The Project Gutenberg Etext of A Face Illumined by E. P. Roe The author's full name is Reverend Edward Payson Roe b. March 7, 1832, d. July 19, 1888 according to http://www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/ngcoba/ro.htm Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! Please take a look at the important information in this header. We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and further information is included below. We need your donations. A Face Illumined by E. P. Roe February, 2001 [Etext #2501] The Project Gutenberg Etext of A Face Illumined by E. P. Roe ******This file should be named aface10.txt or aface10.zip****** Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, aface11.txt VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, aface10a.txt Etext prepared by Brett Fishburne (bfish@atlantech.net) Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions, all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a copyright notice is included. Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition. We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a new copy has at least one byte more or less. Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-six text files per month, or 432 more Etexts in 1999 for a total of 2000+ If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the total should reach over 200 billion Etexts given away this year. The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion] This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, which is only ~5% of the present number of computer users. At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we manage to get some real funding; currently our funding is mostly from Michael Hart's salary at Carnegie-Mellon University, and an assortment of sporadic gifts; this salary is only good for a few more years, so we are looking for something to replace it, as we don't want Project Gutenberg to be so dependent on one person. We need your donations more than ever! All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (CMU = Carnegie- Mellon University). For these and other matters, please mail to: Project Gutenberg P. O. Box 2782 Champaign, IL 61825 When all other email fails. . .try our Executive Director: Michael S. Hart hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . . We would prefer to send you this information by email. ****** To access Project Gutenberg etexts, use any Web browser to view http://promo.net/pg. This site lists Etexts by author and by title, and includes information about how to get involved with Project Gutenberg. You could also download our past Newsletters, or subscribe here. This is one of our major sites, please email hart@pobox.com, for a more complete list of our various sites. To go directly to the etext collections, use FTP or any Web browser to visit a Project Gutenberg mirror (mirror sites are available on 7 continents; mirrors are listed at http://promo.net/pg). Mac users, do NOT point and click, typing works better. Example FTP session: ftp metalab.unc.edu login: anonymous password: your@login cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg cd etext90 through etext99 etext00 and etext01 dir [to see files] get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] GET GUTINDEX.?? [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99] GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books] *** **Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** (Three Pages) ***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. *BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project"). Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, [1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that time to the person you received it from. If you received it on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement copy. If you received it electronically, such person may choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to receive it electronically. THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you may have other legal rights. INDEMNITY You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this "Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, or: [1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as *EITHER*: [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not* contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work, although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may be used to convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters may be used to indicate hypertext links; OR [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form). [2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small Print!" statement. [3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon University" within the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". We are planning on making some changes in our donation structure in 2000, so you might want to email me, hart@pobox.com beforehand. *END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* A Face Illumined by E. P. Roe Preface As may be gathered from the following pages, my title was obtained a a number of years ago, and the story has since been taking form and color in my mind. What has become of the beautiful but discordant face I saw at the concert garden I do not know, but I trust that that the countenance it suggested, and its changes may not prove so vague and unsatisfactory as to be indistinct to the reader. It has looked upon the writer during the past year almost like the face of a living maiden, and I have felt, in a way that would be hard to explain, that I have had but little to do with its expressions, and that forces and influences over which I had no control were moulding character. The old garden, and the aged man who grew young within it, are not creations, but sacred memories. That the book may tend to ennoble other faces than that of Ida Mayhew, is the earnest wish of E. P. Roe. Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, N. Y. Contents Chapter I: A Face..............................................11 Chapter II: Ida Mayhew.........................................22 Chapter III: An Artist's Freak.................................35 Chapter IV: A Parthian Arrow...................................42 Chapter V: Spite...............................................51 Chapter VI: Reckless Words and Deeds...........................60 Chapter VII: Another Feminine Problem..........................71 Chapter VIII: Glimpses of Tragedy..............................85 Chapter IX: Unexpectedly Thrown Together.......................96 Chapter X: Phrases too Suggestive.............................108 Chapter XI: A "Tableau Vivant"................................118 Chapter XII: Miss Mayhew is Puzzled...........................126 Chapter XIII: Nature's Broken Promise.........................137 Chapter XIV: A Revelation.....................................145 Chapter XV: Contrasts.........................................159 Chapter XVI: Out Among Shadows................................172 Chapter XVII: New Forces Developing...........................184 Chapter XVIII: Love Put to Work...............................195 Chapter XIX: Man's Highest Honor..............................203 Chapter XX: A Wretched Secret that Must be Kept...............209 Chapter XXI: A Deliberate Wooer...............................216 Chapter XXII: A Vain Wish.....................................225 Chapter XXIII: Jennie Burton's Remedies.......................232 Chapter XXIV: A Hateful, Wretched Life........................239 Chapter XXV: Half-Truths......................................246 Chapter XXVI: Sunday Table-Talk...............................251 Chapter XXVII: A Family Group.................................262 Chapter XXVIII: Rather Volcanic...............................268 Chapter XXIX: Evil Lives Cast Dark Shadows....................278 Chapter XXX: The Deliberate Wooer Speaks First................284 Chapter XXXI: An Emblem.......................................293 Chapter XXXII: The Dangers of Despair.........................303 Chapter XXXIII: "Hope Dies Hard"..............................311 Chapter XXXIV: Puzzled........................................324 Chapter XXXV: Desperately Wounded.............................335 Chapter XXXVI: Temptation's Voice.............................350 Chapter XXXVII: Voices of Nature..............................360 Chapter XXXVIII: A Good Man Speaks............................369 Chapter XXXIX: Van Berg's Escape..............................387 Chapter XL: Van Berg's Conclusions............................397 Chapter XLI: The Protestant Confessional......................403 Chapter XLII: The Corner-Stone of Character...................424 Chapter XLIII: A "Heavenly Mystery"...........................435 Chapter XLIV: "The Garden of Eden"............................443 Chapter XLV: Problems Beyond Art..............................470 Chapter XLVI: A Resolute Philosopher..........................486 Chapter XLVII: The Concert Garden Again.......................500 Chapter XLVIII: Ida's Temptation..............................518 Chapter XLIX: The Blind God...................................538 Chapter L: Swept Away.........................................555 Chapter LI: From Deep Experience..............................569 Chapter LII: An Illumined Face................................589 Chapter LIII: A Night's Vigil.................................601 Chapter LIV: Life and Trust...................................615 Chapter 1. A Face. Although the sun was approaching the horizon, its slanting rays found a young artist still bending over his easel. That his shoulders are broad is apparent at a glance; that upon them is placed a shapely head, well thatched with crisp black hair, is also seen at once; that the head is not an empty one is proved by the picture on the easel, which is sufficiently advanced to show correct and spirited drawing. A brain that can direct the hand how to do one thing well, is like a general who has occupied a strategic point which will give him the victory if he follows up his advantage. A knock at the door is not answered at once by the intent and preoccupied artist, but its sharp and impatient repetition secures the rather reluctant invitation, "Come in," and even as he spoke he bent forward to give another stroke. "Six o'clock, and working still!" cried the intruder. "You will keep the paint market active, if you achieve nothing else as an artist." "Heigho! Ik, is that you?" said he of the palette, good-naturedly; and rising slowly he gave a lingering look at his work, then turned and greeted his friend with the quiet cordiality of long and familiar acquaintance. "What a marplot you are with your idle ways!" he added. "Sit down here and make yourself useful for once by doing nothing nothing for ten minutes. I am in just the mood and have just the light for a bit of work which perhaps I can never do as well again," and the artist returned promptly to his picture. In greeting his friend he had revealed that he was above middle height, that he had full black eyes that were not only good for seeing, but could also, if he chose, give great emphasis to his words, and at times be even more expressive. A thick mustache covered his lip, but the rest of his face was cleanly shaven, and was strong and decided in its outlines rather than handsome. "They say a woman's work is never done," remarked Ik Stanton, dropping into the easiest chair in the studio, "and for this reason, were there no other, your muse is evidently of the feminine persuasion. I also admit that she is a lady of great antiquity. Indeed I would place her nearer to the time when 'Adam delved and Eve span' than to the classic age." "My dear Ik," responded the artist, "I am often at a loss to know whether I love or despise you most. If a little of the whirr of our great grandam's spinning wheel would only get into your brain the world might hear from you. You are a man of unbounded stomach and unbounded heart, and so you have won all there is of me except my head, and that disapproves of you." "A fig for the world! what good will it do me or it to have it hear from me? you ambitious fellows are already making such a din that the poor old world is half ready for Bedlam; and would go stark mad were it not for us quiet, easy-going people, who have time for a good dinner and a snack between meals. You've got a genius that's like a windmill in a trade wind, always in motion; you are worth more money than I shall ever have, but you are the greatest drudge in the studio building, and work as many hours as a house-painter." "When your brain once gets in motion, Ik, fiction will be its natural product. You must admit that I have not painted many pictures." "That is one of the things I complain of; I, your bosom friend and familiar, your, I might add, guardian angel--I, who have so often saved your life by quenching the flame of your consuming genius with a hearty dinner, have been able to obtain one picture only from you, and as one might draw a tooth. Your pictures are like old maid's children--they must be so perfect that they can't exist at all. But come, the ten minutes are up. Here's the programme for the evening--a drive in the Park and a little dinner at a cool restaurant near Thomas's Garden, and then the concert. That prince of musical caterers has made a fine selection for to-night, and, with the cigar stand on one side of us and the orchestra on the other, we are certain to kill a couple of hours that will die like swans." "You mention the cigar-stand first." "Why not? Smoke is more real than empty sound." "Are you not equally empty, Ik, save after dinner? How have the preceding hours of this long day been killed?" "Like boas. They have enfolded me with a weary weight." "The snakes in your comparison are larger than your pun, and the pun, rather than yourself, suggests a constrictor's squeeze." "Come, you are only abusing me to gain time, and you may gain too much. My horses have more mettle than their master, and may carry off my trap and groom to parts unknown, while you are wasting paint and words. You are like the animals at the Park, that are good-natured only after they are fed. So shut up your old paint shop, and come along; we will shorten our ride and lengthen our dinner." With mutual chaffing and laughter the young men at last went down to where a liveried coachman and a pair of handsome bays were in waiting. Taking the high front seat and gathering up the reins, Ik Stanton, with his friend Harold Van Berg at his side, bowled away towards the Park at a rapid pace. Harold Van Berg was, in truth, something of a paradox. He was an artist, and yet was rich; he had inherited large wealth, and yet had formed habits of careful industry. The majority of his young acquaintances, who had been launched from homes like his own, were known only as sons of their fathers, and degenerate sons at that. Van Berg was already winning a place among men on the ground of what he was and could do himself. It were hard to say which was the stronger motive, his ambition or the love of his art; but it seemed certain that between the two, such talent as he had been endowed with would be developed quite thoroughly. And he did possess decided talent, if not genius. But his artistic gift accorded with his character, and was controlled by judgement, correct taste, and intellectuality rather than by strong and erratic impulses. His aims were definite and decided rather than vague and diffusive; but his standards were so high that, thus far, he had scarcely attempted more than studies that were like the musician's scales by which he seeks to acquire a skill in touch that shall enable him to render justly the works of the great composers. His family had praised his work unstintedly, and honestly thought it wonderful; he had also been deluged with that kind of flattery which relaxes the rules of criticism in favor of the wealthy. Thus it was not strange that the young fellow, at one time, believed that he was born to greatness by a kindly decree of fate. But as his horizon widened he was taught better. His mind, fortunately, grew faster than his vanity, and as he compared his crude but promising work with that of mature genius, he was not stricken with that most helpless phase of blindness--the inability to see the superiority of others to one's self. Every day, therefore, of study and observation was now chastening Harold Van Berg and preparing him to build his future success on the solid ground of positive merit as compared with that of other and gifted artists. Van Berg's taste and talent led him to select, as his specialty, the human form and countenance, and he chiefly delighted in those faces which were expressive of some striking or subtle characteristic of the indwelling mind. He would never be content to paint surfaces correctly, giving to features merely their exact proportions. Whether the face were historical, ideal, or a portrait, the controlling trait or traits of the spirit within must shine through, or else he regarded the picture as scarcely half finished. A more sincere idolator than Van Berg, in his worship of beauty, never existed; but it was the beauty of a complete man or a complete woman. Even in his early youth he had not been so sensuous as to be captivated by that opaque fragment of a woman--an attractive form devoid of a mind. Indeed with the exception of a few boyish follies, his art had been his mistress thus far, and it was beginning to absorb both heart and brain. With what a quiet pulse--with what a complacent sense of security we often meet those seemingly trivial events which may change the whole character of our lives! The ride had been taken, the dinner enjoyed, and the two friends were seated in the large cool hallway off the concert garden, where they could smoke without offence. The unrivalled leader, Thomas, had just lifted his baton--that magic wand whose graceful yet mysterious motion evokes with equal ease, seemingly, the thunder of a storm, the song of a bird, the horrid din of an inferno, or a harmony so pure and lofty as to suggest heavenly strains. One of Beethoven's exquisite symphonies was to be rendered, and Van Berg threw away his half-burned cigar, settled himself in his chair and glanced around with a congratulatory air, as if to say, "Now we are to have one of those pleasures which fills the cup of life to overflowing." Oh, that casual glance! It was one of those things that we might justly call "little." Could anything have been more trivial, slight, and apparently inconsequential than this half involuntary act? Indeed it was too aimless even to have been prompted by a conscious effort of the will. But this book is one of the least results of that momentary sweep of the eye. Another was, that Van Berg did not enjoy the symphony at all, and was soon in a very bad humor. That casual glance had revealed, not far away, a face that with his passion for beauty, at once riveted his attention. His slight start and faint exclamation, caused Ik Stanton to look around also, and then, with a mischievous and observant twinkle in his eyes, the bon vivant resumed his cigar, which no symphony could exorcise from his mouth. At a table just within the main audience room, there sat a young lady and gentleman. Even Van berg, who made it his business to discover and study beauty, was soon compelled to admit to himself that he had never seen finer features than were possessed by this fair young stranger. Her nose was straight, her upper lip was short, and might have been modelled from Cupid's bow; her chin did not form a perfect oval after the cold and severe Grecian type, but was slightly firm and prominent, receding with decided yet exquisite curves to the full white throat. Her cheeks had a transparent fairness, in which the color came and went instead of lingering in any conventional place and manner; her hair was too light to be called brown and too dark to be golden, but was shaded like that on which the sunlight falls in one of Bougereau's pictures of "Mother and Child;" and it rippled away from a broad low brow in natural waves, half hiding the small, shell-like ears. Van Berg at first though her eyes to be her finest feature, but he soon regarded them as the worst, and for the same reason, as he speedily discovered, that the face, each feature of which seemed perfect, became, after brief study, so unsatisfactory as to cause positive annoyance. To a passing glance they were large, dark, beautiful eyes, but they lost steadily under thoughtful scrutiny. A flashing gem may seem real at first, but as its meretricious rays are analyzed, they lose their charm because revealing a stone not only worthless worse than worthless, since it mocks us with a false resemblance, thus raising hopes only to disappoint them. The other features remained beautiful and satisfactory to Van Berg's furtive observation because further removed from the informing mind, and therefore more justly capable of admiration upon their own merits; but the eyes are too near akin to the animating spirit not to suffer from the relationship, should the spirit be essentially defective. That the beautiful face was but a transparent mask of a deformed, dwarfed, contemptible little soul was speedily made evident. The cream and a silly flirtation with her empty-headed attendant--a pallid youth who parted his hair like a girl and had not other parts worth naming--absorbed her wholly, and the exquisite symphony was no more to her than an annoying din which made it difficult to hear her companion's compliments that were as sweet, heavy, and stale as Mailard's chocolates, left a year on the shelves. Their mutual giggle and chatter at last became so obtrusive that an old and music-loving German turned his broad face towards them, and hissed out the word "Hist!" with such vindictive force as to suggest that all the winds had suddenly broken lose from the cave of Aeolus. Ik Stanton, who had been watching Van Berg's perturbed, lowering face, and the weak comedy at the adjacent table, was obviously much amused, although he took pains to appear blind to it all and kept his back, as far as possible, towards the young lady. The German's "hist" had been so fierce as to be almost like a rap from a policeman's club, and there was an enforced and temporary suspension of the inane chatter. The attendant youth tried to assume the incensed and threatening look with which an ancient gallant would have laid his hand on the hilt of his sword. But some animals and men only become absurd when they try to appear formidable. It was ludicrous to see him weakly frowning at the sturdy Teuton who had already forgotten his existence as completely as he might that of a buzzing mosquito he had exterminated with a slap. They young girl's face grew even less satisfactory as it became more quiet. A muddy pool, rippled by a breeze, will sparkle quite brilliantly while in motion; but when quiet it is seen the more plainly to be only a shallow pool. At first the beautiful features expressed only petty resentment at the public rebuke. As this faintly lurid light faded out and left the countenance in its normal state it became more heavy and earthy in its expression than Van Berg would have deemed possible, and it ever remained a mystery to him how features so delicate, beautiful, and essentially feminine could combine to show so clearly that the indwelling nature was largely alloyed with clay. there was not that dewy freshness in the fair young face which one might expect to see in the early morning of existence. The Lord from heaven breathed the breath of life into the first fair woman; but this girl might seem to have been the natural product of evolution, and her soul to be as truly of the earth as her body. It was evident that she had been made familiar too early and thoroughly with conventional and fashionable society, and, although this fraction of the world is seldom without its gloves, its touch nevertheless had soiled her nature. Her face did not express any active or malignant principle of evil; but a close observer, like Van Berg, in whom the man was in the ascendant over the animal, could detect the absence of the serene, maidenly purity of expression, characteristic of those girls who have obtained their ideas of life from good mothers, rather than from French novels, French plays, and a phase of society that borrows its inspiration from fashionable Paris. With the ending of the symphony the chatting and flirting at the table began again, to Van Berg's increased disgust. Indeed, he was so irritated that he could no longer control himself, and rose abruptly, saying to his companion: "Come, let us walk outside." His sudden movement drew the young lady's attention, but by this time he had only his broad shoulders turned towards her. She saw Ik Stanton looking at her, however, with a face full of mischief, and she recognized him with a nod and a smile. He, with the familiarity that indicated relationship, but with a motion too slight to be noticed by others, threw her a kiss from the tips of his fingers, as one might toss a sugar-plum to a child, and then followed his friend. Chapter II. Ida Mayhew. What is the matter, Van? You remind me of a certain horned beast that has seen a red flag," said Ik Stanton, linking his arm in that of Van Berg's. "An apt illustration. I have been baited and irritated for the last twenty minutes." "I thought you enjoyed Beethoven's music, and surely Thomas rendered it divinely to-night." "That is one of the chief of my grievances. I haven't been able to hear a note," was the wrathful response. "That's strange," said Stanton with mock gravity. "Were I not afraid you would take it amiss I would hint that your ears are of goodly size. How comes it that they have so suddenly failed you?" "Having seen your dinner you have no eyes for anything else. If you had, you would have seen a face near us." "I saw a score of faces near us. A German had one with the area of an acre." "Was he the one who said, 'hist,' like a blast from the North?" "From a porpoise rather." "Did you observe the girl towards whom his gusty rebuke was directed?" "Yes, an inoffensive young lady." "Inoffensive, indeed!" interrupted Van Berg. "She has put me into purgatory." "You do seem quite ablaze. Well, you are not the first one that she has put there. But really, Van, I did not know that you were so inflammable." "If you had any of the instincts of an artist you would know that I am inflamed with no gentler feeling than anger." "Why! what has the poor child done to you?" "She is not a child. She knows too much about some things." "I've no doubt she is better than either you or I," said Stanton, sharply. "That fact would be far from proving her a saint." "What the dickens makes you so vindictive against the girl?" "Because she has the features of an angel and the face of a fool. What business has a woman to mock and disappoint one so! When I first saw her I thought I had discovered a prize--a new revelation of beauty; but a moment later she looked so ineffably silly that I felt as if I had bitten into an apple of Sodom. Of course the girl is nothing to me. I never saw her before and hope I may never see her again; but her features were so perfect that I could not help looking at them, and the more I looked the more annoyed I became to find that, instead of being blended together into a divine face by the mind within, they were the reluctant slaves of as picayune a soul as ever maintained its microscopic existence in a human body. It is exasperating to think what that face might be, and to see what it is. How can nature make such absurd blunders? The idea of building so fair a temple for such an ugly little divinity!" "I thought you artists were satisfied with flesh and blood women, if only put together in a way pleasing to your fastidious eyes." "If nature had designed that women should consist only of flesh and blood women, if only put together in a way pleasing to your fastidious eyes." "If nature had designed that women should consist only of flesh and blood, one would have to be content; but no one save the 'unspeakable Turk,' believes in such a woman, or wants her. Who admires such a fragment of a woman save the man that is as yet undeveloped beyond the animal? My mother is my friend, my companion, my inspiration. The idea of yonder silly creature being the companion of a MAN." "Good evening, Coz," said a voice that was a trifle shrill and loud for a public place, and looking up, the friends saw the subject of their conversation, who, with her spindling attendant was also taking a promenade. Stanton raised his hat with a smile, while Van Berg touched his but coldly. "I wish to speak with you," she said in passing. "I will join you soon," Stanton answered. "So this lady is your cousin?" remarked Van Berg. "She is," said Stanton laughing. "You will do me the justice to remember that I spoke in ignorance of the fact. If I were you I would give her some cousinly advice." "Bless you! I have, but it's like pouring water on a duck's back. For one sensible word I can say to her she gets a thousand compliments from rich and empty-headed young fools, like the one now with her, who will eventually be worth half a million in his own name. I was interested to see how her face would strike you, and I imagine that your estimate has hit pretty close upon the truth, for in my judgment she is the prettiest and silliest girl in New York. She has recently returned from a year's absence abroad, and I was in hopes that she would find something to remember besides her own handsome face, but I imagine she has seen little else than it and the admiring glances which everywhere follow her. Take us as we average, Van, Mr. Darwin has not go us very far along yet, and if the face of a woman suits us we are apt to stare at it as far as such politeness as we possess permits, without giving much thought to her intellectual endowments. When it comes to companionship, however, I agree with you. Heaven help the man who is tied to such a woman for life. Still, in the fashionable crowd my cousin trains with, this makes little difference. The husband goes his way and the wife hers, and they are not long in getting a good ways apart. But come, let me introduce you, I have always thought the little fool had some fine gold mingled with her dross, and you are such a skilful analyst that perhaps you will discover it." "No, I thank you," said Van Berg, with a slight expression of disgust. "I could not speak civilly to a lady that I had just seen giggling and flirting through one of Beethoven's finest symphonies." "Well well," said Stanton laughing, "I am rather glad to find one man who is not drawn to her pretty face like a moth to a candle. I will join you again by and by." Van Berg sat down in one of the little stalls that stood open to the main promenade, and saw his friend thread his way among the moving figures, and address his cousin. As she turned to speak with Stanton, the artist received again that vivid impression of beauty, which her face ever caused before time was given for closer scrutiny. Indeed from his somewhat distant point of observation, and in the less searching light, the fatal flaw could scarcely be detected. Her affected tones and silly words could not be heard, and he saw only dark lustrous eyes lighting up features that were almost a revelation even to him with his artistic familiarity with beauty. "If I could always keep her at about that distance," he muttered, "and arrange the lights and shadows in which to view her face, I could not ask for a better study, for she would give me a basis of perfect beauty, and I could add any expression of characteristic that I desired." And now he feasted his eyes as a compensation, in part, for the annoyance she had caused him in the glare of the audience room. He soon saw a frown lower upon her hitherto laughing face like the shadow of a passing cloud, and it was evident that something had been said that was not agreeable to her vanity. A moment or two after Stanton had joined the young lady her escort for the evening had excused himself for a brief time, and had left the cousins together. She had then asked, "I say, Ik, who was that gentleman you were talking with?" "He's an old friend of mine." "He's not an OLD friend of any one. He is young and quite good-looking, or rather he has a certain 'distingue' air that makes one look at him twice. Who is he?" "He is an artist, and if he lives and works as he is now doing, through an ordinary lifetime, he will indeed by distinguished. In fact, he stands high already." "How nice," she exclaimed. "He has another characteristic, which you will appreciate far more than anything he will ever accomplish with his brush--he is very rich." "Why! he's perfectly splendid. Whoever heard of such a strange, rare creature! I've flirted with lots of poor artists, but never with a rich one. Bring him to me, and introduce him at once." "He is not one that you can flirt with, like the attenuated youth who has just meandered to the barroom." "Why not?" "If you had eyes for anything save your own pretty face, and the public stare, you would have seen that my friend is not a 'creature,' but a man." "Come, Cousin Ik," she replied in more natural tones, "too much of your house is made of glass for you to throw stones. Flirting and frolicking are as good any day as eating, smoking, and dawdling." Stanton bit his lip, but retorted, "I don't profess to be a bit better than you are, Coz; but I at least have the sense to appreciate those who are my superiors." "So have I, when I find them; I am beginning to think, however, that you men are very much alike. All you ask is a pretty face, for you all think that you have brains enough for two. But bring your paragon and introduce him, that I may share in your gaping admiration." "You would, indeed, my dear Coz, yawn over his conversation, for you couldn't understand half of it. I think we had better remain where we are till your shadow returns with his eyes and nose slightly inflamed. He is aware of at least one method of becoming a spirited youth, it seems." "A man who is worth half a million is usually regarded as rather substantial," she retorted. "Yes, but in this case the money-bags outweigh the man too ridiculously. For heaven's sake, Coz, do not make a spectacle of yourself by marrying this attenuation, or society will assert there was a regularly drawn bill of sale." "I assure you that I do not intend to put myself under any man's thumb for a long time to come. I am having too good a time; and that reminds me that I would enjoy meeting your friend much more than listening to your cynical speeches. Did I not know that you were like my little King Charles--all bark rather than bite--I wouldn't stand them; and I won't any longer, to-night. So go and bring your great embryo artist, or he will become one of the old masters before I see him." "I fear I must give you a wee bit of bite this time. I have offered to introduce him and he declines the honor." "How is that?" she asked, flushing with anger. "I will quote his words exactly, and then you can interpret them as you think best. He said, 'I could not speak civilly to a lady that I had just seen giggling and flirting through one of Beethoven's finest symphonies.'" The young girl's face looked anything but amiable in response to this speech; but, after a moment, she tossed her head, and replied: "'N'importe'--there are plenty who can use not only civil words but complimentary ones." "Yes, and the mischief of it is that you will listen to them and to no others. What sort of muscle can one make who lives only on sugar-plums?" "They agree with me better than the vinegar drops you and your unmannerly friend delight in. I don't believe he ever painted anything better than a wooden squaw for one of your beloved cigar-shops--welcome back Mr. Minty. You have been away an unconscionably long time." "Thanks for the compliment of being missed. I have tried to make amends by ordering a 'petit souper' for three, for I was sure your cousin would join us. It will be brought to one of yonder stalls, where, while we enjoy it, we can both see and hear." Surmising that the viands would consist of the choicest delicacies of the season, Stanton readily accepted the invitation, and it so happened that the cloth was laid for the party in the stall next to that in which Van Berg was quietly enjoying a cigar and a frugal glass of lager. They took their places quite unaware of his proximity, and he listened with considerable interest to the tones and words of the fair stranger who had so unexpectedly taken possession of his thoughts. Were it not for a slight shrillness and loudness at times, and the fashionable affectation of the day, her voice would have been sweet and girlish enough. As it was, it suggested an instrument tuned to a false key and consequently discordant with all true and womanly harmonies. Her conversation with young Minty was as insipid as himself, but occasionally Stanton's cynical banter evoked something like repartee and wit. In the course of her talk she said: "By the way, Ik, mother and I start for the country next week. We are to spend the summer at the Lake House, which is up the Hudson somewhere--you know where better than I. If you will bring your bays and a light wagon I shall be very glad to see you there; otherwise I shall welcome you--well--as my cousin." "If I come I will surely bring my bays, and possibly may invite you to drive with me." "Oh, I will save you all trouble in that respect by inviting myself, when so inclined." The orchestra was now about to give a selection that Van Berg wished to hear to better advantage than he could in his present position; therefore, unobserved by the party on the other side of the thin partition, he returned to his old seat in the main hallway. Not very long after, Stanton, with his cousin and Mr. Minty, entered from the promenade, and again Van Berg received the same vivid impression of beauty, and, with many others, could not withdraw his eyes from the exquisite features that were slightly flushed with champagne and excitement. But, as before, this impression passed quickly, and the face again became as exasperating to the artist as the visage of the Venus of Milo would be should some vandal hand pencil upon it a leer or a smirk. A heavy frown was gathering upon his brow when the young lady, happening to turn suddenly, caught and fully recognized his lowering expression. It accorded only too well with her cousin's words in regard to Van Berg's estimate of herself, and greatly increased her resentment towards the one who had already wounded her vanity--the most vulnerable and sensitive trait in her character. The flush that deepened so suddenly upon her face was unmistakably that of anger. She promptly turned her back upon her critic, nor did she look towards him again until the close of the evening. That his words and manner rankled in her memory, however, was proved by a slightly preoccupied manner, followed by fits of gayety not altogether natural, and chiefly by the fact that she could not leave the place without a swift glance at the disturbing cause of her wonted self-approval. But Van Berg took pains to manifest his indifference by standing with his back towards her when she knew that he must be aware of her departure, from her slightly ostentatious leave-taking of her cousin, in which, of course, the spoiled beauty had no other object than to attract attention to herself. As Van Berg, with his friend, was passing out a few minutes later, he asked rather abruptly, showing that he also was not so indifferent as he had pretended to be: "What is your cousin's name, Stanton?" "Her name is as pretty as herself--Ida Mayhew, and it is worse than a disquieting ghost in a good many heads and hearts that I know of. Indeed its owner has robbed men that I thought sensible, not only of their peace, but, I should say, of their wits also. I had one friend of whom I thought a great deal, and it was pitiable to see the abject state to which the heartless little minx reduced him. I am glad to find that her witchery has no spell for you, and that you detect just what she is through her disguise of beauty. 'Entre nous,' Van, I will tell you a secret. I was once over ears in love with her myself, but my cousinly relationship enabled me to see her so often and intimately that she cured me of my folly on homeopathic principles. 'Similia similibus curantur.' Even the blindness of love could not fail to discover that when one subtracted vanity, coquetry, and her striking external beauty from Ida Mayhew, but little was left, and that little not a heavenly compound. Those who know her least, and who add to her beauty many ideal perfections, are the ones that rave about her most. I doubt whether she ever had a heart; if so, it was frittered away long ago in her numberless flirtations. But with all her folly she has ever had the sense to keep within the conventionalities of her own fashionable 'coterie,' which is the only world she knows anything about, and whose unwritten laws are her only creed and religion. Her disappointed suitors can justly charge her with cruelty, silliness, ignorance, and immeasurable vanity, but never with indiscretion. She has to perfection the American girl's ability to take care of herself, and no man will see twice to take a liberty beyond that which etiquette permits. I have now given you in brief the true character of Ida Mayhew. It is no secret, for all who come to know her well, arrive at the same opinion. When I saw you had observed her this evening for the first time, I was quite interested in watching the impression she would make upon you, and I am very glad that your judgment has been both good and prompt; for I slightly feared that your love of beauty might make you blind to everything else." Stanton's concluding words were as incense to Van Berg, for he prided himself in no slight degree on his even pulse and sensible heart, that, thus far, had given him so little trouble; and he therefore replied, with a certain tinge of complacency and consciousness of security: "You know me well enough, Ik, to be aware that I am becoming almost a monomaniac in my art. A woman's face is to me little more than a picture which I analyze from an artistic stand-point. A MERELY PRETTY face is like a line of verse of musical rhythm, but without sense or meaning. This is bad and provoking enough; but when the most exquisite features give expression only to some of the meanest and unworthiest qualities that can infest a woman's soul, one is exasperated almost beyond endurance. At least I am, for I am offended in my strongest instincts. Think of employing stately Homeric words and measure in describing a belle's toilet table with its rouge-pots, false hair, and other abominations! Much worse is it, in my estimation, that the features of a goddess should tell us only of such moral vermin as vanity, silliness, and the egotism of a poor little self that thinks of nothing, and knows nothing save its own small cravings. Pardon me, Ik; I am not speaking of your cousin but in the abstract. In regard to that young lady, as you saw, I was very much struck with the face. Indeed, to tell the honest truth, I never saw so much beauty spoiled before, and the fact has put me in so bad a humor that you, no doubt, are glad I have reached my corner and so must say good-night." "Ida Mayhew can realize all such abstractions," muttered Ik Stanton, as he walked on alone. The reader will be apt to surmise, however, that some resentment, resulting from his former and unrequited sentiment towards the girl, gave an unjust bias to his judgement. Chapter III. An Artist's Freak. Van Berg's night-key admitted him to a beautiful home, which he now had wholly to himself, since his parents and sister had sailed for Europe early in the spring, intending to spend the summer abroad. The young man had already travelled and studied for years in the lands naturally attractive to an artist, and it was now his purpose to familiarize himself more thoroughly with the scenery of his own country. On reaching his own apartment he took down a prosy book, that he might read himself into that condition of drowsiness which would render sleep possible; but sleep would not come, and the sentences were like the passers-by in the street, whom we see but do not note, and for whose coming and going we know not the reasons. Between himself and the page he saw continually the exquisite features and the exasperating face of Ida Mayhew. At last he threw aside the book, lighted a cigar, and gave himself up to the reveries to which this beautiful, but discordant visage so strongly predisposed him. Its perfection in one respect, its strongly marked imperfection in another, both appealed equally to his artistic and thoughtful mind. At one moment it would appear before him with an ideal loveliness such as had never blessed the eye of his fancy even; but while he yet looked the features would distort themselves into the vivid expression of some contemptible trait, so like what he had seen in reality, during the evening, that, in uncontrollable irritation, he would start up and pace the floor. His uncurbed imagination conjured up all kinds of weird and grotesque imagery. He found himself commiserating the girl's features as if they were high-toned captives held in degrading bondage by a spiteful little monster, that delighted to put them to low and menial uses. To one of his temperament such beauty as he had just witnessed, controlled by, and ministering to, some of the meanest and pettiest of human vices, was like Mary Magdalene when held in thraldom by seven devils. A cool and matter-of-fact person could scarcely understand Van Berg's annoyance and perturbation. If a true artist were compelled to see before him a portrait that required only a few skillful touches in order to become a perfect likeness, and yet could not give those touches, the picture would become a constant vexation; and the better the picture, the nearer it approached the truth, the deeper would be the irritation that all should be spoiled through defects for which there was no necessity. In the face that persistently haunted him Van Berg saw a beauty that might fulfil his best ideal; and he also saw just why it did not and never could, until its defects were remedied. He felt a sense of personal loss that he should have discovered a gem so nearly perfect and yet marred by so fatal a flaw. The next day it was still the same. The face of Ida Mayhew interposed itself before everything that he sought to do or see. Whether it were true or not, it appeared to him that in all his wanderings and observations he had never seen features so capable of fulfilling his highest conception of beauty did they but express the higher qualities and emotions of the soul. He also felt that never before had he seen a face that would seem to him so hideous in its perversion. He threw down his brush and palette in despair and again gave himself up to his fancies. He then sketched in outline the beautiful face as expressing joy, hope, courage, thought or love, but was provoked to find that he ever obtained the best likeness when portraying the vanity, silliness, or petulance which had been the only characteristics he had seen. He now grew metaphysical and tried to analyze the girl's mind. He sought to grope mentally his way back into the recesses of the soul, which had looked, acted, and spoken the previous evening. A strange little place he imagined it, and oddly furnished. It occurred to him that it bore a resemblance to her dressing room, and was full of queer feminine mysteries and artificial ideas that had been created by conventional society rather than inspired by nature. He asked himself, "Can it be that here is a character in which the elements of a true and good woman do not exist? Has she no heart, no mind, no conscience worthy of the name? At her age she cannot have lost these qualities. Have they never been awakened? Do they exist to that degree that they can be aroused into controlling activity? I suppose there can be pretty idiots. As people are born blind or scrofulous, so I suppose others can be born devoid of heart or conscience, inheriting from a degenerate ancestry sundry mean and vile propensities in their places. Human nature is a scale that runs both up and down, and it is astonishing how far the extremes can be apart." "How high is it possible for the same individual to rise in this scale? I imagine we are all prone to judge of people as if they were finished pictures, and to think that the defects our first scrutiny discovers will remain for all time. It is in real life much as in fiction. From first to last a villain is a villain, as if he had been created one. The heroine is a moss rose-bud by equal and unchanging necessity. Is this girl a fool, and will she remain one by any innate compulsion? By Jove! I would like to see her again in the searching light of day. I would like to follow her career sufficiently long, to discover whether nature has been guilty of the grotesque crime of associating inseparably with that fine form and those exquisite features, a hideous little mind that must go on intensifying its dwarfed deformity, until death snuffs it out. If this be true, the beautiful little monster that is bothering me so suggests a knotty problem to wiser heads than mine." Somewhat later his musings led him to indulge in a broad laugh. "Possibly," he said aloud, "she is a modern and fashionable Undine, and has never yet received a woman's soul. The good Lord deliver me from trying to awaken it, as did the knight of old in the story, by swelling the long list of her victims. I can scarcely imagine a more pitiable and abject creature than a man (once sane and sensible) in thraldom to such a tantalizing semblance of a woman. She would no more appreciate his devotion than the jackdaw the pearl necklace it pecked at. "I fear my Undine theory won't answer. Stanton says she has no heart, and her face and manner confirm his words. But now I think of it, the original Undine lived a long time ago--in the age of primeval simplicity, when even cool-blooded water nymphs had hearts. One is induced to think, in our age, that this organ will eventually disappear with the other characteristics of ancient and undeveloped man, and that the brain, or what stands for it, will become all in all. In the first instance the woman's soul came in through the heart; but I suppose that in the case of a modern Undine it could enter most readily through the head. I wonder if there is something like an unawakened mind, sleeping under that broad low brow that mocks one with its fair intellectual outline. I wonder if it would be possible to set her thinking, and so eventually render her capable of receiving a woman's soul. As it is now she seems to possess only certain disagreeable feminine propensities. One might engage in such an experiment as a philosopher rather than a lover; or, what is more to my purpose, as an artist. "By Jove! I would half like to make the attempt; it would give zest to one's summer vacation. Well, what is to hinder? Now I think of it she remarked that she was to spend the season at the Lake House, not far from the Hudson, a place well suited to my purposes. There are the wild highlands on one side, and a soft pastoral country on the other. I could there find abundant opportunity for varied studies in scenery, and at the same time beguile my idle hours at the hotel with this face of marvellous capabilities and possibilities. The features already exist, and would be beautiful if the girl were dead, and they could be no longer distorted by the small vices of the spirit back of them. They might become transcendently beautiful, could she in very truth receive the soul of a true and thoughtful woman--a soul such as makes my mother beautiful in her plain old age. "I'm inclined to follow this odd fancy. That girl is a 'rara avis' such as has never flown across my path before. I shall have a quarrel with nature all my life if I must believe she can fashion a face capable of meaning so much and yet actually meaning so little, and that little disgusting." After a few moments of deep thought, he again started to his feet and commenced pacing his studio. "Suppose," he soliloquized, "I attempt a novel bit of artistic work as my summer recreation. Suppose I take the face of this stranger instead of a piece of canvas and try to illumine it with thought, with womanly character and intelligence. If I fail, as I probably shall, no harm will be done. If her silliness and vanity are ingrained and essential parts of her nature, she shall learn that there is at least one man who can see her as she is, and whose heart is not wax on which to stamp her pretty and senseless image. If I only partially succeed, if I discern she has a mind, but so feeble that it can only half reclaim her from her weakness and folly, still something will be accomplished. Her features are so beautiful, that should they come to express even the glimmerings of that which is admirable, the face will be in part redeemed. But if by some happy miracle, as in the instance of the original Undine, a mind can be awakened that will gradually prepare a place for the soul of a true woman, I shall accomplish the best work of my life, even estimated from an artistic point of view. Possibly, for my reward, she will permit me to paint her portrait as a souvenir of our summer's acquaintance." It did not take Van Berg long to complete his arrangements for leaving town. He wrote a line to his friend Stanton, saying that he proposed spending a few weeks in the vicinity of the Highlands on the Hudson, and that he could not say when he would be at his rooms or at home again. The afternoon of the following day found him a passenger on a fleet steamboat, and fully bent upon carrying out his odd artistic freak. Chapter IV. A Parthian Arrow. As, in the quiet June evening, Harold Van Berg glided through the shadows of the Highlands, there came a slight change over his spirit of philosophical and artistic experiment. The season comported with his early manhood, and the witching hour and the scenery were not conducive to cold philosophy. He who prided himself on his steady pulse and a devotion to art so absorbing that it even prompted his impulses and gave character to his recreation, was led to feel, on this occasion, that his mistress was vague and shadowy, and to half wish for that companionship which the most self-reliant natures have craved at times, ever since man first felt, and God knew, that it was "not good for him to be alone." If he could turn from the beauty of the sun-tipped hills and rocks and the gloaming shadows to an appreciative and sympathetic face, such as he could at least imagine the visage of Ida Mayhew might become, would not his enjoyment of the beauty he saw be doubly enhanced? In his deepest consciousness he was compelled to admit that it would. He caught a glimpse of the truth that he would never attain in his highest manhood until he had allied himself to a womanhood which he should come to believe supremely true and beautiful. The ringing of the bell announced his landing, and in the hurry and bustle of looking after his luggage and obtaining a ticket which he had forgotten to procure, he speedily became again, in the world's estimation, and perhaps in his own, a practical, sensible man. An hour or two's ride among he hills brought him at last to the Lake House, where he selected a room that had a fine prospect of the mountains, the far distant river, and the adjacent open country, engaging it only for a brief time so that he might depart when he chose, in case the object of his pursuit should not appear, or he should weary of the effort, or despair of its success. A few days passed, but the face which had so haunted his fancy presented no actual appearance. The scenery, however, was beautiful, the weather so perfect, and he enjoyed his rambles among the hills and his excursions on the water so thoroughly that he was already growing slightly forgetful of his purpose and satisfied that he could enjoy himself a few weeks without the zest of artistically redeeming the face of Ida Mayhew. But one day, while at dinner, he overheard some gossip concerning a "great belle" who was to come that evening, and he at once surmised that it was the fair stranger he had seen at the concert. At the time, therefore, of the arrival of the evening stage he observantly puffed his cigar in a corner of the piazza, and was soon rewarded by seeing the object of his contemplated experiment step out of the vehicle, with the airy grace and confidence of one who regards each new abiding-place as a scene of coming pleasures and conquests, and who feels sure every glance toward her is one of admiration. There were eyes, however, that noted disapprovingly her jaunty self-assurance and self-assertion, and when she met those eyes her complacency seemed disturbed at once, for she flushed and promptly turned her back upon them. In fact, from the time she had first seen Van Berg's frowning face it had been a disagreeable memory, and now here it was again and frowning still. Although he sat at a distance from the landing-place, her eyes seemed drawn towards his as if by some fascination, and she already had the feeling that whenever he was present she would be conscious of his cool, critical observation. Van Berg had scarcely time to note a rather stout and overdressed person emerge from the stage, how was evidently the young lady's mother, when Ik Stanton, with his bays and a light country wagon, dashed up to the main entrance. Stanton was an element in the artistic problem that Van Berg had not bargained for, and what influence he would have, friendly or adverse, only time could show. While Stanton was accompanying his aunt and cousin to the register, as the gentleman of the party, the young lady said to him: "That horrid artist friend of yours is here. I wish he hadn't come. Did you tell him we were coming here?" "No, 'pon my honor." "I have believe you did. If so I'll never forgive you, for the very sight of him spoils everything." "Come now, Coz, be reasonable. From all the indications I have seen, Van Berg is the last man to follow you here or anywhere else, even though he knew of your prospective movements. He is here, as scores of others are, for his own pleasure. So follow your mother to your room, smooth your ruffled plumage and come down to supper." Even Miss Mayhew's egotism could find no fault with so reasonable an explanation, and she went pouting up the stairway in anything but a complacent mood. Stanton stepped out upon the piazza to greet his friend, saying: "Why, Van, it is an unexpected pleasure to find you here." "I was equally and quite as agreeably surprised to see you drive to the door. If you cousin had not come I might have helped you exercise your bays. I am doing some sketching in the vicinity." "My cousin shall not keep you from many an idle hour behind the bays--that is, if you will not carry your antipathy so far as to cut me on account of my relationship." "I'm not conscious of any antipathy for Miss Mayhew," replied Van Berg, with a slight shrug. "Oh, only indifference! Well, if you will both maintain that attitude there will be no trouble about the bays or anything else. I'll smoke with you after supper." "She evidently has an antipathy for me," mused Van Berg. "Stanton, no doubt, has told her of my uncomplimentary remarks, and possibly of the fact that I declined an introduction. That's awkward, for if I should now ask to be presented to her, she would very naturally decline, and so we might drift into something as closely resembling a quarrel as is possible in the case of two people who have never spoken to each other." He concluded that it would be best to leave to chance the occasion which should place them on speaking terms, and tried to persuade himself that her unpromising attitude towards him was not wholly unfavorable to his purpose. He never could hope to accomplish anything without at first piquing her pride and wounding her vanity. His only fear was that this had been done too effectually, and that from first to last she would simply detest him. In his preoccupation he forgot that the supper hour was passing, but at last started hastily for his room. As he rapidly turned a sharp corner he nearly ran into two ladies who were coming from an opposite direction, and looking up saw Mrs. Mayhew and the flushed, resentful face of her daughter. In spite of himself our even-pulsed philosopher flushed also, but instantly removing his hat he ejaculated: "I beg your pardon," and passed on. As Ida joined her cousin at the supper-table she whispered exultantly: "He has spoken to me." "Who has spoken to you?" "Your artist-bear." "How did that happen?" "Well, he nearly ran over me--horrid thing! I suppose that's another of his peculiar ways." "Did he embrace you?" "Embrace me! Good heavens, what an escape I have had! So this too is characteristic of your friend?" "You said he was a bear. If so, he should have given you a hug on the first opportunity." "He didn't have an opportunity, and he never will." "Poor fellow! It will make him sick if I tell him so. Well, since it is another case of beauty and the beast, what did the beast say?" "He said that it was very proper he should say to me after all his hatefulness. He said, 'I beg your pardon.'" "And then I suppose you kissed and made up." "Hush, you horrid thing. I noticed him no more than I would a chair that I might have stumbled over." "Thus displaying that sweet trait of yours--Charity. But I thought it was he that stumbled over you?" "A musty, miserable pun! It was he, and I'm delighted it so happened, that the first time he ever spoke to me he had to ask my pardon." "Well, well! I'm glad it so happened, too, and that the ice is broken between you, for Van Berg is a good friend of mine, and it would be confoundedly disagreeable to have you two lowering at each other across a bloody chasm of dark, revengeful thoughts." "The ice isn't broken at all. He has begged my pardon as