with his partial victory, or whether he will urge his wishes further, Grace cannot tell, for Hortense is standing in the open door- way. Hortense glances at Philip to see if he is very angry with her for her forgetful- ness, and she takes in at the glance that she was better away than politely pres- ent. So she attempts no apology. There is no more love-making for to- day, only a little talk about the weather and of the Bridgeford news-what are the signs of gayety for the winter, and who are to be married. All this is soon exhausted, and then Hortense proposes to take Grace over the house. So they leave Philip to his own thoughts, and spend an hour wander- ing about the old rooms, Grace talk- ing confidentially, as girls who have no mothers or sisters at home will do. There are no secrets to be told; only some advice to ask about dress and colors, and Hortense gives her opinion calmly, as if it were not the future mis- tress of Aytoun who is consulting the present one,: And so the scales go down in Philip's favor, and his sending Hortense to ask Grace to visit her was a happy thought on his part. Nor is Grace sorry that she came. Her talk with Philip and the glimpse Hortense has given her of Ay- toun have quite done away with the misgivings she had on the way. CHAPTER V. A ripple on the inner sea, which shakes Those images that on its breast reposed, A fold upon a wind-stayed flag, that breaks The motto it disclosed. THREE months have passed, and with them Christmas, and there has not been heard a wedding-peal yet. Philip has done his best to set his own ringing, but without success. Grace has grown ob- stinate and hard to manage, and he knows very well whose hand it is that holds her back. But Philip only curses him in his heart, never aloud. He sees Grace daily, as a lover should, but of his movements no one in Bridge- ford knows anything, no matter how much may be suspected. His horse is never seen before Grace's house, and none meet him going there, though they may surmise why the door is always closed to visitors in the evening, and may hint that Philip only comes to town under cover of the darkness. Bryan, too, has had his disappoint- ment, which he by no means bears as calmly as Philip appears to bear his. But there is small use in his storming and fuming. Hortense thinks she is needed at Aytoun, and she is not one to leave her post of duty if she is sure she ought to keep it. There is a sort of Casabianca spirit in the girl which will make her heroic, even where some may question if she is not foolishy self-sacrificing. I fancy Casa- page: 32-33[View Page 32-33] bianca's mother would rather her dar- ling boy had fled the deck and saved himself with the rest of the crew; and certainly Bryan would much rather that Hortense should flee from the falling house at Aytoun than stay and try with her woman's strength to prop it up. Hortense has gained something of her own way at last. Mr. Lancaster has continued to give hints, and more of Philip's money-troubles have come to light. Undoubtedly there is a mortgage on old Aytoun, and there are debts be- sides. Any other rumors need not be whispered into a sister's ear. Hortense is right in leaving Bryan in the lurch, for a time at least, for only she can manage Philip, and she has used her influence bravely. There is no need of so much stabling for the one horse Philip keeps now. The hounds no longer bay at the moon, the only music they have attempted for many a day. All the servants have been dis- missed except the cook, and a maid-of- all-work, who, for love of Hortense, does her best to keep the large house in its wonted order. Hortense is manag- ing everything in the most economical manner possible. Philip has grown fretful and irritable under his numerous troubles, and Hor- tense pets him and bears with him, and entices him to fall into her plans, spend- ing her own small income'without a thought of herself. And she does all willingly and gladly, only she would fain have Bryan see her path of duty as plain- ly as she sees it herself. But Bryan does not, and he grows angry with her, and comes but seldom to Aytoun, really because he is ashamed of Philip and of what is said of him, and has determined when he gets Hor- tense into his lawful keeping she shall see but little of her old home and of this good-for-nothing brother she loves so well. Poor Hortense! she finds her two men hard to manage. But she is very brave, and is not much given to faltering. Only it is a pity that, between them, they have somehow tobbed her of all the sparkling brightness which was once her chief charm, and that before she is well over twenty her brow is as much clouded as most women's are at forty. It is a cold, stormy afternoon, and Hortense has told Philip she is going to walk to Bridgeford to hand some money to Mr. Lancaster. F It is her first savings, and she has been some weeks gathering it. It must be paid at once, to meet to- morrow one of Philip's unlucky notes; so he does not tell her it is too stormy for her to go out, but only that it is un- fortunate she has to walk to Bridgeford in such unpleasant weather. Philip never goes to Bridgeford him- self except surreptitiously, and that not often, to see Grace; so it is not to be expected he will offer to go instead of Hortense this afternoon. But she does not object to the storm. Indeed, she is glad to get out into the fresh air, even if the wind does blow rudely and is somewhat hard to breast. She fronts it in the same way she has learned to front her trials, with a certain steady gait which does not seem like battling, but which bears her on bravely. There is not even a dog to be met with on the road as the young girl toils on against the wind. The streets of Bridgeford are deserted too. There would have been but small risk of Phil- ip's meeting an acquaintance if he had chosen to undertake Hortense's errand. The twilight has gathered early, for not only are the days nearing the short- est of the year, but the clouds have blot- ted out the little daylight there is, and leave in its place a dim, uncertain light not yet superseded by the street-lamps. Hortense's road leads her past Grace Robson's house, and on the doorstep there she sees a visitor standing. It is a man, and Hortense hardly thinks of him at first, for his back is toward her. It is not easy to recognize any one in such an uncertain light. A few steps nearer, and she is very sure it is Gerald Alston waiting impatiently for the serv- ant to open to him. Yes, it is certainly Gerald Alston. Hortense turns suddenly round the corer into a side street, so as to avoid Grace Robson's visitor. She prefers to walk a. square farther to meeting the stare and supercilious bow which she will surely get if she continues straight on her way. "What can Gerald Alston want with Crace?"Hortense asks herself. He is a bird of ill-omen always to her, and she wonders 4f he is a frequent visitor at that house. Is Philip to be disappointed in his love? Is Grace going to prove faithless? She wonders if it would be a sore trial to Philip- whether he would feel Grace's desertion as she would Bryan's. Hortense thinks uneasily of Bryan now-a-days; not that she doubts him, or fears any change in him, but she has that disturbed, unsatisfied feeling which we are apt to have when there are two claims upon us, and they clash. It is plain enough to her where she is most needed, but it is equally plain that Bryan is not satisfied. She has turned into a street parallel with the one Grace Robson's residence stands in-a narrow street, with blocks of small tenement-houses on each side, most of them occupied by the opera- tives of Blidale Mill, which stands at the corner. They are blank, comfortless- looking houses, with nothing to mark them as homes or to make cheerful the few hours spent within their walls. Each one is but a repetition of the other: you would dare swear there is exactly the same number of bricks in each. "What sort of lives can be spent here?"Hortense wonders., "Can the same troubles be in these walls that are at bright, cheerful Aytoun?" Here, at least, is a different kind of one, and Hortense's step falls more lightly as her eye catches sight of a piece of black rag flapping in the wind. Here is one house veritably marked out from all others in the street-one house where the dull routine of life is stopped -stopped for a few days at least, until the corpse has been carried out-stopped for one heart for ever. And Hortense wonders if the dead one left a broken home behind him, or whether it is some poor soul whose de- parture will not ruffle the smooth course 3 of any one's life, and whom the saddest of all fates has befallen-to die and be never missed. She does not dwell on these thoughts long, for all the tides of life and labor are streaming out of Blidale Mill-wo- men with loud voices and rude, boister- ous ways calling out to each other, and never heeding whom they jostle in their road; children with white, old faces, looking like dwarfed men and women; and men, hard-worked and stupid-seem- ing, as if the din of the engine were still deafening them. Hortense glances at them all pityingly. And it is by the labor of these Philip hopes to free the old home of its debts and encumbrances! These are the hands which are to help Aytoun back to its lost splendor and popularity. She is glad to reach the principal street of Bridgeford-glad at last to gain Mr. Lancaster's house. Of course he is in: no one would be out in such a storm if not compelled. Yet he is not surprised to see Hortense, for he kntew she would come if she possibly could. She counts out the money quickly, and with a look of relief in her eyes, as if glad to get rid of it. "If we were onlypaying off the mort- gage!"Mr. Lancaster says. "That is impossible-these bills must come first. I could never meet it, either, with my small savings. Philip has other plans for it," she adds, and blushes as she does so. " He must mature them as fast as pos- sible, then. Six weeks from now and it will be all up with Aytoun." Six weeks! Hortense scarcely ex- pected to hear the time is so very short, but she makes no reply. She has fin- ished her business, and is in haste to return home before the darkness over- takes her utterly. She will not stay to tea nor take a glass of wine, though Mr. Lancaster presses it upon her. Neither will she allow him to send for a hack. She prefers to go as she came, and she does not mind the storm, she says. The street-lamps are lighted now, but they flare wildly, scarcely making any impression upon the gloom. But the page: 34-35[View Page 34-35] stores are brilliant with gas, though they might as well be shut, for any custom they will get to-night. Grace Robson's windows are brilliantly lighted too, arid Hortense wonders as she passes them whether in six short weeks Philip will real- ize his hopes and Aytoun will have a new mistress. She scarcely knows whether she is anxious for it or not-whether she would prefer to see the old place pass into other hands, or have it cleared from debt by Grace Robson's money. She need not weigh the question, for she will have no part in solving it. All will go on to its inevitable end. She can hardly tell whether it is a relief to iknow that the whole burden of the life at Aytoun will nof much longer fall on her, but that it will soon be shifted to Grace Robson's white shoulders. With the wind at her back now, Hor- tense is walking rapidly toward the road, not really afraid in the gathering dark- ness, yet still very willing to reach the gate of Aytoun. She is only in the suburbs of Bridgeford yet, and she has a stretch of full half a mile after she reaches the road, which for the most part runs through a wood. No wonder she is walking quickly. Perhaps she would quicken her steps even more if she knew that a man has been following her, and doing his best to catch up with her, ever since she had passed him shunning the storm in the ample doorway of the Bridgeford Bank. Hortense does not imagine she is pur- sued, and it is well she does not. She would have had a needless fright, as it is Bryan's voice that calls her name. Of course she stops and waits for him. "Is it you; Bryan?" she asks. "I did not dream of your being out such' an evening as this." "And I should not be if I hadnot hap- pened'to see you pass my office on your way, I suppose, to Lancaster's. I have been waiting for you at least a quarter of an hour, causing a policeman to sus- pect my intentions to-night." "I wish you had ,not chanced to see me. ,I can't think of letting you walk home with me in such a storm." "It is not a fit night for you to be out in," Bryan says coolly, offering at the same time his arm in such a determined way that Hortense thinks it as well to take it without further remonstrance. "I wonder what Philip can be thinking about, to let you be out alone at this hour and in such weather?" "Philip, could hot help it," Hortense replies, apologetically. "I had to see Mr. Lancaster, and I could not leave Aytoun until it was rather late." "If Philip could not go himself, he might at least take care to see you prop- erly protected. I do not fancy your go- ing about in such a milkmaid fashion," Bryan says crossly. "And I do not fancy being scolded for what I could not possibly help," Hortense answers, as lightly as she can to give any effect to her words. "I am not finding fault with you, but with Philip. He knows it is not proper, and he should see to you." This time Hortense does not answer. She hopes the fault-finding is over, arid it is natural, she thinks, in Bryan to be annoyed at her being out in the twilight. "Much as I disapprove of Philip's course," Bryan goes on to say, "I could forgive him if I did not see him use you so selfishy. You ought not to pander to his whims as you do." "It is not Philip's fault," replies Hor- tense, finding she must say something to lift the burden of Bryan's displeasure off Philip's shoulders, even if she put it on her own more frail ones. "The truth is, the sensation of being really of use is very pleasurable to all women; so we are apt to spoil those who use us. It is a luxury you can hardly appreciate. And besides," she adds with a sad fall in her voice, "it is better sometimes to be kept busy. Only happy hearts can afford to sit still and listen to the rhythm of their thoughts." "Take care, then, in your over-busy life you do not thrust out the only one who really loves you, Hortense. Philip has a stronger hold on you even now than I have ever had," says Bryan jealously. "You need not fear. Philip wants me just now, but it will not be for very long." "Then you must cease making your- self so necessary to him. Lancaster tells me you have twice the business head Philip has, and that he knows it and uses you accordingly." "Mr. Lancaster says that because he is surprised to find I have any head at all; and Philip is oddly indifferent to all business. Don't think I am so very important. Grace Robson will step into the old home before very long, and I shall soon be useless to Philip, and at your service." Hortense speaks lightly. She does not care that even Bryan should see all she shrinks from in the future. "Do you really think Grace will mar- ry Philip?" asks Bryan. "My opinion is, she will dilly-dally for a time, and then leave him in the lurch." "I do not see why she should not. Philip is capacle of inspiring a feeling of love in a woman. He is handsomer, too, than most men, and our sex have a weakness for beauty. And he is much more of a gentleman than any Grace has been accustomed to. She has mon- ey enough to overlook his extravagance and bad management, and he has suf- fered so much, poor fellow! he will not be apt to fall into them again." Bryan looks down on Hortense, but it is much too dark for him to read her face and to see if its expression tallies with her words. He has half a mind to tell her what some of Philip Dun- bar's extravagances have been. But he feels it would be cruel work-that it would be like stabbing her in the dark, when he could not read in her face how much she suffers. So he is generously Silent. "Grace Robson has more to contend with than you think," he does say, how- ever. "She will never marry Philip if Gerald Alston can prevent her, and he will do his best." "Gerald Alston!"Hortense exclaims, with some contempt. And then she re- members the longer walk she took this very afternoon to avoid him as he stood on Grace's steps. Hortense wonders if he has more influence with Philip's be- trothed than Philip has himself. But she puts aside the thought at once as unjust to Grace. "We have no right to suspect Grace," Hortense says, "She is engaged to Philip, and has given no sign of change, that we know of." "I hope she will not, then," Bryan replies heartily. "I don't feel much in- terest in the girl as a connection, though she will suit Philip, I dare say. To see your slavery over, your chains struck off, I acknowledge, will be a satisfaction to me." "That you may chain me yourself. Ah, Bryan, you will be no kinder to me than you think Philip is." "I do not know why you should say so," Bryan answers, a little angrily. "Heaven knows I have let you put Philip always before me, as that has seemed to be your wish. I think it is I who wear the chains." "And let them weary you so, always clanking them," she says, half laughing at him. "I can't help that. Have you any- thing else to complain of?" "Only that we see so little of each other, and- We are nearly at the gate now." There is not much connection in the sentence, simply because Hortense had broken off from what she intended to add, which was, that there was so much fault-finding on Bryan's side when they did chance to meet. But Bryan does not seem to note any part of her speech but the implied leave- taking, for he says, "I don't intend to leave you at the gate. I will walk with you to the door. I can't cross the thresh- old, Hortense," he adds quickly, fearing what she may urge. "I don't approve of Philip, and I cannot be his guest. I know it is hard on you, but indeed I cannot help it, and I am kinder than you think." Again he is on the point of telling why he will not cross Philip's doorsill. But the same compunction comes over him again, and he prefers seeming hard to being cruel. After this they walk on quietly, Hor- tense not caring to urge him to give his page: 36-37[View Page 36-37] reasons for avoiding Philip, and Bryan feeling he has been ungracious, and that he had much better have consented to be Philip's guest than have seemed un- kind to Hortense. But she gives him no chance to change his mind by a second invitation. If Hortense believed Philip entirely blameless, she would have resented Bry- an's hard judgment. As it is, she is only sorely wounded, and she will give no cry to show it. She knows more of the weak- ness of Philip than Bryan dreams she does. But her love is ample enough to cover up his faults and failings, and to give no hint that she sees them. They are at the porch-steps now, and Bryan draws Hortense to him for a mo- ment. But he fails to see that there are tears in her eyes. She stands for a mo- ment more in the open doorway, listen- ing to his hasty footsteps as he crunches the gravel under his heel in haste to get home out of the storm. She listens until all sound dies away, except the wind in the bare boughs of the trees, and then she goes up stairs to take off her wet wrappings. The clock is striking seven as Hor- tense comes down stairs and goes into the library, where Philip is. The lamp is lit, and he is sitting at a table engross- ed with some papers; not business ones, though, but dainty, lady-like notes. She does not care to disturb him, so does not ring for tea, but draws her chair up to the table he is sitting at, so as to share the light, and takes up her sewing. She has lost her happy thoughts, she told Bryan, and so has no desire to sit idle. Philip has either forgotten her walk to Bridgeford in the storm, or he does not care to question her about it just now. Hortense has forgotten it, dwelling a little wearily on her parting with Bryan. Presently, Philip looks up from a letter and pushes it toward her. "Read that," he says, " and tell me what you think of it as a bit of composition." Hortense takes up the letter, or rather note, and glances at it. She does not recognize the handwriting-indeed, she has never seen it before-but she knows the cipher at the head of the page, "G. R.," so there is no need to look at the signature. It is a tender, vapid little note-no harm in it whatever, nor sense, either, for that matter. Just such a note as some girls like to write on slight provo- cation, and lovers like as well to read- strong endearments and-loving-endings being its sum and substance. Hortense glances over it with the pharisaical feeling of thanksgiving in her heart that Bryan has no such notes of hers to treasure, which some day might rise up and testify against her. "Well, what do you think of the speci- men?" asks Philip as she lays it down. "I suppose it is interesting to you, but I am not much of an admirer of the style," Hortense replies. "Here is another somzwhat stronger, and another better sti," Philip con- tinues, pushing them across the table within her reach. But Hortense has no desire to read them. They are, as she says, uninter- esting to a third party-missives called forth by a quarrel or a broken promise to drive, an invitation not accepted on Philip's part, and a little pouting for his remissness. Excuse enough for writing, perhaps, but not much worth the reading. "Of course one must value such nice, affectionate little missives," Philip says, with something very like a sneer, and not seeming to care whether Hortense reads the letters or not. "I suppose one must," Hortense re- turns dryly. "And should keep them as precious," Philip goes on to say. "Now be so kind as to read this ;" and he hands a much fresher, crisper note to her. "Is it necessary for me to read it?" asks Hortense. "Very necessary, if you wish to un- derstand Grace's character," answers Philip. "I should think it would be sufficient if you understand it," Hortense says un- easily, for she remembers Bryan's words about Grace as she takes up the note to read it. It is written in an entirely different style from the others, rather stiff and constrained, certainly not affectionate- written in the third person, and here and there underlined where it is intended to be explicit. Hortense does not criticise the style. She is too much astonished at the con- tents, for Grace speaks of her engage- ment with Philip being broken, and de- mands her letters in rather a peremptory way, promising to send back Philip's when she receives her own. "I am not surprised that she wants possession of her silly notes," Hortense says as she finishes the letter. "I did not know, though, that your engage- ment was broken." "Not permanently broken, only a quarrel on Grace's part. We have had a good many such, as you can judge from these. I don't know what has got into the girl, she is so fractious and dif- ficult to manage."' Hortense remembers what Bryan said of Gerald Alston, but she does not re- peat it. Philip is writing ainote, dash- ing it off in haste, and she-ca:tthink her own thoughts without interruption. "Of course you willsend -back the girl's letters?"Hortense says'at last. But Philip is too much engrossed with * his writing to give her ah answer. So here was an -end, she was sure, of all the love-making! And in six more weeks an end of the old house too, Mr. Lancaster had said, as far as they were concerned. But Philip has finished his note now, and has pushed it to her. It will not take her long to read: "Mr. Dunbar's compliments to Miss Robson, and he begs to say to her he can by no means allow the letters she refers to in her note to pass into any hands but hers. If Miss Robson really wants the letters, and will come to Ay- toun for them, she shall certainly have them, but to no one else can they be given. As for Mr. Dunbar's own let- ters, he is not concerned about them, but will be glad if Miss Robson will keep them as a souvenir of their pleasant acquaintance." "Ydu certainly are not going to send this?" asks Hortense after reading it. "I most certainly am," answers Philip coolly. "But you will not really keep the letters?" "If Grace wants them, she can come here for them." "Bryan might keep mine for ever- that is, if he had any to keep, which he has not. I would never notice such a note as this of yours, and would most certainly leave the miserable letters in your keeping." "I don't suppose you would come for them, but I rather think Hortense Dun- bar and Grace Robson will act very dif- ferently in an emergency," Philip re- marks as he gathers up the letters and puts them once more under lock and key. "We are both women," Hortense re- turns shortly. "Yet we shall see that these letters are worth coming for," Philip asserts; and then he goes into the hall to drop his answer to Grace into the mail-bag. "And this is the way Philip judges the girl he would fain marry! Is it our own fault when our lovers think lightly of us?"Hortense questions as she rings the bell for tea. And then Philip comes back again, and Hortense thinks it is better not to tell him what Mr. Lancaster had said about the mortgage: He might have forgotten for the time that there were but six short weeks left him in the old home, and he has enough to worry him to-night in Grace's desertion. To-mor- row will be soon enough to remind him. And the rest of the evening passes with- out a word being said about Grace or Bryan or Aytoun. page: 38-39[View Page 38-39] :P A Ir ET I V-. CHAPTER VI. O Doubt! O Doubt I 1 know my destiny: I feel thee fluttering bird-like in my breast: I cannot loose, but I will sing to thee, And flatter thee to rest. ILL Grace come to Aytoun for her V letters? or will she let them go for the trash they are? Hortense is think- ing this as she sits at the breakfast-table. Philip wonders too. But no one would think he was very much interested in anything but the morning paper. He is, however, for he says to Hortense as he leaves the table, "Can't you choose your occupation this morning so as to be within call if you are 'needed. You were shamefully out of the way the day Grace called: don't be remiss again." "Don't torment the girl," Hortense re- plies, without giving any promise. And then she adds, as if on second thought, "She will hardly be fool enough to come here." "We shall see if those letters are not magnets. I will promise not to torment Grace, however. I only hope she will be as kind to me." And Philip saunters out to smoke his morning cigar. Hortense is not devoid of a little wo- manly curiosity, and therefore she takes her seat where she can see the approach of any carriage up the