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-Project Gutenberg's True to a Type, Vol. I (of 2), by Robert Cleland
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: True to a Type, Vol. I (of 2)
-
-Author: Robert Cleland
-
-Release Date: July 24, 2012 [EBook #40324]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRUE TO A TYPE, VOL. I (OF 2) ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by
-Google Books (Oxford University)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber's Notes:
-
-   1. Page scan source:
-      http://books.google.com/books?id=l_YUAAAAQAAJ
-      (Oxford University)
-
-   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
-
-
-
-
-
-
-                            TRUE TO A TYPE
-
-
-
-
-
-
-                            TRUE TO A TYPE
-
-
-
-
-                                  BY
-
-                              R. CLELAND
-
-
-
-
-                            IN TWO VOLUMES
-
-                               VOL. I.
-
-
-
-
-                      WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
-
-                         EDINBURGH AND LONDON
-
-                             MDCCCLXXXVII
-
-
-                        _All Rights reserved_
-
-
-
-
-
-
-                    CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
-
-
-     CHAP.
-
-        I. PROLOGUE.
-
-       II. CLAM BEACH.
-
-      III. THE FIRST EVENING.
-
-       IV. THE PERILS OF SURF-BATHING.
-
-        V. ROSE AND LETTICE.
-
-       VI. WITH THE SMOKERS.
-
-      VII. A TABLEAU.
-
-     VIII. MRS WILKIE'S POWDER.
-
-       IX. BETWEEN FRIENDS.
-
-        X. A MOTHER'S CARES.
-
-       XI. DISCUSSING A SUITOR.
-
-      XII. TO NAHANT?
-
-     XIII. MAIDA SPRINGER.
-
-      XIV. SUNSET AND MOONSHINE.
-
-       XV. IN AN OMNIBUS.
-
-      XVI. LIPPENSTOCK BAY.
-
-     XVII. FESSENDEN'S ISLAND.
-
-    XVIII. AN ADIEU.
-
-      XIX. STORM-STAYED.
-
-
-
-
-
-                           TRUE TO A TYPE.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER I.
-
-                              PROLOGUE.
-
-
-It was evening in New Orleans--the brief swift evening of the South,
-which links, with imperceptible graduation, the sultry glare of day to
-the cool of night. The narrow old streets were growing dim in the
-transparent dusk. The torpid houses, sealed up hermetically through
-all the afternoon to exclude the heated light and air, awoke from
-their siesta, throwing wide their doors and casements to the breeze.
-The inhabitants came forth, and sauntered up and down, or sat about
-their doors, drawing long, deep breaths of the evening air--coming
-back to life again, and throwing off their languor. It was the hour of
-rest for the toilers, of refreshment for all, and they were enjoying
-it in indolent content.
-
-Only one among the many moving to and fro appeared animated by a
-purpose. He stepped briskly forward, brushing against an idler now and
-then, but was past before the other's eyes had turned in lazy inquiry
-to know the reason.
-
-He was young. Twenty-one was his actual age, though he might have
-passed for some years older. His features and his skin were browned
-and sharpened by climate and vicissitude; but in his eye at that
-moment there was no sign of aught but youth and hope and blissful
-anticipation. Brushing his way swiftly through the sauntering throng,
-his gaze seemed fixed upon some joy beyond, heedless of nearer
-objects; and his eyes shone with a clearness like the rift in a
-moon-obscuring cloud, betraying the brightness and the light within;
-and a smile was lurking in the corners of his mouth, which waited only
-for a pretext to break forth in joyous laughter.
-
-Threading his way through the older portion of the town, he arrived at
-last in the outskirts, where high blank walls overtopped by trees, and
-houses with their faces turned studiously from the street, preserved
-the sullen deadness which more populous neighbourhood had cast aside
-at sundown.
-
-Before a garden door he stopped and knocked--knocked loudly, and with
-a peculiar tantarabulation, as if it were a well-remembered signal,
-and stood and waited impatiently. The shuffling of feet could be heard
-within, and there came whisperings and rustlings, but the door
-remained fast, and the young man stood and waited, and knocked again,
-more softly this time, and with a brightening smile as he stood and
-listened.
-
-"They have gone to call her," he said to himself, "that she may come
-and open to me herself, as she used to do. Dear girl! It is three long
-years since last she let me in--three weary years. But why this long
-delay? She could not expect me, but she knows my knock. Can she be
-from home? Then why does not some one open?"
-
-Again the footsteps could be heard within. Laggingly they drew near.
-Heavy unwillingness could be noted in their tread. The young man
-knocked again. A key turned gratingly in the stiff old lock, and bolts
-and fastenings creaked and rasped and yielded tardily, as to a hand
-which trembled while it pressed them. The door swung open, and the
-youth with arms extended leaped within the threshold; but the figure
-which admitted him was not the one he had expected; his arms fell by
-his side--it was not she.
-
-The figure which had opened drew backward with a scream. It was a
-servant, and in the doubtful light the white-handkerchief about the
-head stood out against the dusky foliage of the magnolias, and defined
-the negro face.
-
-"O Lordie, Lordie!" was her trembling exclamation, as she shrank away.
-She would have run, but her limbs were powerless. She stood staring at
-the visitor with starting eyes whose whites revealed the round dilated
-pupils, while her mouth hung open in helpless terror.
-
-"Dinah! Is this your welcome to a returned sailor? Where are your
-mistresses? Did they hear my knock?"
-
-Dinah cowered against the wall, subsiding gradually into a heap upon
-the ground, powerless to cry out, too dazed even to pray. Her
-scattered faculties seemed fumbling for a word of power wherewith to
-reinstate themselves, and avert some peril. "Jerusalem!" was the first
-which came to hand. Its utterance brought strength and some return of
-thought. It was followed by "Bress de Lord!" and then with speech
-restored, she clasped her hands above her head, and with all her
-strength cried out. "O Lordie! Take de drown man's spook away!"
-
-The visitor turned on his heel and walked round to the front of the
-house, where doors and shutters stood wide open. Entering by a window
-open to the ground, he stood in the reception-room: it was empty, and
-its recesses were concealed in gloom. Nothing was clearly seen but the
-great white magnolia blossoms in the dim garden without, which
-burdened the air with their almost too luscious sweetness.
-
-A door opened behind him and the mistress entered, followed by her
-daughter carrying a lamp. The young man turned eagerly, and the light
-falling on his features betrayed a shade of disappointment passing
-across them as he recognised the ladies.
-
-"Is Lina from home?" he asked. "But, mother, at least you can welcome
-me home in the meantime. What! Not a word! No kiss even for your
-long-lost son-in-law! Surely that is carrying your New England reserve
-too far."
-
-"Welcome if you will, then, lad! I wish you nought but good. I always
-liked you well; and you have done nothing to make me change. But oh!
-if it had been His will, I would fain you had never returned, seeing
-you have stayed so long."
-
-She laid her hand upon his open palm. It was cold and nerveless, and
-her eyes were full of tears.
-
-The young man would have clasped the fingers, but their dullness stole
-into his heart, and the tremor of her voice filled him with sickening
-forebodings.
-
-"Lina! Where is Lina? Tell me quick! Has anything come to her?"
-
-"She is gone."
-
-"Dead, do you mean to say?"
-
-"The same to you, lad, as if she were. She is gone from you for ever."
-
-"Hush, mother!" said the daughter. "Remember we agreed to tell him
-nothing."
-
-"Millicent! Is it you who say such things? What do you mean? Would you
-keep me from my wife?"
-
-"She is gone; and you must never see her more," said Millicent.
-
-"I must! and will! and shall!"
-
-"You are not the man, then," cried the elder woman, "that I take you
-for. I tell you, lad, the sight of you would kill her!"
-
-"Why so? What have you told her about me? What has she done? Or what
-do you say that _I_ have done?"
-
-"Neither of you has done aught amiss, lad--of that I am right sure."
-
-"What then? What is the matter?"
-
-"Let it rest, lad. It is God's will. Be brave. Be a man, and bear it."
-
-"Bear what? What is it I must bear? You have no right to doubt my
-courage. Why will you not speak? I demand to be told all."
-
-"Oh lad!--my poor, poor lad!" sobbed the old woman. "Why will you be
-so set? It is to save your own poor heart that we would keep you in
-the dark; for what we should have to tell can bring you nought but
-sorrow--a sorrow without a remedy."
-
-"Have no fear for me. Speak! I can carry my load, whatever it may be.
-What is your mystery? Where is Lina?"
-
-"Gone, lad! Have done with her."
-
-"Gone?--dead? No! You do not mean that she is dead. You would have
-told me that at once. What is it that you mean? Say! Is my Lina not
-alive? Answer me."
-
-"She lives," the mother answered, with a groan. "There! Nay, it is
-useless to press me. I tell you she is gone."
-
-"Gone! Would you insinuate shame against my wedded wife?
-Unnatural!--against your own sweet daughter? Where has she gone?--and
-when?--and how?--I am after her. Tell me quick!"
-
-"You cannot go to her, Joseph. She is far away. And"--laying her hand
-on his arm--"at least I can tell you this, and assure you with all my
-heart; there is nought to blush for. She was your faithful wife. No
-shame can light on her, or upon you."
-
-"_Was_, you say?"
-
-"Yes, lad; all's over now."
-
-"What do you mean?"
-
-"She is married--married again."
-
-"Another man's wife? I do not believe you. What man would dare----?
-I'll have his life! But it is not true. Lina never would desert me."
-
-"Word came that you were lost. Remember that. Pieces of the wreck were
-picked up at sea. And Lina--she nearly lost her reason. We thought
-that she would die."
-
-"But I wrote--wrote several times. Do you mean that she did not get my
-letters?" and the young man paced the room in vehement disorder. "You
-knew I was alive! I can see that you did. You were expecting me! I can
-guess it from your delay in letting me in. You would have kept me out
-altogether if you had dared! I am sure of it by your behaviour. Only
-you were afraid of a public scandal."
-
-"I did, and I was, lad; and it is yourself would grieve the most, if a
-word were to light on the good name of the woman you vowed to love and
-honour."
-
-"The woman who deserts me for another man! But still she is mine! She
-cannot be another's. Give her back! Give up the name of her betrayer.
-Who is he? Where are they? Speak!"
-
-The mother had sunk into a chair, her arms propped upon her knees,
-covering her face and sobbing wildly, while Millicent bent down and
-strove to soothe her.
-
-"Speak, woman! speak!" he shouted.
-
-"Have you no pity?" It was Millicent who spoke.
-
-"What pity are you showing now to me? Give back my wife! Where have
-you hidden her? And this man----? She has left me, has she? But _he_
-shall not have her! If I had him by the throat----!" and he clenched
-his teeth in fury.
-
-"Lina never left you. You might know it. You should blush to have
-thought it. If ever woman was devoted to a man, it was our Lina. When
-word came that you were lost, she fell senseless on the floor. It was
-weeks before she recovered her reason; and even then it seemed
-doubtful if she would survive. We took her North as soon as we dared
-move her, and in the bracing air and change of scene it seemed as if
-the vehemence of her grief had spent itself; but the old self seemed
-to have gone from her as well. She moved about a listless white-faced
-shadow, indifferent to life and everything. It was heartbreaking to
-see her--and she not yet eighteen! And mother and I, we were beside
-ourselves with anxiety. She appeared too feeble to bring back here,
-and we feared the sight of the familiar scenes would revive her grief,
-and drive her mad, or kill her. And so, when a gentleman grew
-interested in her, and slid into a kind of pitiful intimacy that
-seemed to soothe her, we thanked God for raising us up a consoler. And
-when, by-and-by, he asked her to marry him, mother and I persuaded her
-to listen, for we thought that new duties and a new life would draw
-her thoughts away from her great sorrow, and bring her peace. It was
-fifteen months, or more, from the time the news reached us of your
-loss, when she was married; so you have no call to say that her memory
-was short, or that her love was light to come and light to go. She
-loved you very truly, and she cherishes your memory yet."
-
-"What did she say when she received my letters?"
-
-"She has received none of them. When mother and I got home after her
-marriage, we found one awaiting us here. We opened it and we read it,
-and we burned it--though it went to our hearts to do so."
-
-"What right had you to open a letter to my wife? what right to
-intercept it?"
-
-"The right of her nearest to guard poor Lina's peace. What good would
-it have done you if we had given it to her? No doubt she would have
-left her husband; but that would not have given her back to _you_. You
-know her as well as I do. You know that she would not have looked you
-in the face after having given herself to another. She would have
-pined away for shame; or, more likely, she would have gone mad."
-
-"Yes, lad," put in the mother, "you must take your trouble on your own
-back, unless you would destroy the woman you bound yourself to defend.
-You must go away and never let her know you are alive. I make no
-question but she would leave her present husband without a word; but
-think of yourself! Could _you_ take her to your bosom out of another
-man's arms? Could she ever be the same to you as she was before?"
-
-"Perhaps--perhaps--I do not know."
-
-"And think of her! How could she live beneath your looks of always
-remembering reproach?"
-
-"At least I can promise never to say a word. I would not reproach
-her."
-
-"Not in words, I well believe, lad. But the reproach unspoken of a
-wounded love will out in many a tone and look, without our knowing.
-And then, there is the world. How could my girl hold up her head among
-honest women? Their pity would be harder even than their scorn to
-bear. Lina would die of shame. Oh, lad! be generous, as I know you are
-able to be. I know you for a brave true man; and when the first smart
-is past, you will have pity for the girl you loved, and who loved you
-well. You will spare her weakness, and let your own brave strong heart
-contain its grief in silence. You do not know her name or where she
-dwells, and you will not attempt to seek her."
-
-The young man smothered a mighty sob, which nearly rent his breast
-asunder, and drew his hand roughly across his eyes to clear their
-gathering dimness. He turned and went, without a word of leave-taking.
-The elasticity was gone out of his step. His shoulders were bowed as
-though they bore a burden. His face was drawn, and aged, and faded.
-His very soul seemed crushed. Without another word he stole away out
-into the night, where no eye could pry into his sorrow.
-
-Next day he left New Orleans, and forsook the sea. He returned to his
-native province, and, entering on a new career, strove to absorb
-himself in its new interests, and forget the past. He prospered, but
-he never forgot; or, if he did, the faculty of loving seemed to have
-died out of him in the meanwhile. In five-and-twenty years from the
-day he lost his wife, no other woman had been able to awaken even a
-passing interest in his mind.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER II.
-
-                             CLAM BEACH.