he ought to do a hundred times; but I haven't granted it, and I never will. What's more, I'll never speak to him in all my life; never, never!" "Swear it by the 'inconstant moon'!" "Hush, here he comes. Ah, 'peste!' his table is right opposite ours." "Who is that tall and rather distinguished-looking gentleman that just entered?" asked Mrs. Mayhew, suddenly emerging from a pre-occupation with her supper which a good appetite had induced. "He IS distinguished, or will be. He's a particular friend of Ida's, and is as rich as Croesus." "Three items in his favor," said Mrs. Mayhew complacently; "but Ida has so many friends, or beaux, rather, that I can't keep track of them. Her friends speedily become furnace-like lovers, or else escape for their lives into the dim and remote region of mere bowing acquaintanceship. I once tried to keep a list of the various and variegated gentlemen with red whiskers and black whiskers, with whiskers sandy, brown, and occasionally almost white, but borrowing a golden hue from their purses, that appeared and disappeared so rapidly, as to almost make me dizzy. I was about as bewildered as the poor Indian who sought to take the census of London by notching a stick for every passer-by he met. And now before we are through supper on the first evening of our arrival, another appears, who is evidently an eligible 'parti' and twice as good as the minx deserves; but in a few days he, too, will vanish into thin air, and another and different style of man will take his place. Mark my words, Ida, you will be through the woods before long, and I expect you will take up with the crookedest of crooked sticks on the farther side," and the voluble Mrs. Mayhew resumed her supper with a zest which this dismal prospect did not by any means impair. "If I were in search of a crabbed, crooked stick, I would not have to look farther than yonder table," said the young lady, petulantly. "What you suppose about that dabbler in paint is about as far from the truth as your sketch of those who are my friends. That man never was my friend, and never shall be. I don't want you to get acquainted with him or speak to him. You must not introduce him to me, for if you do, I shall be rude to him." "Hoity-toity! what's the matter?" "I don't like him. Only Ik thinks he's wonderful. He has probably blinded our cousin to his faults by painting a flattering likeness of the vain youth here." "But in suggesting another portrait that was not altogether pleasing, he sinned beyond hope," whispered Stanton. Ida bit her lip and frowned, recalling the obnoxious artist's portrait of herself as giggling and flirting through one of Beethoven's symphonies; and she said spitefully: "He can never hope for anything from me." "Poor, hopeless wretch!" groaned Stanton. "How can he sip his tea yonder so complacently oblivious of his doom?" "Mother, I'm in earnest," resumed the daughter. "I have reasons for disliking that man, and I do not wish the annoyance of his acquaintance." "Well, well," said Mrs. Mayhew; "as long as the wind blows from that cool quarter, we can keep cool till it changes. If I mistake not, he is the same gentleman who met us in the corridor. I'm sure he has fine manners." "If it is fine manners in a man to nearly run over two ladies, he is perfect. But I am sick of hearing about him, and especially of seeing him. I insist, Ik, that you have our table changed to yonder corner, and then arrange it so that I can sit with my back towards him." "I am your Caliban, but would hint, my amiable Coz, that you should not bite off your own pretty nose in spite. Must all your kin join in this bitter feud? May I not smoke with my ancient familiar?" "Oh, be off, and if you and your friend disappear like your cigars, the world will survive." "I fear it is because my friend will never dissolve in sighs that you are so willing he should end in smoke." Having winged this Parthian arrow over his shoulder, Stanton strolled out on the piazza whither Van Berg had preceded him. Chapter V. Spite. Miss Mayhew apparently had not given a single glance to the artist, as he sat opposite to her and but a little out of earshot. Indeed, so well did she simulate unconsciousness of his presence, that were if not for an occasional glance from Mrs. Mayhew he might have thought himself unnoticed; but something in that lady's manner, as caught by occasional glances, led him to suspect that he was the subject of their conversation. But Ida's indifference was, in truth, only seeming; for although she never looked directly at him, she subjected his image, which was constantly flitting across the retina of her eye, to the closest scrutiny, and no act or expression of his escaped her. She was piqued by the fact that he showed no disturbed consciousness of her presence, and that his glance was occasionally as free and natural towards her as towards any other guest of the house. His bearing annoyed her excessively, for it seemed an easy and quiet assertion of indifference and superiority--two manifestations that were to her as objectionable as unusual. Neither in looks nor manner did she appear very agreeable during the brief time she spent in the public parlors. The guests of the house, even to the ladies who foresaw an eclipse of their own charms, were compelled to admit that she was very pretty; but it was a general remark that her face did not make or leave a pleasant impression. Van Berg surmised that Stanton's disposition to teaze and banter would lead him to repeat and, perhaps, distort, anything he might say concerning the young lady, so he made no reference whatever to the Mayhews, but took pains to give the impression that he was deeply interested in the scenery. "I shall probably be off with my sketch-book before you are up," he said; "for if I remember correctly, you are up with the lark only when you have been up over-night." "You are the greater sinner of the two," yawned Stanton; "for if I occasionally keep unseasonable hours at night, you do so habitually in the morning. Either you are not as brilliant as usual this evening, or else the country air makes me drowsy. Good-night. We will take a ride to-morrow, and you can sketch five miles of fence if you find that you cannot resist your mania for work." Perhaps Stanton HAD found his friend slightly preoccupied, for, in spite of the constraint he had put upon himself to appear as usual, this second and closer view of the face which had taken so strong a hold upon his fancy did not dissipate his first impressions. Indeed, they were deepened rather, for he saw again and more clearly the same marvellous capabilities in the features, and also their exasperating failure to make a beautiful face. He dreamed over his project some little time after his friend had retired, and the conclusion of his revery was: "I must soon make some progress in my experiment or else decamp, for that girl's contradictory face is a constant incentive to profanity." After seeing Mrs. Mayhew, however, he felt that justice required him to admit that the daughter was a natural and logical sequence; and in the mother he saw an element more hopelessly inartistic and disheartening than anything in the girl herself; for even if the latter could be changed, would not the shadow of the stout and dressy mother ever fall athwart the picture? Van Berg retired with the feeling that his project of illuminating a face by awakening a mind that, as yet, had slept, did not promise very brilliantly. Miss Mayhew tried to persuade herself that it was a relief not to see the critical artist at breakfast, nor to meet him as she strolled from the parlors to the piazza and thence to the croquet-ground, where she listlessly declined to take part in a game. There was, in truth, great need that her mind should be awakened and her whole nature radically changed, if it were a possible thing,--a need shown by the fact the fair June morning, with its fragrance and beauty, could not light up her face with its own freshness and gladness. The various notes of the birds were only sounds; the landscape, seen for the first time, was like the map of Switzerland, that, in the days of her geography lessons, gave her as vivid an idea of the country as a dry sermon does of heaven. Although her ears and eyes were so pretty, she was, in the deepest and truest sense of the word, deaf and blind. The lack of some petty and congenial excitement made time hang heavily on her hands and clouded her face with 'ennui.'" Even her cousin had failed her, for he was down at the stables, making arrangements for the care of his bays and his carriage. Thus from very idleness she fell to nursing her small spite against the man whose voice had made such harsh discord with the honeyed chorus of flattery to which she was accustomed. She wished that he would appear, and that in some way she might show how little she cared for him or his opinion; but as he did not, she at last lounged to her room and sought to kill a few hours with a novel. Her wounded pride, however, induced her to dress quite elaborately for dinner; for she had faith in no better way of asserting her personality than that afforded by the toilet. She would teach him, by the admiration she excited in others, how mistaken he had been in his estimate, and her vanity whispered that even he could not look upon her beauty for any length of time without being won by it as so many others had been. The change of seats having been effected, she scarcely thought it necessary to turn her back upon him while sitting at such a dim distance. Indeed she was inclined to regret the change, for now her toilet and little airs, which she imagined to be so pretty, would be lost upon him. It would seem that they were, for Van Berg ate his dinner as quietly, and chatted as unconcernedly to those about him as if she had no existence. Never had a man ignored her so completely before, and she felt that she could never forgive him. After the event of the day was over, and the guests were circling and eddying through the halls and parlors and out on the piazza, Ida still had the annoyance of observing that Van Berg was utterly oblivious of her as far as she could perceive. He spoke here and there with the ease and freedom of one familiar with society, and she saw more eyes following his tall form approvingly than were turned towards herself. Few gentlemen remained at the house during the week, and Miss Mayhew was not a favorite with her own sex. Those who most closely resembled her in character envied rather than admired her, and those who were better endowed and developed found fault even with her beauty from a moral point of view, as Van Berg had on artistic grounds. She consoled herself, however, with the thought that it was Saturday, and that the evening boat and trains would bring a number of gentlemen, among whom she told Stanton, exultantly, that she had "some friends"--moths rather whose wings were in danger of being singed. As the afternoon was not sultry, Stanton had said to his friend that they could enjoy their cigars and a ride at the same time, and that he would drive around for him in a few minutes. Ida overheard the remark, and, quietly slipping off to her room, returned with her hat and shawl. As her cousin approached she hastened down the steps, past Van Berg, exclaiming: "Oh, thank you, Ik! How good of you! I was dying for a ride. Don't trouble yourself. I can get in without aid," and she sprang lightly into the buggy before her cousin could utter a word. He turned with a look of comic dismay and deprecation to his friend, who stood laughing on the steps. Ida, also, could not resist her inclination to catch a glimpse of the artist's chagrin and disappointment, but she was provoked beyond measure to find him acting as if Stanton were the victim rather than himself. As the sweep of the road again brought them in view of the piazza, this impression was confirmed by seeing Van Berg stroll carelessly away, complacently puffing his cigar as if he had already dismissed her from his mind. "Really," grumbled Stanton, "I never had beauty and happiness thrust upon me so unexpectedly before." "Very well then," retorted Ida; "stop your horses and thrust me out into the road. I'd rather go back, even if I have to walk." "Oh, no! there is to be no going back for two hours or more. I once cured a horse of running away by making him run long after he wanted to stop." "You seem to be learning your friend's hateful manners." "I asked you this morning if you would take a drive, and you declined." "I changed my mind." "Very abruptly, indeed, it seemed. Since you took so much touble to annoy my friend, it's a pity you failed." "I don't believe I failed. He's probably as cross as you are about it, only he can keep it to himself." "Dove-like creatiah! thanks. Will you please drive while I light a cigar?" "I don't like any one to smoke as near me as you are." "If your theory in regard to Van Berg is correct, none of us will enjoy what we like this afternoon. Of course I never smoke without a lady's permission, but unless quieted by a cigar, I am a very reckless driver," and he enforced his words by a sharp crack of the whip, which sent the horses off like the wind. "Oh, stop them; smoke; do anything hateful you wish, so you don't break my neck. I will never ride with you again, and I wish I had never come to this horrid place; and if your sneering painter does not leave soon, I will." "I'm afraid Van would survive, and you only suffer from your spite. But come, since you have so sweetly permitted me to smoke, I'll make your penance as light as possible, and then we will consider matters even between us," and away they bowled up breezy hills and down into shady valleys, Stanton stolidly smoking, and Ida nursing her petty wrath. Two flitting ghosts hastening to escape from the light of day, could not have seen less, or have felt less sympathy with the warm beautiful scenes through which they were passing. There is no insulation so perfect as that of small, selfish natures preoccupied with a pique. When, late in the afternoon, her cousin, with mock politeness, assisted her to alight at the entrance of the hotel, Ida was compelled to feel that she had indeed been the chief victim of her own spite. but, with the usual logic of human nature, she never thought of blaming herself, and her resentment was chiefly directed against the man whose every word and glance, although he was but a stranger, had seemed to possess a power to annoy and wound from the first. She felt an almost venomous desire to retaliate; but he appeared invulnerable in his quiet and easy superiority, while she, who expected, as a matter of course, that all masculine thoughts should follow her admiringly, had been compelled to see that his critical eyes had detected that in her which had awakened his contempt. "I'll teach him this evening, when my gentlemen friends arrive, how ridiculous are his airs," she muttered, as she went to her room and sought to enhance her beauty by all the arts of which she was the mistress. "I'll show him that there are plenty who can see what he cannot, or will not. Because he is an artist, he need not think he can face me out of the knowledge of my beauty, the existence of which I have been assured of by so many eyes and tongues ever since I can remember." When she came down to await the arrival of the stages and carriages, she was indeed radiant with all the beauty of which she was then capable. Her neck and shoulders, with their exquisite lines and curves, were more suggestively revealed than hidden by a slight drapery of gauze-like illusion, and her white rounded arms were bare. She trod with the light airy grace of youth, and yet with the assured manner of one who is looking forward to the familiar experiences of a reigning belle. Van Berg, from his quiet corner of observation, was compelled to admit that, seen at her present distance, she almost embodied his best dreams, and might do so wholly were there less of the fashionable art of the hour, and more of nature in her appearance. But he knew well that if she came nearer, and spoke so as to reveal herself, the fatal defect in her beauty would be as apparent as a black line running athwart the sculptured face of a Greek goddess. The only question with him was, did the ominous deformity lie so near the surface that it could be refined away, or was it ingrained into the very material of her nature, thus forming an essential part of herself? He feared that the latter might be true, or that the remedy was far beyond his skill or power; but every glance he caught of the girl, as with her mother she paced the farther end of the piazza, deepened his regret, as an artist, that so much beauty should be in degrading bondage to a seeming fool. Chapter VI. Reckless Words and Deeds. Light carriages now began to wheel rapidly up to the entrance, and were followed soon by the lumbering and heavily-laden stages. Joyous greetings and merry repartee made the scene pleasant to witness even by one who, like Van Berg, had no part in it. Stanton, who at this moment joined him, drew his special attention to a thin and under-sized gentleman somewhat past middle age, who mounted the steps with a tread that was as inelastic as his face was devoid of animation. "There is poor Uncle Mayhew," remarked the young man indifferently. "I suppose I must go and speak to him." "Mr. Mayhew?" said Van Berg, in some surprise. "You have not spoken of him before. I was not aware that there was any such person in existence." "You are not to blame for that," replied Stanton with a shrug. "You might have been one of the friends of the family and scarcely have learned the fact. Indeed, poor man, he only about half exists, for he has been so long overshadowed by his fashionable wife and daughter, that he is but a sickly plant of a man." Van Berg saw that the greeting received by Mr. Mayhew from his wife and daughter was very undemonstrative to say the least, and that then the gentleman quickly disappeared, as if fearing that he might be in the way. "From my very limited means of judging," Van Berg remarked, "I cannot see anything more objectionable in the head of the family than in the other members." "Your phrase, 'head of the family,' as applied to Mr. Mayhew, makes me smile. His name figures at the head of the large family bills, but scarcely elsewhere with much prominence. You will soon learn, if you remain here, that Mr. Mayhew imbibes rather more than is good for him, so I may as well mention the disagreeable fact at once. But to do the poor man justice, I suppose he drinks to keep his spirits up to the ordinary level, rather than from any hope of becoming a little jolly occasionally. Why my aunt married him I scarcely know; and yet I have often thought that he might be a very different did she not so quench him by a manner all her own. As it is, his life seems to consist of toiling and moiling all the week, and of stolidly and joylessly soaking himself into semi-stupidity on Sunday. It this wretched state of affairs could be kept secret I would not mention it even to you, my intimate friend; but, since it continues no secret wherever they happen to remain for any length of time, I would rather tell you the exact truth at once, than permit you to guess at it through distorted rumors. As you artists occasionally express yourselves concerning pictures, so I suppose you will think that this family, with all its wealth is quite lacking in tone." "Well, Stanton, I must admit that I find myself chiefly inclined towards the subdued and neutral-tinted Mr. Mayhew. If you have a chance I wish you would introduce me to him." "Are you in earnest?" "Certainly." "Then I'll ask him to smoke with us after supper. Well, Van, I congratulate you again that your correct and cultivated taste enabled you to see the fatal flaw in my cousin's beauty. If you had been bewitched by her, and had insisted on imagining (as so many others have done) that her faultless features were the reflex of what she is or could become in mind and character, I might have had a good deal of trouble with you; for you are a mulish fellow when you get a purpose in your head. I don't care how badly singed the average run of moths become. You may see two or three fluttering around to-night, if you care to look on, but I wish no friend of mine to make sport, at serious cost to himself, for yonder incorrigible coquette, if she is my cousin. But after what you have seen and now know, you would be safe enough, even if predisposed to folly. The little minx! but I punished her well for her spite this afternoon." "O most prudent Ulysses! you have indeed filled my ears with wax. I thank you all the same as if my danger were greater." "Well, view them all with such charity as you can. I hope you were not very much annoyed by the loss of your ride. The young lady will not be in a hurry to play such a trick again. I'll join you after supper in this your favorite and out-of-the-way corner." "Was beauty ever environed within and without by such desperately prosaic and inartistic surroundings?" mused Van Berg. "It glistens like a lost jewel in an ash-barrel; or, more correctly, it is like an exquisite flower that nature has perversely made the outcome of a rank and poisonous vine. Of course the flower is poisonous also, and as soon as its first delicate bloom is over, will grow as rank and repulsive as the vine that bears it. Like produces like; and with such parentage, what hope is there for her? I am glad no one suspects my absurd project; for every hour convinces me of its impracticability. The ancient Undine was a myth, and my modern Undine might be called a white lie, but one that will grow darker every day. At a distance she presents the semblance of a very fair woman, but I have been unable to detect a single element yet that will prevent her from developing into an old and ugly hag, in spite of all that art and costume can do for her." After supper Stanton brought Mr. Mayhew to Van Berg's retired nook, and the artist gave the hand of the weary, listless man such a cordial pressure as to cause him a slight surprise, but after satisfying his faint interest by a brief glance, he turned the back of his chair towards all the gay company, although it contained his wife and daughter, puffed mechanically at his cigar, and looked vacantly into space. Before the evening was over, however, Van berg had drawn from him several quite animated remarks, and secured the promise that he would join him and Stanton in a ramble immediately after breakfast the following morning. Nor had the young man been oblivious of the daughter who now seemed in her native element. From his dusky point of observation he caught frequent glimpses of her, now whirling through a waltz in the parlor, now talking and laughing in a rather pronounced way from the midst of a group of gentlemen, and again coquettishly stealing off with one of them through the moonlit walks. Her manner, whether assumed or real, was that of extravagant gaiety. Occasionally she seemed to glance towards their obscure corner, but neither she nor her mother came to seek the man who had been toiling all the week to maintain their idle luxury. As Mrs. Mayhew and her daughter were preparing for dinner on the following day, Mr. Mayhew entered with a brisker step than usual. "Why, father, where have you been?" Ida asked, surprised by the fact that he had not been drinking and dozing in his room all the morning. "I have been shown a glimpse of something that I have not seen for many years." "Indeed, and what is that?" "Beauty that seemed beautiful." "That's a compliment to us," remarked Mrs. Mayhew, acidly. "I mean the kind of beauty which does one good and makes a man wish that he were a man." "Do you mean an unmarried man?" said his wife with a discordant laugh. "Probably your own wishes suggested that speech, madam," replied the husband, bitterly. "And pray, where did you find so much beauty?" said Mrs. Mayhew, ignoring his last remark. "On a breezy hill-side. It's a kind of beauty, too, that one can enjoy without paying numberless bills for its enhancement. I refer to that of the scenery." "Oh," remarked Mrs. Mayhew, indifferently; "it would have been more to your credit if you had gone to church instead of tramping around the fields." "I think the fields have done more for me than church for you." "Why so?" was the sharp response. "They have at least kept me from indulging in one bad habit. I am sober." "They do not keep you from making ill-natured remarks," said Mrs. Mayhew, sailing out of the room fully bedizened for the solemnity of dinner. "You say you were 'shown' all this beauty," remarked Ida, who was giving the finishing touches to her toilet before a large mirror, and by whom the frequent bickerings of her parents were scarcely noted. "Who officiated as showman?" "A man who understands the beauties of a landscape so well that he could make them visible even to my dim eyes, and attractive to my deadened and besotted nature. I'd give all the world if I could be young, strong, and hopeful like him, again. It was good of him--yes, good of him, to try to cheer a stranger with pleasant thoughts and sights. I suppose you are acquainted with Mr. Van Berg, since he is a friend of Ik's?" "No, I'm not," was the sharp reply; "nor do I wish to be." "Why not?" asked Mr. Mayhew in some surprise. "It's sufficient that I don't like him." "He's not your style, I suppose you mean to say?" "Indeed he is not." "So much worse for your style, Ida." She was sweeping petulantly from the room when her father added with a depth of feeling very unlike his wonted apathy: "O, Ida, it were better that all three of us had never been born than to live as we do! Your life and your mother's is froth, and mine is mud. How I hated it all this bright June morning, as Mr. Van Berg gave me a glimpse into another and better world!" "Do you mean to say that Mr. Van Berg presumed to criticise my mode of life?" Ida asked with a darkening face. "Oh, no, no! How small and egotistical all your ideas are! He never mentioned you, and probably never thought of you. He only took a little pains that a tired and dispirited man might see and feel the eternal beauty and freshness of nature, as one might give, in passing, a cup of water to a traveller." "I don't see what reason you have for feeling and appearing so forlornly, thus asking for sympathy from strangers, as it were, and causing it to seem as if we were making a martyr of you. As for this artist, with his superior airs, I detest him. He never loses a chance to annoy and mortify me. I've no doubt he hoped you would come home and tell us, as you have, how much better he was than---" "There, there, quit that kind of talk or I'll be drunk in half an hour." said her father, harshly. "If you had the heart of a woman, let alone that of a daughter, you would thank the man who had unwittingly kept me from making a beast of myself for one day at least. Go down to your dinner, I'm in no mood for eating." She went without a word, but with a more severe compunction of conscience than she had ever felt before in her life. Her father's face and words smote her with a keen reproach, piercing the thick armor of her vanity and selfishness. She saw, for a moment, how unnatural and unlovely she must appear to him, in spite of her beauty, and the thought crossed her mind: "Mr. Van Berg despises me because he sees me in the same light. How I hate his cold, critical eyes!" Even at his far remove Van Berg could see that she was ill at ease during the dinner hour. There would be times of forced and unnatural gayety, followed by a sudden cloud upon the brow and an abstracted air, as if her thoughts had naught to do with the chattering group around her. It would also appear that her appetite was flagging unusually, and once or twice he thought she darted an angry look towards him. As if something were burdening her mind, she at last left the table hastily, before the others were through with their dessert. As may be surmised, she sought her father's room. Receiving no response to her knock, she entered and saw at a glance the confirmation of her fears. Her father sat in an arm-chair with his head upon his breast. A brandy bottle stood on the table beside him. At the sound of her step he looked up for a moment with heavy eyes, and mumbled: "He ain't of your style, is he? Nor of mine, either. Froth and mud!" Ida gave a sudden stamp of rage and disgust, and whirled from the room. Van Berg happened to see her as she descended to the main hall-way, and her face was so repulsive as to suggest to him the lines from Shakespeare: "In nature there's no blemish, but the mind; None can be called deformed, but the unkind; Virtue is beauty; but the beauteous--evil Are empty trunks, o'er flourished by the devil." That afternoon and evening her reckless levity and open coquetry secured unfavorable comment not only from the artist, but from others far more indifferent, whose attention she half compelled by a manner that did not suggest spring violets. Van Berg was disgusted. He was less versed in human nature than art, and did not recognize in the forced and obtrusive gayety the effort to stifle the voice of an aroused conscience. Even to her blunted sense of right it seemed a hateful and disgraceful truth that a stranger had helped her father towards manhood, an that she had destroyed the transient and salutary influence. Her complacency had been disturbed from the time her cousin had repeated Van Berg's remark, "I could not speak civilly to a lady that I had just seen giggling and flirting through one of Beethoven's finest symphonies;" and now, through an unexpected chain of circumstances, she had, for the first time in her life, reached a point of self-disgust and self-loathing. Such a moral condition is evil's opportunity when a disposition towards penitence or reform is either absent or resisted. The thought, therefore, of her father's drunkenness that day, and of herself as the immediate cause, made her so wretched and reckless that she tried to forget her miserable self in excitement, as he had in lethargy. Even her mother chided her, asking if she did not "remember the day." "Indeed, I shall have occasion to remember it," was her ambiguous answer; "but Mondays in the country are always blue, and I'll do my repenting then. If I were a good Catholic I'd hunt up a priest to-morrow." "I'll be your father-confessor to-day," said a black-eyed young man, twirling his mustache. "You, Mr. Sibely? You would lead me into more naughtiness than you would help me out of, twice over. For my confessor I would choose an ancient man who had had his dinner. What a comfortable belief it is, to be sure! All one has to do is to buzz one's sins through a grating (that is like an indefinite number of key-holes) to a dozing old gentleman inside, and then away with a heart like a feather, to load up again. I'd bless the man who could convert me to a Papist." But she hated the man who had made her feel the need of absolution, and who seemed an inseparable part of all her disagreeable experiences. Although he appeared to avoid any locality in which she remained, she observed his eyes turned towards her more than once before the day closed, and it exasperated her almost beyond all endurance to believe that their expression was only that of contempt. She might have been a little better pleased, perhaps, if she had known that she made the artist almost as uncomfortable as herself. Never before had there seemed to him so great a contrast between her beauty and herself, her features and her face. The latter could not fail to excite his increased disgust, while the former was so great that he found himself becoming resolutely bent on redeeming them from what seemed a horrid profanation. In accordance with one of his characteristics, the more difficult the project seemed, the more obstinately fixed became his purpose to discover whether she had a mind of sufficient calibre to transform her into what she might be, in contrast with what she was. The more he saw of her the more his interest as an artist, and, indirectly, as a student of character, was deepened. If she had no mind worth naming he would give the problem up to the solution of time, which, however, promised nothing but a gradual fading away of all beauty, and the intensifying of inward deformity until fully reproduced in outward ugliness. Chapter VII. Another Feminine Problem. Early on Monday morning, Mr. Mayhew hastened from the breakfast-table to the stage. His wife and daughter were not down to see him off, and he seemed desirous of shunning all recognition. With the exception that that his eyes were heavy and bloodshot from his debauch, his face had the same dreary, apathetic expression which Van Berg had noted on his arrival. And so he went back to his city office, where, fortunately for him, mechanical routine brought golden rewards, since he was in no state for business enterprise. From his appearance, Van Berg could not help surmising what had been his condition the previous day. Indeed Stanton, with a contemptuous shrug, had the same as said on Sabbath evening, that his uncle had "dropped into the old slough." Although neither of the young men knew how great an impetus Ida had given her father towards such degradation, they both felt that if his wife and daughter had had the tact to detect and appreciate his better mood, produced by the morning ramble, they might have sustained him, and given him at least one day that he could remember without shame and discouragement. Van Berg found something pathetic in Mr. Mayhew's weary and disheartened manner. It was like that of a soldier who has suffered defeat, but who goes on with his routine in a mechanical, spiritless manner, because there is nothing else to do. He seemed to have no hope, nor even a thought of retrieving the past and of reasserting his own manhood. Accustomed as the young artist had ever been to a household in which affection, allied to high-bred courtesy and mutual respect, made even homely daily life noble and beautiful, he could not look on the discordant Mayhew family with the charity, or the indifference, of those who have seen more of the wrong side of life. Had there been only poor, besmirched Mr. Mayhew, and stout, dressy, voluble Mrs. Mayhew, he would never have glanced towards them the second time; but his artist's eyes had fallen on the contradictory being that linked them together. Morally and mentally she seemed one with her parent stock; but her beauty, in some of its aspects, was so marvellous, that the desire to redeem it from its hateful and grotesque associations grew stronger every hour. Instead, therefore, of going off upon solitary rambles, as he had done hitherto, he mingled more frequently in the amusements of the guests of the house, with the hope he would thus be brought so often in contact with the subject of his experiment, that her pique would wear away sufficiently to permit them to meet on something like friendly terms. As far as the other guests were concerned, he had not trouble. They welcomed him to croquet, to walking and boating excursions, and to their evening games and promenades. Such of the ladies as danced were pleased to secure him as a partner. Indeed, from the dearth of gentlemen during the week, he soon found himself more in demand than he cared to be, and saw that even the landlord was beginning to rely upon him to keep up a state of pleasurable effervescence among his patrons. His languid friend, Stanton, was not a little surprised, and at last remarked: "Why, Van, what has come over you? I never saw you in the role of a society fellow before!" But his unwonted courtesies seemed wholly in vain. He propitiated and won all save one, and that one was the sole object of his effort. While all others smiled, her face remained cold and averted. Indeed she took such pains to ignore and avoid him, that it was generally recognized that there was a difference between them, and of course there was an endless amount of gossiping surmise. As the hostility seemed wholly on the lady's side, Van Berg appeared to the better advantage, and Ida was all the more provoked as she recognized the fact. She now began to wish that she had taken a different course. As Van Berg pursued his present tactics, her feminine intuition was not so dull but that she was led to believe he wished to make her acquaintance. Of course there was, to her mind, but one explanation of this fact--he was becoming fascinated, like so many others. "If I were only on speaking and flirting terms," she thought (the two relations were about synonymous in her estimation), "I might draw him on to a point which would give me a chance of punishing him far more than is now possible by sullenly keeping aloof. As it is, it looks to these people here as if he had jilted me instead of I him, and that I am sulking over it." But she had entangled herself in the snarl of her own previous words and manner. She had charged her mother and cousin to permit no overtures of peace; and once or twice, when mine host, in his good-natured, off-hand manner, had sought to introduce them, she had been so blind and deaf to his purpose as to appear positively rude. Her repugnance to the artist had become a generally recognized fact; and she had built up such a barrier that she could not break it down without asking for more help than was agreeable to her pride. But she chafed inwardly at her false position, and at the increasing popularity of the object of her spite. Even her mother at last formed his acquaintance; and, as the artist listened to the garrulous lady for half an hour with scarcely an interruption, she pronounced him one of the most entertaining of men. As Mrs. Mayhew was chanting his praises that evening, Ida broke out petulantly: "Was there ever such a gad-fly as this artist! He pesters me from morning till night." "Pesters you! I never saw a lady so severely let alone as you are by him. Whatever is the cause of your spite it seems to harm only yourself, and I should judge from your remark that it disturbs you much more than you would have it appear--certainly far more than it does him." There was no soothing balm in these words, as may well be supposed; and yet the impression grew upon Ida that the artist would be friendly if he could; and the belief strengthened with him also that she took far too much pains to manifest what she would have others think to be mere indifference and dislike, and he intercepted besides, with increasing frequency, furtive glances towards himself. So much ice had accumulated between them, however that neither knew how it was to be broken. One day, about the middle of the week, Van Berg found a stranger seated opposite to him at the dinner table. His first impression was, that the lady was not very young and that her features were quite plain; but before the meal was over he concluded that her face was decidedly interesting, and that the suggestion of age had been made by maturity of character and the impress which some real and deep experience gives to the countenance, rather than by the trace of years. While yet a stranger, the expression of her blue eyes, as she glanced around, was so kindly that she at once won the good-will of all who encountered them. This genial, friendly light in her eyes seemed a marked characteristic. It was so different from the obtrusive, forward manner with which some seek to make acquaintances, that it would not have suggested a departure from modest reserve, even to the most cynical. It rather indicated a heart aglow with gentle feeling and genial good-will, like a maple-wood fire on a hospitality hearth, that warms all who come within the sphere of its influence. Van Berg was naturally reserved, and slow to make new acquaintances. But before he had stolen many glances of the face opposite him he began to wish for the privilege of speaking to her--a wish that was increased by the fact that they were alone at the table, the other guests who usually occupied the chairs not having returned from their morning drive. she did not look at him in particular, nor appear to be in the least struck by his "distingue" air, as Ida had been before she was blinded by prejudice; but she looked out upon the world at large with such a friendly aspect that he was sure she had something pleasant to say. He was therefore well pleased when at last the landlord bustled up in his brusque way and said: "Mr. Van Berg, permit me to make you acquainted with Miss Burton. She has had the faith to put herself under my charge for a few weeks, and I shall reward her by sharing the responsibility with you, who seem blessed with the benevolent desire of giving us all a good time," and then he bustled off to look after some other matter which required his attention during the critical hour of dinner. Miss Burton acknowledged the young man's bow without a trace of affectation or reserve. "I shall try not to prove a burden to either of you," she said, with a smile. "I have already discovered that you will not be," said Van Berg, "and was wishing for an introduction." "I hope your wishes may always find so ready a fulfillment." "That's a kindly wish, Miss Burton, but a vain one." "Were we misanthropical people, Mr. Van Berg, we might sigh, 'and such are human wishes generally.'" "One is often tempted to do that anyway, even when not especially prone to look askance at fortune." "There is an easy way of escaping that temptation." "How?" "Do not form many wishes." "Have you very few wishes?" With a slight and piquant motion of her head she replied, "I was only giving a bit of trite advice. It's asking a great deal to require that one should both preach and practice." "I think you are possessed by one wish which swallows up most others," said Van Berg, a little abruptly. A visible pallor overspread her face, and she drew back perceptibly as one might shrink from a blow. "You know how strong first impressions are," resumed Van Berg hastily, "and the thought has passed through my mind that you might be so preoccupied in wishing good things for others as to quite forget yourself." "If one could be completely occupied in that way," she said, with a faint smile which suggested rather than revealed a vista of her past experience, "one might have little occasion to wish for anything for self. But, Mr. Van Berg, only we poor unreasoning women put much faith in first impressions; and you know how often they mislead even us, who are supposed to have safe instincts." "Do they often mislead you?" "Indeed, sir," she replied, with a merry twinkle in her eye, "I think you must have learned the questions in the catechism, if not the answers." Van Berg bit his lip. Here was a suggestion of a thorn in the sweetbrier he believed he had discovered. "Now see how far I am astray," she resumed with a frankness which had in it no trace of familiarity. "It is my impression you are a lawyer." At this Van Berg laughed outright and said: "You are indeed mistaken. I have no connection with the influential class whose business it is to make and evade the laws. I am only one among the humble masses who aim to obey them. But perhaps you think your intuition goes deeper than surface facts and that I OUGHT to have been a cross-questioner." "I am quite sure my intuition is correct in thinking that you would not be very cross about it." "Perhaps not, if disarmed by so smiling a face as yours." The others, who had been delayed by a longer ride than usual, now entered and took the vacant chairs around the table. Van Berg felt sufficiently acquainted with them to introduce Miss Burton, for he was curious to observe whether she would make the same impression on them as he had been conscious of himself. They bowed with the quiet, well-bred manner of society people, but were at first inclined to pay little heed to the plainly dressed and rather plain appearing young stranger. As one and another, however, glanced towards her, something about her seemed to linger in their memories and cause them to look again. The lady next to her offered a commonplace remark, chiefly out of politeness, and received so pleasant a reply in return that she turned her thoughts as well as her eyes to see who it really was that had made it. Then another spoke, and the response led her to speak again and again; and soon the entire party were describing their drive and living over its pleasantest features; and before the meal ended they were all gathered, metaphorically, around the mystical, maple-wood fire that burned on the hearth of a nature that seemed so hospitable and kindly as to have no other mission than to cheer and entertain. "Who is that little brown thrush of a woman that you were so taken with at dinner?" asked Stanton, as they were enjoying a quiet smoke in their favorite corner of the piazza. "Good for you, Stanton. I never knew you to be so appreciative before. Your term quite accurately describes her. She is both shy and reserved, but not diffident or awkward in the least. Indeed her manner might strike some as being peculiarly frank. But there is something back of it all; for young as she undoubtedly is, her face suggests to me some deep and unusual experience." "Jupiter Ammon! What an abyss of mystery, surmise, and metaphysics you fell into while I was eating my dinner! I used the phrase 'brown thrush,' only in reference to her dress and general homeliness." "Oh, I beg your pardon! I take all back about your nice appreciation of character. I now grasp the whole truth--your attention wandered sufficiently from your dinner to observe that she wore a brown dress, and the one fact about the thrush that has impressed you is that it is brown. 'Here be truths' which leave nothing more to be said." "You imaginative fellows are often ridiculously astray on the other tack, and see a thousand-fold more than exists. But it's a pity you could not read all there was in this young woman's face, for it was certainly PLAIN enough. At this rate you will be asking our burly landlord to unbosom himself, insisting that he has a 'silent sorrow' tucked away somewhere under his ample waistcoat." "His troubles, like yours, are banished by the dinner hour. I recognize your feeble witticism about her plain face, and forgive you because I thought it plain also at first, but when she came to speak and smile it ceased to be plain. I do not say she has had trouble, but she has had some experience in her past history which neither you nor I could understand." "Quite likely; the measles, for instance, which I never had to my knowledge. Possibly she has had a lover who was not long in finding a prettier face, and so left her, but not so disconsolate that she could not smile bewilderingly upon you." "Come now, Stanton, I'll forewarn and forearm you. I confidently predict that the voice of this brown thrush will lure you out of a life which, to put it mildly, is a trifle matter-of-fact and material. You have glanced at her, but you have not seen her yet. Mark my words; your appetite will flag before many weeks pass." "I wish I could pin you down to a large wager on this absurdity." "I agree to paint you a picture if my prediction fails." "And to finish it within a natural lifetime?" said Stanton, with much animation. "To finish as promptly as good work can be done." "Pardon me, Van. You had too much wine for dinner; I don't want to take advantage of you." "I did not have any." "In order to carry out this transaction honestly, am I expected to make conscious and patient effort to come under the influence of this maiden in brown, who has had some mysterious complaint in the past, about which 'neither you, nor I, nor anybody knows,' as the poet saith: or, like the ancient mariner, will she 'hold me with her glittering eye?'" "You have only to jog on in your old ways until she wakes you up and makes a man of you." "I surely am dreaming; for never did the level-headed Van Berg talk such arrant nonsense before. If she seems to you such a marvel, why don't you open your own mouth and let the ripe cherry drop into it." "One reason will answer, were there no others--she wouldn't drop. If you ever win her, my boy, you will have to bestir yourself." "I'd rather win the picture. Let me see--I know the very place in my room where I shall hang it." "You are a little premature. That chicken is not yet hatched, and you may feel like hanging yourself in the place of the picture before the summer is over." "Let me wrap your head in ice-water, Van. There's mine host--O, Mr. Burleigh!" he cried to the landlord, who at that moment happened to cross the piazza; "please step here. My friend Mr. Van Berg has been strangely fascinated by the stranger in brown whom you, with some deep and malicious design, placed opposite to him at the table. What are her antecedents, and who are her uncles? I take a friendly interest in this young man. Indeed, I'm sort of a guardian angel to him, having saved his life many a time." "Saved his life!" ejaculated the landlord. "How?" "By quenching his consuming genius with good dinners. But come--solve for me this riddle in brown. My friend usually gives but little heed to the feminine conundrums that smilingly ask to be answered, but for some occult reason he is in a state of sleepless interest over this one, and I know that his waistcoat is selling with gratitude to me for having the courage to ask these questions." "He is speaking several words for himself to one for me," said Van Berg; "and yet I admit that her face and manner struck me very pleasantly." "Well, she has a pleasant little phiz, now hasn't she, Mr. Van Berg? I don't wonder Mr. Stanton was taken by her, for I was myself. It's but little I can tell you, save that she is a teacher in one of the New England female colleges, and that she brings letters to me from the most respectable parties, who introduce her as a lady in the best sense of the word. Further than that nothing was written, nor do I know anything concerning her. But any one who can't see that she's a perfect lady is no judge of the article." "I will stake any amount on that, basing my belief only on the first impression of one interview," added Van Berg, decidedly. "You now see how deeply my friend is impressed," said Stanton, with a satirical smile. "Thanks, Mr. Burleigh; we will not detain you any longer." When alone again, he resumed, with an expression of disgust: "A 'New England FEMALE college!' How aptly he words it. If there's any region on the face of the earth that I detest, it's New England; and if there is one type of women that I'd shun as I would 'ever angry bears,' it's a New England school-ma'am." "'But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea' of a restless, all-absorbing passion, 'Thou'dst meet the bear I' the mouth,' as you will try to in this case. You will be ready to barter your ears for a kiss before very long." "It will be after they have grown prodigiously long and hairy in some transformation scene like that in which the immortal Bottom was the victim." "Your illustration tells against you, for it was only after his appropriate transformation that Bottom saw the fairy queen; but in your case the desire to 'munch' will be banned." "Come, Van, we have had enough chaff on this topic, already worn threadbare. I now know all about the mysterious complaint, the impress of which on the face of the school-ma'am has so dazed you. It's a New England female college--a place where they give a razor-like edge to the wits of Yankee women, already too sharp, and develop in attenuated maidens the hatchet faces of their sires. You may as well set about that picture at once, whenever you feel in the mood for work." "I admit that I have been speaking nonsense, and yet you may find many grains of truth in my chaff, nevertheless." "But is my picture to end in chaff?" "I will stand by my promise. If I lose, perhaps I'll paint you the school-ma'am's portrait." "Then we would both lose, for I would have no earthly use for that." "Well, I will paint what you wish, within reason." "I'm content, and with good reason, for never did I have such absurd good luck before." "Ha! look yonder--quick!" Both the young men started to their feet, but before they could spring forward, the event, which had so suddenly aroused them, was an accomplished fact. Both drew a long breath of relief as they looked at each other, and Van Berg remarked, with some emphasis: "Act first, scene first, and it does not open like a comedy either." Chapter VIII. Glimpses of Tragedy. Stanton threw away his half-burned cigar--an act which proved him strongly moved--and strode rapidly towards the main entrance near which a little group had already gathered, and among the others, Ida Mayhew. Not a hair of anybody's head was hurt, but an event had almost occurred which would have more than satisfied Stanton's spite against 'Yankee school-ma'ams,' and would also have made him very miserable for months to come. He had ordered his bays to the farther end of the piazza where they were smoking, as he proposed to take Van Berg out for a drive. His coachmen liked to wheel around the corner of the hotel and past the main entrance in a dashing showy style, and thus far had suffered no rebuke from his master for this habit. But on this occasion a careless nursery maid, neglectful of her charge, had left a little child to toddle to the centre of the carriage drive and there it had stood, balancing itself with the uncertain footing characteristic of first steps. Even if it could have seen the rapidly approaching carriage that was hidden by the angle of the building, its baby feet could not have carried it out of harm's way in time, and it is more than probable that its inexperience would have prevented any sense of danger. But help was at hand in the person of one who never seemed so preoccupied with self as to lose an opportunity to serve others. Two of the ladies, who had casually formed Miss Burton's acquaintance at dinner, still lingered in the door-way to talk with her, wondering in the mean time why they remained so long, and meaning to break away every moment, but the expression of the young lady's eyes was so pleasant, and her manner, more than anything she said, so like spring sunshine that they were still standing in the door-way when the rumble and rush of the carriage was heard. The others did not notice these sounds, but Miss Burton, whose eyes had been following the child with an amused interest, suddenly broke off in the midst of a sentence, listened a second, then swiftly springing down the steps, darted towards the child. Quick as she had been it seemed as if she would be too late, for, with cries of horror, the startled ladies on the piazza saw the horses coming so rapidly that it appeared that both the maiden and the child must be trampled under their feet. And so they would have been, had Miss Burton sought to snatch up the child and return, but with rare presence of mind she carried the child across the carriage track to its farther side, thus making the most of the impetus with which she had rushed to the rescue. The exclamations of the ladies drew many eyes to the scene, and all held their breath as the horses dashed past, the driver vainly endeavoring to pull them up in time. Having passed, even Stanton was compelled to admit that the "school-ma'am" appeared to very great advantage as she stood panting, and with heightened color, holding in her arms the laughing child that seemed to think that the whole excitement was created for its amusement. She was about to restore the child to its nurse quietly, who now came bustling up with many protestations, when she was arrested by a loud voice exclaiming: "Don't let that hateful creature touch my child again--give him to me," and a lady, who had been drawn to the scene by the outcry, ran down the steps, and snatching the child, almost devoured him with kisses. Then, turning to the trembling nurse, she said harshly: "Begone; I never wish to see your face again. Had it not been for this lady, my child would have been killed through your carelessness. Excuse me, Miss--Miss--" "Miss Burton," said the young lady quietly. "Excuse my show of feeling; but you can't realize the service you have done us. Bertie is our only child, and we just idolize him. I'm so agitated, I must go to my room." When the lady had disappeared, Miss Burton turned to the sobbing nurse and said: "Will you promise me to be careful in the future if I intercede for you?" "Dade, Miss, an' I will." "Come to me, then, after supper. In the mean time remain where your mistress can summon you should she need your services, or be inclined to forgive you of her own accord," and leaving the crude and offending jumble of humanity much comforted, she returned to the piazza again. Of course many pressed around her with congratulations and words of commendation. Van Berg was much interested in observing how she would receive this sudden gush of mingled honest praise and extravagant flattery, for he recognized that the occasion would prove a searching and delicate test of character for which there was no time to prepare. She did not listen to their words with deprecatory smirk, nor with the pained expression of those sensitive souls to whom hearty words and demonstrations are like rough winds; nor was there a trace of exultation and self-complacency in her bearing. Van Berg thought that her manner was peculiarly her own, for she looked into the faces around her with frank gladness, and her unconsciousness of herself can be, perhaps, best suggested by her own words. "How fortunate it was," she said, "that I stood where I did, and happened to be looking at the child. If somebody had not been at hand it might have gone hard with the little fellow. Not that I think he would have been killed, but he might have been maimed or disfigured in a way that would have caused him pain and mortification all his life." "Miss Burton, I take my hat to you," said Van Berg, laughing. "Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you all appreciate the force of Miss Burton's phrase, 'somebody,' since it implies that any one of us would have shown like courage and presence of mind if we had only been 'at hand,' or had stood where she did. Really Miss Burton, you are like smiling fortune, and 'thrust upon' us 'greatness' and heroism." "Mr. Van Berg, you are laughing at me, and your quotation suggests that other Shakespearean words are in your mind--to wit, 'much ado about nothing.' Now if YOU had had the opportunity you would have achieved the rescue in a way that would have been heroic and striking. Instead of scrambling out of the way with the child, like a timid woman, you would have rushed upon the horses, seized them by their heads, thrown them back upon their haunches, and while posing in that masterful attitude, you would have called out in stentorian tones--'Remove the child.'" All laughed at this unexpected sally, and no one enjoyed it more than Stanton, who, a little before, had been excessively angry at his coachman, and, like the mother of the child, had summarily dismissed the poor fellow from his service. Quite forgetful of his uncomplimentary words concerning "Yankee school-ma'ams" in general, and this one in particular, he now stood near, and was regarding her not only with approval but with admiration. Her ready reply to Van Berg pleased him exceedingly, especially as the rising color in the face of his self-possessed friend indicated a palpable hit. But the artist was equal to the occasion, and quickly replied as one who had felt a slight spur. "I fear you are in part correct, Miss Burton. Instead of deftly saving the child and taking both it and myself out of harm's way, after your quiet womanly fashion, I should, no doubt, have 'rushed upon the horses and seized them by their heads.' But I fear your striking tableau, in which I appeared to such advantage, would have been wholly wanting. I could not have stopped the horses in time; the child would have been run over and killed; the big, fat coroner would have come and sat on it and have made us all, who witnessed the scene, swear over the matter; the poor mother would have gone to the lunatic asylum; the father would have committed suicide; the nursery maid would have--obtained another place and been the death of an indefinite number of other innocent babies; and last, but not least, I should have been dragged and trampled upon, my legs and arms broken, and perhaps my head, and so you would all have had to take care of me--and you know a cross bear is a pleasanter subject than a sick man." "Oh, what a chapter of horrors!" exclaimed several ladies in chorus. "Nevertheless, we would have been equal to the occasion, even if you had been so dreadfully fractured," said Miss Burton. "We all would have become your devoted nurses, and each one of us would have had a separate and infallible remedy, which, out of courtesy, you would have been compelled to use." "Oh, bless my soul!" exclaimed Van Berg; "I have had a greater escape than the child. In being 'at hand' as you express it, Miss Burton, I am beginning to feel that you have saved me from death by torture." "What a compliment to us!" said Miss Burton, appealing to the ladies; "he regards our ministrations as equivalent to death by torture." "Oh, pardon me, I referred to the numberless 'separate and infallible remedies,' the very thought of which curdles my blood." "I cannot help thinking that my friend's prospects would have been very dismal," put in Stanton; "for with broken legs and arms and head he would have been very badly fractured indeed to begin with, and then some one of his fair nurses might have broken his heart." "My friend probably thinks, from a direful experience," said Van Berg, "that this would be worse than all the other fractures put together; and perhaps it would. An additional cause for gratitude, Miss Burton, that you, and not I, were 'at hand.'" "My reasons for gratitude to Miss Burton," said Stanton, "do not rest on what undoubtedly would have happened had my friend attempted the rescue, but on what has happened; and if Mr. Van Berg will introduce me I will cordially express my thanks." "With all my heart. Miss Burton, permit me to present to you Mr. Stanton, whose only fault is a slight monomania for New England and her