avenue. Busy as she is with her sewing, she is able to glance up now and then, and somehow she always happens to look out of the window. She is rewarded after a time for her .watchfulness by the appearance of a pair of horses trotting swiftly up the graveled road; and soon she knows they draw Grace Robson's coupe, and that Grace herself is in it. "Surely she must value those stupid letters," Hortense thinks, but she does not move from her seat, as she is sure she will not be in- quired for to-day. Philip too is on the lookout for the coupe. He comes from amongst the bare, leafless trees, and helps Grace out 38 of her carriage with grave politeness- not with the same gay look that he wore the day old Aytoun led her captive. He takes her into the library again, and seats her in the same spot where she sat on that bright October morning, and he is casting rather mournful glances out of his handsome eyes at the blank space on the wall where he then told her he intended to hang a picture of her pretty self. Grace's glance follows his, and the old desire comes into her heart also to see herself hanging amongst those fine old- fashioned dames. But she will not let it possess her, and says quickly, "Was 'it either kind or gentlemanly in you, Mr. Dunbar, to bring me here?" "I was sorry to 4ouble you," says Philip. "But I did not think you would mind the drive very much, as the day is pleasant after the storm." "I should not think you would care to see me-"Grace begins. But Philip interrupts her with, "I shall always be glad to see you. I am not one to feel unkindly toward a person who has once made me happy." Grace thinks she had better steer into shallow water, so she says, "My letters, please: I have come, as you desired, for them." "Why are you so anxious for these miserable letters, Grace?" asks Philip. "You may as well let me have them as the earnest of our past love." "You do not mean to say you will not give them to me, after making me come. here for them?" cries Grace in alarm. "Certainly not. Only I should like to know why you are so anxious for them." "I suppose every girl likes to have her letters-under such circumstances," says Grace, evasively. "It is interesting to know the feelings of every girl under such circumstances. I suppose my being a man alone makes me feel indifferent as to who owns my letters to you." Grace is not quite sure that Philip is not sneering at her, so she says, pettish- ly, "My letters, if you please, Mr. Dun- bar. I am in somewhat of a hurry, and I have your word that you will give them to me." "And you must not blame me for wishing to give them into your own hands," Philip replies, changing his scoffing tone into, a tender one. "I come of an old-fashioned race, and what we prize we are very careful of. The knights in the olden times did not part with even a knot of ribbon entrusted to them by their lady-loves, except to give it back when reclaimed. Should I be less careful of your letters than my fore- fathers were of a knot of ribbon?" Not having lived in the olden time on which Philip is so eloquent, and not having had any forefathers save some respectable spinners, who would have fought over something as substantial as a bale of cotton, but never over a knot of ribbon, Grace does not know what to say in answer to Philip's fine speech. But she does know that he is very hand- some, and that he is looking down upon her very tenderly. But she is not going to give up her quest so easily, so she says, "Then, as you can give the letters into my own hands, I will take them, if you please." "Grace, what have I done to make you treat me'so?" asks Philip, still re- gardless of her request. "Is it that you are heartless? or is it because you mis- trust me?" Grace's heart is beating too percept- ibly for her to doubt her owning one. And so she says, she thinks with truth, "I am very sure I am not heartless." "Then you must mistrust me. Do you doubt my love for you, Grace?" At home Grace has had considerable doubts, but here at Aytoun, with Philip raining tender looks on her, she does not doubt so much. Yet she would rather not answer his question. Philip is not contented with her silence, so he' asks again, "Do you doubt my love for you?" "Sometimes I do," answers Grace, trying to be bold and to tell the truth. "But not now-not when you are with me, Grace?" She does not answer him, and he does not press her, but asks, "What is it that has separated us, Grace?" "They say such dreadful things of you," she answers, trying to deal in gen- eralities and going back to the old story. "'They say' is not very definite. And how do you know they tell the truth? It is some money-affairs, I suppose, the gossip is about-some matters you do not understand in the least. And these are the raw-head-and-bloody-bones which have scared you from me!"Philip adds, reproachfully. "These are not raw-head-and-bloody- bones, as you call them. Only children are frightened at such names. These are facts," says Grace very decidedly. "Facts! Do you think these blatant cotton-spinners are more honest than I am? Or that they can judge the actions of a gentleman? Are you going to let these facts, as you call them, part us and keep you from old Aytoun?" "If you would but prove that they are not true!" and Grace looks up at him uneasily. "I have given you my word that they are false, and that is all a gentleman can do. They take good care that only vague rumors reach my ears: they are afraid I shall hold them to account, I fancy. So I find nothing really to con- tradict, and I cannot blame those who do not know me for believing what they hear. But you, at least, after your prom- ise to marry me,-you ought to have given me your full trust." "I did not mistrust you at first," Grace cries passionately. "I tried to shut my ears: I did not want to hear their cruel talk. You ought never to have given them the opportunity to say what they do of you." Philip shakes his head doubtfully: "You were not like the deaf adder, I fear, Grace. It did not require the charmer to charm very wisely for you to be caught. I should like any of your friends-Gerald Alston included-to try to tell any of their precious tales into Hortense's ear." page: 40-41[View Page 40-41] "Hortense is your sister," replies Grace. "And you were only my fiancee! You do well to remind me that our sis- ters are more true and loyal than our sweethearts. And yet that is not the judgment of the world generally." "No one would be cruel enough to speak before Hortense. But with me it was different," Grace says by way of excuse. "But because you heard it was not necessary for you to believe; and not even to tell me, but to write me such a poor little note of dismissal! It was cowardly in you, Grace." It was cowardly, Grace knows, yet she had acted by counsel-wise counsel: she had had no doubt of it at the time. She had feared Philip's reproaches, and had tried hard that there should be no interview. She has more to fear than his reproaches, though, if she does not want to marry him, she will find. "Grace, think well before you refuse me again. Will you not be happier here with me than at Bridgeford? Can't you queen it at Aytoun, and forget the scan- dal and gossip of the miserable town? And, Grace, once here, no one will gain- say you. There have been many happy lives in these old walls: I do not despair of making yours happy also." Philip's handsome eyes are on her, and soare the eyes of all the fine ladies his ancestresses. The glamour of Aytoun is on her too. No wonder, then, that the gossip of Bridgeford seems false and vulgar, and dies away from her remem- brance as the shrill clang of all its mills has died away in the distance. Love-making is as insipid to the third party as ever Grace's vapid little notes were to Hortense. So let us shut the door on them, and leave the future mis- tress of Aytoun with its present lord. Into Grace's ear let Philip pour his pretty speeches, for neither you nor I, good reader, have much faith in them. An hour later Grace drives away from Aytoun without her letters. Why should she want thein if she has determined to add more of them to the packet? "I did not need you, as it happened," Philip says to Hortense, looking into the room where she is sitting wondering if Grace will ever go, and what she and Philip can have to say to each other now that their engagement is off. "Grace does not seem to have minded the tete-a-tete, as you feared she would," Hortense returns dryly. "I should think not," Philip says with a laugh. "You can congratulate me, if you like. Grace has thought better of it, and Aytoun, I hope, is saved to us." "Your engagement is on again?" Hortense asks in amazement. "Yes. I was sure Grace would be trac- table if I could only get her here. You women are a trifle unscrupulous when you are ambitious." And after this dogmatical sentence Philip lights another cigar and resumes his walk. Certainly a pleasanter one, as he feels very confident now of paying off all scores against Aytoun. Grace Robson is by no means sure that she has done wisely, now that she is once more in Bridgeford. The scan- dal about Philip Dunbar takes more shape here. It is not the idle breath it seemed to her whilst she sat in the library at Aytoun. And, besides, there are other eyes which have almost as much influence over her as Philip's have, though they are by no means so hand- some. This she feels more as the twilight comes on, and before it is well dark she has worked herself into a state of ner- vous expectancy anything but pleasant. Her drawing-room is brilliantly lighted, for Grace is timid and dislikes shadows. She is alone, and moves about rest- lessly, now walking up and down the room, then stopping to toy with some of her costly knickknacks, and now ex- amining herself in one of the mirrors. It is not vanity, however, which prompts her to look at the pretty reflection, but mere restlessness. At last the door-bell rings in the same startling way Hortense heard it the day she came to pay her visit of congratula- tion. There is a quick yet heavy step on the stairs, and through the open door enters Gerald Alston. Grace tries to greet him, indifferently, but does not succeed. She has some- what the air of a child that has just perpetrated a piece of mischief, and ex- pects to be taxed with it. But fortu- nately Gerald does not notice her un- easiness. He is too anxious to put the question which has been uppermost in his thoughts ever since he left his own rooms, to-begin with the ordinary top- ics of conversation. He asks at once, "Did you get your letters?" He looks surprised, as well as dis- pleased, at the brief "No"Grace gives in answer to his question. "Did you turn coward and fear to go to Aytoun? Oh, Grace, I am ashamed of you!" Grace is a coward, a shameful coward, and therefore she does not like to be called one. So she answers, as if ag- grieved, "I did go to Aytoun." "And did not get your letters?" "I changed my mind about them, and did not bring them." "Did not dare to ask for them or insist upon having them?" "I changed my mind, I tell you." "From pure cowardice, I presume," Gerald says scornfully. "This\is the second time you have called me a coward," Grace replies; and to prove she is not one she looks up de- fiantly into the face bent down toward her with a displeased frown on it. "Why did you come away without the letters if you are so brave?" he asks. "Because," she replies slowly, "I renewed my engagement with Philip Dunbar." Grace feels relieved as soon as the murder is out. But she is rather fright- e ned at hearing a deep curse pronounced, not against herself, but the man she is supposed to love much better than her- self. "I might have known it!"Gerald says bitterly., "Fool that I was, to urge you to go to Aytoun for those miserable letters! What is there in this Philip Dunbar which seems to charm you as a snake does a bird?" "There is a good deal in him that I meet with in no other man of my ac- quaintance," says Grace angrily, for if she cannot always answer Philip's sar- casm, she can Gerald's plainer mode of speech. "Philip Dunbar is a gentleman, and knows how to treat a lady with courtesy." "A gentleman!" exclaims Gerald, tak- ing up her words in an exasperating way. "A gentleman! Pray, does he- show his breeding in the way he pays his debts? Or in what do you perceive it?" "In his manners," Grace answers shortly. "'In his manners!"' Gerald quotes on. "Of course he is soft and sweet when he wants you to pay his bills for him. He would be a fool if he were not." "I suppose you have no bills, and you are not in need of any money," Grace says rather pointedly. "You are right," Gerald replies. "I am no cat's paw, soft and velvety, yet ready to wound the hand that strokes me." Grace is not fond of metaphor, so she does not answer him. "Did Philip Dunbar make any con- fessions to you?" asks Gerald sneering- ly. "Did he tell you it is your money he wants?" "I do not know that I am bound to tell you what he said. But if it is any satisfaction for you to know it, I don't think he ever mentioned money." "And you do not think that it is your half million he is after?" "I ought. I have heard you say it often enough for it to make some im- pression on me," Grace says sullenly. "Yet you might as well own the truth, and say you do not believe me." Grace does not answer this,' but says, "Philip has hid nothing from me. He told me very plainly that he is a good deal embarrassed." "He did, did he? And, woman-like, you took his cool impudence for a con- fession. Did he tell you also how much he needs to rid him of these embarrass- ments-that his beloved Aytoun is heav- ily mortgaged, house, lands, even his family pictures and the silver?" Grace starts a little. Certainly she * page: 42-43[View Page 42-43] did not know it was so bad as this. But she says at once, "I don't see why my money cannot be used to pay off the mortgage if I choose to do it. I have a fancy for Aytoun, and I am not so poor that I cannot afford to have fancies, I suppose." "Certainly not, if you buy the place in your own right. But to pay for it for Philip Dunbar is quite another thing." "I can do that too if I please," Grace says curtly. "I suppose you can. And yet I think you would like the man you call your husband to have a fair name, and at least to be spoken to by the people in his own set." "Oh," Grace says, with a little laugh, "you will all be eager for my invitations when I am mistress of Aytoun." "I shall not, for one, if Philip Dunbar is master,' Gerald answers decidedly. "I suppose," he continues, "Dunbar's haughty sister is as eager for the match as he is, and is as sweet as a rose, as she knows very well how to be on an occa- sion. And yet Bryan Bonham, for one, never goes near Aytoun now-a-days." "If you mean Hortense," Grace re- plies, not caring to notice the bit of information Gerald gives her about Bry- an, "I did not see her to-day. I have no reasorto suppose that she even knew I was in the house." "She knew it well enough, and would not put out her hand to save her sister woman from such a fate as yours is. Philip Dunbar has set his trap well. It is a plain 'will you walk into my parlor? says the spider to the fly;' and you were just as innocent as ever the fly was." "You can say vain, if you please, and wish to make your fable applicable. Well," Grace continues with a little sigh, "if I have my foible, I am not different from the rest of mankind. You have a desire stronger than your liking for a cigar, I suppose, only you are wise enough to keep it to yourself. I am more open, and confess my weakness is to be mistress of Aytoun." Oh, Grace, Grace, some one has wisely said if a woman talks long enough, she will tell you all that is in her heart. Why don't you keep to monosyllables, and so be safe? Of course Gerald Alston has his weakness, his longing, but he is far too wise to tell it, even into your small ear. Gerald is watching her as eagerly as ever Delilah must have watched Samson to see if he had opened his heart truly to her. She is honest in her confession, he sees, and he says quietly, "I do not blame you for the wish. Aytoun is a fine old place, and you would make a worthy mistress of it. Will you promise me, on your honor, to marry the owner of Aytoun?" "I have told you I am engaged to Philip Dunbar," Grace says coldly, not liking his sudden change of manner. "But I want your promise." "You shall have it, then. I shall certainly marry the owner of Aytoun. Will you come to the wedding?" All through the night, whenever Grace woke, and even the next morning, Ger- ald Alston's face as he asked her, "Will you promise me, on your honor, to marry the owner of Aytoun?" haunted her. Had he, after besetting her for months, maligning Philip on all occasions, telling her every evil thing he could of her lover,-had he at last fallen into her caprice? and does he think, as she does, that living at Aytoun is the most desir- able thing in life? She half wishes she had confessed her weakness-as she is pleased to call her ambition-to Gerald long ago, if by so doing she could have so easily changed his opinion of Philip. He was fonder of her than she had thought if he was so anxious that her whim should be grati- fied, even at some personal cost to him- self. She would ask him to Aytoun often, and Philip would like him better when he knew he had stood his friend at last. Yet with all her pretty plans for re- warding Gerald, and her self-gratulations, Grace is uneasy. She is iot one to go her own way boldly even if unwisely, but rather she is apt to answer quickly to the moods of others. A happy state of being, perhaps, for a woman when the husband is chosen, but alas for her in the choosing! CHAPTER VII. For one, the gold is far and dim; For one, a glimpse of things to be; But here it sparkles, at the brim Of full felicity. "HORTENSE, will you put down that everlasting seam and come out for a walk? One would think your Ulysses was roving over the world as of old, in- stead of practicing law in Bridgeford, and that all your love lay in your needle's point." Hortense does not defend herself. She has a contempt for a man's stric- tures on needlework, and she is rather glad of an excuse to lay aside her sew- ing and go out. "Come this way: I want to consult you about a clearing I am thinking of making," Philip says as she joins him ready for the walk. They start off gayly, Hortense leaning on Philip's arm, chattering to him like a bird in spring. She will have to give up this handsome brother of hers soon to Grace Robson-give him up with but slight reservation-for the six weeks are nearly spent, and with the life hereafter at Aytoun she will have but little to do. The old home will not be hers much longer, and the most she can expect will be an occasional day spent with Philip, if. Grace will be kind enough to ask her. This Hortense has thought whilst sewing in the library. . But in the fresh, frosty air, leaning on Philip's arm, she will not worry herself with thoughts of the future, but enjoy the present. For some reason she feels this is her last walk with Philip, and she would fain have no clouds to mar the perfect sunshine. How long Philip will keep off the sub- ject of Grace she does not know, but she will do her best to make him talk of something else, if possible. "What the deuce are the sheep in that field for?" is Philip's first remark. "Hill must be asleep. There will not be a blade of grass left when he finds them there." "They prefer grass to turnips, and have had no trouble in choosing," Hor- tense replies, her quicker eye discover- ing a gap in the fence betwden the fields. "Let the creatures alone, to browse ac- cording to their inclination." "I wish we were all sheep, if our de- sires could be so limited-a choice be- tween grass and turnips, and no marry- ing nor giving in marriage. They are nearer the commonly-received ideas of heaven than I thought.4 "Eating turnips or baaing at each other?"Hortense asks. "Hortense," Philip says suddenly, ignoring her question, "when are you and Bryan going to set up your own establishment?" "As soon as you are done with me," Hortense replies. "It would be quite effective," Philip goes on to say, "if we were both to be married at the same time. The only two of the Dunbars that are left married by the same ceremony would make quite a fine article for the Bridgeford news- papers." "Thank you! I will wait for my obit- uary for so lengthy a notice. 'Miss Dunbar in simple white muslin, and--"' She does not finish her sentence by a description of Miss Robson in white silk and lace. "I don't see why you must figure in white muslin," says Philip. "Can't you get what you need in Bridgeford?" "Yes, and forego teaspoons and table- linen. You forget Bryan is as yet a poor man, and he does not want a fine wife." "He will not be as poor as you think. There will be plenty of money at Ay- toun, and you don't suppose I shall let my only sister pinch and economize?" Philip says with a little pressure of her arm. "Thank you!"Hortense answers, gratefully. "But Bryan and H are will- ing to try the dinner of herbs, with love for seasoning-" She is sorry for the quotation before she ends it, for Philip says quickly, "And you will leave the stalled ox for Grace and me? But it will not be as bad as that, I hope. There is no reason for us to hate each other." "I defy her to hate you," Hortense-re- joins, looking with eyes brimming with love at Philip. page: 44-45[View Page 44-45] "It is a poor thing, this fuss about a wedding, in any case," Philip goes on to say. "I wish you women had more sense in such matters. Why will you, just for the love of a little display, drag a poor fellow up to be stared at by all your acquaintance? These church wed- dings, as they at managed now-a-days, are heathenish instead of Christian af- fairs. You should have strength of mind enough to drop such fashions." Philip is dreading his own wedding, and his appearance before the Bridge- ford fashionables after his long disap- pearance. But Hortense does not fathom the reason of his dread, and says, "I shall have the desired strength of mind. Bryan and I will have the most private wedding possible not to look like a run- away match." "Then I will persuade Grace to follow your example. Let the two weddings be on the same day, Hortense, and then I shall have an argument to support my request." "No," Hortense replies decidedly. "It would be cruel in you not to let Grace look her very prettiest and wear her diamonds. You must make the- most of your rich bride. Besides, Bryan and I have no day fixed as yet." She does not add that she will not risk Bryan's refusal to stand by Philip's side even on such an occasion. It is her greatest trial, this dislike which her lover has for her brother, but as she be- lieves it is only a prejudice, she hopes it will die out under her influence. "I am glad you will live in Bridge- ford," Philip says, giving up the point of the double wedding, as he sees him- self it is not altogether feasible. "We will have the old style of living back at Aytoun, and Grace will need some hints from you. She is good-tempered enough not to mind being taught a little by you." "I think she is good-tempered," Hor- tense replies, really knowing but very little about her future sister-in-law, yet in her heart determining not to interfere with her as mistress of Aytoun. "I am sorry you have not seen more of each other," Philip resumes. "Grace told me the other day you had been but once to see her, and then only for a few minutes." "Yes, I have been negligent," Hor- tense admits. "I told her you were a good deal taken up with Bryan. I suppose that is a good excuse, and certainly it is one Grace ought to be satisfied with. You must go to-morrow." Hortense promises, and now hopes Philip has exhausted the subject and will talk of something else. But no: he rambles on, not saying anything brilliant, but still recurring to the same topic. Presently he tells Hortense what im- provements he intends to make in the place-expensive improvements, which it will take a good deal of money to complete; and she knows very well where he expects to get it. Hortense, like many girls with no fortune, thinks a man has no right to spend his wife's money for his own ad- vantage, though the law may give him that privilege. Fortunately, rich women are accustomed to take more practical views, or there might be more matri- monial jangling than there is. But Hortense is shrinking from Philip's talk of improvements as if he hurt her; and he never guesses it, and goes over old schemes of his father's and grandfather's which had been abandoned for want of the necessary means. Hortense is glad that they have reached at last the piece of woods Philip thinks of clearing. It is a broad belt of hickory and oak which lies on the road- side and screens the house from the view of travelers on the high-road in the summer-time. The trees are grand old ones, remnants of the original growth of the land, such as will grow only on virgin soil, and once cut down their like will never be seen, on that spot at least. Hortense is clearly against an axe touching them: "There is plenty of land idle-why cut down such trees?" "But their wood is valuable, and the new ground is rich, and the trees are useless standing here." "They screen the house from the road, and there are no finer trees on the place. It is a sin to destroy such growth-only a degree less, in my opinion, than murder." Philip argues for the fine field he will have if he clears the land, and Hortense listens to him impatiently, determined not to be convinced. She is leaning against one of the trees she would fain save, and Philip is sitting on the top rail of the fence, facing her. They are both so eager in their dis- cussion they never hear the sound of horses' feet approaching up the road. The sound is not very marked, for the two horses are walking very slowly, as if not to interrupt the conversation their riders are apparently engrossed in. Hortense'stands facing the road. She is scornfully listening to Philip's eulogy on the strength of new land. Suddenly she catches sight of the riders, and she is glad Philip's back is turned to them. She hopes they will pass without his per- ceiving them, for it is Grace Robson and Gerald Alston, and they are talking too earnestly to notice the two who are stand- ing in the woods so close to the highway. Hortense tries to look as if she had seen no one coming up the road-no one behind Philip of whom he has been talking during so much of their walk. But Grace has caught sight of them, and a deep blush tells more plainly than words can that she shrinks from the meeting. Hortense's eye flashes at the blush--if it were one of coy pleasure she would have smiled at it-and she raises her head haughtily as Gerald Alston looks