-
-
-The Chowder House at Clam Beach is not a giant among the hotels which
-line the Atlantic coast. It is designed to accommodate only a hundred
-guests, and even at the height of the season it refuses to stretch its
-capacity beyond a hundred and fifty. It stands upon a solitary shore,
-is some miles from the nearest railway, and shows nothing from its
-windows but the tumbling line of surf and the daily procession of
-cloud and sunshine across a boundless stretch of sea and sand.
-
-It is a three-storeyed building encased in wooden galleries, which
-form outside corridors on the different floors; and it forms three
-sides of a square, enclosing to the back a sheltered tennis-lawn for
-those who would avoid the bluster of the keen sea-breeze.
-
-The place is resorted to by families with a juvenile division, whose
-nurses and small fry burrow in the sand which comes up to the very
-doorsteps. It makes no pretence to fashion. The guests feel at liberty
-to be happy, each in his own favourite dress and manner, without fear
-of being compromised. The young bathe in the surf and walk or ride on
-the sands all day; and after the Yankee supper of meats, fruit, and
-tea, which takes place at seven, make themselves gay with dances and
-singing: while the seniors stroll together in groups, or sit apart,
-acquiescing in the American law of life, which gives the world to the
-young, and places the middle-aged with the elders on the shelf. The
-old may work, if so is their good pleasure, but it is only the lads
-and lasses who are to play.
-
-It was early afternoon, in the very hottest of the day. The first bell
-for dinner had rung, and the guests were streaming towards the house
-from every point along the shore; while the most hungry, already
-arrived, loitered on the galleries, and counted the minutes till the
-dining-room should be thrown open.
-
-The omnibus from the station, jolting round the corner, and drawing up
-before the door, afforded a pleasing diversion from the yearnings of
-appetite. It brought the newspapers of the day; and more, it brought
-new guests, who, busied in alighting and claiming their luggage,
-formed a subject for observation to the idle eyes above, unintroduced
-as yet, and therefore at liberty to stare their fill with all the
-impertinent curiosity at their disposal.
-
-The ladies counted the boxes on the roof, and turned away with a
-sniff. Even at Clam Beach, with its freedom from dress parade, the
-number of trunks is taken as a criterion of "standing," and certain
-ladies of grand manner from Boston are even suspected of bringing
-empty ones to support their position.
-
-The men, toothpick in mouth, continued to stare. There were two pretty
-faces visible beneath the flapping brims of broad seaside hats,--one
-violet-eyed, with masses of sunny brown hair; the other blond, with
-eyes like the forget-me-not,--and they could study them without
-prejudice or offence just then. Later, when they met in the parlours
-above, it would be different.
-
-Presently the hotel cart trotted up with a number of trunks. A slight
-"Ah!" of satisfaction spread itself on the air, and the ladies resumed
-their attitude of observation. They were not going to be compromised
-after all, it seemed, by the presence of fellow-guests without
-ostensible movable property, and forthwith they began to note the
-value and fashion of each article of the feminine newcomers' wardrobe,
-and the general look of the men. One of these appeared about thirty,
-available for flirtation and social uses; while the other was older,
-with a suspicion of grey in the short close-cut whisker--a florid and
-well-fed man, and seemingly well to do, which was a point in favour of
-his female following: and a point of some sort is needed where
-available men to marriageable girls stand in the proportion of only
-two to five.
-
-Two oldish ladies brought up the number of the arrivals to six; but as
-they were dressed in the ordinary manner of the period, nobody noticed
-them much. They were mere furniture, intended to remain in corners,
-and be sat beside when younger women, finding themselves neglected,
-chose to assume demureness under the wing of a chaperon.
-
-"Two trunks. Those! Valise, handbag, rugs, and umbrellas." It was the
-younger man who was addressing the porter.
-
-"Oh, Peter!" cried the oldest lady, "have you my parrysol?--and my
-book?--and my scent-bottle?--and my spectacle-case? Where can they all
-be?"
-
-"You've just left them behind you, mother, as usual. You would have
-left yourself, I do believe, if I had not been at your elbow."
-
-"What am I to do for want of my parrysol? Between the hot sun and the
-sea air, every bit of colour will be eaten out of my blue ribbons, and
-my face just brandered like a raw beef-steak. I wonder if the little
-things can have gotten into my pockets!" And so saying, she stepped
-forth upon the gravel, where elbow-room was free, shook out her
-skirts, and proceeded to dive down deep into apertures she wot of in
-all parts of her circumference.
-
-"What's this?" she cried, sinking over the elbow into a pocket on the
-far-off side. "What can it be?" And the eyes and eyeglasses in the
-galleries were turned in her direction; while Peter, half wroth and
-half amused, stood waiting the end of her search.
-
-"It's terrible hard to grip. But there! Now! I've cornered it at last.
-Can it be livin', I wonder? The way it runs about! And I canna just
-lay finger on it."
-
-"A mouse, mother, is it?" He was growing cross and sarcastic under the
-observation of the loungers. "Out with it! Here's a terrier ready to
-snap it up."
-
-"Peter Wilkie, hold your peace! Would ye make fun of your own mother,
-and all thae impident Yankees looking on? Think shame! Hey! here it is
-at last, the bothersome thing!" And out it came, proving to be only a
-large-sized peppermint-drop.
-
-"Toot! that's not what I was looking for. Here, my dear!" and without
-more ado she popped it into the open mouth of a small boy who stood by
-gaping at her in her search, to his complete confusion and the
-increased diversion of the gallery.
-
-"See there, Peter! If that's no' the parrysol after all, tied up with
-the umbrellies! Just where it should be! And me hunting for it
-everywhere! I wonder you didn't see it! And here's the specs and the
-scent-bottle all the time in the ridicule at my side! Wonders will
-never cease. As for the book, it'll turn up ere I want it; and if
-anybody took it, they'll be little made up, for it's just Beattie's
-Lectures on the Ten Commandments, and very hard upon the sin of
-stealing. And, Peter, be sure and make the landlord give us rooms upon
-the first floor. I _can-not_ be climbing stairs--it brings on the
-palpitations."
-
-Meanwhile the other tenants of the omnibus had alighted and entered
-the house. "A man with a sickly wife and a couple of daughters," was
-the verdict upon the party, which was only rectified by reference to
-the house-register after they had catalogued themselves--"Joseph
-Naylor, Mrs Caleb Naylor, and the Misses Naylor, all of Jones's
-Landing, Upper Canada."
-
-"Oh, girls, I am exhausted! Open the windows and the trunks. Hartshorn
-and sal-volatile! I shall faint--I am sure I shall faint. Margaret,
-get ready to go down with your uncle. Lucy, my child, you must remain
-with me."
-
-"Stuff and nonsense, Maria!" said the uncle. They were being shown
-their rooms up-stairs. "You have only to exert yourself. That's all
-you require to set you up. And of course you must come down to dinner.
-The sight of so many strangers will do you good, and we shall want
-your help to make up our minds about the company."
-
-Mrs Naylor shook her head in plaintive toleration. It was not to be
-expected that coarse-fibred masculinity should comprehend the
-susceptibility of her delicate nerves. She half-closed her eyes and
-sank into a chair, with every appearance of taking up her quarters for
-good--unless, indeed, she should have to be laid upon the adjoining
-bed.
-
-Joseph, standing impatiently without, grew uneasy, as perhaps was
-intended. He was of an anxious temper, fussy as well as kind. The
-responsibility of having a delicate lady on his hands oppressed him.
-He had groaned under the load for years, but he had not got used to
-it. It oppressed him ever the more, the longer he endured it, and he
-was overridden by the whims and complaints of this relict of his
-deceased brother, even more than if she had been wife of his own.
-
-"Pray try, sister--try. It is for your health we are here, you know.
-It will be distressing if you begin by taking to your bed. I feel
-confident that a morsel of dinner and a glass of sparkling wine will
-do you good."
-
-I will not say that it was the suggestion of the wine which induced
-Mrs Naylor to change her purpose; it may only have been willingness to
-yield to entreaty. At any rate, she let herself be persuaded, though
-not too easily, and eventually went downstairs with the rest.
-
-At dinner they shared a table with their fellow-travellers of the
-omnibus, and found Mr Wilkie and his mother already placed when they
-entered.
-
-"Mother," Peter had been saying, "you will have to behave here, or you
-will compromise me before all those Toronto people. If they carry back
-a tale of queer doings on our part, you will find it harder than ever
-to get into society when we go home. There is Mrs Judge Petty with her
-son and daughter, and there Colonel and Mrs Carraway, and the
-Vice-Chancellor Chickenpips! Mind what you are about. This is not the
-Gallowgate of Glasgow--remember that! If they see you biting your
-bread or eating with your knife, you're done for; and so am I."
-
-"Peter Wilkie, I wonder ye can have the heart to be speaking like that
-to your dying mother!--bringing on the palpitations worse than ever.
-Oh, my heart! it's just thumping. If I did take lodgers at one
-time--ay, and turn the mangle with my own hands--whose sake was it
-done for? Tell me that. I wonder where the money would have come from
-to pay for your fine edication if I had chosen to sit and drink my tea
-in the afternoons like a feckless leddy, as I might have done! It
-wasn't your bankrupt father, danderin' about the doors hand-idle, that
-could have helped you. I just slaved with that mangle and the lodgers
-to bring up my boay; and now, when he is in a splendid way of doing,
-this is the thanks he gives me--to cast the Gallowgate up to me! As if
-it wasna you, and your father before you, that brought me down to
-that! Think shame of yourself, Peter Wilkie!" And the big round tears
-came rattling in a very hailstorm out of the old blue eyes, leaving
-watercourses among her ribbons, and mingling with the gravy in her
-plate, till the son felt like a brute--or at least he should have felt
-so; and he certainly feared that he must appear like one in the eyes
-of any fellow-guest who might observe him.
-
-The entrance of the Naylors made a welcome diversion. As they took
-their places the old woman's tears dried up of themselves, her eyes
-being withdrawn from the inward contemplation of her own distresses to
-the lace cap of Mrs Naylor and the gowns of her daughters.
-Unconsciously she sat up more squarely in her chair, prinked out her
-cap-strings, and wondered if Mrs Naylor's hair could be all her own;
-while her son and the gentleman exchanged an observation on the
-journey they had made together.
-
-Mrs Naylor was not only of the Provinces, but provincial at that. Like
-other "leading ladies" of Jones's Landing, she was wont to inform
-strangers that she was "very exclusive," with the gratifying result of
-taking away their breath; though perhaps, if she had but known, it was
-the stupendous conceit which could imagine herself or her circle in
-the smallest degree desirable, rather than the splendour of her
-position which astonished them. She had no small opinion of her
-"position," but, like other rural great ones, she bowed in her heart
-before the superiority of dwellers in the capital. There was a
-grandeur in their way of accepting her pretensions, while setting them
-calmly aside, which filled her with admiring awe on her rare visits to
-Toronto--made her rave about its elegance, and try to play off in
-Jones's Landing some of the mannerisms she had found so impressive.
-And here it may be observed that, in its way, Toronto is a capital,
-even as New York is, or London, and quite as accustomed as either to
-put on metropolitan airs, so far as circumstances permit; and seeing
-that all mankind are made of one kind of clay, there may be less
-difference in the spirit which animates the small community and the
-great one than would appear. A cock-boat is built of the same
-materials as a man-of-war, and it is floated and steered in accordance
-with the same laws of nature.
-
-At a distant table Mrs Naylor descried Mrs Justice Petty, Mrs
-Vice-Chancellor Chickenpip, and Mrs Carraway--the very cream of
-Toronto society. Ice-cream, alas! they were likely to prove to Mrs
-Naylor, as she did not know them, and they made a point of not thawing
-to unknown fellow-country-women whom they met in American hotels--it
-being difficult to shake them off afterwards, especially the
-undesirable ones. So far, indeed, did those ladies' prudence carry
-them, that they would only bathe at eccentric hours and in secretly
-arranged parties. The very sea should not receive them in the same
-embrace with persons from Canada who were not in Society. As for
-Americans, it did not matter: they might never meet them again, and
-Americans are held to be a peculiar people, without social degrees or
-defined lines of demarcation. Everybody among them may be anybody, and
-each is expected to have a spice of everything. Among them, vulgarity,
-if they have any, is overlooked. They are generally amusing, often
-rich, and cannot compromise a Canadian.
-
-Mrs Naylor's eye, surveying the company, lighted on her distinguished
-compatriots. She knew them, although she had not the happiness of
-being acquainted with them--a humbling thought, which made her
-approach with more meekness than otherwise she might have felt, the
-two people from Toronto who shared her table. If not the rose, they at
-least grew near it, and might--who knew?--be woven into a link of
-connection with the queen of flowers. She addressed a polite
-observation to the old lady, who, accepting it as a tribute to her
-clever son and her own good looks, responded affably, as not unwilling
-to confer the favour of her notice, though aware that it was a thing
-of value.
-
-And so it came about that, when dinner was over, the Naylor party and
-the Wilkies had coalesced, and strolled together to a shady corner of
-the galleries, where broad awnings, flapping in fitful air-currents,
-lent a little freshness to the languor of the hot and drowsy
-afternoon.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER III.
-
-                           THE FIRST EVENING.
-
-
-When the sweltering hours of afternoon have passed on westward, and
-the shadows creep out to meet the coming twilight in the east, there
-is an arousing in the world comparable to the quickening which passes
-across it at the opening of each new day. The air, too languid, an
-hour since, to lift the drooping streamer on the flag-staff, awakens
-into flutterings which set the aspen-leaves in the shrubbery spinning
-gleefully upon their slender stalks. The watch-dog rattling his chain
-emerges from his kennel, stretching and blinking, and yawning his
-formidable jaws. The interest of living steals slowly back on him, and
-ere long he is amusing himself with a half-gnawed bone, his eyes fixed
-upon the kitchen-door, whence supper and the cook are wont to visit
-him.
-
-There are stirrings and rustlings in the long silent passages and
-chambers of the hotel. The life of the inmates, which had burned low,
-like charcoal-embers in the thick hot stillness, lights up in the
-eddies of cooler air which flutter in, and brightens into flame. The
-sleepers draw themselves together where they lie on swing, in hammock,
-on couch, or deeply cushioned chair, and open their eyes and start and
-are awake, inhale the freshness of the sea-salt air, and the house is
-alive once more with the stirring of its inmates, like a clock which
-had run down, but is now wound up and set agoing.