institutions." The lady recognized Stanton with her wonted smiling and pleasant manner, which seemed so frank and open, but behind which some present eventually learned the real woman was hiding, and said: "I am inclined to think that Mr. Van Berg's English, like Hebrew, reads backwards. I warn you Mr. Stanton, not to express any indebtedness to me, or I shall straightway exhibit one of the Yankee traits which you undoubtedly detest, and attempt a bargain." "Although assured that I shall get the worst of this bargain, I shall nevertheless heartily thank you that you were not only 'at hand,' but that you acted so promptly and courageously that the child was saved. What pleasure could I have taken with my horses if their feet had trampled that little boy?" "I see my opportunity," replied Miss Burton, with a decisive little nod. "Your afternoon drives might have been marred by unpleasant thoughts as one's sleep is sometimes disturbed by bad dreams. You have no idea what a delight it is to the average New England mind, Mr. Stanton, to secure the vantage ground in a bargain. In view of your own voluntary admissions, you can scarcely do otherwise than let me have my own way." With the exception of the two or three who had formed Miss Burton's acquaintance at dinner, those who at first had gathered around her had by this time dwindled away. Ida Mayhew sat near in an open window of the parlor, ostensibly reading a novel, but in reality observant of all that occurred. Both she and Van Berg had been amused by the fact that Stanton, usually so languid and nonchalant, had been for once thoroughly aroused. Between anger at his coachmen, alarm for the child, and interest in its preserver, he was quite shaken out of his wonted equanimity, which was composed equally of indolent good-nature, self-complacency, and a disposition to satirize the busy, earnest world around him. It was apparent that he was somewhat nonplussed by Miss Burton's manner and words, and those who knew him well enjoyed his perplexity, although at a loss themselves to imagine what object Miss Burton could have in view. Half unconsciously Van Berg turned his smiling, interested face towards Ida Mayhew, who was regarding her cousin with a similar expression, but the moment she caught the artist's eyes she coldly dropped her own to her book again. "Well, Miss Burton," said Stanton, with a slightly embarrassed laugh, "I admit that I am cornered, so you can make your own terms." "They shall be grievous, I assure you. Do you see that rueful face in your carriage yonder?" "That of my coachman? Bad luck to his ill-omened visage! Yes." "No need of wishing bad luck to any poor creature--it will come only too soon without. In view of the indebtedness--which you have so gracefully acknowledged--to one of that trading and thrifty race that never loses an opportunity to turn, if not a penny more or less honest, why, something else, to their advantage, I stipulate that you give your dependent there another chance. I heard you dismiss him from your service a short time since, and he evidently does not wish to go. His disconsolate face troubles me; so please banish his dismal looks, and he'll be more careful hereafter." "And have you had time to see and think about him?" said Stanton, with a little surprise in his tone. "You shall banish his dismal looks yourself. Barney," he called, "drive close to the piazza here. This lady has probably saved you from arrest, and she now intercedes in your behalf. In compliance with her request, I will keep you in my service, but I wish you to thank her and not me." Barney took off his hat and ejaculated: "May yees shadder niver grow less, me leddy, an' may the Powers grant that yees bright eyes may see no trouble o' their own, bain they're so quick to see a poor man's bad luck." The smiling manner with which she acknowledged his good wishes seemed to warm the man all over, and he looked as if transformed as he drove back to his stand. "How is this, Miss Burton?" said Stanton. "I feel as if I had had the best of this bargain." "That impression is wholly due to my Yankee shrewdness; and now, having gained my point," she added, with a graceful inclination, "I will not keep you from your drive any longer." "My conscience will not permit me to complete this transaction until I have assured you that my horses and carriage are at your service at any time." "Be careful; I may take advantage of you again." "Please do so," replied Stanton, lifting his hat; and then he went to his carriage more surprised at himself than at anything else that had occurred. Miss Burton returned to the doorway and quietly resumed the conversation that had been interrupted by the peril of the child. Van Berg was about to follow his friend, but an acquaintance coming up the steps, detained him a few moments. "Oh, Harold, come!" cried Stanton, impatiently. Miss Burton started violently. The sentence upon her lips was never finished, and her face became ashen in color. She looked at Van Berg with a strange expression as he, unconscious of her agitation, answered: "Yes, I'm coming," and moved away. "My dear Miss Burton," said the lady with whom she was speaking, "you are ill; you look ready to faint. This excitement has been a greater strain upon you than you have realized." "Perhaps I had better go to my room," faltered the young lady; and she fled with a precipitancy that her companion could not understand. Ida Mayhew also witnessed this unexpected bit of mystery, and it puzzled her not a little. She had left the parlor and was standing in the hall-way when her cousin's voice summoned his friend after his familiar fashion. Why should this stranger look at Mr. Van Berg as if the sound of his Christian name were a mortal wound? Or was that a mere coincidence--and in reaction from excitement and unwonted effort had she suddenly taken ill? For a wonder, she thought more about Miss Burton than herself that afternoon. She had decided from the first that she did not like this new-comer. That point had been settled by the fact that the artist's first impressions concerning her had evidently been favorable, and she remembered that his earliest glances and words in regard to herself had been anything but complimentary. Chapter IX. Unexpectedly Thrown Together. "I suppose you are satisfied by this time, Stanton," began Van Berg, as they drove away, "that I was very safe in offering you that picture on the conditions named, and that you have not the ghost of a chance of obtaining it." "Nonsense," replied Stanton. "The picture is practically won already. I admit that Miss Burton is an exception to all her species; and, now that I have seen her, I prove how little I am under the influence of prejudice by acknowledging the fact, and by giving her credit for her courage and agreeable manners. But how absurd to imagine that this plain little stranger can ever be to me more than she is to-day--a summer acquaintance at a summer resort! She will soon drop from our memories and leave no more trace than these rustling leaves overhead after they have fulfilled their brief purpose." "Here's a symptom already," cried Van Berg. "My matter-of-fact friend is already in the subtle current, and unconsciously drops into sentiment, and expresses himself in poetic trope. I foresee that the 'rustling leaves' will end in a rustling wedding-robe and gorgeous apparel; for when you cage the 'brown thrush' you will have the bad taste to insist on a change of plumage." "I begin to understand you at last," retorted Stanton. "You have been smitten yourself, and this is your strategy to conceal the fact. The trouble is that you have overdone the matter, and revealed your transfixed heart long before I should have suspected the wound. Had you not better commence on the picture soon, for this matter may disable you for a season?" "I won't swear that I will not become your rival, for our little heroine interests me hugely. There is something back of her smiling face. Her manner seems like crystal in its frankness, and yet I think few in the house will ever become better acquainted with her than they are to-day." "I shall take more than a languid interest in watching you progress with this smiling sphinx," said Stanton, "and in the mean time shall gloat over my picture." "Well, Barney," said Van Berg, as they drove up to the stables on their return, "you did have a streak of good luck this afternoon. I hope you are grateful to the lady who secured it for you." "Faix, sur, an' I niver seed the likes o' her afore. The smilin' look she gave me jist warmed the very core o' me heart, and her swate eyes seemed to say, 'Nary a bit o' ill-luck would ye have again, Barney, had I me way.' What's more, she's a goin' to intercade for the nurse-maid. They nadn't tell me that all the heretics will stay in purgatory." "Look here, Stanton, were I a theologian I'd make a note of that. Miss Burton has discovered a logic that routs superstition." Van Berg quite longed for the supper hour, that he might resume conversation with the interesting stranger, and he was promptly in his place at the table. But she did not appear. The lady with whom she had been conversing, remarked: "She was taken suddenly ill, just as you and your friend drove away this afternoon. Learning from Mr. Burleigh that she is here alone and without friends, I knocked at her door before I came down, and asked if I could do anything for her. She said that she would be better in the morning, and that all she needed was perfect quiet. It's strange how suddenly she was taken ill! She seemed perfectly well one moment, and then she fled to her room as if the ghost were in pursuit. I suppose it was reaction from excitement; or she may have some form of heart disease." "Are heart difficulties so serious as that with ladies?" asked Van Berg with a smile. "I never had acute symptoms of any kind," the lady replied. "Indeed I think I am a trifle cold and matter-of-fact in my disposition, but I began to thaw so perceptibly under Miss Burton's influence that I became quite interested in her. I think I deserve some credit for saving the child also, for it was I who kept her talking in the doorway. Most people are a weariness to me, and I was surprised to find so marked an exception." It must not be supposed that Van Berg's interest in the new arrival had led him to forget the motive which had brought him to the Lake House. This would not be in accordance with his character, and as far as possible, he had been closely observant of Miss Mayhew during the scenes of the afternoon. He had been rewarded by discovering, for the first time, that she was at least capable of a good and generous impulse, for her face had been expressive of genuine admiration and gladness when she saw Miss Burton with the rescued child in her arms after the carriage swept by. In this expression he obtained a clearer hint than he had ever before received of the beauty that might be her constant possession could the mean and marring traits of her character be exchanged for qualities in harmony with her perfect features. But while this gleam, this flash of ideal beauty increased his desire for success in his experiment, the young lady's bearing towards him was as discouraging as ever. If he had not been at Miss Burton's side, he believed that she would have come forward and offered her congratulations as had several other ladies. It would seem that her vanity had been so severely wounded she would never forgive him, and he determined he would no longer make a martyr of himself by playing the agreeable to all in the hotel in the hope that, by pouring so much oil on the waters, even her asperity might be removed. He half believed that she recognized his effort to form her acquaintance, and found a malicious pleasure in thwarting him. Therefore, he decided to take his sketch-book and go off upon the hills in the morning, thus enjoying a little respite from his apparently philanthropic labors. Before he left the breakfast table the following day, Miss Burton appeared. He thought he detected an ominous redness about her eyes, as well as the pallor which would be the natural result of illness; but she seemed to have recovered her spirits, and the rather quiet and self-absorbed little group that had hitherto seriously devoted themselves to steak and coffee, speedily brightened up under her pleasantries. Indeed she kept them lingering so long that the Mayhews and Stanton passed out before them, the latter casting a wistful glance at the cheerful party, for he had been having a stupid time. When, much later than he expected, he started on his brief sketching excursion he found that his mind was kindled and aglow with pleasant thoughts, and that the summer landscape had been made sunnier by the sunny face he had just left. But as he plodded his way back late in the afternoon, the sunbeams, no longer genial, became oppressive, and he was glad to hail one of the hotel stages that was returning from a neighboring village. The vehicle already contained two adult passengers. One was a stout, red-faced woman with a baby and an indefinite number of parcels, and the other was--Ida Mayhew, who was returning from a brief shopping excursion. As the latter saw Van Berg enter she colored, bit her lip, half frowned, and looked steadfastly away from him. Thus the stage lumbered on with its oddly assorted inmates, that, although belonging to the same human family, seemed to have as little in common as if each had come from a different planet. That Miss Mayhew looked so resolutely away from him was rather to Van Berg's advantage, for it gave him a chance to compare her exquisite profile with the expanse, slightly diversified, of the broad red face opposite. The stout woman held her baby as if it were a bundle, and stared straight before her. As far as Van Berg could observe, not a trace of an idea or a change of expression flitted across the wide area of her sultry visage, and he found himself speculating as to whether the minds of these two women differed as greatly as their outward appearance. Indeed he questioned whether one had any more mind than the other, and was inclined to think that despite their widely separated spheres of life they were equally dwarfed. While he was thus amusing himself with the contrasts, physical and metaphysical, which the two passengers opposite him presented, the stout woman suddenly looked out of the window at her side, and then, in a tone that would startle the quietest nerves, shouted to the driver: "Hold on!" Miss Mayhew half rose from her seat and looked around with something like dismay; but as she only encountered Van Berg's slightly humorous expression, she colored more deeply than before, and recalled her eyes to the farther angle of the stage with a fixedness and rigidity as great as if it had contained the head of Medusa. Meantime the driver drew up to a small cottage by the road-side, and scrambled down from his seat that he might assist the stout woman with her accumulation of bundles. She handed him out the baby, preferring to look after the more precious parcels herself. Van Berg politely held the door open for her; but just as she was squeezing through the stage entrance with her arms full and had her foot on the last step, her cottage door flew open with something to the effect of an explosion, and out burst three or four children with a perfect din of cries and shouts. Two vociferous dogs joined in the sudden uproar; the hitherto drowsy horses started as if a bomb-shell had dropped under their noses, and speedily broke into a mad gallop, leaving the stout woman prostrate upon her bundles in the road, and the driver helplessly holding her baby. Miss Mayhew's cold rigidity vanished at once. Indeed dignity was impossible in the swaying, bounding vehicle. There was a momentary effort to ignore her companion, and then terror overcame all scruples. Turning her white face towards him, she exclaimed: "Are we not in great danger?" "I admit I would rather be in my chair on Mr. Burleigh's piazza. With your permission, I will come to your end of the stage and speak to the horses through the open window." "Oh, come--do anything under heaven to stop these horrid beasts." Van Berg edged his way up a little past Miss Mayhew, and began speaking to the frightened horses in firm, quiet tones. At first they paid no heed to him, and as the stage made a sudden and desperate lurch, the young lady commenced to scream. "If you do that you will insure the breaking of both our necks," said Van Berg, sharply. "If you will keep quiet I think I can stop them. See, we have quite a stretch of level road beyond us, before we come to a hill. Give me a chance to quiet them." The terror-stricken girl kept still for a moment, and then started up, saying "I shall spring out." "No, Miss Mayhew, you must not do that," said Van Berg, decidedly. "You must be greatly injured, and you would with almost certainty be disfigured for life if you sprang out upon the stony road. You could not help falling on your face." "Oh, horrible!" she exclaimed. At the next heavy lurch of the stage she half-rose again to carry out her rash purpose, but the artist seized her hand and held her in her place, at the same time speaking kindly and firmly to the horses. They now began to heed his voice, and to recover from their panic. "See, Miss Mayhew," he said, "you have only to control yourself a few moments longer, and our danger is over." "Oh, do stop them, quick," she gasped, clinging to his hand as if he were her only hope, "and I'll never forget your kind--oh, merciful heaven!" At this favorable moment, when the horses were fast coming under control, a spiteful cur came tearing out after them, renewing their panic with tenfold intensity. As the dog barked on one side they sheered off on the other, until they plunged down the side of the road. The stage was nearly overturned, and then it stopped with a sudden and heavy thump. Miss Mayhew was precipitated into Mr. Van Berg's arms, and she clung to him for a moment in a paroxysm of terror. His wits had not so far deserted him but that he perceived that the stage had struck against a tree, that the horses had broken away, and that he and his companion were perfectly safe. If the whole truth must be told, it cannot be said that he endured the young lady's embrace with only cold and stoical philosophy. He found it wholly novel and not a painful experience. Indeed he was conscious of a temptation to delay the information of their escape, but a second's thought taught him that he must at once employ all his tact in the delicate and difficult task of reconciling the frightened girl to herself and her own conduct; otherwise her pride, and also her sense of delicacy, would now receive a new and far deeper wound, and a more hopeless estrangement follow. He therefore promptly lifted her up, and placed her limp form on the opposite seat. "I assure you we are now perfectly safe, Miss Mayhew," he said; "and let me congratulate you that your self-control prevented you from leaving the stage, for if you had done so you would undoubtedly have been greatly injured." "Where--where are--the horses?" she faltered. "I really do not know! They have disappeared. The stage struck a tree, and the brutes broke away. They will probably gallop home to the alarm and excitement of every one about the hotel. Pray compose yourself. The house is not far away, and we can soon reach it if you are not very much hurt." "Are you sure the danger is all over?" "Yes; this is now not the slightest chance of a tragedy." There must have been a faint twinkle in his eye, for she exclaimed, passionately: "The whole thing has been a comedy to you, and I half believe you brought it all about to annoy me." "You do me great injustice, Miss Mayhew," said Van Berg, warmly. "Here we are sitting in this horrid old stage by the roadside," she resumed, in tones of strong vexation. "Was there ever anything more absurd and ridiculous than it has all been! I am mortified beyond expression, and suppose I shall never hear the last of it," and she burst into a hysterical passion of tears. "Miss Mayhew," said Van Berg hastily, "you certainly must realize that we have passed through very great peril together, and if you think me capable of saying a word about this episode that is not to your credit, you were never more mistaken in your life." At this assurance she became more calm. "I know you dislike me most heartily," Van Berg continued; "but you have less reason to do so than you think---" "I have good reason to dislike you. You despise me; and now that I have been such a coward you are comparing me with Miss Burton who acted so differently yesterday." "I have not even thought of Miss Burton," protested Van Berg, at the same time conscious, now that her name had been recalled to his memory, that she would have acted a much better part. "I am only sincerely glad that our necks were not broken, and I hope that you have not suffered any severe bruises. As to my despising you, if you will honor me with your acquaintance you may discover that you are greatly in error." "Then you truly think that we have been in danger?" she asked, wiping her eyes. "Most assuredly. When you come to think the matter over calmly, you will realize that we were in very great danger. I think the affair has ended most happily rather than absurdly." "Really, sir, when I remember how the 'affair,' as you term it, actually did end, I feel as if I never wished to see you again." "Miss Mayhew, I appeal to your generosity. Was I to blame for that which was so disagreeable to you? Surely you will not be so unfair as to punish me for what neither you nor I could help. I think fate means we shall be friends, and has employed this unexpected episode to break the ice between us. If you are now sufficiently composed I will assist you to alight, in order that the driver, who is approaching, may be relieved of all fears on our account." "Oh, certainly. As it is, I suppose he will have a ridiculous story to tell." "There is nothing that he, or the others who are following him can tell, save that the horses ran away and that we most fortunately escaped all injury. Ah! I see that you are a little lame. Please take my arm; the hotel is but a quarter of a mile away. Or perhaps you would prefer that I should send the driver for a carriage. You could wait in yonder cottage, or here, in the shade of the trees." "I am not very lame, and if I were I would not mind it. My wish is that the horrid affair may occasion as little remark as possible. I can reach my room by a side entrance, and so come quietly down to dinner. I suppose that I must take your arm since I cannot walk very well without it." They therefore turned their backs on the breathless driver and his eager questions, and proceeded slowly towards the hotel. After a brief examination of the shattered stage, the man ran panting past them in search of his horses; and they were again left alone. Chapter X. Phrases too Suggestive. For a few moments Miss Mayhew and Van Berg walked on in silence, each very doubtful of the other. At last the artist began: "I am well aware, Miss Mayhew, that this unexpected episode and this enforced companionship give me no rights whatever. I do not propose to annoy you, after seeing you safely to the hotel, by assuming that we are acquainted, nor do I intend to subject myself to the mortification of being informed publicly, by your manner, that we are not on speaking terms. I would be glad to have this question settled now. I ask your pardon for anything that I may have said or done to hurt your feelings, and having thus gone more than half-way it would be ungenerous on your part not to respond in like spirit." "You apologize, then?" "No; I ask your pardon for anything that may have hurt your feelings." "You have said very disagreeable things about me, Mr. Van Berg." "I did not know you then." "I do not think you have changed your opinion of me in the least." "I evidently have a much higher opinion of you than you of me, and I am seeking your acquaintance with a persistence such as I never manifested in the case of any other lady. Thus the odds are all in your favor. Having been so unexpectedly thrown together---" "'Thrown together,' indeed--Mr. Van Berg, you ARE mocking me," and her eyes again filled with tears of vexation. "I assure you I am not," said Van Berg earnestly. "I could not be so mean as to twit you with an accident which you could not help, and with an act which was wholly involuntary on your part. Can we not both let by-gones by by-gones and commence anew?" Miss Mayhew bit her lip and hesitated a few moments. "I think that will be the better way," she said. "We will both let by-gones, especially this ridiculous episode in the stage. I'll put you on your good behavior." "Thank you, Miss Mayhew. I would take our late risk twenty times for such a result." "I would not take it again on any account whatever. Please refer to it no more. I declare, there comes Cousin Ik and Mr. Burleigh to meet us. Was one's fortune ever so exasperating! Ik will teaze me out of all comfort for weeks to come." "Say little and leave all to my discretion," said Van Berg, reassuringly; "and, by the way, you might limp a little more decidedly," which she immediately did. "My dear Miss Mayhew, I trust you are not seriously hurt," began Mr. Burleigh while still several yards off. Stanton's face was a study as he approached. Indeed he seemed half ready to explode with suppressed merriment, but before he could speak a warning glance from Van Berg checked him. "Miss Mayhew might have been seriously and possibly fatally injured," said the artist gravely, "had it not been for her self-control. Although it seemed that the stage would be dashed to pieces every moment, I told her that in my judgement it would be safer to remain within it than to spring out upon the hard and stony road, and I am very glad that the final event confirmed my opinion." As they were by this time near to the hotel, others who had been alarmed by seeing the horses tearing up to the stable door, now hastily joined them; and last, but not least, Mrs. Mayhew came panting upon the scene. Van Berg felt the hand of the young lady trembling in nervous apprehension upon his arm, from which, in her embarrassment, she forgot to remove it. But the artist did not fail her, and in answer to Mr. Burleigh's eager questions as to the cause of the accident, explained all so plausibly, and in such a matter-of-fact manner as left little more even to be surmised. His brief and prosaic history of the affair concluded with the following implied tribute to his companion, which still further relieved her from fear of ridicule: "Miss Mayhew," he said, "instead of jumping out, after the frantic terror-blinded manner of most people, remained in the stage and so has escaped, I trust, with nothing worse than a slight lameness caused by the violent motion of the vehicle. I will now resign her to your care, Mr. Stanton, and I am glad to believe that the occasion will require the services of the wheelwright and harness-maker only, and not those of a surgeon," and lifting his hat to Mrs. Mayhew and her daughter he bowed himself off the scene. Ida, leaning on the arm of her cousin, limped appropriately to her room, whither she had her dinner sent to her, more for the purpose of gaining time to compose her nerves than for any other reason. The impression that she had behaved courageously in peril was rapidly increased as the story was repeated by one and another, and she received several congratulatory visits in the afternoon from her lady acquaintances; and when she came down to supper she found that she was even a greater heroine than Miss Burton had been. In answer to many sympathetic inquiries, she said that she "felt as well as ever," and she tried to prove it by her gayety and careful toilet. But she was decidedly ill at ease. Her old self-complacency was ebbing away faster than ever. From the time that it had first been disturbed by the artist's frown in the concert garden, she had been conscious of a secret and growing self-dissatisfaction. It seemed to be this stranger's mission to break the spell vanity and flattery had woven about her. The congratulations she was now receiving were secured by a fraudulent impression, if not by actual falsehood, and she permitted this impression to remain and grow. The one, who above all others she most feared and disliked, knew this. In smilingly accepting the compliments showered upon her from all sides she felt that she must appear to him as if receiving stolen goods, and she believed that in his heart he despised her more thoroughly than ever. To the degree that he caused her disquietude and secret humiliation, her desire to retaliate increased, and she resolved, before the day closed, to use her beauty as a weapon to inflict upon him the severest wound possible. If it were within the power of her art she would bring him to her feet and keep him there until she could, in the most decided and public manner, spurn his abject homage. She would have no scruple in doing this in any case, but, in this instance, success would give her the keenest satisfaction. His very desire for her acquaintance, as she understood it, was humiliating, and, in a certain sense, demoralizing. Her other suitors had imagined that she had good traits back of her beauty, and hitherto she had been carelessly content to believe that she could display such traits in abundance should the occasion require them. Here was one, however, who, while despising the woman, was apparently seeking her for the sake of her beauty merely; and her woman's soul, warped and dwarfed as it was, resented an homage that was seemingly sensuous and superficial, and would, of necessity, be transient. In her ignorance of Van Berg's motives, and in the utter impossibility of surmising them, she could scarcely come to any other conclusion; and she determined to punish him to the utmost extent of her ability. Thus it came to pass that Miss Mayhew had designs against Van Berg that were not quite as amiable as those of the artist in regard to herself. Stanton, in a low tone, remarked to her at the supper table, "Now that fate has throw you and Van Berg together in such a remarkable manner" (the young lady colored deeply at this unfortunate expression and looked at him keenly), "I trust that you will yield gracefully to destiny and treat him with ordinary courtesy when you meet. Otherwise you may occasion surmises that will not be agreeable to you." "Has he been telling you anything about this morning?" she asked quickly. "Nothing more than he said in your presence. Why, was there anything more to tell?" "Certainly not, but he made ill-natured remarks about me once--that is, you said he did--and why should he not again?" "Well, he has not. I think he spoke very handsomely of you this morning. I hope he didn't exaggerate your good behavior." "If you prefer to believe ill of me you are welcome to do so. For my part, I believe you exaggerate what Mr. Van Berg said at the concert, and that he never meant to be so rude. As far as I can judge, he has shown no such unmannerly disposition since coming here." "Indeed, you are right. I think his disposition has compared favorably with your own." "Well," she replied, with a peculiar smile, "we are on speaking terms for the present." "That smile bodes no good-will towards my friend, but for once you will find a man who will not fall helplessly in love with your mere beauty." "If you will glance at yonder table you can see that Miss Burton has already so absorbed him that he has eyes for no one else." "They have jolly good times at that table. I wish we were there." "Indeed! are you bewitched also? I can't see what it is that people find so attractive in that plain-looking girl." "Well, for one thing, she has a mind. Beauty without mind is like salad without dressing." "And do you mean to say that I have no mind?" Ida asked, with a sudden flush. "My dear Coz, we were speaking solely of Miss Burton. Indeed, I think you have a very decided will of your own." "I understand you. Well, in what other respects is Miss Burton my superior?" "I doubt if Miss Burton ever thinks of herself as superior to any one, and that's another very amiable trait in her." "Can you not sum up her perfections a little more rapidly? Life is short," remarked Ida, acidly. "Come, Coz, let me get you some sweet-oil before you finish your supper. You know you are the handsomest girl in the State, and that's distinction enough for one woman. To you, Miss Burton is only a plain school-teacher. Why should you envy her?" "I do not envy her, nor can I see why people are so carried away with her." "It IS remarkable to see what an impression she has made in two brief days. Of course her courage in saving the child served as a general and favorable introduction, but it does not by any means explain her growing popularity. For some reason or other those about her always seem to be having a good time. See how animated and pleased is the expression of all the faces at her table yonder. It was the same on the croquet-ground this morning. She effervesced like champagne, and before we knew it we were all in a state of exhilaration and the morning had gone." "I hate these bold, forward women who are quick to become acquainted with every one. A man of this type is bad enough, but a woman is unendurable." "I agree with you in the abstract most heartily; but the only bold thing that I have seen Miss Burton do was to run under the feet of my horses. You might as well call a ray of sunshine bold and forward; and people like sunshine when it is as nicely tempered as her manner is. I confess that when I first learned who she was, and before I had met her personally, I was greatly prejudiced against her, but one would have to be a churl indeed to remain proof against her genial good-nature. For my part I intend to enjoy it, as I do all the other good things the gods throw in my way." "The gods would indeed be careless to leave any good things within your reach, unless they were meant for you," snapped Ida. "Good for you, Coz; your ride with Van Berg has already brightened you up. There is no telling what you might not become if you would only associate with men who had sufficient brains not to grow spooney over your pretty face." As Ida and her mother passed out on the piazza, Van Berg joined them and said: "I am glad to see that you have so fully recovered, Miss Mayhew. You prove again that you possess good strong nerves." "Thank you," said the young lady, laconically, and with a sudden accession of color. "Mr. Van Berg," began Mrs. Mayhew with great animation, "I'm excessively thankful that you happened to be on the road, and that the stage overtook you this morning. It was so fortunate that I almost think it providential. How dreadful it would have been if Ida had been alone in such frightful peril! I cannot tell you also how delighted I am that my daughter behaved so beautifully. Indeed, I must confess that I am agreeably surprised, for Ida was never famous for her courage. Your own manner must have inspired confidence in her; and now that you have been so fortunately THROWN TOGETHER, I trust you may be better friends in the future." Miss Mayhew's rising color deepened into an intense scarlet, and, as she turned away to hide her confusion, she could not forbear shooting a wrathful glance at the artist. He had sufficient self-control not to change a muscle, or to appear in the slightest degree aware of the embarrassment caused by her mother's words, and especially the use of the phrase--grown to be most hateful from its associations--that so vividly recalled to the incensed maiden the anomalous position in which she found herself at the end of her perilous morning ride. "You ladies differ favorably from us men," said Van Berg, quietly. "You rise to meet an emergency by an innate quality of your sex, whereas, in our case, if our native strength is not equal to the occasion we fall below it as a matter of course." "Oh, that accounts for Ida's coming off with such flying colors--she rose to meet the emergency. I hope, however, she will EMBRACE no more such opportunities of showing her courage--why! Ida, what IS the matter? what have I said?" but the young lady, with face inflamed, vanished in the direction of her room. "Well, this IS strange," remarked the lady with a sharp glance of inquiry at the artist, who still managed to maintain an expression of lamb-like innocence. "I do believe the poor child is ill, and, now I think of it, she has not acted like herself for several days;" and she sought her daughter with hasty steps. But the young lady did not go to her room, being well aware that her mother would soon follow for the explanation which she could not give. Therefore, taking a side corridor, she joined some acquaintances on another piazza. Chapter XI. A "Tableau Vivant." "Miss Mayhew, will you please step here?" said a very fashionably dressed lady. Turning, Ida saw near her the mother of the child that had been rescued the previous day. She, with her husband, had been talking very earnestly to Mr. Burleigh, the proprietor of the house, who seemed in rather a dubious state of mind over some proposition of theirs. "Miss Mayhew, we want your opinion in regard to a certain matter," began the lady volubly. "Of course I and my husband feel very grateful to the young woman who saved our child from your cousin's horses yesterday. Indeed, my husband feels so deeply indebted that he wishes to make some return and I have suggested that he present her with a check for five hundred dollars. I learn from Mr. Burleigh that she is a teacher, and therefore, of course, she must be poor. Now, in my view, if my husband or some other gentleman should present this check in the parlor, with an appropriate little speech, it would be a nice acknowledgment of her act. Don't you think so?" "I do not think I am qualified to give an opinion," said Ida, "as I have no acquaintance with the lady whatever." "I'm sure it will be just the thing to do," said the lady, becoming more infatuated with her project every moment. "Do you think your cousin would be willing to make the speech?" At this suggestion Ida laughed outright. "The idea," she said, "of my cousin making a speech of any kind, or in any circumstances!" "Now I think of it," persisted the lady, "Miss Burton and Mr. Van Berg sit at the same table, and he seems better acquainted with her than any of the gentlemen. He's the one to make the speech, only I do not feel that I know him well enough to ask him. Do you, Miss Mayhew?" "Indeed I do not," said the young lady, decisively; "I am the last one in the house to ask any favors of Mr. Van Berg." "Well, then, Mr. Burleigh can explain everything and ask him." "Really now, Mrs. Chints"--for such was the lady's name--"I don't quite believe that Mr. Van Berg would approve of giving Miss Burton money in public, and before anything further is done I would like to ask his judgement. It all may be eminently proper, as you say, and I would not like to stand in the way of the young lady's receiving so handsome a present, and would not for the world if I thought it would be agreeable to her; but there is something about her that---" "I have it," interrupted the positive-minded lady, unheeding and scarcely hearing Mr. Burleigh's dubious circumlocution, and she put her finger to her forehead for a moment in an affected stage-like manner, as if her ideas of the "eternal fitness of things" had been obtained from the sensational drama. "I have it: the child himself shall hand her the gift from his own little hand, and you, Mr. Chints, can say all that need be said. It will be a pretty scene, a 'tableau vivant.' Mr. Chints, come with me before the young woman leaves her present favorable position near the parlor door. Mr. Burleigh, your scruples are sentimental and groundless. Of course the young woman will be delighted to receive in one evening as much, and perhaps more, than her whole year's salary amounts to. Come, Mr. Chints, Mr. Burleigh, if you wish, you may group some of your friends near;" and away she rustled, sweeping the floor with her silken train. Mr. Chints lumbered after her with a perplexed and martyr-like expression. He was a mighty man in Washington Market, but in a matter like this he was as helpless as a stranded whale. The gift of five hundred dollars did not trouble him in the least; he could soon make that up; but taking part in a "tableau vivant" under the auspices of his dramatic wife was like being impaled. "Well," said Mr. Burleigh, shaking his head, "I wash my hands of the whole matter. Five hundred dollars is a snug sum, but I doubt if that little woman takes it. I'm more afraid she'll be offended and hurt. What do you think, Miss Mayhew?" "I've no opinion to offer, Mr. Burleigh. These people are all comparative strangers to me. Mrs. Chints is determined to have her own way, and nothing that you or I can say would make any difference. My rule is to let people alone, and if they get into scrapes it sometimes does them good;" and she left him that she might witness the Chints' tableau. "That's just the difference between you and Miss Burton," muttered Mr. Burleigh, nodding his head significantly after her. "She'd help a fellow out of a scrape and you'd help him into one. Well, if the old saying's true, 'Handsome is that handsome does,' the little school-teacher would be the girl for me were I looking for my mate." On her way to the entrance of the main parlor, Ida stopped a moment at an open window near the corner where Stanton and Van Berg were smoking. "Cousin Ik," she said, 'sotto voce.' He rose and joined her. "If you wish to see a rich scene, hover near the entrance of the main parlor." "What do you mean?" "I've learned that Mr. and Mrs. Chints, and possibly your favorite new performer, Miss Burton, are going to act a little comedy together: come and see;" and she vanished. "Van," said Stanton in a vexed tone, "there's some mischief on foot;" and he mentioned what his cousin had said, adding: "Can Ida have been putting that brassy Mrs. Chints up to some absurd performance that will hurt Miss Burton's feelings?" They rose and sauntered down the piazza, Van Berg trying to imagine what was about to take place and how he could shield the young lady from any annoyance. She sat inside the entrance of the main parlor facing the open windows, and a little group had gathered around her, including the ladies who sat at her table, with whom she had already become a favorite. Ida had demurely entered by one of the open windows and was apparently reading a novel under one of the gas jets not far away. Groups of people were chatting near or were seated around card-tables; others were quietly promenading in the hall-ways and on the piazza. There was not an indication of any expected or unexpected "scene." Only Ida's conscious, observant expression and the absence of Mrs. Chints foreboded mischief. "What enormity can that odious family be about to perpetrate?" whispered Stanton. "I cannot surmise," answered Van Berg; "something in reference to the rescue of her child, I suppose. I wish I could thwart them, for Miss Burton's position will place her full in the public eye, and I do not wish her to be the victim of their vulgarity." After a little further hesitation and thought he stepped in, and approaching Miss Burton, said: "Pardon me for interrupting you, but I wish to show you something on the piazza that will interest you." She rose to follow him, but before she could take a step Mrs. Chints swept in on the arm of her husband, followed by the nurse--who had been retained at Miss Burton's intercession--bearing in her arms the little boy, that stared at the lights and people with the round eyes of childish wonder. Every one looked up in surprise at the sudden appearance of the little group, that suggested a christening more than anything else. Planting themselves before Miss Burton, thus barring all egress, Mr. Chints fumbled a moment in his pocket and drew out an envelope, and with a loud, prefatory "Ahem!" began: "My dear Miss Burton--that is the way Mrs. Chints says I should address you, thought it strikes me as a trifle familiar and affectionate; but I mean no harm--we're under pecul--very great obligations to YOU. We learn--my wife has--that you are engaged--engaged--in--I mean that you--teach. I'm sure that's a lawful calling--I mean a laudable one, and no one can deny that it's useful. In my view it's to your credit that you are engaged--in--that you teach. I work myself, and always mean to. In fact I enjoy it more than making speeches. But feeling that we were under wonderful obligations to YOU, and learning--my wife did--that you were dependent on--on your own labor, we thought that if this little fellow that you saved so handsomely should hand you this check for five hundred dollars it wouldn't be amiss." And here, according to rehearsal, the nurse with great parade handed the child to Mrs. Chints, who now, with much 'empressement,' advanced to a position immediately before Miss Burton; meanwhile the poor, perspiring Mr. Chints put the envelope into the child's chubby hand, saying: "Give it to the lady, Augustus." But the small Augustus, on the contrary, stared at the lady and put the envelope in his mouth, to the great mortification of Mrs. Chints, who had been so preoccupied with the Chints side of the affair, and the impression they were making on the extemporized audience, that she had no eyes for Miss Burton. And that young lady's face was, in truth, a study. An expression of surprise was followed quickly by one of resentment. Even Stanton was obliged to admit that for a moment the little "school-ma'am" looked formidable. But as Mr. Chints floundered on in his speech, as some poor wretch who could not swim might struggle to get out of the deep water into which he had been thrown, the expression of her face softened, and one might imagine the thought passing through her mind--"They don't know any better;" and when, at last, the child, instead of carrying out the climax that Mrs. Chints had intended, began vigorously to munch the envelope containing the precious check, there was even a twinkle of humor in the young lady's eyes. But she responded gravely: "Mr. Chints, I was at first inclined to resent this scene, but time has been given me to perceive that neither you nor your wife wish to hurt my feelings, and that you are in part, at least, actuated by feelings of gratitude for the service that I was so fortunate as to render you. But I fear you do not quite understand me. You are right in one respect, however. I do labor for my own livelihood, and it is a source of the deepest satisfaction to me that I can live from my own work and not from gifts. If your hearts prompt this large donation, there are hundreds of poor little waifs in the city to whom this money will bring a little of the care and comfort which blesses your child. As for myself, this is all the reward that I wish or can receive," and she stooped and kissed the child on both cheeks. Then taking Van Berg's arm, she gladly escaped to the cool and dusky piazza. Mr. Chints looked at Mrs. Chints in dismay. Mrs. Chints handed the baby to the nurse, and beat an undramatic and hasty retreat, her husband following in a dazed sort of manner, treading on her train at every other step. As Van Berg passed out of the parlor, he saw Ida Mayhew vanishing from its farther side, with Stanton in close pursuit. When Miss Burton ended the disagreeable affair by kissing the child, there had been a slight murmur of applause. Significant smiles and a rising him of voices descanting on the affair in a way not at all complimentary to the crestfallen Chints family, followed the disappearances of all the actors in the unexpected scene. Chapter XII. Miss Mayhew is Puzzled. "Miss Burton," said Van Berg, as soon as they were alone, "I wish I could have saved you from this disagreeable experience. I tried to do so, but was not quick enough. I much blame my slow wits that I was not more prompt." "I wish it might have been prevented," she replied, "for their sakes as well as my own." "I have no compunctions on their account whatever," said Van Berg, "and feel that you let them off much too kindly. I think, however, that they and all others here will understand you much better hereafter. I cannot express too strongly to you how thoroughly our brief acquaintance has taught me to respect you, and if you will permit me to give an earnest meaning to Mr. Burleigh's jesting offer to share with me the responsibility of your care, I will esteem it an honor." "I sincerely thank you, Mr. Van Berg, and should I ever need the services of a gentleman,"--she laid a slight emphasis upon the term--"I shall, without any hesitancy, turn to you. But I have long since learned to be my own protectress, as, after all, one must be, situated as I am." "You seem to have the ability, not only to take care of yourself, but of others, Miss Burton. Nevertheless I shall, with your permission, establish a sort of protectorate over you which shall be exceedingly unobtrusive and undemonstrative, and not in the least like that which some powers make the excuse for exactions, until the protected party is ready to cry out in desperation to be delivered from its friends. I hesitated too long this evening from the fear of being forward; and yet I did not know what was coming, and had learned only accidentally but a few moments before that anything was coming." "Well," replied Miss Burton with a slight laugh, "it's a comfortable thought that there's a fort near, to which one can run should an enemy appear; and a pleasanter thought still, that the fort is strong and staunch. but, to change the figure, I have a great fancy for paddling my own light canoe, and such small craft will often float, you know, where a ship of the line would strike." "I will admit, Miss Burton, that ships of the line are often unwieldy and clumsily deep in the water; but if you ever do need a gunboat with a howitzer or two on deck, may I hope to be summoned?" "I could ask for no better champion. I fairly tremble at the broadside that would follow." "Are you thinking of the discharge or the recoil?" "Both might involve danger," said Miss Burton, laughing; "but I have concluded to keep on your side through such wars as may rage at the Lake House during my sojourn. I cannot help thinking of poor Mr. and Mrs. Chints. I feel almost as sorry for such people as I do for the blind and deaf. They seem to lack a certain sense which, if possessed, would teach them to avoid such scenes." "I detest such people and like to snub them unmercifully," said Van Berg, heartily. "That may be in accordance with a gunboat character; but is it knightly?" "Why not? What does snobbishness and rich vulgarity deserve at any man's hands?" "Nothing but sturdy blows. But what do weak, imperfect, half-educated men and women, who have never had a tithe of your advantages, NEED at your hands? Can we not condemn faults, and at the same time pity and help the faulty? The gunboat sends its shot crashing too much at random. It seems to me that true knighthood would spare weakness of any kind." "I'm glad you have not spared mine. You have demolished me as a gunboat, but I would fain be your knight." "It is Mrs. Chints who needs a knight at present, and not I. It troubles me to think of her worriment over this foolish little episode, and with your permission I will go and try to banish the cloud." As she turned she was intercepted by Stanton, who said: "Miss Burton, let my present to you my cousin, Miss Mayhew." A ray from a parlor lamp fell upon Ida's face, and Van Berg saw at once that it was clouded and unamiable in its expression. Stanton had evidently been reproaching her severely. Miss Burton held out her hand cordially and said; "I wish to thank you for maintaining the credit of our sex this morning. These superior men are so fond of portraying us as hysterical, clinging creatures whose only instinct in peril is to throw themselves on man's protection, that I always feel a little exultation when one of the 'weaker and gentler sex,' as we are termed, show the courage and presence of mind which they coolly appropriate as masculine qualities." "Are you an advocate of woman's rights, Miss Burton?" asked Miss Mayhew, stung by the unconscious sarcasm of the lady's words, to reply in almost as resentful a manner as if a wound had been intended. "Not of woman's, particularly," was the quiet answer; "I would be glad if every one had their rights." "You philanthropy is very wide, certainly." "And therefore very thin, perhaps you think, since it covers so much ground. I agree with you, Miss Mayhew, that general good-will is as cold and thin as moonshine. One ray of sunlight that warms some particular thing into life is worth it all." "Indeed! I think I prefer moonlight." "There are certain absorbing avocations in life to which moonshine is better adapted then sunlight, is probably the thought in my cousin's mind," said Stanton, satirically. "And what are they?" asked Miss Burton. "Flirtation, for instance." "My cousin is speaking for himself," said Ida, acidly; "and knows better what is in his own mind than in mine." "If some ladies themselves never know their own minds, how can another know?" Stanton retorted. "Well," said Miss Burton, with a laugh, "if we accept a practical philosophy much in vogue--that of taking the world as we find it--flirting is one of the commonest pursuits of mankind." "I'm quite sure, Miss Burton," said Van Berg, "that your philosophy of life is the reverse of taking the world as we find it." "Indeed, you are mistaken, sir; I am exceedingly prosaic in my views, and cherish no Utopian dreams and theories. I do indeed take the old matter-of-fact world as I find it, and try to make the best of it." "Ah, your last is a very saving clause. Too many are seemingly trying to make the worst of it, and unfortunately they succeed." Ida here shot a quick and vengeful glance at the speaker. "Please do not present me as a general reformer, Mr. Van Berg," protested Miss Burton, with a light laugh; "I have my hands full in mending my own ways." "And so might we all, no doubt," said Stanton; "only most of us leave our ways unmended. but I am curious to know, Miss Burton, how you would make the best of a flirtation; since this is emphatically a part of the world as we find it, especially at a summer hotel." "The best that we can do with many things that exist," she replied, "is to leave them alone. Italy is pre-eminently the land of garlic and art; but fortunately we shall not find it necessary to indulge in both and in equal proportions when we are so happy as to go abroad." "A great many people prefer the garlic," said Stanton. "Oh, certainly," she answered; "it's a matter of taste." "So then garlic and flirtation are corresponding terms in your vocabulary?" "I cannot say which term outranks the other, but it seems to me that if a woman regards her love as a sacred thing, she cannot permit an indefinite number of commonplace people even to attempt to stain it with their soiling touch." "I think gentlemen show just as much of a disposition to flirt as ladies," said Ida, with resentment in her tone. "I will not dispute that statement," replied Miss Burton, with a laugh; "indeed, I'm inclined to think they are very human." "Humane, you mean," interposed Stanton. "Yes, I often wonder at our patient endurance." "Which shall be taxed no longer to-night by me. Good-evening, Miss Mayhew. Good-evening, patient martyrs." "Humane, indeed!" said Stanton. "Are you that way inclined, Van?" "I have no occasion to be otherwise." "Well, I feel savage enough to scalp some one." "So I should judge," remarked Ida. "Perhaps then, as my mood contrasts somewhat favorably with your cousin's, you will venture to walk with me for awhile?" said Van Berg. "Indeed, sir," she replied, taking his arm, "there are times when any change is a relief." "I cannot be very greatly elated over that view of the case, certainly," remarked Van Berg, with a laugh. She did not reply at once, but after a moment said: "I suppose you regard me as a hopeless case at best." "what suggests that thought to you, Miss Mayhew?" "You are not so dull as to need to ask that question, and you only ask it to draw me out. For one thing, you probably think that I instigated Mr. and Mrs. Chints to act as they did. This is not true." "I'm very glad to hear it." "I'm no more to blame than Mr. Burleigh was. He knew about it as well as I did, but Mrs. Chints was bound to carry out her project." "Will you permit a suggestion?" "I suppose you wish to insinuate that I acted like a heathen, instead of saying that I am one plainly, as does Cousin Ik?" "I think you acted a little thoughtlessly. If Miss Burton had been in your place, she would have tried to prevent the disagreeable scene." "Oh, certainly! she is perfect." "No; she is kind." "Would it be possible to speak upon some agreeable subject, Mr. Van Berg? I have had enough mortifications for one day." He was puzzled. What topic could he introduce that would interest this spoiled and petulant beauty. He touched on art, but she was only artful in her small way, and could not follow him. He tried literature, and here they had even less in common. He would not and indeed could not read the thin society novels which reflected modes of life as trivial as her own, and his books might have been written in another language, so slight was her acquaintance with them. The various political, social, or scientific questions of the day had never puzzled her brain. Van Berg cautiously felt his way towards his companion's knowledge of two or three of the most popular of them. Her answers, however, were so superficial and irrelevant, and also so evidently embarrassed, that he saw his only resources to be society chit-chat, gossip about mutual acquaintances, the latest modes, the attractions of pleasure resorts in the city, and of summer resorts in the country. But he gave his mind to these unwonted themes, and labored hard to be entertaining; for now that he had gained the vantage-ground he sought, he was determined to discover whether there was a sleeping mind or a vacuum behind Miss Mayhew's shapely forehead. Granting that there was a womanly intelligence there, as yet unquickened, he was not so irrational as to imagine he could jostle it into illumining activity in one short hour, or day, or week. But it seemed to him that if any mind existed worth the name, it would give such encouraging signs of life before many days passed as would promise success of his experiment. He felt that his first aim must be to establish an intimacy that would permit as full and frank an exchange of thought as was possible between people so dissimilar. While he tried to bring himself down to the littleness of her daily life, he determined to show his disapproval of every phrase of its meanness as far as he could without offending her. He had made her feel that he condemned her course towards Miss Burton that evening, and he had meant to do so. She resented this disapproval, and at the same time respected him for it. Indeed he puzzled her. He evidently sought and wished for her society; and yet as they walked back and forth, even though she did not look at him when the light gave her the opportunity to do so, she felt intuitively that he did not enjoy her company. She saw that he was laboring hard to make himself agreeable; but his small talk had not the familiar flippancy and fluency of one speaking in his native tongue; nor was his manner that of one who, infatuated with her beauty, had thrown aside all other considerations. She felt that the man at her side measured her, and understood her littleness thoroughly. And she herself had a growing consciousness of insignificance that was as painful as it was novel. Adding to all the humiliations of this day here was a man, not so very much older than herself, trying to come down to her level, as he would accommodate his language to a child. No labored argument could have revealed her ignorance to her so clearly, as her conscious inability to follow him into his ordinary range of thought. Unwittingly he had demonstrated his superiority in a way that she could not deny, however much she might be inclined to resent it. And yet he treated her with a sort of respect, and occasionally she saw that he bent his eyes upon her face as if in search of something. After a transient effort to ignore everything and talk in her usual superficial manner, she became more and more silent and oppressed, and, at last said, somewhat abruptly: "Mr. Van Berg, I am weary, and I imagine you are too. I think I will say good-night." "I scarcely wonder that you are fatigued. You have had a trying day." "It has been a horrid day," she said, emphatically. "It might have ended much worse, nevertheless." "Possibly," she admitted with a shrug. "You have more reason to congratulate yourself than you imagine, Miss Mayhew. Even that disagreeable souvenir of our morning peril, your lameness, has disappeared, and you might have been maimed for life." "My lameness, like my courage, was chiefly a fraud to begin with, and soon disappeared; but I have other souvenirs of that occasion that I cannot get rid of so easily." "If I am one of them, you are right, Miss Mayhew; I shall hold you to our agreement this morning. You put me on my good behavior--have I not behaved well?" "Yes, better than I have. I was not referring to you personally, but to certain memories." "We agreed to let by-gones be by-gones." "But others are not parties to this agreement, and every reference to the affair is odious to me." "I shall make no further reference to it, and you must be fair enough not to punish me for the acts of others." "You also despise me in your heart of my course towards Miss Burton this evening." "If I despised you would I have sought your society this evening?" "I do not know. I don't understand you, if you will permit my bluntness." "Possibly you don't understand yourself, Miss Mayhew." "I understand that I have had a miserable day, and I hope I may never see another like it. Good-night, sir." Chapter XIII. Nature's Broken Promise. Van Berg had been left to himself but a little time before Stanton and Mr. Burleigh came out upon the piazza, and the three gentlemen sat down for a quiet chat. "Well," remarked mine host, with a sigh of relief such as a pilot might heave after taking his ship round a perilous point; "well, thanks to Miss Burton's good sense, the affair has ended without any trouble. In a house like this, 'Satan is finding mischief still' whenever my back is turned, and sometimes he threatens to get up a row right under my nose, as in this instance. I was a 'blarsted fool,' as our English friends have it, not to know that Mrs. Chint's drama, although beginning in comedy, might end in tragedy of my losing some good paying boarders. Still further did I demonstrate the length of my ears by even imagining it possible that Miss Burton would take five hundred, or five hundred thousand dollars in any such circumstances. But the whole thing was done in a jiffy, and Mrs. Chints was possessed to have her 'tableau vivant.' Lively picture wasn't it? Still, if Miss Mayhew, when appealed to by Mrs. Chints, had confirmed my doubts, I would have tried to stop the nonsense at any cost." "Did Miss Mayhew advise the step?" asked Stanton. "Oh, no! She was non-committal. She acted as if it were none of her affair, save as it might afford her a little amusement. But these rows are no light matters to us poor publicans, who must please every one and keep the whole menagerie in order. Mr. Chints was swearing up and down his room that he had been made a fool of. Mrs. Chints was for leaving to-morrow morning, declaring that she would not endure such airs from a school-teacher. They are rich and have a number of friends who are coming soon, and so my mind was full of 'strange oaths' also, at my prospective loss, when this blessed little woman appears, taps at their door, enters like the angel into the lion's den, and shuts their mouths by some magic all her own. And now they're going to stay; Mr. Chints will give the five hundred to the Children's Aid Society, all is serene and I'm happy, so much so that I'll smoke another of your good cigars, Mr. Stanton." "Certainly, half-a-dozen if you wish. How do you imagine she quieted the unruly beasts?" "Oh, I suppose she got around them through the child--somewhat as she won over my wife this afternoon by means of our cross baby. It's teething, you know--and yet how should you young chaps know anything about babies! No matter, your time will come. This promenading the piazza with lovely creatures who have been half the afternoon at their toilets is all very nice; but wait till you have weathered innumerable squalls in the dead of night--then you'll learn that teething-time in a household is like going around Cape Horn. Well, to return from your future to my present. When so good-natured a man as I am gets into a sympathetic mood with old King Herod, you can imagine what a state the mother's nerves must be in who has to stand it night and day. But as Miss Burton had been commended to my care, I felt that I was in duty bound to introduce her to my wife and show her some attention. So I said to my wife, this afternoon, 'I'm going to bring a young lady in to see you.' 