at her with no love in his cold gray eyes. Philip is giving the difference between the yield of old ground and new, and he is rather surprised at the haughty look which has come into Hortense's -face. But he too now hears the sound of the hoofs, and he turns quickly and raises his hat courteously, with no cloud whatever on his handsome face. Grace bows awkwardly and hesitatingly in re- turn, and Gerald Alston rides on without lifting his hat to any one. Philip returns to the merits of the new ground, as if only interrupted by casual passers-by, until both are out of sight: then he says a little abruptly, "Come, Hortense, there is no use in staying here in the cold;" and somewhat hurriedly he leads the way toward the house. There is no more gay talking of the wedding-day and of the improvements Aytoun is to see. Philip has grown sud- denly moody and silent. "I wonder if she is playing false?" Hortense thinks, and she looks at Philip compassionately. But he does not heed her looks, or say a word about Grace, in the way either of excuse or of fault-find- ing; and Hortense is silent because he is so. All the pleasure of Hortense's walk has vanished, and in her heart she wishes she had stayed at home with her much- abused sewing. And then she grows angry with Grace on her own account, for the echo of Philip's wedding-bells was to have been her own, and how will Bryan take it if there is to be another postponement? CHAPTER VIII. And he who stands upon a slippery place Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up. THE next morning at breakfast there are two letters for Philip in the letter-bag, and Hortense watches him furtively from behind the coffee-urn as he examines them. One, she is confident, is from Grace, for she knows now that young lady's style of envelope, and the cipher on it is large and imposing enough to be recognized at once. The other note Hortense is not curious about, nor does she feel at all aggrieved when Philip, after glancing at it, puts it into his pocket. Grace's note is so much more interesting in her eyes that she busies herself with the cups and saucers, so as not to scan Philip's face too closely as he reads it. "Grace has rather improved in her penmanship," Philip says, throwing the note dexterously across the table within Hortense's reach, and she at once takes heart and thinks the girl has written a pretty apology for her yesterday's offence in riding with Gerald Alston, or perhaps page: 46-47[View Page 46-47] an invitation, which, if accepted, she hopes may make matters straight in a feminine way, without the humiliation of a vindication of her conduct. But Hortense finds out her mistake as she reads the harmless-looking little note, for Grace has written again to break her engagement. It is a cowardly note, Hortense thinks as she reads it. Evidently the girl could not speak to Philip so coldly, and knows she could not. The two small pages are taken up chiefly with a prayer that he will regard this poor little missive as decisive, and will not seek an interview with her. "As if I should trouble myself for such a jilt!"Philip says scornfully. "I hope she will not come again to Aytoun, as she did when she wanted her letters." Hortense is glad to find Philip adopts this view of Grace's shabby behavior: she was afraid he would take it more to heart than he seems inclined to do. "She has not the grace to write a proper note," Hortense says, a little bitterly. "I think, myself, you are well rid of her." "If you could only say the same for Aytoun!" returns Philip; and having lost all appetite for his breakfast, he leaves the table and goes out. Hortense has many anxious thoughts this morning. Philip's disappointment, Grace's heartlessness-there must be more in both than appears on the sur- face, and for the latter there is no clew that she can find to read the riddle, un- less Gerald Alston could furnish it. Then Bryan's face comes before her, when she will have to tell him what she fears will inevitably postpone her, own wedding, for how can she leave Philip so forlorn as he is just now? He must get a little used to this disappointment before she flits from him. And she goes over some arguments which she hopes will be convincing to Bryan, though she cannot help having grave doubts of it. Later in the day the thought flashes upon her that Philip expected to pay off the mortgage out of Grace's fortune. Has he any other plans now? If not, can she aid him? Her own fortune is not large-a bare ten thousand-but if it could assist Philip, if he could make any arrangement with it to keep old Aytoun, Philip should be very welcome to it. Hortense waits impatiently for the dinner-hour to arrive, so that she may speak to Philip, for the six weeks Mr. Lancaster warned her of are nearly spent now, and there is no time to lose. But instead of Philip there is only a message from him, telling her he has had to ride some distance from home on business, and that she is not to wait din- ner for him. She is not altogether sorry for his absence, for she wishes to go to Bridge- ford and see Mr. Lancaster. He may be able to make the necessary arrange- ments to meet the mortgage, and in that case Philip cannot refuse her money as he did when she had offered it to him. So, as soon as dinner is over, Hortense starts on her walk to Bridgeford. It is a gloomy, threatening afternoon, and the clouds are skurrying over the sky as if they would fain get out of the- way of the rude wind and not do his wild work to-night. Hortense rather enjoys the walk. She has been sitting still all the morning ab- sorbed in perplexing thoughts, and now the exercise is a relief to her. Then, too, being of a sanguine temperament, she believes she has found a solution of her troubles in the arrangements which her visit to Mr. Lancaster may enable her to make to-day. So she walks to Bridgeford quickly-so quickly she is surprised when she finds herself in the bustling town. She will not pass Grace Robson's house to-day, lest she may chance to see her pretty face, and she does not care to glance at it, for she does not feel kindly toward the girl on Philip's account. So she turns up the side street she found refuge in before, on the day she avoided meeting Gerald Alston. Hortense passes the same row of tene- ment-houses, and looks with some in- terest to see if the house which then wore its shabby badge of mourning has a more cheerful aspect now that the corpse has been carried out of it. But it looks even more forlorn and dismal with its windows bowed, as if afraid to let in God's sunlight, and from each shutter a black streamer floats out on the wind to tell the careless passer-by that there has been a death here, unlike the bloody stain on the Israelitish door, which told of God's mercy and the death angel's passing by. But we of this day trumpet our griefs and draw the veil over our blessings. There is the same rushing; noisy stream of life pouring out of Blidale Mill as when Hortense passed there last, but she does not feel the same pity for the overworked women and children as she did then. Only there is a sense of relief that Aytoun and Blidale will not be associated together; and then there is a little pang of remorse that she is glad at what must be a cause of heart- ache to Philip, poor fellow! For she thinks his indifference is assumed, and that the woman he was to have married in a few short weeks must have some hold on his heart. Mr. Lancaster is in, and ready to hear what she has to urge. She always finds him patient and interested, and she is very grateful to him, and trusts him as her one true friend. For Philip has his own annoyances and troubles to dwell on, and Bryan sees always a ready path for her out of all her difficulties; and besides, so many of her cares arise from Philip's embarrassments she does not like to dwell on them to Bryan, fearing his strictures. This afternoon Mr. Lancaster seems surprised at what she has to tell him, and annoyed as well. The match off between Grace and Philip brings a grave look into his face. "It will make a dif- ference to Aytoun, I fear," he says, with concern. "That is what I came to see you about. Will the money I have be enough to pay off the mortgage?"Hortense asks. "Your money! I hope not," Mr. Lan- caster says heartily. "But I would rather have Aytoun I saved than anything else." "Do you know who holds the mort- gage?"Mr. Lancaster asks, not noticing what she says. Hortense mentions the name, a little surprised that Mr. Lancaster should ask the question. "It has changed hands lately. I wrote to Philip about it yesterday, but I doubt if my note was in time for the mail. If the old parties held the mortgage, I should have no trouble in making an arrangement, backed by your ten thou- sand. Now it is very doubtful, and I can't promise you success. I am almost glad I cannot." "Glad, Mr. Lancaster!"t Hortense says reproachfully. "Yes, glad. Your money cannot clear off the debt against the old place, but would only stave off the difficulties for a while; and I do not care to see you beggared for that." "If we can stave the sale off, as you say, Philip may be able to manage. I would rather see the old home his than have a fortune myself. And I am not afraid of Philips turning me out of doors when I am, as you say, a beggar." She speaks lightly, as if all the trouble is at an end, but in her heart she is woe- fully disappointed that there is a doubt of Mr. Lancaster's success. She had so hoped to tell Philip when she went home that' Aytoun was safe, for the present at least, that now she is rather desponding, and is anxious to get away from her old friend's admonitions. But he does not let her off so easily, but goes into some lengthy explanations, to which Hortense gives no heed. She has gone through too much to-day to care whether she is to have a legal hold on Aytoun. If she had, it would be all waste paper so far as she is concerned, for a male Dunbar has always held the place, and she is not one to break through old customs. So her friend need not keep her so long with his vain expla- nations. It is so dark when Hortense leaves Mr. Lancaster's there is not much risk of her being recognized, and she can walk boldly past Grace Robson's with- out a fear. Bryan even could not tell her from any other belated female, and she is glad he cannot, for he is the one above all others she does not care page: 48-49[View Page 48-49] to see to-night. To-morrow she will feel braver, and can meet his disappoint- ment, perhaps his upbraidings, with more philosophy. The moon is struggling to rid herself of the wind-driven clouds-struggling ineffectually though, for she no sooner frees her bright face from one than an- other sweeps over and seems to cover her up hopelessly. Only from time to time does she manage to give a ghastly, uncertain light. Hortense is rather glad that the clouds are to be on the winning side, for she does not like to be out so late, and would rather go her lonely way unseen, slip- ping past any wayfarer unrecognized in the dark. As yet she has met no one, and she begins to get used to her lonely walk in the dark, and falls to thinking of yesterday's hopes and to-day's dis- appointments. Her thoughts are full enough to drive out all fears, until she hears the sound of a hdrse's hoofs be- hind her. Hortense is glad to find she is near the skirt of wood she and Philip argued over yesterday-glad, too, to remember that a part of the fence is down, and that she can turn into the wood until the horse and his rider have passed. She had not expected such protection when she pleaded for the trees yesterday. The man is riding slowly toward her, and Hortense finds she was mistaken in thinking it was his horse the sound of whose hoofs she had heard, for in the distance she can hear the almost wild gallop of another horse. Apparently, the man nearest her is riding slowly in order to be overtaken. Hortense is not frightened, only de- sirous to be out of sight, lest the moon should chance to show her face; so she creeps into the wood and crouches be- hind one of the giant trees until the road is clear again. It seems to her that she waits a long time there. Her position is constrained and uncomfortable, and it is not pleasant to be hiding even behind one's own trees, and for no other reason than that you do not care to be seen. The horseman in the rear is rapidly gaining on the one before, who still rides on at a quiet gait. Hortense supposes he must be near the edge of the wood now, but it is far too dark for her to dis- tinguish anything, and she does not feel much interest in their movements-only anxious that they should go on quickly. She is too far from the road to hear any words they may say in an ordinary tone of voice. Standing there waiting for the tramp of the hoofs to die away, H ortense is startled bythe sharp report of a pistol. One of the men must have fired it in reckless sport, and the two horses now are galloping furiously, and seemingly side by side. She is startled and a little frightened, and she waits in her hiding-place until all sounds die away in the distance. Then she thinks, with a feeling of relief, that she is not more than a hun- dred yards from her own gate, and there is not much chance of any one else being on the road for that short distance. Bryan was right in his faultfinding, and she will take care not to be caught by the darkness again in her walks from Bridgeford. So she comes out from her hiding-place into the road, and walks hastily toward the gate. Suddenly she stumbles, almost falls, over something. A fallen tree, no doubt, for she has not chosen the middle of the road, but keeps close to the wood.: Whatever it is, Hortense stops and stoops over it, peering at it with a strange feel- ing of alarm, as if she had touched un- holy ground, While she is bending there, striving to see what the darkness fain would keep from her, the moon struggles to the edge of a cloud and in a ghastly way shows her a man lying at her feet. Quickly Hortense kneels down and speaks to him. Getting no answer, she feels in the uncertain light for his arm, and her fingers glide down to the wrist and linger upon the pulse. Failing to find the life she is seeking for, she rises and listens anxiously for any sound of a passer-by, as eager now to meet one as a little while ago she was to avoid the 'dead man there. Alas! how our simplest actions often do others a great harm! and Hortense questions some- what sadly whether, if she had walked on boldly, this life would not have been spared, and a poor soul kept free from blood-guiltiness. Her best plan, she thinks, will be to go to the house and send help-some of the farm-hands, who can carry the sad burden to where it will at least have shelter from the storm, which is gather- ing fast. She moves away in haste, and then stops. She cannot bear to leave this poor body on the roadside alone in the darkness, even to go and call for help. Again the moon has broken a way out of the clouds, and shines down clearly on the dead man's face. But is he really dead? for there is blood flowing from a wound in his head. She stoops to bind it, but sees her handkerchief is too small to be of use, and she must search in the wounded man's pocket for his own. He was not killed for plunder, for his pocket- book is safe. Hortense binds the wound tightly and stops the flow of blood, but whether it is a helpful or a useless work she cannot tell. He has neither moved nor moaned under her hands. She has given all the help she can now, and she must leave him and send others to his assistance. And as she rises to go she gives a lingering glance at this man robbed of his sweet life almost within reaching distance of her- looks lingeringly into his white upturned face, and a horror comes into her eyes, for there at her feet she sees the still, pale features of Gerald Alston. Just then she hears the sound of wheels rolling over the frozen road, and the rough voices of workmen singing to be- guile the time. They are moving in the same direction with the wind, and she can almost distinguish the words of their uncouth song. But for the very reason that she can hear them so plainly she knows her cry for help will never reach their ears. She will have to step into the middle of the road and stop them, or they may chance to drive over the dead or dying man for 4 whom she needs their assistance. If the moon will only shine out a little longer! She is moving into the middle of the road when just. at her feet she sees a pistol. It has fallen from the murderer's hand, and. he has not dared to stop and pick it up, fearful that the eye of his victim, still seeing, might recognize him, or thinking the search would be fruit- less in the dark. Hortense remembers that his horse's feet had never slackened their speed, even when the pistol was fired. Hortense, though she does not remem- ber it now, had once told this same Ger- ald Alston that constitutional timidity made her fear the sight of firearms, and he had sneered at her. He was past sneering now, and no womanly coward. ice has kept her from giving him all the help she can. And yet this girl, who has never quailed where most woman would have done so, now shivers and grows pale at the mere sight of the pis- tol at her feet, and hesitates to pass it that she may go into the middle of the road to stop the wagon, which is not so far off now that her cry will not be heard, though it is hid from sight by a turn in the wood. The pistol which the moon is shining on has made her forget even the still form lying so close to her on the roadside, and which a few minutes ago she was so eager to succor. Sud- denly she stoops and picks up the dead- ly thing she feared so a moment ago, and with it in her hand crosses the road and again takes refuge in the wood, crouching behind a tree, her dress tight- ly drawn around her, for fear the moon- light will reveal her hiding-place. Crouching there, she has a dim hope that the wagon will pass on and the men never see what is lying so still and rigid by the roadside. But no: the moon, mocking her, throws its full light upon the road. The horse starts and shivers: the singing ceases, the men get out, and with a sudden exclamation ex- amine the object that lies before them. "Murdered!" they say, "but not killed at once, for has he not tied his handker- chief over the wound to stop the blood?- a useless effort, for he died in spite of it." page: 50-51[View Page 50-51] "No robber did the deed," they de- cide, "for the man's watch and purse are safe. Not self-murder either, for there is no weapon near him." And so there is but one verdict-he met his death by the hand of a foe. And Hortense shudders as she hears their words. The men take long to consult upon what is best to be done-whether to leave one of their number to watch the body, whilst the rest drive to Bridgeford for the police, or to take the dead man with them and leave him at the police-station. No one is willing to keep the weary watch by the side of the dead man, when perhaps the murderer is lurking in the woods. And so it is decided to carry all that remains of Gerald Alston in the wagon. Hortense hears their decision with re- lief. If they would only move more quickly, not with the stolid slowness of their class, as if incapable of more rapid motion than that of their daily labor! When they have placed the body in the cart they still linger, for one of them proposes that they shall search round a little and see if there is not some trace of why and how the deed was done. Search round a little! Hortense knows well enough to what that search may lead. She takes in her danger-she, crouching there out of sight, with the pistol in her hand. That a woman could not do the deed will not help her. Her innocence will not plead for her. As guiltless ones as she is, she has no doubt, have been condemned with not half the evidence which would cry out against her and leave her mute. She fears to move, to lay down the deadly thing she holds so close to her on the ground, for a single movement may betray her. She seems to have been kneeling there an age, though it has been only a few minutes. But the :men are afraid to go out of the moon- light into the woods in their quest, and -at last the wagon moves slowly on, as if tit were a hearse. Some time longer Hortense kneels there-kneels there until all sounds die away. Then she rises cautiously, creeps out of the wood into the road, passes the pool of blood the moon shines down into-passes it carefully, fearful that one telltale drop may cling to her skirts. Once safely past it, she runs swiftly up the road to her own gate, still holding tightly beneath her cloak the pistol which has killed Gerald Alston. As she nears the house she grows more careful. She stops now and then to see if there is any one in sight; creeps up the gravel walk noiselessly; opens the hall door as if she were a thief, and steals up to her own room, glad not to have met any one. Once there, she locks her door and hides the pistol in a drawer under some clothing, locking it up and concealing the key in her bosom. She does not light a candle, but, still wrapped in her cloak, she opens the window, draws a chair close to it, and with her arms on the ledge she keeps a dismal watch. The moon is lost in .the clouds again-lost so as not to show a gleam. The hall clock strikes eight- nine-ten. Hortense never moves: she may be asleep, so rigidly she keeps in one position. A servant knocks at her door to know if she shall lock up the house, and asks if Mr. Philip is in yet. Hortense says "Yes "-to the first question, perhaps- in a husky voice, and the servant thinks she is falling asleep, and goes off to draw the bolts and make the old house secure for the night. An hour later all is quiet, and Hortense creeps down stairs and undoes the bolts and locks of the hall door, and then comes back to her silent, rigid watch. Twelve strokes the hall clock gives, and Hortense is still by the open window. Two hours more she sits there. Then she hears the tread of a horse's hoofs coming up the avenue. They go in the direction of the stable, and soon a man's step is on the gravel. He comes into the house, locking the hall door behind him, and then up stairs very quietly, as if afraid of waking some one. Is it Hortense, watching in the cold, bitter wind, whom he is fearful of disturbing? Her watch is over now. She quietly puts down the window, and throws her- self, dressed as she is, upon the bed. She shivers as if from cold, but she does not seem to know it. You might think she had fainted, or was asleep, or haply dead, except that her eyes are open, wearing a look the peace of the grave could never give them. The wind blows furiously .toward morning. Some of the old trees which have stood the winter storms for cen- turies give up battling now, and fall crashing to the earth. The wind shakes the old house, and howls over it as if it would unroof it and show all its secrets. The frightened women-servants go down to the kitchen thinking they are not safe so near the roof, and the gardener and stable-boy join them; and they talk in whispers as if some one were dead in the house, and tell stories of death and murders, until they are afraid of the very shadows thrown on the walls by the fire they have kindled on the hearth. And through all the storm Hortense never moves. She hears nothing of all the crashing the great trees make in their fall-never heeds the wind's wild work. It seems a calm, placid night without, compared to the turmoil in her own breast. page: 52-53[View Page 52-53] IPAI. -JT rV - CHAPTER IX. My own name shames me, seeming a' reproach. 