-
-Old Mrs Wilkie had been surprised by sleep as she lay back in a long
-cane chair, preliminary to getting up and seeking the privacy of her
-chamber. Her feet had been raised on the further end of the seductive
-invention for barely a second, when, with a sigh, her head fell
-backward, leaving the lips apart, and plunging her in deep sweet
-gurgling slumber, which echoed purlingly along the silent gallery,
-like sounds of hidden brooks in shady dells.
-
-She started now, and, wheeling round, sat bolt-upright, in haste to
-hide among her skirts the broad prunella shoes which had stood up
-before her like a massive screen, concealing her foreshortened figure
-from intrusive eyes.
-
-"Peter Wilkie! are you sleeping? Come here," were the first words she
-spoke on opening her eyes. There was crossness in her voice, and her
-face was aflush with anger, or perhaps with lingering sleep. "I wish
-you would speak to that impertinent Yankee woman over there. What
-business has she looking at me like that? It's my feet she's trying to
-see, I do believe."
-
-"They're big enough to be plainly seen without much trying, mother.
-But never mind, I'll back them to gang their ain gate against hers or
-anybody's. Why did you not go to your room, as I advised you, instead
-of exhibiting yourself like a sleeping beauty before the whole house?"
-
-"I just fell asleep before I knew; and it's like your father's son to
-be jawing and jeering when I'm too poorly to take my own part," and
-she pressed her side. "Sleeping beauty, quothy! It'll be telling ye,
-my man, if any scart of a wife ye may pick up in this unwholesome
-country keeps her looks half as well when she comes to my time of
-life;" and having secured the last word, she withdrew to smooth her
-tumbled hair and prepare for the next meal.
-
-There was a general rolling up of awnings and opening of shutters all
-over the house. Doors and windows were thrown open, and whisperings
-from the sea stole in everywhere, bringing freshness and gaiety where
-sloth and prostration had brooded all the afternoon. The sounds of
-laughter and tripping feet echoed on the stairs, and presently the
-whole body of guests come out from supper were assembled in the
-parlours. There were three parlours, connected with each other by
-folding-doors. Only one was carpeted, to be ready for rainy days at
-the end of the season. The boards of the other two were bare, like the
-holystoned deck of a steamer; and, with their open windows descending
-to the floor, they had the appearance of sheltered continuations of
-the gallery without, rather than of rooms, they were so sweet and
-fresh and spacious.
-
-Round the pianos, or rather one of them, the crowd gathered. A
-Bostonian, the pet of the ladies and the aversion of the other young
-men, seated himself before it and began to play. He played, as the
-male amateur is wont to play, with abundant sound--eliciting admiring
-whispers as to the energy of his touch, and acquitting himself
-successfully, though by no means with the brilliancy he himself
-supposed. Ere long he slid into a waltz, and then the crowd broke up
-into its component parts. Those who could find a partner began to
-dance, those who desired one looked about or waited to be asked, while
-the elders withdrew to the carpeted drawing-room.
-
-Those first to reach it having secured the rocking-chairs, the
-remainder had to sit still,--all, that is, but Miss Maida Springer, a
-school-ma'am, the gossips said, from Vermont--a lady of questionable
-youth but indubitable independence of character, who tilted her chair
-till its back touched the wall, and swung her feet in a plenitude of
-sedentary exercise such as no rocker could afford.
-
-Mrs Judge Petty was one of the first to reach the drawing-room and
-install herself in a comfortable place. Having done so, she had
-leisure to look round and consider how the places near her should be
-filled. Her eye lighted on Mrs Wilkie drifting doubtfully on the
-stream, and, fixing her with an encouraging smile, drew her forward,
-and landed her with a turn of the eyelid on a sofa at her elbow.
-
-Mrs Naylor followed close upon her new acquaintance, and Mrs Petty,
-feeling no desire to know _her_, would fain have staved her off with a
-chilling stare; but Mrs Naylor could play burr on occasion, and knew
-how to disregard what it would be inconvenient to see. She stuck to
-her friend, and made small-talk whilst settling herself by her side;
-and Mrs Wilkie, though eager to meet the advances of the more
-worshipful lady, was too unskilful to refrain from answering her
-assiduous companion. It was tantalising. Circumstances through life
-had kept her far off from the judges and magnates of her native land;
-and now, when she was abroad, and at last in clover--when great ones
-were actually seeking her acquaintance--to think that a quite ordinary
-person should intrusively interfere! It made her cross, and her
-replies grew short and dry; but, alas! to no good purpose--for though
-Mrs Naylor could be silenced by taciturnity, Mrs Petty had turned away
-her head in the meantime, and was interesting herself in other things.
-
-Mrs Wilkie flushed and fretted; Mrs Naylor sat and bided her time. She
-had two girls to bring out and marry well--enterprises in which
-patience and ability to eat humble-pie speed better than more
-brilliant qualities. She sat by Mrs Wilkie, keeping her company,
-though neither spoke. Their eyes were occupied with the moving crowd
-of dancers in the distance, as they whirled and floated on the tide of
-sound.
-
-After a while Mrs Petty turned round to her neighbour and observed, "I
-think I see Mr Wilkie--your son, is he not?--dancing with my daughter
-Ann. A good height, are they not, for each other? They really look
-very well."
-
-"Most girls look well dancing with my Peter--Mr Wilkie, I ought to
-say, for we can't look on a young man in his fine position as just a
-boy; though, to be sure, he will always be a boy to me. Eh!--the
-trouble I had with him in his teething! I can never forget that, and
-the day we put on his first pair of little trousers. I made them
-myself out of a bit of black-and-red tartan. And now, to see him
-'dancing in the hall,' as the song says, with all the finest girls in
-the room just scuffling to get a catch of him."
-
-Mrs Petty was scarcely gratified at the remark, but she was amused;
-and as we grow older on this humdrum planet, to be amused befalls one
-so seldom that it compensates for much, even for a lack of proper
-respect--so she acquiesced.
-
-"Yes," she said, "Mr Petty--Judge Petty, you know, my husband--says he
-thinks highly of your son, and expects him to do very well. I too have
-met him, and like the little I have seen; and now apparently he has
-made the acquaintance of Ann, and they seem to get on together very
-nicely."
-
-"Oh yes," chuckled the mother, "he's a great boy with the girls, our
-Peter. They're all pulling caps to see who's going to get him. I
-just----"
-
-"Hm!" coughed Mrs Petty, in haste to interrupt before anything worse
-had been said of the girls, among whom her own daughter seemed
-audaciously to be included. "Oh yes, an excellent young man. I have
-scarcely met him, but I hope to see more of him next winter, and I am
-very pleased to meet his mother."
-
-Whereat the other bridled and was happy. How well it would read in her
-next letter to her husband--hid away somewhere in Scotland, and never
-alluded to--to mention Mr Justice Petty and his family among her
-intimate friends!
-
-"Don't you think my daughter Ann is looking her best this evening?"
-the younger mother went on. "So animated. She is perhaps too tranquil
-in general. 'Statuesque' was how young Lord Norman described her, when
-he passed through Toronto last spring. And really she is clever,
-though ill-natured people say she has no conversation. When she gets
-hold of a clever man who can understand, see! she positively rattles."
-
-"Oh yes, Peter generally makes the girls rattle. He's very quick about
-sounding them. Terrible empty, though, he says he generally finds
-them;" which was a remark she should have spared her new friend, in
-view of the elation she felt in making the acquaintance; but Peter was
-her monomania. With his name on her lips, the words would come of
-themselves, without judgment or consideration.
-
-"There is my son Walter, too," Mrs Petty continued, taking no notice.
-"Dancing, I declare, instead of smoking out of doors. A positive
-achievement on the part of that young lady, if she only knew. A very
-handsome girl, and nicely dressed; but I do not seem to have observed
-her before--must have arrived to-day."
-
-"So she did," answered Mrs Wilkie. "That's--dear me! how bad my memory
-is growing!"
-
-"Miss Naylor," volunteered her mother. "Niece of Joseph Naylor of
-Jones's Landing."
-
-"The great lumberman? In--deed!" said Mrs Petty, interested and
-impressed. "I did not hear of her arrival. I wonder if _he_ is coming!
-The richest bachelor in Upper Canada, I understand. It is a risky
-business, but still----. One likes to see a celebrity."
-
-"He is here," his sister-in-law observed. "We arrived this afternoon."
-
-Mrs Petty turned her eyes, and for the first time permitted them to be
-seen resting on the stranger, addressing her with much politeness at
-the same time. "Then perhaps you are related to the beautiful girl who
-is dancing with my son?"
-
-"She is my daughter Margaret. I am Mrs Caleb Naylor."
-
-"So happy to know you, Mrs Naylor," and forthwith the mothers
-conversed freely across Mrs Wilkie and over her head, on subjects in
-which it was impossible for her to join, though many were her abortive
-attempts to put in an oar. Even Mrs Naylor, whose chit-chat she had
-stifled with her taciturnity half an hour before, was now grown deaf
-and unresponsive to anything she could say.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER IV.
-
-                     THE PERILS OF SURF-BATHING.
-
-
-When the day is young and the sky is blue, with just a flake or two of
-cloud low down on the horizon; when the sea, in purple slumber like a
-dreaming child, is brightened by the flickering glance and shadow on
-its rippling swell--and the surf, cresting itself in a wall of
-translucent green, leaps up and curls and topples over, crumbling in
-snow-white foam upon the sand; when the breeze, still gleeful with the
-memory of dew and starlit revels overnight, flits fresh and crisp
-beneath the early sunshine,--it is then that it is good to be a
-dweller by the shore: to spring from the unconsciousness of sleep into
-the luxury of sentient being, with softly fanning airs curling about
-the limbs, and wakening in them all their suppleness and strength.
-
-Obeying the summons of the early gong, the young and vigorous of the
-guests of the hotel had hastened to the bathing-houses on the beach,
-and now came forth a gay and motley company. They were dressed in
-suits of red, blue, orange, green, and grey, with hats of straw or
-caps of oilskin, or only falling hair by way of head-dress. White
-ankles twinkled all along the sand, and the air was musical with
-laughter, as they scampered down and halted by the margin of the white
-sea-foam,--ladies and men distinguishable only by their hair or beard,
-or by less or greater bulk. They arranged themselves like a necklace
-of brightly coloured beads, where great and small alternated with each
-other. Each smaller figure was attended by one of the sturdy kind, as
-though they were about to dance. The surf along that coast breaks in
-such massive billows, that the little and the weak can scarce bear up
-alone against the whelming rush, or keep their footing. They are
-liable to be thrown down by an advancing roller, turned over when it
-breaks, sucked outward in the reflux, and carried beyond their depth.
-
-The party joined hands, and then stepped out into the foam, a
-string of forty beads, to bind the bosom of the next big wave, so
-green and smooth and glassy; but as it yet came on, so huge and
-impressive with its crest of foam, like the tossing manes of Pharaoh's
-chariot-horses, the line outstepping stopped and wavered and bent, as
-one panic-stricken near the centre suddenly bounded back, and left the
-wings of the line turned sidewise and irresolute, while the wave was
-sweeping up indifferent to the doubts and fears of mortals. It swept
-upon the wings all unprepared to meet it, lifting them from their feet
-and throwing them down, and dabbling them in the wreck of foam and
-sand.
-
-"Oh, Lucy Naylor! that was not fair!--to spring back suddenly and
-leave us in the lurch!" rang out from several pairs of feminine lips.
-"I will not bathe with you again, if you go on so." But the laughter
-of those who were amused at the disaster overbore the displeasure of
-the remonstrants; and it being Lucy's first morning, she was forgiven
-on promising to be more courageous.
-
-The line formed up once more, and stepped out steadily to meet the
-next invader; and on he came, a smooth green hill, with the frothing
-and hissing water gathering on the summit like the gnashing teeth of
-an advancing monster. The line stood still, with spreading feet, bent
-knee, and breath held in. The monster was upon them, and with a little
-cry from here and there along the line, smothered and drowned and
-overwhelmed in the hissing deluge as it heaved above them, and with a
-thunderous roar, it broke up upon the shore behind them, and then drew
-back again in hurrying, seething foam, and left the line still
-standing. And then there was a sob or two, and a cry, followed by
-laughter and little screams of delight The cool sea water had drenched
-their shrinking frames, the saltness prickled exhilaratingly on the
-skin, and it was, as some one said, "just altogether too delightful."
-
-Again the line was formed, and again. Even the timid ones had grown
-courageous. The least expert had learned to shoulder and resist the
-coming waves. The world was all coolness and freshness and sparkle,
-and each new wave was plunged into with a relish keener than the last,
-when came a new disturbance or alarm, more pressing and more vehement
-than even the onslaught of the billows upon the inexperienced. It
-sounded from the shore, a voice addressing them in accents shrill and
-clamorous. They ceased their sport and turned, and beheld a figure
-with flushed cheeks, no bonnet, her hair disordered, and her cap
-askew, with ribbons fluttering wildly in the breeze.
-
-"Peter Wilkie!" it cried--"Peter Wilkie! Do ye not hear your mother
-crying to ye, fit to crack her voice? Let go that woman's hand, and
-come out ower this moment!--Peter! Do you hear me? Leave go, and come
-out ower. To think that I should live to see the proper up-bringing I
-have spared no pains to give ye, circumvented and brought to nothing
-by a set of shameless hempies like this!--and you just danderin' in
-the middle of them, like a fool goin' to the correction of the
-stocks!"
-
-Mr Peter passed through many phases of feeling while he was being
-addressed. First, he was ashamed for his mother's sake. He would fain
-have taken no notice, and plunged with his companions into the coming
-wave, in hopes that others would do the same, and every one's
-attention be withdrawn. Then he grew angry, and endeavoured to laugh
-off the intrusion as a quaint absurdity; but as the old lady's voice
-rose higher, and an audible titter ran along the line on either side
-of him, he realised that he must close the scene at once, on any
-terms. To outface the clamour was manifestly impossible, while to
-yield would at least bring the scolding to an end. With a shrug and a
-scowl, which he strove to hide behind a cough, and an acid smile, he
-stepped ashore, took his mother's hand, all dripping as he was, and
-led her away behind the bathing-houses, where, let us hope, an
-understanding and a reconciliation were effected.
-
-The interest of the bathers being thus disturbed, many began to feel
-chilly and to think they had had enough. Only the few who were good
-swimmers cared to remain, and these struck out beyond the ruin of
-breakers, to disport themselves above the placid depths beyond.