'Do you think I'm in a condition to entertain company?' she asked, with a faint suggestion of hard cider in her tone. 'Well, my dear,' I expostulated, 'it was just the same yesterday, and will be a little more so to-morrow, and I feel that I shall be remiss if I delay any longer.' 'Oh, very well,' she said, as if it were a tooth that must come out sooner or later, 'since the matter must be attended to, let us have it over at once.' But bless you, it wasn't over till supper-time. As I brought the young lady in, the baby waked out of a five-minutes' nap that had cost about an hour's rocking, and I thought the roof would come off. My wife looked cross and worried--well, it was prose, gentlemen, prose--not the poetry of life; and I said to myself, 'I suppose I have about made it certain that this young woman will live and die an old maid by giving her this glimpse behind the scenes. I thought the ladies could get on better without me than with me, so I bowed myself out, glad to escape the din; and I supposed Miss Burton would say a few pleasant things in the direction of Mrs. Burleigh, which she, poor woman, might not be able to hear, and then she would bow herself out, also glad to escape. An hour and a half later I went back to see if I could not coax my wife away for a drive, and what do you suppose I saw?" "The baby in convulsions," said Stanton. "Give it up," added Van Berg. "Sweet transformation scene; deep hush; my wife asleep in her rocking-chair, the baby asleep in the arms of Miss Burton, who held up a warning finger at me to be quiet. But the mischief was done; my wife started up and was mortified beyond measure that she had treated her guest so rudely. The good fairy, however, was so genuinely delighted that she had quieted the baby and given the tired mother a little rest, that we had to come to the conclusion that she found pleasure in ways that are a trifle uncommon. By some miracle or other she kept the baby asleep, and then my wife and I tried to entertain her a little, but we were the ones that were entertained. Before we knew it, the supper-bell rang, and then I'm blessed if the little chap didn't wake up and grin at us all. To think then that I should reward her by letting Mr. Chints slap her face with a five-hundred-dollar check! I guess we'll all know better next time." "Did she tell you anything further about her history or her connections?" asked Stanton. Mr. Burleigh stroked his beard and looked rather blank for a moment. "Now I think of it," he ejaculated, "I be hanged if she said a word about herself. And now I think further of it, she somehow or other got Mrs. Burleigh and myself a-talking, and seemed so interested in us and what we said, that I be hanged again if we didn't tell her all we know about ourselves." "She impresses every one as being remarkably frank, and yet I think it will be found that she is peculiarly reticent in regard to herself," remarked Van Berg musingly. "Well, it's not often I take people on trust, but I have given this lady my entire respect and confidence." "I assure you that there is no trust in this business," said Mr. Burleigh, emphatically. "I can't afford to indulge in sentiment, gentlemen; besides, it couldn't be any more becoming in me than in Tom Chints. I wouldn't take an unprotected, unknown female into my house if she came with a pair of wings. But Miss Burton brings letters that establish her character as a lady as truly as that of any other woman in the house. I ought to have prevented this Chints business, but then five hundred is a nice little plum, and before I pulled my slow wits together the thing was done." "By the way, Mr. Burleigh," remarked Stanton, "I hear that the parties who are now at my friend Van Berg's table are soon to leave for the sea-shore. Can you give me three seats there after their departure?" "Certainly; put you down right alongside of Miss Burton." "Perhaps Van Berg feels that he has the first claim to so good a position?" "No, Stanton, I shall not place a straw in your way." "You never were a man of straw, Van. If I were seeking more than to enjoy the society of this young lady, who seems to be embodied sunshine, I would be sorry to have you place yourself in the way." "Sunshine brought to a focus kindles even green wood," remarked Van Berg, with a significant nod at his friend. "Well," said Mr. Burleigh, rising, "if I had not found my mate, I'd be a burr that that little woman wouldn't get rid of very easily. Good-night, gentlemen. I'll give either one of you my blessing." "Good-night, Van," said Stanton, also. "I'm not going to stay and listen to your absurd predictions. Neither shall I permit you to enjoy all by yourself the delicate wine of that woman's wit. When good things are passing round, I propose to have my share. My presence can't hurt your prospects." "And if it did, Ik, do you think me such a churl as to try to crowd you away?" "That's magnanimous. I suppose you and my cousin can manage to keep the peace between you." "I think the change will be far more disagreeable to Miss Mayhew than to me." "You are very polite to say so. Good-night." "Well," mused Van Berg, when left to himself; "I've made progress to-day after a fashion. We have been quite thoroughly introduced--in fact 'thrown together,' as fate and all her friends will have it. I might have been weeks in gaining as much insight into her character as circumstances have given me in a few brief hours. But what a miserable revelation she has made of herself--cowardice this morning--fraud this afternoon, and cold selfishness, that can amuse itself with the mortification and misfortunes of others, this evening. This is the moral side of the picture. But when I came to 'speer' around to see whether she had any mind or real culture, the exhibition was still more pitiable. Ye gods! that a girl can live to her age and know so little that is worth knowing! She knows how to dress--that is, how to enhance her physical beauty; and that, I admit, is a great deal. As far as it goes it is well. But of the taste of a beautiful and, at the same time, intellectual and highly cultivated woman, she has no conception; with her it is a question of flesh and blood only." "I wonder if it will ever be otherwise? I wonder if her marvellous beauty, which is now like a budding rose, that partly conceals the worm in its heart, will soon, like the overblown flower, reveal so clearly what mars its life that scarcely anything else will be noticed. What a fate for a man--to be tied for life to a woman who will, with sure gradation, pass from at least outward beauty to utter hideousness! Beauty, in a case like this, is but a mask which time or the loathsome fingers of disease would surely strip off; and then what an object would confront the disenchanted lover! It would be like marrying a disguised death's-head. Never before did I realize how essential is mental and moral culture to give value to mere external beauty. "And yet she seems to have a kind of quickness and aptness. She is not wanting in womanly intuition. I still am inclined to believe she has been dwarfed by circumstances and her wretched associations. Her mind has been given no better means of development than the knowledge of her beauty, the general and superficial homage that it always receives, the little round of thought that centres about self, and the daily question of dress. That's narrowing the world down to a cage large enough only for a poll-parrot. If the bird within has a parrot's nature, what is the use of opening the door and showing it larks singing in the sky? I fear that's what I'm trying to do, and that I shall go back to my fall work with a meagre portfolio and a grudge against nature, for mocking me with the fairest broken promise ever made." Chapter XIV. A Revelation. The next day threatened to be a dreary one, for the rain fell so steadily as to make all sunny, out-of-door pleasures impossible. Many looked abroad with faces as dismal and cloudy as the sky; for the number of those who rise above their circumstances with a cheery courage are but few. Human faces can shine, although the sun be clouded; but, as a rule, the shadow falls on the face also, and the regal spirit succumbs like a clod of earth. The people came straggling down late to breakfast in the dark morning, and, with a childish egotism that considers only self and immediate desires, the lowering weather which meant renewed beauty and wealth to all the land, was berated as if it were a small spite against the handful of people at the Lake House. Van Berg heard Ida Mayhew exclaiming against the clouds as if this spite were aimed at herself only. "Some of her friends might not venture from the city," she said. "They youths are not venturesome, then," remarked Stanton, who never lost an opportunity to tease. "Of course they don't wish to get wet," she pouted. "And yet I'll wager any amount that they are not of the 'salt of the earth' in any scriptural sense. Well, they had better stay in town, for this would be an instance of 'much ventured, nothing gained.'" "You remind me of a certain fox who could not say enough hard things about the grapes that were out of reach. But mark my words, Mr. Sibley will come, if it pours." "He wouldn't risk the spoiling of his clothes for any woman living." "You judge him by yourself. Oh, dear, how shall I get through this long, horrible day! You men can smoke like bad chimneys through a storm, but for me there is no resource to-day, but a dull novel that I've read once before. Let me see, I'll read an hour and sleep three, and then it will be time to dress for dinner. Oh, good-morning, Mr. Van Berg," she says to the artist who had been listening to her while apparently giving close attention to Mrs. Mayhew's interminable tirade against rainy days; "I have just been envying you gentlemen who can kill stupid hours by smoking." "I admit that it is almost as bad as sleeping." "I see that you have a homily prepared on improving the time, so I shall escape at once." On the stairs she met Miss Burton, who was descending with a breezy swiftness as if she were making a charge on the general gloom and sullenness of the day. "Good-morning, Miss Mayhew," she said; "I'm glad to see you looking so well after the severe shaking up you had yesterday. You would almost tempt one to believe that rough usage is sometimes good for us." "I have no such belief, I assure you. Yesterday was bad enough, but to-day promises to be worse. I was going to make up a boating party, but what can one do when the water is overhead instead of under the keel?" "Scores of things," was the cheery reply. "I'm going to have a good time." "I'm going to sleep," said Ida, passing on. "Miss Burton," said Stanton, joining her at the foot of the stairs, "I perceive, even from your manner of descending to our lower world, that you are destined to vanquish the dullness of this rainy day. Don't you wish an ally?" "Would you be an ally, Mr. Stanton, if you saw I was destined to be vanquished?" "Of course I would." "Look in the parlor then. There are at least a dozen ladies already vanquished. They are oppressed by the foul-fiend, 'ennui.' Transfer your chivalric offer to them and deliver them." "Stanton," laughed Van Berg, "you are in honor bound to devote yourself to those oppressed ladies." "The prospect is so dark and depressing that I shall at least cheer myself first with the light of a cigar." "And so your chivalry will end in smoke," she said. "Yes, Miss Burton, the smoke of battle, where you are concerned." "I fear your wit is readier than your sword. The soldier that boasts how he would overwhelm some other foe than the one before him loses credit to the degree that he protests." "You are more exacting, Miss Burton, than the lady who threw her glove down among the lions. What chance would Hercules himself have of lifting those twelve heavy females out of the dumps?" "It's not what we do, but what we attempt, that shows our spirit." "Then I shall expect to see you attempt great things." "I'm only a woman." "And I'm only a man." "Only a man! what greater vantage-ground could one have than to be a man?" "The advantage is not so uncommon that one need be unduly elated," state Stanton with a shrug. "I forget how many hundred millions of us there are. But I'm curious to see how you will set about rendering the hues of this leaden day prismatic." "Only by being the innocent cause of your highly colored language, I imagine." "Oh, dear," exclaimed a little boy petulantly, as he strolled through the hall and looked out at the steady downfall of rain. "Oh dear! Why can't it stop raining?" "There's the philosophy of our time for you in a nutshell," said Van Berg. "When a human atom wants anything, what business has the universe to stand in its way?" "But you have no better philosophy to offer the disconsolate little fellow, Mr. Ban Berg?" Miss Burton asked. "Now, Van, it's your turn. Remember, Miss Burton, he has the same vantage-ground that I have. Indeed he's half an inch taller." "The world long ago learned better than to measure men by inches, Mr. Stanton." "Alas, Miss Burton," said Van Berg; "the best philosophy I have is this: when it rains, let it rain." "And thus I'm privileged to meet representatives of those two ancient and honorable schools, the Stoic and Epicurean, and you both think, I fear, that if Xanthippe had founded a school, my philosophy would also be defined. But perhaps you will think better of me if I tell that little fellow a story to pass the time for him. What's the matter, little folk?" she asked, for two or three more small clouded faces had gathered at the door. "Matter enough," said the boy. "This horrid old rain keeps us in the house, where we can't do anything or stay anywhere. We mustn't play in the parlor, we mustn't make a noise in the halls, we mustn't run on the piazzas. I'd like to live in a world where there was some place for boys." "Poor child," said Miss Burton; "this rain is as bad for you as the deluge to Noah's dove, it has left you no refuge for the sole of your foot. Will you come with me? No one has said you must not hear a jolly story." "You won't tell me about any good little boys who died when they were as big as I am?" "I'll keep my word--it shall be a jolly story." "May we hear it too?" asked the other children. "Yes, all of you." "Where shall we go?" "We won't disturb any one in the far corner of the parlor by the piano. If you know of any other little people, you can bring them there, too," and they each darted off in search of especial cronies. "May we not hear the story also?" asked Stanton. "No, indeed, I may be able to interest children, but not philosophers." "Then we will go and meditate," said Van Berg. "Yes," she added, "and in accordance with a New York custom of great antiquity, made familiar to you, no doubt, by that grave historian Diedrich Knickerbocker, who gives several graphic accounts of such cloudy ruminations on the part of your city's great-grandfathers." "I fear you think that the worshipful Peter Stuyvensant's counsellors indulged in more tobacco than thought, and that the majority of them had as few ideas as one of Mr. Burleigh's chimneys," said Van Berg. "And you regard us as the direct descendants of these men, whose lives were crowned with smoke-wreaths only." "Now, Mr. Van Berg, you prove yourself to be a philosopher of a modern school, you draw your inductions so far and wide from your diminutive premise." "Well, Miss Burton, you stand in very favorable contrast with us poor mortals. We are going out to add to the clouds that lower over the world, while you are trying to banish them." "And if, after helping the children towards the close of this dismal day, your heart should relent towards us," added Stanton, "you will find two worthy objects of your charity." "Oh what a falling off is here!" she exclaimed, following the impatient children. "Knights at first, then philosophers, and now objects of charity." Miss Burton evidently kept her word, and told a "jolly story," for the friends saw through the parlor windows that the circle around her grew larger and more hilarious continually. Then would follow moments of rapt and eager attention, showing that the tale gained in excitement and interest what it lost in humor. Young people, who did not like to be classed with children, one by one yielded to the temptation. There was life and enjoyment in that corner and dulness elsewhere, and nothing is so attractive in the world as genuine and joyous life. Even elderly ladies looked wistfully up at the occasional bursts of contagious merriment, and then sighed that they had lost the power of laughing so easily. At last the marvelous legend came to an end amid a round of prolonged applause. "Another, another!" was the general outcry. But Miss Burton had observed that the ladies and gentlemen present seemed inclined to be friendly towards the young people's fun, and therefore she broached another scheme of pleasure that would vary the entertainment. "Perhaps," she said, "your papas and mammas and the other good people will not object to an old-fashioned Virginia reel." A shout of welcome greeted this proposition. Miss Burton raised her finger so impressively that there was an instant hush. Indeed she seemed to have gained entire control of the large and miscellaneous group which surrounded her. "We will draw up a petition," she said; "for we best enjoy our own rights and pleasures when respecting those of others. This little boy and girl shall take the petition around to all the ladies and gentlemen in the room, and this shall be the petition: "'Dear lady and kind sir: Please don't object to our dancing a Virginia reel in the parlor.'" "All who wish to dance can sign it. Now we will go to the office and draw up the petition." And away they all started, the younger children, wild with glee, capering in advance. Stanton threw away his cigar and met her at the office register. "Gentle shepherdess," he asked, "whither are you leading your flock?" "How behind the age you are!" she replied. "Can you not see that the flock is leading me?" "If I were a wolf I would not trouble the flock but would carry off the shepherdess--to a game of billiards." "What, then, would become of the flock?" "that's a question that never troubles a wolf." "A wolfish answer truly. I think, however, you have reversed the parable, and are but a well-meaning sheep that has donned a wolf's skin, and so we will put you to the test. We young people will give you a chance to draw up our petition, which, if you would save your character, you must do at once with sheep-like docility, asking no questions and causing no delay. There, that will answer; very sheepishly done, but no sheep's eyes, if you please," she added, as Stanton pretended to look up to her for inspiration, while writing. "Now, all sign. I think I can trust you, sir, on the outskirts of the flock. Here, my little man and woman, go to each of the ladies and gentlemen, make a bow and a courtesy, and present the petition." "May I not gambol with the shepherdess in the coming pastoral?" asked Stanton. "No, indeed! You are much too old; besides, I am going to play. You may look gravely on." Every one in the parlor smiling assented to the odd little couple that bobbed up and down before them, and moved out of the way for the dancers. The petitioners therefore soon returned and were welcomed with applause. "Now go to the inner office and present the petition to Mr. Burleigh," said Miss Burton. "Hollo!" cried that gentleman, looking around with a great show of savagery, as the little girl pulled the skirt of his coat to attract his attention; "where's King Herod?" "We wish to try another method with the children," answered Miss Burton. "Will it please you therefore graciously to read the petition. All in the parlor have assented." "My goodness gracious---" "No swearing, sir, if you please." "Woman has been too many for man ever since she got him into trouble by eating green apples," ejaculated Mr. Burleigh with a despairing gesture. "Why do you mock me with petitions? THERE is the power behind the throne," pointing to Miss Burton. "Take your places, small ladies and gentlemen," she cried. "That's Mr. Burleigh's way of saying yes. While you are forming, I'll play a few bars to give you the time." Did she bewitch the piano that it responded so wonderfully to her touch? Where had she found such quaint, dainty music, simple as the old-fashioned dance itself, so that the little ones could keep time to it, and yet pleasing Van Berg's fastidious ear with its unhackneyed and refined melody. But the marked and marvellous feature in her playing was an airy rolicksomeness that was as irresistible as a panic. Old ladies' heads began to bob over their fancy work most absurdly. Two quartets of elderly gentlemen at whist were evidently beginning to play badly, their feet meantime tapping the floor in a most unwonted manner. "Were I as dead as Julius Caesar I could not resist that quickstep," cried Stanton; and he rushed over to his aunt, Mrs. Mayhew, and dragged her into line. "What in the name of all the witches of Salem has got into that piano!" cried Mr. Burleigh, bursting into the parlor from the office, with his pen stuck behind his ear, and his hair brushed up perpendicularly. "There's sorcery in the air. I'm practised upon--Keep still? No, not if I was nailed up in one of the soldier's 'wooden overcoats.' The world is transformed, transfigured, transmogrified, and 'things are not what they seem!' Here's a blooming girl who'll dance with me," and he seized the hand of a white-haired old lady who yielded to the contagion so far as to take a place in the line beside her granddaughter. Indeed, in a few moments, all who had been familiar with the pastime in their youth, caught the joyous infection, and lengthened out the lines, each new accession being greeted with shouts and laughter. The scene approached in character that described by Hawthorne as occurring in the grounds of the Villa Borghese when Donatello, with a simple "tambourine," produced music of such "indescribably potency" that sallow, haggard, half-starved peasants, French soldiers, scarlet-costumed contadinas, Swiss guards, German artists, English lords, and herdsmen from the Campagna, all "joined hands in the dance" which the musician himself led with the frisky, frolicsome step of the mythical faun. In the latter instance it was a contagious, mad excitement easily possible among hot-blooded people and wandering pleasure-seekers, the primal laws of whose being are impulse and passion. That the joyous exhilaration which filled Mr. Burleigh's parlor was akin to the wild, half pagan frenzy that the great master of fiction imagined as seizing upon the loiterers near the Villa Borghese cannot be denied. Both phases of excitement would spring naturally from the universal craving for pleasurable life and activity. The one, however, was a rank growth from a rank soil--the passionate ebullition of passion-swayed natures; the other was inspired by the magnetic spirit of a New England maiden, who, by some law of her nature or consecration of her life, devoted every power of her being to the vivifying of others, and the frolic she had instigated was as free from the grosser elements as the tossing wild flowers of her native hills. With the exception perhaps of Van Berg, she had impressed every one as possessing a peculiarly sunny temperament. Be this as it may, it certainly appeared true that she found her happiness in enlivening others; and it is difficult even to imagine how much a gifted mind can accomplish in this respect when every faculty is devoted to the ministry of kindness. This view of Miss Burton's character would account in part, but not wholly, for the power she exercised over others. Van Berg thought he at times detected a suppressed excitement in her manner. A light sometimes flickered in her deep blue eyes that might have been caused by a consuming and hidden fire, rather than by genial and joyous thoughts. As he watched her now through the parlor window, her eyes were burning, her face reminded him of a delicate flame, and her whole being appeared concentrated into the present moment. In its vivid life it seemed one of the most remarkable faces he ever saw; but the thought occurred again and again--"If the features of Ida Mayhew could be lighted up like that I'd give years of my lifetime to be able to paint the beauty that would result." Just at this moment he saw that young lady approach the parlor entrance with an expression of wonder on her face. He immediately joined her, and she said: "Mr. Van Berg, what miracle has caused this scene?" "Come with me and I'll show you," he answered and he led her to the window opposite to Miss Burton, where she sat at the piano. "There," he said, "is the miracle,--a gifted, magnetic, unselfish woman devoting herself wholly to the enjoyment of others. She has created more sunshine this dismal day than we have had in the house since I've been here. Is not that face there a revelation?" "A revelation of what?" she asked with rising color. "Of the possibilities of the human face to grow in beauty and power, if kindled by a noble and animating mind. Ye gods!" cried the artist, expressing the excitement which he felt in common with others in accordance with the law of his own ruling passion, "but I would give much to reproduce that face on canvas;" and then he added with a despairing gesture, "but who can paint flame and spirit?" After a moment he exclaimed, with flushed cheeks and flashing eyes: "It appears to me that if kindled by such a mind as that which is burning in yonder face, I could attempt anything and accomplish everything. Limitations melt away before a growing sense of power. What an inspiration a woman can be to a man, or what a mill-stone about his neck, according to what she is! Ah!---" The cause of this exclamation cannot be explained in the brief time that it occurred. Stanton had happened at that moment to catch a glimpse of Van Berg and his cousin, and he called quite loudly: "Harold, bring Miss Mayhew in and join us." At the same instant Mr. Burleigh's heavy step passing near the piano, jarred down a picture that was hung insecurely, and it fell with a crash at Miss Burton's side. Was it the shock of the falling picture upon unprepared and overstrained nerves, or what was it that produced the instantaneous change in the joyous-appearing maiden? Her hands dropped nerveless from the keys. So great was the pallor that swept over her face that it suggested to he artist the sudden extinguishment of a lamp. She bowed her head and trembled a moment and then escaped by a side door. Van Berg walked hastily to the main entrance, thinking she was ill, but only saw her vanishing up the stairway with hasty steps. Many of the dancers, in their kindly solicitude, had tried to intercept her, but had been too late. It would seem that all ascribed her indisposition to a nervous shock. "It is evident," said the lady who had been conversing with her when she had acted in a like manner on the first day of her arrival, "that she possesses a highly sensitive organism, which suddenly gives way when subjected to a strain too severe;" and she remained Van Berg of her former manifestation of weakness. He accepted this view as the most natural explanation that could be given. Chapter XV. Contrasts. Genuine and genial were the words of sympathy that were expressed on every side for the young lady who had been transforming the dull day into one of exceptional jollity. A deputation of ladies called upon her, but from within her locked door she confirmed the impression that it was a nervous shock, and that a few hours of perfect quiet would restore her. And it would seem that she was right, for she came down to supper apparently as genial and smiling as ever. Beyond a slight pallor and a little fulness about her eyes, Van Berg could detect no trace of her sudden indisposition. The remainder of the day was passed more quietly by the guests of the Lake House, but the force of Miss Burton's example did not spend itself at once, and on the part of some there was developed quite a marked disposition to make kindly efforts to promote the enjoyment of others. The unwonted exhilaration with which she had inspired her fellow guests was something they could scarcely account for, and yet the means employed had been so simple and were so plainly within the reach of all, as to suggest that a genial manner and an unselfish regard for others were the only conditions required to enable each one to do something to brighten every cloudy day. After Miss Burton's departure, the young people had the dance to themselves, their elders resuming the avocations and soberer pleasures from which they had been swept by an impulse evoked from their half-forgotten youth. When Van Berg joined Miss Mayhew again, he found her mother and Stanton trying to explain how it all came about. "There is no use of multiplying words," concluded Stanton; "Miss Burton is gifted with a mind, and she uses it for the benefit of others instead of tasking it solely on her own account, which is the general rule." At this moment a letter was handed to Mrs. Mayhew, which she read with a slight frown and passed to her daughter. It was from Mr. Mayhew, and contained but a brief sentence to the effect that his absence would probably be a relief, and therefore he would not spend the coming Sabbath with them. Ida did not show the superficial vexation that her mother manifested, and which was more assumed than real. Her cheek paled a little, and she instinctively glanced at Van Berg as if her sudden sense of guilt were apparent to his keen eyes. He was looking at he searchingly, and she turned away with a quick flush, nor did she give him a chance to speak with her again that day; but his words--"what a millstone about a man's neck a woman can be!"--haunted her continually. Still oftener rose before her Miss Burton's flushed and kindled face, and the artist's emphatic assertion of the power of mind and character to add to native beauty. Had she not been a millstone about her father's neck? Was there not a fatal flaw in the beauty of which she was so proud, that spoiled it for eyes that were critical and unblinded? Oppressed by these thoughts and being in no mood for her cousin's banter, or the artist's society which always seemed to render her more uncomfortable, she was glad to escape to the solitude of her own room. Another "revelation" was slowly dawning upon her mind, namely--just what she, Ida Mayhew, was. A woman is an "inspiration" or a "millstone according to what she is," this stranger, this disturber of her peace, from whom it seemed she could not escape, had not only asserted but proved by showing her a lady she would have passed as plain and insignificant, but who nevertheless possessed some sweet potency that won and cheered all hearts, and who, she was compelled to admit, was positively beautiful as she sat at the piano, radiant with her purpose to cause gladness in others. Miss Burton had created sunshine enough to enliven the dismal day, and had quickened a hundred pulses with pleasure. She had been a burden even to herself. Everything, from the artist's first disturbing frown to the present hour, had been preparing the way for the sharp and painful contrast that circumstances had forced upon her attention to-day. But the thought that troubled her most, was that he saw this contrast more plainly than it was possible for her to see it. Vaguely, and yet with some approach to the truth, her intuition began to reveal to her the attitude of his mind towards her. She believed that he was attracted, but also saw that he was not blinded by her beauty. She was already beginning to revise her first impression that he was shutting his eyes to every other consideration, as she had seen so many do in their brief infatuation. His manner was not that of one who is taking counsel of passion only. Those ominous words--"according to what she is"--indicated that he was looking into her mind, her character. With a sense of dismay, she was awakening to a knowledge of the dwarfed ugliness her beauty but partially concealed, and she felt that he, from the first, had been discovering those defects of which she had been scarcely conscious herself. She began to fear that her cousin's words would prove true, and that he would not fall helplessly in love with her. Therefore the opportunity to retaliate and to punish him for all the mortifications that he had occasioned her, would never come. On the contrary, he might inflict upon her, any day, the crowning humiliation of declaring, be indifference of manner, that he had found her out so thoroughly, as to entertain for her only feelings of disgust and repugnance. "Well," she concluded, recklessly, "why should I care what he thinks? I have lived thus far without his good opinion, and I can live a little longer, I imagine. I have had a good time for eighteen years after my own fashion, and I will just ignore him and have a good time still. Indeed I'll shock him to-night and to-morrow so thoroughly, that he won't come near me again; for I'm sick of his superior airs. I'm sick of his learned talk about books, pictures, and politics, as if a young society girl were expected to know about these things; and as for his small talk, it reminded me of an elephant trying to dance a jig;" and she sprang up with a snatch of song from the "opera bouffe," and began her toilet for dinner. In a few moments, however, she dropped her hairbrush absently, and forgot to look at her fair face in the mirror. "I wonder," she mused, "if he and Miss Burton ever met before they came here? It has been a strange coincidence that she should have felt such a sudden indisposition in each instance at the same moment that his name was casually mentioned. True, on both occasions, events occurred that might account for the sudden giving way of her nerves, but I cannot help thinking that she has some association with him that the rest of us know nothing about. She certainly seems more interested in him than in any one else in the house, for I have several times noticed peculiar and furtive glances towards him; besides, they are evidently growing to be very good friends. As for Ik, he seems quite inclined to enter upon a serious flirtation with her. But what do I care for either of them! Mr. Sibley will be here to-night, and I'll enable this artist to bring his investigations to a close at once. I am what I am, and that's the end of it, and I won't mope and have a stupid time for anybody, and certainly not for him. Let him marry the school-ma'am. She can talk books, art, and all the 'isms' going, to his heart's content. I, as well as Miss Burton, have my opinion of flirting, and know from some little experience that it is jolly good fun. "He can go his way, I'll go mine; E'en though he frowns, the sun will shine." And with a careless gesture she affected to dismiss him from her thoughts. To judge from her manner that evening and the following day, one might suppose that she succeeded very fully. Sibley, with an unwonted venturesomeness, did risk his one immaculate possession, his clothes, and came from the city through the storm. Ida and himself, between them, brought about the nearest approach to a "ball" possible in the circumstances. The dancing, under their auspices, differed from that of the morning, not merely in name and form, but in its subtle character. In the one instance it had been an innocent pastime, occasioned by childlike and joyous impulses. The people's manner might have reminded one of a bit of darkened landscape that had been rapidly filled with light, and almost ecstatic life by the advent of a May morning. In the evening, however, everything was artificial and in keeping with the gaslight. The ladies were conscious of their toilets, conscious of themselves, looking for admiration rather than hearty enjoyment. Even the older boys and girls, who had been joyous children in the morning, were now small parodies of fashionable men and women! A band of hired performers twanged out the hackneyed dancing music then in vogue, going over their small "repertoire" with wearisome repetition. People danced at first because it was the thing to do, and not from any inspiration from the melody. As the evening wore on, Sibley, who had been drinking quite freely, tried to introduce, as far as possible, the excitement of a revel, calling chiefly for swift waltzes and gallops through which he and Ida whirled in a way that made people's heads dizzy. Miss Burton, after going through a quadrille with Stanton early in the evening, had declined to dance any more. She did not feel very well, she explained to Van Berg as he sought her for the next form; but he imagined that she early foresaw that Sibley and others, and among them even Stanton, were inclined to give the evening a character that was not to her taste. As Ida had made herself somewhat prominent in inaugurating the "ball," as Sibley took pains to term it on all occasions, Van Berg, as a part of his tactics to win the beauty's good-will, tried at first to make the affair successful. He danced with others, and twice sought her hand; but in each case she rather indifferently told him that she was engaged. He would not have sought her as a partner after his first rebuff had he not imagined, from occasional and furtive glances, that she was not as indifferent as she seemed. Early in the evening it occurred to him that her slightly reckless manner was assumed, but he saw that she was abandoning herself to the growing excitement of the dance, as Sibley, her most frequent partner, and others, were to the stronger excitement of liquor. Observant mothers called away their daughters. Ladies, in whom the instincts of true refined womanhood were in the ascendancy, looked significantly at each other, and declined further invitations. Van Berg had also withdrawn, but with his disposition to watch manifestations of character in general, and of one present in particular, he still stood at a parlor window looking on. The band had just struck up a livelier waltz than usual, and Ida and Sibley were whirling through the wide apartment as if treading on air; but when, a few moments later, they circled near where he stood, he saw upon the young man's face an expression of earthiness and grossness that was anything but ethereal. Indeed so unmistakably wanton was the look which Sibley bent upon his companion, whose heaving bosom he clasped against his won, that the artist frowned darkly at him, and felt his hand tingling to strike the fellow a blow. She, looking up, caught his frown, and in her egotism and excitement, thought it meant only jealousy of the man she had so favored during the evening. "Perhaps he is more deeply smitten than I imagined, and I can punish him yet," was the hope that entered her mind; and this prospect added to the elation and excitement which had mastered her. "Can she know how that scoundrel is looking at her? If I believed it I'd leave her marvellous features to their fate," was the thought that passed through his mind. In his perturbation he walked down the long piazza. Happening to glance into one of the small private parlors, he witnessed a scene that made a very sharp contrast with the one he had just left. An old white-haired, white-bearded man, a well-known guest of the house, reclined in an easy-chair with an expression of real enjoyment on his face. His aged wife sat near, knitting away as tranquilly as if at home, while under the gas-jet was Miss Burton, reading a newspaper, with two or three others upon her lap. She had evidently found the old gentleman trying to glean, with his feeble sight, the evening journals that had been brought from the city, and was lending him her young eyes and mellow voice for an hour. The picture struck him so pleasantly that he took out his notebook and indicated the fortunate grouping within, for a future sketch. "It would make some difference in a man's future," he muttered, "whether this maiden or the one in yonder roue's embrace were installed as the mistress of his home." Going back into the main hallway he met Stanton coming down the stairs with his face unusually flushed. "Oh, Van," he cried, "where have you been keeping yourself? Come with me and have some of the best brandy you ever tasted." "Where is it?" "In Sibley's room. He brought up a couple of bottles of the prime old article, and has invited all his friends to make free with it." "I'm not one of his friends." "Oh well, you're my friend! What's the odds? A swig of such brandy will do you good, so come along." "Come out on the piazza, Stanton. I want to show you something." "Can't you wait a few moments? I want to have a whirl in this jolly waltz before it's over." "No; then it will be too late. I won't keep you long," and Stanton reluctantly followed him. Van Berg understood his friend sufficiently well to know that any ordinary remonstrance would have no influence in his present condition, and so sought to use a little strategy. Taking him to the window of the small private parlor, he showed and explained to him the pretty and quiet scene within. Stanton's manner changed instantly, and he seemed in no haste to return to the waltz. "I thought it would strike you as a pretty picture, as it did me," remarked Van Berg, quietly; "and I also thought that after seeing it you would not want any more of Sibley's brandy. It would choke me." "You are right, Van. I fear I've taken too much of it already. I'm glad you showed me this quiet picture--it makes me wish I were a better man." "I like that, Ik; I always knew you had plenty of good metal in you. Now I don't want to be officious, but I would not let a cousin of mine dance with Sibley any longer if I could prevent it without attracting attention. However generous he may have been with his brandy, he has had more than his share himself." "Thank you, Van; I understand you. By Jove, I'll try the same tactics with her that you have with me. I'll bring her here and show her a scene that has been to me like a quieting and restraining hand." A few moments later the waltz ceased, and Miss Mayhew came out on the cool, dusky piazza, leaning on Sibley's arm. Stanton joined her and said: "Ida, come with me; I wish to speak with you a moment. Mr. Sibley, please excuse us." "Indeed, Mr. Stanton," said Sibley in tones of maudlin sentiment, "you are cruel to deprive me of your cousin's society even for a moment. I'll forgive you this once, but never again." And then he availed himself of the opportunity to pay another visit to his brandy. "Ida," said Stanton, "I want to show you a little picture that has done me good." But the young lady was in no mood for pictures or moralizing. Her blood was coursing feverishly through her veins, her spirit had been made reckless by the wilful violence that she was doing her conscience, and also by her deep and growing dissatisfaction with herself, that was like an irritating wound. She was therefore prepared to resent any interruption to the whirl of excitement, which gave her a kind of pleasure in the place of the happiness that was impossible to one in her condition. "You call that a pretty picture!" she said disdainfully; "Miss Burton reading a newspaper to two stupid old people who ought to be abed! A more humdrum scene I never saw. Truly, both your breath and your words show that you have been drinking too much. But you need not expect me to share in your tipsy sentiment over Miss Burton. Did Mr. Van Berg ask you to show me this matter-of-fact group which, in his artistic jargon, you call a picture?" "If he had, he showed you a greater kindness than you deserved." "Yes, and a greater one than I asked or wished from him." "Then you are going back to dance with Sibley?" "Yes, I am." "The prospects are, that you and Mrs. Chints and a couple of half-tipsy men will soon have it all to yourselves. I suppose the old adage about 'birds of a feather' swill still hold good. I was in hopes, however, that even if you had no appreciation of what was beautiful, refined, and unselfish in another woman's action, you still had some self-respect, or at least some fear of ridicule, left. Since you won't listen to me, I shall warn your mother. If Sibley and two or three others drink much more, Burleigh will interfere for the credit of his house." "You have been drinking as well as Mr. Sibley." "Well, thanks to Van Berg, I stopped before I lost my head." "From your maudlin sentiment over Miss Burton, I think you have lost your head and heart both." "Go; dance with Sibley, then," he said in sudden irritation; "dance with him till you and Mrs. Chints between you have to hold him on his feet. Dance with him till Burleigh sends a couple of colored waiters to take him from your embrace and carry him off to bed." She made a gesture of rage and disgust, and went straight to her room. Sibley, in the mean time, paid a lengthened visit to his brandy, and having already passed the point of discretion, drank recklessly. When he descended the stairs again to look for his partner, his step was uncertain and his utterance thick. Stanton gave Mr. Burleigh a hint that the young man needed looking after, and the adroit host, skilled in managing all kinds of people and in every condition, induced him to return to his room, under the pretence of wishing to taste his fine old brandy, and then kept him there until the lethargic stage set in as the result of his excess. And so an affair, which might have created much scandal, was smuggled out of sight and knowledge as far as possible. Mrs. Mayhew had been so occupied with whist that she had not observed that anything was amiss, and merely remarked that "Mr. Sibley's ball had ended earlier than usual." Chapter XVI. Out Among Shadows. The expression of Ida Mayhew's face was cold and defiant on the following day. She did not attend church with her mother, but remained all the morning in her room. She not only avoided opportunities of speaking to Van Berg when coming down to dinner and during the afternoon, but she would not even look towards him; and her manner towards her cousin also was decidedly icy. "I don't know what is the matter with Ida," her mother remarked to Stanton; "she has acted so strangely of late." "It's the old complaint, I imagine," he replied with a shrug. "What's that?" "Caprice." "Oh, well! she's no worse than other pretty, fashionable girls," said Miss Mayhew, carelessly. Stanton, in his anger on the previous evening, had not spoken of his cousin to Van Berg in a very complimentary way; but the artist remembered that the young man himself was not in a condition to form either a correct or charitable judgment; while the fact that Ida, as a result of his remonstrance, had gone directly to her room, was in her favor. He still resolved to suspend his final opinion and not to give over his project until satisfied that her nature contained too much alloy to permit of its success. He paid no heed therefore to her coldness of manner; and when at last meeting her face to face on the piazza Sunday evening, he lifted his hat as politely as possible. Sibley did not appear until the arrival of the dinner hour. He was under the impression that he had gone a little too far the night before, and tried to make amends by an immaculate toilet and an urbane yet dignified courtesy towards all whom he knew. Society very readily winks at the indiscretions of wealthy young men. Moreover, he had been inveigled back to his room before his condition had been observed to any extent. There fore he found himself so well received in the main, that he soon fully recovered his wonted self-assurance. Mrs. Mayhew was particularly gracious; and Ida, who at first had been somewhat distant towards him as well as all others, concluded that she had not sufficient cause to be ashamed of him, and so it came about that they spent much of the afternoon and evening together. She did not fail to note, however, that when he approached Van Berg he received a cold and curt reception. Was jealousy the cause of this? In her elation and excitement on the previous evening, she had been inclined to think so, but now she feared that it was because the artist despised the man; and in her secret soul she was compelled to admit that he had reason to despise him--yes, to despise them both. She felt, with bitter humiliation, that his superiority was not assumed but real. More than once before the day closed, she found herself contrasting the two men. The one had not had a shred of true worth about him. Stanton, to teaze her and to justify his interference, had told her that Mr. Burleigh had been compelled to take charge of her companion in order to prevent him from disgracing himself and the house. Although too proud to acknowledge it, she still saw plainly that it was her cousin's interference, and indirectly the intervention of the artist that had kept her from being involved in that disgrace. Even her perverted mind recognized that one was a gentleman, and the other--well, "a fashionable young man," as she would phrase it. The one, as a friend, would shield her from every detracting breath; the other, if given a chance, would inevitably tumble into some slough of infamy himself, and drag her after him with reckless selfishness. Still, with something like self-loathing, she saw that Sibley was her natural ally and companion, and that she had far more in common with him than with the artist. She could easily maintain with him the inane chatter of their frivolous life, but she could not talk with the artist, nor he with her, without an effort that was as humiliating as it was apparent. What was more, she saw that all others classed her with Sibley, and that the people in the house who were akin to the artist in character and high breeding, stood courteously but coolly aloof from both herself and her mother. She also felt that she could not lay all the blame of this upon her poor father. Indeed, since the previous miserable Sunday on which Van Berg had tried to win Mr. Mayhew from his evil habit for one day at least, and she had thwarted his kindly intention, she had begun to feel that she and her mother were the chief causes of his increasing degradation. Others, she feared, and especially Van Berg, took the same view. With such thoughts surging up in her mind and clouding her brow, Sibley did not find her altogether the same girl that she had been the evening before. Still, as has been said, he was her natural ally, and she tried to second his efforts to re-establish a good character and to keep up the appearance of fashionable respect. Stanton was in something of a dilemma. He did not like Sibley, and was ashamed of his recent excess; but having drank with him, and so, in a sense, having accepted his hospitality, felt himself obliged to be rather affable. He managed the matter by keeping out of the way as far as possible, and was glad to remember that the young man would depart in the morning. While scarcely acknowledging the fact to himself, he was on the alert most of the day to find an opportunity of enjoying a conversation with Miss Burton; but she kept herself very much secluded. After attending church at a neighboring village in the morning, she spent most of the afternoon with Mrs. Burleigh, assisting her in the care of the cross baby. Van Berg, much to Stanton's envy, found her as genial and cheery as ever when they met at the table. He learned, from her manner more than from anything she said, that the day and its associations were sacred to her. She affected no solemnity and seemed under no constraint, only her thought and bearing had a somewhat soberer coloring, like the shading of a picture. To his mind it was but another example of her entire reticence in regard to herself, while her smiling face seemed as open as the light. But as she came out from supper the children pounced upon her, clamorous for a story. She assented on condition that Mr. Burleigh would give them the use of one of the private parlors--a stipulation speedily complied with; and soon she had nearly all the small folk in the hotel gathered round her. "I shall stand without, like the 'Peri at the gate,'" Stanton found a chance to say. "The resemblance is very striking," was her smiling reply; but for some reason he winced under it and wished he had not spoken. When she dismissed her little audience there were traces of tears on some of the children's faces, proving that she could tell a pathetic, as well as a jolly story; and Van Berg observed with interest how the power of her magnetism kept them lingering near her even after she entered the parlor and sought a quiet nook near the old gentleman and lady to whom she had been reading the previous evening. Mrs. Chints, who liked to be prominent on all occasions, very proudly felt that sacred music would be the right thing on Sabbath evening, and, with a few of hew own ilk, was giving a florid and imperfect rendering of that peculiar style of composition that suggests a poor opera while making a rather shocking and irreverent use of words taken from Scriptures. Van Berg and Stanton, who were out on the piazza, were ready to grate their teeth in anguish, finding the narcotic influence of the strongest cigar no match for Mrs. Chints's voice. Suddenly that irrepressible lady spied Miss Burton, and she swooped down upon her in a characteristic manner, exclaiming: "You can't decline; you needn't say you don't; I've heard you. If you sing half as well for us as you did to Mrs. Burleigh's baby this afternoon, we'll be more than satisfied. Now come; one sweet solo--just one." Stanton craned his neck from where he sat to see the result of this onslaught, but Miss Burton shook her head. "Well, then, won't you join in with us?" persisted Mrs. Chints. "Sacred music is so lovely and appropriate on Sunday night." "You are right in that respect, Mrs. Chints. If it is the wish of those present I think some simple hymns in which we can all join might be generally enjoyed." "Now, my dear, you have just hit it," said the old lady at her side. "I, for one, would very much like to hear some simple music like that we had when I was young." The old lady's preference was taken up and echoed on every side. Indeed the majority were ready for any change from Mrs. Chints's strident tones. "Well, my dear," said the lady, "it shall be as you say." Then she added, "sotto voce," with a complacent nod, "I suppose the music we were giving is beyond the masses, but if you could once hear Madame Skaronni render it in our choir at the Church of the (something that sounded like 'pica-ninny,' as by Mrs. Chints pronounced) you would wish for no other. Will you play, my dear?" "Ah, yes, please do," exclaimed some of the children who had gathered around her. "In mercy to us poor mortals for whom there is no escape save going to bed, please comply," whispered the old lady in her ear. The light in Miss Burton's eyes was mirthful rather than sacred as she rose and went to the piano, and at once an air of breezy and interested expectancy took the place of the previous bored expression. "Come, Van," said Stanton, throwing away his cigar, "we'll need your tenor voice. We must stand by that little woman. The Chints tribe have incited to profanity long enough, and shall make the night hideous no more. If we could only drown them instead of their voices, what a mercy it would be!" and the young men went around and stood in the open door near the piano. "You are to sing," said Miss Burton, with a decided little nod at them. "We intend to," replied Stanton, "since you are to accompany us." She started "Coronation," that spirited and always inspiriting battle song of the church--jubilant and militant--a melody that is also admirably adapted for blending rough and inharmonious voices. For a moment her own voice was like that of a singing lark, mounting from its daisy covert; or rather, like the flow of a silver rill whose music was soon lost, however, in the tumultuous rush of other tributary streams of sound; still, the general effect was good, and the people enjoyed it. By the time the second stanza was reached the majority were singing with hearty good-will, the children gathering near and joining in with delight. Other familiar and old-fashioned hymns followed, and then one and another began to ask for their favorites. Fortunately Mrs. Chints's knowledge of sacred music was limited, and so she retired on the laurels of having called Miss Burton out, informing half the company of the fact with an important nod; and in remembrance of this fact they were inclined to forgive her the anguish she had personally caused them. Mrs. Burleigh, who had stolen into the parlor for a little while that she might enjoy the singing, remembered that she had a pile of note-books that had grown dusty on a shelf since the baby had furnished the music of the household. These were brought, and higher and fuller musical themes were attempted, until the singers dwindled to a quartet composed of a lady who had a fair soprano voice, Miss Burton, Stanton and Van Berg. Their selections, however, continued truly sacred in character, thus differing radically from the florid style that Mrs. Chints had introduced. The sweet and penetrating power of Miss Burton's voice could now be distinguished. For some reason it thrilled and touched its hearers in a way that they could not account for. The majority present at once realized that she was not, and never could become, a great singer. But within the compass of her voice, she could pronounce sacred words in a manner that send them home to the hears of the listeners like rays that could both cheer and melt. At last she rose from the piano, remarking that there were other musicians present; and no amount of persuasion could induce her to remain there any longer. "Perhaps you gentlemen play," she said, turning to the young men who were about to depart. "A man's touch and leadership is so much more decisive and vigorous than a lady's!" "Mr. Van Berg plays very well indeed, considering his youth and diffidence!" remarked Stanton. "And he has been taking advantage of a defenceless woman all this time! Mr. Van Berg, if you do not wish to lose your character utterly, you must take my place at the piano." "I admit," he replied, "that I have taken more pleasure than you will believe in your in your contribution to our evening's enjoyment, but rather than lose your good opinion I will attempt to play or sing anything you dictate, even though I put every one in the parlor to flight, with their fingers in their ears." "And you fear my taste will impose on you some such blood-curdling combination of sounds? Thank you." "Now, Van, you have taught us what unconditional surrender means. Miss Burton, ask him to play and sing some selections from the Oratorio of the Messiah." "Are you familiar with that?" she asked, with a sudden lighting up of her face. "Somewhat so, only as an amateur can be; but I see, from your expression, that you are." "I've contributed my share this evening," she said, decisively. "Please