'HE wind dies away as the day L dawns, and every trace of the clouds with which it warred last night has fled, leaving a blue sky, and a daz- zling sun streaming into the unshuttered windows of Hortense's room-streaming in upon the girl who lies there motion- less on the bed. Alas for the sad hearts the sunshine forces to come back into the world of daily life and put on the accustomed look and smile! When we can bow the shutters and tell the world that we would be alone with our sorrow, we are at least more fortunate than those who must spread their windows wide open, letting in the gaze of passers-by, and wearing the same mien as usual, though their hearts be very heavy. Which has the heaviest load this morn- ing-Gerald Alston's mother or Philip Dunbar's sister? One sits in her sorrow like a queen, and all around her bow at her requests and speak low words of sympathy; while the other must rouse herself and hide all traces of her grief. For the servants are there, and, though they are few, they are as watchful of their mistress as if they were a host. They talk about last night's storm, and they attribute Hortense's white face and Philip's late rising to the sleepless night the two must have had. "Miss Hortense was frightened bad- ly," the maid tells the cook. "I saw her in the hall, and her face is as white as my apron. Besides, she never went to bed last night, as you can see if you will look into her room." Hortense is standing looking out of the dining-room window at all the havoc last night's storm has made. Seeming- ly, she is marking it, but her thoughts come back only now and then to the fallen trees. Yesterday she would have gone out at once and mourned each fall- en giant as an old friend, but to-day she 52 is past caring for them. The breakfast- things stand untouched, for Hortense is waiting for Philip, who is late this morn- ing. She is torturing herself with the question how it is best to meet him. If he had come in suddenly upon her, it would have been much easier. But now, to catch his footstep first on the stairs, then in the hall, and then to have to face him just as she did yesterday-she hardly knows if she has nerve enough to do it. She never thinks of shunning him, for there is but little of the proud Pharisee in Hortense, haughty as some of the Bridgeford people believe her. She would never dream of any sorrow or suffering or sin separating her from Philip, for their bond is one of blood, and through it she would share all with him. No feeling for herself is surging in her heart. Hortense Dunbar might as well be some unknown person for all the pity she will find in that heart. Philip only is written there, and what troubles her sorely is what is best for him. Would it be wisest to tell him all of last night's history-what she had found in the road, and what proof she had hidden up stairs that the work was his? If it was a wo- man she had to deal with, she would not hesitate. Isolation and loneliness break most women down utterly. But with a man it might be different-how different Hortense cannot tell. Some might have deemed it their duty to read the sinning one a sermon, taking the sixth commandment for text, and illustrating it with Cain's unholy act. But Hortense is-gentler and wiser. In her weak hands lies perhaps the guilt- stained soul, and she loves it none the less for this guilt, but with a tender pity. To-day, no doubt, it would be a relief to Philip to know that there is one he can speak openly to, without avoiding any phase of his temptation and his fall. But after to-day might he not shudder at the knowledge she has, and think some- times that she turned away from his touch or words? Will it not be better to leave it to him- self to speak or keep silent? If he speaks she will not say she has his story by heart, and. if he is silent she will not hint by word or action she knows more than he cares to tell her. She has to come to some quick resolve, for there is a step on the stairs-a heavy step, as Qf an old man, and at first she fails to recognize it as Philip's. Then she remembers that a change has come over everything, and that henceforth nothing is to be to her as it was. She hastens to the breakfast-table, to hide her face as much as possible behind the urn, for she is sure it must show some telltale traces of her last night's watch. Her manner is very gentle, very ten- der, and Philip supposes she is thinking of Grace's behavior to him, and is sorry for him. He does not dream of whose face she looked into last night by the moon's ghastly light, nor does he know that she carries a key in her bosom. "There was a dreadful storm last night," Philip begins, feeling that there must not be silence between them. "Hill tells me that some of the old trees were blown down." "Yes," Hortense answers-"you can see them from the window." "You must have slept soundly if you did not hear the wind," Philip goes on to say. "It blew loud enough to wake the dead." Hortense puts down her coffee un- tasted. She wishes the wind had waken- ed the dead, and Gerald Alston with the rest of the cold sleepers. Whether Philip's words recall last night's deed to his own mind she can- not tell, but she can guess why he pushes the morning paper from him, and why he leaves his breakfast almost untasted, though he makes a feint to eat it. She understands too why he makes an effort to talk. Hortense knows all this, yet she can- not speak light words or discuss every- day things, trying to wile Philip's thoughts from what she knows they must dwell on. There is blood between them, and it seems to gurgle up and separate them, even when she would fain cling closer to him than before. Every little word they chance to say seems to turn on last night's deed, and unwittingly brings up before them Ger- ald Alston's dead face. -And yet neither can tell what the other is suffering. Hor- tense is wondering if the missing pistol is giving Philip. any anxiety, and Philip is wondering in his turn if Hortense thinks the loss of Grace Robson has worked such a mighty change in him. A silence has fallen over both of them as icy as death. And yet they cling the one to the other, Hortense giving up all her usual employments and keeping near Philip, and he, like a frightened child who fears to be alone, is unwilling that she should leave him even for a moment. The house seems to stifle Philip, and as the morning wears on he proposes they shall go out and see what destruc- tion last night's storm has wrought. Hortense catches up a shawl she finds in the hall, and she and Philip go out together and see some of the wild work done last night which can never be un- done. Many of the Dunbars have play- ed under the shade of these prostrate trees, many have been sad and troubled under their green boughs, but never be- fore have two such utterly wretched ones stood beside them. "They make a great gap on the lawn," Philip says, touching one of the fallen trees with his foot. "I should have been very sorry a week ago. But, Hor- tense, Aytoun is not what it was to me. I would have made any sacrifice to keep it, even to marrying Grace Robson; but I have changed my mind now-changed it since-since last night. The old home must go, and if you go with me, I will willingly leave it." "Leave it, Philip? Where would you go?"Hortense asks. "Anywhere, so Aytoun is out of sight, out of hearing distance. Hortense, there are but two of us. Shall I go alone?" "No," she says, quietly: "I will go with you." page: 54-55[View Page 54-55] "And Bryan?" Bryan! Has she thought of Bryan in all this misery? Once in the night she thought of him-wished he were near her, so that she could unburden her heart to him. And then the thought came-it was Philip's secret, not hers, and her lips must be closed even to her lover. And with this heavy knowledge could she stand by Bryan's side and never flinch as if she too were guilty? Philip is waiting for her answer-Phil- ip, who has built up a wall between them so high no words of hers can reach him. Her lover's voice and all the sweet mu- sic of her wedding-bells were drowned out in Gerald Alston's blood. All is swept from her-the past, the future, Bryan, Aytoun. Only Philip is left to her, and they two must go hand in hand till the grave parts them. So she says, firmly, "Bryan shall not part us. I will go with you, Philip." "But he will try to part us," Philip returns, hastily. "We men are seldom generous, and hold fast to what we think belongs to us. Bryan will never give you up if he can help himself. It must be by your own act that you leave him." "Then it shall be by my own act." "You promise me this?" "I promise you." Philip turns and looks at her-at her still white face, at her anxious, troubled eyes-and conscience whispers, "Have mercy on her weak womanhood. Take her not with you, draw her not into the whirlpool of your misery. Let her go to Bryan. With him she will have the common lot of joys and sorrows-with you, wretchedness alone." Philip loves Hortense, loves her better than anything on earth, and now in his sin and misery his heart pleads for her. And so he says, ' Nay, Hortense, this is foolish in me. Bryan has the first claim to you. I must not let you leave him to go with me." "Bryan can do without me," she re- plies, trying to speak lightly. "My word is given-I will go with you." We cannot banish God's angels when He sends them to us in our need. So Philip accepts her promise, though he does not know that she sees him as he is, and yet never turns away from him, though a happier lot may beckon to her. "When shall we go?"Hortense asks after a few minutes' silence. "Next week. You will not mind so early a flitting? Let there be no leave- taking, please. Grace Robson need know nothing of our movements." He tries to cover up the desire that their departure shall be secret by the mention of Grace Robson's name, and does not know that Hortense would shrink from such a leavetaking and the gossip of Bridgeford as much as he would. If we only knew how few real secrets we possess, we should let go our subterfuges and be more honest in our words. Grace need not know of their move- ments, for what has she to do with them now? More than she knows or will ever know till the judgment day, Hortense thinks. That Grace by her heartless ness has really caused all this misery, Hortense does not doubt. As little does she doubt that Grace will sleep and wake, dance and be merry, have her joys and pleasures, until death comes, without ever guessing that a deed of hers has caused blood-shedding. Grace, with her pretty face and not very deep heart, will live on the common life, with per- haps fewer cares than fall to the lot of most; and Hortense, crushed by an other's act, robbed of her life's joy by another's deed, will live on too. They are standing silently, the two who are to go out into the world together, held by a bond of blood, when a man rides in at the iron gate and up the av- enue. They do not see him until he is nearly upon them and then both start with a sudden fear. There is no chance for Philip to get away unseen, no hope for an escape. Neither is it a time for weak, womanly fears, but for quick, quiet action, Philip thinks, as, a little pale from the thoughts he cannot put down, he advances to ask the stranger his business. Hortense follows close behind him, ready for help, or even to fight for him as a tigress would fight. But "the guilty are fearful where no fear is." The man is only a traveler who has lost his reck- oning and would find Bridgeford; and with relieved hearts they tell him it is so straight before him he cannot miss it. But they do not tell him also that they took him for a law-officer, "Let us go to - morrow, Hortense," Philip says as the man rides off--"to- morrow night." And Hortense wishes he had said to- night, for a new fear has taken posses- sion of her. But she does not urge him, lest he should guess how much she knows of what he would keep from her. And so the day passes slowly. Both are clinging to each other, trying not to speak their thoughts, and yet dreading to be silent. They are longing for to- morrow, and yet striving to appear con- tented with to-day. Was this to be Hor- tense's life? Was it for this she was giving up Bryan and his love? And yet has she any right to hold him' to his past vows, for is he not dead to her-killed last night when Philip took Gerald Al- ston's life from him? Would Bryan care to stand before the altar with the sister of Philip Dunbar if he knew the truth? She cannot tell, and she must risk nothing in the asking. It is late when the brother and sister separate to-night, for there is a comfort in each other's presence, and neither of them hopes forsleep. Yet Philip is the first to say good-night, for, having the heavier load to bear, he is the greater coward of the two, and is fearful the ser- vants may notice anything unusual in his habits. Hortense lingers in the hall up stairs, thinking perhaps Philip will call her. But there is no sound from his room, and if he does not sleep he bears his wakefulness quietly. So she steals at last into her own room, not to try to rest, but to ponder upon what she had best do with the evidence she has kept of last night's deed. The pistol must be got rid of, for if she and Philip leave to-mor- row night she cannot possibly carry it with her without Philip's knowledge. She dare not leave it behind her, for how can she tell that it will not in some way witness against Philip? She can- not destroy it. What can she do with it? Long does Hortense try to think of a safe hiding-spot, but she fears every place that her thoughts suggest. She cannot dig deep enough to bury it, and there is no pond which will hold it safe if an August drought should come to dry up, its waters. At last Hortense remembers that at the rapids there is a whirlpool-very small, it is true, and hardly worthy of such a name, but it is said to hold fast all which is cast into its waters. She remembers dropping a bracelet into it one day whilst looking over the cliff, and none of her party thought it of any use to try to rescue it, but counted it as a lost thing. She was sorry to lose her pretty ornament then, but she thinks of it now as an earnest that the waters will hold the pistol safe, giving no hint of what they have in their possession, until there are no seas nor water upon the earth, and man too is stripped of all the concealments he fain would wrap him- self in. This pool, which Hortense hopes will keep from Philip the knowledge that she knows his secret, is close under the cliff where she and Grace sat on the day Grace promised to marry Philips Be- low the cliff the river foams and tosses itself in a wild way, forcing itself over the rocks. But between two of them it grows helpless, and for all its fuming it is held a prisoner, and in its small fury draws its own waters down; and the Bridgeford boys call it "The Whirlpool." To find any safe hiding-place for the pistol is a relief to Hortense. The dread she has of Philip's knowing it is in her possession has made her doubly p'.udent. She changes her dress, though still keep- ing to an unnoticeable black, strews her things about, and tosses the bed she has never even lain down upon, to give it the appearance of having been slept in. The servants will not say she has kept two night-watches if they judge from the state of the room; and there will be no risk of Philip's learning that she has kept vigil as well as he. It is well Hortense will not have much page: 56-57[View Page 56-57] of such work as this to do. Deception injures even the best of us, and the no- blest cause becomes defiled when we stoop to falsehood to sustain it. And yet it is the penalty of all secret sin, and the guiltless may become guilty in trying to keep it hidden. CHAPTER X. I will not soil thy purple with my dust, Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice glass, Nor give thee any love-which were unjust. BEFORE the sun is up or a servant is stirring in, the house Hortense is ready for her walk to the rapids; She takes the key from her bosom, and unlocks the drawer and lifts the clothing, half afraid the pistol she has concealed is not there. But yes, it is safe-safe for her to carry to the river, there to hide it for ever. Hortense shudders as she sees it, not altogether at the thought that with it Gerald Alston was robbed of life, nor that it was the means of making Philip a murderer. These thoughts might well make her shudder and turn pale. But besides there is a nervous dread she finds it hard to conquer-a foolish fear that to touch the pistol is to enter into the very shadow of death itself. She is standing there shivering, not at the horror the only witness of Philip's guilt must give her, but at the knowledge that she must carry for three miles at least, pressed close to her, this deadly thing which has already taken one life and might steal away hers also. Rob her of life? Was this life so sweet to her that she should cling to it and shrink from death? Hortense starts as she fancies she hears the sound of servants moving down stairs. She must get the better of these foolish fears, and not run the risk of Philip's finding she has the pistol. And so she grasps it firmly and hides it under her cloak. Noiselessly she creeps past Philip's room, the thought of him giving her nerve. And then she goes down stairs swiftly, and quietly draws the bolts of the hall door, and lets herself out into the early morning. It is the longest, weariest walk that ever Hortense has taken, though she cuts off more than two miles by leaving the road and taking a path across the fields. She walks very hurriedly, fear- ing the few laborers she meets going to their work-fearing they may in some way read her errand in her face and stop and search her. She is like the child in the fairy-story, who heard the bird singing her secret sin. She hardly understands herself, and grows angry at her want of nerve when she needs it most. She forgets the two sleepless nights she has passed, her anx- iety and fears, the stretch worse than the rack, she has been on all day, If she remembered them, she would not wonder why she stumbles on as if born blind, and why she loses the path be- cause she never heeds its turnings. The bank of the river is gained at last, and Hortense stands just where a few months before she sat with Grace while Bryan lay at their feet. Gerald Alston, she remembers, came that morn- ing in his shooting-jacket, and rested his gun against the tree she is leaning against now, and he sneered at her fears. Fears? Were they not premonitions? And she was angry with him. Can she be angry now with that still white face, which has cut her off from life as most care to live it? She has little time, however, for such thoughts. She goes to the cliff and looks over. There boils and seethes the small whirlpool to which she will entrust her secret. Will it ke itit safe? There is ice formed around the margin, and it requires a firm hand and steady head to drop the pistol so that it will fall into the water. Better that it should remain in her own keeping than lodge on the ice at the edge of the pool, exposed to chance observation. So she bends still farther over the cliff, drops the pistol, and as she hears the splash which tells her it is securely hidden, finds she has lost her balance, and sways to and fro for an instant, clutching idly at the air. She thinks in that instant, with a sense of satisfaction, that there will be nothing found on her dead body to reveal the secret she has come to hide. If Philip only knew how safely it was buried! The next moment a hand has caught her by her dress and draws her back from the edge of the cliff, and with a desperate effort not to faint she looks up, to see Bryan Bonham's white, frightened face bending over her. It calls her back to life and suffering. "Hortense," Bryan asks, "what does all this mean?" She thinks that he suspects her of seek- ing her own death amongst the rocks in the river below them. And she half smiles at the thought, for, hard as life is to her, she is not such a coward, even if she were such a sinner. "I leaned too far over the cliff," she answers. And then the fear comes into her mind that Bryan has seen what she threw into the whirlpool, and she asks quickly, though trying to command her voice and seem to speak indifferently, "When did you see me first?" "But a minute ago. I hardly expect- ed to find you here at this early hour." "Then you did not recognize -me?" Hortense says, a little relieved of her fear. "Not at first. I only saw a woman in imminent peril of falling over the cliff, and I hastened to you. I knew you, however, before I reached you. What could have tempted you so carelessly to risk your life?" asks Bryan, almost an- grily, as he recalls how near he seemed to be to losing her. What tempted her? A brother's dan- ger. But she does not tell him this, nor that she wishes he had let her slip over the rocks. She is weary almost to death. and a walk with Bryan will be no rest to her. "Hortense," Bryan says as they turn to walk to Aytoun through the fields, "I am glad I have met you this morning. We'do not often see each other now, so I am rejoiced to have you a little while to myself." Hortense does not ask whose fault it is that they have seen so little of each other of late. She has not left Aytoun for months except to go to church or to make a hurried visit to Bridgeford on business of Philip's. Bryan would rather be called to ac- count for his remissness than that Hor- tense should be so cold and silent. She does not even seem glad to have him as her companion for this long walk across the fields. "Hortense," he asks, half angry at her silence, "what has happen- ed to change you so? I hardly know you of late." "How am I changed?" she asks, will- ing only to confess to what he charges her with. "In every way. You have no smile to greet me with, and seem to feel but little pleasure in being with me. Is the fault in me or you? If in me, what have I done?" "Nothing," she answers sadly. "I have no fault to find with you. We have seen but little of each other lately, but that may be from circumstances, not from intention on your part. I have nothing to complain of." "And yet you have changed: you cannot deny you have." "I shall not try to deny it. But did you expect me to be always as I was two years ago? If so, I do not wonder you are vexed to find me altered." "I expect to find some reason for the change. I did not suppose you would have left me a stranger to your sorrows, if it is to them I must look for this alter- ation," Bryan says reproachfully. "We have had a good deal of trouble at Aytoun," Hortense replies, evasively. "I suppose you know the old home is in danger of being sold?" "But Aytoun will not be your home much longer." Hortense looks up at him question- ingly. Does Bryan know that she is to leave Aytoun to-night? Bryan does not notice her startled look, and goes on: "You will come to me soon now, and will not miss Aytoun." "There have been some changes late- ly," Hortense replies, relieved of her fear, which she sees now was a foolish one. "Philip's engagement with Grace is broken again -this time past all mending." e page: 58-59[View Page 58-59] "And you mean to hint that I am again to be put off for Philip? Hortense, I shall lose all patience with you. If I am so secondary with you, compared to Philip, why did you ever engage your- self to me?" "Philip did not need me then as he does now," Hortense begins. "And is that the only reason you lis- tened to me? What would you have done, may I ask, if you had married me, and Philip had needed you as much as you say he does now?" Ifhe would trap her in her answer, he is surprised to hear her reply hastily, "I do not know. I thank God that decis- ion is not forced upon me." "Speak more plainly, Hortense," Bryan says, angrily. "We two should at least understand each other. Why are you so thankful that you have not a decision to make, when the question is so simple a one?" But can she speak more plainly? If she dare not tell him all, if she cannot tell him of Philip's crime to excuse her seeming waywardness, she had better keep silent, even if Bryan thinks the more hardly of her for it. "Have you nothing to say?"Bryan asks coldly. "Yes," Hortense answers, trying to speak without a faltering voice. "Wher I said I would marry you, I meant all I promised. I loved you as strongly as most women love-as much, at any rate, as I am capable of loving." "As well as you loved Philip?"Bryan asks bitterly. "Better, I thought. But everything has changed utterly since then. You cannot want me as I am now." "Do you lmean, when you speak in a past tense, that you no. longer care for me-that this utter change you tell me of is, that you do not love me?" Hortense cannot speak this falsehood. She is as true to him now as on the day she listened to his love-tale. Now that she knows she must lose him she is long- ing for him unutterably. She is not false to Bryan. Only, Philip's sin has shut her out from him, and yet she can- not tell him that it has. "Do you no longer love me, Hor- tense?"Bryan repeats, unwilling to read an affirmation in her silence. "Love you? Yes, I love you. Yet, Bryan, you must let me go free all the same as if I said I hate you." "That I will never do. I have your own confession, and I will hold you to it, no matter what reason you give for breaking your promise to marry me." "Not if I wish to be freed from it?" "No matter how much you wish it." '"But you must free me," she says ve- hemently. "You cannot hold me if I will not be held." "Can't I?" he replies, smiling down on her. "I defy you to be rid of me after your confession that you love me." He is counting on always being near her. It is only a little mile from Bridge- ford to Aytoun, so cannot he press his love upon her day by day? and can she escape him? Yet to-morrow he may search for her and fail to find her. She is tempted to let the old bond stand, and when she cannot be found, search as he may, Bryan will in time break it himself. This is the simplest way out of all her difficulties. But no, as Philip's sister she must break it. There must be no stain, no chance of stain, on Bryan's name. "Bryan," she pleads, "why will you torture me? I tell you I cannot marry you, cannot let our engagement stand. We are forced to say good-bye to each other, and go our different ways." "And do you think I am to be put off so easily-that I will make no fight for the old life and love? Hortense, what can you mean? In one breath you con- fess you still love me, and then at once you talk of our parting. You must give me some reason for it, then-something better than a seeming whim." "It is no whim, only a sad necessity," Hortense says. "Others besides us have loved and have been forced to separate. Why'should we complain?" "Others may have separated for a sufficient cause. If ryou think I will blindly give you up, you are mistaken." "You will not do it blindly if I tell you the cause is sufficient?" "I will have your proof then, not your mere assertion. I will judge my- self of the sufficient cause, not take your word for it. Hortense, cannot you see what you are asking me to do-to give up the love I have cherished for more than two years, and all the hopes born of it?