-
-In the unbroken water outside, they could frolic at will, diving,
-floating, treading water, or swimming further seaward. Naylor, the
-uncle of his nieces, who have been mentioned, was one of the eagerest
-of all. A man no longer young, but with no sign of coming age save a
-thinning of the hair above his temples. Well nourished and prosperous
-of aspect, and five feet nine or so in height; broad-shouldered,
-muscular, and active, with cheery grey eyes, and a face burnt red by
-the sun. His spirits rose with the increasing coolness of the water,
-as he swam out and out; and from the sedate middle-aged person he had
-been on shore, he seemed changed into a hilarious youth among his new
-associates, challenging those near him to strange feats and gambols,
-laughing and shouting like a schoolboy.
-
-Suddenly, with a cry, he threw up his hands, and sank beneath the
-surface.
-
-"Not a bad imitation of a drowning man; but I wish he would not do it
-out here, where the water is deep. It isn't half funny. It spoils
-one's stroke, and makes me feel heavy and weak," some one said.
-
-"I am not sure that it was imitation," answered another--a lady this
-one. "He may have a cramp. Watch when he rises."
-
-Presently his head emerged gasping from the depths, and Miss Hillyard,
-the lady who had spoken, swam to him, and was able to get her fingers
-into his hair, just as he was beginning to sink again, and lifted his
-head an inch or two for a moment, calling wildly on the others at the
-same time to come to her assistance.
-
-"Strike out!" she cried to the drowning man, tugging his hair again,
-and feeling her own poise seriously endangered by the effort. "What is
-the matter with you?"
-
-"Cramp," he gasped. "Help me on my back. Perhaps I may manage to
-float."
-
-"Help! Mr Sefton, help!" screamed the lady; and Mr Sefton, who was
-hurrying forward, was able to get a hand under the sinking man's chin
-on the other side, before he had drawn his other would-be rescuer
-under.
-
-"Hold on now, Miss Hillyard! Don't hurry. Be calm. Steady yourself.
-Keep cool. We'll manage it. Trust to the water.... Good! He is up.
-Have a care, now. He may clutch without meaning it. Keep clear of his
-arms.... Steady, friend. Can't you do something for yourself?"
-
-"I can't. Help me on my back. I cannot strike out one bit. I can
-hardly straighten my leg. Ugh!... Never fear, madam, I won't lay hold
-on you. Can you help me on my back, do you think? Never mind if you
-can't do it. Let go if you feel yourself sinking. One is enough to go
-to the bottom."
-
-With teeth tight set, he straightened out his limbs, and held them
-motionless; and by-and-by they succeeded in getting him on his back,
-and began to tow and steer him to the shore.
-
-Fortunately the tide had not yet turned. It was rising still; so the
-water helped them on their long and tardy voyage.
-
-It was an arduous and a tedious task, and but for the tranquil
-coolness of the man they were trying to save, it would have been
-beyond their power, as they had been a long way out when the accident
-occurred. As they approached the surf-line, however, their labour grew
-lighter, and presently the heaving swell caught hold of them and swung
-them forward with accelerating speed, as though the hungry ocean,
-balked of his intended prey, had grown eager to reject the victim he
-had failed to drown. Surging and swinging on the translucent tide,
-they were borne forward more and more swiftly, and were shot at last
-through the curling and overarching bank of surf into shallow water,
-where the crowd, which had been watching on the beach, ran in and
-dragged the exhausted trio ashore.
-
-"Uncle!" cried his nieces, laying hold on him, all dripping as he was,
-and bestowing hugs of congratulation. "You venturesome old man! How
-rash to go swimming out so far, this very first morning!"
-
-"I should have been done for, if it had not been for this young lady.
-I would wish to thank you, madam, if I could find words; but when it
-is one's life that has been saved, one does not know how properly to
-express it."
-
-"Pray say nothing," said Miss Hillyard, looking calm and handsome even
-in her dripping bathing-dress, her arms so white and strong and
-shapely folded on her breast, and the long dark hair hanging like a
-mantle down her back. "Do not say a word. Any one who was able to swim
-must have done the same. I am glad that I was near at the moment, and
-able to be of use."
-
-And then the bathers dispersed to get dried and dressed, leaving the
-beach to the waves and the sea-birds undisturbed.
-
-Joseph Naylor was an object of interest for the remainder of that day
-to all Clam Beach, as the man who had been all but drowned; but Miss
-Hillyard was the heroine for the rest of the season. She had saved a
-life, and the circumstances grew more marvellous from day to day, as
-each narrator in turn strove to give thrill to the only tale of peril
-he had ever assisted at; till at length the young lady, growing bored
-with the wondering respect it brought her, and which was far from
-being the form of admiration in which she took pleasure, began to deny
-the incident altogether, and assure people that it had never taken
-place.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER V.
-
-                          ROSE AND LETTICE.
-
-
-However indifferent or even nauseous applause become familiar may
-ultimately grow, it is intensely agreeable while it is yet new. Only
-with time and habitude does it begin, like other sweets, to pall upon
-the healthy appetite. Miss Hillyard, on the day of her exploit,
-distinctly enjoyed the feeling that all eyes followed her, and that
-other conversation was hushed whenever she chose to speak. It was an
-ovation with which she was favoured on coming down to breakfast. Every
-one who knew her was waiting with congratulations to extol her pluck,
-and those who did not, were striving to be introduced.
-
-Her friends felt an accession of importance in belonging to her; and
-Mrs Senator Deane of Indiana, under whose wing she was travelling,
-secured a carriage for a drive along the shore, so soon as breakfast
-was over, to keep the distinction of the heroine's intimacy secure in
-her own party.
-
-Notoriety in a hotel, or anywhere else, grows cheap when the noted one
-is to be met upon the stairs and on doorsteps all day long, and can be
-accosted and questioned by every comer, while a morning of privacy
-could not fail to increase general interest in the whole party. The
-exploit was sure to be talked over without reserve in their absence,
-and on their return each member of the community would be affected
-with the general enthusiasm which his own contribution had done
-something to augment.
-
-"Tell us all about it now, Rose, from the very beginning," cried
-Lettice Deane, catching both her hands, as soon as they had driven
-from the door. "I am dying to hear everything, now we are out of that
-inquisitive crowd--Yankees with their straight out questions, and
-Canucks with that wooden British way of theirs, staring without a wink
-and saying nothing, but drinking in everything with their eyes. Give
-me Western folks after all, say I. One knows what they are and how to
-deal with them from the first. These down-Easters, with their
-intelligence, and their conceit, and their determination to know all
-about it, make me feel like a potato-bug on the end of a pin, under a
-microscope. I like folks that are smart, but the cultured intelligence
-of Boston is just something too awful."
-
-"But decent Canadians do not ask questions."
-
-"I wish they would. They are always looking them--with eyes made
-round, ears erect, and mouth ajar. I'd like to shake some of them."
-
-"Stuff! Lettie. I am Canadian, please remember."
-
-"You are different. You have lived in Chicago; and that cures most
-things. But tell us now!--all about it. How did it begin?"
-
-"Begin? Let me see. We were all out together in the deep water, having
-a social swim, and showing each other what we could do. Mr Sefton had
-just picked up a shell from the bottom--quite a pretty one, too, it
-seemed--and was swimming up to give it me, when we heard a cry; and
-when I turned round, I was just in time to see a hand disappearing
-under water. You can scarcely fancy the uncomfortable thrill it gave
-me. At once I remembered the octopus they say was cast ashore last
-week at St John's, with arms a yard or two long, all covered with
-suckers, and I began to think of cold slimy things in the water,
-twisting about me and pulling me down. It took all my nerve, and the
-certainty that if I yielded to panic, I should sink, to compose me;
-when bobbing up to the surface came a head of hair, not five yards
-off. That calmed me. It gave me something to do."
-
-"How brave you are, Rose! With me, now, the sight of a drowning man
-would have scared me out of my wits."
-
-"You cannot swim, Lettie. That is why you think so."
-
-"And then? What did you do next?"
-
-"As soon as I could get near enough, I got my fingers into his hair,
-and pulled--just a little, then slipped my hand under his shoulder. He
-got his face above water then, and he began to paddle with his hands."
-
-"And were you not afraid?"
-
-"Well, just a little bit, perhaps, at first. I dreaded his clutching
-at me. That would have made a finish of us both."
-
-"And did he not? And how could you have prevented it, if he had
-tried?"
-
-"He did not once attempt to clutch--seemed most careful, indeed, to
-keep his hands away. Lettie! He is a perfect gentleman, that man!--and
-brave, I am sure, He thanked me so politely--by-and-by, when he got
-his face clear of the water for a bit--as politely as if we had both
-been on dry land--for attempting to assist him; but said he thought I
-had better let go, as I could not possibly swim ashore with him, and
-he could do nothing for himself, owing to cramp in his legs. Then
-Sefton joined us, and together we got him on his back. You cannot
-imagine how cheerful and composed he was, all through. He actually
-smiled when our eyes met. Not a struggle did he make, or an attempt to
-lay hold, which made it far more possible for us to deal with him. If
-he _had_ struggled, you know, we should certainly have been drowned,
-all three."
-
-"Don't talk of it, Rose. It is just splendid the way you managed it
-all, and I am glad to think the man must be a pretty good sort; for
-you will have to know him, I suppose, after saving his life, and you
-will be introducing him to mother and me and Fanny. Pity he is so old.
-Thirty or forty, is he not, mother?"
-
-"More'n forty, I reckon. Rising forty-five, if he wears well. But even
-fifty ain't old for a marrying man--if he's well off, that is. My
-senator was not much younger when we made it up between us. I don't
-hold with very young men myself. They're real hard to break in for
-runnin' in double harness, and the money's still to make, ginnerally
-speakin'. And after the girl has slaved and pinched all through her
-best years, helping to make the fortune, she finds herself too old
-when it's made to get much good out of it. Don't you be a fool,
-Lettie, like my sister Barbara. She vowed she'd have a man to please
-her eye, even if he should vex her heart.... _And_ she got him! And
-she never had a day's peace from the week their honeymoon ended. She
-died a brokenhearted woman, with nary bit of life or good looks left
-in five years' time."
-
-"Pshaw, mother! If you've told that story once, you've told it fifty
-times. The fellow I agree to take will have to be well off, as well as
-young and good-looking. See if he isn't!"
-
-"You'll have to look sharp then, Lettie. After twenty-five, a girl has
-to take what offers, or go without."
-
-"You shut, Fan! School-girls are growing real forward, it seems to
-me."
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER VI.
-
-                          WITH THE SMOKERS.
-
-
-Joseph Naylor found himself a notoriety for that day, as much as the
-heroine who had saved his life. It was notoriety, however, with a
-difference, as compared with hers--less incense-like and intoxicating,
-though perhaps more tonic.
-
-The Hebrew prophetess makes it the culmination of Sisera's overthrow
-that he, a warrior, should have been done to death by a woman; and
-even for the non-combatant there is something ungrateful to manly
-pride in owing life to a member of the weaker sex. The debt is too
-heavy to be repaid; and it is conventionally settled that obligation
-between the sexes should lie the other way. It could scarcely be
-agreeable to his self-love to feel himself pointed out among his
-fellows as the man who had gone in swimming that morning, and who
-would have drowned himself, if a brave young lady had not gone to his
-rescue and fished him out.
-
-Mrs Carraway surveyed him through her glasses in the interval between
-her omelet and the robin-on-toast which constituted her breakfast. The
-sight of a should-have-been drowned gentleman communicated a marine
-flavour to the little bird, suggestive of oyster-sauce with boiled
-turkey,--a dish which was not on the bill of fare, and therefore the
-more delicious. She sent her colonel, after breakfast, to make friends
-with the interesting creature, and get exact particulars of how it had
-occurred, at first hand,--rather to the botheration of that tranquil
-warrior, who, since he had made his home in the Colonies, had for the
-most part practised an affable silence. If natives who approached him
-were to his liking, he accepted their advances, and graciously
-permitted himself to be courted; if they were not, he kept stolidly
-oblivious of their existence, no matter how pressing their overtures
-of friendship might be.
-
-It is by no means a bad way of getting easily through life, provided
-you can persuade people that you are worth courting. That is the
-difficulty. People worth knowing can generally find better sport than
-cultivating your Worship; but even if they do attempt it, the game
-will grow monotonous ere long, on the one side as well as the other.
-One can fancy that Royalty itself must yawn behind a fan at times, in
-weariness of uninterrupted adulation.
-
-It was a bore to so reserved a gentleman as Colonel Carraway to
-break through his own ice; however, he lighted a cigar and strolled
-away to the gallery facing the north, and always shady, where inmates
-addicted to tobacco were wont to smoke. Naylor had arrived there
-before him, and stood the centre of a group in which Judge Petty and
-Vice-Chancellor Chickenpip vied with each other in displaying their
-forensic gift of unwearied question-asking--a talent which they made
-it manifest had not grown rusty from disuse since their elevation to
-the bench.
-
-"I never experienced the sensation of drowning," the Judge was
-observing. "Being unable to swim, I never was in danger of it."
-
-"And yet," said the Vice-Chancellor, with a shrug at the little
-paradox, and eyeing the perpetrator with condescending superiority
-through his spectacles, as the self-constituted wit is apt to do when
-his neighbour attempts a sally, "we teach our boys to swim in order to
-prepare them against such dangers."
-
-"And they rashly tempt them in consequence, and so, not unfrequently,
-get drowned. For myself, I have all my life had a cat's antipathy to
-water--always excepting, of course, my morning tub."
-
-"So your lordship's detractors of the blue-ribbon sect have sometimes
-insinuated," chuckled the other, delighted to be disagreeable by
-way of jest, however threadbare in form the jest might be. The
-Vice-Chancellor owed his reputation for smartness to his talent for
-ill-nature. The dullest can appreciate malice, while wit which is
-merely sportive requires a sense of humour to understand it.
-
-The Judge was familiar with the idiosyncrasy of his learned brother.
-"What need one expect from a pig but a grunt!" was his inward
-exclamation; but he was wise enough not to give it utterance. He
-merely moved nearer to Naylor, thereby half turning his back upon the
-other.
-
-"I have always felt curious," he said, "to know what drowning, or,
-indeed, dying in any form, could be like--without personal experiment,
-that is. How did it feel, Mr Naylor? What were your sensations?"