give us some selections from the Oratorio." "Lay your command, then, on Stanton also. There's a part that we have sung together as a duet occasionally, although it is not 'so nominated in the bond,' or score, rather." "If Mr. Stanton does not stand by his friend, then he should be left to stand by himself." "In the corner, I suppose you mean. But do not leave, Miss Burton. If you do not stand by Mr. Van Berg and sing with him the duet that begins with the words-- 'O death! where is thy sting?' you will deprive us all of the chief pleasure of the evening, and it's not in your nature to do that." "Please, please do, Miss Burton," cried a score of voices. "You know nothing about my nature, sir. I assure you that I can be a veritable dragon. But out of regard for Mr. Van Berg's 'youth and diffidence' I will sustain him." Van Berg's voice was not strong, but he sang with taste and good expression. It suggested refinement and culture rather than deep, repressed feeling, as had been the case in Miss Burton's singing. His style would be admired, and would not give much occasion for criticism, but, as a general thing, it would not stir and move the heart. Still, the audience gave close and pleased attention. Ida Mayhew, who all this time had been out on the piazza and but half listening to Mr. Sibley's compliments in her attention to the scenes at the piano, now rose and came to one of the open windows, where, while hidden from the singer, she could hear more distinctly. Her features did not indicate that she shared in the pleasure expressed on the other faces within, and her gathering frown was deepened by the shadow of the window frame. "You do not enjoy it!" said Mr. Sibley, complacently. "No," she answered, laconically; but for reasons he little understood. "Now you show your taste, Miss Mayhew." "I fear I do. Hush!" But when Van Berg's solo ended, she breathed a deep sigh. Then Stanton's rich, but uncultivated bass voice joined in the melody. Still the effect was better tahn would have been expected from amateurs. After a few moments, Stanton stood back and Miss Burton and Van Berg sang together; then every one leaned forward and listened with a breathless hush. Her voice seemed to pervade his with sould and feeling that had been lacking hitherto. As the last rich chords died away, the strongest expression of pleasure were heard on every side; but Ida Mayhew stepped abruptly out into the dusk of the piazza with clenched hands and compressed lips. "'Peste!'" she exclaimed under her breath. "What a contrast between Sibley and myself last evening and these two people to-night! What a worse contrast there might have been if Ik had not interfered in time! I have a good voice, but the guests of the house have not even thought of me in connection with this evening's entertainment. I am associated only with the Sibley style of amusements." Chapter XVII. New Forces Developing. After Mr. Van Berg and Miss Burton finished the selection from the Oratorio mentioned in the previous chapter, the old white-haired gentleman at whose side the latter had been sitting in the earlier part of the evening rose and said: "I want to thank all the singers, and especially the young lady and gentleman now at the piano, not only for the pleasure they have given us all, but also for the comforting and sustaining thoughts that the sacred words have suggested. My enjoyments in this world are but few, and are fast diminishing; and I know that they will not refuse an old man's request that they close this service of song by each singing along some hymn that will strengthen our faith in the unseen Friend who watches over us all." Van Berg looked at Miss Burton. "We cannot refuse such an appeal," she said. "I fear that I shall seem a hypocrite in complying," Van Berg answered, in a low tone. "How can I make a distinctly recognized effort to strengthen faith in others when lacking faith myself." Her eyes flashed up to his, in sudden and strong approval. "I like that," she said. "It always gives me a sense of security and safety when I meet downright honesty. In no way can you better strengthen our faith than by being perfectly true. You give me a good example of sincerity," she added slowly, "and perhaps my hymn will teach submission more than faith. While I am singing it you may find something that will not express more than you feel." In her sweet, low, yet penetrating voice, that now had a pathos which melted every heart, she sang the following words, which, like the perfume of crushed violets, have risen in prayer from many bruised and broken sprits: "My God, my father, while I stray Far from my home on life's rough way, Oh teach me from my heart to say, Thy will be done. What though in lonely grief I sigh For friends beloved no longer nigh; Submissive still would I reply, Thy will be done. Renew my will from day to day; Blend it with Thine, and take away Whate'er now makes it hard to say, Thy will be done. Then when on earth I breathe no more, The prayer oft mixed with tears before, I'll sing upon a happier shore, Thy will be done." Stanton, warm-hearted and genuine with all his faults, retired well into the shadow of the hallway and looked at the singer through the lenses of sympathetic tears. "Poor orphan girl," he muttered. "What a villain a man would be who could purpose harm to you!" Van Berg, in accordance with his cooler and less demonstrative nature, kept his position at her side, but he regarded her with an expression of respect and interest that caused Ida Mayhew, who was watching from her covert near, a sense of pain and envy that surprised her by its keenness. With a sudden longing which indicated that the wish came direct from from her heart, she sighed: "What would I not give to see him look at me with that expression on his face!" Then, startled by her own thought, so vivid had it been, she looked around as if in fear it was apparent to her companion. His eyes were in truth bent upon her, and in the dusk they seemed like livid coals. A moment later, as with a shrinking sense of fear she furtively looked at him again, his eyes suggested those of some animal of prey that is possessed only with the wolfish desire to devour, caring for the victim only as it may gratify the ravenous appetite. He leaned forward and whispered in her ear: "Miss Ida, you do not know how strangely, how temptingly beautiful you are to-night. One might well peril his soul for such beauty as yours." "Hush," she said imperiously, and with a repelling gesture, she stepped further into the light towards the singers. "Then, when on earth I breathe no more," sang Miss Burton. The thought was to the heart of the unhappy listener like the touch of ice to the hand. There was a kindling light of hope in Miss Burton's face, and something in her tone that indicated the courage of an unfaltering trust as she sang the closing lines: "I'll sing upon a happier shore, Thy will be done." But the words brought a deeper despondency to Ida Mayhew. In bitterness she asked herself, "What chance is there for me to reach 'that happier shore,' with the tempter at my side and everything in the present and past combining to drag me down?" "There, thank heaven 'meetin's over,'" whispered Sibley, as Miss Burton rose from the piano. "I'm sick of all this pious twaddle, and would a thousand-fold rather listen to the music of your voice out under the trees." "You 'thank heaven'!" she repeated with a reckless laugh. "I'm inclined to think, Mr. Sibley, from the nature of your words, you named the wrong locality." The answering look he gave her indicated that she puzzled him. She had not seemed to-day like the shallow girl who had hitherto accepted of his more innocent compliments as if they were sugar-plums, and merely raised her finger in mock warning at such as contained a spice of wickedness and boldness. There seemed a current of thought in her mind which he could not fathom, and whether it were carrying her away or toward him he was not sure. He understood and welcomed the element of recklessness, but did not like the way in which she looked at Van Berg, nor did it suit his purposes that she should hear so much of what he characterized as "pious twaddle." He whispered again bolder words than he had ever spoken to her before. "I wish no better heaven than the touch of your hand and the light of your eyes. See, the moon is rising; come with me, for this is the very witching hour for a ramble." She turned upon him a startled look, for he seemed the very embodiment of temptation. But she only said coldly: "Hush! Mr. Van Berg is about to sing," and she stepped so far into the lighted room that the artist saw her. When Miss Burton rose from the piano she did not return to her seat in the parlor, but stood in the shadow of the door-way leading into the hall. The thought of her hymn had come so directly from her heart, that her eyes were slightly moist with an emotion that was more plainly manifest on many other faces. The old gentleman who had asked her to sing had taken off his spectacles and was openly wiping his eyes. Stanton, ashamed to have her see the feeling she had evoked, turned his back upon her and slowly walked down the corridor. She misunderstood his act and thought it caused by indifference or dislike for the sentiment she had expressed. He had seemed to her thus far only a superficial man of the world, and this act struck her as characteristic. But beyond this passing impression she did not give him a thought, and turned, with genuine interest, to listen to Van Berg who had said to her: "I remember a few simple verses which have no merit save that they express what I wish rather than what I am." With much more feeling, and therefore power, than was his custom, he sang as follows: "I would I knew Thee better-- That trust could banish doubt; I wish that from 'the letter' Thy Spirit might shine out. I wish that heaven were nearer-- That earth were more akin To the home that should be dearer Than the one so marred by sin. I wish that deserts dreary Might blossom as the rose, That souls, despairing, weary, Might smile and find repose." Before singing the next stanza he could not forbear looking to see if Miss Mayhew were listening, and thus it happened that his glance gave peculiar emphasis to the thought expressed. She was looking at him with an intensity of expression that he did not understand. Nothing that he did escaped her, and the quick flash of his eyes in her direction unintentionally gave the following words the force and pointedness of an open rebuke; "I wish that outward beauty Were the mirror of the heart, That purity and duty Supplanted wily art." He did not see that with a sudden flame of scarlet in her face she stepped back on the dusky piazza as abruptly as if she had received a blow. Had he done so, he might not have sung as effectively the remaining verses. After the first confused moment of shame and resentment passed, she paused only long enough to note with a sense of relief that others had not seen or made any such application of his words as she believed he had intended, and then she took Mr. Sibley's arm and walked away, leaving the remaning two verses unheard-- "I wish that all were better And nearer to their God-- That evil's broken fetter Were buried with His rod; That love might last forever, And we, in future, find There is no power to sever The strong and true in mind." As he sang the last verse there was also a rapid change in the expression of Miss Burton's face. There was something of her old pallor that has been mentioned before. She looked at him questioningly a moment as if to see if he were consciously making an allusion that touched her very nearly, and then, seemingly overcome by some sudden emotion that she would gladly hide, she quickly vanished down the dimly lighted hallway, and was seen no more until she came down to breakfast the following morning, as smiling and cheery as ever. "Confound you, Van," said Stanton, as the artist escaped from the thanks of the audience into the hall, "What did you put in that last verse for? You made her think of seeing her dead friends again, and so she was in no mood to speak to us poor mortals who are still plodding on in this 'vale of tears.' I'd give my ears for a quiet chat with her to-night. By Jove, I never was so stirred up before, and could turn Christian, Mohammedan, Buddhist, or anything else, if she asked me to." "In either case, Ik," said Van Berg, "your worship would be the same, I imagine, and would never rise higher than the priestess." "Curse it all," exclaimed Stanton impetuously, "I feel to-night as if that were higher than I can ever rise. I never was afraid of a woman before; but no 'divinity' ever 'hedged a king' like that which fills me with an indescribable awe when I approach this unassuming little woman who usually seems no more formidable than a flickering sunbeam. I agree with you now. She has evidently had some deep experience in the past that gives to her character a power and depth that we only half understand. I wish I knew her better." "Good-night," said Van Berg, a little abruptly; "I think that after this evening's experience, neither of us is in the mood for further talk." Stanton looked after him with a lowering brow and muttered: "Is he so sensitive on this subject? By Jove. I'm sorry! I fear we must become rivals, Van. And yet," he added with a despairing gesture, "what chance would I have with him against me?" "I could not hear distinctly," Sibley had remarked as Ida took his arm and walked away from her post of observation. "Were you disgusted with his pious wail on general principles, or did something in his theology offend you?" "It's enough that I was not pleased," she replied briefly. "Little wonder. I'm surprised you stood it so long. Van Berg and Stanton are nice fellows to lead a conventicle. I think I'll take a hand at it myself next Sunday evening, and certainly would with your support. I'll say nothing of the singer, but if you will go with me to the rustic seat in yonder shady walk, I'll sing you a song that I know will be more to your taste than any you have heard this evening." "Please excuse me, Mr. Sibley; I'm afraid of the night air." "You are unusually prudent," he said, a little tauntingly. "Which proves that I possess at least one good quality," she replied. "Perhaps if Mr. Van Berg asked you to go you would take the risk." "Perhaps I might," she admitted, half unconsciously and from the mere force of habit, giving the natural answer of a coquette. "He had better not cross my path," said Sibley, with sudden vindictiveness. "Come, come!" replied Miss Mayhew, with a careless laugh, "let's have no high tragedy. I'm in no mood for it to-night, and you have no occasion for alarm. If he crosses your path he will step daintily over it at right angles." At that moment Van Berg came out on the piazza. Although he could not hear her words, her laugh and tones jarred unpleasantly on his ear. "Yonder is a genuine affinity," he muttered, "which I was a fool to think I could break up;" and with a slight contemptuous gesture he turned on his heel and went to his room. "I cannot altogether understand you this evening, Miss Mayhew," said Sibley, with some resentment in his tone. "You are not to blame for that, Mr. Sibley, for I do not understand myself. I have not felt well to-day, and so had better say good-night." But before she could leave him he seized her hand and exclaimed, in his soft, insinuating tones: "That then is the only trouble between us. Next Saturday evening I shall find you your old charming self?" "Perhaps," was her unsatisfactory answer. With a step that grew slower and heavier every moment, she went to her room, turned up the light, and looked fixedly at herself in the glass, "I wish that outward beauty Were the mirror of the heart," she repeated inaudibly, and the her exquisite lip curled in self-contempt. "Ida, what IS the matter with you?" drawled her mother, looking through the open door-way of her adjacent room. "You act as if you were demented." "Why did you make me what I am?" she exclaimed, turning upon her mother in a sudden passion. "Good gracious! what are you?" ejaculated that matter-of-fact lady. "I'm as good as you are--as good as our set averages, I suppose," she answered in a weary, careless tone. "Good night;" and she closed and locked her door. "Oh, pshaw!" said Mrs. Mayhew, petulantly; "those hymns have made her out of sorts with herself and everything. They used to stir me up in the same way. Why can't people learn to perform their religious duties properly and then let the matter rest;" and with a yawn she retired at peace with herself and all the world. Ida threw herself on a lounge and looked straight before her with that fixed, vacant stare which indicates that nothing is seen save by the eye of the mind. "Father's drunk to-night," she moaned; "I know it as surely as if I saw him. I also know that I'm in part to blame for it. Could outward beauty mask a blacker heart than mine? It does not mask it from him who sang those words," and she buried her face in her hands and sobbed, until, exhausted and disheartened, she sough such poor rest and respite as a few hours of troubled sleep could bring. Chapter XVIII. Love Put to Work. On the following day there was the usual bustle of change and departure that is characteristic of a large summer resort on Monday morning. Stanton found Mrs. Mayhew very ready to occupy the seats he had obtained, and all the more so from his statement of the fact that several others had spoken for them. "Ida, my dear," called her mother; "come here, I've good news for you. Ik has got us out of that odious corner of the dining-room, and secured seats for us at Mr. Van Berg's table." "I wish no seat there," she said decisively. "Oh, its all arranged, my dear; and a good many others want the seats, but Ik was too prompt." "I'll stay where I am," said Ida, sullenly. "And have every one in the house asking why?" added Stanton, provokingly. "Mr. Van Berg treats you as a gentleman should. Why cannot you act like a lady toward him? If I were you I would not carry my preferences for the Sibley style of fellows so far that I could not be civil to a man like my friend." "You misjudge me," cried Ida, passionately. "You have a strange way of proving it. All that is asked of you is to sit at the same table with a gentleman who has won the respect and admiration of every one in the hotel, whose society is peculiarly agreeable to your mother and myself, and who has also shown unusual courtesy towards you ever since he learned who you were. What else can I think--what else can others think, than that your taste leans so decidedly to the Sibley style that you cannot even be polite to a man of high culture and genuine worth?" "You are too severe, Ik," said Mrs. Mayhew. "For some reason that I cannot fathom, Ida does not like this artist; and yet I think myself that she would subject herself to very unpleasant remarks if she made any trouble about sitting at the same table with him." "Can you not see," retorted Ida, irritably, "that Ik has not considered us at all, but only himself? He wishes to be near Miss Burton, and without giving us any chance to object, has made all the arrangements so that we must either comply or else be the talk of the house. It's just a piece of his selfishness," she concluded with tears of vexation in her eyes. "Oh, come Ida!" said her mother coaxingly, "I can see only a mole-hill in this matter, and I wouldn't make a mountain out of it. As far as I am concerned, I should enjoy the change very much, and, as you say, the affair has gone too far now to make objection. I do not intend that either you or myself shall be the subject of unpleasant remark." And so the matter was settled, but Ida's coldness and constraint, when they all met at dinner, very clearly indicated that the change had been made without her consent. Van Berg addressed her affably two or three times, but received brief and discouraging answers. "Your cousin evidently is not pleased with the new arrangement you have brought about. I cannot see what I have done of late to vex her." "I'll tell you the trouble. You offend her by not being the counterpart of Mr. Sibley," said Stanton, irritably. Van Berg's brow darkened. "Do you think," he asked in a meaning tone, "that she understands what kind of a man he is?" "Oh, she knows that he can dance, flirt, and talk nonsense, and she asks for nothing more and thinks of nothing further. I'm out of patience with her." Stanton's words contained the most plausible explanation of Ida's conduct that occurred to Van Berg. The episode in the stage had made them acquainted, and her preconceived prejudice and hostility had been so far removed as to permit a certain degree of social companionship, whose result would now seem only increased dislike and distaste. As he supposed she would express herself, "he was not of her style." Had she not spent the greater part of Sunday afternoon and evening with Sibley? What other conclusion was there save that he was "of her style," congenial both in thought and character! And yet he still refused to entertain the belief that she recognized in him more than a fashionable man of the world. If only as the result of the pique originating on the evening of the concert, Ida Mayhew had stood aloof from him, he could hope to remove this early prejudice by better acquaintance. But if fuller acquaintance increased her aversion, then he must believe that the defects in her character were radical, inwrought through the whole web and woof of her nature. He could not assume the "Sibley style" if he would, and would not if he could, were her beauty a hundred-fold greater, were that possible. He was fast coming to the conclusion, therefore, that he must abandon the project which had so fascinated him, and whose success had so strongly kindled his imagination. And yet he did so reluctantly, very regretfully, chafing as only the strong-willed do, when confronted and thwarted by that which is only apparently impossible, and which they still feel might and ought to be accomplished. "I feel as the old alchemists must have done," he often thought. "Here is a base metal. Why can I not transmute it into gold?" But as the conviction of his impotence grew upon him he felt something like resentment toward the one who had thwarted his purpose; and so it naturally happened that when they met again at the supper-table, his cool and indifferent manner corresponded with that of Miss Mayhew to a degree that gave her a deeper pain than she could understand. "Why should she care?" she asked herself a hundred times that evening. But the unpleasant truth hourly grew more plain to her that she did care. Stanton and her mother quietly ignored her "foolish pique," as they termed it. In truth the former was so preoccupied with Miss Burton, and with jealousy of his friend, that he had few thoughts for anything else. He admitted to himself that he had never before been so thoroughly fascinated and awakened; and it was in accordance with his pleasure-loving, self-indulgent nature to drift on this shining tide withersoever it might carry him. But with a growing feeling of disquietude he saw that Van Berg also was deeply interested in Miss Burton, and, what was worse, he thought he detected an answering interest on her part. Occasionally, when the artist's face was turned away so that she obtained a good profile view of it, Stanton observed her looking at him with an expression which both puzzled and troubled him. She seemed to forget everything and every one, and to gaze for a moment with a wistful, longing intensity that he would give his fortune for were the glance directed toward himself. And yet when Van Berg addressed her, sought her society, met her suddenly, there was no heightening of color, nor a trace of the "sweet confusion" that is usually inseparable from a new and growing affection in a maiden's heart. Apart from this occasion, furtive, and wistful look during which her cheeks would grow pale and she appear for the moment oblivious of present surroundings, her manner toward the artist was as frank and natural as toward any one else. It was evident that she liked and respected him, but even his jealousy could not detect the certainty of anything more. But what was the tendency of Van Berg's mind toward her? That was the question which troubled him more and more every day. From the time of their parting on the previous Sabbath evening there had been a growing reluctance on the part of each to speak of one who so largely occupied the thoughts of both. The old jest and banter about the "school ma'am" ceased utterly, and they mentioned her only occasionally as "Miss Burton." The old frank confidence between them diminished daily, and in their secret consciousness they began to recognize the fact that they might soon become open rivals. The attitude of Van Berg toward the young stranger who had so deeply interested him from the first hour of their meeting, was peculiar but characteristic. His reason approved of her. Never before had he met a woman who had seemed endowed with so many attractive qualities. She was not beautiful,--a cardinal virtue with him--but her face often lighted up with something so near akin to beauty as to leave little cause to regret its absence and the conviction grew upon him that the spirit enshrined within the graceful and fragile form was almost perfection itself. It became clearer to him every day that some deep experience or sorrow has so thoroughly refined away the dross of her nature as to make her seem the embodiment of truth and purity. What though she still maintained complete reticence as to the past, avoiding in their conversation all allusion to herself, as far as possible; he still, in his inmost soul, knew he could trust her, and that while her smiling face, like the sunlit rippling surface of mountain lakes not far away, might hide dark, silent depths, it concealed nothing impure. He also felt that there was no occasion to imagine any deep mystery to be part of her past history. The facts that she was poor and orphaned suggested all the explanations needed, and he felt sure that the sorrows she so sacredly and unselfishly shrouded from the general view would be frankly revealed to the man who might win the right to comfort and sustain her. Could he win that right? Did he wish to win it? As day after day passed he felt this question to be growing more and more vitally important. He was not one he believed who, like Stanton, could be carried away by a sudden and absorbing passion. In any and every case, reason, judgment, and taste would offer their counsel, and their advice would be carefully weighed. With increasing distinctness, this cabinet within his own breast urged him to observe this maiden well lest the chief opportunity of his life pass beyond recall. And he did study her character carefully. Stanton, with the keen pain of jealousy, and Ida Mayhew with a disquiet and sinking of heart that she could not understand, noted that he very quietly and unobtrusively sought her society. When she spoke, he listened. When it was possible without attracting attention his eyes followed her, and yet his conduct was governed so thoroughly by good taste and chivalric regard for the lady herself, that only eyes rendered penetrating by the promptings of the heart would have seen anything more than the general friendliness which she inspired on every side. Stanton, on the contrary, grew more undisguised and demonstrative in his attentions, although he aimed to conceal his feeling under the humorous and bantering style of address that was habitual with him. The guests of the house were not very long in recognizing in him an admirer of Miss Burton, but they imagined that his devotion was caused more by a wish to while away his idle hours than from any other motive; and it was also quite evident that the young lady herself took the same view. She gave a light and humorous aspect to everything she said, and permitted him scarcely an opportunity for a solitary "tete-a-tete." In vain he placed his bays and buggy at her disposal. "I am social and gregarious in my tastes," she would reply, "and need the exhilaration of a party to enjoy myself." Thus Stanton was led to a course of action decidedly in contrast with his past tendencies. He would attach his bays to a roomy carriage, giving her a "carte-blanche" in making up the party if she would be one of the number. He would perspire like a hero in any boating excursion or picnic that she would originate; and thus the fastidious and elegant fellow often found himself in unwonted company, for, with an instinct peculiarly her own, she soon found out the comparatively poor and neglected in the hotel, and appeared to derive her chief pleasure in enlivening their dull days. Quick-witted Stanton early learned that the surest way to winning a smile from her was to be polite to people that, hitherto, he had habitually ignored. To Miss Burton herself he made no secret of the fact that his course was prompted only by a desire to please her, but she smiling persisted in ascribing it all to his good-nature and kindness of heart. Chapter XIX. Man's Highest Honor. Van Berg had not been very long in discovering that Miss Burton had a ruling passion, and it seemed to him a rather unique one. He was familiar with the many forms of self-seeking, common in society; he knew of those who were devoted to literature, science, or some favorite calling, as he was to his art; he had seen a few who apparently so abounded in genial good-nature that they rarely lost an opportunity of performing a kind act; and there were men and women in the world who, he believed, had fully consecrated themselves to the work of doing good from the purest and divinest motives: but he did not remember of ever having met with one whose whole thought appeared bent on disseminating immediate sunshine. And yet this seemed true of Miss Burton. With admirable tact, with a tireless patience, and an energy out of proportion in one so fragile, she kept herself quietly and unobtrusively busy among the miscellaneous people of the house. Her charity was wide enough for all. Wherever she could discover gloom, despondency, dulness, or pain, there she tried to shine like a sunbeam, as if that were the primal law of her being. She rarely sought to "do good" in the ordinary acceptance of the term; still more rarely did she speak of her own personal faith; to cheer and to brighten appeared to be her one constant impulse. It was evident that this had become a kind of second nature in her now; but the thought occurred more than once to Van Berg that she had adopted this course at first to escape from herself and her own unhappy memories. Every day increased the conviction that sorrow was the black, heavy soil that produced this constant bloom of unselfish deeds. Before the week was over she gave him special reason to believe that this was true. They were walking up and down the piazza one evening and had been talking with much animation on a subject of mutual interest. But she proved that there was in her mind a deeper and stronger current of thought than that which had been apparent. As the duskiness increased, and as in their promenade their faces were turned away from those who might have observed them, she said a little abruptly and yet with tremulous hesitancy: "Mr. Van Berg, does your philosophy teach you to believe, as you sung, on Sabbath evening, that 'There is no power to sever The strong and true in mind?'" Before answering he turned to look at her. Her face seemed to stand out from the gloom of the night with a light of its own, and was so white and eager as to be almost spirit-like. His tones were sad as he replied: "I wish I could answer you otherwise than as I must, for the impulse to say some words of comfort, which I feel you need, is very strong. I only sang of what I wished on Sunday evening. I have little philosophy, and still less of definite belief in regard to the future life. While I am not a theoretic skeptic, all questions of faith are to me so vague and incomprehensible that I am a practical materialist, and live only in the present hour." "But, Mr. Van Berg," she said, in a low tremulous tone, "can you not understand that some people cannot live in the present hour, try as they may? Oh, how desperately hard I try to do so! Can you not imagine that something in one's past may make a future necessary to save from despair? If I lost my hold on that future I should go mad," she added in a whisper. "How can any materialistic philosophy be true when it fails us and so bitterly disappoints us in our need?" "I do not say it is true," he replied, earnestly. "Indeed your words and manner prove to me, as could no labored argument, what a poor superficial thing it is. I feel, with the force of conviction, that it can no more meet your need than could the husks which the swine did eat." "Since you were sincere, I will be also," she continued in the same low tone, looking away from him into the dark cloudy sky. "As the hymn I sung may have suggested to you, I have not got very far beyond mere submission and hope. Something in my own soul as well as in revelation tells me that there is a 'happier shore,' and I am trying to reach it; but the way, too often, is like that sky, utterly opaque and rayless." "I regret more deeply than you can ever know, Miss Burton, that I find nothing in my own knowledge or experience to help you. All I can offer is my honest sympathy, and that you have had from the first; for from the time of our first meeting the impression has been growing upon me that your character had obtained its power and beauty through some deep and sorrowful experience. But while I am unable to give you any help, perhaps I can suggest a pleasant thought from your own illustration. The black clouds yonder which seem to you a true type of the shadows that have fallen across your path, are, after all, but a film in the sky. The sun, and a multitude of other luminous worlds, are shining beyond them in the heavens. I would I had your chances of reaching a 'happier shore.'" "That's a pretty sentiment," she said, shaking her head slowly; "but those luminous worlds are a great way off, with cold and vast reaches of space between them. Besides, a luminous world would not do me one bit of good. I want---" she stopped abruptly with something like a low sob. "There, there," she resumed hastily dashing away a few tears. "I have occupied your thoughts too long with my forlorn little self. I did not mean to show this weakness, but have been betrayed into doing os, I think, because you impressed me as being honest, and I thought that perhaps--perhaps your man's reason might have thought of some argument or probably conjecture relating to the subject that, for causes obvious to you, would be naturally interesting to one so alone in the world as I am." "I am sorry indeed that I never used my reason to so good a purpose," he replied; "and yet, as I said at first, these subjects have ever seemed to me so above and beyond my reason that I have carelessly given them the go-by. My profession has wholly absorbed me since I have been capable of anything worth the name of thought, and the world, toward which your mind is turning, is so large and vague that I cannot even follow you, much less guide." She sighed: "It is indeed 'large and vague.'" Then she added in firm, quiet tones: "Mr. Van Berg, please forget what I have said. The weak must show their weakness at times in spite of themselves, and your kindness and sincerity have beguiled me into inflicting myself upon you." "You ask that which is impossible, Miss Burton," he replied earnestly. "I cannot forget what you have said, nor do I wish to. I need not assure you, however, that I regard your confidence as sacred as if it came from my own sister. Will you also let me say that I never felt so honored before in my life as I have to-night, in the fact that I seemed to your woman's intuition worthy of your trust." They were now turned towards the light that streamed dimly from one of the windows. She looked up at him with a bright, grateful smile, but she apparently saw something in his eager face and manner which checked her smile as suddenly as if he had been an apparition. she gave him her hand, saying hastily, "Good-night, Mr. Van Berg; I thank you. I--I--do not feel very well," and she passed swiftly to a side door and disappeared. Chapter XX. A Wretched Secret that Must be Kept. The interview described in the previous chapter touched Van Berg deeply, but its close puzzled him. Under the influences of his aroused feelings had his face expressed more than mere sympathy? Had her strong intuition, that was like a second sight, interpreted his heart more clearly than he had been able to understand it himself as yet? Reason and judgement, his privy council, had already begun to advise him to win if possible this unselfish maiden, who with a divine alchemy transmuted her shadows into sunshine for others, and often suggested the thought, if she can do this in sorrow, how inexpressibly happy she might make you and your aged father and mother if you could first find out in some way how to make her happy. Indeed, so clear a case did these counsellors make out, that conscience added her authoritative voice also, and assured him that he would be false to himself and his future did he not, to the utmost, avail himself and his future did he not, to the utmost, avail himself of the opportunity of winning one whose society from the first had been an inspiration to better thoughts and better living. Until this evening his heart had remained sluggish. Sweet and potent as her voice had been, it had not penetrated to the "holy of holies" within his soul. But had not her low sad tones echoed there to-night in the half involuntary confidence she had given him? In his deep sympathy, in the answering feeling evoked by her strong but repressed emotion, he thought his heart had been stirred to its depths, and that henceforth its chief desire would be to banish the sorrowful memories typified to her mind by the black clouds above him. Had his face revealed this impulse of his heart before he had been fully conscious of it himself? Was it an unwelcome discovery, that she so hastily fled from it? Or had she been only startled--her maidenly reserve shrinking from the first fore-shadowing of the supreme request that she should unveil the mysteries of her life to one who but now had been a stranger? He did not know. He felt he scarcely understood her or himself; but he was conscious of a hope that both might meet their happy fate in each other. He leaned thus for a time absorbed in thought against a pillar where she had left him, then sauntered with bowed head and preoccupied manner to the main entrance, down the steps and out into the darkness. He did not even notice that he passed Ida Mayhew, where she stood among a group of gay chattering young people. Still less did he know that she had been furtively watching his interview with Miss Burton, and that when he passed her without a glance her face was as pale as had been that of the object of his thoughts. But he had not strolled very far down a gravelled path before she compelled him to distinguish her reckless laugh and tones above all the others. With an impatient gesture he muttered, "God made them both, I suppose; and so there's another mystery." As Van Berg's interest in Miss Burton had deepened, it had naturally flagged toward the one whose marvelously fair features had first caught his attention and now promised to be links in a chain of causes that might produce effects little anticipated. He had virtually abandoned the project of seeking to ennoble and harmonize these features that suggested new possibilities of beauty to almost every glance, for the reason that he not only believed there was no mind to be awakened, but also because he had been led to think the girl so depraved and selfish at heart that the very thought of a larger, purer life was repugnant to her. He believed she disliked and even detested him, not so much on personal grounds as because he represented to her mind a class of ideas and a self-restraint that were hateful. Circumstances had associated her in his mind with Sibley, who thus cast a baleful shadow athwart even her beauty and made it repulsive. Indeed the mocking perfection of her features irritated him, and he began to make a conscious and persistent effort not to look toward her. He now regarded his hope to illumine her face from within, by delicate touches of mind, thought, and motive, as vain as an attempt to carve the Venus of Milo out of mottled pumice-stone. Still he did not regret to-night the freak of fancy that had brought him to the Lake House, since it had led to his meeting a woman who was to him a new and beautiful revelation of the rarest excellence and grace. But there was no such compensating outlook for poor Ida. To her, his coming promised daily to result in increasing wretchedness. From the miserable Sunday night on which she had sobbed herself to sleep, the consciousness had continually grown clearer that she could never find in her old mode of life any satisfying pleasure. She had caught a glimpse of something so much better, that her former world looked as tawdry as the mimic scenery of a second-rate theatre. A genuine man, such as she had not seen or at least not recognized before, had stepped out before the gilt and tinsel, and the miserable shams were seen in contrast in their rightful character. But, in bringing the revelation, it happened he had so deeply wounded her pride, that she had assured herself, again and again, she would hate his very name as long as she lived. Did she hate him as she saw him absorbed in conversation with Miss Burton whenever he could obtain the opportunity? Did she hate him as she saw that his eyes consciously avoided her and rested approvingly on another woman? Were hate and love so near akin? Could the belief that he despised her make her so wretched if she only hated him? During the early part of the present week she had struggled almost fiercely to retain her hold on her old life. Uniting herself to a clique of thoughtless young people, who made amusement and excitement their only pursuit, she seemed to be the gayest and most reckless of them all, while her heart was sinking like lead. Every glance toward the cold, averted face of the artist, inspired her with more than his own scorn toward what she was and the frivolities of her life. She tried to shut her eyes to the truth, and clung desperately to every impeding trifle; but felt all the time that an irresistible tide of events was carrying her toward the revelation that she loved a man who despised her, and always would despise her. And on this night, when she saw their dim forms and heard their low tones as Miss Burton and Van Berg talked earnestly on the farther end of the piazza; when she saw that they grasped hands in parting, and noted the rapt look upon his face as he passed her by uncaringly and unnotingly--the revelation came. It was as sharply and painfully distinct as if he had stopped and plunged a knife into her heart. With all her faults and follies, Ida had never been a pale shadowy creature, full of complex psychological moods which neither she nor any one else could untangle. She knew whom and what she liked and disliked, and it was not her nature to do things by halves. There had always been a kind of simplicity and straightforwardness even in her wickedness; and she usually seemed to people quite as bad, and indeed worse, than she really was. Why of all others she loved this man, and how it all had come about, was a mystery that puzzled her sorely; but she had no labyrinthine heart in which to play hide and seek with her own consciousness. And so vividly conscious was she now of this new and absorbing passion, that she hastily turned her face from her companions toward the cloudy sky, that looked as dark to her as it had to Jennie Burton, and for a moment sought desperately to recover from a dizzy, reeling sense of pain that was well-nigh overwhelming. Then the womanly instinct to hide her secret asserted itself, and a moment later her laugh jarred discordantly on Van Berg's ears, and he interpreted it as wisely as have thousands of others who fail to recognize the truth that often no cry of pain is so bitter as a reckless laugh. A little later, however, her companions missed her. Later still her mother sought admission to her room in vain. When she came down to breakfast the next morning, she was very quiet and self-possessed, but her face was so pale and the traces of suffering were so manifest, that her mother insisted that she was not well. She coldly admitted the fact. The voluble lady launched out into an indefinite number of questions and suggestions of remedies. "Mother," said Ida, with a flash of her eyes and an accent which caused not only that lady but several others to look toward her with a little surprise, "if you have anything further to say to me in regard to my health, please say it in my own room." Van Berg glanced towards her several times after this, and was compelled to admit that whatever fault he might justly find, the face with which she confronted him that morning was anything but weak and trivial in its expression. But her icy reserve and coldness did not compare favorably with Miss Burton, who had now fully regained her smiling reticence, acting as usual as if the only law of her being was to utter genial words and to bestow with consummate tact little gifts of attention and kindness on every side, as the summer sun without was scattering its vivifying rays. Chapter XXI. A Deliberate Wooer. Miss Burton's bearing toward Van Berg was very friendly, but he failed to detect in her manner the slightest proof that she had ever thought of him otherwise than as a friend. There was no sudden drooping of her eyelashes, or heightening of color when he spoke to her, or permitted his eyes to dwell upon her face with an expression that was rather more than friendly. He could detect no furtive glances, nothing to indicate that she had caught a glimpse of that secret so interesting to every woman that she would look again, though cold as ice toward the man cherishing it. Nor was there the slightest trace of the constraint and reserve by which all women who are not coquettes seek to check, as with an early frost, the first growth of an unwelcome regard. Her manner was simply what would be natural toward a gentleman she thoroughly respected and liked, with whom her thoughts, for no hidden cause, were especially preoccupied. Why then had she looked at him so strangely the preceding evening? Why had she apparently shrunk from the expression of his face, as if she had seen there a revelation so sudden and overwhelming that she trembled at it as a shy, sensitive maiden might in recognizing the fact that a strong, resolute man was seeking entrance to the very citadel of her heart? He felt himself utterly unable to explain her action. What was more, he was puzzled at himself. The sympathy he felt for Miss Burton the previous evening had not by any means left him, but it was no longer a strong and absorbing emotion. His pulse was as calm and quiet as the breathless summer morning. He was conscious of no premonitory chills and thrills, which, according to his preconceived notions of the "grand passion," ought to be felt even in its incipiency. He even found himself criticising her face, and wondering how features so ordinary in themselves could combine in so winning and happy an effect; and then he mentally cursed his cold-bloodedness, and positively envied Stanton in whose manner, in spite of his efforts at concealment, an ardent affection began to manifest itself. During the day it occurred to him more than once that her course was changing toward Stanton. There was no less return on her part of his light bantering style of conversation. Indeed, she seemed to take great pains to give a humorous twist to everything he said, as if she regarded even the words in which he tried to unfold his deeper thoughts as mere jests. But Van Berg imagined she began to make herself more inaccessible to Stanton. She entrenched herself among other guests in the parlor; she took pains to be so occupied as to make him feel that his approach would be an interruption; and whenever they did meet at the table and elsewhere, it appeared as if she were trying to teach him by a smiling, friendly indifference that he was not in her thoughts at all. The positive coldness and aversion Ida sought to manifest toward Van Berg would not have been so disheartening as Miss Burton's device of seeming to be so agreeably preoccupied with other people that she could not or would not see the offering Stanton was eager to lay at her feet. He felt this keenly, and chafed under it; but her woman's tact made her shining armor invulnerable. She persisted in regarding him as the gay, self-seeking, pleasure-loving man of the world that she had recognized him to be on the fist day of their acquaintance. He imagined that a great and radical change had taken place in his nature, but she gave him no opportunity of telling her so. At first she had, with laughing courtesy, ignored his gallantry, as if it were only a fashion of his towards any woman who for the time happened to take his fancy; but so far from shunning him she had seemed inclined to employ what she regarded as a caprice or a bit of male coquetry, as the means of adding to the enjoyment of as many as possible; and Van Berg had often smiled to see his languid friend of yore seconding Miss Burton's efforts with an apparent zeal that was quite marvellous. To Stanton's infinite relief, Van Berg did not twit him concerning this surprising departure from his old ways. Indeed, Miss Burton had become too delicate and sacred a theme in both of their minds to permit of their old banter. They had been friends and were so still, yet each recognized the fact that events were coming that would sorely test and perhaps destroy their friendship. While they gradually fell aloof, as men will who are learning that their dearest interests are destined to conflict, they each tried nevertheless to maintain an honorable rivalry, and their bearing toward each other, although tinged with a growing reticence and dignity, was genuinely kind and courteous. As the week drew to a close, however, it gave Van Berg pleasure--though not by any means in the same degree that it caused Stanton pain--to observe that Miss Burton was shunning the latter's society as far as politeness permitted. At the same time, while she evidently enjoyed his companionship, Van Berg observed that she did not seem to specially crave it; nor in truth did he find himself when away from her "distrait," vacant, and miserable, as was manifestly the case with his friend. He concluded that it was difference of temperament--that it was his nature to be governed by judgment and taste, as it was that of Stanton to be swayed by feeling and passion. All the higher faculties of his mind gave their voice for this woman with increasing emphasis. His heart undoubtedly would slowly and surely gravitate in the same direction. How to win her therefore was gradually becoming the one interesting and most difficult question he had to solve. Although she was poor and alone in the world, it was evident that mere wealth and position would count but little with her. Stanton was handsome, rich, well-connected, and intelligent; but it seemed clear, as she recognized the sincerity of his suit, she withdrew from it. Some coarse, ill-natured people in the house, who at first, with significant nods, had intimated that "the little school-ma'am" was bent on bettering her fortunes, were soon nonplussed by her course. Thus far Van Berg's name had not been associated with hers in any such manner as Stanton's. His cooler head, or heart more correctly, had enabled him to act very prudently. He would enjoy a walk or conversation with her, and there it would end. Neither by lingering glances nor steps did he show that he could not interest himself in other people and things. He did not attend the excursions or rides to which Stanton invited her, and others to please her, because he knew his friend "doted on his absence." He felt too that the occasion was Stanton's private property, and that it would be mean not to leave him the full advantage of the device, which might cause him more effort in a forenoon or an evening than he had been accustomed to put forth in a week. But poor Stanton soon learned that his labors of love were destined to be very promiscuous. He never could manage to carry her off alone in a light skiff upon the lake; he could never inveigle her into the narrow seat of his buggy, nor could his most wily strategy long separate her from their companions on a picnic that had offered to his ardent fancy a chance for a stroll into some favoring solitude by themselves. Had she been a princess of the blood, surrounded by a guard of watchful duennas, she could not have been more unapproachable to lover-like advances. Yet, with a vexation akin to that of old Tantalus himself, he constantly cursed his stupidity for not making better progress toward securing the smiling affable maiden, who by every law of his pas experience ought to second his efforts to win her. Van Berg, who remained at the hotel, or went off by himself on rambles and sketching expeditions, would watch his opportunity and quietly and naturally join her on the piazza or in the parlor, as he might approach any other lady. As a result they had long animated conversations, and found they had much in common to talk about. Stanton would gnaw his lip with envy at these interviews and wonder how Van Berg brought them about so easily, but found he could not secure them, save in the immediate presence of others. Thus it came about that Van Berg practically enjoyed much more of Miss Burton's society than the one who made such untiring efforts to obtain it. In Stanton's too eager suit, Van Berg thought he saw the danger he must avoid, and he complacently congratulated himself that he possessed a temperament which permitted thoughtful and wary approaches. He would not frighten this shy bird by too hasty advances. Through unobtrusive companionship he would first grow familiar to her thoughts; and then, if possible, would make himself inseparable from them. He reached this conclusion during a ramble on Saturday morning, and with elastic tread returned to the hotel to carry out his well digested policy. As he mounted the steps he saw Miss Burton in the parlor, and at once entered through an open window. She was seated in a corner of the room with two or three little girls around her, and was dressing dolls. "Do you enjoy that?" he asked, incredulously. "I'm not a star," she replied looking up with a quiet smile, "but only a planet--one of the smaller asteroids--and shine with borrowed light. These little women enjoy this hugely; and I receive a pale reflection of their pleasure." "You are certainly happy in your answer, if not in your work," he remarked. "Mr. Van Berg," said one of the children emphatically, "Miss Burton is the best lady that ever lived." "I agree with you, my dear," responded the artist, with answering emphasis. "Yes, children," said Miss Burton, her eyes dancing with mischief, "and I want you to appreciate Mr. Van Berg's genius too. He is the greatest artist that ever lived, and there never were such pictures as he paints." "Miss Burton, I beg off," interrupted Van Berg, laughing. "You always get the better of one. No, children," he continued in answer to their looks of wonder, "I know less about painting pictures, in comparison, than you do of dressing dolls." "But Miss Burton always tells us the truth," persisted the child. "Now you see the result of our folly," said the young lady, shaking her head at him. "We have given this child an example of insincerity. We were jesting, my dear. Mr. Van Berg and I did not mean what we said." "But I did mean what I said," replied the child, earnestly. "Since only downright honesty," the artist resumed with a laugh, "is permitted in this little group, so near nature's heart, I think I must follow this small maiden's example, and stick to my original statement. For once, Miss Burton, we have won the advantage over you, and have proved that yours are the only insincere words that have been spoken. But I know that if I stay another moment I shall be worsted. So I shall leave the field before victory is exchanged for another reverse." As he turned laughingly away he saw--what he had not observed before--that Ida Mayhew was sitting near. She was ostensibly reading; but even his brief glance assured him that her downcast eyes were not following the lines. Her face was so pale, so rigid, so like a sculptured ideal of some kind of suffering he could not understand, that it haunted him. He had given but little thought to her for the past two days, and indeed had rarely seen her. She had managed to take her meals when he was not present, and on one or two occasions had had them sent to her room, pleading illness as the reason. Indeed her flagging appetite and altered appearance did not make much feigning on her part necessary. She had evidently heard the conversation just narrated; and she believed that Van Berg had echoed the child's belief in regard to Miss Burton more in truth than in jest. The ruling passion of the artist was aroused. A plain woman might have looked unutterable things, and he would have passed on with a shrug, or but a thought of commiseration. But that oval, downcast face followed him. Its sadness and pain interested him because conveyed to his eye by a perfect contour. "Was it a trick?" he thought, "or a fortuitous combination of the features themselves, that enabled them to express so much! It must be so, for surely the shallow coquette had not much to express." "A plague on the perversity of nature," he exclaimed, "to give the girl such features. If Jennie Burton had them, she would be the ideal woman of the world." The practical result, however, was that he half forgot during dinner that she was "the best woman that ever lived" in his furtive effort to study Ida's face in its present aspect; and that he also spent most of the afternoon in his room sketching it from memory. Chapter XXII. A Vain Wish. As the witch-hazel is believed to have the power of indicating springs of water however far beneath the surface, so Miss Burton, by a subtle affinity, seemed to become speedily conscious of the sorrows and troubles of others, even when sedulously hidden from general observation. She discovered that something was amiss with Ida almost as soon as did the troubled girl herself; but for once her quick perception of causes failed her. She had explained Ida's apparent antipathy to Van Berg on the ground of the natural resentment of a frivolous society girl toward the man who had, by his manner and character, asked her to think and be a woman. It appeared to her, from her limited acquaintance, that Ida was developing into the counterpart of her mother; and for such a person as Mrs. Mayhew, Van Berg could never have anything more than polite toleration. Miss Burton was aware that the artist's manner toward Ida had indeed been humiliating. During the previous week he had sought her society; but in the emphatic language of his action, he had almost the same as said of late: "Even for the sake of your beauty I cannot endure your shallowness and moral deformity." Little wonder that the flattered belle should feel hate or at least spite toward the man who had virtually given her such a stinging rebuke. But while this fact and the differences of character explained Ida's manner toward the artist, it did not account for the expression of pain and perplexity that she occasionally detected in the young girl's face. It did not explain why she should sit for an hour at a time, as she had that morning in the parlor, her eyes fixed on vacancy, and her face full of dread and trouble, as if there were something present to her mind from which she shrank inexpressibly. She tried several times to make advances toward the unhappy girl, but was in every instance repelled, coldly and decidedly. "What IS preying upon Miss Mayhew's mind?" she queried with increasing frequency. Her experience as a teacher of young girls made her quick to detect the presence of those dangerous thoughts which beset the entrance on mature womanhood. With a frown that formed a marked contrast with her customary gentle and genial expression, she surmised: "Can Sibley, or any one else, be seeking to tempt and lead her astray?" As the most plausible explanation she finally concluded that Ida was brooding over her father's unhappy tendencies. Mrs. Burleigh had told Miss Burton the whole story; and she had listened, not as to a bit of scandal, but as to another instance of that kind of trouble which ever evoked from her more of sympathy than censure. Ida might treat her fancied rival, therefore, as coldly as she chose, but the fact of suffering and the shadow resting upon her from her father's course, would bind Jennie Burton to her as a watchful friend with a tie that only returning happiness could sunder. Stanton and Van Berg were standing together on Saturday evening, when Mrs. Mayhew and her daughter came down to await the arrival of the stage. Ida did not see them at first, and Van Berg was again struck by the pallor and stony apathy of her face. She looked like one wearied by conflict of mind; but the quiet of her face was not that of peace or decision. It was simply the vacancy and languor of one worn out with contending emotions. "I once said," thought Van Berg, "that she would be beautiful if she were dead, and her frivolous mind could no longer mar the repose of her features with the suggestion of petty thoughts and ignoble vices. By Jove, I never realized how true my words were. As her motionless figure and pallid expression appear in yonder door-way, she would make a good picture of the clay of Eve, before God breathed life into the perfect form. Oh! that I had such power! I would give years to light up that face there with