-to give up all right to you, even the slight one of speaking to you calmly? -to give up all hope of having you always? Can you ask this of me, the man you still confess you love? Even if there is anything to part us, do not tell me of it. I will trust you to do me no harm." "But I should harm you: I could not help doing so. Bryan, why make me confess so much when I would fain be silent? Is it not enough for me to say I Cannot marry you?" "No, not enough to say it. There must be something more than mere words to- part us. You are speaking under some strong excitement, though you are so quiet, not from cool judg- ent. As if I did not know at least what is best for myself, and that is, to keep you as my own!" "It is not best for you," Hortense re- plies hurriedly. "Bryan, there is that which should part us even if I stood by your side at the altar. And there are but few who would think I am wrong in resolving so." Bryan is startled, and looks at her half angrily: "Hortense, do you know what you are saying?" She does not flinch under his frown. She is Philip Dunbar's sister, and she must not be Bryan Bonham's wife. Neither must she put herself out of the reach of Philip, even if Bryan should urge her to. Both of her loves draw her into the same path now-the first time they have ever done so. "I must say it," she answers firmly. "I must be as truthful as I dare to be. I must save your name from shame, mine from infamy. Because a sin is a secret one is it any the less black?" "Sin and Hortense are not yoked to- gether in my thoughts." He speaks soothingly. Perhaps he begins to doubt if she is sane, and re- members his fortunate arrival at the rapids a few minutes before. Hortense is thankful for his faith in her, but the stronger she finds it the more reason that she should do him no wrong. "Bryan, there is something to separate us-something I dare not name even to you," Hortense says firmly. "But you must name it. I will not let you go from me, leaving me uncertain of the cause." "But I must go. I tell you I would not marry you if you were to plead with me on your knees, and knew without a doubt the reason why we separate." "Then you have ceased to love me, Hortense?" She does not answer him; does not even look toward him. "And all the sweet things you said but a few minutes ago are false?" Still she is silent. * "And you thought you would part from me, fooling me into a belief that you still loved me, and that an unhap- py fate so willed it-making me think there was a reason for your change of purpose, more than a change in your feelings?" She is like one swimming against the tide. If she hesitates, pauses a moment in her effort to save herself, she will drift back, and all her previous efforts will have been in vain. She cannot answer him, only remains silent, and this silence stings him past endurance. "And you have 'been putting me off for months, pleading Philip's want of you, when your own falseness was the true reason-not letting our engagement irk you, only because you saw me so seldom-listening to my beseechings when you no longer cared to answer them? Hortense, have you neither honesty nor truthfulness to own it?" Still she does not answer him. Better let him think what he will of her than know the truth, even if it made him cling but the closer to her. ," And you are shameless too," he says bitterly. "You would have me believe you guilty even of a sin rather than know you as you really are-merely heartless. You would play the heroic, page: 60-61[View Page 60-61] and make a seeming tragedy of your miserable farce." Once before he finished she turned to answer him, but dropped her eyes when they met his, and walked on mutely. Bryan thinks he has hurt her with his bitter taunts. He does not know she only shrinks from the wrong he is doing himself, and from which she dares not shield him. "Hortense," Bryan says, still angrily, "you must answer me. How long is it since you came to this determination to drop me? Have you been playing your pretty game of fooling me ever since you were engaged to me? When did you decide to tell me what you have to-day?" "The night before last," she replies, and the words seem to come against her will. *'And I ask again, What decided you?" She does not say, "Gerald Alston's dead face, and the knowledge of who killed him," but she replies, wearily, "What is the use of going back to causes? I tell you I must break our engagement, and you decide that I am false. I am content to let it rest there: why will not you?" "Because I cannot bear to think of all my trust and all your falseness-because I would fain find a reason for your fickleness." Again she does not answer him, for what has she to say? Only the truth, that she is steadfast to him. And if he questions her still further, what next must she tell him? Bryan is watching her face, and he reads something there -something of her love for him, some- thing of her struggle. "Hortense," he says very bitterly, "Philip is at the bottom of this, and you will not own it." She starts and glances up at him with frightened eyes-eyes which have known no sleep for two weary nights. Bryan sees the start and her terrified look, and continues pitilessly: "And you are will- ing to sacrifice me to Philip, willing to render my life void and worthless, never heeding what you make me suffer, so you can pamper him a while, until he finds another girl as great a fool as Grace Robson to throw you over for." "Philip will never marry," Hortense rejoins. "So no doubt you both think just now, whilst he is smarting under Grace's slight. - He will think differently after a time, and your pretty martyrdom will go for what it deserves." "Do you want me so much," Hor- tense asks, for the moment turning on him for his bitter words, " that you would taunt me into marrying you? Is it not enough that I am false and worthless, but you must hunt me to the death? Cannot you leave me to Philip if as yet he is not weary of me?" "Yes, I surely can," Bryan replies. "But if you think I do it meekly, with a blessing on your future, you are wrong there. What right had you to come with your truthful-seeming face to fool me? what right had you to swear to love me, when I was less than nothing to you --nothing in comparison with your worthless brother? I tell you, Hortense, to his dying day Philip shall regret this piece of his handiwork." Bryan's threat is idle. Angry as he is, he would not hurt Philip if it were in his power to do so. But by his threat he has sealed Hortense's lips. A mo- ment ago she flinched so under his bit- ter words, which had seemed almost a curse, that she half decided to trust him with Philip's secret. But she will not now, but says quietly, "Let me bear the blame. Philip would not part us: he urged me yesterday to leave him and go to you-urged me strongly, with a love that thought first of my happiness." Bryan does not notice her implied re- buke, but asks, "Then this separating from me is your own act?" "My own," Hortense answers. "Then there is nothing more to say. We must treat you women delicately, even if you are false and fickle. Why I should ever have trusted you is the mystery." They have crossed the fields now, and have turned into the road not very far from Aytoun. Bryan stops here, as if not going farther. In full view from where they stand is the belt of wood near which Gerald Alston lay the night Hortense found him with the wound in his head. But even at that sight she does not shudder, as she does at the thought that she and Bryan are parting now for ever, and that he is hurt and angry with her. "Are we to part with only harsh words?" she asks. "Do you wish soft, sweet ones from me now?"Bryan questions. "They might as well be kind ones, as we are parting, perhaps, for ever." "And do you regret the parting? I thought you wished it. I was slow to take in the fact at first, until you were at some trouble to convince me." "And yet we need not part so bitterly. If you think me wrong, you may as well forgive me." "If I think you wrong! If I am in doubt, there is no use in my striving to forgive you." "Be it so, then. You are more cruel to yourself, Bryan, by far, than you are to me. And yet if at any time you find in your heart an excuse for me, it will be a comfort to me to know it." "You will die comfortless then, I fear," he answers, roughly. "I will be more honest than you have been with me, and so will tell you, plainly, I am not one to love you after you have proved yourself unworthy. I shall do my best to forget you, to crowd you out of my heart. It may be hard to do at first, but it is worth the effort, and I will make a brave fight for it." She does not plead any longer-she will make no more attempts to win his forgiveness, to establish peace between them. Her love is so different from his: neither doubt, nor change, nor sin could kill it. It might be forced out of the channel of perfect trust into a shallower one, but she would still love on. Bryan sees she has turned to go, and he gives his last thrust somewhat bitterly: "If I had not met you on the cliff! If I had another day to think you true to me! But you have robbed me utterly of all trust and faith. If I had stayed 1 another hour by Gerald Alston's bed- side, I should have been spared a long day's suffering." Gerald Alston's bedside! Hortense turns to him again. Her eyes are ask- ing what she cannot put into words. Then the light dies out of them as she remembers there are watches kept by the side of dead men, as well as by the side of the dying. "I have been watching by Gerald Al- ston," Bryan says, answering the ques- tion he had read in her eyes a minute before. "It is better to be laid low by the cowardly hand of an assassin than to be stabbed by one whom we have loved and trusted." "Is Gerald Alston not buried yet?" asks Hortense, feeling she must say something, and catching up in her haste the most fearful words she can use. "He is not dead yet, only badly wounded." "Not dead?" "No: what made you think so? The doctors have good hopes of his recovery. His enemy did not do his cruel work as well as you have done yours." Not dead! And there is hope! She does not heed his taunt. All is not so completely over with them as he thinks, and she is about to tell him so, when Bryan adds, coldly, "I have been sitting up all night, and have not found my early walk as beneficial as I hoped. You will pardon me if I say Good- morning." He lifts his hat with bare courtesy and turns down the road toward Bridgeford. Hortense does not call him back. The reaction is too great for her, and' dizzy, almost reeling, but with a 'feeling of intense thankfulness to Heaven, she leans against one of the trees until her weakness is somewhat past. One thought alone is uppermost-Gerald Alston is alive, and Philip's hands are clean from blood! Bryan glances back and sees Hortense standing there, and believes she is watch- ing him. She may take her last look, for he is not one to be fooled twice, he thinks. She must try her lessons on another. page: 62-63[View Page 62-63] "Philip," Hortense says, laying her hand on his shoulder as she speaks, "Gerald Alston is not dead, and the doctors have good hopes of his recovery." She has found Philip in the library, with his arms resting on the table, and his face buried on them, thinking what thoughts she can only guess. He raises his head as she speaks, and looks as if groping to take in her meaning, and then says in a low, hurried voice, "Thank God!" Hortense takes these words to heart as we take words of penitence on a death- bed from careless, sinful lips. Here- after there will be less gloom in her life because of that whisper. "Who told you he was dead?" asks Philip suspiciously. "No, one," Hortense answers quietly, for she has no fear now of losing her hold on him, no dread that he will turn away from her. "I saw him myself on the road, as I thought, dead." "On the road? Where?"Philip asks. "At the edge of the woods, just where he fell." "Fell?" He would learn how much she knows. "Yes, fell," she answers steadily. "Just where he was shot." "Shot? Who could-" But she interrupts him quickly: "I found your pistol close beside him on the road." Philip cannot disclaim it, for his name is upon it; so he asks quickly, "What did you do with it?" "I was afraid it might do you mischief, and I have just come from throwing it into the Whirlpool, which will keep it safe." "And you have known all this, and never turned from me? Hortense, why is your love unlike all other women's?" She thinks he is referring to Grace, whose faithlessness has brought all this sin and wretchedness upon him. She has not forgiven Grace quite yet, and she says, a little bitterly, "You judged me by too low a standard." "By Grace Robson's height? Do you think I have given a second thought to her since she broke with me?" "I thought she-" and then she stops. Grace's ride with Gerald, followed by her note, she has thought all this while, was the motive of Philip's act. He un- derstands her, and says, "What I have done does not bear a feather's weight on Grace. She may marry whom and when she pleases, and I shall only wish her joy on her wedding-day." "What, then, tempted you?" asks Hortense. "To do such a deed? Neither love nor jealousy. When Grace's note came there was another from Lancaster, tell- ing me Gerald Alston had bought up the mortgage, and then of course Grace's little note informed me there was not the smallest chance of my paying it off, for I only hoped to do so with her money. Even then, though I might have cursed Alston, I never thought of working him any harm. I heard in Bridgeford some silly vaunt the man had made about own- ing Aytoun-a boast that he had only gained what he had long plotted for." "Had you any words with him?" Hortense asks. "No: I did not even see him then. I met him on the edge of the town. We were both on horseback, and I should never have known him in the dark if he had not chanced to pass under a street lamp. I was armed, and smarting un- der the recollection of more than one wrong, for all the scandal Bridgeford has enjoyed about me for these months past was part of Alston's work. He would win Grace by any means-Grace or Blidale Mill." Hortense does not ask any questions. Philip maytell her as much as he pleases: she will not seek to know more than he chooses. But he does not need to be questioned, for he intends to make a clean breast of it. "The devil prompted me, as I caught sight of Alston's face under the gaslight. I let him get ahead of me, intending to overtake him at the gate and speak to him-not kind words, you may be sure. But Harold became frightened at the rising storm and ran madly. There was no chance for words, and, as I said, the devil prompted me." "And that was the reason you never drew your rein for even a moment?" Hortense says. "You were there?" "Near by, amongst the trees. I did not know any harm was done, for I heard both horses running." "Yes, Alston's ran too, frightened by the pistol-shot. I managed to turn Har- old down a side path, and so left the road to the riderless horse, and I made a circuit and came into the turnpike some miles above. At the tollgate I heard that Gerald Alston was killed, and that his horse had been found miles away. It was supposed that the man who had killed him had ridden the horse until he was foundered, and then had left him on the road, making good his own escape. The toll- keeper never dreamed to whom he was telling his story. Nor did I ever dream, Hortense, that you knew the truth, or I might not have faced you, as I did, as if I were guiltless of Gerald Alston's blood. Yet even you cannot tell what I have suffer- ed in knowing no act of-mine could wash out the red stain. It was very fearful." "God shield us from the consequences of all our blind and hasty deeds!"Hor- tense says fervently. "And you are sure Alston is alive?" "Very sure." "Who told you?" "Bryan. He watched by him last night." "Bryan! Then life will not be so weary for you, dear, as I feared I had made it." "The weariness is all past," is Hor- tense's answer. page: 64-65[View Page 64-65] :PAPR T 7VI. CHAPTER XI. The warm noon ends in frost, The worldly tongues of promise, Like sheep-bells, die out from us On the desert hill cloud-crossed. TO-NIGHT Hortense sleeps a sleep as dreamless as death. Philip's sin, Bryan's harsh words, the shadows before her, the gloom behind, have all been kindly blotted out by "Nature's soft nurse." There was no journey taken last night, for Philip has lost his fears, and he will not steal away now in the darkness when he is in no danger. And Hortense's cloud begins to lift a very little, and is not quite so dark, showing a silver lining if she can judge by the edges. Of course, Aytoun will have to be given up, but that is a light trouble, if she can walk out of the old home in broad daylight, compared to the bitter- ness of a night-flitting. And Bryan may yet know why she had thought it best to free him from their engagement. She owes it to her former lover to tell him, and life would not be so heavy if she knew he no longer thought hardly of her. So Hortense wakes to find to-day is not so oppressive with its cares and sor- rows as yesterday, and she is not so cast down. Philip too has risen above the utter horror of the past two days. His or- ganization is not a very delicate one, and, being"-free from the outward con- sequence of his crime, he will soon for- get there was any sin in it. And Hor- tense finds he has risen to his usual level. Whilst she is in the dim twilight, Philip is again basking in the full sun- shine, almost forgetful of the Egyptian darkness he has passed through. Philip rides out of the iron gate of Aytoun with much the same feeling of joy with which the prisoner leaves his dungeon. His confinement of two days has made him restless and impatient for motion, and now that he can ride " over the country a free man, with no fear of being stopped, he is anxious to be in the saddle. Gerald Alston lying wounded almost to death will not haunt him long, for, not having drunk the bit- ter cup of death, he is not so sure that Alston has not had fitting punishment for his malice and scandal. That he, Philip Dunbar, should have made him- self judge and avenger is not much of a sin in his eyes. Hortense sees Philip ride off with a slight sense of relief, for she would be alone with her thoughts, and she is feel- ing keenly the reaction mortals are bound to feel after there has been a greater strain than usual on nerves and emotions. So she sits idly thinking of the past and present, and a little of the future. It is nearing the dinner-hour, and Hor- tense goes down stairs to be in readiness to meet Philip when he comes in. She wonders where he can be so long, and thinks he has forgotten the flight of time, weighed down, as she fain would hope, with so sore a burden. She has no pre- sentiment of future trouble in store for her: there is none of the hush which is said to come before the earthquake. The feet of them who bring evil tidings are at the very door, and she hears them not. She does hear a noise at last, which attracts her attention, for she is listening for Philip's footstep. So she opens the door to go and meet him, but instead she comes upon a strange man, a labor- er, she judges from his dress, standing in the hall. Hortense thinks he needs help from her: she never dreams he is there to offer help to her. The rough jacket covers a kind heart, and he is anxious to give her some little preparation for the trial in store for her. "It -is an accident," he says quickly. "The master has been thrown from his horse." "Philip! where?"She asks so quietly he never guesses the words come me- chanically, but thinks she would know the spot where the accident happened. So he tells her: "Just at the end of the woods-not a hundred yards from his own gate." Just where Gerald Alston fell-just where she had seen the white face of the man she left for dead! She starts to pass out of the hall door to go to Philip, now that she knows where he is. But the man holds her back. "They are coming with him," he tells her: "you will do no good by going." "How did it happen?" asks Hortense, glad to hear a human voice in this agony of suspense. "The horse shied at something on the roadside, and he was thrown." The horse remembered better than his master what had happened when he last passed that spot. He had not forgotten the sudden pistol-shot which had hasten- ed his mad gallop into a still swifter one, and he would not go by the place. Hor- tense takes in this thought, this just ret- ribution perhaps, yet not less bitter from its being just. "You had better send for the doctor, to have him here handy if the master is still alive," the man suggests, seeing Hortense is still waiting there. This rouses her to action, and life is more bearable because of the dim hope his words bring her. There are two women keeping lonely watch to-night -Gerald Alston's-moth- er and Hortense Dunbar. The mother watches tenderly, but at every groan of suffering there is something very like a curse in her heart on the hand that caused the pang. But there is a bless- ing too in the same heart for the un- known one who bound up the wound and thus saved the precious life. The curses, if they fell, would do no harm to Philip Dunbar, who lies still and deathke, past' all harming. Only the room does not wear the appearance death is sure to give, and Hortense watches with the look on her face sus- pense always gives. There is no one near her save the two 5 women-servants, who are kind and sym- pathizing, and the doctor, who comes frequently, watching all the time to see how her strength holds out. He has known her all her life, and loves her very much as he would love his own daughter if he had one. Philip has never been much of a favorite with him, but he looks pityingly at the almost life- less form of the strong, handsome man" suddenly brought down to utter helpless- ness. It is one of the mysteries of life, such as he often sees and as often won- ders at. There is one prayer in Hortense's heart, never breathed because she dares not name it-that consciousness and contrition may be vouchsafed. She has a strong hope, too, that Bryan will hear of her trouble, and will forget his anger and come to her. She is beginning to weary for that sympathy which alone makes trouble bearable-not words, but the mere presence of one who loves her, if only to break the stillness which has fallen over the old home. For many weeks Hortense has kept watch at Philip's bedside. Now and then one of the servants comes to insist upon taking her place while she goes to lie down, promising to call her at the slightest change. But there has been no change in the state of the rigid form lying there. It is not death, and yet it scarcely seems to be life. So the weeks drag on, and then there comes a little change for the better-a slight consciousness and a little moving of the head and arms. Then the doctor gives his opinion. "Philip may grow better," he says; and then he stops to watch Hortense's face, so as not to tell too suddenly all he fears. "Will he never be altogether well?" Hortense asks, feeling sure there is some- thing kept from her knowledge. "The spine is certainly injured," the doctor says significantly. "Tell me the whole truth, please." "He will never walk again, I fear;" and then he adds, "The brain is very apt to suffer with the spine, and Philip's case is not different from the common run of them." page: 66-67[View Page 66-67] It is a double sentence--mind and body both are useless for this world's work! "Will he suffer?"Hortense asks, catching at the one hope. "No: if he did, his case would not be so hopeless. I must not deceive you, Hortense. Philip will never be himself again-not imbecile, but weak in mind and body." Hortense does not murmur or give a groan, and yet the full weight of the retribution seems to fall on her frail shoulders; for Philip lies there quietly, only at times is he conscious, and-when he is, he seldom asks any questions about himself; and no one would care to tell him of his fate-always to be a prisoner, never a free man again. Heretofore, Hortense has not known the passive suffering which makes saints. Action may make martyrs and conquer- ors, but it never places the glory on the head which shows the victory is com- plete, the battle won. "Mr. Lancaster is down stairs, Miss 'Hortense." Philip is asleep, so she motions to the servant to take her place whilst she goes down to see her old friend. She finds him in the library, not seat- ed comfortably, but walking about rest- ,lessly. He comes forward to meet her with outstretched hands, and marks, as he speaks to her, the change sorrow and watching have made. Yet he never tells her she is pale and worn-looking, but inquires at once for Philip. "He is as well as he will be for a long time, perhaps' ever, the doctor thinks," she replies sadly. "Is he sitting up?" Hortense shakes her head. As yet she cannot trust herself to speak of Phil- ip's condition, even to so old a friend as Mr. Lancaster. "There will be no risk in moving Philip?"Mr. Lancaster asks anxiously. "Moving will do him no harm," Hor- tense replies, and for a moment her eyes :are bright with glistening tears. But these do not drop, and she asks firmly, '"Is the old home to be given up so soon?" "You are not to be hurried, and yet if I were you I should leave as soon as I could conveniently: your staying here now is only through an act of courtesy. Have you thought of any place where you would like to make your new home?" "No," answers Hortense. "I have had no time to think in my anxiety for Philip. It will not be very troublesome to make our move, however. Yet I would like you to tell me exactly how everything stands, and what is left to us." "You must leave everything in the house just as it is : only your wearing apparel and Philip's, your jewelry and private papers, can you take with you. Everything else must remain." Mr. Lancaster speaks in the low, hushed voice we are used to hear in a sick room or where a corpse is lying. He has been too long a friend of the family not to feel sorrow and mortifica- tion in telling Hortense that everything has passed out of her hands, and he would be angry with Philip if Philip could be an object now of any feeling but pity. "Is there nothing left for Philip?" asks Hortense after a little pause. "A little, a very little. Just something to eke out your income with-hardly a help, though. I am glad I was too late when I tried to pay off the mortgage with your money. It would have been only swallowed up in the general ruin. There has been fearful waste and mis- management, and-" But Hortense interrupts him with a question, for she cannot bear now to hear Philip blamed, however justly: "Where do you advise me to go?" She needs his counsel, for without it she would be like one set down on the roadside with no shelter near at hand. "Bridgeford would be the most con- venient place, I should suppose." Hortense winces at this. Bridgeford she would hardly have chosen to live in. And yet Philip cannot be mdved very far, and she does not know any other place well enough to say it will suit them better. "Will you try lodgings?"Mr. Lan- caster asks, thinking, as Hortense makes no objection to Bridgeford, she is satis- fied to live there. "No: it would never do, on Philip's account." "You will hardly be able to furnish. Suppose you take a furnished house to begin with?" "That will be my best plan. A fur- nished house will save me a great deal of worry and trouble, and I cannot leave Philip for very long at a time just now." "Then let me procure the direction from an agent of such furnished houses as are to be had. Then we can see which will suit you best, and I will come for you and we. will go and judge of them. I will try to come for you to- morrow." "Bettertakeahouse atonce. Itscheap- ness will be recommendation enough for me." She thinks of saying something about the situation on Philip's account. But she checks herself, for fear any sugges- tion on her part may hamper Mr. Lan- caster. But he will not hear of choosing a house for her. She must see and judge for herself in such an important matter. And it is arranged that he will come for her to-morrow in his carriage, and show her the houses recommended by the agent which are within her means. They fall into silence now that their business is over. Hortense is thinking how Philip will bear the move and the new home-whether he will miss famil- iar objects and grow sad under the change. And Mr. Lancaster is thinking of days long passed, when Hortense's grandfather and he were friends, and Aytoun was a pleasure and delight to -him. "I have been in and out of this old home ever since I was a boy," he says at last. "Eight generations of the Dun- bars have lived and died here-have had all of life's sorrows and joys within these walls." Hortense looks up at the pictures hanging round-pictures she has seen from her babyhood-glances up at the one Grace Robson admired so much for the gloss on the satin dress and for the Spanish point; and Hortense wonders if any of those ancestors of hers had in all their lives such sorrow as she has had in the last few weeks. But they smile at her as if they knew nothing of heart-troubles, or would keep them to themselves. "I have done my best to keep ruin from the house, but it was impossible," Mr. Lancaster resumes. "Philip came too young into the prop- erty-before