-
-"It did not get the length of drowning with me this time. I was a deal
-too busy struggling for my life, I can tell you, to take much heed of
-sensations. When at last I got my nose above water, and felt the young
-lady's fingers twisted in my hair, she was behaving in such splendid
-style that I could think of nothing but her efforts to help me. If she
-had not kept cool, you know, instead of drawing me up she would have
-been drawn down herself; and, crippled and sinking as I was, I could
-have done nothing to save her. My mind was completely absorbed in
-watching her efforts, admiring her nerve, and wondering if she would
-really succeed in keeping afloat. As for saving me, I did not think it
-possible; for, all the time, that racking cramp kept dragging my leg
-together, in spite of my straining efforts to stretch it, and drawing
-me to the bottom like tons of lead. Those cramps are hideous things;
-and then, after she and Mr Sefton had taken me in tow, and the anxiety
-for her safety grew less absorbing, the drowning man's instinct of
-clutching came upon me, and it was all I could do to keep still, and
-let myself be saved. You are perfectly right, Judge, to keep clear of
-the possibility of such an experience; but still, this experience was
-quite different from the feeling of drowning--the helpless struggling
-and sinking down and away, the yielding of what sustains you on every
-side, till the idea of up and down is lost in dizziness, while the
-held-in breath seems bursting you asunder. You bear it for hardly a
-minute, but that minute lasts an age; and then--and then--no one can
-describe what follows. You are confused, and benumbed, and melting
-into nothing. I have gone through it.
-
-"A ship I sailed in, when I was a young man, was run down one foggy
-night off the coast of Cuba. It was my watch on deck, and that is how
-I am here to tell the tale. The look-out gave no warning till we were
-close under the bow of a Spanish man-of-war bearing straight down on
-us. I shouted to port the helm. It was too late. The Spaniard was into
-us with a crash. He stove in our quarter, and sent us to the bottom. I
-was knocked down by the falling rigging, and found myself in the
-water, entangled among cordage, and drowning as I have described. I
-know nothing more--nothing till I found myself coming to, on board
-that foreign ship. The deathly sickness! The longing to sink back into
-unconsciousness! The dim dull misery and tingling in every limb! as
-the stagnant blood began once more to circulate. I hope you will never
-know them. It is bad to drown, but it is far, far worse to be brought
-to. It was days before I was myself again; but I had plenty of time to
-recruit. The ship was bound for the Philippines, and it was not till
-she reached Manilla that I was set ashore."
-
-"Ah! then you have travelled, sir," said the Vice-Chancellor,
-scrutinising him with the condescension of a superior person
-recognising an interesting trait in an ordinary mortal. "Yet you have
-had time to make your fortune at home, and now you are embarking in
-politics, I hear. You deserve credit for the comprehensiveness of your
-energy, and will no doubt bring unusual information to bear on public
-affairs; but politics is as stormy a sea, and one more difficult to
-navigate than the one you know. It would be a pity, after weathering
-so many dangers, to make shipwreck there. We want good men in
-Parliament, but we want them on the right side."
-
-"Is that the side of the patriots, Chancellor?--the men who went into
-office to save the country, and who made their own fortunes instead?
-The tide has turned, and left them high and dry on the bank, or in the
-offices they appointed themselves to fill."
-
-It was a young man who spoke--fair-haired and broad-shouldered, with a
-complexion burnt to the colour of bricks by the exposure of outdoor
-life. His clothes were not new, but they fitted him, and there was
-that look of rest and balance in his limbs which leisure and exercise
-alone can give,--so different from the smug constraint with which life
-in chambers and offices stamps the man of affairs.
-
-The Vice-Chancellor turned with the haughty stare of a schoolmaster on
-the urchin who has spoken out of turn. Colonel Carraway looked
-disgusted at the bad taste which could drag politics into social
-intercourse; and politics flavoured with personality as well, to judge
-by the thrill in the speaker's voice. Senator Deane rolled his cigar
-round to the other cheek, and--never mind, it is a dirty habit.
-
-"Those Canadians," he observed to his neighbour, "get as hot over
-their politics as we do. 'What can there be to quarrel about in
-_their_ small concerns?' say you? The same as in our big
-affairs--place and plunder, you may be sure. That's about all."
-
-Joseph Naylor turned round to see who it was whose remark had brought
-the Chickenpip oration to a halt. "What! Walter Blount! You here!
-Where have you dropped from? The very last man I expected to see. And
-yet no one but you would have let his political zeal break out on so
-slight provocation. That comes of not being a native. You take the
-fever of politics the hotter for being new to it."
-
-"But _you_ are contesting our Riding just now."
-
-"The more need to let alone for the present moment, so as to come
-fresh to the conflict. Party bickerings grow stale to the mind if one
-is always harping on them. Time enough to let out when I get back
-there. This is the seaside. But what brings _you_ here?" resting his
-eyes admiringly on the other's sturdy limbs. "I see no sign of the
-relaxed system which is said to need bracing sea-air."
-
-The young man did not change colour. The dusky vermilion of his
-sunburnt skin was incapable of a heightened tint; but he looked
-confused under the twinkling laughter of the other's eye. "I shall be
-selling out this Fall, so I thought I might run down here to the sea
-before moving West."
-
-"West? Are you dreaming of making a fortune on the prairies?--turning
-farmer in earnest. Have you killed all the bears in your present
-neighbourhood, and exterminated the deer?"
-
-"There will be neither bear nor deer within twenty miles before two
-years are over. The new railway runs right across my farm, and the
-speculators are prospecting all over the neighbourhood. I am offered a
-good price for my land. I shall sell, and go West somewhere, where
-settlers are fewer and game more abundant. No! prairie farming would
-not suit me. Even an improved farm in a good part of Ontario would be
-better than that; but I prefer the woods."
-
-The circle round Naylor had now broken into groups occupied with their
-own talk, leaving him free to pursue his private gossip with his
-friend. He settled himself on a bench, buried his hands in his
-pockets, pushed out his feet in front, and blew a mighty cloud of
-smoke from his German pipe. "I declare I'm tired, Walter, with so much
-talking this morning. Now for a good old smoke! Where's your pipe?"
-
-Walter sat down beside him and filled his pipe slowly and absently, as
-if his thoughts were on other things. Then he cleared his voice,
-lighted the pipe, and with as much off-handness as he could assume
-observed between the whiffs--
-
-"Your family are with you, Mr Naylor?"
-
-"My family is always with me. I carry the whole of it under my hat,"
-he answered, looking his questioner straight in the eye, with a
-twinkle which plainly said, "Speak out if you have anything to say. I
-do not intend to help you."
-
-The young man coughed. The smoke of his pipe had lost its way, and
-seemed trying for an outlet down his throat. "Mrs Naylor and her
-daughters are here, I understand?" he said at last.
-
-"Yes."
-
-There was a lengthened silence. "Yes" is not an answer to which the
-next observation can readily be attached. The questioner removed his
-pipe, and began nervously to examine what could be making it draw so
-badly; while the other watched him in silent amusement, tempered with
-a touch of good-natured pity.
-
-"I wonder," Blount said at last, digging the charge carefully out of
-his pipe, and so making it unnecessary to raise his eyes to the
-other's face,--"I wonder what they will say to see me here?"
-
-"Difficult to imagine," came the answer from the thickest of a bank of
-smoke.
-
-"I fear I am not a favourite with Mrs Naylor."
-
-"She told you not to call any more, I believe? That was pretty plain."
-
-"Was it not too bad of her? What can she have against me? She has
-known me ever since I came to the country, and she used to be like a
-mother to me."
-
-"That was imprudent. Now she sees it, I suppose. A mother of girls may
-become mother-in-_law_ to some young fellow one day, and Mrs Naylor
-may feel that she ought to reserve herself for that. When girls leave
-school, you see, circumstances alter."
-
-"I am sure I showed no unwillingness to take her for _my_
-mother-in-law."
-
-"That was the trouble. She could have taken you for a son--a full son,
-understand--and you might have been brother to the girls, if that
-would have pleased you. But it didn't."
-
-"How could it? Would it have satisfied you--to take a nice girl to
-picnics, and hold her shawl while another fellow danced with her?"
-
-"Put it that way, and it does seem hard. But what is a mother to do?
-Her daughters' prospects ought to be her chief care."
-
-"Do you think it is right to be mercenary, then? Is money to stand for
-everything? Is the fellow to count for nothing?"
-
-"By no means! A good fellow it _must_ be--a nice fellow and a
-gentleman if possible, or the girl's life is spoiled. No amount of
-money could make her happy with a ruffian or a cad. But you must
-remember that Mrs Naylor's girls are young yet, and I cannot blame her
-for wishing to look about before fixing their position for life."
-
-"It is hard to be passed over merely for being the first comer. And
-they may happen on worse subjects as well as better."
-
-"Quite true. There is a proverb about a girl who was so particular
-about the stick she went to cut, that she came to the end of the wood
-before she could make up her mind, and then she had to content herself
-with a crooked one, or go without. However, proverbial philosophy goes
-for nothing, you know; people like to try for themselves. Still, there
-is excuse for a mother wishing not to bury her accomplished daughter
-in the backwoods, as wife to a wild huntsman. One can understand that
-it would be pleasant for you, after being out all day with your gun
-and your dog, to find your dinner laid, and a pretty young wife beside
-a cosy fire waiting for you; but you cannot call it unreasonable if
-the lady's friends wish to secure her a less solitary home. When you
-are out, what will she have to amuse her but needle and thread? the
-chickens and the cows? You would not like to think of her sitting in
-the kitchen talking to the help; and yet you know they will be the
-only human creatures she will have to speak to when you are away."
-
-"I told you I was selling out. She can choose her home anywhere
-between Gaspé and Vancouver."
-
-"You would not like to live in a town, and a girl must have been bred
-on a farm to live happily on one afterwards."
-
-"You leave the husband out of the calculation. Do you think she could
-be happy even in London or New York with a fellow she did not care
-for?"
-
-"That is true; but she need not marry unless she cares."
-
-"While even in the bush, if she liked the fellow, and he was fond of
-her, I think they might both be completely happy."
-
-"I am with you there, my lad. Not a doubt of it,"--and he buried his
-hands deeper in his pockets, and bent his head forward to look at his
-boots, drawing a deep breath, and smoking harder than ever.
-
-"Then why--Do you not think, Mr Naylor, you could bring your
-sister-in-law to see it in that light? You have always been a friend
-to me, since the first day I met you."
-
-"Always your friend. Be sure of it. But I doubt my influence with Mrs
-Naylor; and, if I had any, I doubt if I ought to interfere. Girls
-cannot know their own minds till they have seen something of the
-world. They may mistake a passing fancy for real regard; and if they
-have married in the meantime, there are two lives spoiled, instead of
-one just a little scorched--and that only for the moment, perhaps," he
-added, after a pause. Then pulling himself together,--"But what makes
-you talk like this to a crusty old bachelor? You cannot expect
-sympathy in your love-affairs from one who has resisted the illusions
-of sentiment as successfully as I have, surely?"
-
-"I don't know. People are not bachelors and old maids for being harder
-than their neighbours, I suspect. I often fancy it is the other way.
-But at least you are not against my trying, are you? You will not do
-anything to make my chances less than they are already?"
-
-"No, Blount; I'll do nothing against you. I could almost wish the girl
-took a fancy to you, for I believe you are real; and if she does, I
-will do nothing to dissuade her. Money and position are not
-everything, by any means."
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER VII.
-
-                              A TABLEAU.
-
-
-Mrs Deane and her party returned early from their drive. The loungers
-on the galleries saw them alight. They also saw Naylor come hurriedly
-forward, uncovered beneath the penetrating glare of noon, which
-singled out the scattered hairs of white among the brown about his
-temples, and made them glitter in a way not grateful to the feelings
-of a well-preserved bachelor in middle life--if he had but known it.
-
-Why can a man not stick fast at five-and-thirty?--at least till he
-marries? He is at his best then physically, though mentally--if he has
-a mind worth mentioning--he may go on improving for another decade, if
-not longer. There is so much in life, and in one's self, worth
-knowing, and which is not found out till after the time when the
-knowledge would have been most precious has slidden by. The soul grows
-slower than the body, and may only be coming into bloom when those
-weariful crow-feet are beginning to gather round the eyes. But girls
-cannot be expected to see all this. How should they, when youth in
-themselves is held the crown and perfume of all their charm?
-
-Still Naylor passed fairly well beneath the scrutiny of curious
-eyes--"the man who had been all but drowned that morning." He looked
-active, and even athletic, if somewhat gone to flesh. There was
-honesty in the steadfast grey eye, and modest self-possession in the
-fresh-coloured face. There was an earnestness, too, at the moment,
-which lent his bearing the dignity which is seldom attainable by the
-well-fed man of middle age and medium stature.
-
-"Miss Hillyard," he said, "I have not had the happiness of being
-introduced to you; but surely, under the debt I owe you from this
-morning, you will allow me to offer you my grateful thanks."
-
-"Mr Naylor," she answered, holding out her hand, "pray say nothing
-more about it. You have thanked me already, you know. But I am happy
-to make your acquaintance. I only did what any bather must have done
-who was near enough. I feel a little proud, I acknowledge, of my
-success, and pleased to have been of use; but do not talk of debts and
-gratitude: it sounds oppressive."
-
-"I cannot take it so easily as that, Miss Hillyard. If you had not
-laid hold on me as you did, I should have gone under. I felt myself
-sinking when you touched me. I should have been down before Sefton
-reached me--I am sure of that. You saved my life: it is an obligation
-which I never can repay."
-
-Rosa flushed a little, and looked down. There were a good many pair of
-female eyes in the gallery turned upon her, as she felt, with
-interest, and just a suspicion of envy, which could not but be
-gratifying. Still, it was embarrassing to stand out there on the
-gravel when the carriage had driven off, a cynosure for the eyes of
-all the people above; and just a trifle stagey, with this bareheaded
-gentleman presenting his acknowledgments with demonstrative respect.
-Queen Elizabeth would have liked it; but then, she was a public
-character: and besides, we prefer nowadays to keep our theatricals and
-our private life apart. At the same time, it was pleasant to hear this
-earnest and respectful gentleman assure her that she had saved his
-life: he looked so manly and so strong. It made her think well of
-herself to have been able to help him; and his clear grey eyes looked
-so truthful and brave in their level gaze, that she wondered how their
-parts in the morning's episode should have been so strangely reversed,
-and felt how safe she would have been in his company had the accident
-happened to herself.
-
-As for him, standing before her and looking in her face, it seemed as
-if the years must have rolled back upon themselves,--the long
-savourless years since his youth,--the years which had been so bitter
-when first he had passed through his sore probation of sorrow; and
-then, when the lacerated spirit had learned to endure, had grown dull
-and insipid. He had felt himself alone, and that the joy of life was
-not for him; that others might love, but he must stand aside, an
-onlooker at the feast at which no place was laid for him. This new
-stirring in his benumbed emotions seemed like the summers he
-remembered long ago in the South, when the plants, made torpid by the
-arid heat, forget to grow, waiting through rainless weeks beneath a
-brazen sky. Then come the showers at last, and the roses put out buds
-and bloom anew, till winter comes to nip them.