the expressions of which it is capable." Then Ida saw him, and she turned hastily away, but not before he caught a glimpse of the blood mounting swiftly to her face. She was beginning to puzzle him, and to suggest that possibly his estimate of her character had been superficial. "Your cousin has not seemed well for the past few days," he remarked to Stanton. "Oh! Ida is as full of moods as an April day, only they scarcely have a vernal simplicity," was the satirical answer. From some caprice or other she is affecting the pale and interesting style now. See! she has dressed herself this evening with severe simplicity; but the minx knows that thin white drapery is more becoming to her marble cheeks and neck than the richest colors. Besides, she remembers that it is a sultry evening, and so gets herself up as cool as a cucumber. By all the jolly gods! but she is statuesque, isn't she? Say what you please Van, the best of you artists couldn't imagine a much fairer semblance of a woman than you see yonder--but when you come to her mental and moral furniture--the Good Lord deliver us!" "'Tis pity, 'tis pity," said Van Berg, in a low, regretful tone. "An' pity 'tis, 'tis true," added Stanton, with a shrug. "I can't think it is only affection that has made her appear ill the last two or three days," resumed Van Berg, musingly. "Her face suggests trouble and suffering of some kind." "Touch of dyspepsia, like enough. However, Sibley will be here in a few minutes and he will cheer her up, never fear. I'm disgusted with her that she takes so to that fellow; for although no saint myself, I can't stomach him." At the mention of Sibley's name, Van Berg frowned, turned on his heel and walked away. "If Stanton is right about that fellow's power over her," he muttered, "I'll tear up the sketch I made this afternoon and never give her another thought." The moment Ida became conscious of Van Berg's observant eyes her languor passed away. She had scarcely glanced at him while at dinner, but she had felt, by some subtle power of perception, that he was furtively watching her, and she also felt there was more of curiosity than kindliness in his regard. With an instinct as strong as that of self-preservation, she sought to hide her secret, and when a few moments later the stage was driven to the door, she was prepared to welcome the man she now detested, in order to conceal her heart from the man she loved. Van Berg, leaning against a pillar near, saw Mr. Mayhew with his sallow, listless face and lifeless tread mount the steps to greet his wife and daughter; but, before he could take Ida's hand, Sibley, in snowy linen and a coat from which the stains and dust of earth seemed ever kept miraculously, brushed past him, and seizing the daughter's hand, exclaimed: "You see I've kept my promise, and am here." And then he whispered in her ear: "By Jupiter, Miss Ida, you look like a houri just from Paradise to-night." Mr. Mayhew paused a moment and looked from the forward youth to his daughter's scarlet face, frowned heavily, and then gave her and her mother a very cool greeting before passing on to his room. Ida could not forbear stealing a look at Van Berg, and her face grew pale again as she encountered his scornful glance. Pride was one of her predominant traits, and his manner touched it to the quick. She resolved to return him scorn for scorn, and to show him that in spite of her heart that had turned against her and become his ally, she could still be her old gay self. Therefore she gave Sibley back his badinage in kind; and in repartee that was bright and sharp as well as reckless, she answered the compliments of other gay young fellows who also gathered around her. "Did I not tell you Sibley would revive her?" Stanton remarked as they went down to supper. "Such humdrum fellows as you and I are not to the taste of one who has been brought up on a diet of cayenne pepper and chocolate cream." "But what kind of blood does such a diet make?" "Judge for yourself. It looks well as it comes and goes in a pretty face." "Look here, Stanton," said Van Berg, pausing at the dining room door; "there is that Sibley at our table." "Oh, certainly! He claims to be Ida's friend, and you see that Mrs. Mayhew is very gracious to him. He's rich, and will inherit his father's business also; and my sagacious aunt inquires no further." "Stanton, we both fee that he is not fit to sit at the same table with Miss Burton." "You are right, Van," Stanton replied with a deep flush; "but I can do nothing without drawing attention to my relatives. After all, it is only a casual and transient association in a public place, over which we have no control. While she seems too near to him there you know that heaven is as near to hell as they are to each other. For the sake of poor Mr. Mayhew, if for no one else, let the matter pass." "Very well, Stanton; but it must not happen so another week;" and then the young men who had withdrawn into the hall-way entered, but the expression of coldness and displeasure did not wholly pass from their faces. Chapter XXIII. Jennie Burton's "Remedies." Fortunately Mr. Mayhew had been placed at the supper-table next to Miss Burton, and Van Berg speedily became absorbed in watching the impression made on each other by these two characters that were so utterly diverse. It needed but a glance to see that Mr. Mayhew was a heavy-hearted, broken-spirited man. His shrunken inanimate features, and slight, bent form, looked all the more dim and shadowy in contrast with his stout, florid wife, who even in public scarcely more than tolerated his presence. This evening she devoted herself to Sibley, who sat between her and her daughter. Mr. Mayhew seemed unusually depressed even for him, and began to make a supper only in form. Jennie Burton stole a few shy glances at his sallow face, and seemed to find an attraction in it she could not resist. Two handsome lovers sat near her, but she evidently forgot them wholly save when they addressed her; and she wooed the elderly man at her side with consummate tact and grace. At first he was unconscious of her presence. She was but another human atom, and of no more interest to him than the chair on which she sat. Mechanically he declined one or two things she passed to him, and in an absent manner replied to the few casual remarks by which she sought to engage him in conversation. At last she said, in a voice that was indescribably winning and sympathetic: "Mr. Mayhew, your sultry week in town has wearied you. Our country air will do you good." There was so much more in her tones than in her words that he turned to look at her, and then, for the first time, became aware that he was not sitting at the side of an ordinary, well-bred lady. "Country air is good as far as it goes," he said slowly, scanning her face as he spoke; "but it does not make much difference with me." "There are other remedies," she resumed in her low gentle tone, "which, like the air, are not exactly tangible, and yet are more potent." "Indeed," he said, the dawning interest deepening in his face; "what are they?" "I do not mean to tell you," she replied with a little piquant nod and smile. "I've learned better than those people who have a dozen infallible medicines at their tongues' end for every trouble under heaven. I never name my remedies; for if I did, people would turn away in contempt for such commonplace simples." "I can guess one of them already," he said with a pleased light coming into his eyes. "So quickly, Mr. Mayhew? I doubt it." "Kindness," he said, in a low tone. "Well," she replied with a slight flush, "I can stoutly assert that this remedy did me good when all the long-named drugs in the 'Materia Medica' could not have helped me." He looked at her searchingly a moment, and then said in the same low tone: "And so you are trying to apply your remedy to me? It certainly is very good of you. Most people when they are cured, throw away the medicine, forgetting how many others are sick." "Perhaps we can never exactly say we are cured in this life; but I think we can all get better." "It depends a great deal upon the disease," he replied, with a shrug. "No, Mr. Mayhew," she said; and, although her tone was low, it was almost passionate in its earnestness. "God forbid that there should be a disease without a remedy." He again looked at her with a peculiar expression, and then slowly turned toward his wife and daughter. Mrs. Mayhew was too preoccupied to heed him, and Sibley was just saying: "Miss Ida, I claim you for the first waltz this evening, and only wish that it would last indefinitely." "Pardon me for saying it to one so young and hopeful as yourself, Miss Burton," Mr. Mayhew resumed gloomily, "but that which both God and good-sense forbid seems the thing most sure to take place in this world." Although so dissimilar, deep and sad experiences made them kin, and Miss Burton found she must make an effort not to let their thoughts color their words too darkly for the time and place. "I shall not let you destroy my faith in my old-fashioned simples," she said in tones that were lighter than her meaning. "You must not be sure that because you are so much my senior, all my complaints have been merely children's troubles. Appearances are often misleading, you know." "Not in your case, I think, Miss Burton. I have lost faith in almost everything, and most of all in myself; but this unexpected little talk has touched me deeper than you can know, and I cannot help having faith in you." "I will believe it," she said with a smile, "if you will give me a little of your society before you go back to the city." He looked at her with sudden suspicion. "Do you mean what you say?" "I do." "Why do you wish my society?" She hesitated. His face darkened still more, for he remembered what he was, and how little this young and lovely girl had in common with him. "Answer me truly," he insisted; "why should you wish my society? I've not a particle of vanity. I know what I am, and you undoubtedly know also. If you wish to advise me and preach at me, let me tell you plainly but courteously that your efforts, however, well intentioned, would be in vain, and not altogether welcome. I can conceive of no other reason why you should wish for my society." Her face became very pale, but she looked him full in his eyes as she replied: "I do not wish to preach or advise at all. Can you not understand that one may ease one's own pain by trying to relieve the suffering of another? Now you see how selfish I am." His face softened instantly, and he said: "Miss Burton, that is too divine a philosophy for me to grasp at once. As the world goes now, I think you are founding a school of your own. You will find me an eager listener, if not an apt scholar, whenever you will honor me with your company." And smiling his thanks he rose and left the table. This conversation had been carried on in tones too low and quiet to be heard by others in the crowded and noisy dining-room. Van Berg, who sat opposite, had taken pains not to follow it and to appear oblivious, and yet he could not refrain from observing its general drift and scope in Mr. Mayhew's manner; and his eyes glowed with admiration for her winning tact and kindness. The glance he bent upon her was perhaps more ardent and approving than he was aware, for she, looking up from the abstraction which the recent conversation had occasioned, seemed strangely affected by it, for she trembled and her face blanched with a sudden pallor, while her eyes were riveted to his face. "You are not well, Miss Burton," said Stanton hastily, but in a low tone. "Let me get you some wine." She started perceptibly, and then a sudden crimson suffused her face as she became conscious that other eyes were upon her. In almost a second she recovered herself fully, and replied, with a smile: "No, I think you, Mr. Stanton. A cup of tea is a panacea for all a woman's troubles, and you see I have it here. I did not feel well for a moment, but am better now." The eyes of Stanton and Ida met. Both had seen this little episode, and each drew from it conclusions that were anything but inspiriting. But Van Berg was thoroughly puzzled. While as he felt hen he would have gladly drawn encouragement from it, and perhaps did so to some extent, he still felt there was something peculiar in her manner, of which he seemed the occasion, but was not the adequate cause. Miss Burton soon after sought her room, and for a few moments paced it in deep disquiet, and her whole form seemed to become tense and rigid. In low tones she communed with herself: "Is my will so weak? Shall I continue betraying myself at any unexpected moment? Shall I show to strangers something that I would hide from all eyes save those of God? Let me realize it at once, and so maintain self-control henceforth. This is an illusion--a mere trick of my overwrought mind; and yet it seemed so like---" A passion of grief interrupted further words. Such bitter, uncontrollable sorrow in one so young was terrible. She writhed and struggled with this anguish for a time as helplessly as if she were in the grasp of a giant. At last she grew calm. There were no tears in her eyes. She was beyond such simple and natural expression of sorrow. She had ready tears for the troubles of others, but now her eyes were dry and feverish. "O God," she gasped, "teach me patience! Keep me submissive. Let me still say, 'Thy will be done.' And yet the time is drawing near when--oh, hush! hush! Let me not think of it--- "There, there, be still," she said more quietly with her hand upon her side. "Hundreds of other hearts besides your own are aching. Forget yourself in relieving them." She bathed her face, put some brighter flowers in her hair, and went down among the other guests, seemingly the very embodiment of sunshine. All eyes save those of Ida Mayhew welcomed her; the children gathered round her; Stanton and Van Berg were both eager for her society in the dance, or better still, for a promenade; but she saw Mr. Mayhew looking wistfully at her, and she went straight to him. With unerring tact she found out the subjects that were interesting to him, and reviving his faith in his own intelligence, led his mind through sunny, breezy ranges of thought that made the time he spent with her like an escape from the narrow walls and stifling air and gloom of a prison. Chapter XXIV. A Hateful, Wretched Life. The advent of half a score of young men from the city naturally made dancing the order of the occasion on Saturday evening. Mr. Burleigh, however, gave Sibley a hint that the features he had introduced the previous week must be omitted tonight, since nothing that would in the slightest degree lower the character of his house would be tolerated. The excitement therefore that Sibley had formerly received from Cognac, he now sought to obtain by pursuing with greater ardor his flirtation with Ida. Indeed, to such a nature as his, her beauty was quite as intoxicating as the "spirit of wine." There was a brilliancy in her appearance to night and a piquancy in her words that struck him as very unusual. Nor was he alone in his admiration. The young men from the city thronged about her, and her hand was soon engaged for every dance until late in the evening; but on this occasion she had no opportunity, as before, of declining invitations from Van Berg. The solicitations of others went for little, the admiring eyes that she saw following her on every side could not compensate for the lack of all attention from him. He danced several times, but it was with those who seemed to be neglected by others. In his quiet, dignified bearing, in his unselfish affability toward those who otherwise would have had a dull evening, he appeared to her in most favorable contrast to the giddy young fellows who fluttered around her, and whose supreme thoughts were always of themselves, and of her only as she could minister to their pleasure. "Miss Burton has so plainly won him," she thought, "that he has adopted her tactics of looking after those whom every one neglects. I could soon show him the one he has the greatest power of cheering, and I know that she has the deepest need of cheer of any one in this crowded house, but I'd rather die than give one hint of our first meeting he has humiliated me, and I in return love him! But he shall never know it. My looks can be as cold as his." And so they were toward him, but for all others she had had the gayest smiles and repartee. Vividly conscious of the secret she would so jealously guard, she sought by every means in her power to mask it from him and all others. She would even permit her name for a time to be associated with a man she detested and despised, since thus the truth could be more effectively concealed. Sibley's attentions were certainly ardent enough to attract attention, and occasionally there was a boldness in his compliments, which she, even in her reckless mood, sharply resented. His eyes seemed to grow more wolfish every time she encountered them, and more than once the thought crossed her mind: "What a heaven it would be to look up into the eyes of a man I could trust, and who honored me." What torture it was to see such a man present, and yet to feel that he justly scorned her. Excitement and her strong will kept her up for a long time, but as the evening advanced despondency and weariness began to gain the mastery. Sibley came to her and said: "Miss Ida, I have your hand for the next waltz, but I see you are worn and tired. Let us go out on the cool piazza instead of dancing." Listlessly she took his arm and passed through one of the open windows near. Van Berg had disappeared some time before, and there was no longer any motive to keep up the illusion of gayety. Hardly had she stepped on the piazza before she heard her father say: "Miss Burton, if it will give you any pleasure to know that you have made this evening memorably bright to one whose life is peculiarly clouded, you can certainly enjoy that assurance in the fullest measure. You have kept your word and have not preached at me at all; and yet I feel I ought to be a better man for this interview." "O, Miss Ida," exclaimed Sibley, "this is the opportunity that I have been wishing for all the evening. I cannot tell you how gladly I exchange the glare of that room for the light of your eyes only. Would that life were but one long summer evening, and your eyes the only starts in my sky." "Absurd," she carelessly replied; and then they passed out of hearing. "Good-night, Miss Burton," said Mr. Mayhew abruptly; and he hastily descended the steps and was soon lost from view in the darkness. His daughter and the man who seemed to be the companion of her choice, brought back at once the old conditions of his life. The prison walls closed around him again, the air seemed all the more foul and stifling in contrast with the pure atmosphere which he had been breathing, and the gloom of the night was light in comparison with his thoughts as he muttered: "If Ida were only like this good angel she might save even me; but after my long absence she leaves me wholly to myself for the sake of a man who ought to be an offence to her. If I tell her and her mother what his reputation in New York is they will not listen to me. Although he is the known slave of every vice, my daughter smiles upon him. Froth and mud we are now and ever will be. After a glimpse into the life of that pure, good woman who has tried to be God's messenger to me to-night, I can find no words to express my loathing of the slough in which I and mine have mired. My only child, by the force of natural selection, bids fair to add to our number a drunkard and a libertine; and I am powerless to prevent it. The mother that should guard and guide her child, is blind to everything save that he is rich. Froth and mud! Froth and mud!" Unable to endure his thoughts, he went to his room and found oblivion in the stupor of intoxication. On reaching the end of the long piazza, Sibley led Ida to a veranda little frequented at that hour, saying, as he did so: "Let us get away from prying eyes. I always feel when with you that three is an enormous crowd." A gentleman who had been smoking rose hastily at this broad hint, which he could not help overhearing, and walked haughtily away. Ida, with a regret deeper than she could have thought possible, saw that it was Van Berg. Her first impulse was to compel her companion to go back; but that would look like following him. Weary, disheartened by the fate that seemed ever against her, she sank into the chair he had just vacated. For a time she did not heed or scarcely hear Sibley's characteristic flatteries, but at last he said plainly: "Miss Ida, do you know that you are the one woman of all the world to me?" "Oh, hush!" she replied, rising. "I know you say that to every pretty woman who will listen to you, as I shall no longer to-night. Come." Baffled and puzzled also by the moody girl, who of late seemed so different from her former self, he had no resource but to accompany her back to the main entrance. Here, where the eyes of others were upon her, she said abruptly, but with a charming smile: "Good-night, Mr. Sibley," and went directly to her room. The young man looked rather nonplussed and muttered an oath as he walked away to console himself after the fashion of his kind. "Is there no escape from this wretched life?" Ida sighed as she wearily threw herself into a chair on reaching her room. "A man whose addresses are an insult is my lover. The only man I can ever love associates me in his mind with this low fellow. My father obtains what little comfort he gets from the charity of a stranger. How can I face this prospect day after day. Oh, that I had never come here!" "Ida," said her mother entering hastily, "what has happened to put your father out so? I had a headache this evening, and came up early. A little while ago he stalked in with his absurd tragic air. 'What is the matter,' I asked. 'Look to your daughter,' he said. 'What do you mean?' I asked, quite frightened. 'If you were a true mother,' he replied, 'you would no more leave her with that roue Sibley, than with so much pitch. Yet he is courting her openly; and what is worse, she receives his addresses, and permits herself to be identified with him.' 'Oh, pshaw,' I answered carelessly; 'Sibley is about on a par with half the young men in society, and Ida might do a great deal worse. No fear of her; for there isn't a girl living who knows how to take care of herself better than she.' 'Bah!' he said, 'if she knew how to take care of herself, she would permit a snake to touch her sooner than that man. Ida might do worse, might she? God knows how: I don't. A pretty family we shall be when he is added to our charming group. The mud will predominate then;' and with that he opened a bottle of brandy and drank himself stupid." As Mrs. Mayhew rattled this conversation off in a loud whisper, Ida seemed turning into stone, but at its close she said icily: "In speaking of such a union as possible, my parents have shown their opinion of me. Good-night. I wish to be alone." "But did anything happen between you to set your father off so?" persisted Mrs. Mayhew. "Nothing unusual. I suppose father heard one of Mr. Sibley's compliments; and that was enough to disgust any sensible man. Good-night." "My gracious! You might as well turn me out of your room." "Mother, I wish to be alone," said Ida, passionately. "A pretty life I lead of it between you and your father," sobbed Mrs. Mayhew, retreating to her own apartment. "A hateful, wretched life we all three shall lead to the end of time, for aught that I can see," Ida groaned as she restlessly paced her room; "but I have no better resource than to follow father's example." She took an opiate, and so escaped from thought for a time in the deep lethargy it brought. Chapter XXV. Half-truths. A church bell was ringing in a neighboring village the following morning when Ida awoke. The sunlight streamed in at the open window through the half-closed blinds, flecking the floor with bars of light. Birds were singing in the trees without, and a southern breeze rustled through the foliage as a sweet low accompaniment. Surely it was a bright pleasant world on which her heavy eyes were opening. Poor child! she was fast learning now that the darkest clouds that shadow our paths are not the vapors that rise from the earth, but the thoughts and memories of an unhappy and a sinful heart. The sunlight mocked her; and her spirit was so out of tune that the sweet sounds of nature made jarring discord. But the church bell caught her attention. How natural and almost universal is the instinct which leads us when in trouble to seek the support of some Higher power. No matter how wayward the human child may have been, how hardened by years of wrong, or arrogantly entrenched in some phase of rational philosophy, when the darkness of danger or sorrow blots out the light of earthly hopes, or hides the path which was trodden so confidently, then, with the impulse of frightened children whom night has suddenly overtaken, there is a longing for the Father's hand and the Father's reassuring voice. If there is no God to love and help us, human nature is a lie. Thus far Ida Mayhew had no more thought of turning Heavenward for help than to the philosophy of Plato. Indeed, religion as a system of truth, and Greek philosophy were almost equally unknown to her. But that church-bell reminded her of the source of hope and help to which burdened hearts have been turning in all the ages, and with the vague thought that she might find some light and cheer that was not in the sunshine, she hastily dressed and went down in time to catch one of the last carriages. When she reached the church, she found her mother had preceded her, and that her cousin Ik Stanton was also there; but she correctly surmised that the only devotion to which he was inclined had been inspired by Miss Burton, who sat not far away. She was soon satisfied that Van Berg was not present. As a general thing, when at church, Ida had given more consideration to the people and the toilets about her than to either the service or the sermon; but to-day she wistfully turned her thoughts to both, in the hope that they might do her good, although she had as vague an idea as to the mode or process as if both were an Indian incantation. But she was thoroughly disappointed. Her thoughts wandered continually from the services. With almost the vividness of bodily presence, three faces were looking upon her--her father's with an infinite reproach; Sibley's, with smiling lips and wolfish eyes; and Van Berg's, first coolly questioning and exploring in its expression, and then coldly averted and scornful in consequence of what he had discovered. Not houses, but minds are haunted. The clergyman, however, was an able, forcible speaker, and held her attention from the first. His sermon was topical rather than textual in its character; that is, he enlarged on what he termed "the irreconcilable enmity between God and the world," taking as his texts the following selections: "The carnal mind is enmity against God." And again, "Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world, is the enemy of God." The sermon was chiefly an argument; and the point of it was that there could be no compromise between these contending powers--God on one side, the world on the other--and he insisted that his hearers must be, and were with one party or the other. The trouble was, that in concentrating his thoughts on the single point he meant to make, he took too much for granted--namely, that all his hearers understood sufficiently the character of God, and the sense in which the Bible uses the term "world," not to misapprehend the nature of his "enmity." To seasoned church-goers the sermon was both true and very satisfactory. But when the minister reached the conclusion of his argument with the words, "So then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God," poor Ida drew a long dreary sigh, and wished she had remained at home. She was certainly "in the flesh," if any one were; and in addition to the fact that she neither pleased herself nor any one else that she respected and loved, she was now given the assurance, apparently fortified by Holy Writ, that she could not "please God." The simple and divine diplomacy by which this "enmity" is removed was unknown to her. She turned to note how Miss Burton received a message that was so unwelcome to herself, and saw that she was not listening. There was a dreamy far-away look in her eyes that clearly was not inspired by the thought of "enmity." "She is probably thinking of the artist and the ideal future that he can give her. How foolish it is in poor Ik there to try to rival HIM! It was an unlucky day for us both, cousin of mine, when we came to this place!" More disheartened and despondent than ever, she rode homeward with her mother, answering questions only in monosyllables. All that religion had said to her that morning was: "Give up the world--all with which you have hitherto been familiar, and have enjoyed." God was an infinite, all-powerful, remote abstraction, and yet for His sake she must resign everything which would enable her to forget, or at least disguise the pain and jealousy which were at times almost unendurable; and she knew of no substitute with which to replace "the world" she was asked to forego. This religion of mere negation, expulsion, and restraint is too often presented to the mind. Dykes and levees are very useful, and in some places essential; but if low malarial shores could be lifted up into breezy hills and table-lands, this would be better. This is not only possible, but it is the true method in respect to the human soul; and one should seek to grow better not by sedulous effort to keep out an evil world, but rather to fill up his heart with a good pure world such as God made and blessed. The sermon Ida heard that morning, therefore, only added to the burden that was already too heavy to be carried much longer. Chapter XXVI. Sunday Table-talk. To the relief of all save Mrs. Mayhew, Sibley dined with a couple of young, fast men, who enforced their invitation by the irresistible attraction of a bottle of wine. "There is too much starch and dignity at that table to suit me, any way," he remarked. "There are those two model saints, who led our devotions last Sunday evening, flirting with ponderous gravity with that deep little school-ma'am, who has turned both their heads, but can't make up her mind which of them to capture, both being such marvellously good game for one of her class. Cute Yankee as she believes herself to be, she's a fool to think that either of them is more than playing with her. By Jupiter! but it would be sport to cut 'em both out; and I could do it if I were up here a week. Those who know the world know that such women cipher out these matters in the spirit of New England thrift, and you have only to mislead them with sufficient plausible data to capture them body and soul." And Sibley complacently sipped his wine as if he had stated all there was to be said on the subject. Few men prided themselves more on a profound knowledge of the world than he. Ida's despondency while at dinner was so great she could not throw it off. Listlessly and wearily she barely tasted of the different courses as they were passed to her. She consciously made only one effort, and that was to appear utterly indifferent to Van Berg; and both circumstances and his contemptuous neglect made but little feigning necessary. The evening before had associated her so inseparably in his mind with Sibley, that he was beginning to regard her with aversion. "Trivial natures are disturbed by trivial causes," he thought; "and she looks as if the world had turned black because Sibley has been lured from her side for an hour by a bottle of wine. He'll revive her again before supper." "How wintry that old gentleman looks who is just entering!" Stanton remarked. "It makes one shiver to think of becoming as frosty and white as he." "Oh, don't speak of being old!" cried Mrs. Mayhew. "Remember there are some at the table who are in greater danger of that final misfortune than you young people." "Do you dread being old, Miss Burton?" Van Berg asked. "No; but I do the process of growing old." "For once we think alike, Miss Burton," said Ida abruptly. "To think of plodding on through indefinite dreary years toward the miserable conclusion of old age! and yet it is said nothing is so sweet as life." "Really, Cousin, your advance down the ages reminds one more of a quickstep than of 'plodding,'" remarked Stanton. "The step matters little," she retorted, "as long as you feel as if you were going to your own funeral. I agree with Miss Burton, that growing old is worse than being old, thought Heaven knows that both are bad enough." "I'm not sure that Heaven would agree with either of us," said Miss Burton, gently. "I fear the sermon did not do you much good, Coz," said Stanton, maliciously. "No; it did not. It did me harm, if such a thing were possible," was the reckless reply. "Human nature is generally regarded as capable of improvement," remarked Stanton, sententiously. "I was not speaking of human nature generally," said Ida; "I was thinking of myself." "As usual, my charming Cousin." She flushed resentfully, but did not reply. "And I feel that Miss Mayhew has done herself injustice in her thought," said Miss Burton, with a sympathetic glance at Ida. "And how is it with you, Mr. Van Berg? Do you dread growing old?" "I fear my opinion will remind you of Jack Bunsby," replied the artist. "Growing old is like a prospective journey. So much depends upon the country through which you travel and your company. My father and mother are taking a summer excursion through Norway and Sweden, and I know they are enjoying themselves abundantly. They have had a good time growing old. Why should not others?" Ida appeared to resent his words bitterly; and with a tone and manner that surprised every one she said: "Mr. Van Berg, I could not have believed that you were capable of making so superficial a reply. Why not say, if the poor were rich, if the ugly were beautiful, if the sick were well, if the bad were good, and we all had our heart's desires, we could journey on complacently and prosperously?" The artist flushed deeply under this address, coming from such an unexpected quarter; but he replied quietly: "That allusion with which I prefaced my remark, Miss Mayhew, proved that I regard my opinion as of little value; and yet I have no better one to offer. Nothing is more trite than the comparison of life to a journey or a pilgrimage. If one were compelled to travel with very disagreeable people, in fifth-rate conveyances, and through regions uninteresting or repulsive, the journey, or to abandon the figure, growing old, might well be dreaded. From my soul I would pity one condemned to such a fate. It would, indeed, be 'dreary plodding' where one's best hope would be that he might stumble upon his grave as soon as possible. But I do not believe in any such dreary fatalism. We are endowed with intelligence to choose carefully our paths and companions; and I cannot help thinking that the majority might choose wisely enough to make life an agreeable journey in the main." "Look here, Van; I'm no casuist," said Stanton with a shrug; "but I can detect a flaw in your philosophy at once. Suppose one wanted good company and could not get it." "He had better jog on alone, in that case, than take bad company." "And heavy jogging it might be too," muttered Stanton, with a frown. Ida's head dropped low and her face became very pale. Her impulsive cousin in expressing his own tormenting fear, had unconsciously defined what promised to be her wretched experience. She felt that the artist's eyes were upon her; and in the blind impulse to shield her secret, which then was so vividly plain to her consciousness, she raised her head suddenly, and with a reckless laugh remarked: "For a wonder I also can half agree with Mr. Van Berg--congenial society for me or none at all." A second later she could have bitten her tongue out before uttering words virtually claimed Sibley as her most congenial companion. "Miss Mayhew is better than most of us in that she lives up to her theories," Van Berg remarked, coldly. Her eyes shot at him a sudden flash of impotent protest and resentment, and then she lowered her head with a flush of the deepest shame. At that moment a loud discordant laugh from Sibley caused many to look around toward him, and not a few shook their heads and exchanged significant glances, intimating that they thought the young man was in a "bad way." "Your philosophy, Mr. Van Berg," said Miss Burton, "may answer very well for the wise and fortunate, for those whose lives are as yet unspoiled and unblighted by themselves or others. But even an artist, who by his vocation gives his attention to the beautiful, must nevertheless see that there are many in the world who are neither wise nor fortunate--who seem predestined by their circumstances, folly, and defective natures to blunder and sin till they reach a point where reason and intelligence can do little more for them than reveal how foolish and wrong they have been, or how great a good they have missed and lost irrevocably. The past, with its opportunities, has gone, and the remnant of earthly life offers such a dismal prospect, and they find themselves so shut up to a certain lot, so shackled by the very conditions in which they exist, that they are disheartened. It is hard for many of us not to feel that we have been utterly defeated and so sink into fatal apathy." Mr. Mayhew, who had been coldly impassive and resolutely taciturn thus far, now leaned back in his chair, and his eyes glowed like two lamps from beneath the eaves of his shaggy brows. A young and lovely woman was giving voice to his own crushed and ill-starred nature; and strange to say, she identified herself with the class for which she spoke. in the depths of his heart he bowed down, reverenced, and thanked her for claiming this kinship to himself, even thought he knew it must be misfortune and not wrong that had marred her life. If Van Berg had not been so preoccupied with the speaker, he would have seen that the daughter also was hanging on the lips that were expressing simply and eloquently the thoughts with which her own heavy heart was burdened. But when the artist began to speak, Ida's face grew paler than ever as she saw the glow of admiration and sympathy that lighted up his features. Compliments she had received in endless variety all her life, but never had she seen a man look at her with that expression. "Pardon me, Miss Burton," he said, "if I protest against your using the pronoun you did. No one will ever be able to associate the word 'defeat' with you. I do not understand your philosophy; but I know it is far better than mine. While I admit the truth of your words that I do professionally shut my eyes as far as possible to all the ugly facts of life, still I have been compelled to note that the world is full of evils for which I can see no remedy, and as a matter of common experience they apparently never are remedied. Good steering and careful seamanship are immensely important; but of what use are they if one is caught in a tornado or maelstrom, or wedged in among rocks, so that going to pieces is only a question of time? Good seamanship ought to keep one from such a fate, it may be said. So it does in the majority of instances; but often the wisest are caught. If you will realize it, Miss Burton, all in this house, men, women, and children, are about as able to take a ship across the Atlantic, as to make the life voyage wisely and safely. As a rule we only sail and sail. Where we are going, and what we shall meet, the Lord only knows--we don't. I have travelled abroad at times, and have seen a little of society at home, and if growing selfish, mean, and vicious, is going to the bad, than it would seem that more find the bottom than any port." "Oh, hush, Mr. Van Berg," cried Miss Burton. "You will fill the world with a blind, stupid fate and the best one can hope for is the rare good luck or the skilful dodging which enables one to escape the random blows and storms. I believe in God and law, although I confess I can understand neither. As the good Mussulman looks towards Mecca, so I look toward them and pray and hope on. This snarl of life will yet be untangled." "I assure you that I try to do the same, but not with your success, I fear. Your illustration strikes me as unfortunate. The Moslem looks toward Mecca; but what is there in Mecca worth looking toward? If he only thought so, might he not as well look in any other direction?" "Please don't talk so, Mr. Van Berg. Don't you see that he can't look in any other direction? He has been taught to look thither till it is part of his nature to do so. In destroying his faith you may destroy him. Pardon me, if I ask you to please remember that faith in God and a future life is more vitally important to some of us than our daily bread. We may not be able to explain it, but we must hope and trust or perish. To go back to your nautical illustration, suppose some who had been wrecked were clinging to a rocky shore, and trying to clamber up out of the cold spray and surf to warmth and safety; would it not be a cruel thing to go along the shore and unloosen the poor numb hands however gently and scientifically it might be done? Loosing that hold means sinking to unknown depths. With complacent self-approval and with learned Athenian airs, many of the savans of the day are virtually guilty of this horrible cruelty." "I do not take sides with the Athenians who called St. Paul a babbler," said Van Berg, flushing; "yet truth compels me to admit that I could worship more sincerely at the 'Alter of the unknown God,' than before any conception of Deity that modern Theology has presented to my mind. That does not prove much, I am bound to say, for I have never given these subjects sufficient attention to be entitled to have opinions. Still, I like fair play, whatever be the consequences. Your arraignment of talking skeptics is a severe one and strikes me in a new light. Might they not urge, in self-defence, that there was a deeper and darker abyss on the farther side of the rock to which the wrecked were clinging? May they not argue that the grasp of faith may lead to a deeper and more bitter disappointment?" "How can they know that? How can they know what shall be in the ages to come?" replied Miss Burton, speaking rapidly. "This is the situation:--I am clinging to some hope, something that I believe will be truth which sustains me, and the only force of the skeptic's words is to loosen my grasp. No better support is given, no new hope inspired. Believe me," she concluded passionately, "I would rather die a thousand deaths by torture than lose my faith that there is a God who will bring order out of this chaos of broken, thwarted lives, of which the world is full, and that those who seek a 'happier shore' will eventually find it." "You will find it," said Van Berg, in low emphatic tones; and then he added with a shrug, as he rose from the table, "I wish my chances were as good." Ida, who a few weeks before would have heard this conversation with unqualified disgust, had listened with eager eyes and parted lips, and she now said coldly, but with a deep sigh: "Your God and happy shore, Miss Burton, are too vague and far away. Troubles and temptations are in our very hearts." Van Berg looked hastily toward her, but she rose and turned her face from him. Mr. Mayhew shook his head despondently, as if his daughter's words found a deep, sad echo in his own nature. "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter; said the wise man of old, 'all is vanity and vexation of spirit,'" cried Stanton, with the air of one who was trying to escape from a nightmare. Miss Burton at once became her old, smiling self. "You do not quote 'the wise man' correctly," she said; "but you remind me that he did say 'a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.' It is like mercy 'twice blessed.' This much, at least, I know is true; and Mr. Van Berg's words have put us all at sea to such an extant that it is well to find one wee solid point to stand on." As the artist passed out he found opportunity to whisper in her ear: "I cannot tell you how much I honor the woman who with her SAD heart makes others 'merry.'" She blushed and smiled, but only said: "How blind you are, Mr. Van Berg! Can't you perceive that nothing else does me so much good? Now you see how selfish I am." Ida saw him whisper, and noted the answering smile and blush. Was it strange that so slight a thing should depress her more than all the evils of the present world and the world to come? Surely, since human hearts are what they are, a far-away God would be like the sun of the tropics to the ice-bound at the poles. Chapter XXVII. A Family Group. The old adage, that "as the wine comes in the man steps out," was not true of Sibley, for the man had stepped out permanently long since. But not very much wine was required to overthrow the flimsy barriers of self-restraint and courtesy that he tried to interpose in his sober moments between his true self and society. Mr. Burleigh frowned at him more than once during the dinner-hour, and was glad to see him stroll off in the grounds with his boon companions. Stanton followed the Mayhews to their rooms, for he wished to remonstrate with Ida and Mrs. Mayhew in regard to their apparent intimacy with the fellow. "Ida," he said, "do you realized the force of your words to Mr. Van Berg at the table to-day, taken in connection with your action? You said, 'congenial society for me, or none at all.' Whatever Van's faults are, he is a perfect gentleman; and yet you treat him as rudely and coldly as you can, and assert by your actions that Sibley's society is by far the most congenial to you." Ida's overstrained nerves gave way, and she said, irritably: "You understood the cheerful questions of our appetizing table-talk to-day better than you understand me; so please be still." "Oh, pshaw, Ik," commenced Mrs. Mayhew, who now began to wake up since the theme was quite within her sphere, "you are affecting very Puritanical views of late. It does not seem so very long since you and Sibley were good friends." "It is within the memory of woman, if not of man," added Ida, maliciously, "since you drank his brandy, and considerable of it, too." Stanton flushed angrily but controlled himself. "He was never my friend--never more than an acquaintance," he said emphatically, "and I never before knew him as well as I do now. Moreover, I may as well say it plainly, I am through with that style of men, forever. There is little prospect of my ever becoming saint-like, but I shall, at least, cease to be vulgar in my associations. I protest against Sibley's coming to our table again." "You are absurdly unreasonable," replied Mrs. Mayhew in an aggrieved tone. "Sibley is only sowing his wild oats now as you did in the past. I don't know why he is not as good as your friend Mr. Van Berg, who, as far as I can make out, is more of an infidel than anything else. I never could endure these doubting, unsettling people." "I admit that Sibley is established," said Stanton. "There is little prospect of his ever getting out of the mire in which he is now imbedded." "Nonsense! What has Sibley done that is particularly out of the way, more than you and other young men? I'm sure his family is quite as rich and fashionable as that of this artist." "More rich and fashionable. There is just the difference between the Sibleys and the Van Bergs that there is between a drop curtain at a theatre and one of Bierstadt's oil paintings. There is more paint and surface in the former, but truth and genius in the latter. If you prefer paint and surface it is a matter of taste." "I won't endure such insinuations from you," said Mrs. Mayhew, indignantly. "Oh, hush mother!" said Ida, quietly. "I think Ik is very magnanimous in praising his friend in view of circumstances that are becoming quite apparent. Possibly he is exaggerating a little, in order to show us what a great, generous soul he has. For one, I would like to know wherein this superior race of Van Bergs differs from those who have had the presumption to suppose themselves at least equals." Ida's allusion and tone stung Stanton into saying more than he intended, and thus the girl's artifice became successful. Hearing about Van berg and all that related to him was like looking out of a desert into a fruitful oasis; and yet cruel as was the fascination, it was also irresistible. "The manner in which the Van Bergs live, would be a revelation to you," said Stanton, angrily, "and one undoubtedly not at all to your taste. In comparison with the Sibley show-rooms, which are stuffed and crowded with costly and incongruous trumpery, Mrs. Van Berg's house would seem very plain; but to one capable of distinguishing the difference, the evidence of mind and taste, instead of mere money, is seen on every side. Simplicity and beauty are united as far as possible. Everything is the best of its kind and devoid of veneer and sham. There is no lavish and vulgar profusion, and there is a harmony of color and decoration that makes every room a picture in itself. Moreover, the house does not grow suddenly shabby after you leave those parts which are seen by visitors. It is all genuine and high-toned, like the people who live in it." "What sort of people are Mrs. Van Berg and her daughter?" Ida asked, with averted face and low constrained voice. "Mrs. Van Berg comes of a family that has been aristocratic for several generations, and one that has been singularly free from black sheep. She appears to strangers somewhat reserved and stately, but when you become better acquainted you find she has a warm, kind heart. But she has a perfect horror of vulgarity. If she had seen this Sibley take more wine than he ought and make a spectacle of himself at a public table, she would no more admit him to her parlor than a Bowery rough. Mere wealth would not turn the scale a hair in his favor. If she has impressed on her son one trait more than another, it is this disgust with all kinds of vulgar people and vulgar vice. I don't think Van will sit down at the same table with Sibley again, or permit Miss Burton to do so." Ida averted her face still farther, but said nothing. "Indeed!" said Mrs. Mayhew; "and has Miss Burton given him the rights of a protector." "Sorry to disappoint you, aunt; but I have no nice bit of gossip to report. Miss Burton is an orphan, and so any friend of hers has a right to protect her. I would have taken this matter into my own hands were it not out of consideration for you and Ida, who unfortunately have permitted yourselves to be identified with Sibley as his especial friends. Indeed, most in the house regard him as Ida's favored or accepted suitor. But I warn you to cut loose from him at once or you may suffer a severe humiliation. If you and Ida will continue to encourage him, then I tell you plainly I shall follow you no further into the slough." The maiden stamped her foot and made an emphatic gesture of rage and protest, but did not trust herself to answer the cruel words, each one of which was like the thrust of a knife. But Mrs. Mayhew, whose desire to be respectable was a ruling passion, now became thoroughly alarmed and said hastily: "Mr. Sibley is certainly nothing to me, and I hope nothing to Ida. Get rid of him any way you can, since things have reached the pass you represent. If society is going to put him under ban, we must cut him; that's all there is about it, and his behavior at dinner gives us an excuse." During this conversation Mr. Mayhew had been lying on the sofa with closed eyes, and as motionless as if he were dead. Now he said in low, bitter tones: "Mark it well--an excuse, not a reason. O, virtue! how beautiful thou art!" "You are the last one in the world to speak on this subject," said Mrs. Mayhew, angrily. "Right again. You see, Ik, my family never before met a man who promised to make such an appropriate addition to our number. It's a pity you are interfering;" and he poured out a large glass of brandy. "Would to God I had died before I had seen this day!" cried Ida in a tone of such sharp agony that all turned towards her in a questioning surprise; but she rushed into her own room and locked the door after her. "Things have gone farther between her and Sibley than we thought," said Stanton, gloomily. "Well, Ik," said Mr. Mayhew with a laugh that was dreadful to hear, "you had better cut loose from us. We are all going to the devil by the shortest cut." "Would to heaven I had never seen you!" cried Mrs. Mayhew, hysterically. "YOU are the one who is dragging us down. If my nephew deserts us, I will brand him as a coward and no gentleman." "I'll not desert you unless you desert yourself," said Stanton, with a gesture of disgust and impatience; "but if you persist in going down into the deepest quagmires you can find, you cannot expect me to follow you;" and with these words he left the room. Mr. Mayhew was soon sunk in the deepest lethargy, and his wife spent the afternoon in impotently fretting and fuming against her "miserable fate," as she termed it, and in trying to devise some way of keeping up appearances. Chapter XXVIII. Rather Volcanic. Stanton was glad to escape from the house after the interview described in the previous chapter; and observing that Van Berg was reclining under a tree at some little distance from the hotel, stolled thither and threw himself down on the grass beside him. But his perturbation was so evident that his friend remarked: "You are out of sorts, Ik. What's the matter?" "I've been settling this Sibley business with my aunt and cousin," snarled Stanton; "and some women always make such blasted fools of themselves. But they won't have anything more to do with him; at least, I'm sure my aunt won't. As for Ida--but the less said the better. I'm so out of patience with her folly that I can't trust myself to speak of her." "Stanton," said Van Berg, gloomily, "you have no idea of the regret and disquiet which that girl has caused me as an artist. I have seen her features now for weeks, and I cannot help looking at them, for they almost realize my idea of perfection. But the associations of this beauty are beginning to irritate me beyond endurance." "It was a motley crowd that I was the means of bringing to your table," said Stanton, with an oath; "and I've no doubt you have wished us all away many times." Van Berg laid his hand on his friend's arm, and looked into his eyes. "Ik," he said slowly, "I was your friend when I came here--I am your friend still. If I cannot love you better than I do myself, you must forgive me. But I shall never take one unfair advantage of you, and I recognize the fact that you have equal rights with myself. Ik, let us be frank with each other this once more, and then the future must settle all questions. The woman we both love is too pure and good for either of us to do a mean thing to win her. Do your best, old fellow. If you succeed, I will congratulate you with an honest heart even thought it be a heavy one. I shall not detract from you in the slightest degree, or cease to show for you the thorough liking and respect that I feel. It shall simply be a maiden's choice between us two; and you know it is said that the heart makes this choice for reasons inexplicable even to itself." "Van, you are a noble, generous fellow," said the impulsive Stanton, grasping his friend's hand. "I must admit that you have been a fair and considerate rival. Even my jealousy could find no fault." Then he added, in deep despondency: "But it is of no use. You have virtually won her already." "No," said Van Berg, thoughtfully, "I wish you were not mistaken, but you are. There is something in her manner towards me at times which I cannot understand; but I have a conviction that I have not touched her heart." "She does not avoid you as she does me," said Stanton, moodily. "No, she accepts my society much too frankly and composedly," answered Van Berg with a shrug. "I fear that I can join her anywhere and at any time without quickening her pulse or deepening the color in her cheeks. Now, Ik, we understand each other. Happy the man who wins, and if you are the fortunate one, I'll dance at your wedding, and no one shall see that I carry a thousand pounds weight, more or less, in my heart." "I can't promise to do as much for you, Van," said Stanton, trying to smile. "I could not come to your wedding. In fact, Van, I--I hardly know what I would do--what I will do. A few weeks since and the world was abundantly satisfactory. Now it is becoming a vacuum. I fear I haven't a ghost of a chance, and I--I--don't like to think of the future. Ye gods! What a change one little woman can make in a man's life! I used to laugh at these things, and for the past few years thought myself invulnerable. And yet, Van," he added with sudden energy, "I think the better of myself that I can love and honor that woman. Did I regard her now as I supposed I would when you first uttered your half-jesting prophecy, what a base, soulless anatomy I would be---" "SACRE! here comes Sibley and others of the same ilk, gabbling like the unmitigated fools that they are." Van Berg turned his back upon the advancing party in an unmistakable manner, and Stanton smoked with a stolid, impassive face that had anything but welcome in it. Sibley was just sufficiently excited by wine to act out recklessly his evil self. "What's the matter, Stanton?" he exclaimed. "Your phiz is as long as if the world looked black and blue as a prize-fighter's eye. Is Sunday an off day in your flirtation? Does the little school-ma'am take after her Puritan daddies, and say 'Hold thy hand till Monday?' Get her out of the crowd, and you'll find it all a pretence." Stanton rose to his feet, but was so quiet that Sibley did not realize the storm he was raising. Van Berg remained on the ground with his back to the party, but was smoking furiously. By an effort at self-control that made his voice harsh and constrained, Stanton said, briefly: "Mr. Sibley, I request that you never mention that lady's name to me again in any circumstances. I request that you never mention her name to any one else except in tones and words of the utmost respect. I make these requests politely, as is befitting the day and my own self-respect; but if you disregard them the consequences to you will be very serious." "Good Lord, Stanton! has she treated you so badly! But don't take it to heart. It's all Yankee thrift, designed to enhance her value. We are all men of the world here, and know what women are. If it is true every man has his price, every woman has a smaller---" Before he could utter another word a blow in his face from Stanton sent him sprawling to the earth. He sprang up and was about to draw a concealed weapon, when his companions interfered and held him. "I shall settle with you for this," he half shouted, grinding his teeth. "You shall indeed, sir," said Stanton, "and as early, too, as the light will permit to-morrow. Here is my friend Mr. Van Berg," pointing to the artist who stood beside him, "and you have your friends with you. You must either apologize, or meet me as soon as Sunday is past." "I'll meet you now," cried Sibley, with a volley of oaths. "I want no cowardly subterfuge of Sunday." Stanton hesitated a moment, and then said decidedly: "No; I'm not a blackguard like yourself, and out of respect for the Sabbath and others I will have nothing more to do with you to-day; but I will meet you tomorrow as soon as it is light;" and Stanton turned away to avoid further provocation. Van Berg thus far had stood quietly to one side, but his face had that white, rigid aspect which indicates the rare but dangerous anger of men usually quiet and undemonstrative in their natures. "Now that you are through, Stanton, I have something to say concerning this affair," he began, in words that were as clean-cut and hard as steel. "If you propose to give this fellow a dog's whipping to-morrow, I will go with you and witness the well-deserved chastisement. But if you are intending a conventional duel, I'll have nothing to do with it, for two reasons. The first reason this fellow will not understand. Dueling is against my principles, and he knows nothing of principle. But even if I accepted the old and barbarous code, I should insist that a friend of mine should fight with a gentleman, and not a low blackguard." "You use that epithet again at your peril," hissed Sibley, advancing a step towards him. Van Berg made a gesture of contempt toward the speaker as he turned and said: "You understand me, Stanton; it is not from any lack of loyalty toward you as my friend; but I would not be worthy of your friendship were I false to my sense of duty and honor." "You are both white-livered cowards," roared Sibley. "One sneaks off under cover of the day--I never saw a fellow taken with a pious fit so suddenly before. The other, in order to keep his skin whole, prates of his dread lest his principles be punctured. the devil take you both for a brace of champion sneaks;" and he turned on his heel and was about to stalk away with a grand air of superiority, when Van Berg said, emphatically: "Wait a moment; I'm not through with you yet. I give you but a brief half-hour to complete your arrangements for leaving the hotel." "What do you mean?" said Sibley, turning fiercely upon him. "I mean, sir, that your presence in that house is an insult to every lady in it, which I, as a gentleman, shall no longer permit. Curse you, had you no mother that you could thus insult all good women by the remark you made a few moments since?" Half beside himself with rage, Sibley drew a pistol; but before he could aim correctly one of his companions struck up his hand and the bullet whizzed harmlessly over Van Berg's head. There was a faint scream from the house, which indicated that the scene had been witnessed by some lady there. The intense passion of the artist, which manifested itself characteristically, held him unflinching to his purpose. "So you can be a murderer also?" he said, scornfully. "It would almost compensate a man for being SHOT, if, as a result, you could be HUNG." Sibley's companions speedily disarmed him, strongly remonstrating in the meantime. He, in sudden revulsion, began to realize what he had attempted, and his flushed face became very pale. "Let them leave me alone," he growled sullenly, "and I'll leave them alone." "For Heaven's sake, Mr. Van Berg," cried Sibley's companions, "let the matter end here, lest worse come of it." In the same steely, relentless tones, which made very word seem like a bullet, Van Berg took out his watch, and said: "It is now four o'clock, sir. After half-past four, you must not show your libertine's face in that house again, while there's a lady in it that I respect." "Burleigh is proprietor of that house," replied Sibley, doggedly; "and I'll stay up the entire week, just to spite you." "Let us go to Burleigh, then," said the artist, promptly. "We will settle this question at once." Sibley readily agreed to this appeal to his host, fully believing that he would try to smooth over matters and assure Van Berg that he could not turn away a wealthy and profitable guest; and so, without further parley, they all repaired to Mr. Burleigh's private office, arousing that gentleman from an afternoon nap to a state of mind that effectually banished drowsiness for the remainder of the day. "Mr. Burleigh," began Sibley, indignantly, "this fellow, Van Berg, has the impudence to say that I must leave this house within half an hour. I wish you to inform him that YOU are the proprietor of this establishment." "Humph," remarked Mr. Burleigh, phlegmatically, "that is your side of the story. Now, Mr. Van Berg, let us have yours." "Mr. Burleigh," said Van Berg, in tones that straightened up the languid host in his easy chair, "would you permit a known and recognized disreputable woman to be flaunting about this hotel?" "You know me better than to ask such a question," said the landlord, the color of his ruddy cheeks suddenly deepening. "Well, sir, I claim that a man who bears precisely the same character is no more to be tolerated; and I have learned to respect you as one whom no consideration could induce to permit the presence of a human beast, whose every thought of woman is an insult." "It's all an infernal lie," began Sibley. "I only made a slight, half-jesting allusion to that prudish little school-ma'am that these fellows are so cracked over; and they have gone on like mad bulls ever since." Mr. Burleigh started to his feet with a tremendous oath. "You made an 'allusion,' as you term it, to Miss Burton, eh!