he knew enough of man- agement," Hortense replies. "All his extravagances have been more from want of judgment than from any fault of his." She is eager to defend him, for who else is there to say a word for him? And Mr. Lancaster is not one to find pleasure in crushing the pale girl before him with the history of Philip Dunbar's misman- agement and debts. "It does not matter much whose fault it is that the old place must change hands. I never expect to cross the threshold after you leave it. Henceforth, Aytoun will be an unknown place to me." "There will be other friends, I hope, to its owners, but never as true a one as we have found in you," Hortense says gratefully. Mr. Lancaster has risen to go. There is nothing to converse about except busi- ness or the leaving of the old home, and both are trying subjects to Hortense. And besides, she is not sure Philip is not awake and wanting her; so she does not press her old friend to stay. She follows him into the hall, to the door, to see him drive off. On the threshold he stops to answer a question she has put to him with just a little quiv- er in the voice which she has failed quite to steady: "Who is master of old Ay- toun now?" "Gerald Alston," Mr. Lancaster an- swers briefly. "And he is well again?" "Perfectly recovered, as if by a mira- cle. The doctor ascribes it to the timely binding up of his wound by some good Samaritan, who stopped there in his work, however, and, unlike the one in page: 68-69[View Page 68-69] the Bible, left the wounded man on the roadside. Some think that Alston him- self had presence of mind enough to bind up the wound, as his own handker- chief was used for the purpose. He has not thd slightest recollection of doing it, but that may be accounted for by his losing all consciousness afterward. The men who found him and brought him to Bridgeford in their wagon thought they were handling a corpse." Gerald Alston well and strong again, and saved perhaps by her hand! Hor- tense is very thankful to hear such news of the master of Aytoun. If she and Philip must go out of these doors, it is at least without the stain of blood on their name. Gerald Alston is well and strong, able to enjoy his new posses- sions. She stands there comforted by this thought, and Mr. Lancaster is pity- ing her, believing she is only feeling the full bitterness of giving up the old home into the hold of a stranger.. If Philip had tried to rob Gerald Al- ston of his life, was it not by Hortense's hand it was saved to him? But she does not think of this, or thinks only, thankfully, of the mercy vouchsafed to that simple act of hers-the mercy of freeing Philip's hand from blood-guilt- iness. After this several notes pass between Mr. Lancaster and Hortense in reference to her future home. Furnished houses are not often to be met with in Bridge- ford, for it is only when the death or re- moval of the head of the family occurs that renting the furniture also is ever resorted to. So Mr. Laicaster, after many delays and disappointments, has only succeed- ed in hearing of one house within Hor- tense's means, and the agent tells him that it is small and meanly furnished, and the situation disagreeable-not at all suited to the Dunbars. But Hortense writes to take the house by all means. She is in haste to leave Aytoun-in haste that Gerald Alston should have possession. Mr. Lancaster will not take it until Hortense sees it for herself, and he writes that he will send his carriage for her. So she is obliged to give her decision, for her friend calls for her himself. It is the first time in her life that Hor- tense has ever preferred a close carriage. But now she gladly draws back into the farthest corner, where she can neither see nor be seen. But Mr. Lancaster thinks it is kinder to try to draw off her thoughts a little from herself. So he begins with inquiries about Philip, for which Hortense is grate- ful, and she rouses herself to talk. She hears his copious regrets over the dam- age the storm did on that night she never closed her eyes, and yet never heard the wind which wrought the mischief. And she points out which trees are down and which are broken and injured. Outside the gate there are other places to point out, but Mr. Lancaster is cice- rone now. He is sure he knows the spot where Gerald Alston was shot-on the very night of the storm, too-and is anxious that Hortense should lean for- ward to see it the better. He is a quar- ter of a mile out of the way, but she does not correct him with her superior knowledge, but lets him talk on uninter- rupted as he wonders who Gerald Als- ton's enemy could have been. It was odd there should be no trace, and that even Gerald himself has no idea who shot him, or, if he knows, chooses to re- main silent on the subject. "It has made a dreadful coward, I fear, of Mrs. Alston," Mr. Lancaster adds. "She cannot get over a dread she has that Gerald will be brought home to her dead some day-that his enemy is on the watch for him. She behaved well enough at the time, I be- lieve. But that is very often the case with you women. You are more ner- vous after a danger is over than at the moment." Hortense knows how idle the mother's fears are. If Mrs. Alston knew it was Philip Dunbar she is nervous about, she would lose all dread. But as Hortense is silent, Mr. Lancaster never suspects how,much of the mystery of the attempt on Gerald Alston's life the girl sitting next to him can disclose. They are driving through the streets of Bridgeford now, and it is not so easy to keep up a conversation rattling over cobble-stones, scarcely able to hear your own voice. So Mr. Lancaster gives up all attempt to beguile Hortense's thoughts away from her trouble by his talk. They are not very far from Grace Robson's house. Her carriage is before the door, and Grace, brilliant in wine- colored silk and plumes, has just seated herself in it, and is giving some direc- tions to the coachman. Involuntarily, Hortense thinks of Philip, and how Grace and Aytoun have both slipped through his grasp, and without regret on his part. Hortense has drawn even farther back into the corner of the carriage. She does not care to meet Grace to-day, of all others, when she is seeking a new home. But they do not drive past Grace's, but have turned into a side street. With one turn more they have stopped before the row of tenement-houses, and Hor- tense sees, with almost a shudder, that Mr. Lancaster is giving directions to his driver to ring the bell of one of the houses-that which she once felt a pass- ing interest in because of the bit of black which hung from the bell-handle. Her half-idle curiosity that morning will be answered now. The dead one must have been of some importance there, or the house and furniture would not be to let. Some of the family com- fort has evidently died also. The mistress of the house is ready to show Hortense and Mr. Lancaster the rooms, and she is very eager that the young lady should be pleased with everything. To her all is beyond com- mendation, and it is a trial to give up such good furniture into the hands of any one. To be sure, this lady, she hears, has only a sick brother, and she inclines to her as a tenant. There will be no children to scratch and spoil the furniture. So she leads the way into the small, close room she dignifies as parlor, and which she seems to regard with special pride. The hard-stuffed horsehair sofa, devised to torture weary ones, never to rest them; the half dozen stiff-backed chairs, covered with the same chilly ma- terial; a round table with a flaming red cover on it; a well-blacked stove, guiltless of fire; even the rows of photo- graphs which hang on the wall, sus- pended by long red cords-caricatures of faces which even the flattering brush of a painter could never make hand- some; the large red-and-green pattern of the thin ingrain carpet, -each and every one of these the mistress of the house shows with pride and evident sat- isfaction. Mr. Lancaster groans aloud as he sees Hortense standing in this poor room listening to the woman's commendations of her possessions. Hortense in her dainty beauty amongst such poor vul- garity! It is like hanging a Madonna by one of the old masters amongst the woman's ugly kindred. Hortense never groans for herself, but listens graciously to the woman's self- complacent talk, tries at her request the softness of the sofa-which slides her off viciously-examines the draught of the stove, though she is no wiser when she hears how good it is, there being no such ugly thing in the old home at Aytoun. She looks, too, at the plain face of the departed master, and makes kind inquiries for the children. And the woman finds no cause to blush for her poor furniture, and never suspects that the lady has a finer and more lux- urious home than she. Has had, for Aytoun is no longer Hortense's home. There are other rooms to show, but evidently not so fine in their mistress's eye, yet larger and capable of being ren- dered more habitable. Hortense hopes, by a judicious moving of the furniture and some small additions, Philip may be made comfortable, and that he will not miss old Aytoun after a little while. And Mr. Lancaster is surprised to find she is satisfied and ready to come to terms with the woman for immediate possession. "We shall do very well," she assures Mr. Lancaster cheerfully. "Some bright chintz and a few pretty chromos will make a wonderful difference in the ap- pearance of things: you will not know page: 70-71[View Page 70-71] this room when you come to see Philip, and he will not miss Aytoun very long," she adds, with a sad fall in her voice. After this Hortense is in haste to get her flitting over. There is nothing to do at Aytoun but to burn old papers and pack the clothing. Some of her jewelry she will sell to buy the chintz and chro- mos: the rest she will keep until she needs money more than she does just now. Those letters Grace once drove to Ay- toun for, and after all left behind her, Hortense finds thrown carelessly in one of the pigeonholes of Philip's desk, and she sends them back to Grace without a line or message. Philip has no need of such an earnest of a past love, as he once said he would keep them for; and to Hortense they are very valueless. And so, walking out of the old home flooded with the winter sunshine, with everything around her just as she has seen it all her life, very much as if she were going only to return in a few hours, Hortense is forced to leave Aytoun. The pictures are on the walls where the Dunbars have always had the right to be. The silver glitters on the old oak sideboard. Even the silver tankard stands in its place on the hall table, where in days of ague and miasma it had always been kept full of our grand- fathers' specific against such disorders- mint-julep, which, if not as efficacious as quinine, was at least more palatable. But now its lid is closed, and it is to be for ever empty of its legitimate contents. The old dog on the door-mat looks up as Hortense goes out. But he does not offer to follow the carriage, for in his experience Hortense has always come back, and he is too stiff for a needless run. Philip does not like to be moved. He would rather be left where he is, and Hortense's full attention has to be given to soothe and coax him into believing he is pleased with the drive. And so she never heeds when she passes out of the iron gate of Aytoun-to her as much closed as Eden was to our common mother. But no angel guards this gate; only, Gerald Alston owns it. There is one familiar face to welcome Hortense to the tenement-house near Blidale Mill, one familiar voice to speak to her; for the younger of the servants has asked to follow her mistress into her new home, and Hortense has gladly taken her. There is some comfort, too, in seeing that Philip is contented with her arrange- ments, and that he does not seem to miss Aytoun. At times the shrill whistle of Blidale Mill will call out a fretful com- plaint, but it does not bring with it any association with Grace Robson. Only a feeble ray of sunshine ever struggles into the windows of Philip's room. It does its best to contend with the dismal back-buildings and chimneys which would fain shut it out altogether, and it manages to do double duty in lighting up the pale pink lining of the chintz curtains and the cheerful pictures hanging around. Philip is as fond of the sunbeam as any child could be, and watches it with delight as it dances now on Hortense's hair, warming it into a golden brown, and then on his own thin, pale hands. Hortense is as blithe as a bird may be in its new nest, sings to Philip and talks gayly to him, brings out the backgam- mon-board, and has no end of expe- dients to while away the time for him. Yet with all her strivings there is a sad look in her eyes which tells of a constant effort, and which those who know her best never remember to have seen there in the days which are past. In a little week Philip seems to have forgotten there was ever any other life save the one he now lives in the back room of the tenement-house near Bli- dale Mill. Whether Hortense dwells on other days no one can tell. She has no one to talk to about them but Philip, and he has lost everything save a dim mem- ory of Aytoun. At night there is not a sound to break the stillness of the street Philip Dunbar and Hortense have found their new home in, except the passing step now and then of some belated tippler coming from the neighboring tavern. All the population around them is too weary with the hard day's work not to be thankful for the boon of sleep. But in the street whose back-buildings shut off from them the sunshine and the fresh air which should be theirs, there is the rolling of carriage-wheels and the sound of soft stringed music. The bright light from one of the houses has caused many of the passers-by to halt and to ask what is going on. It is a wedding, they say, which has made more stir than has been known in Bridgeford since the panic in the cotton- mills many years ago. For not only is Grace Robson, the bride, an heiress who has broken many hearts in Bridgeford, but Gerald Alston, the bridegroom, has just risen from a bed most thought his deathbed, and the curiosity has not died out yet as to the person who shot him, and why the act was done. Yes, Grace Robson has married Ger- ald Alston to-night, and she looks pretty in her orange blossoms and diamonds, her glistening silk and soft laces. Very lovely and a fitting mistress for Aytoun, most persons think. All, indeed, ex- cept Mr. Lancaster and a few old-fash- ioned ones, who contend that Hortense's reign there was perfect. That Gerald Alston bought up the mortgage on Aytoun everybody knows, as well as that he got the property very cheap. He is a lucky fellow, to step into such a house all furnished, with even the silver on the sideboard and the saucepans in the kitchen. Certainly he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and he is not one to care much if it chances to have a Dunbar cipher upon its handle. So Grace Robson's ambition is satis- fied. Whether she will ever miss the handsome eyes which so often held her captive, sometimes against her will; whether she will ever blush as she has to explain that the courtly gentlemen and beautiful women hanging on her walls are not hers by blood or mar- riage, only by purchase; whether she will ever feel that Aytoun has lost all its old reputation, and will soon be only the handsome residence of the owner of Blidale Mill,-we cannot say. But she will be wise enough not to complain, and no one need know whether she has paid dear for her gratification or not. And Bryan Bonham, is he too dan- cing at Grace Robson's wedding? No: Bryan is not a guest here. He is keep- ing a somewhat sorrowful watch by the bed of his grandfather to-night. Not such an all-engrossing one, though, that he can't give some bitter thoughts to Hortense. He knows she has left Ay- toun. But she has made her choice- his name and home, or Philip's-and, having chosen, she must abide by it. Bryan thinks he could have forgiven most-things, but it was not in his nature to stand being put last where he should be first. It is not in the nature of most of Adam's sons. Hortense's just duty, he argues, was to him, and as she failed even to love him better than her brother, he would keep his vow and crowd her out of his heart-that heart which for two years was hers only. If Bryan finds other women a little wearying, and in time love-making in- sipid and a mere waste of words, the fault must be in himself. Let him fight his battle, but whether conqueror or con- quered, it would be better to essay his armor before he makes boast of it. CHAPTER XII. Only my heart to my heart shall show it, As I walk desolat: day by day. MORE than a year has passed, and Grace Alston is queening it at Aytoun a little more royally than she did as Grace Robson at Bridgeford. Gerald is the important moneyed man of the county, for Blidale MiU has coined money lately under his judicious management. Any- one could tell he was a good man of business, since he bought Aytoun for such a song, and it is worth more than it ever was, now that Bridgeford is grow- ing out to its very gate. Hortense lives on the life she has chosen with Philip, in the small tene- ment-house near Blidale Mill-- with Philip, a man in stature, but needing the same care as a child. page: 72-73[View Page 72-73] Bryan Bonham has come back to Bridgeford to settle some affairs before he leaves the town altogether and takes possession of the new home he has in- herited by his grandfather's death.. Bridgeford has made rapid strides in improvement in the past year. Gerald Alston has given business such an im- petus by his fortunate speculations that mill upon mill has been built in the town, until the din of machinery has drowned all other sounds. Even the pretty river, the young peo- ple used to be fond of forming pleasure- parties to visit, has lost all its pictu- resqueness, and its waters, forced from their bed where they used to leap gayly over the rocks, flow now'with smooth swiftness into the narrow races, and at last do good service in turning the heavy mill-wheels. Bryan has been some weeks in Bridge. ford, and he has never sought out Hor- tense, nor even tried to hear of her, though it is more than a year since he parted from her on that early winter's morning. His wrath is in no way ap- peased, and he flatters himself that the past is as nothing to him, and that he could pass Hortense in the street and never feel a flutter of the pulse at the sight of her. Perhaps he is right, and the old love can die out easily, or else Heaven help many of the men and women in the world! Few win and keep the first fresh love, and so. it is to be hoped that but few hearts are true to it longer than the birds are to their mates. Gerald Alston has met Bryan more than once in Bridgeford, and has pressed him to come to Aytoun; and Grace has shown by a somewhat stiff little bow from her fine carriage that she is offend- ed at his neglect. For, as I said, she is queening it at old Aytoun, and she ex- pects due homage from all her acquaint- ance. So, in spite of a pressure of busi- ness he would fain plead as an excuse, and a shrinking he has from going to Hortense's old home, -he determines to do his duty and call. Perhaps if Grace still lived in Bridge- ford he would not consider himself in duty bound to go and see her, and he would only have been amused at her pretty airs. But as she lives at Aytoun, and as he does not intend that it shall have any hold on his heart, or even on his memory, he is determined to make a martyr of himself, to prove by an odd contradiction that there is no pain in store for him in the visit. Old Aytoun is looking very lovely in the bright June sunshine as Bryan opens the heavy gate and walks up the familiar avenue of oaks. Gerald has made some improvements in the grounds, but they are not in very good taste, and Nature would have done much better if left to her own graceful devices, instead of being shorn and trained by a landscape- gardener. Bryan marks every change, even misses the trees the wind blew down a year ago last winter. And as he does not miss Hortense also as he stands at the door waiting to be let in to the house once so familiar to him, he thinks the old love is dead, and he can without a shudder step over its grave. Grace welcomes him as a friend she is glad to see, even though he has been culpable in his neglect of her. And she soon proposes to take him to Gerald's sanctum, rather than to send for the busy man to come to her drawing-room, which he seldom visits. It is the old smoking-room into which Grace ushers Bryan, where the latter has had many a cigar, as well as gay talk over some hunting-party Philip was al- ways ready to head. Yet, if it were not for the locality of the room, Bryan could never guess he was in it. Ledgers have crowded out the sporting-books which used to lie about, and the guns and whips and spurs and pipes which once made a litter Hortense used to laugh at, but would never put to rights on account of these same guns, were all gone now -put into the garret, perhaps; for Ger- ald Alston is much too busy to care for the sports he liked well enough when he was struggling to climb the ladder which now he is ready to throw down, having stepped from the highest rung. Bryan sees a picture of Mount Vernon hanging over the mantel, where Philip's favorite race-horse used to be, and an oiled walnut hat-rack with Gerald's cipher in white beads on a crimson ground- Grace's work, no doubt-has taken the place of the huge deer-antlers which were wont to hang between the windows. There is nothing here to recall the past life at Aytoun, though much to tell of the rich, prosperous business-man of Bridgeford. Gerald is busy writing, but puts down his pen when Grace brings Bryan in. He always gives the morning to his busi- ness correspondence, when he does not go into Bridgeford; but he can afford to put aside his letters and entertain an old acquaintance for a half hour. At first, the conversation is general enough, and Grace bears her part in it, but soon it drops into the improvements at Bridge- ford, and labor-saving machinery, and the price of cotton, and the heavy taxes, and Grace keeps silent, not seeming to mind it, but as if used to being thrust out of the conversation. Bryan feels no more interest in Ger- ald's topics than Grace-seems to do. He thinks the vaunted improvements at Bridgeford rather questionable, but then he has no interest in any of its mills. So, whilst Gerald discourses without in- terruption, Bryan looks at the picture of Mount Vernon, at the white-bead cipher in the useless-looking hat-rack, and then glances at Grace herself, and thinks she has grown prettier since her marriage; which he rather wonders at, if she is used to such prosing as Gerald is favor- ing them with just now. But Grace does not hold his glance, any more than Gerald does his attention; and Bryan's eyes rove round for some- thing to rest on, until he is fascinated by a picture hanging on the wall-the sole remnant left of all Philip's old posses- sions. It is a picture of a fresh young face with brown eyes and hair-a face which has not changed since he last saw it, but which still looks saucily and smil- ingly at him, though he has said he never cared to set eyes on it again. Bryan is not thinking of the price of cotton as Gerald talks on: he is wonder- ing if Hortense looks now as she did when this picture was so wonderfully like her. Grace must be witch enough to read his thoughts, though perhaps she has only seen what he is looking at, for she says, "Have you seen Hor- tense since your return? She has sadly changed. No doubt she has a hard life of it, nursing her brother. They say he is little better than an idiot." "I can't bear that face," Gerald says, glancing up at the saucy beauty smiling on him, which must be a little exasper- ating to him, seeing he ought never to have had it in his possession. "It al- ways looks as if it were laughing at me." "How did you ever get it?"Bryan asks wonderingly, knowing how much Philip used to prize the picture. "It was in the house with the other things. I bought in everything as it stood. Of course a good deal of rub- bish fell to my lot." Bryan flushes angrily. He forgets how often he has said Hortense is noth- ing to him now. To see her picture hanging in Gerald Alston's room, and to hear it designated as rubbish-this his old love with her bonny face, smiling down on him just as she used to look when he came to Aytoun something more than a year ago-rouses his wrath. She does not smile on him now, he thinks bitterly, any more than on Ger- ald Alston, whom she always disliked, or on Grace, whom she had a right to frown on as one who played false to Philip. "Why do you keep the picture if you do not like it?"Bryan asks. "Because I found it here, and I don't care for a blank wall to gaze at. When I can find something I like to fill its place, I will send my haughty lady to the garret," is Gerald's answer. "Let me fill its place," Bryan says, before he takes much thought. "I will exchange an Eastlake for it." He sees the look and smile which the husband and wife interchange, and adds: "Phil- ip Dunbar may like to have the picture. He always thought it a good likeness, and certainly he ought to have it." So it is a bargain, for Gerald is glad page: 74-75[View Page 74-75] to part with the sunny face which always seems to mock him, and a genuine East- lake is not so easily met with. But old Mr. Bonham, Bryan's grandfather, was a picture-fancier, and when in Europe had spent much time over his collection; and there is not much fear of not getting a genuine painting if Bryan sends it. Hortense's face smiling on him as she used to do has set Bryan thinking of the past. For the first time he wishes he had taken the hand she held out to him when they parted on the road, and that his parting bow had been less cold. Heretofore he has been a little proud of his demeanor on that occasion, but sit- ting in Philip's old room and bargaining for Hortense's picture, he feels a flush of shame, and wishes he had left him- self a shadow of an excuse to go and see Philip, now that he is under the iron heel of misfortune. Bryan is in haste to leave Aytoun. He will not stay to dinner, though Ger- ald presses him, and he excuses himself from going over Grace's hot-houses, which she is so fond of showing. The house stifles him, and he is anxious for the fresh air. But once more in the road, he does not turn toward Bridgeford, but strikes across the fields into a footpath. There is no sign of the white rime which covered the fields the last time he walk- ed by the path. Instead are violets as blue as the sky above, and the