-
-He could not withdraw his eyes from the beautiful face before him. As
-he looked, it seemed transformed into another--another, yet still the
-same. This was more mature and strong; but that other might have been
-so too, if it had been given him to see it later. The soft brown eyes
-were the same, which lighted when she spoke, with the same blueness in
-the white, a lingering remainder from the freshness and purity of
-childhood. The hair was less dark than hers whom he remembered so
-well, and it had a crisper wave, which caught the falling sunbeams
-here and there, and flashed them brightly back like burnished bronze.
-There was rich warm colour, too, in the cheek, while that other had
-been pale; but the difference accorded with the change of scene
-between the bracing airs of the North and the thick hot languor of
-Louisiana. This face had vigour and maturity; the other had been more
-tender and more frail. Its charm had lain in a drooping softness
-claiming support, and promises for the future as yet unfulfilled;
-while this was in the glory of all her beauty, sufficient for herself
-in her supple strength--a companion for manhood, as the other had been
-the clinging cherished one for youth.
-
-The silence had now lasted for nearly a minute. Rosa became uneasily
-aware that she was contributing a tableau for the entertainment of her
-fellow-guests, which might be interpreted as "Love at first sight," or
-a modern and burlesque rendering of "Pharaoh's daughter and the infant
-Moses," according to their several humours. She looked up in her
-companion's face, with rising colour in her own, and the flicker of a
-smile about her lips, while she held out her hand.
-
-"You are staying here, Mr Naylor, are you not?" she said. "We shall
-see each other again. I am pleased to know you. Now I must follow Mrs
-Deane," and she turned and went up the stairs.
-
-Naylor awoke from his reverie, and found himself alone. He felt how
-few and bald had been his expressions of obligation; and he had come
-forward prepared to deliver himself so fully, and in such carefully
-chosen words, when the near view of her face had raised long-buried
-recollections, and confused him with a sense of doubleness in the
-presence before him, and left his memory blank. The tender girl he had
-been parted from long ago, seemed associated and blended with the
-personality of this beautiful deliverer before him; and in an effort
-to disentangle the old impressions from the new, the precious moment
-for uttering his little speech had slipped away. Now he was alone,
-feeling how tongue-tied and thankless he must have appeared, and how
-impossible it would be to make another opportunity for delivering his
-speech.
-
-And yet the speech might not be necessary now. She had received him
-very graciously, and had even said that she was pleased to know
-him--said it twice--and that they would meet again. "What more could
-he want?" he thought; "and was he not an ass to fancy that any set
-phrases of his could give pleasure to so glorious a creature?--and
-shabby at heart, to think that any string of words could lessen the
-obligation under which he stood? He must never forget the debt, or
-dream that by word or act it could be lessened; rather, he must
-treasure the recollection, and watch and be ready, if haply he might,
-some day, be privileged to serve or succour in return."
-
-So thinking, he turned on his heel and went his way, leaving the
-spectators in the gallery to find some other object to divert their
-leisure.
-
-
-
-
-                            CHAPTER VIII.
-
-                         MRS WILKIE'S POWDER.
-
-
-Rose left Naylor standing on the gravel, and went into the house,
-making her way leisurely up to her room.
-
-The parlour door stood ajar, disclosing only darkness within, to eyes
-coming straight from the outer glare of sunshine. It seemed cool in
-there, with the rustling sea-breeze sifting fitfully through the
-closed Venetians; and there were gurglings of smothered laughter,
-which told that the place was not deserted. She stepped within the
-gloom, and, as her eyes grew used to it, she became able to make out
-the tenants.
-
-A cheerful crew of girls, standing and seated in a ring, occupied the
-centre of the floor. In their midst sat old Mrs Wilkie on a low
-ottoman, which she occupied by herself, like a kind of throne, fanning
-herself industriously till the short grey curls upon her temples
-danced and fluttered in the artificial gale. The new blue ribbons in
-her cap and the old blue eyes in her head danced in unison and
-elation, and a proud self-satisfied smile played about her lips, and
-deepened the creases in her cheeks, which looked round and rosy like
-an overkept winter apple. She was in her glory, and she gave yet a
-more energetic flap to the palm-leaf fan, as she pursed her lips
-together, and prepared to speak again.
-
-"Yes, my dears," were her words as Rose joined the circle, "blue was
-always my colour. You see I am fair--'like a lily,' the young men used
-to tell me I was," and she made a flourish with her fan. "But that was
-years ago," and she blew a sigh which made her chest heave like a
-portly bellows. "And then I had a colour--like a Cheeny-rose, the
-haverels would have it; but the Scotch gentlemen are great hands to
-blaw in the lugs of silly girls. Not that I was ever the wan to let my
-head be turned with their nonsense--but still they had grounds for
-what they said."
-
-"You were a beauty," said Lettice Deane--"I can see that;" and the
-girls exchanged glances brimming with amusement and incredulity, such
-as those feel whose bloom is still in the present tense, when one of
-the have-beens puts in her claim to personal charms.
-
-"Yes, my dear, I was admired--in my day," and the double chin went up
-with a snap, to join the rest of the self-complacent countenance.
-
-"Don't say was, Mrs Wilkie," Lettice answered. "You are a dangerous
-woman still. It is well that mamma is with us here, to look after the
-old man, or--or---- Nobody knows what might happen. These old
-gentlemen are very susceptible."
-
-"I don't think I am acquainted with your papaw, my dear," said the old
-woman, looking round the tittering circle with rising colour, and
-bridling as if the jest perhaps contained more truth than the scoffer
-wot of. "But I never was a flirt; and now, in my poseetion, one has to
-be careful, and set an example of propriety. But, as I was saying--and
-it's well for young people to know these things--you don't take proper
-care of yourselves in this country. You should see our Scotch
-complexions when we're young. Strawberries and crame--that's what we
-look like. But then we take a hantle care of our chairms; and we live
-healthy. It would be good for some Yankee girls if they were put
-through a course of proper conduck"--and she looked straight at Lucy
-Naylor, the most flagrant of the titterers--"and simple living, by one
-of our old Scotch grandmothers. You're for ever drinking icewater and
-hot tea, out here; and how can you expeck your insides to be healthy
-after that? And you're all the time at candies or pickles, not to
-speak of hot bread, and beef-steaks and pitaities for breakfast, as if
-ye had a day's ploughing before you--and you just lounging on soffies
-and easy-chairs the whole forenoon, with some bit silly novel in your
-hands, and nothing to exercise either the body or the intelleck. My
-son, the Deputy Minister of Edication, says you're just destroying
-yourselves."
-
-"Tell us about _him_, dear Mrs Wilkie," said Lettice, cutting short
-the prelection. "We know our faults already, though I fear we are not
-likely to mend them. Tell us about the young man. That will be far
-more interesting. What do you call his profession? Something very
-long-winded and grand, I know."
-
-"He is the Deputy Minister of Edication, for the Province. And it _is_
-a grand poseetion for so young a man, or for any man--whatever you may
-think. And as for being 'long-winded,' you don't understand. He doesna
-preach, my dear--though he could do that too, if there was occasion.
-It was that I bred him to. But this pays better. He has his handsome
-income for just sitting still in his chair and seeing that his
-inferiors work hard enough. And then, there's what the opposeetion
-papers, with their ill-scrapet tongues, call pickin's! Oh yes! there's
-fine pickin's. But I mustna be telling tales out o' school."
-
-"He must be a bishop, then, Mrs Wilkie, if he does not preach. We call
-boss ministers bishops. Do you call them deputies in Canada? How odd
-of you! And yet I danced with him last night. Think of dancing with a
-bishop! It sounds positively profane. What a country Canada must be!"
-
-"The lassie's in a creel! My Peter's no that kind of minister avaw. I
-_bred_ him for a minister, it's true--a minister of the Gospel, and
-very far from the same kind with your bishops, and their white gowns,
-and red things hanging down their backs. It's a U.P. he would have
-been, if I had had my way. But Peter preferred being a minister of the
-Crown; and there's no denying it _pays_ better. There's no vows laid
-on a minister of the Crown. They may dance, or do anything they
-like--and very queer things some of them do like, it seems to me. But
-Mis-ter Wilkie's very circumspeck. He's Deputy Minister, you see.
-'Deputy' means that all the pickin's"--and she winked, poor
-soul--"go to _him_; though sometimes he has to give a share to the
-chief--quietly, you understand, my dears, for the chief is responsible
-to Parliament, and there would be a scandal if it came out. They're
-fond of having a scandal in Canada when politics are dull. Then the
-chief has to resign, but the deputy just sits still. He's a servant of
-the Crown, you see; so he goes on drawing his pay just the same,
-whatever chief the politeetians may appint over him. That comes of our
-having a Crown in Canada. It's a fine institution, and troubles
-nobody. It would be telling you Yankees if you had wan. Ye wouldn't be
-turned out of your comfortable offices every four years, then; and
-more, it would keep you steady. Ye have no respeck and no reverence
-here, and no nothing;" and again she looked severely in Lucy Naylor's
-face--that ill-regulated young person having fallen a-laughing worse
-than ever.
-
-"It must be nice to be married to a Deputy Minister of the Crown,"
-Lettice observed, demurely.
-
-"Ye may say that; and there's more than you thinks it, I can tell you,
-my dear. The young girls where we come from are just pulling caps to
-see who is to be the wan. It's really shameless the way they behave,
-and many's the good laugh me and Mis-ter Wilkie has at their
-ongoings."
-
-"I suppose you are to choose the successful candidate?"
-
-"A mother must know the kind that will suit her boay best. But it's a
-sore responsibeelity, my dears. It would be terrible if the
-expurriment didn't answer; and he's very hard to please, and terrible
-fond of his own way."
-
-"Couldn't you say a good word for one of us here, dear Mrs Wilkie?"
-asked Lettice with her most winning smile. "Just see what a lot of us
-there are!--and we have all to find husbands yet: every variety of
-girl you can think of--tall and short, dark and fair. Surely one of us
-might answer. It would be a gain to all. If one were provided for, the
-chance would be better, by so much, for all the rest when the next
-_parti_ came along."
-
-"Peter must have intelleck, he says, and high culture. I'm fear'd ye
-wouldn't just answer, my dear--though you're a nice girl, I'll allow,
-and--well--and comely."
-
-Lettice coloured to the temples, and her well-arched eyebrows
-contracted into something approaching to a frown. It is eminently
-provoking, when one fancies one has been rather successful in drawing
-out an oddity, and making sport, to find the tables suddenly turned,
-and one's self made the butt.
-
-"I was not thinking of myself," she said, and there was a tremor of
-crossness in her voice, which made her discomfiture more amusingly
-evident to the rest--"or any one else, for that matter. I know I would
-not take a gift of the fellow, with his washy grey eyes, and stiff
-priggish pomposity."
-
-"The grapes are sour, my dear. Did you never hear tell of the story of
-the fox? But never you mind. There's a man appinted for you, I make no
-doubt; and if there is, ye'll get him, for as long as he is about
-appearing."
-
-There was a scream of laughter, and Lettice, too angry to trust her
-voice with a retort, turned on her heel and went out, while the old
-lady sniffed vindictively and pursed her lips, as if she could have
-said much more, had the offender allowed her time.
-
-"The impident monkey!" she muttered at last. "Does she think she is to
-make sport of _me_, without getting as good as she gives?" "That's a
-forward girl," she added aloud. "It isn't becoming for a young woman
-to be putting in for a gentleman in that barefaced way. And ye needn't
-laugh, my dears; some of you are not much better. As for Mis-ter
-Wilkie, ye may keep your minds easy; he can get better than any of you
-where we come from, just for the raising of his finger."
-
-"Poor Lettice!" said Rose. "Are you not a little hard on her? I am
-sure she did not mean to be provoking."
-
-"If _you_ say that, my dear, I am willing to suppose it. But really,
-I'm just bothered with young girrls trying to catch my son, every
-place I go. It's like the way bees come bizzing round a sugar-bowl; or
-wasps, I might say," and she flung an angry glance at Lucy Naylor,
-caught laughing again. "You are the young lady, if I'm not mistaken,
-that saved the man's life this morning? It was a noble ack; and you're
-an example to us women, that are more given to hang about a man till
-he sinks, than to bear him up when he's in trouble. You'll be staying
-here, like the rest of us?"
-
-"Yes; I am here with Mrs Deane and her daughter."
-
-"That girrl that was so impertinent to me just now?--pretending to
-cock her nose at a Deputy Minister! Set her up!"
-
-"Miss Deane is an heiress and a beauty. All the men in Chicago were
-wild about her last winter. She did not mean to offend you, I am sure;
-though perhaps she is a little spoilt by all the attention she
-receives."
-
-"An heiress, is she? And these will all be heiresses too, maybe?
-They're forward and saucy enough for that or anything," she added,
-tossing her head at the retiring figures trooping away to overtake
-Lettice, and leaving the old woman, whose good-humour they had worn
-out, standing alone with Rose. "If it was you, now, I would be proud
-to hear that ye were an heiress, and to know you. Ye've got spurrit;
-and I'm sure ye have sense as well as good looks. Ye're not so young
-as thae light-headed tawpies, with their empty laughs, that have gone
-out just now, but you're just in your prime."
-
-"I am five-and-twenty," said Rose, with a twinkle of dawning mischief.
-
-"That's within two years of the age I was myself when I was married.
-It would be just one like you that I could welcome to my bosom, for a
-daughter," and she looked graciously in the other's face, to accept
-the answering look of gratitude which she felt was her due. "It's a
-sore responsibeelity, I can tell you, to a right-thinking mother, to
-get her only son--and _such_ a son!--properly settled in life. They've
-no sense, even the best of men, when it comes to choosing a wife.
-There's a glamour comes over them, and they just fall a prey to some
-designing cuttie that has nothing but the duds she stands in, and
-neither sense nor experience. But I mean to stand between my boay and
-that misfortune, at any rate."
-
-"He must feel deeply indebted to you."
-
-"I don't know if he does, my dear. The men are contrar' cattle, and
-very thrawn. But I have my duty to do. He's my objeck in life. I left
-home to come out and live with him in a foreign land; and that was no
-small sacrifice at my time of life, I can tell you. It's true he has a
-fine piseetion and a good income; but if ye had seen the way he was
-being put upon, and the waste, when I came out to look after him, it
-would have made your hair stand up. A whole peck of pitaities biled
-every day for wan man's dinner! The cook's mother kept pigs, ye see.