--the young lady who was put under my charge, and who comes from one of the best families in New England. I know what kind of allusions fellows of your kidney make;" and the incensed host struck his bell sharply. "Send the porter here instantly," he said to the boy who answered. "What do you mean to do?" asked Sibley, turning pale. "I mean to put you out of my house within the next ten minutes," said Mr. Burleigh, emphatically. "You might as well have made an allusion to my wife as to Miss Burton; and let me tell you that if you wag your wanton tongue again, I'll have my colored waiters whip you off the premises." "But where shall I go?" whined Sibley, now thoroughly cowed. "Go to the nearest kennel or sty you can find. Either place would be more appropriate for you than my house. Mr. Van Berg and Mr. Stanton, I think you for your conduct in this affair. You are correct in supposing that I wish to entertain only gentlemen and ladies." Sibley now began to bluster about law and vengeance. "Be still, sir," thundered Mr. Burleigh. "One of the carriages will take you to the depot or landing as you choose. After that, trouble me or mine again at your peril. Now, be off. No, I'll not take any of your dirty money; and if these friends of yours wish to go with you, they are welcome to do so." "We are only acquaintances of Mr. Sibley's," chorused his late companions, "and came in merely to see fair play." "Well, you haven't seen 'fair play,'" growled Mr. Burleigh. "I've treated the fellow much better than he deserves." Before Sibley could realize it, a carriage whirled him and his baggage away. His reckless anger having evaporated, the base and cowardly instincts of his nature resumed their sway, and he was glad to slink off to New York, thus escaping further danger and trouble. Chapter XXIX. Evil Lives Cast Dark Shadows. Changes in the world without often make sad havoc in our content and happiness. Loss of fortune and friends, removal to new scenes, death and disaster, sometimes so alter the outlook that we have to ask ourselves: Is this the same earth in which we have dwelt hitherto? But the changes that can most blast and blacken, or, on the other hand, glorify the world about us, are those which take place within our souls. Such a radical change had apparently taken place in Ida Mayhew's world. She was bewildered with her trouble, and could not understand the dreary outlook. She had come to the Lake House but a few weeks before, a vain, light-hearted maiden, looking upon life with laughing and thoughtless glances, and having no more definite purposes than the butterfly that flits from flower to flower, caring not which are harmless and which poisonous, so that they yield a momentary sweetness. But now, for causes utterly unforeseen and half-inexplicable, all flowers had withered, and the old pleasures once so exhilarating were a weariness even in thought. Her world, once a pleasure garden, had been transformed into a path so thorny and flinty that every step brought new bruises and lacerations; and it led away among shadows so cold and dark, that she shivered at the thought of her prospective life. Her heart had so suddenly and thoroughly betrayed her, that she was overwhelmed with a sense of helplessness and perplexity. The spoiled and flattered girl had always been accustomed to have her own way. Self-gratification had been the rule and habit of her life. If Van Berg had only admired and complimented her, if he had joined the honeyed chorus of flattery that had waited on her sensuous beauty, his voice would probably have been unheeded and lost among many others. But his sharp demand for something more than a face and form had awakened her, and to her dismay she learned that her real and lasting self was as dwarfed and deformed as her transient and outward self was perfect. The artist seemed to her princely, regal even, in his strong cultivated manhood, his lofty calling and ambition, and his high social rank. As for herself, it now appeared that her beauty, whose spell she had thought no man could resist, had lured him to her side only long enough to discover what she was and who she was, and then he had turned away in disgust. From their first moment of meeting, she felt that she had been peculiarly unfortunate in the impressions she had made upon him. Her attendant at the concert-garden had been a fool; and now he was associating her with a man whom he more than despised. She believed that he pitied her father as the victim of a wife's heartlessness and a daughter's selfishness and frivolity, and that he felt a repugnance toward her mother which his politeness could not wholly disguise. He was probably learning to characterize them in his mind by her father's horrible words--"froth and mud." Such miserable thoughts were flocking round her like croaking ravens as she sat rigid and motionless in her room, her form tense from the severity of her mental distress. Suddenly Sibley's loud tones, and her cousin's voice in reply, caught her attention, and she opened the lattice of the blinds. She had scarcely done so before she saw Stanton strike the blow which had felled Sibley to the earth. With breathless interest she watched the scene till Van Berg stepped forward. Then she sprang to a drawer, and taking out a small field-glass which she carried on her summer excursions was able to see the expression of the young men's faces, although she could not distinguish their words. The stern, menacing aspect of the artist made her tremble even at her distance, and it was evident that his words were throwing Sibley into a transport of rage; and when in his passion he tried to shoot Van Berg, she could not repress the cry that attracted their attention. Her mother, in the adjoining room, commenced knocking at the door, asking what was the matter, but received no answer until Ida saw that the young men were coming toward the house. Then she threw open the door, and told Mrs. Mayhew that she had seen something that looked like a large spider, and that nothing was the matter. Without waiting for further questioning she flitted hastily down-stairs and from one concealed post of observation to another until she saw the angry party enter Mr. Burleigh's private office. A small parlor next to it was empty, and once within it, the loud tones spoken on the other side of the slight partition were distinctly heard. As she listened to the words which Van Berg and Mr. Burleigh addressed to the man whom all in the house had regarded as her accepted lover, or at least her congenial friend, her cheeks grew scarlet, and when he was dismissed from the house, she fled to her room; wishing that it were a place in which she might hide forever, so overwhelming was her sense of shame and humiliation. How could she meet the guests of the Lake House again? Worse than all, how could she meet the scornful eyes of the man who had driven from the place the suitor that she was supposed to favor as he might have scourged away a dog. She could not now explain that Sibley was and ever had been less than nothing to her--that she had both detested and despised him. She had permitted herself to touch pitch, and it had of necessity left its stain. To go about now and proclaim her real sentiments toward the man who apparently had been her favorite, would seem to others, she thought, the quintessence of meanness. She felt that she had been caught in the meshes of an evil web, and that it was useless to struggle. Despairing, hopeless, her cheeks burning with shame as with a fever, she sat hour after hour refusing to see any one. She would not go down to supper. She left the food untasted that was sent to her room. She sat staring at vacancy until her face became a dim pale outline in the deepening twilight, and finally was lost in the shadow of night. But the darkness that gathered around the poor girl's heart was deeper and almost akin to the rayless gloom that positive crime creates, so nearly did she feel that she was associated with one from whom her woman's soul, perverted as it was, shrank with inexpressible loathing. "Ida is in one of her worst tantrums," whispered Mrs. Mayhew to Stanton; "I never knew her to act so badly as she has of late. I wouldn't have thought that such a man as you have found Sibley to be could gain so great a hold upon her feelings. But law! she'll be all over it in a day or two. Nothing lasts with Ida, and least of all, a beau." "Well," said Stanton, bitterly, "she is disgracing herself and all related to her by her inexcusable folly in this instance. Those who pretended to be Sibley's friends at dinner, are now trying to win a little respectability by turning against him, and the story of his behavior is circulating through the house. All will soon know that he shot at Van Berg, and that he made insulting remarks about Miss Burton. It will appear to every one as if Ida were sulking in her room on Sibley's account; and people are usually thought to be no better than their friends." "Oh, dear!" half sobbed Mrs. Mayhew, "won't you go up to her room and show her the consequences of her folly?" "No," said Stanton, irritably; "not to-night. I know her too well. She will take no advice from me or any one else at present. To-morrow I will have one more plain talk with her; and if she won't listen to reason I wash my hands of her. Where is Uncle?" "Don't ask me. Was there ever a more unfortunate woman? With such a husband and daughter, how can I keep up appearances?" Stanton walked away with a gesture of disgust and impatience. "Curse it all!" he muttered; "and their shadows fall on me too. What chance have I with the snow-white maiden I'd give my life for when followed by such associations?" Chapter XXX. The Deliberate Wooer Speaks First. Mr. Burleigh was one of those fortunate men who when the weather is rough outside--as was often the case in his calling--can always find smooth water in the domestic haven of a wife's apartment. Thus Mrs. Burleigh soon learned the cause of his perturbation; and as she knew Jennie Burton would hear the story from some one else, could not deny herself the feminine enjoyment of being the first to tell it, and of congratulating her on the knightly defender she had secured; for the quarrel had come before Mr. Burleigh in such a form as to make Van Berg the principal in the affair. Miss Burton's cheek flushed deeply and resentfully as she heard the circumstances in which her name had been spoken, and she said with emphasis: "Mr. Van Berg impressed me as a chivalric man from the first day of our meeting. But I wish he had paid no heed to the words of such a creature as Mr. Sibley. That his life was endangered on my account pains me more than I can tell you;" and she soon grew so white and faint that Mrs. Burleigh made her take a glass of wine. "Death seems such a terrible thing to a young, strong man," she added, shudderingly, after a moment, and she pressed her hands against her eyes as if to shut out a vision from which she shrank. "May he not still be in danger from this ruffian's revenge?" she asked, looking up in sudden alarm. "I'm afraid that he will be," said Mrs. Burleigh, catching the infection of her fears. "I will have Mr. Burleigh see that he is kept away from this place." Soon after, as Miss Burton was passing through the main hall-way, she met the artist, and stepping into one of the small parlors that was unoccupied, she said: "Mr. Van Berg, I wish to speak with you. I wish both to thank you, and to ask a favor." "Please do the latter only," he replied, smiling. "Mr. Van Berg," she resumed, looking into his face with an expression that made his heart beat more quickly, "your life was endangered on my account this afternoon." "That's a pleasant thought to me," he said, taking her hand, "that is if you are not offended that I presumed to be your knight." "It is a dreadful thought to me," she answered, earnestly; then in a strange and excited manner she added: "You cannot know--death to some is a horrible thing--it prevents so much--I've known--let it come to the old and sad--I could welcome it--but to such as you--O merciful Heaven! Grant me, please grant me, the favor I would ask," she continued, clinging to his hand. "They say this man Sibley is very passionate and revengeful. He may still try to carry out his dreadful purpose. Please shun him, please avoid him--in mercy do. I've more than I can bear now; and if--if--" and she buried her face in her hands. "And can my poor life be of such value to you, Miss Burton?" he asked, in a deep low tone. "Ah! you cannot understand," she said, with a sudden and passionate gesture, "and I entreat you not to ask me to explain. From the first you have been kind to me. I have felt from the day we met that I had found a friend in you; and your risk, your care for me to-day, gives you a peculiar claim as a friend, but in mercy do not ask me to explain why I am so urgent in my request. I cannot, indeed I cannot--at least not now, in this place. Something happened--Sudden death in one young, strong, and full of hope, like you, seems to me horrible--horrible. In mercy promise to incur no risk on my account," she said passionately, and almost wildly. "My poor little friend, how needlessly frightened you are!" he said, soothingly and gently. "There, I will promise you anything that a man of honor can. But a word against you, Jennie Burton, touches me close, very close. As said the Earl of Kent, 'It invades the region of my heart.'" She looked up swiftly and questioningly, and then a sudden crimson suffused her face. With a strong and uncontrollable instinct she appeared to shrink from him. "Kent served one who had lost the power to make return," she said, shaking her head sadly as she turned away. "Let me reply with Kent again," he earnestly responded. "'You have that in your countenance'--in your character--'which I would fain call master'; and I am mastered, nor can I be shaken from my allegiance. I can at least imitate Kent's faithfulness, if not his obtrusiveness, in the service of his king. You have already claimed me as a friend, and so much at least I shall ever be. Let me win more if I can." She became very quiet now, and looked steadily into his flushed, eager face with an expression of sorrowful regret and pain that would have restrained him had a ten-fold stronger and more impetuous love been seeking utterance, and by a gesture, simple yet eloquently impressive, she put her finger to her lips. Then giving him her hand she said, with strong emphasis: "Mr. Van Berg, I would value such a FRIEND as you could be to me more than I can tell you." "I shall be to you all that you will permit," he said, gently yet firmly. "As you now appear I could as soon think of urging my clamorous human love on a sad-eyed saint that had suffered some cruel form of martyrdom for her faith, and then, as the legends teach, had been sent from heaven among us mortals upon some errand of mercy." "Your words are truer than you think," she replied, the pallor deepening in her face. "I have suffered a strange, cruel form of martyrdom. But I am not a saint, only a weak woman. I would value such a friend as you could be exceedingly. Indeed--indeed," she continued hesitatingly, "there are peculiar reasons why I wish we might meet as friends occasionally. If you knew--if you knew all--you would not ask to be more. Can you trust one who is clouded by sadness and mystery?" He took her hand in both of his and answered, "Jennie Burton, there could no greater misfortune befall me than to lose my faith in you. I associate you with all that is most sacred to me. Every instinct of my heart assures me that although the mystery that enshrouds your life may be as cold as death, it is, as far as you are concerned, as white as snow." "Yes, and as far as another is concerned also," she said solemnly. "Your trust is generous, and I am very, very grateful. Perhaps--possibly I may--some time--tell you, for you risked your life for me; and--and--there is another reason. But I have never spoken of it yet. Good-night." "Stay," he said, "I cannot begin being a true friend to you by being a false friend to another. I am ashamed that I have been so preoccupied with myself that I have not spoken of it before. Mr. Stanton resented Sibley's insulting language more promptly than I did. I have been basely accepting a gratitude that rightly belongs to him, and I assure you he is in far more danger from Sibley than I am." Her brow contracted in a sudden frown, and there was something like irritation in her tones as she said: "Danger again! and to another, for my sake! Must I be tortured with fear and anxiety, because a low fellow, true to his nature, will be scurrilous? Mr. Van Berg," she continued, with a sudden flash of her eyes, "are you and Mr. Stanton quarrelling with Mr. Sibley on your own account, or on mine? From henceforth I refuse to have the remotest relation to such a quarrel. No remarks of a man like Sibley can insult me, and hereafter any friend of mine who lowers himself to resent them, or has aught to do with the fellow, will both wound and humiliate me." "After such words, Miss Burton," Van Berg answered with a smile, "rest assured I shall avoid him as I would a pestilence. But remember, I have been as guilty as Stanton, yes, more so; for Stanton received the first provocation, and he is naturally more impetuous than I am. But I have been thanked, as well as warned and justly rebuked. I think," he added, as if the words cost him an effort, " that if you will kindly ask Stanton to have nothing more to do with Sibley, he will accede to your wishes; and whatever he promises, he will perform." "Is your friend, then, so honorable a man?" she asked. "He is, indeed," replied Van Berg, earnestly, while a generous flush suffused his face, "a true, noble-hearted fellow. He shows his worst side at once, but you would discover new and good traits hin him every day." She turned away with a low laugh. "Since you are so loyal to your old friend," she said, "I think you will prove true to your new one. I shall put Mr. Stanton to the test, and discover whether he will give up his quarrel with Mr. Sibley for the sake of such poor thanks as I can give. Once more, good-night." She was hastening away, when he seized her hand and said: "Why do you go with averted face? Have I offended you?" She trembled violently. "Please do not look at me so," she said, falteringly. "I cannot endure it. Pity my weakness." His hand tightened in its warm grasp, and the expression of his face grew more ardent. She looked up with a sudden flash in her eyes, and said, almost sternly: "You must not look at me in that way, or else even friendship will be impossible and we must become strangers. Perhaps, after all, this will be the wisest course for us both," she added, in a gentler tone. He dropped her hand, but said firmly, "No, Miss Jennie, you have given me the right to call you my friend, and I have seen friendship in your eyes, and friends at least we shall be till the end of time. I shall not say good-night. I shall not let you go away and brood by yourself. I have learned that cheering others is the very elixir of your life; so, come into the parlor. I will find Stanton and our friend with the soprano voice, and the guests of the house shall again bless the stars that sent you to us, as I do daily." She smiled faintly and said: "I'll join you there after a little while," and she flitted out into the darkening hall-way, and sought her room by a side stair. A few moments later Stanton, finding the object of his thoughts did not appear among the guests who sought to escape the sultriness of the evening on the wide piazzas or in the large, spacious parlor, began to wander restlessly in a half-unconscious search. A servant was just lighting the gas in the small and remote reception-room as he glanced in. The apartment was empty, and no echoes of the words just spoken were lingering. A little later Miss Burton came down the main stair-way in her breezy, cheery manner, and his jealous fears were quieted. He joined her at once, saying that it was the unanimous wish that she should give them some music again that evening. She would join with him and others, she said; and her manner was so perfectly frank and cordial, so like her bearing towards a lady friend to whom she next spoke, that he fairly groaned in despair of touching a heart that seemed to overflow with kindness toward all. Van Berg soon appeared, but Miss Burton, on this occasion, managed that the singing should be maintained by quite a large group about the piano, and on account of the sultriness of the evening the service of song was brief. While Van Berg was leading a hymn that had been asked for by one of the guests, Miss Burton found the opportunity of saying, "Mr. Stanton, I wish to thank you for your chivalric defence to-day of one who is poor and orphaned. Mr. Van Berg told me of your generous and friendly course. Thus far I can believe that your conduct has been inspired by the truest and most manly impulses. But if in any way you again have aught to do with Mr. Sibley, I shall feel deeply wounded and humiliated. I refuse to be associated with that man, even in the remotest degree. Your delicate sense of honor will teach you that if any further trouble grows out of this affair no effort on your part can separate my name from it. The world rarely distinguishes between a gentlemanly quarrel and a vulgar brawl, especially where one of the parties is essentially vulgar. As a gentleman you will surely shield me from any such associations." Stanton, remembering his appointment with Sibley, bowed low to hide his confusion. "I would gladly shield you with my life from anything that could cause you pain," he said, earnestly. "I do not make any such vast and tragic demands," she replied, smilingly, and holding out her hand; "only simple and prosaic self-control, when tipsy, vulgar men act according to their nature. Good-night." He was about to kiss her hand, when she gently withdrew it, remarking: "We plain people of New England are not descended from the Cavaliers, remember." He watched until in despair of her appearing again that evening, and then strolled out into the night, feeling in his despondency that no star in the summer sky was more unattainable than the poor and orphaned girl, the impress of whose warm clasp still seemed within his hand. Chapter XXXI. An Emblem. For some time Ida Mayhew neither heeded nor heard the choral music in the parlor below, but at last a clearer, louder strain, in which Van Berg's voice was pre-eminent, caught her attention and she started up and listened at the window. "He is singing songs of Heaven with Jennie Burton, and I--can there be any worse perdition than this?" she said in a low, agonized tone. As if by a sudden impulse she quietly unfastened the door that led to her father and mother's room. Perceiving that her mother was not there, she stole noiselessly in, and turned up the lamp. Mr. Mayhew reclined upon a lounge in the deep stupor of intoxication, his dark hair streaked with gray falling across his face in a manner that made it peculiarly ghastly and repulsive. "This is my work," she groaned. "Jennie Burton made a noble-looking man of him last evening. I have made him this." She writhed and wrung her hands over his unconscious form, appearing as might one of Milton's fallen angels that had lost Heaven and happiness but not the primal beauty of his birth-place. "Well," she exclaimed with the sudden recklessness which was one of her characteristics, "if I have caused your degradation I can at least share in it;" and she took an opiate that she knew would produce speedy and almost as deep a lethargy as that which paralyzed her father; then threw herself, dressed, upon her couch, and did not waken until late the following day. Stanton was sorely troubled over his rash promise that he would meet Sibley at daylight on Monday morning. After Miss Burton's words he felt that he could not keep his appointment, and yet he shrank from the ridicule he believed Sibley would heap upon him. His perturbation was so great that he hunted up Van Berg before retiring, and told him of his dilemma. The artist greatly relieved his mind by saying: "I think we both have had a lesson, Stanton, in regard to quarreling with such fellows as Sibley, although I hardly see how we could have acted differently. But villains are usually cowards after their passion cools and they become sober. The case in hand is no exception. Burleigh tells me he has just learned that Sibley took a late boat to the city, and so does not mean to keep the appointment to-morrow. Therefore, sleep the sleep of the just, old fellow. Good-night." The throbbing pain in Ida's head was so great when she awoke on Monday that she half forgot the ache in her heart. She found that her father had gone to the City and that the day was well advanced. Her mother sat looking at her with an expression in which anxiety and reproach were equally blended. The unhappy woman had learned from her husband's habits to know what remedies to employ, and so was able gradually to relieve her daughter's physical distress; but Ida's weary lassitude and reticence were proof against all her questions and reproaches. It seemed as if nothing could rouse or sting her out of the dull apathy into which she had reacted after the desperate excitement of the preceding day. She pleaded illness, and stubbornly refused to go down to dinner. At last her mother, much to her relief, left her to herself, and went out to drive with Stanton, hoping that she might hit upon some plan of action in regard to the two difficult problems presented in her husband and daughter. Towards evening Ida slowly and languidly dressed for supper, and then sauntered down to the main piazza for a little fresh air. The poor girl did not exaggerate the shadow that had fallen upon her association with Sibley, and her supposed grief and resentment at his treatment. Two or three whom she met bowed coldly and distantly, and one passed without recognition. Even Jennie Burton had been indignant all day that one of her sex could be infatuated with such a fellow; and in her charitable thoughts she would be glad to explain such perversity as the result of a disordered and uncurbed fancy, rather than of a depraved heart. It was not strange, however, that she should suppose Ida's manner and indisposition were caused by Sibley's ignominious ejectment from the house, when her own mother and cousin shared the same view. What an unknown mystery each life is, even to the lives nearest to it! As with slow, heavy steps, Ida approached the main entrance, she noted the distant manner of those she met, and divined the cause; but her apathy was so great that neither anger nor shame brought the faintest color to her cheeks. She stood in the doorway and looked out a few moments; but the lovely summer landscape, with the cool shadows lengthening across it, was a weariness, and she turned from it as the miserable do from sights that only mock by their pleasant contrast. The piazza was nearly empty, but before she stepped out upon it she saw not far away a gentleman reading, who at last did cause the blood to rush tumultuously into her face. At another time she would have turned hastily from him; but in her present morbid mood she acted from a different impulse. The artist had not observed her approach, and standing a little back in the shadow of the hall-way she found a cruel fascination in comparing the man she loved with the low fellow whose shadow now fell so darkly across her own character. She looked steadily at his downcast face until every line and curve in his strong profile was impressed on her memory. In the healthful color of his finely-chiseled features there were no indications of that excess which already marred Sibley's countenance. The decided contour corresponded with the positive nature. The unhappy girl felt instinctively that if he were on her side, he would be a faithful ally; but if against her, she would find his inflexible will a granite wall against all the allurements of her beauty. The face before her indicated a man controlled by his higher, not lower nature; and in her deep humiliation she now felt that even if he knew all that was passing in her heart, he would bestow only transient pity, mingled with contempt. She believed she could hope for nothing from him; and yet, did not that belief leave her hopeless? To what else, to whom else could she turn? Nothing else, no one else then seemed to promise any help, any happiness. Her wretched experience had come as unexpectedly as one of those mysterious waves that sweep the sunny shore of Peru. Whither it would carry her she did not know, but every moment separated her more hopelessly from him who appeared like an immovable rock in his quiet strength. She was turning despondently away when she heard Jennie Burton's voice, and a moment later that young lady mounted the adjacent steps and said to Van Berg: "See what a prize I captured at this late season. Roses early in August are like hidden treasures. See, they are genuine hybrids. Have I not had rare good fortune?" Van Berg rose at once, and met her at the top of the steps; and Ida, who still remained unseen in the hall, now stepped forward into the doorway, so that she might not seem a furtive listener, as he was standing with his back towards her. "Had I my way, Miss Burton," said the artist, "you should have this rare good fortune every day of the year." She blushed slightly, and said, rather coldly, "Good evening, Miss Mayhew," thus rendering Van Berg aware of the latter's presence. The artist only frowned, and gave no other recognition of Ida's proximity. "Since you can't have your way, I shall make the most of my present good fortune. Is not that a beautiful cluster?" "It is indeed, with one exception. Do you not see that this defective bud mars the beauty of all the others?" "A 'worm I' the bud fell on its damask cheek.' I took it out and killed it, and was in hopes that if I placed the injured flower in water with the others it might still make a partial bloom. You will think me absurd when I tell you I felt sorry for it, and thought how many roses and lives would be more perfect were it not for some gnawing 'worm i' the bud.'" "The 'worm' in Shakespeare's allusion," said the artist, lightly, "is redeemed by its association and symbolism; but the one that has been at work here was a disagreeably prosaic thing that you rightly put your foot upon. The bud, as it now appears, suggest the worm more than anything else. So, please, let me cut it out; for art cannot tolerate anything so radically marred and defective. Its worm-eaten heart spoils the beauty of the entire cluster." "I fear you artists become too critical and exacting. Well, cut it out. I will submit to art in roses, but feel that marred and defective lives should have very different treatment." "That depends. If people persist in cherishing some worm of evil, they cannot expect to be held in the same esteem as those who are aiming at a more perfect development. There, now! does not our cluster appear much better?" "Yes; and yet I cannot help feeling sorry for the poor little bud that has missed its one chance to bloom, and all will wither unless I hasten to my room and put them in water." In her prejudice against Ida she had not looked towards her while talking with Van Berg, but in passing, a hasty glance almost caused her to stay and speak to her, for she thought she saw her eyes full of unshed tears. But her glance was brief and her prejudice strong. Miss Burton had not a little of the wholesome feminine intolerance for certain weaknesses in her sex. She would counsel a wife to endure a bad husband with a meek and patient spirit. But gentle as she was, she would scorn the maiden who could be attracted by a corrupt man, and almost loathe her for indulging in such an affinity. She could pity Ida--she could pity any one; but the poor girl's unfortunate association with Sibley, and her seeming interest in him, would subordinate pity to indignation and contempt. Her thought was this: "Miss Mayhew is still a maiden free to choose. Shame on her that she chooses so ignobly! Shame on her that she turns her eyes longingly to fetid pools, instead of upward to the breezy hills. What kind of nature is that which prompts such a choice?" The artist was more capable of Jennie Burton's indignation and contempt than of her pity; and although he knew Ida still stood in the doorway he did not turn to speak to her. His very attitude seemed to indicate to the unhappy girl a haughty indifference, and yet she was so unhappy, so in need of a kind word or reassuring glance that she could not turn away. "What a wretched mystery it all is," she thought. "I ought to hate, yet I love him. Proud as I have thought myself, I could kneel at his feet for one such word and glance as he just gave Miss Burton. For contempt I return him honor and admiration. I cannot help myself. By some strange perversity of my heart, I have become his very slave. How can he be so blind! He thinks me pining for a man that I despise and hate more than he ever can, though the fellow attempted his life. Sibley has come between me and that which is more than life--my chance for happiness and right living. I shall become desperate and bad, like him, if this continues. How strange it is that some sense, some instinct does not tell him there that the girl who stands so near is lavishing every treasure of her soul upon him! "That poor little rose-bud represents me to his mind. How ruthlessly he is pulling open its heart! Will he see anything else there save the work of the destroyer? Can it not awaken a thought of pity? I will--I must speak to him." She took a hesitating step or two towards him. She could almost hear her heart beat. Twice, thrice, words died upon her lips. When was she ever so timid before! If he would only give her an encouraging glance! If he would only turn a little towards her and relax that haughty, unbending attitude--- "Mr. Van Berg," she said at last, in a voice that was constrained and hard from her effort to be calm, "you seem very vindictive towards that poor little flower." He turned partially towards her and coldly said, "Good evening Miss Mayhew;" then, after a second, added carelessly: "I admit that this worm-eaten bud is rather vexatious. It has--what is left of it--exquisite color, and in form nature had designed it to be perfect; but" (with a slight contemptuous shrug) "you see what it is," and he tossed it down into the roadway. Her face was very pale and her voice low, as she answered: "And so you condemn it to be trampled under foot." "I condemn it! Not at all. Its own imperfection condemns it." "The result is all the same," she replied, with sudden change of manner. "It is tossed contemptuously away to be trodden under foot. Dull and ignorant as you discovered me to be, Mr. Van Berg, I am not so stupid but that I can understand you this evening. Imperfect as I am I could pity that unfortunate flower whose fragrance rose to you like a low appeal for a little consideration, at least. Would it not have bloomed as perfectly as the others if the worm had let it alone? But, I suppose, with artist, if roses or human lives are imperfect, that is the end of them. Misfortune counts for nothing." Van Berg listened in surprise to these words, and his haughty complacency was decidedly disturbed. He was about to reply that "Evil chosen and cherished was not a misfortune but a fault," when she turned from him with more than her former coldness and entered the house. An impulse that he would have found difficult to analyze led him to descend the steps and pick up the symbolic bud, now torn and withering fast, and to place it between the leaves of his note-book. If she had only seen this act it would have made a great difference; but, ever present to her thought, it lay where he had tossed it, the emblem of herself. Chapter XXXII. The Dangers of Despair. Discouragement and despair are dangerous and often destructive to character. This would be especially true of one like Ida Mayhew; for even in her imperfection she possessed a simplicity and unity which made it impossible for a part of such moral nature as she possessed to stand, if another part were undermined or broken down. The whole fabric would stand or fall together. She had been a wayward child, more neglected than petted, and had naturally developed a passion for having her own will, right or wrong. As she grew older, her extraordinary dower of beauty threatened to be a fatal one. It brought her attention continuous admiration and flattery from those who cared nothing for her personally. She had received in childhood but little of the praise which love prompts, the tender, indulgent idolatry which, although dangerous indeed to one's best development, sometimes softens and humanizes, instead of rendering selfish and arrogant. Mrs. Mayhew petted and scolded her child according to her mood, but was quite consistent in her general neglect. Mr. Mayhew was a tired, busy man, who visited at his own home rather than lived there. Thus the growing girl was left chiefly to her own impulses, and average human nature ensured that the habit of thinking of herself first and of pleasing herself at all times should be early formed. Then, as she saw and became capable of understanding the homage that waits on mere beauty, the world over, pride and vanity grew in overshadowing rankness. The attention she received, however, was chiefly made up of the bold stare of strangers, and the open flattery of those who admired her beauty as they would that of a picture, unconsciously but correctly leaving the impression that they cared for her only because of her beauty. That the girl's nature should grow hard and callous under such influences was what might have been expected. Neglect and a miserable sham of an education had dwarfed her mind. She had been "finished" by an ultra fashionable school before she understood the meaning of the studies which she passed over in a dainty quickstep, scarcely touching the surface. Her heart and moral nature were almost equally undeveloped. Hitherto she had known but little experience tending to evoke gentle feeling or generous action. She had confounded the few genuine admirers, who, infatuated with her beauty, endowed her with all heavenly graces, awaiting only the awakening hand of their love, with the heartless or brainless fellows who were not particular about heavenly graces, provided a girl had a fine figure and a fair face. When the artist first met her at the concert garden, she was in truth a modern Undine. She had feminine qualities and vices, but not a woman's soul. She was not capable of any strong, womanly action or feeling. Her scheme of life was simple indeed, although she was learning to be very artful in carrying it out. It was to have "a good time," as she would phrase it, and at any and every cost to others. After wearying of the life of a belle, she proposed to marry the best establishment that came her way, and became a leader of fashion. It would seem that not a few fine ladies carry out this simple scheme of life, and never receive a woman's soul. There are Undines at sixty as well as at sixteen. The artist had been attracted by her beauty, like so many others, but unlike others he had not (as was the case with not a few sensible men) given an admiring glance at the face, and then, recognizing the fact that there was not a woman back of it, passed on indifferently; nor had he bestowed upon her imaginary virtues; and much less had he been satisfied with more flesh and blood. His manner had been exploring, questioning. He was looking for her woman's soul, even though he might find it unawakened, like the fabled beauty in the mythical castle. His keen eyes had disturbed her equanimity from the first. As he pursued his quest, her undefined fears and misgivings increased. At last she was compelled to follow his questioning glances, and look past outward beauty to her real self within. From that hour the rank and evil weeds of pride and vanity began to wither. Honest self-scrutiny was like a knife at their roots. But these traits give a transient support like a false stimulant. As they failed there was nothing to take their place--no faith in God, no self-respect or self-reliance. She could not turn to her own family for sustaining sympathy, such as many fin din their homes, and which is all the more grateful because not inquisitive nor expressed in formal terms. In her selfish pleasure-seeking life she found that she had made an endless number of acquaintances, but no friends. She had not even the resources of a cultivated mind that could exist upon its own stores through this sudden famine which had impoverished her world, nor could she think of a single innocent, attractive, pursuit by which she could fill the weary days. She was like a child that had dwelt in a tropical oasis, the flowers and fruits of which had seemed as limitless as its extent. She had supposed that the whole world would be like this oasis, and the only necessity ever imposed on her would be that of choice from its rich profusion. But ere she was aware she had lost herself in a desert; the oasis had vanished like a mirage, and she had no choice at all. That which her heart craved with an intensity which fairly made it ache, seemed as hopeless as a sudden bloom and fruitage from arid sands. Instead of going down to supper she returned to the solitude of her own room, but the apathy of the earlier part of the day had vanished utterly. Indeed, body ad soul seemed to quiver with pain like a wounded nerve. Anger, which had given a brief support, faded out, and left only shame and despair as in memory she saw the emblem, representing herself, tossed contemptuously into the carriage-way by the man she loved. "I remember reading," she groaned, "when at school, how conquerors put their feet on the necks of their captives. He has put his spurning foot on my heart. Oh, hateful riddle! Why should I love the man that despises me?" Her mother, and then Stanton, called at her door and asked her to come down to supper. "No," she said, briefly to each. "If you knew what people were saying and surmising you would not continue to make a spectacle of yourself," said her cousin, through the closed door. "That is one reason why I do not come down," she replied. "I'm not in the mood to make a spectacle of myself. I have been shown how one perfect member of society regards me, and I am not equal to meeting any more faultless people to-night." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Stanton, irritably. "You must come down." "Break in the door then, and carry me down," was the sharp reply. With a muttered oath he descended to the supper-room, and his moody and absent manner revealed to Mrs. Mayhew and Van Berg that his interview with his cousin had been anything but satisfactory. For a time the artist seemed rather "distrait" also, as if a memory were troubling him. He often looked around when any one entered, and his eyes at times rested on Ida's vacant chair. But he soon passed under the spell of Jennie Burton's genial talk, which seemingly glowed with the sunshine that had enveloped her during her quest of the roses, and the poor girl, who was fairly quivering with pain because of his significant act and words on the piazza, was forgotten. She knew she was forgotten. The hum of voices, the cheerful clatter from the lighted supper-room, came up to her darkening apartment, and only increased her sense of loneliness and isolation. Her quick ear caught Van Berg's mellow laugh, evoked by one of Miss Burton's sallies. It is a dreary sensation to find one's self wholly forgotten by mere acquaintances; but to find that we have no place in the thoughts of those we love, seems in a certain sense like being annihilated. But for poor Ida was reserved a deeper suffering still, since she believed that the man she loved did not dismiss her from his mind indifferently, but rather with aversion and disgust. She felt her isolation terribly. To whom could she turn in her trouble? The thought of her father was both a reproach and a humiliation. He was drifting hopelessly, and almost unresistingly, towards final wreck, and, so far from seeking to restrain, she had added to the evil impetus. She shrank from the very idea of confiding in her garrulous, superficial mother. She felt that her cousin detested as well as despised her. The flattered girl, who a little before thought the world was at her feet, now felt friendless and alone, scarcely tolerated by her own family, and scorned by others. Of course she exaggerated the evil of her lot. The young an inexperienced are ever prone to look, for the time, on the earlier misfortunes of their lives as irretrievable. In after years they may smile at their causeless despair; but the world is full of tragedies that to the wise and sober minded had slight cause. Ida's troubles, however, were scarcely slight, and she, above all others, was the least fitted to bear trouble and thwarting. To be refused anything would be a new and disagreeable experience, but to be denied that which her heart craved supremely, tended to call out all the passionate recklessness of her ungoverned, undisciplined nature. The child from whom something is taken, will often cast away in anger all that is offered in its place; and in like hasty folly many a man and woman, to their eternal regret, have thrown away life itself. Suicide is often the product of passion as well as of despair; the irritable, headlong protest against evils that might have been and should have been remedied. As Ida sat alone in her desolation and shame, the thought of self-destruction had surged up in the lava of other tumultuous thoughts occasioned by the artist's scorn, and at first she had shrunk from it with natural and instinctive dread. But the awful thought began to fascinate her like a dizzy height from which it seems so easy to fall and end everything. In her morbid condition and to her poisoned imagination the act did not appear so revolting after all. She had been made familiar with it in her favorite novels. She had often seen it simulated with applause on the stage, with all the melodramatic accessories with which it is produce mere effect. Indeed, from her education, she might also think self-destruction was the only dignified and high-spirited thing to do. For a time her thoughts took the coloring of high tragedy. She would teach this proud artist a lessen, even though at supreme cost to herself. If he would never love her, she would make it certain that he could not longer despise her. She would write him a letter that would harrow his very soul, informing him that she had taken his hint and followed his suggestion. Since he had thrown away the emblem of herself as a worthless and unsightly thing, she had thrown herself away, so that faultless taste and faultless people might be no more offended by the presence of so much imperfection. For a moment her eyes glowed with exultation over his imagined dismay as he read this message from one to whom no reparation could be made; and then better and more wholesome feelings resumed their sway. Perverted, misguided, and uncounselled as she was, she was too young, too near the mother heart of nature, not to react from the false and the evil towards the simple and the true. She threw herself upon her couch. "Oh, that I might live and be happy!" she sobbed. "If in the place of the bitter frost of his words and manner he would give me but one ray of kindness, I would try to bloom, even though but a poor worm-eaten bud." Frowns blight far more flowers than October nights. Chapter XXXIII. "Hope dies Hard." When alone with his friend after supper, Stanton broke out, "Since Ida can't exist without the sight of that wretch, Sibley, I wish she would follow him to New York. If she dotes on such scum, they had better be married, as far as such people can be, and so relieve her relatives of an incubus that is well-nigh intolerable." "Are you absolutely sure that she does dote on Sibley, and that he is the cause of her evident trouble?" asked Van Berg, with a perplexed frown lowering on his brow. "I'm not sure of anything concerning her save that she was born to make trouble. I know she was with him all the time he was here, and since he was metaphorically kicked off the premises she has sulked in her room. I suppose, of course, that she is mortified, and hates to meet people. Indeed, from a remark she made, some one must have snubbed her vigorously to-day; but her course makes everything a hundredfold worse. I am besmirched because of my relationship. I can see this in the bearing of more than one, and even Miss Burton, who could not be consciously unkind to any one, keeps me at a distance by barriers, which, although seemingly viewless, are so real I cannot pass them." Van Berg surmised that the evasive tact which Miss Burton exercised towards his friend was not caused by his relationship to Ida, and yet was compelled to admit that her frank and friendly bearing towards himself was scarcely less dispiriting. Her manner, as a rule, was so plainly that of a friend only, that were it not for occasional and furtive glances which he intercepted, he would deem his prospects little better than Stanton's, in spite of all that had passed between them. Even in these stolen, questioning, longing glances, there was an element that trouble and perplexed him, and the strange thought crossed his mind that when she looked most intently she did not see Harold Van Berg, but an intervening vision. Her mystery, however, rendered her only the more attractive, and she seemed like a good angel that had come from an unknown world concerning which she could not speak, and perhaps he could not understand. Her society was like a delicate wine, delightfully exhilarating while enjoyed, but whose effect is transient. He was provoked at himself to find how well he endured her absence, and how content he was with the genuine friendship she was evidently forming for him. Sometimes he even longed for more of the absorbing passion which he saw had wholly mastered Stanton; but tried to satisfy himself by reasoning that his love was in accordance with his nature, which was calm and constant, rather than impulsive and passionate. "All the higher faculties of my soul are her allies," he thought, complacently. "I admire honor, and even reverence her. She could walk through life as my companion, my equal, and in many respects, my superior;" and so with all the delicate and unobtrusive tact of which he was the master he proposed to press his suit. Since Jennie Burton had plainly intimated that, like King Lear, she had lost her woman's kingdom--her heart--and so was not able to reward such suit and service, how came it she kept poor Stanton at a distance, but welcomed the society of Van Berg? Possibly her intuition recognized the fact that in the case of Stanton she had touched the heart, but had won the mind of the artist. The first seemed disposed to give all and to demand all. Stanton's all did not count for very much thus far in her estimation. She had recognized the character he had brought to the Lake House--that of a pleasure-loving man of the world--and she was far too modest to suppose that she could work any material change in this character. Self-indulgent by nature, she believed that he had proposed to enjoy a summer flirtation with one whom he would easily forget in the autumn, and, while this impression lasted, she punished him by requiring that he should be the chivalric attendant of every forlorn female in the house. When she believed, however, that such heart as he possessed was truly interested, she became as unapproachable as the afternoon horizon, whose rich glow is seemingly near, but can never be reached. While she recognized the genuineness of his passion, she did not, as before intimated, regard it as a very serious affair. "Good dinners and fairer faces than mine will comfort him before Christmas," she thought. Few know themselves--their own capabilities of joy, suffering, or achievement. As with Ida, Stanton was at a loss to understand the changes in his own character. It was quite possible, therefore, that Miss Burton should misunderstand him. Indeed he had, as yet, but little place in her sad and preoccupied thoughts. For some reason, however, Van Berg's society had for her a peculiar fascination that she could not resist. She scarcely knew whether she derived from it more of pleasure than of pain. She often asked herself this question: "Which were better for a traveller in the desert--to see a mirage, or the sands only in all their barren reality?" Her judgment said, the latter; but when the elusive mirage appeared, she looked often with a longing wistfulness that might well suggest a pilgrim that was athirst and famishing. In spite of her quickness, Van Berg occasionally caught something of this expression, and while he drew encouragement from it, he was too free from vanity and too acute an observer to conclude that all would result as he hoped. The unwelcome thought would come that he was only the occasion and not the cause, of these furtive glances. Was her heart already wedded to a memory, and was she interested in him chiefly because for some reason he gave vividness and reality to that memory? If this were true, what more had he to hope for than Stanton? If this were true, was he not in a certain sense pursuing a shadow? Woud success be success? Would he wish to clasp, as his wife, a woman whose heart had been buried in a sepulchre from which the stone might never be rolled away? His first impression, that Miss Burton had passed through some experience, some ordeal of suffering that separated her from ordinary humanity, often reasserted itself more strongly than ever. At times her flame-like spirit would flash up with a glow and brilliancy that lighted and warmed his very soul, but the feeling began to grow upon him that this genial fire consumed the costliest of all offerings--self. Did not her own broken heart and shattered hopes supply the fuel? Instead of brooding apart over some misfortune that would have crushed most natures, was she not seeking to make her life an altar on which she laid as a gift to others the best treasures of her woman's soul? The more closely he studied her character, and the controlling impulses of her life, the more sincere became his admiration, and the deeper his reverence. He felt with truth that she WAS of different and finer clay from himself. So strong was this impression, that the thought occurred to him that in this and kindred reasons might be found the explanation of the peculiar regard he felt for her. He had virtually offered himself, and would again if he could find the opportunity. If he were sure the he would win her, he would exult as one might who had secured the revenue of a kingdom, the purest and largest gem in the world, or some other possession that was unique and priceless. The whole of his strong intellectual nature would be jubilant over the great success of his life. He was also conscious that some of the deepest feelings of his soul were interested. She was becoming like a religion to him, and he imagined that his regard for her was somewhat akin to that of a devout Catholic for a patron saint. And yet he was compelled to admit to himself that he did not lover her as he supposed he would love the woman he hoped to make his wife. Why was his heart so tranquil and his pulse so steady? Certainly not because of assured success. Why did his regard differ so radically from Stanton's consuming passion? Should Stanton win her he felt that he could still seek her society and enjoy her friendship. The prospect of never winning her himself did not rob life of its zest and color. On the contrary, he believed that she would ever be an inspiration, an exquisite ideal realized in actual life. As such he could not lose her any more than those women whom poetry, fiction, and history had placed as stars in his firmament, and this belief so contented him as to awaken surprise. As he returned from a long and solitary stroll on Monday evening he soliloquized complacently, "I am making too great a mystery of it all. She is not an ordinary woman. Why should I feel towards her the ordinary and conventional love which any woman might evoke? There is more of spirit than of flesh and blood in her exquisite organization. Sorrow has refined away every gross and selfish element, and left a saint towards whom devotion is far more seemly and natural than passion. She awakens in me a regard corresponding to her own nature, and I thank heaven that I am at least finely enough organized to understand her and so can seek to win her in accordance with the subtle laws of her being. She would shrink inevitably from a downright, headlong passion like that of Stanton's, no matter how honest it might be or how good the man expressing it. No hand, however strong, will ever grasp this 'rara avis,' this good angel, rather. Her wings must be pinioned by gossamer threads of patient kindness, delicate sympathy, nice appreciation, and all woven and wound so unobtrusively that the shy spirit may not be startled. What a fool I was to blurt out my feelings last evening! What rare good fortune is mine in the fact that she gives me the vantage-ground of friendship from which to urge a suit wherein must be combined sincerity with consummate skill. I fear I must efface some other image before I can implant my own. How fortunate I am that my cool and well-poised nature will enable me to work under the guidance of judgment rather than impulse." Feeling that he had much to gain and was in danger of irretrievable loss, he lightly mounted the steps of the hotel, bent on finding at once the object of his thoughts. He saw her leaving a group in the parlor, of which Stanton was one, and he hastened to intercept her in the hall-way. Just as he was about to speak to her, Mr. Burleigh came bustling up and said: "Miss Burton, a stranger--not to fame or fortune, nor to you probably, but a stranger to me--is inquiring for you--a stranger from the South. He would not give his name, and--good heaven, Miss Burton! are you ill?" Van Berg led her into a private parlor near. She certainly had grown very white and faint. But after a moment there came a flash of hope and eager expectation into her face that no words could have expressed. "His name--his name?" she gasped. Mr. Burleigh looked at her a second, and then said: "Stay quietly here, I'll bring him to you; and then, Mr. Van Berg, perhaps you and I might form an enormous crowd." "Had I not better leave you at once?" the artist asked when they were alone. "Wait a moment. I--I--am very weak. It cannot be--but hope dies hard." Trembling like a leaf, and with eyes aflame with intense, eager hope, she watched the door. A moment later Mr. Burleigh ushered in a middle-aged gentleman, who commenced saying: "Pardon me, Miss Burton, for not sending my name, but you would not have known it"--then the young lady's appearance checked him. The effect of his coming was indeed striking. It was as if a gust of wind had suddenly extinguished a lamp. The luminous eyes closed for a moment, and the face became so pallid and ashen in its hue as to suggest death. It was evident to Van Berg that her disappointment was more bitter than death. "Miss Burton took a long walk this afternoon," he said, hastily, "and, I fear, went much beyond her strength. Perhaps she had better see you to-morrow." "Oh, certainly, certainly; I