golden disks of the dandelions. Why was Hortense in such haste to get rid of his love on that winter's day? -in such haste that she could hint at a crime, rather than not part from him. Where was she, that he had never heard her name mentioned until to-day? How t came it that she had died out of the i knowledge of every one, though he knew she still lived in Bridgeford'? It was strange that they had never chanced to meet. Was he glad that they had not? If it was Philip, as he believed, who had separated them, and the coarse words Grace had used of her former lover were true, ought he not to forgive Hortense? Had she not a life to lead that, bitterly as he felt toward her, he must pity? He had a great desire to see for himself whether that face had changed as much as Grace Alston said it had. Could the old love have done the work? Was it through a weary look- ing-back on what she had let slip from her? His own love had been dead a year, he said-killed that winter's morning when he last walked through these fields. Dead! and yet there was a pale ghost he could not lay offering him her hand, standing just there on the roadside. It was strange how this act of hers, which he once thought merited disdain, should haunt him to-day, and how he longed for a different parting, for then he would not hesitate, but could take Philip this picture, which he knew Philip would be glad to have again. Where are not Bryan's thoughts wan- dering through the past as he walks on? He has lost all control of them, and they leap wildly back from day to day, from week to week, from year to year. Only a little walk he would take over the fields this June morning, and he has ended at the cliffs which look down on the rapids; or rather where the rapids once were, for the rocks are bare and silent now, only a little water trickles over-them, and Bryan, if he chose, could cross to the opposite bank dryshod, jump- ing from rock to rock. Standing here on the cliff, and glan- cing down on what had once been the bed of the river, Bryan remembers how he had seen Hortense tottering on the edge of this very rock he is standing on, and how he had held his breath in fear until he bethought himself to try and save her; and of the relief he felt when he reached her and held her fast. If she had died then, if she had been crushed before his eyes, it would not have been half so bitter to him as to have lost her as he had. Standing where Hortense did that day, Bryan looks over the cliff,. wondering what she could have seen in the river to make her so careless of her life. Not what he is looking at now, for what was then a small whirlpool foaming and fret- ting between the rocks, is now only a cleft between two rocks, and all the mys- teries which used,to awe the Bridgeford boys are revealed to Bryan. This empty pool surprises him, and he descends to the river-bank to examine it. But peering into it, he forgets the mystery of the raging waters in his anx- iety to see a greater one lying in its depths-lying lodged tightly between two rocks. Bryan climbs down into the hole, slippery with green slime and moss -climbs down to pick up a somewhat odd thing to find in the bottom of such a pool, though it is only a pistol, very rusty, as if it had been a long time in the water. Rusty and very harmless now, no matter how many lives it has once ruined. Useless as the pistol is, Bryan exam- ines it curiously; finds it is still loaded, though the hammer is immovable from rust; sees, too, there is a silver plate with a cnaimre on it, rusted also almost past deciphering. And yet by close scan- ning he manages to read the name of Philip Dunbar. Even then, with the pistol in his hand, the truth does not flash on Bryan. It must come to him by a slower process, and yet there is a sort of fascination about the pistol he cannot understand- a desire to find out how Philip could have dropped it into the pool. Bryan clambers again to the top of the cliff, and stands where Hortense did and looks over. Then he throws a stone over, but it goes crashing down the side of the cliff and into the bed of the river at its foot. He leans over as far as he dares, and drops another stone into tile hole where the whirlpool once boiled and fretted, and where he had just found the pistol. Why should Hortense throw the pistol into the pool? he questions anxiously, as if that answered he might at last grasp the mystery of her early walk, as well as of what she had said to him in the fields. Hortense with her'nervous fear of any kind of firearms-why had she carried this pistol so far to hide it from all hu- man sight? Bryan has no doubt now that Hor- ,f tense threw the pistol where he has just found it, and he tries to think what day it was he saw her standing where he now stands. His sitting up with Gerald Alston the night before will help him if he needs any help to recall the day and month he lost all claim to Hortense. Gerald Alston wounded almost to death near the gate of Aytoun-is this a clew to help him out of this maze? Gerald Alston, the owner of Aytoun now, the husband of Philip's old love-had Philip foreseen this end, and did he seek to frustrate it, even by blood. Had not Hortense said that day, "A sin concealed was not the less black," and that "she would not hurt his name by marrying him"? And he had deem- ed her mad for a moment! Mad, poor love! in her endeavor to hide a broth- er's guilt! And Bryan groans aloud in this his' certainty. If they were to be separated, if she would fain have it so for his sole good, why should he with his bitter, cruel words have made it the harder for her? Bryan puts the pistol into his pocket and turns with hasty steps to walk to Bridgeford.. He is going to find Hor- tense. Perhaps the heart which could so love a brother in his sin, and never flinch from him, could also forgive Bry- an's hard, harsh words, his unkind doubt of her. At least he can but try. And the old love has not died out of his heart, as he thought it had, for he is in hot haste to hear Hortense's voice, and to tell her he has wronged her. Though Philip and Hortense Dunbar have lived all their lives within a mile of Bridgeford, and were as well known there as Grace Alston is now, yet they have died out of the memory of most people, and Bryan cannot find them as easily as he thought he could. Some one tells him they live near Bli- dale Mill; and, hoping that the direc- tion is right, he sets out in his search. There is nothing in any of the houses in the long, dull row which hints to him of Hortense. Hortense, fastidious and dainty to a fault in the past days, could never find a home in these poor houses, all looking alike, except that page: 76-77[View Page 76-77] here and there one is a little tidier than its neighbor, yet nothing better than any operative of Blidale might claim. Failing to find Hortense here, Bryan turns to walk past the block of houses again which he has been scanning hope- lessly for a hint of Hortense. He had much better have gone to Mr. Lancas- ter's at first for certain information. He wonders he did not think of this old friend and business-man of the family. At the corner Bryan pauses and looks along the long row of houses again, as if loth to leave, even though he believes his information is at fault-pauses and sees a woman's figure dressed in black standing on one of the doorsteps. Catch- ing sight of her, he turns quickly and walks down the street again toward where she stands. But her face is turn- ed from him, and before he reaches her the door opens for her, and she goes in without seeing him. A moment after and Bryan's hand is on the lock. He opens the door hastily, as if afraid of losing her, and finds him- self face to face with Hortense. The entry is too small and dark for him to see her when he shuts the door behind him, and Hortense might have been startled at his unceremonious entrance if she had not recognized his eager, anx- ious face as he came in. So she leads the way into the little parlor, where stand ranged against the wall the stiff, ungainly chairs and the tor- turing sofa opposite the grim, ugly stove. Even the family photographs hang by their red cords upon the wall. Noth- ing has been touched since Mr. Lancas- ter first brought Hortense here and she decided to take the house. Hortense spends her days in Philip's room, and very rarely comes into this one. But Bryan knows nothing of this, and, coming as he does from Aytoun, he feels the difference keenly. But he soon forgets her poor surroundings when he looks at her face. Why had Grace Alston told him he would find her changed? Hortense does not hold out her hand to tell him he is welcome. Perhaps she has not forgotten their parting, and that he then refused to touch it. But Bryan is thinking little of mere courtesies just now, and he says at once, with some reproach in his voice, "Hortense, why did you not trust me that bitter day we parted? Was it because I was not worthy of it?" "What skould I have trusted you with?" she asks uneasily. "With Philip's secret. I have been to the rapids to-day, dreaming of you- you whom I thought dead to me. Ev- erything is changed there, as I find it is everywhere else: even the whirlpool is dried up-" Bryan stops here, and Hortense looks at him for a moment anxiously, and then drops her eyes, as if she knew the uneasy light that is in them. But she does not speak, and he goes on to say: "In the crevice of a rock in the whirl- pool I have found Philip's pistol." She glances at the pistol with a half- frightened glance. But she conquers the feeling, and says quietly, "Philip is past all hurting now by my silence or my words. You will find him changed since you last saw him." "And yet, for all the change, I can find it in my heart to envy him, as he has you." "It is his sole comfort, as it is all he has left to him." But Bryan will not take the evident meaning of her words, and asks, "Have I wronged you past all forgiveness, Hortense?" "No," she answers. "You could not help your mistrust of me. Our parting was my fault, or rather it was my neces- sity. It was a heavy secret for a girl to keep. There seemed no help for me save in your. mistrusting me, and I was forced to bear it as best I could." "I should have had more faith in you, and have taken your word that you were in the right until you chose to speak more plainly. It is easy enough to see it now that I have it all so plainly before me," Bryan says penitently. "It was too great a tax on most men's trust. I have never blamed you, so you should not blame yourself." "You do not blame me, but you have ceased to love me, Hortense?" She smiles, a little, just a little, wea- rily, and does not answer his question, but asks, "Will you come and see Philip?" "Not yet. Do not torture me, Hor- tense, but tell me-is there no hope for me?" "Philip must be my answer. When you see him you will know I cannot leave him." "And I will never ask you to do so. Let Philip come also: this is no place for him or for you. I have a home for both of you." "You do not know, Bryan, how very sad it is," she says with a little tremor in her voice. "You cannot think how changed Philip is. It is not with him as it is with most who are stricken down. I seldom leave him night or day." "But it cannot be necessary," Bryan interposes quickly. "It must be a living death to you." "The dead are happy, and they do not care to live the common life of flesh and blood," she replies. But he will not let her off so easily, and urges: "Hortense, I will promise that Philip shall have all your thoughts and time-I only the mere surplus any of your acquaintances could have. Only do not let us separate again." She does not say, "Love me as in the old time, but leave me here to Philip." She knows he would never be content to see her daily and never press her coming to him. Indeed, she is not sure it would be kind to him, to hold him by a bond which would be sure to weary him from its very hopelessness. And she must form no tie which will weaken Philip's claim on her. Hortense sees with a woman's quick instinct where these two loves would clash-that nei- ther Bryan nor Philip would be satisfied ,.with her best endeavors. And feeling this, she says, "There are some who, finding two duties, cannot tell which of them to choose. God keep them from erring in their choice! Mine is an easier lot, because the path before me is plain. You will not blame me if I never stum- ble at a doubt, and stay with Philip?" "It is my own fault," Bryan says bit- terly. "If I had not let you go that day I met you at the rapids, you would have no choice now, for I would have had the stronger claim on you, and I would hold you by it. Was it kind of you to let me wreck my future so utterly and never give me a warning?" She answers nothing to excuse herself. It is very bitter to her to know her hand has had to push him from her. The weariest trial on earth is where two loves draw in different ways, and our com- monest acts become a question of right and wrong to one or other. Hortense knows this, and would fain avoid it- not for herself, but for Bryan and Philip. "Let us go to Philip," she urges again, as if in his room she would find sanc- tuary. But Bryan stands before the door and faces her, leaning against it. "Hor- tense," he says deprecatingly, "you can- not expect me to give you up now. When I thought you false and fickle I could strive to do so, though Heaven knows I made but small headway with all my efforts! It was hard to live the common life when I thought I had a certainty to help me, but now you might as well ask me to give up the air we breathe, and yet live on." She does not answer him. He can plainly read, if he will, the mute appeal in her eyes. Why will he not take the inevitable in silence, and not torture her? But he will fight for her to the bitter end, or perhaps he misreads her silence, for he says quickly, "You can- not doom me to such a life. I need you as much as Philip." If he had been her enemy she might have taunted him by reminding him how little mercy he had shown her not much more than a year ago. But as he is her lover, and her heart has never swerved from him while knowing he misjudged her, she has the double pain of gainsay- ing him and of seeming cold. "I do not doom you, Bryan, but a fate so sad that if I did not pray daily to a common Father I should think myself uncared for and fatherless. And yet it may be a merciful hand which keeps me from you. For see, Bryan, though Phil- page: 78-79[View Page 78-79] ip did not do the actual deed I tried to hide the only witness to, it was only God's mercy that kept him from it. Out of the heart comes all sin: it does not lie in the action only. That God can and will forgive it I believe firmly, and I go daily to church and say, by way of comfort, 'I believe in the forgiveness of sin,' knowing how Christ bought the gift for us. But the taint sin brings is on Philip still, and on me as his sister. In the olden days there were cities of refuge where the guilty fled who did not come under the full penalty of the law, and they led lives separate from the rest of their kind. I suppose the innocent lived there apart from the old life. The moth- er and sister must have followed the banished one, and the child and tod- dling infant must have played in the streets, unconscious that they lived a life different from the rest of the world." "But those were in the old, hard Is- raelitish days," Bryan says. "In these we do not banish from us all who sin as Philip has done. You are too morbid by far, Hortense." "Philip is banished out of the reach of every one but me-you cannot tell how utterly until you see him." "Then let me share it with both of you. I will never mind it, nor prove a coward to anything but the fear of losing you," Bryan pleads. "It would be worse to you than losing me," she says, "for then you would be forced to go back into the old life, but this would irk and crush you. I can never let you do it." She is looking at him through a mist of tears. Perhaps even now Bryan does not despair of winning her, when a sharp, querulous voice calls, "Hortense!" She does not move, but only says, "Philip is calling me." "Let him call for once," Bryan replies quickly. "Just now hear me only. Phil- ip cannot need you as I do, cannot love you as I have done. He never hesitated between Grace Robson and you-never feared to crush you with his sin. He must bear the consequences, and let me have you. Not that I would part you- that I will never do," he adds hastily, seeing a look coming into her eyes which makes him uneasy and fearful whether it had not been better not to have men- tioned Philip's name at all. "I never minded being set aside by Philip for another, as it was but natural I should be in time," Hortense answers. "And I was never crushed, except on the day I met you at the rapids. I know you do not now mean to separate me from Philip, but you could not help it in time if your claim upon me were the stronger of the two. I must never place myself in any position where Philip has not the first right to me." Again comes the call for "Hortense!" -a discontented, weary cry, such as a sick child might give for his mother. And Hortense, hearing it, moves toward the door, never seeming to see that Bry- an bars her way. He steps aside to let her pass, knowing he has no right to hold her back. "Will you not come?" she asks; and Bryan follows her into a larger and more cheerful room, where all the comforts and luxuries of the house seem gath- ered. But he does not notice this just now, for he only sees Hortense bending over a couch, and he is struck with the wonderful likeness between Philip and his sister-a likeness Bryan resents as an injustice to Hortense. "It is Bryan, Philip," she is saying- "Bryan Bonham. Are you not glad to see him?" "Is it he who kept you so long?" Philip asks fretfully. "Give Bryan a chair, Hortense. Why do you keep him standing?" There is a mixture of the old Dunbar courtesy to guests and of childishness which strikes Bryan painfully. But Hortense does not appear to heed it. She has been constantly in this room for more than a year now, and this is Bry- an's first visit. There comes a hope to Bryan, as he watches Hortense, that if he can win Philip to his side, in that way he may gain Hortense. So he says, "I came to see if you are not weary of living here, and if a change to the country would not do you good. I have a pleasant home I could take you to-a home like -like-" "Aytoun," Hortense puts in, taking up his words. "You remember Aytoun, Philip?" P "Of course I remember Aytoun - where the Dunbars have always lived. Does Bryan live there?" "No," Bryan answers; "only my home is somewhat like it. Would you not like to try what change can do, and come to see me?" "No," Philip says. "There is some- thing wrong at Aytoun. We are better here than there. I might lose Hortense if I left, and I'll not risk that. Do you think she will have to leave me?" he asks uneasily, turning to Bryan. "It would be hard on both of us, for'there are only the two of us now." Hortense kneels beside Philip and rests her head on his shoulder, and his hand moves softly over her hair,' as he says, with something of the wail of a child, to Bryan, "You will not separate us? you will not take Hortense from me? There are only the two of us left: you will not take her?" What can Bryan say? He sees he might as well bid Hortense leave a child alone on the roadside as leave Philip. And he feels he could never watch her living this life with any patience. She in her youth to be so chained! He does not quite take in the love which makes her bonds endurable. After that there is not much conversa- tion. Hortense tries to bring back to Philip some remembrance of Bryan and of the past, and Bryan watches and listens, and wonders at her patience, as men often wonder at the patience women show to the whims and caprices of a sick child. He even thinks angrily of her having chosen this life, rather than the one his love would fain make for her. There is no use in lingering, and Bry- an rises to go. Hortense holds out her hand in mute farewell, standing at Phil- ip's side. Philip looks so pale and wan Bryan cannot help thinking he may not always claim Hortense's care, and that in time she may need a stronger hand to sustain her. Let him take the thought with him if it lightens his present load. Philip's life is not such that even Hortense would pray for it to be prolonged, though she will do her best to help him bear it. But death seldom comes soon when the body has wrecked the mind. The future is shut to both of them: let them take the present patiently. For Hortense there is no fear. She will bear her lot bravely and cheerfully, whatever it may chance to be, for in the path of duty there is never a lack of help. If Bryan should at any time lose the hope he has taken just now to heart, and, growing weary of a long waiting and his dull, lonely life, should take a wife by way of mending it, she will find amongst his treasures two things which will tax her curiosity and astuteness sadly. One is a pistol, tarnished and rusted, and certainly useless, with a silver plate and a name on it-Philip Dunbar. No one she knows or will ever chance to know. The other treasure he guards carefully is the picture of a young girl-a wonder- fully beautiful face, with sweet brown eyes, and a mouth which seems made for smiling. If, like Cinderella's prince, who went from house to house to find a match for the glass slipper, she too would find a counterpart of that pictured face, she will be sure to fail, though she jour- neys the world over. She may discover one pair of sad eyes which are of the same color, but neither eyes nor mouth wearing the same gay smile; and Bry; an will never tell her what it was that killed the mirth out of them. page: 80-81 (Advertisement) [View Page 80-81 (Advertisement) ] NEW AND CHARMNG NOVELS FROM THE PRESS OF J. B. LIEPI TIC OTT &3z CO., 715 AND 717 MARKET ST., PHLADELPHA. HOW IT ALL HAPPENED. By the author of "Dorothy Fox," etc. I2mo. Paper. 25 cts. "A remarkably clever story.'"-Boston Saturday Even. Gazette. THE HOLCOMBES. A Story of Virginia Home-Life. By MARY TUCKER MAGILL. I2mo. Extra cloth. $1.50. "The subject is acharming one."- WinchesterTimes. "This book is written from an elevated point of view, both as to its society and scenery. .. We find it an interesting story .... The tone of this work is admir- able, and we shall be glad to hear again from the author." -Philada. Age. OLD MAM'SELLE'S SECRET, After the German of E. MARLITT, author of "Gold Elsie" and "Countess Gisela." By MRS. A. L. WISTER. NEW EDITION. 2Imo. Fine cloth. Embossed sides. $I.5o. "A more charming story, and one which, having once commenced, it seemed mote difficult to leave, we have not met with for many a day."--The Round Tabl. HMSELF HS WORST ENEMY; Or, Philip Duke of Wharton's Career. By ALFRED P. BROTHERHEAD. 12mo. Fine cloth. $2. "The story is very entertaining and very well told." - Bston Post, "The author is entitled to high praise for this credit- able work."--Pilada. Ledger. IN THE RAPIDS. A Romance. By GERALD HART. 12mo. Toned paper. Extra cloth. $I.5o. "Full of tragic interest."--Cincinnat Gazette. "It is, on the whole, remarkably well told."-B-alti more Gazette. FERNYHURST COURT. An Every day Story. By the author of "Stone Edge," "Lettice Lisle," etc. With numerous Illustrations. 8vo. Paper cover. 60 cts. "Admirably written and excellent in tone."-N-. Y. Aven. Mfail. "An excellent story."-Boston ,ornal. "An excellent novel of English society, with many good engravings."-Ph/ilada. Press. IRENE. A Tale of Southern Life, Illustrated; and HATHAWAY STRANGE. 8vo. Paper cover. 35 cts. "Lively, gossipy and genial."-Baltimore Gazette. "Those who have read occasional chapters of these charming stories in LijPincot's AMagaine will be glad to find them combined in a handsome pamphlet. - Albany ournal. ST. CECILIA. A Modern Tale from Real Life. Part I.- ADVERSITY. 12mo. Extra cloth. $I.5o. "A tale that we can cheerfully recommend as fresh, entertaining and well written."-wLouitsvt/ Courier. uirnal, I WHY DID HE NOT DIE? Or, The Child from the Ebraergang. From the German of AD VON VOLCKHAUSEN. By MRS. A. L. WISTER, Translator of "Old Mam'selle's Secret," "Gold Elsie," etc. I2mo. Fine cloth. This fascinrting story is said to be fully comparable in dramatic force and charm of style to any of the spirited translations hitherto presented to the public by the ac- complished and graceful author of the present rendition. SERGEANT ATKINS. A Tale of Adventure. Founded on Fact. By an Officer of the United States Army. With Illustrations. 12mo. Extra cloth. $1.75. "Apart from its mere literary merits, and as a graphic, well-told and spirited narrative of border ex. perience and Indian warfare, Sergeant Atins really gives us all the facts of the Florida war which are ne. cessary to a clear understanding of its origin, progrcs and character."-Army and Navzy ournal. "It is the best Indian story, because the truest to li, which we have lately seen."-Baosto Post. DOROTHY FOX. A Novel. By the author of "How it all Happened," etc. With numerous Illustra- tions. 8vo. Paper cover, 75 cts.; cloth, $1.25. "A very charming love-tale."--Londo Athen swm "Miss Parr shows really great skill. We sincerely trust that she may see her novel arrive at a second ed. tion."-London Saturday Review. "One of the best novels of the season."-Philxa. Press. "OST AND SAVED. A Novel. By Hon. MRS. NORTON. NEW EDITION. 12mo. Cloth. $1.25. "Remarkably well written; . . . very readable."- Philada. Press. "The best novel that Mrs. Norton has written".- Baltimore Gazette. DAUGHTER OF AN EGYTIAN KING. An Historical Romance. Translated from the German of GEORGE EBERS by HENleY REED. I2mo. Fine cloth. $1.75. "We know not which to admire most the thrilling is terest of the tale or its marvelous fidelity to the best. authenticated history. We judge the story can have lost nothing by its English rendenng."-PAi/ada. Evew. Bulletin. "It is a wonderful production. As a matter of imagin ation and of erudition, it is perfectly marvelous."--V. Y. lWorld. IN EXILE. A Novel. Translated from the German of W. VON ST. I2mo. Fine cloth. $2. "It is a fascinating book-a beautiful story well ad simply told."--Plada v. E r l. Bltin. '"The plot is deep, the characters are interesting and the composition is terse and raphic."-MimsoJri Deam crat. page: 82 (Advertisement) -83 (Advertisement) [View Page 82 (Advertisement) -83 (Advertisement) ] The most Charming Works of Fiction of the Present Day. THE WORKS OF E. MARLITT. 4 / S I. 1' 1 H: OT ,T- NV A M1grS Hi I ,T ,JFns SsEOREET FROM THE GERMAN BY MRS. A. L. WISTLR. Eighth Edition. 2mao. Fine Cloth. $1J.0. "A more charming story, and one which, having once commenced, it seemed more difficult to leave, we have not met with for many a day."