-That's where the pitaities went. But I made a cleen sweep, I can tell
-you."
-
-"It must have been rather trying to you."
-
-"Eh yes! it's been very hard upon my nerves. I'm not strong; though
-perhaps ye wouldn't think it. My colour's so good that nobody will
-believe there's much the matter with me. But my heart's affecket, my
-dear. If you could just feel the palpitations--thump--thump--like
-a smiddie hammer! ever since thae girrls with their jawing went
-out,"--and she laid her hand upon her ample chest and closed her eyes.
-
-"How distressing! Does your medical man give you hopes of getting over
-it?"
-
-"That's in Higher Hands, my dear. We are trying the effecks of sea-air
-on my complaint, just now. That's what has brought us all the way down
-from Ontario. The doctor thinks I want bracing, and he gives me
-poothers to take. You see, it's homoeopathy we are trying. And that
-'minds me: this is my time for a poother. What can have come over
-Peter that he isn't here to give me it?"
-
-"Can you not take your powder yourself?"
-
-"No; it's small and delicate, and not easy to apply. The doctor
-ordered it to be sprinkled on the tongue. I wish Peter was here. The
-thoughtless rascal!"
-
-"On the tongue? How odd! Do you think I could do it for you?"
-
-"My dear, if you would! Ye're a dear lamb, and ye'll be a treasure to
-any mother-in-law that gets you."
-
-"Have you the powder?"
-
-"I carry them about with me, to prevent accidents, when I'm living in
-a strange house. The maids might be for tasting them, ye see, and
-nobody knows what might happen."
-
-Mrs Wilkie sat down in a chair facing the window, handed a tiny parcel
-to Rose, and stretched out her feet in front, while she laid back her
-head, grasping the chair-arms, shutting her eyes tight, and opening
-her mouth wide to display the flat red tongue. It was a moment of
-tension with her; she was stretched to her utmost, holding her breath,
-and with every muscle tightened in expectant rigidity.
-
-Rose opened the parcel, which contained a pinch of white powder, and
-proceeded to administer; but the appearance of the patient was so
-comic that she had to forbear while calming her risible inclinations,
-lest her hand should shake and the precious remedy fall on a wrong
-place. At length she felt steady, and began to sprinkle as directed.
-But the sprinkling took time. The powder was to be evenly scattered
-over the member, or evil results would ensue; and meanwhile the
-patient was holding in her breath. She clutched the chair-arms, and
-strove valiantly; but nature gave way at length. Just as the last
-flake descended to its place, the imprisoned wind broke loose with a
-mighty sigh; a white cloud ascended between herself and Rose, while
-the outstretched jaws relaxed and came together; she opened her eyes
-and sat up, but the "poother" was scattered on the viewless air, and
-the old lady had little homoeopathy that morning.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER IX.
-
-                           BETWEEN FRIENDS.
-
-
-There is considerable monotony in seaside life, but it is monotony of
-a different kind from the everyday existence of the rest of the year;
-and in this complete change its principal charm and benefit consist.
-The home-life of a number of households is laid aside for the time,
-and the heterogeneous elements are thrown for the moment into a larger
-whole, forming an unstable compound--a salad of humanity where the
-sweets, the sours, and the bitters find themselves in new combinations
-with one another, and united for the time in a _sauce piquante_ of
-fresh air and idleness. There can be no great variety in the
-occupations; picnics, excursions, drives, rides, walks, form an
-ever-recurring ditto, to which the unaccustomedness alone gives
-flavour.
-
-There is rest for the workers, and society for the home-keeping, but
-genuine delight only for the very young, whose gregarious instincts
-are still unblunted, and who find in the presence of one another the
-exhilaration of spreading their callow wings in early flights.
-
-For the mother-birds, however, there is anxiety. In this larger
-poultry-yard their chicks grow wilder than they have ever known them
-before. The broods get mixed, and wander into undreamt-of mischief,
-pullets consorting with cockerels of another breed, chickens with
-ducklings venturing into the water, while Dame Partlet clucks and
-flutters about, pecking and distracted.
-
-Mrs Naylor sat fidgeting and restless among the matrons who presided
-over and superintended the enjoyments of their youthful charges. Lucy
-was causing her anxiety. "Who was that tall man she was dancing
-with?--dancing not for the first time or the second, but the third
-time without a break. And how unnecessarily intimate they appeared!
-Could she not fan herself if she felt warm, when they stopped for
-breath?--instead of letting an awkward stranger raise tempests which
-were blowing her hair into unsightly confusion, and making her so
-needlessly conspicuous." If a gentleman was warranted "nice," she did
-not object to his paying attention to her girls, but she wanted
-assurance of the niceness. She leant over to the nearest neighbour who
-seemed at leisure to answer her inquiries, and with whom, being a
-stranger, she would not compromise herself, whatever might be said.
-
-The neighbour was Miss Maida Springer, a damsel scarcely any longer
-young, seeing her thirtieth birthday would be her next, who hovered on
-the confines of the dance, and looked hungrily after young men leading
-other maidens out, and wondering why no one came for her. She sat
-under the wing of an elder as lonely as herself--the widow Denwiddie,
-who varied the sober tenor of her life by spending a fortnight each
-summer among the gaieties and dissipations by the sea. She was bidding
-the widow observe things curious in the whirling crowd of dancers as
-they passed.
-
-"See that great thing in pink," she had said last. "Positively stout.
-And what a colour for a large woman to wear! If it had been black,
-now, or blue, or even white----" and she glanced down approvingly at
-her own blue and white washed muslin. "Just watch the slow revolving
-heap. Ain't she like an iceberg out at sea, growing pink in the
-setting sun? And her poor little bit of a partner, racing to get round
-her on time! My! mustn't he feel warm! He reminds me of an ant trying
-to carry home a seed of wheat. Why don't he choose a slim one like
-himself?" and she ran her eye down her own spare form, which was
-certainly as slim as the absence of superfluous tissue could make it,
-with spider-like arms and wrists which would not be kept out of
-sight,--thinking how much freer the gentleman would have felt in the
-clasp of these slender tendrils.
-
-"Look at that one's feet. Well, I never! What a size! I wonder how she
-can venture to stand up and dance. Ain't it good for the beetles they
-ain't none of them here?" and then, by a strange coincidence, a pair
-of number-one shoes stole out in front to show themselves--things
-small and narrow, on which it seemed wonderful that a human being
-could stand. But then a few bones can be packed away in very little
-room.
-
-"Will you kindly tell me," asked Mrs Naylor, "who is that gentleman by
-the wall, with a lady's fan in his hand?--the one with the limp hair,
-brushed up so strangely above his forehead."
-
-"The tall fine man with drab hair? That's Mr Aurelius Sefton of
-Pugwash--one of the most rising pork-packers in the whole West, they
-do say."
-
-"Pugwash? What a name! And pork! That accounts for the sleekness of
-his hair. Lard--depend upon it."
-
-"You think the lard has got in his hair? Well, now, ain't you droll!
-Perhaps it has. But if lard has got in the hair, they do tell there
-has money got in the pocket. Do you lumber folks in Canady, now, have
-chips in your hair--chips and sawdust?"
-
-Mrs Naylor looked dignified, and turned away. The magnates of her
-country deal in lumber. It is quite a high-class pursuit, and not to
-be spoken of in the same breath with pork--a horrid butcherly
-business, in which no person of refinement would condescend to make
-his fortune.
-
-Maida raised her eyebrows, and turned to her friend.
-
-"Ain't we high-strung, just! we aristocrats from Canady? What
-difference can it make whether it's hogs or logs a man makes his pile
-by, so long as he makes it? And I guess, if there's been less money
-made in pork, there's been a sight more lost in lumber. I had a friend
-once----" and she coloured faintly, looking down, and heaving a sigh
-so demonstrative that her friend turned and looked at her.
-
-"Yes, my dear?" said the widow, with a droop in her voice in token of
-sympathy. "You _had_ a friend? That sounds sad. Whaar did he go to?"
-
-"He went away; and that's why it always seems as if something was
-catching my breath and making me feel low, whenever lumber is spoken
-of. _He_ went to Canady in the lumbering interest, because prospects
-were better there than in old Vermont. He promised to come back when
-he had made his pile, and I promised to wait. It's nothing so mighty
-unusual for young folks to do; and it's real feelin' of you to shake
-your head and look at me like that, Mrs Denwiddie. But don't let folks
-see you a-doing it; they might wonder."
-
-"Ah yes!" heaved the widow, in deep sympathy; "I can understand. It's
-the tender way us trustin' women always has. We never tell our love,
-but just let folks think it's a big caterpillar has got in the heart
-of the cabbage, so to speak; or rather, I should say, liver and
-dispepsy that's eatin' our young looks away. It's disappinted love,
-now--is it, my dear--that's wearin' you to a shaddy? I know the
-feelin' well," and another sigh undulated her portly figure. "It's
-twenty years, come Fall, since I was left a lone woman, and hope has
-been tellin' me flatterin' tales ever since; but the men are
-that backward--they just look foolish when I shake their hands
-friendly-like and invite them to sit a bit, after seein' me home from
-evenin' meetin'; and away they go, sayin' never a word, and leavin' me
-with no more appetite for supper than if I'd eaten it a'ready."
-
-"Do you mean that you would marry again?"
-
-"I would then--and don't you forget it--if ever I get the chance."
-
-Maida glanced sidewise, and shrank the least bit possible away.
-
-"You think me light-minded now, maybe, my dear? I don't wonder at it.
-Them as hain't been married don't know how lonesome it feels to see
-just the one cup and saucer laid out beside the teapot at mealtimes."
-
-"There must be memories. It would be sweet, I should have thought, to
-dwell on the idea that one had gone before, and was waiting across the
-river to be joined by the old companion."
-
-"Oh yes; that's sweet--in a way. At least it was, when it was a dear
-young minister that was sayin' beautiful things about the Golden
-Shore, and comfortin' the bereaved. But twenty years is a long time.
-The Rev. Mr Beulah is a married man now, with a fine young family of
-his own. Folks have forgotten about my affliction this many a year.
-And as for Hezekiah----I don't hold with them spiritualists. He's more
-to do, you bet, than to be coming around frightenin' a lone woman with
-messages rapped out on a tea-table, or to mind whether I'm married or
-single. I'll be laid beside him when the time comes; that's as it
-should be. But it would be real pleasant to have some one for company
-in the meantime. It's a vale of tears--we've Gospel for that; but if
-ever you come to my time of life, you'll be wishin', like me, you had
-some one to dry your eyes in it."
-
-Maida sighed disappointedly. Her friend's sentiments were too robust
-for the plaintive tone in which that word "lumber" had been tempting
-her to indulge. Mrs Denwiddie, on the other hand, felt talkative, and
-there being no one else whom she could address, she accommodated
-herself to her friend's mood.
-
-"Is it long, now, since you saw him last?--your friend, I mean."
-
-"He went ten years ago."
-
-"Ten years! That's half a lifetime. Have you been gettin' letters from
-him for ten years?"
-
-"He used to write--at first, that is. Then he would send a newspaper.
-Now, I don't know where he is, or what he is doing. I wish I did. All
-would be forgiven and forgotten, if he only would return."
-
-"It's real good of you to speak like that, my dear. It takes a woman
-to be true and forgivin' like that. I wonder what the young man will
-be doin', now, all this time?"
-
-"He is trying hard to make that weary fortune, to be sure. He is
-ambitious."
-
-"And he don't allow himself even the encouragement of writin' to tell
-you how he's gettin' on. Do you think there could be some one up there
-encouragin' him?"
-
-"Mrs Denwiddie!"
-
-"There's no tellin', my dear, what the men are up to. They ain't
-faithful and endurin' like us."
-
-"I have waited. I can wait."
-
-"It does you credit, my dear. But a girl's youth won't wait. How about
-settlin' yourself in life?"
-
-Maida tightened her lips. She knew all that as well as Mrs Denwiddie;
-but what right had the woman to inspect her life in this fashion? to
-pull open the fold in which she chose to hide her inner self, and pry
-and probe in wanton curiosity?--the merciless and contemptuous
-curiosity with which married women will card out and examine the
-tangled threads of a spinster's being. She knew well enough the
-hopelessness of what, for want of another name, she thought of as her
-"attachment." Yet why could it not be taken at such small worth as she
-put upon it? She had not boasted of it. She knew its little value too
-well. But it was all she had, and why might she not wear it, having
-nothing else? That evening she was sitting a wallflower while the rest
-were merry--with no one to lead her out or make her a sharer in the
-gaiety. What wonder if she should wish to refer to a deferred
-engagement, and furbish up the poor little relic of a might-have-been,
-the one bit of romance she ever had, if only to seem less forlorn in
-her own eyes? And this old thing by her side, as lonely and shut out
-from the revelry as herself, and who, but for her, would have sat
-absolutely solitary--that _she_ should take upon her to be inquisitive
-and unpleasant! It was intolerable. She gathered her spare skirts more
-tightly round her, and edged some inches away upon the haircloth sofa
-she divided with her "friend." She would have risen altogether, but
-where was she to go? To what other companion could she join herself?
-She was not intimate with any of the other guests, married or single,
-old or young. She belonged, poor soul, to the order of bats--both bird
-and quadruped, yet accepted by neither. In the marrying aspect, she
-was regarded as altogether out of the running, while old and young
-agreed each in classing her with the other variety--too old to be a
-girl, not old enough to be a tabby--and nobody minded her when other
-company could be got. She felt it all, though she bravely ignored and
-struggled with her fate, living through many a tragic pang which no
-one ever suspected. She dared not put her position to the test by
-quarrelling with the widow. Already she saw herself flitting in and
-out among the revellers, unheeded, like a disembodied spirit. Where
-she sat she had at least a companion, and was safe from pity. She
-choked back her anger as a luxury she could not afford, and was ready
-to respond when Mrs Denwiddie, warned by symptoms that she might be
-left solitary in the crowd, realised that she must have been
-disagreeable, and set herself to open a new conversation in a less
-personal strain.
-
-How many of us would dispense with our dear friends, if we were only
-sure we could get on without them!
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER X.
-
-                          A MOTHER'S CARES.