will remain, if there is need," the gentleman began. By a strong and evident effort Miss Burton regained self-control, and said, with a faint smile that played over her face a moment like a gleam of wintry sunshine: "You strong men often call women weak, and we, too often, prove you right. As Mr. Van Berg suggests, I am a little overtaxed to-night. Perhaps I had better see you in the morning." "I am a transient guest, and ought to be on my way with the first train," said the gentleman. "My errand is as brief as it is grateful to me. Do not leave, sir," he said to Van Berg. "If you are a friend of Miss Burton it will be pleasant for you to hear what I have to say; and, I warrant you that she will never tell you nor anyone else herself." "May I stay?" he asked. She felt so weak and unnerved, so in need of a sustaining hand and mind that she looked at him appealingly, and said: "Yes. This gentleman cannot disgrace me more than I have myself this evening." "Disgrace you! Miss Burton," exclaimed the gentleman. "Your name is a household word in our home, and our honor for it is only excelled by our love. You remember my invalid daughter, Emily Musgrave--our only and unfortunate child. She attended the college in which you are an instructress. Before she came under your influence her infirmities were crushing her spirit and embittering her life. So morbid was she becoming that she apparently began to hate her mother and myself as the authors of her wretched existence. But by some divine magic you sweetened the bitter waters of her life, and now she is a fountain of joy in our home. In her behalf and her mother's, I thank you; and even more, if possible, in my own behalf, for the reproachful, averted face of my child was killing me;" and tears stood in the strong man's eyes. There was nothing conventional in the way in which Jeannie Burton received his warm gratitude. She leaned wearily back in her chair, and for a moment closed her eyes. There was far more resignation than of pleasure in her face, and she had the air of one submitting to a fate which one could not and ought not to resist. "Your three lives are much happier then?" she said, gently, as if wishing to hear the reassuring truth again. "You do not realize your service to us," said Mr. Musgrave, eagerly. "Our lives were not happy at all. There seemed nothing before us but increasing pain. You have not added to a happiness already existing merely, but have caused us to exchange positive suffering for happiness. Emily seems to have learned the art of making every day of our lives a blessing, and she says you taught her how. I would go around the world to say to you, 'God bless you for it!'" "Such assurances ought to make one resigned, if not content," she murmured in a low tone, as if half speaking to herself. Then rising, by an evident effort, she cordially gave her hand to Mr. Musgrave, and said: "You see, sir, that I am scarcely myself to-night. I think I could give you a better impression of your daughter's friend to-morrow. Give her my sincere love and congratulations. She is evidently bearing her burden better than I mine. You cannot know how much good your words have done me to-night. I needed them, and they will help me for years to come." The gentleman's eyes grew moist again, and he said, huskily: "I know you are rather alone in the world, but if it should ever happen that there is anything that I could do for you were I your father, call on John Musgrave. There, I cannot trust myself to speak to you any more, though I have so much to say. Good-night, and good-by;" and he made a very precipitate retreat, thoroughly overcome by his warm Southern heart. "I dread to leave you looking so sad and ill, or else I would say good-night also," said Van Berg. She started as if she had half forgotten his presence, and kept her face averted as she replied: "I will say good-night to you, Mr. Van Berg. I would prove poor company this evening." "Before you go I wish to thank you for letting me stay," he said, hastily. "As Mr. Musgrave asserted, you would indeed never have told me what I have heard, and yet I would not have missed hearing it for more than you will believe. How many lives have you blessed, Jennie Burton?" "Not very many, I fear, but I half wish I knew. Each one would be like an argument." "Arguments that should prove that you ought to let the dead past bury its dead, and live in the richer present," he said, earnestly. "The richer present!" she repeated slowly, and her face grew almost stern in its reproach. "Forgive me--in the present you so enrich, then," he said, eagerly. Again she averted her face, and he saw that for some reason she wished to avoid his eyes. "I am too weak and unnerved to do more than say good-night again," she said, trying to smile. "You are fast learning that if you would be my friend you must be a patient and generous one." "Thank heaven I came to the Lake House!" ejaculated the artist as he strolled out into the star-light. Thank heaven for this mingling mystery and crystal purity. It does me good to trust her. There is a deep and abiding joy in the very generosity she inspires. I am learning the spell under which Emily Musgrave came. But how strange it all is! She expected some one to-night, whom she would have welcomed as she never will me. "The only rival I have to fear may not be dead, as I supposed, and yet my perverse heart is more full of pity for her than jealousy. I had no idea that I was capable of such self-abnegation. Has she the art of spiritual alchemy, and so can transmute natures full of alloy into fine gold?" Van Berg was an acute observer, and had large acquaintance with the world in which he lived, and its inhabitants. He was in the main, however, an unknown quantity to himself. Chapter XXXIV. Puzzled. Tuesday was dreary enough to more than one at the Lake House. Clouds covered the sky, yet they gave little promise of the rain which the thirsty earth so needed. To Ida, as she looked out late in the morning, they seemed like a leaden wall around her, shutting off all avenues of escape. Her mother joined her as she went down to a cold and dismal breakfast, long after all the other guests had left the dining-room, and she commenced fretting and fuming, as was her custom when the world did not arrange itself to suit her mood. "Everything is on the bias to-day," she said, "and you most of all from your appearance. I wish I could see things straightened out for once. The little school-ma'am, who turns everybody's head, is sick in her room, and did not come down to breakfast. Therefore we had a Quaker meeting. If you had been present with your long face, the occasion would have been one of oppressive solemnity. Ik appeared as dejected as if he were to be executed before dinner, and scarcely ate a mouthful; I never saw a fellow so changed in all my life. Although your artist friend had a rapt, absorbed look, he was still able to absorb a good deal of steak and coffee. I saw him and Miss Burton emerge from a private parlor last night, and he probably understands Miss Burton's malady better than the rest of us. Why--what's the matter? Would to heaven I understood your malady better! Are you sick?" "Yes," said Ida, rising abruptly from the table, "I am sick--sick of myself, sick of the world." "Good gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Mayhew, sharply, "are you so wrapt up in that fellow Sibley, that you can't live without him?" Ida made a slight but expressive gesture of protest and disgust; then said, in a low tone, as if to herself: "If my own mother so misjudges me, what can I expect of others?" Mrs. Mayhew followed her daughter to her room with a perplexed and worried look. "Ida," she began, "you are all out of sorts; you are bilious; you've got this horrid malaria, that the doctors are always talking about, in your system. Let me send for our city physician, Doctor Betts. Never was such a man at diagnosis. He seems to look right inside of one and see everything that's going on wrong." "For heaven's sake don't send for him then!" exclaimed Ida. Mrs. Mayhew looked askance at her daughter a moment, and then asked bluntly: "Why? What's going on wrong in you?" "I do not know of anything that's going on right,--to use your own phraseology." "You mean to say, then, that there is something wrong?" "You intimated at the breakfast-table that everything was going wrong. So it has seemed to me, for some time. But come, mother, drugs can't reach my trouble, and so you can't help me. You must leave me to myself." "I think you might tell your own mother what is the matter," whined Mrs. Mayhew. "I think I might also," said Ida, coldly. "It is not my fault but my great misfortune that I cannot." At this Mrs. Mayhew whimpered: "You are very cruel to talk to me in that way." "I suppose I'm everything that's bad," Ida answered recklessly. "That seems to be the general verdict. Perhaps it would be best for you all were I out of the way. I can scarcely remember when I have had a friendly look from any one. Things could not be much worse with me than they are now. I think I would like a change, and may have a very decided one." Then seizing her hat, she left her mother to herself. Mrs. Mayhew sank into a chair, and a heavy frown gathered on her brow as she thought deeply for a few moments. "That girl means mischief," she muttered. "I wonder if she is holding any communication with Sibley? I always thought Ida would take care of herself, but she'll bear watching now. She hasn't been like herself since she came to this place. I must consult Ik at once. Things are bad enough now, heaven knows; but if Ida should do anything disgraceful, I'd have to throw up the game." (Mrs. Mayhew was an inveterate card-player, and her favorite amusement often colored her thoughts and words.) Stanton was found smoking and pretending to read a newspaper in a retired corner of the piazza, but from which, nevertheless, he could see whether Miss Burton made her appearance during the morning. Mrs. Mayhew explained her fears, and the young man used very strong language in expressing his disgust and irritation. "A curse upon it all!" he concluded. "Since she must, and apparently will gratify this low taste, can you not return to New York, patch up the fellow into some sort of respectability and marry them with a blare of brazen instruments that will drown the world's unpleasant remarks?" "That would be better than the scandal of an elopement," mused perplexed Mrs. Mayhew. "From what you say, Sibley is bad enough, and Ida seems reckless enough to do anything. I wish we had never come here." "So do I," groaned Stanton. "No, I don't, either. In fact I'm in a devil of a mess myself. You know it, and I suppose all see it. I can't help it if they do. My passion, no doubt, is vain, but it's to my credit. Ida's is disgraceful to herself and to us all. If I'd been here alone and Van Berg had not come, I might have succeeded; but NOW"--and with a despairing gesture he turned away. "Ik, come back," cried his aunt, "of course I feel for you. You are independent, and can marry whom you please, though heaven knows you could do better than---" "Heaven knows nothing of the kind," he interrupted, irritably, "and if you were nearer heaven--but there, what's the use." "You're right now, Ik. We can't afford to quarrel. You must talk to Ida. We must watch her. Find out if you can what is in her mind, and if the worst comes to the worst, they will have to be married. I suppose it will be wise to hint to her that if she WILL marry Sibley she had better do it in as respectable and quiet a way as possible." "The idea of anything being respectable and quiet where they are concerned!" snarled Stanton. "Well, well," groaned Mrs. Mayhew, "do your best." But Ida was not to be found. She appeared at dinner, however, and not a few looked at her, and stole furtive glances again and again. Among these observers was the artist, and it was evident that he was both perplexed and troubled. Was this cold, marble-cheeked woman the butterfly that had fluttered into the country a few weeks since? "She may be a bad woman," he thought, "but she has become a woman in the last few days. She looks years older. I thought her shallow, but she's too deep for me. For some reason I can't associate that face, as it now appears, with Sibley, and yet it is so full of mingled pain and defiance, that one might almost think she meditated a crime. She looks ill. She is ill--she is growing thin and hollow-eyed. What a magnificent study she would make of a half-famished captive; or of beauty chained--not married to a man hateful and hated; or, possibly, of innocence meditating guilt, and yet seeking vainly to disguise the dark thoughts by a marble mask. There is some transforming process going on in Ida Mayhew's mind, and from her appearance I rather dread the outcome; but her face is becoming a rare study." Although with the exception of a slight response to his formal bow she had sought to ignore his presence and to avoid his eyes, she was still conscious of this furtive scrutiny, and it hurt her cruelly. It seemed as if he were studying her as one might a peculiar specimen. "His critical eyes are trying to look into me heart as they did into the poor little rose-bud," she thought; and her face grew more rigid and inscrutable under his gaze. as early as possible she left the table. "I wish I knew just what her trouble was," thought the artist. "If not connected with that wretch Sibley, I could pity her with all my heart. Well, take all the good the gods send, I'll sketch her face this afternoon as I have last seen it." "Your cousin begins to look decidedly ill," he said to Stanton, after dinner. His friend's only reply was an imprecation. "Your remark is emphatic enough, but I don't understand it any better than I do Miss Mayhew." "It's to your credit you don't. Her mother has reason to believe that there is some deviltry on foot between her and Sibley. I'm to find out and thwart her if I can. I suppose I shall have to say, in substance: 'Since you will throw yourself away on the fellow, go through all the formalities that society demands. In such case your family will submit, if they can't approve. You see I'm frank with you, as I've been from the first.' Would to heaven she had never come here, and now think of it there has been a change in her for the worse ever since she came. It must be the influence of that cursed Sibley. Some women are fools to begin with; but from a fool infatuated with a villain, good Lord deliver us!" "You fear an elopement then?" said Van Berg, his face darkening into his deepest frown. "I fear worse than that. Sibley is as treacherous as a quagmire. If a woman ventured into a false position with him he would marry her only when compelled to do so. I'm savage enough to shoot them both this afternoon. I see but one way out. I must warn her promptly, and in language so emphatic that she will understand it, that everything must be after the regulation style." Van Berg made a gesture of contempt, but said to his friend: "Stanton, I'm sorry for you. Such trouble as this would cut me deeper than any other kind. If I can do anything to help you, count on me. I'm in the mood myself to shoot Sibley, for he has spoiled for me the fairest face that evil ever perverted." Van Berg did not sketch Ida Mayhew's face that afternoon. On the contrary, he resolutely sought to banish her image from his mind. When last he saw that face, it seemed made of Parian marble. Now it rose before him so blackened and besmirched that he thought of it only with anger and disgust. Ida kept herself so secluded in the afternoon that Stanton could not find her, but this very seclusion, which the poor girl sought in order to hide her wounds, only increased his own and Mrs. Mayhew's fears deepened their suspicions. She was a little late in appearing at the super-table, for her return from the wanderings of the afternoon had required more time than she supposed. She was very weary; moreover, the hours spent in solitude with nature had quieted her overstrung nerves. The sun had shone upon her, though the world seemed to frown. Flowers had looked shyly and sweetly into her face as if they saw nothing there to criticise. She had plucked a few and fastened them into her breast-pin, and their faint perfume was like a low, soothing voice. She was in a softened and receptive mood, and a kind word, even a kind glance, might have tuned the scale in favor of better thoughts and better living. But she did not receive them. Her coming to the table was greeted with an ominous silence, for each one was conscious of thoughts so greatly to her prejudice that they scarcely wished to meet her eye. Mrs. Mayhew looked excessively worried and anxious. Stanton was flushed and angry. The artist was icy as he only knew how to be when he deemed there was sufficient occasion; and in his opinion, the presence of the prospective and willing bride of the man who had attempted his life, and, what was far worse, insulted the woman he most honored, was occasion, indeed. From time to time he gave her a cold, curious glance, as one might look at some strange, abnormal thing for which there is no accounting; but his slight scrutiny was no longer furtive. He looked at her openly as he would at an OBJECT, and not at a woman whose feelings he would not wound for the world. His thought was: "A creature akin to Sibley deserves no consideration, and can put in no just claim for delicacy." Indeed he felt a peculiar vindictiveness towards her to-night, because she had so thwarted him, and was about to carry her extraordinary dower of beauty to the moral slough that seemingly awaited her. Therefore, his glance swept carelessly over her with a cold indifference that chilled her very soul. But these transient glances caught enough to trouble him with a vague uneasiness. Although he was steeled against her by prejudice and anger, something in her appearance so pleaded in her favor that misgivings would arise. Once he thought she met his eyes with something like an appeal in her own, but he would not look long enough to be sure. A moment later he was vexed with himself that he had not. The silence or the forced remarks at the table were equally oppressive, and Ida immediately felt that she was the cause of the restraint. She was about to leave the table in order to relieve them of her presence, when Miss Burton unexpectedly entered and took her chair, which hitherto had been vacant. She was a little pale and wan, but this only made her look the more interesting, and both Stanton and Van Berg welcomed her as they would the sunshine after a dreary storm. Even Mrs. Mayhew seemed to find a wonderful relief in her coming, and added her voluble congratulations. "I have had nervous headaches myself, and know how to sympathize with you," she concluded. "She does not know how to sympathize with me," sighed her daughter. The sigh caught Van Berg's attention, and he was surprised to see that the maiden's eyes were full of tears. She bowed her head a moment to hide them, and then abruptly left the table and the room. The artist's misgivings ended in something like compunction, as he thought: "Her tears are caused by the contrast between the icy reception we gave her, and the cordial welcome we have just given Miss Burton. Confound it all! I wish I knew the exact truth, or that she would leave for parts unknown where I could never see her again." Miss Burton glanced wistfully after the retreating maiden, but no explanation was offered. Then, as if feeling that she had lost a day's opportunity for diffusing sunshine, she became more genial and brilliant than Van Berg had ever known her to be. They lingered long at the table; Mr. Burleigh and others joined them. Their laughter rang out and up to the dusky room in which poor Ida was sobbing, "I wish I were dead and out of every one's way." Van Berg laughed with the others, but never for a moment did he lose the uneasy consciousness that he might possibly be misjudging Ida Mayhew. Although Mr. Burleigh's portly form occupied her chair, it did not prevent him from seeing a pale tearful face that was far too beautiful, far too free from all gross and sensual elements, to harmonize with the character he was supposing her to possess. He re-called what she had said about the "fragrance" of the rose-bud he had torn and tossed away, rising to him like "a low, timid appeal for mercy." Had she shyly and timidly appealed to him for a kinder judgement that evening, and had he been too blind and prejudiced to see anything save the stains left by Sibley's name? If she proposed to go to Sibley, why was she not like him in manner? It was strange that one akin to such a fellow should fasten wild flowers on her bosom, and still more strange that they should be so becoming. The cool and sagacious Van Berg, who so prided himself on his correct judgment, was decidedly perplexed and perturbed. Chapter XXXV. Desperately Wounded. Stanton basked in Miss Burton's smiles until a significant look from Mrs. Mayhew reminded him of his disagreeable task, for the performance of which there seemed a greater urgency than ever. Ida's rather precipitate withdrawal from the supper-room was another proof in their eyes that some mischief was brewing. He listened at her door for a moment, and could not fail to hear the stifled sound of her passionate grief; then knocked, but there was no response. "Ida," he said, in a kinder tone than usual, "I want to see you." She tried to quiet her sobbing, and after a moment faltered: "You had better leave me to myself." "No, I must see you," he said kindly but firmly. "I have something to say to you." The poor girl was so lonely and heart-broken, that she was ready for the least ray of comfort. She now saw that she was ignorant and exceedingly faulty. She was ready to admit the fact that she had acted very foolishly and unwisely, and that circumstances were against her. Ill-omened circumstances have brought to condemnation and death innocent men. Ida would not now claim that she was innocent of blame, but events had seemed so unfortunate of late, that she was half ready to think that some vindictive hand was shaping them. But she did not feel that she was now worse than she had been. On the contrary, she had longings for a better life and a broader culture such as she had never experienced before. The artist's eyes, in searching for her woman's soul, revealed to her that she had been a fool; but now she would gladly become a woman if some one would only point out the way. "Mother and Ik might learn that I am not wholly bad if they would only take the trouble to find out," she murmured. "Ik used to be kind-hearted, and I thought he cared a little for me, in spite of our sparing. Why is he so hard on me of late? Why can't he believe that I am just as capable of detesting Sibley as he is? Perhaps he does mean to say a kind word, and give me a chance to explain." These thoughts passed through her mind as she lighted the gas and bathed her face, that she might, to some extent, remove the evidences of grief. Stanton misunderstood her wholly. The new Ida, that deep feeling and recent events were developing, was unknown to him, and he had been too preoccupied to see the changes, even had they been more apparent. He did feel a sort f commiseration for her evident suffering, for he was too kind-hearted not to sympathize even when he believed pain to be well-deserved. But he thought he must still deal with her as a wayward, passionate child, as he had in the past, when she cried till she obtained what she wished, right or wrong. He now believed that she was as fully bent on carrying out her own unreasonable will, but remembered that she was no longer a child, and might be guilty of folly that society would not forgive as childish. Therefore he wished to see her face, and was disposed to be wary and observant. He gave her a quick, keen glance as he entered and then said: "What's the matter, Ida? Why do you sit here in the shadows? It's as dark as a pocket;" and he turned the gas higher. She did not answer, but sat down with her face averted from him and the light. "He has come here as a spy, and not as a comforter," she thought. He looked at her a moment, mistook her silence as an expression of the settled obstinacy of her purpose. "Well, Ida," he said, a little irritably, "I know you of old. I suppose you will have your own way as usual. If we must submit, why then we must; but you can't expect us to do so with any grace. If you won't give up this Sibley, for heaven's sake let your mother arrange the matter after the fashion of the day! Out of regard for your family, go through all the regular formalities." She started violently and then leaned back in her chair as if she were faint, and half stunned by a blow. He regarded her manner as evidence of guilt, or, at least, of proposed criminal imprudence on her part, and went on still more plainly: "If you can't exist without Sibley--why, marry him; but see to it that there is a plenty of priest, altar, and service; for you know, or you ought to, that he's a man who can't be trusted a hair's breadth." She averted her face still farther, and said in a low constrained tone: "My family, then, consent that I should marry Mr. Sibley?" "No; we submit to the marriage as an odious necessity, on condition that you put the whole matter into your mother's hands and allow her to arrange everything according to society's requirements." "Please let me understand you," she said in a lower voice. "My family offer to submit to the marriage as a dire necessity lest my relations with Mr. Sibley cover them with a deeper shame?" "Well, in plain English, yes." "It is indeed extraordinarily plain English--brutally plain. And does--does Mr. Van Berg share in your estimate of me?" Her manner and words began to puzzle Stanton, and he remembered the artist's question--"Are you absolutely sure that Sibley is the cause of her trouble?" He thought that perhaps it might be good policy to contrast the two men. "To be frank," he replied, "I think Mr. Van Berg has both wished and tried to think well of you. He admired your beauty immensely, and sought to find something in your character that corresponded with it. Even after your studied rudeness to him, your open preference of Sibley's society to his, and your remark explaining your course, 'congenial society or none at all'" (Ida fairly groaned as he recalled her folly), "he tried to treat you politely. That you should refuse the society of a gentleman like my friend for the sake of such a low fellow as Sibley, is to us all a disgusting and fathomless mystery. The belief that you could throw yourself and your rare beauty into this abominable slough, was so revolting to Van Berg, that he never would wholly accept of it until to-day." She rose to her feet and turned upon him. Her eyes were fairly blazing with indignation, and her face was white and terrible from her anger. In tones such as he had never heard any woman use before, she said: "But to-day you have succeeded in satisfying him that this is not only possible, but the most natural thing for me to do. You have told him that my family will submit to my marriage with a loathsome wretch, who got drunk in the presence of ladies, insulted an orphan girl, and attempted murder--and all in one Sunday afternoon. I suppose you thought me captivated, and carried away by such a burst and blaze of villainy; and so my high-toned family explain to the faultless and aristocratic Mr. Van Berg that they will submit to an odious marriage lest I clandestinely follow the scoundrel who was very properly driven away, like the base cur he is. This is why you received me to-night as if I were a pestilence. This is why I was treated at the table as if I were a death's head. This is why your perfect friend looked towards me as if my chair were vacant. He refused even to recognize the existence of such a loathsome thing as my family explain to him that I am. Great heaven! may I never live to receive a deeper humiliation than this!" "But, Ida," cried Stanton, deeply alarmed and agitated by her manner, "how else could we explain your action and your reckless words to your mother?" "Oh, I admit that circumstances are against me, but there is no excuse for this outrage! I don't know what I did say to mother. I've been too wretched and discouraged to remember. She IS my mother, and I'll say nothing against her, though, heaven knows, she has been a strange mother to me. Would to God I had a father that I could go to, or a brother! But it seems I have not a friend in the great, scornful world. Don't interrupt me. Words count for nothing now, and mine least of all. If you were all ready to believe me capable of what you have plainly intimated, you need something stronger than words to convince you to the contrary. Of one thing I shall make sure--you and your faithless friend shall never have the chance to insult me again. I wish you to leave my room." "Oh come, Ida, listen to reason," Stanton began coaxingly. "I admitted you," she interrupted with a repellant gesture, "in the hope of receiving a little kindness, for which I was famishing, but I would rather you had stabbed me than have said what you have. Hush, not a word more. The brutal wrong has been done. Will you not go? This is my private apartment. I command you to leave it; and if you will not obey I will summon Mr. Burleigh;" and she placed her hand on the bell. Her manner was at once so commanding and threatening that Stanton, with a gesture of deprecation and protest, silently obeyed. He was so surprised and unnerved by the interview in which the maiden had turned upon him with a fiery indignation that was almost volcanic, that he wished to think the affair all over and regain his composure before meeting any one. Clearly they had failed to understand Ida of late, and had misjudged her utterly. And yet, guided by appearances, he felt that they could scarcely have come to any other conclusion. Now that he had been jostled out of his preoccupation, he began to realize that Ida had not appeared of late like the frivolous girl that had accompanied him to the country. Changes were taking place in her as well as in himself, "but not from the same cause," he thought. "After her words and manner to-night, I cannot doubt that Sibley has disgusted her as well as the rest of us, although she had a strange way of showing it. It cannot be that a woman would speak of a man for whom she had any regard, as Ida did of the wretch with whom we were associating her; and as for Van Berg, she has taken no pains to conceal her strong dislike for him from the first day of their meeting. I can't think of anyone else at present (although there might be a score) who is disturbing the shallow waters of her mind. "I'm inclined to think that she is deeply mortified at the false position in which Sibley has placed her, and is too proud to make explanations. It may be also that she is realizing more fully the disgrace of her father's course, and it is also possible that she is waking up to a sense of her own deficiencies. Although she could not fail to dislike such people as Jennie Burton and Van Berg, she would be apt to contrast herself with them and the impression which she and they made on society. Confound it all! I wish I had not taken it for granted that she was pining for Sibley and ready to throw herself away for his sake. It has placed me in a deucedly awkward position. I doubt if she ever fully forgives me, and I can't blame her if she doesn't." "Well?" said Mrs. Mayhew, as Stanton moodily approached her. "Come with me," he said. When they were alone he prefaced his story with the irritable remark: "It's a pity you can't understand your daughter better. She detests Sibley." "Thank heaven for that," exclaimed the mother. "I should be more inclined to thank both heaven and yourself if you had discovered the fact before sending me on such an intensely disagreeable mission. You must manage your daughter yourself hereafter, for she'll never take anything more from me;" and he told her substantially the nature of his interview, and his surmises as to the real causes of her trouble. "I think you are right," said Mrs. Mayhew, whose impressions were as changeable as superficial; "and I'm excessively glad to think so. With her beauty, Ida can, in spite of her father, make a brilliant match, in every sense of the word;" and with the prospect of this supreme consummation of life regained, the wife and mother gave a sigh of great relief. "But she's in an awful mood, I can tell you," said Stanton, dubiously. "I never knew a woman to look and speak as she did to-night. If you don't manage better she'll make us trouble yet." "Oh, I'm used to Ida's tantrums. They don't last. Nothing does with her. Time and another admirer will bring her around." "Well, you ought to know," said Stanton with a shrug; "but I retire from the management. I can't help saying, however, that something in her looks and words makes me uneasy. I regret exceedingly I spoke as I did, and shall apologize at the first opportunity." "You'll have that in the morning. Things are so much better than I feared that I am greatly relieved. She'll come around now if nothing more is said. Roiled water always settles when kept quiet;" and Mrs. Mayhew returned to the parlor in much better spirits. Stanton followed his aunt and joined a small group that had gathered around Miss Burton. Van Berg gave him a quick, questioning look, but gathered the impression only that he had been subjected to a very painful interview. "She has evidently realized his worst fears," he thought; "curses on her!" and his face grew fairly black for a moment with anger and disgust. But Jennie Burton's silver tongue soon charmed away the evil spirits from both the young men. She had fine conversation powers, and her keen intuition and her controlling passion to give pleasure enabled her to detect and draw out the best thoughts of others. Her evident sympathy put every one at ease, and gave people the power of such happy expression that they were surprised at themselves, and led to believe that they not only received but gave something better than average. Therefore, under the magic of her good-will, both eyes and minds kindled, and even common-place persons became almost brilliant and eloquent. Stanton's was the only clouded face in her circle that evening; and true to her instinct, she set about banishing his trouble, whatever it might be--an easy task with her power over him. Since it daily became more evident to her that she must wound his vanity, and perhaps his heart a little, she tried to make amends by showing him such public consideration as might rob his disappointment of humiliation and bitterness. Stanton, therefore, soon forgot Ida's desperate face, and was enjoying himself at his best. Yet Ida's face but faintly revealed her heart. It seemed that the end had now come in very truth, and she was conscious chiefly of a wild impulse to escape from her shame and suffering. There was also a bitter sense of wrong and a wish to retaliate. "I'll teach them all a lesson," she muttered, as she paced her room swiftly to and fro. "This proud artist thinks he can look at me as if I were empty air; that he can forget me as he has the rose-bud he tossed away. I will insure that he looks at me once with a face as white as mine will then be, and that he remembers me to his dying day." After becoming more calm, and as if acting under a sudden impulse, she hastily made a simple but singular toilet. When completed, her mirror reflected a plain, close-fitting, black gown, which left her neck and arms bare. Around her white throat she placed a black velvet band, and joined it by a small jet poniard studded with diamonds. Her sunny hair was wound into a severely simple coil, and also fastened with a larger poniard, from the haft and guard of which glistened diamonds of peculiar brilliancy. She took off all her rings, and wore no other ornaments. Then taking from her table a book, bearing conspicuously as its title the word "Misjudged," she went down to the parlor. She paused a moment on the threshold before she was noticed. Her mother was eagerly gossiping with two or three fashionable women about a scandal that she hoped might cause her own family's short-comings to be forgotten in part. Miss Burton was telling a story in her own inimitable style, and ripples of smiles and laughter eddied from her constantly. Stanton's and Van Berg's faces were aglow with pleasure, and it was plain the speaker absorbed all their thoughts. "In the same way he will forget me, after I am dead," said the unhappy girl to herself, and the thought sent a colder chill to her heart, and a deeper pallor to her face. Her gaze seemed to draw his, for he looked up suddenly. On recognizing her his first impulse was to coldly avert his eyes, but in a second her unusual appearance riveted his attention. She saw the impulse, however, and would not look towards him again. She entered as quietly and as unexpectedly as a ghost, and the people seemed as much surprised and perplexed as if she were a ghost. She took a seat somewhat apart from all others, and apparently commenced reading. She was not so far away but that Van Berg could decipher the title, "Misjudged," and having made out the significant word, its letters grew luminous like the diamonds in her hair. Never before had he been so impressed by her beauty, and yet there was an element in it which made him shiver with a dread he could not explain to himself. He was surprised and shocked to find how pale and wan her face had become, but in every severe marble curve of her features he saw the word, "Misjudged." He could scarcely recognize her as the blooming girl that he had first seen in the concert garden. Suffering, trouble of mind, was evidently the dark magician that was thus transforming her; but why did she suffer so deeply? As she sat there before him, not only his deeper instincts, but his reason refused almost indignantly to associate her any longer with Sibley. There was a time when she seemed akin to him; but now she suggested deep trouble, despair, death even, rather than a gross "bon vivant." Was she ill! Yes, evidently, but he doubted if her malady had physical causes. "What a very strange toilet she has made!" he thought; "simple and plain to the last degree, and yet singularly effective and striking. Her fingers were once loaded with rings, but she has taken them all off, and now her hands are as perfect as her features. She does not wear a single ornament, save those ominous poniards. Does she mean to signify by these that she is wounded, or that she proposes to inflict wounds? Ye gods! how strangely, terribly, exasperatingly beautiful she is! I have certainly both misjudged and misunderstood her." These thoughts passed through his mind as he stole an occasional glance at their object, who sat with her profile towards him almost in the line of his vision. At the same time he was apparently listening to a prosy and interminable story from one of the group of which he was a member. They had been telling anecdotes of travel, and the last speaker's experience was, like his journey, long and uninteresting. Van Berg soon observed that many others besides himself were observing Miss Mayhew. She seemed to fascinate, perplex, and trouble all who looked towards her. The singular beauty and striking toilet might account, in part, for the lingering glances, but not for the perplexity and uneasiness they caused. If Ida had been dead her features could not have been more colorless; and they had a stern, hard, desperate expression that was sadly out of harmony with what should be the appearance of a happy young girl. Her presence seemed to cause an increasing chill and restraint. The healthful and normal minds of those about her grew vaguely conscious of another mind that had been deeply moved, shaken to its foundations, and so had become almost abnormal and dangerous in its impulses. There is a very general tendency both to observe and to shrink from that which is unnatural, and if the departure from what is customary is shown in unexpected and unusual mental action, the stronger become the uneasiness and dread in those who witness it. All who saw Ida recognized that she was not only unlike herself, but unlike any one in an ordinary state of mind, and people who were intimate looked at each other significantly, as if to ask--"What is the matter with Miss Mayhew? What is the matter with us all?" Were it not that the maiden occasionally turned a leaf, in order to keep up the illusion that she was reading, she might have been a statue, so motionless was her form, and so pallid her face. But she felt that she was perplexing and troubling those who had wounded her, and the consciousness gave secret satisfaction. Her past experience taught her to appreciate stage effect, and, since she meditated a tragedy, she proposed that everything should be as tragic and blood-curdling as possible. There is usually but a short step between high tragedy and painful absurdity, which exasperates us while we laugh at it; but poor Ida's thoughts were so desperately dark and despairing, and her exquisite features, made almost transparent by grief and fasting, so perfectly interpreted her unfeigned wretchedness, that even those who knew her but slightly were touched and troubled in a way that they could not explain even to themselves. Miss Burton was evidently meditating how she could approach Ida, who seemed encased in a repellant atmosphere. Van Berg saw that Stanton looked anxious and perplexed, and that Mrs. Mayhew was exceedingly worried and annoyed. At last he hastily approached her daughter and whispered, "For heaven's sake, Ida, what's the matter? You look as if you had gone into mourning." The young lady glanced coldly up and said stonily: "You have at least taught me to dress appropriately." "Nonsense," continued the mother, in a low, irritable tone. "Why can't you cheer up and act like other people? Don't you see you're giving us all the shivers?" She slowly swept the room with her eyes, and saw that not a few curious glances were directed towards her. Then, with bowed head, she glided from the room without a word. Miss Burton caught up with her in the hall-way. "You are ill, Miss Mayhew," she said, with gentle solicitude. "Yes," Ida replied, in the same stony, repellant manner; "but you are not a physician, Miss Burton. Good evening." And she went swiftly up to her own room, as if determined to speak with no one else that evening. Chapter XXXVI. Temptation's Voice Van Berg had been so near that he could not help overhearing Mrs. Mayhew's words which had led to the abrupt and silent departure of her daughter from the parlor. "There is some misunderstanding here," he thought, "whose effects are becoming outrageously cruel. The poor girl was driven away from the supper-table, and now she is driven out of the parlor. She has been an anomaly from the moment I saw her, and I now mean to fathom the mystery. Her exquisite face indicates that she is almost desperate from some kind of trouble. She is becoming ill--she is wasting under it. Sibley would be a fatal malady to any respectable girl, but I must give up all pretence of skill at diagnosis if he is the cause; for were her heart set on him why the mischief can't she go to him with all her old reckless flippancy? There is no need of any elopement, as Ik fears. She can easily compel her mother to go to the city, and her father would have no power to prevent the alliance, were she bent upon it. I believe her family misunderstand and are wronging her, and I may have occasion to go down on my knees myself, metaphorically, and ask her pardon for my superior airs." These and kindred other thoughts passed through his mind as he slowly paced up and down a side piazza which he often sought when he wished to be alone. Stanton, having lost Miss Burton for the evening, soon joined him, and threw himself dejectedly into a chair. "Van," he said, "I used to be rather self-complacent. I thought I had learned to take life so philosophically that I should have a good time as long as my health lasted. But to-night I feel as if life were a horribly heavy burden which I, an overladen jackass, must carry for many a weary day. How little we know what we are and what is before us! I've been a fool; I am a fool!" "Well, Ik," replied Van Berg with a shrug, "I imagine there is a pair of us. My reason--all that's decent in me--refuses to regard Sibley as the cause of your cousin's most evident distress. For heaven's sake don't confirm your words of this afternoon, or I shall feel like taking the first train, in order to escape from the most exasperating paradox that ever contradicted a man's senses." "Van, you are right. I am mortified with myself beyond measure, and I am bitterly ashamed that my aunt, her own mother, should have so grossly misjudged her. Sibley, no doubt, IS the occasion of her trouble in part, for she seems fairly to writhe under the false position in which he has placed her by leading every one to associate her name with his; but I now believe that she loathes and detests him more than you or I can. Certainly no woman could speak of a man in harsher or more scathing terms than she spoke of him to-night. Well, to sum up the whole miserable trough, by taking her mother's view for granted, I made such a mess of it that I doubt if she ever speaks civilly to either of us again." "Why! was my name mentioned?" asked Van Berg, quickly. "Yes, confound it all! When things are going wrong there is a miserable fatality about them, and the worst always happens. She asked me point-blank if you shared my estimate of her, and I suppose got the impression you did." "Well really, Stanton," said Van Berg, with some irritation, "I think you must have been unfortunate in your language." "Worse than unfortunate. The whole blunder is unpardonable. Still, do me justice. I could not answer her question with a bold lie. And what would have been its use? How could you explain your bearing towards her at the supper table? Your manner would have frozen Jezebel herself." "I was an infernal fool," groaned Van Berg. "It is due to us both that I should say I told her you had tried to form a good opinion of her, and very reluctantly received the view her mother suggested. I said, in effect, you wished to think well of her, although she had treated you so badly." "Treated me badly! I have treated her a thousandfold worse. She, at least, has never insulted me, and I can never forgive myself for the insult I have offered her. "Well, I hope to find her in the mood to accept an apology in the morning," said Stanton. "I'm in a confoundedly awkward position to apologize," growled Van Berg. "Any reference to such an affair will be like another insult;" and the friends parted in an unsatisfactory state of mind towards each other, and especially towards themselves. But that was a sad and memorable night to Ida Mayhew. She felt that it might be her last on earth; for her dark purpose was rapidly taking definite form. she was passing into that unhealthful condition of mental excitement, in which the salutary restraints of the physical nature lose their power. In the place of drowsiness and weariness, she began to experience an unnatural exaltation which would make any reckless folly possible, if it took the guise of sublime and tragic action. Few realize to what degree the mind can become warped and disordered, even with a brief time, by trouble and the violation of the laws of health; and some, by education and temperament, are peculiarly predisposed to abnormal conditions. Science has taught men how to build ships with water-tight compartments, so that if disaster crushes in on one side, the other parts may save from sinking. There are fortunate people who are built on the same safe principle. They have cultivated minds, and varied resources in artistic and scientific pursuits. Above all else, they may have faith in God and a better life to come; such possessions are like the compartments of a modern ship. Few disasters can destroy them all, and in the loss of one or more the soul is kept afloat by the others. But it would seem that poor Ida's character had been constructed with fatal simplicity, and when the cold waves of trouble rushed in there was nothing to prevent her from sinking beneath them like a stone. Her mind was uncultivated, and art, science, literature offered her as yet no resources, no pursuits. She had a woman's heart that might have been filled with sustaining love, but in its place had come a sudden and icy flood of disappointment and despair. She loved, with all the passion and simplicity of a narrow, yet earnest nature, the man who had awakened the woman within her, and he, she believed, would never give her aught in return, save contempt. She naturally thought that she had been degraded in his estimation beyond all ordinary means of redemption; therefore, in her desperation and despair, she was ready to take an extraordinary method of compelling at least his respect. Moreover, Ida was impatient and impetuous by nature. She had a large capacity for action, but little for endurance. It would be almost impossible for her to reach woman's loftiest heroism, and sit "like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief." It would be her disposition rather to rush forward, and dash herself against an adverse fate, meeting it even more than half way. All the influences of her life had tended to develop imperiousness, willfulness, and now her impulse was to enter a protest against her hard lot that was as passionate and reckless as it was impotent. Apart from her supreme wish to fill Van Berg with regret, and awaken in him something like respect, the thought of dragging on a wretched existence through the indefinite years to come was intolerable. The color had utterly faded out of life, and left it bald and repulsive to the last degree. Fashionable dissipation promised her nothing. She had often tasted this, to the utmost limit of propriety, and was well aware that the gay whirl had nothing new to offer, unless she plunged into the mad excitement of a life which is as brief as it is vile. It was to her credit that death seemed preferable to this. It was largely due to her defective training and limited experience, that a useful, innocent life, even though it promised to be devoid of happiness, was so utterly repulsive that she was ready to throw it away in impatient disgust. As yet she was incapable of Jennie Burton's divine philosophy of "pleasing not" herself. he who "gave his life for others" was but a name at the pronunciation of which, in the Service, she was accustomed to bow profoundly, but to whom, in her heart, she had never bowed or offered a genuine prayer. Religion seemed to her a sort of fashion which differed with the tastes of different people. She was a practical atheist. It is a fearful thing to permit a child to grow up ignorant of God, and of the sacred principles of duty which should be inwrought in the conscience, and enforced by the most vital considerations of well-being, both for this world and the world to come. But Ida Mayhew thought not of God or duty, but only of her thwarted, unhappy life, from which she shrank weakly and selfishly, assuring herself that she could not and would not endure it. In her father she saw only increasing humiliation; in her mother, one for whom she had but little affection and less respect, and who would of necessity irritate the wounds that time might slowly heal, could she live in an atmosphere of delicate, unspoken sympathy; in herself, one whom she now believed to be so ignorant and faulty that the man she loved had turned away in disgust on finding her out. If all this were not bad enough, unforeseen and unfortunate circumstances, even more than her own folly, had brought about a humiliation from which she felt she could never recover. In her blind, desperate effort to hide her passion from the man she loved, she had made it appear that she was infatuated with the man she loathed, and who had shown himself such a contemptible villain that her association with him was the scandal of the house. If her own mother and cousin could believe that she was ready to throw herself away for the sake of such a wretch, what must the people of the hotel think? What kind of a story would go abroad among her acquaintances in the city? She fairly cringed and writhed at the thought of it all. It seemed to the tortured and morbidly excited girl that there was but one way out of her troubles, and dark and dreadful as was that path, she thought it could lead to nothing so painful as that from which she would escape. But after all, her chief incentive to the fatal act was the hope of securing Van Berg's respect, and of implanting herself in his heart as an undying memory, even though a sad and terrible one. With her ideas of the fitness of things this would be a strong temptation at best; but the present conditions of her life, as we have seen, so far from restraining, added greatly to the temptation. And, as has been said, while the act seemed a stern and dreadful alternative to worse evils, it was not revolting to her. She had seen so many of her favorite heroines in fiction and actresses on the stage "shuffle off the mortal coil" with the most appropriate expressions and in the most becoming toilets and attitudes, that her perverted and melodramatic taste led her to believe that Van Berg would regard her crime as a sublime vindication of her honor. Her only task now, therefore, was to frame a letter that would best accomplish this end, and at the same time wring his soul with unavailing regret. But she was too sincere and sad to write diffusely and vaguely. After a few moments' thought she rapidly traced the following lines: "Mr. Van Berg: "You first saw me at a concert, and your judgement of me was correct, though severe. Your eyes have since been very cold and critical. I have followed your exploring glances, and have found that I am, indeed, ignorant and imperfect--that I was like the worm-eaten rose bud that you tossed contemptuously down where it would be trampled under foot. Seldom is that unfortunate little emblem of myself out of my thoughts. If I dared to appeal to God I would say that he knows that I would have tried to bloom into a better life, even though imperfectly, if some one had only thought it worth while to show me how. It is too late now. Like my counterpart, that you threw away, I shall soon be forgotten in the dust. "Although your estimate has been so harsh, I will not dispute it. Circumstances have been against me from the first, and my own folly has added whatever was wanting to confirm your unfavorable opinion. But to-day your thoughts wronged me cruelly. You have slain all hope and self-respect. I do not feel that I can live after seeing an honorable man look at me as you looked this evening. You believed me capable of flying to he man who attempted your life--who insulted and orphan girl. You looked at me, not as a lady, but an object beneath contempt. This is a humiliation that I cannot and will not survive. When you know that i have sought death rather than the villain with whom you are associating me, you may think of me more favorably. Possibly the memory of Ida Mayhew may lead you, when again you see a worm-eaten bud, to kill the destroyer and help the flower to bloom as well as it can. But now, like my emblem, I have lost my one chance. The night was now far spent. Her mother, having been refused admittance, had fumed and fretted herself to sleep. The house was very still. She opened her window and looked out. Clouds obscured the stars, and it was exceedingly dark. "The long night to which I'm going will be darker still," sighed the unhappy girl. "Well, I will live one more day. To-morrow I will go out and sit in the sunlight once more. I wish I could go now, for already I seem to feel the chill of death. Oh, how cold I shall be by this time to-morrow night!" She shuddered as she closed the window. After pacing her room a few moments, she exclaimed, recklessly, "I must sleep--I must get through with the time until I bring time to an end," and she dropped a powerful opiate into a glass. Holding it up for a moment with a smile on her fair young face that was terrible beyond words, she said slowly, "After all it's only taking a little more, and then--no waking." Chapter XXXVII. Voices of Nature. Before retiring, Ida had unfastened her door, so that her mother, finding her sleeping, might leave her undisturbed as late as possible the following day; and the sun was almost in mid-heaven before she began slowly to revive from her lethargy. But as her stupor departed she became conscious of such acute physical and mental suffering that she almost wished she had carried out her purpose the night before. Her headache was equaled only by her heartache, and her wronged, overtaxed nervous system was jangling with torturing discord. But with the persistence of a simple and positive nature she resolved to carry out the tragic programme that she had already arranged. She was glad to find herself alone. Her mother, with her usual sagacity, had concluded that she would sleep off her troubles as she often had before, and so left her to herself. The poor, lost child made some pathetic attempts to put her little house in order. She destroyed all her letters. She arranged her drawers with many sudden rushes of tears as various articles called up memories of earlier and happier days. Among other things she came across a little birthday present that her father had given her when she was but six years of age, and she vividly recalled the happy child she was that day. "Oh, that I had died then!" she sobbed. "What a wretched failure my life has been! Never was there a fitter emblem than the imperfect flower he threw away. I wish I could find the poor, withered, trampled thing, and that he might find it in my hand with his letter." She wrote a farewell to her father that was inexpressibly sad, in which she humbly asked his forgiveness, and entreated him, as her dying wish, to cease destroying himself with liquor. "But it is of no use," she moaned. "He has lost hope and courage like myself, and one can't bear trouble for which there is no remedy. I'm afraid my act will only make him do worse; but I can't help it." To her mother she wrote merely, "Good-by. Think of me as well as you can till I am forgotten." Her thoughts of her mother were very bitter, for she felt that she had been neglected as a child, and permitted to grow up so faulty and superficial that she repelled the man her beauty might have aided her in winning; and it was chiefly through her mother that her last bitter and unendurable humiliation had come. Mrs. Mayhew bustled in from her drive with Stanton, just before dinner, and commenced volubly: "Glad to see you up and looking so much better." (Ida knew she was almost ghastly pale from the effects of the opiate and her distress, but she recognized her mother's tactics.) "Come now, go down with me and make a good dinner; then a drive this afternoon, to which Ik has invited you, and you will look like your old beautiful self." "I do not wish to look like my old self," said Ida coldly. "Who in the world ever looked better?" "Every one who had a cultivated mind and a clear conscience." "I declare, Ida, you've changed so since you came to the country that I can't understand you at all." "Do not try to any longer, mother, for you never will." "Won't you go down to dinner?" "No." "Why not?" "I don't wish to, for one thing; and I'm too ill, for another. Send me up something, if it's not too much trouble." "I'm going to have a doctor see you this very afternoon," said Mrs. Mayhew, emphatically, as she left the room. To do her justice she did send up a very nice dinner to Ida before eating her own. As far as doctors and dinners were concerned, she could do her whole duty in an emergency. "Isn't Ida coming down?" whispered Stanton to his aunt. "No. I can't make her out at all, and she looks dreadfully. You must go for a doctor, right after dinner." Van Berg could not hear their words, but their ominous looks added greatly to his disquietude. He had been too ill at ease to seek even Miss Burton's society during the morning, and had spent the time in making a sketch of Ida as she stood in the doorway before entering the parlor the previous evening. But Jennie Burton did not seem to feel or resent his neglect in the slightest degree. Indeed, her thoughts, like his own, were apparently engrossed with the one whose chair had been vacant so often of late, and who, when present, seemed so unlike her former self. "I fear you daughter is more seriously indisposed than you think," she said anxiously to Mrs. Mayhew. "I'm going to take Ida in hand," replied the matter-of-fact lady. "She IS ill--far more so than she'll admit. I'm going to have the doctor at once and put her under a course of treatment." "Curse it all!" thought Van Berg, "that is just the trouble. She has been under a course of treatment that would make any woman ill, save her mother, and I'm inclined to think that I was the veriest quack of them all in my treatment." "I wish she would let me call upon her this afternoon," said Miss Burton, gently. "Oh, I think she'll be glad to see you!--at least she ought to be;" but it was too evident that Mrs. Mayhew was at last beginning to grow very anxious, and she made a simpler meal than usual. Stanton in his solicitude, hastened through dinner, and started at once for the physician who usually attended the guests of the house. Ida, in the meantime, had forced herself to eat a little of the food sent to her, and then informing the woman who had charge of their floor that she was going out for a walk, stole down and out unperceived, and soon gained a secluded path that led into an extensive tract of woodland. Stanton brought the doctor promptly, but no patient could be found. All that could be learned was that "Miss Mayhew had gone for a walk." "Her case cannot be very critical," the physician remarked, smilingly; "I will call again." Stanton and his aunt looked at each other in a way that proved the case was beginnin