-The Round Table. "Is one of the most intense, concentrated, compact urovelsof the day.... And the work has the minute fidelity of the author of 'The Initials,' the dramatic unity of Reade, and the graphic power of George Eliot."--Colum- bus (0.) ournal. "Appears to be one of the most interesting stories that we have had from Europe for many a day- "-Boson Traveler. II. G-OT ,T H , 'jShie PROM THE GERMAN BY MRS. A. I. WISTER. Stith Edition, l2mo. Fine Cloth. $1.50. "A charming story charmingly told."-Baltimore Gazette. "We advise all to read it, as there are few romances of German life that equal it, and none that have been ren- dered into better English."-Ohio Statesman. "Is a tale of rare beauty and power. . . There is more real healthful reading in this book than one often meets with in a noveL"--N . . Evening Post. "'Gold Elsie' is one of the loveliest heroines ever in- troduced to the public."-Boston Advertiser. "Is told with an ease and a simplicity which at once cap. tivate the reader. We are mistaken if 'Gold Elsie' does not become very popular."--Erie Dispatch. "A charming book. It absorbs your attention from the title-page to the end."--The Chicago Home Circle. "I. OOU TTE SS 0-ISSEIA. FROM THE GERMAN BY MRS. A. L. WISTER. Ilfth Edition. 12mo. Fine Cloth. $1.75. "There is more dramatic power in this than in any of the stories by the same author that we have read"--A. 0. : Times. "It is a story that arouses the interest of the reader fom the outset."-Pittsfurg Gazette. "The best work by this author."-Philada. Telegrak. ' "The author of ' The Old Mam'selle's Secret,' one of the most charming stories ever written, has already won an extended reputation in this country as a faithful delineator of German life, and the present work will doubtless find many delighted readers."-N. Y. Times. "One of the very best of its class, and is a genuine re- presentation of court, burgher and rural life in Germany. The translation is spirited and faithful."-Philada Press IV. O VEI 5 EO T D lEs. FROM THE GERMAN BY MRS. B. ELGARD. lbfurth Edition. 8vo. With full-page Ilustration. Paper, 80 cents. "'Over Yonder' is a charming novelette. The ad- irers of ' Old Mam'sellis Secret' will give it a glad re- seption, while those who are ignorant of the merits of this author will find in it a pleasant introduction to the woork of a gifted writer."-Daily Sentinel. V. IA GKID A Tj:E:TA.& / Together withl "'i-rii LrONBELY ONES" by Paul IEeyse. FROM qTHEI GERMAN BY MRS. B. ELGARD. Mhord Edition, 8ro. With two full-page Illustrations. Paper, 35 cents, "Both of these stories are exceedingly clever and en- tertaininge."-Ri fmogd Enquirer. "PalHeyse's Lonely Ones' is an idyll-a perfect ' little picture' in its way."-Bat. Statesman. "These two charming little stories are reprinted from LipiPineots Magasine. Both of them are pretty and characteristic stories, one of German, the other of Italian life."-Chicago Carrir "There is a deep tragic interest in the story of 'The Lonely Ones.' "-K. O. Picayune. "EGIBLE, PORTABLE, HANDSOME AND CHEAP." NOW COM1PLETED. TH GLOBE EDITION OF BULWER' S NOVELS. THS EDITION OF THE NOVELS OF SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART., (LORD LYTTON), IS NOW COMPLETE IN TWEN'TYX-TWO NEAT 16MO. VOLUMES. Printed on lTinted Paper, witth Engraved Frontispleoe. EACH OF THE VOLUMES AVERAGING OVER 700 PAGES. HANDSOIMELY BOUNTD IN G-REENIS3 MOROCCO CLOTH. :PRqICT1B $1-50 :P-,SJ- VOIj- Price per Set.-Cloth, $33.00. Extra cloth, gilt top, $38.50. Half calf neat, $55.00. Half calf extra, gilt top, $66.00. Half Turkey, gilt top, $66.00. THE FOLLOWING ARE EACH COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME: THE CAXTONS.-PELHAM.-EUGENE ARAM.-THE LAST OF THE BARONS.-LU CRETIA.,-DEVEREUX.-THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII.-RIENZI.-GODOLPHN.- A STRANGE STORY.- ZANONI.-HAROLD.-LEILA, PILGRIMS OF THE RHNE, ALD CALDERON.-NIGHT AND MORNING.--ERNEST MALTRAVERS.-ALICE.-PAUL CLIFFORD,- THE DISOWNED. EACH COMPLETE IN TWO VOLUMES: "MY NOVEL."-WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT? THE PRESS SAYS OF THE "GLOBE BULWER." "We have more than once commended the Globe as the best edition of Bulwer accessible to American readers."-Cininnati Gazette. ... "The convenient size, beautiful style and cheapness of this edition are worthy the attention of book-buyers."-Pittsburg Gazette. "The beauty of this edition has frequently challenged our admiration, and it certainly do. serves commendation."-Chicago Evening 7ournat ... "They are models well worthy the imitation of other American book-makers."- Philadelphia Age. N. B.-Two of the above volumes will be mailed free to any party sending two subscriptions ($8) to Lippicott's Mazine. EACfH NOVEL SOLD SEPARA TEL. For sale by all Booksellers, or will be sent by mail, postage free, on receipt of price, by J. B. LIPPlNCOTT & CO., PlblisheOrs 715 & 717 WfA RKT' ST., .PJfIJLDJZLP2IJrL page: 84 (Advertisement) -85 (Advertisement) [View Page 84 (Advertisement) -85 (Advertisement) ] "PPINCOTT'S PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY OF BIOGRAPHY AND MYTHOLOGY //!20 CONTAINING 1EMRS OF THE EMmlIE PERSONS OF ALL AGES AND COUNTRIES, AND ACCOUNTS S OF THE VARIOUS SUBJECTS OF THE NORSE, HNDOO AND CLASSIC MYTHOL. OGIES, WITH THE PRONUNCIATION OF T'HKIJ NAMES IN THE DIFJ^kENT LANGUAGES IN WHCH THEY OCCUR. BY J. THOMAS, A. M., M. D. Complete in Two Vols. Imperial 8vo. Toned Paper. PRI CE P ER VOLJUMEI: Fine Cloth, $11; Sheep, $12; Half Turkey, $13.50; aalf Calf, $1S, 4e OPINION 08? 03F TH[E 3 PR E 88. "Llippincott's Biographical Dictionary, according to the unanimous opinion of distinguished scholars, is the best work of the kind ever publisied."-Philada. Ledger. "The most comprehensive and valuable work of the kind that has ever been attempted.. An invaluable convenience."-Boston Evening Traveler. "It is of such a final sort of excellence that it will at once take its place as the Biographical Dictionary of the future."-Philada. Evening Bulletin. "The most valuable contribution to lexicography in the English tongue."- Cincinnati Gazette. "* No other work of the kind will compare with it."-Chicago Advance. "The most satisfactory work of reference ever issued from the press."-Philada. Evening Telegraph. "This work presents a very wide range of treatment, great compactness and perspicuity wonderful accuracy and a typographical execution that is absolutely perfect."--X. . Evening Post. "There is nothing like it In the English language.... It may be fairly esteemed a credit to the age and country which have produced it."-Philada. Press. "It is hardly possible to over-estimate the detail comprehensiveness and eclecticism of Dr. Thomas's labors. His field is the world, his epoch all past time."-Philada. North American. "The most complete Biographical Dictionary in the world."-.Philada. Age. An admirable work."-N. Y. Independent. "A work of extraordinary value."-Boston Post. "The plan is admirable."-N. Y. Tribune. TESTIMONY OF DISTINGUTSH:'I SCHOLARS. From PROFESSOR NOAH PORTER. "I find that my high expectations of its excellence founded on my knowledge of the ad- mirable qualifications of its editor, are not disappointed. In the judicious brevity of its arti. cles, the comprehensiveness of its selections of topics, the nice exactness in matters of orthog. raphy and pronunciation as well as for its admirable typography, it promises to take a very high place among our books of reference." From WILLIAM CULLZEN BRYANT. "It is a work which I shall be glad to possess, both on account of the fullness of its matter, and because the pronunciation of names, so far as it can be represented by the alphabet of our language, is given The work will be a valuable addition to the books of reference in our language." eFrom PROFESSOR JAMES D. DANA, M A., LL D. "It is universal In fact as in name doing like justice to men prominent in science, liter. ature, religion, general history, etc. The author knows how to put a large number of facts into a very small compass, and in a manner remarkable for system, fairness, precision and easy diction." rom S. AUSTIN ALLIBONE, LL D. "That so great a work has been produced in the English language, I am glad: that it is the product of American skill, enterprise and learning, I still more rejoice. With regard to a book like this the question with eacth one must be, not Can I afford it?' but 'Can I afford to be without it?"' MFom PROFESSOR JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. "I was especially pleased with the sensible and learned preface of the editor, and am per- suaded that he has chosen the true system of orthography. From what I know of Dr. Thomas, I feel sure that he will give us a book that may be depended on for comprehensiveness and ac- curacy, the two great desideranda in such an undertaking." M For sale by Booksellers generally, or will be sent free of cost, upon receipt of the price by the Publishers. J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 715 &' 717. Market St., Philadelphia. THE WORKS OF WASHNGTON IRVNG. * The prices quoted below are for coth bindings. The Sunnyside and Knickerbocker editions are issued in 12mo form, the Riverside and People's editions in 16mo form. SEPARATE W SEPARATE WORKS. IRVING'S ALHAMBRA. A Residence in the celebrated Moorish palace, the "Alhambra;" with the historical and romantic legends connected therewith. Sunnyside Edit.,$2.25. Knickerbocker Edit., $2.5o. Riverside Edit., $x.75. People's Edit., $1.25. "The beautiful Spanish Sketch Book, the 'Alham- bra.' "-IV. H. Prescott. IRVING'S ASTORIA; or, Anecdotes of an Enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains. Sun- nyside Edit. $2.50. Knickerbocker Edit., $2.50. Riverside Edit., $2. People's Edit., $.50o. "It is a book to put in your library as an entertain- ing, very well written account of savage life on a most extensive scale."-Rev. Sydney Smith. IRVING'S BRACEBRIDGE HALL; or, The Humorists. Sunnyside Edit., $2.25. Knickerbocker Edit., $2.5o. Riverside Edit., $x.75. People's Edit.,'$x.25. IRVING'S COLUMBUS. The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus; to which are addedthose of his Companions. Sunnyside Edit., 3 vols., $6.75. Knickerbocker Edit., $7.50. River. side Edit., $5.25. People's Edit., 3 vols., $3.75. "We venture to predict that the adventures of Co- lumbus will hereafter be read only in the work of Mr. Irving."-Alexander H. Everett, in North American Review. "The noblest monument to the memory of Colum- bus."-/W. H. Prescott. "It will supersede all other works on the subject, and never be itself superseded."--Lord effrey. IRVING'S OLIVER GOLDSMTH. A Biography. Sunnyside Edit., $2.25. Knickerbocker Edit., $2.50. Riverside Edit., $x.75. People's Edit., $1.25. "We have no hesitation in saying that in-our judg- ment Washington Irving's ' Life of Oliver Goldsmith' is one of the best the most entertaining the most natural biographies written during the last three centuries."- Knickerbocker Magazine. IRVING'S SPANISH PAPERS. Hith- erto Unpublished or Uncollected, Arranged and edited by Pierre M. Irving, with portrait from Wil. kie. Sunnyside Edit., 2 vols., $4.50. Knicker. bocker Edit., $2.50. Riverside Edit., $I.75. Peo- ple's Edit., $2.5o. These fascinating legends of Spanish History."-St. Paul Press. IRVING'S CHRONICLES OF THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA. From the MSS. of Fray Antonio Agapida. Sunnyside Edit., $2.50. Knickerbocker Edit., $2.5o. River- side Edit., $2. People's Edit., $1.50. "There is far too little known in this country of the history and character of the Spaniards and this charm. ing work of Irving is well calculated to interest our people in the subject, and prompt to farther investiga- tions."-Newz York fribune. "It has superseded all farther necessity for poetry, and, unfortunately for me, for history."-- W. H. Prescott. IRVING'S MAHOMET AND HS SUCCESSORS. 2 vols. Sunnyside Edit., $4.50. Knickerbocker Edit., $5. Riverside Edit., $3.5o. People's Edit., $2.5o. IRVING'S CRAYON MSCELLANY Sunnyside Edit., $2.25. Knickerbocker Edit.. $2.50. Riverside Edit., $1.75. People's Edit., $1.35. IRVING'S KNICKERBOCKER. A His. tory of New York from the beginning of the World to the end of the Dutch Dynasty, etc., etc. By Diedrich Knickerbocker. Sunnyside Edit., $2.25. Knickerbocker Edit., $2.50. Riverside Edit., $.75. People's Edit., $1.2. -- The same. With Characteristic Illustrations by Darley, in one large beautiful volume. 8vo. $9. "The most excellently jocose ' History of New York.' Our sides- have been absolutely sore with laughing."-Sir Walter Scott. IRVING'S SALMAGUNDI; or, The Whim-Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstafl Esq., and Others. By Wm. Irving, James K. Paulding and Washington Irving. With a Preface and Notes by Evert A. Duyckinck. Sunnyside Edit. $2.25. Knickerbocker Edit., $2.50. River- side Edit, $1.75. People's Edit., $.25. "Full of entertainment, with an infinite variety of characters and circumstances, and with that amiable, good natuxed wit and pathos."-R. H. Dana. IRVING'S SKETCH -BOOK. The Sketch- Book of Geoffrey Crayon Gent. Sunnyside Edit., $2.25. Knickerbocker dit., $2.5o. Riverside Edit., $.75. Blue-and-gold Edit., $S So. People's Edit., $1.25. [This edition is used as a School Reader.] - The Artist's Edition of the Sketch-Book. An entirely new impression, with twenty new and addi. tional vignettes, and is superbly printed and bound. Pronounced by good judges to be " the finestAmeri- can book." $1o. "It is positively beautiful."-Sir Walter Scott. "This exquisite miscellany."--7. G. Lockhart. IRVING'S TALES OF A TRAVELER. Sunnyside Edit., 2mo, $2.25. Knickerbocker Edit., $2.50. Riverside Edit., 16mo, $t.75. People's Edit., $I.25. "' Has always been one of the most popular of Irving's productions, and is not destined to lose the place it so soon acquired in the estimation of the world."-Boston Traveler. IRVING'S WOLFERT'S ROOST, and other Papers, now first collected. Sunnyside Edit., $2.25. Knickerbocker Edit., $2.50. Riverside Edit., $I.75. People's Edit., $z.25. "The papers in the present volume are among his latest and most charming productions."--C kicagp 7Tr iu$ne. IRVING'S WASHNGTON. A Life of George Washington, by Washington Irving. With numerous illustrations. In-five volumes. Sunnyside Edit., $.2s5. Knickerbocker Edit., $2.5o. Riv- erside Edit., $8.75. People's Edit., $6.25. "I cannot hesitate to predict for him a deathless re- nown .... He whose works were the delight of our fathers, and are still ours, will be read with the same pleasure by those who come after us."--lWiliam Cullen Bryant. IRVING'S LIFE AND-TTERS. By P. M. Irving. With portrait from stee. Sunnyside Edit., 4 vots. $,. Knickerbocker Edi, 3 ols., $7.50. Riverside dit. $5.25. Peole's Ed $3.7. "The most delightful of biographies. page: 86 (Advertisement) -87 (Advertisement) [View Page 86 (Advertisement) -87 (Advertisement) ] JwTEoW 2NOVELS- 'FORG-1L V .j AT TA ST- By Jeannette B. Hadermann. 12mo. Fine cloth. $1.75. "A well-told romance. It is of that order of tales originating with Miss Charlotte Blont.".- Y. Y. Eve. Post. "The style is animated, and the characters are not deficient in individuality."- Phila. Age. TTFHF OT.-Mn CO1UJTTETSS. A Romance. From the German of Edmund Hdfer, by the translator of "Over Yonder," etc 12mo. Fine cloth. $1.00. "A charming story of life in an old German castle, told in the pleasant German manner that attracts attention and keeps it throughout."-The Phila. Day. "The story is not long, is sufficiently involved to compel wonder and suspense, and ends very happily."-The North American. "An int teresting story."--The Inquirer. BOTTT2JD IDO-VTT; Or, LIFE AND ITS POSSIBILITIES. By Anna M. Fitch. 12mo. Fine cloth. $1.50. "is a remarkable book."-N. Y. Eve. Mailt "An interesting domestic story, which will be perused with pleasure from beginning to end."-Baltimore Eve. Bithetin. "The author of this book has genius; it is writtten cleverly, with occasional glimpses into deep truths.. . . Dr. Marston and Mildred are splendid characters."--Phila. Presbyterian. H HN: S'RY CO tUJ ,rTT'A 'TND; Or, WHAT A FARMER CAN DO. By A. J. Cline. 12mo. Fine cloth. $1.75. "This volume belongs to a class of prose fiction unfortunately as rare as it is valuable . . The whole story hangs well together."-Phila Press. CA.:RT ,TNT'O- By the author of "Doctor Antonio," "Lorenzo Benoni," etc. 8vo. Illustrated. Paper cover. 35 cents. "It is beautifully written, and is one of the best delineations of character that has been written lately."-Phila. Day. "It is a capital little story. ... A simple and wholesome story charm- ingly told."-Brooklyn Eagle. "Strange and deeply interesting."--N. Y. Hearth and Home. O3I/.jY A. GrI:J1tL A Romance. From the German of Wilhelmine Von Hillern. By Mrs. A. L. Wister, translator of "The Old Mam'selle's Secret," etc. Fourth Edition. 12mo. Fine cloth. $2.00. "This is a charming work, charmingly written, and no one who reads it can lay it down with- out feeling impressed with the superior talent of its gifted author. As a work of fiction it will com- pare favorably in style and interest with the best efforts of the most gifted writers of the day, while in the purity of its tone, and the sound moral lesson it teaches, it is equal, if not superior, to any work of the character that has for years come under our notice."-Pittsburg Dispatch. JL"JJ U Ij LOVE-. By Lady Di Beauclerk, author of "A Summer and Winter in Norway," etc. 12mo. Fine cloth. $1.25. "Is a pleasing little story well told."-N. Y. Independent. "This pleasantly told love story presents pictures of E gilish society that will repay the reader."-Pittsburg Gazette. "Many of the scenes of her novel art drawn with truth and vigor . . The interest is sustained throughout the story.".--Hear t, snd Home. BIMEYO1NTD .L" H BEHE. AT :1SJS. A Story of the Present Day. By Hon. Robert Dale Owen. 8vo. Illustrated. Fine cloth. $2.00. "All readeri of taste, culture, and thought will feel attracted and impressed by it. . We have, for ourselves, read it with deep interest and with genuine pleasure, and can say for it that which we could say of few novels of to-day-that we hope some time to read it over agan."---New Yortk Independent. AST A lRoOS XCASIS, 'i'a- I COr'. A Romance of Modern Egypt. By Edwin De Leon. 12mo. Extra cloth. $1.75. "This book, while possessing all the characteristics of a Romance, is yet a vivid reproduction of Eastern life and manners."-N. Y. Times. "Ho has written us this thrilling tale, based on mis- cellaneous facts which he calls 'A Romance of Modern Egypt,' and in which he vividly depicts the Uft of rulers and people."-Chicago Adeance. J. B. LlPP CNOOTT & CO., Publishers, 715 and 717 Market Street, Philadelphia. T-Hb 1i D T)DI"JI'L0lT : TO W VV RE A T)Y. The Standard ife of Dickens. Messrs. J. B. Lippincott & Co., having purchased the adirance sheets, have just published THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS, By JOWHN1 FORSTER,. Author of "XIFX OF LANDOI," "LISXE OF GOLDSM'IT," Ete. VOLUME L, 1812 to 1842. With Two Portraits from Steel Engravings, and Fac-similes. 12mo. Bound in Extra Cloth. $2.00. "The publication of Mr. Forster's 'first volume' will almost prove as great a surprise to the world as the first appearance of the first story which won fame for the sub- ject of the biography . Now for the first time we seem to have learned the secret of the individuality be- longing to all of Dickens's really great novels . . . In all the history of literature and of literary training there is nothing more touching, more interesting; and more in- structive. . . . Mr. Forster's book is suggestive enough to open a new chapter in literary criticism.... The reader will see from what we have sketched how deeply interesting are its contents. A great part of its interest is due to the large number of original letters from Dick- ens which it contains: but it would be doing an injustice to forget how much is attributable to Mr. Forster also. Whether in the way of biography or of criticism he has done his work admirably, and when the book is com- pleted, we shall have a Life of Dickens worthy of the man and of the enduring creations of his brain."-Daily News. "Mr. Forster has excellently justified the trust his friend placed in him. He has set to his work simply, unostentatiously, in a spirit of entire love for his theme, yet with eyes unblinded, and intellect not less keenly and faithfully critical than if the writer whose work he estimates had lived centuries away in the past . . But even more than the calm and shrewd judgments pro- nounced on Dickens's labors will the reader of this most delightful volume admire and be grateful for the intensely sympathetic spirit in which the story of Dickens' s life is unfolded."-L ondon T'elgraph. "Should the remainder of the work equal the first vol- ume in excellence, no more satisfactory record of Dick- ens's career can be looked for in our generation. ... Without suffering his judgment to be biased by any feel- ing of friendship, Mr. Forster is able to be genial and hearty in his criticism. Above all, he preserves a just mean between the respect due to the memory of the de- ceased and the confidence which the world of readers has a right to claim. ... Mr. Forster's loyalty to the mem- ory of his friend, together with his well-trained literary judgment, has kept hirm free from the ordinary vices of biographers. He tells us only so much of Dickens's life as is necessary to understand the development of his cha- racter and to explain the sources of his inspiration, and this is the only true method of literary biography."- London Standard. "Mr. Forster has done his work so far with the tender, loving care that was to have been expected of him by all who knew the bond of union which welded the two men together. The author of this life has fairly earned the eulogy which Charles Dickens bestowed upon him when, years ago, he wrote: 'I desire no better for my fame, when my personal dustiness shall be past the control of my love of order, than such a biographer and such a cntic.' "-London Morning Post. "Mr. Forster has brought to his task a heart full of appreciative love for his great subject, and a faculty for portraiture, of which he furnishes here added and most attractive evidence. The reader will follow him unso- licited from beginning to end, with an awaiting zest for the appearance of the next volume."-Charlesion Courier. "Not only an interesting-that is much too weak an expression-but a truly important volume.".-Bell' Messenger. "This work could not have been intrusted to more loving hands, a more genial writer, or a more faithful and accurate historian."--Phila. Evening Bulletin. "The memoir promises, when completed, to be as de- lightful and as valuable as can be found in our language. . All the thousand touches that can only be inspired by close intimacy and the hearty sympathy of Iriend with friend are here, by one of the subtlest and most power- ful literary artists of the time, given to a marvellously vigorous picture of a man whose real portiait all the world will be glad to see, and will be better for seeing." -London Examiner. "Of all men living, Mr. Forster is the best qualified to to be Charles Dickens's biographer.'-Phila. Press. "It is so rarely now-a-days that we get a good biogra- phy, perhaps it is also so rarely that the biographer-gets a good subject for his skill, that to have at one and the same time a ' Life' written by the author of the ' Life of Goldsmith,' which has for its subject the author of ' David Copperfield,' is an event which is of more than merely literary interest. . .. Those who read the admirable book which has. now been written by Mr. Forster will be struck by the light which it throws upon the character of Dickens ... Tlhe history of a country is not made up exclusively of speeches in the House of Coonrios, or Acts of Parliament and few men have contributed more to the recent social history of England than the great novelist whose life is now for the first time being painted by the hand of a master in the art of biography."-- Leeds Mercury. "Mr, Forster, the author, is so well known as a skill- ful editor and able writer, that it is superfluous to say that the book has all the charm that good writing can give it."--PAhia. Age. p' For sale by all Booksellers, or will be sent by mail, postage free, on receipt of price by the Publishers. PUBLISHED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 715 AND 717 MARKET ST., PHLADELPHA. page: 88 (Advertisement) -89[View Page 88 (Advertisement) -89] * w/ .:8l ITINl wi tSEArsY.- THE G E4 ,^OVEL OF THE YEAR! - Oi[*s 1NEW WORKu. F O L LE - FA R IN E. B-- "OVTIDAl," .. AUTHORB o "STRATHxMORB" "mDALIA," "UNDto TWO FLAGS," "TRICOTRIN," ,]tO," UKET0. 2mo. Fine CZoth. $2.00.. "Ouida's pen is a graphio one, and page after page oIf gorgeous word-painting flow from it in a smooth, melodious rhythm that often has the perfget measure of blank verse, and eeds only to be broken Into lines."-Philadelthia Evening Bunletin. Farine is, to our idea, the best of Ouida's numerous stories."- Vicksburg Herald. w .ork is well written, with the dash, the brilliancy, the fervid coloring, and piqua t this gifted writer.'--Lynckbufr Rcpublican. NSOVELS ANTD TNOVETT RTTES. BY sOUTDrA..* Novets. 12mo. Price $2.00 each. PR TY y IC. HS ADVENTURES, OBSERVATIONS, AND CONCLUSIOS. T IR I C0 O I' O I INT THE STORY OF A WAIF AND STRAY. WITH PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR, FIROM A ENGRAVING ON STEEL. OHAJNDQS. IR A* A. D V . tI:,AV L] DS VIG-INJ- Or, HELD IN BONDAGE. A TALE OF THE DAY. S T EZ A T X13: I O C o E Or,. WROTqoi BY Hs OWN HAiND. :CTUI DE TWO :FLAGS A STORY OF THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE VISEwRT. IDAT TT A These Novels are universally acknowledged to be the most powerful and fasoinating works of fiction whiich the present century, so prolific in light reading, has produced. Novelettes. 12mo. Price $1.75. Each of these Volumes contains a Selection of "Ouida's"Popular Tales and Stories. First Series, CECIL CASTT FWMATTWES GAGE. Second " RANDOLPH GORDON. Third " BEATLICE BOVTTT ia. The many works already in print by this versatile authoress has established her repu- tation as a novelist: and these short stories contribute largely to the stock of pleasing narra- tives and adventures alive to the memory of all who are given to romance and fiction."--New Haenv Journal. The above are all handsomely and uniformly bound in cloth, and are for sale by Book- sellers generally, or will be sent by mail, postage paid, on receipt of price by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., Publishers, 715 and 717 Market Street, Philadelphia. - ' fR