-
-
-Mrs Naylor went back to her chair to digest the information she had
-received. Pork and Pugwash were not ideas attractive to her refined
-imagination; but if there was money! The sons of "first families" in
-the East were sent West at times, she knew. Why not to Pugwash as well
-as other places? If Mr Aurelius Sefton were indeed well off, even
-Pugwash might be an endurable place to live in. Millinery is sent from
-New York by express all over the country, and railways have brought
-Everywhere within reach of civilisation. "Yes; if the man had his hair
-cut, and his manners chastened down by a judicious mother-in-law, he
-really was not ill-looking. She would find out brother Joseph, and bid
-him have an eye on the man, and try what he could find out about him
-from the other people in the house. It did seem, to see the pair still
-circling cheerfully together, as if something might be brought to
-pass, if that were desirable. Yet, if it were not, she must see that
-the girl did not compromise herself, and get classed with the easily
-accessible." "Ah!" she said to herself, "the anxieties of a fond
-mother! How are my poor nerves to stand the strain of settling those
-two girls?" She realised how good she was, feeling strengthened
-thereby, and almost heroic, as she rose and moved slowly round the
-outskirts of the dance in search of her brother-in-law.
-
-The company was more numerous than usual that evening. A brass band
-from Lippenstock stood on the verandah, and brayed waltzes in through
-the open windows; and three or four omnibus-loads of strangers from
-Blue Fish Creek, some miles along the shore, had arrived to assist.
-The rooms were full, and it was not easy to pick out any one in the
-crowd. She made her way from doorway to doorway and past the windows,
-outside which the men not actively engaged were wont to lounge; but no
-Joseph could she see--though it was in such situations that he
-generally stood watching the gambols he no longer cared to join. She
-walked along the neighbouring galleries; but these seemed taken
-possession of by dancers cooling off, and sauntering in the moonlight
-till they were ready for another start.
-
-At last, in the shadow of a pillar and leaning on the balustrade, she
-came upon a pair looking out seaward, in intimate talk. She thought
-she recognised something in the gentleman's back, and figure, and
-close-cropped hair. She almost fancied she knew him; yet who could he
-be? The lady wore a dress less simple than the attire of the other
-girls that evening. There was a shimmer of satin here and there among
-the dimness of thinner fabric--
-
-
-            "Like glints of moonshine in a clouded sky"--
-
-
-and the suggestion of pale yellow, with a bunch of crimson on the
-shoulder, where it reached beyond the shadow which fell on the rest of
-the figure.
-
-Mrs Naylor was a woman; and while she might not be able to recall the
-back of her own father, a gown once seen was imprinted on her memory,
-and she recognised it at once. "Miss Hillyard," she said to herself,
-"the heroine--in her lovely Paris dress. I wonder whom she has got
-there. That is not the contradictious Scotch schoolmaster, at any
-rate, with his awkward knees and elbows. The men seem wild about her.
-Natural, that, in the men. But a little unfeminine," she could not
-help thinking, "in a lady to swim so well. And it would have been in
-better taste if she had dressed more quietly for this once, after
-making herself so remarkable in the morning. But then she is a Yankee,
-and perhaps not altogether a lady. One never knows how to class those
-people. Best let them alone;" and her thoughts reverted to Mr Sefton
-of Pugwash, and she felt much inclined to return to the ball-room and
-get Lucy away from him without further seeking enlightenment.
-
-At that moment the gentleman in shadow began to speak more loudly,
-pointing to where the moonlight made a patch of flickering lustre on
-the hazy sea.
-
-"How bright the moonlight lies out yonder on the water! Every ripple
-catches it a moment and throws it back, till the surface seems to
-burn.... How different it was this morning! How different it must be
-down deep below, and how easily I might be there now--cold and stiff,
-rolling amongst the sea-weed, and slime, and things nibbling in the
-darkness! It is a horrible reflection, and it would have come true if
-it had not been for you."
-
-The lady demurred, and moved, and asked if they had not better go in
-now; and Mrs Naylor beheld her brother-in-law turn round and lead his
-companion back among the dancers.
-
-She could scarcely believe her eyes. Joseph was forty-seven. She knew
-the date of his birth. He had never cared to dance within her
-recollection, and she had known him almost since her marriage. She
-remembered his coming home from sea about that time, a sad-eyed youth,
-who avoided company, and lived in a sort of patient gloom, finding his
-sole distraction in close application to business. Her husband
-whispered that he had met with a disappointment into which they must
-not pry, but rather strive by unspoken sympathy and kindness to
-reconcile him to his lot, and wean him from his sorrow.
-
-In time the cloud upon his spirits had seemed to lift. He was too
-kind-hearted not to take interest in the people among whom he lived;
-and, sympathising with them in their joys, his own depression by
-degrees was lightened. A man's capacity, even for suffering, is
-limited. Divide his attention, and you mitigate the intensity of his
-woes. It is the self-centred egotist whose troubles kill him, or may
-drive him mad, because he is incapable of distraction. To Joseph the
-better part of his life had seemed over, and work his only remaining
-resource. Yet he had never closed his heart against the cares and
-pleasures of his fellows, and he felt a wholesome interest in all that
-went on around him, like a father watching the opening hopes of
-children, who have not learnt to misgive, or dread the nipping frosts
-of disappointment.
-
-His sister-in-law, not being addicted to moral analysis, probably did
-not consider this; but she had seen his despondency clear away, and
-knew that he was the kindest, most cheerful, and most popular man she
-had ever met--ready to join in every pastime, and differing from the
-rest only in a premature middle-aged benevolence, setting in before he
-was thirty, which found pleasure in amusing others, without seeking
-anything for himself. He had seemed impervious to female charms
-through all the years she had known him, and especially he had avoided
-dances--or if by chance he found himself at one, only joining when
-charity led him to the side of some neglected wallflower. And here he
-was to-night, when there was no benevolent occasion for it whatever,
-leading out the best-dressed woman in the room, with an ardour which
-would have seemed more natural in him twenty years before. True, the
-lady had saved his life; but it seemed a droll way of manifesting
-gratitude to _dance_ with her, at his age. Her eyebrows made a
-satirical twitch upwards, and she sighed impatiently at men's lack of
-common-sense. The present was no time to unburden her anxieties--that
-was plain; and meanwhile she would saunter round the crowd, and watch
-him in his new character of middle-aged youngster.
-
-The evening was warm, but in the dancing-room it was positively hot.
-The atmosphere quivered with the blare of sounding brass, and the
-whirling figures, chasing the fleeting strains, raised a sirocco of
-sultry air and dust. Still the young people seemed to like it, and Mrs
-Naylor looked on in wonder, forgetting that she had once been young
-herself. But who were those in the farthest corner, keeping themselves
-so well clear of the hurrying hubbub?--revolving dreamily on the
-outer edge, in perfect sympathy and time, and in an orbit of their
-own--avoiding collision with the meteors and comets of the greater
-system, spinning calmly and smoothly on the flood of sound, engrossed
-with themselves, and indifferent to all the world beside.
-
-She looked again. The girl was her own daughter Margaret; but who was
-the man in whose arms she was so restfully and intimately revolving?
-Her self-reliant daughter was not wont to dance in that clinging
-fashion, and she could not imagine what dweller at Clam Beach could
-have won her to such unaccustomed softness. What masterful bird could
-so have won upon the fancy of her favourite chick? Was he one of the
-proper sort? But Margaret was too high-spirited to take up with a
-cross-breed, and she felt less solicitous than had it been that
-featherhead Lucy. Still she was curious to know who could have tamed
-proud Meg to so mild a demeanour. It was not young Petty. She could
-have wished that it had been. This one was not so tall, neither was he
-raw-looking, as--candour compelled the admission--was Mr Walter
-Petty--just a little; but then he was young yet, and it would soon
-wear off, with his prospects and assured position. This one was
-thoroughly in possession of himself and all his limbs. How deftly he
-steered and threaded their way, without stop or collision, among the
-less skilful dancers! How strong he looked, and calm, without
-heaviness! She could have wished herself young again, to be danced
-with by a partner such as he. In their continuous whirling, and the
-perpetual intervening of other couples, she could not make out or
-recognise his face. After a while they stopped, and she moved from
-where she had been standing, to get a better view. How intimately
-Margaret stood up to him and talked, with her flapping fan interposed
-between them and the rest of the world!
-
-Mrs Naylor's curiosity increased, and she drew nearer. "What!" she
-almost cried out aloud. "Walter Blount! How comes he here? This must
-not be!" And flushing, and tightening her lips, she walked across to
-where they stood. To think that after all the management she had
-expended in making her brother-in-law bring them to the seaside, and
-so remove her girl for a while beyond the reach of the "detrimental"
-whose fascinations threatened to ruin her prospects, the aggravating
-youth should have followed them! It was too provoking. She sniffed
-indignantly, and bore down on the offenders, tightening her lace shawl
-about her shoulders, and looking tall and stately with all her might.
-
-"Margaret, my dear," she said, "you are dancing a great deal too much.
-You will be knocked up to-morrow, and I mean you to accompany me to
-Boston."
-
-Margaret was taken aback. Her mother's habitual seat was in the
-conversation-room, at the other end of the suite, with two pairs of
-folding-doors and all the dancers between. It was to avoid her
-observation that they had been confining their career to this far-off
-corner, and her sweeping thus down on them was altogether unexpected.
-She let go her partner's arm, and with drooping eye and pouting lip
-prepared to follow her mother, like a naughty child detected in the
-act.
-
-"Mrs Naylor," said Blount, "will you not speak to me?"
-
-"How d'ye do, Mr Blount? I was not aware you were at Clam Beach."
-
-"It used to be 'Walter,' and you allowed me to call you aunt. Why this
-change?"
-
-"That was nonsense. We are not related. You are not a stripling now,
-Mr Blount, and my daughters have grown to be young women since then."
-
-"That does not make me feel the less regard for you and them, dear Mrs
-Naylor. It is not our fault that we grow older."
-
-"Why have you left your farm? These haunts of idleness and dissipation
-are no good place for a young man who should be making his fortune.
-Your stock will be straying and breaking down fences; and how is your
-harvest-work to go on in your absence? I am sure your friends would
-not approve if they knew."
-
-"I have sold the farm--sold it very well--and I shall soon be looking
-out for another."
-
-"I am sorry to hear you are becoming unsettled. Roving from place to
-place is the sure way for a young man to ruin himself. Remember the
-proverb about rolling stones.... Now, Margaret, if you are ready we
-will go." And drawing her daughter's arm through her own, she sailed
-away, leaving Blount disconsolate.
-
-"I am amazed, Margaret, at your want of common-sense and proper
-feeling," she began, as she led the captive back by the gallery
-towards the place where she was wont to sit. But she got no further
-with her harangue. Mr Peter Wilkie, coming through a window,
-intercepted her retreat, requesting Margaret for the favour of a
-dance.
-
-Margaret was declining with thanks, being in no mood for further
-exercise; but her mother, whose brow had cleared at once on the
-new-comer's appearance, interposed.
-
-"Indeed, Margaret, I think a dance would do you good. What an
-oppressive evening, Mr Wilkie! We came out here for a breath of
-coolness, but I do think it is better for young people not to yield.
-The more you give way to the heat, Margaret, my dear, the limper you
-will become. A dance with a good partner is far the best way of
-throwing off the oppression."
-
-Margaret felt a little doubtful about the goodness of the partner, but
-she said nothing, and took Mr Peter's arm without further demur. What
-did it matter? Her evening was irretrievably spoilt. Besides, her
-mother meant to be disagreeable--that was abundantly plain--and she
-had better accept the offered deliverance. She accompanied Peter back
-into the room. She laid her hand on his shoulder and they began to
-dance.
-
-If there is no method of motion more perfect than a good waltz, there
-is no purgatory so grievous as a bad one. Racing, stumbling, jolting,
-and running into other couples, with the danger of getting entangled
-among the feet and knees of her partner at every stride, and her ear
-outraged by his disregard of the music, Margaret could only liken
-their progress to a hurdle-race at a country fair, as they broke
-through the bars of the music, or cleared them helter-skelter. At
-length she was able to stop, and Mr Peter, somewhat giddy, and holding
-on till his head grew steady, drew a long breath.
-
-"Heh! that was fine! The best dance I've had to-night. You and me suit
-one another splendid, Miss Margaret. Let's have another turn. Are you
-ready?"
-
-"Really, Mr Wilkie, you must let me rest a moment, I am quite out of
-breath;" and she fanned herself industriously, taking care, however,
-not to include the partner this time. "How oppressive it is here! Do
-you not think a breath of fresh air on the gallery would be pleasant?"
-and Mr Wilkie, without at all intending it, found himself promenading
-in the moonlight, when he would rather have been regaling the company
-with his antics in the dance. Like other rugged and ungraceful men, he
-had a high opinion of his personal graces; and his doting mother, who
-worshipped his very shadow, had conspired with his natural vanity to
-breed a self-admiration which tempted him in expansive moments to
-display himself before an admiring world. He would have liked to
-exhibit under the lights in the crowded ball-room, with this fine girl
-hung gracefully on his shoulder, as he knew she could pose herself;
-but if that was not to be, at least she was a young person of
-intelligence who could appreciate a man of talent. He resigned himself
-to the comparative seclusion, stroked his chin, and cleared his voice,
-preparatory to saying something smart.
-
-What the observation was to have been, nobody knows. It is in Limbo
-with other good things which have missed their opportunity. It was
-Margaret who spoke--
-
-"Mr Blount! You out here! Found it too warm inside? So did we. How
-pleasant it is here!"
-
-At that moment the music ceased. The dance was ended, and Mr Peter
-Wilkie, his smart saying unsaid, found himself exchanging a
-valedictory smile with his companion, who somehow had become detached
-from him, and, before he well understood the situation, was wafting
-away with Mr Blount, leaving him alone with his handsome shadow in the
-moonlight.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XI.
-
-                         DISCUSSING A SUITOR.
-
-
-Is there some connection between a maiden's tresses and the workings
-of her mind? When the braids are coiled in shining order for the
-captivation of the world, are her thoughts as well confined in
-conventional rolls and waves conforming to the fashion of the time?
-Poets love to dwell upon her "locks": can it be because they guard
-her confidences that they have named them so? There is more in this
-than a mere wretched pun; there is a connection between sound and
-sense--involuntary, no doubt, but the beginnings of language are all
-involuntary. When the hair is unbound, the mind is freed from the
-trammels of convention and reserve; and this may be why, at
-hair-brushing time, as I have heard, girls' tongues are wont to wag so
-freely.
-
-There must be infinite relief to the poor little head, and brain
-benumbed, when the weight of firmly drawn and twisted hair is
-unbuckled and let down, and a refreshing stimulation of thought in the
-action of brush and comb, spreading and airing and drawing out the
-uncomfortable glory.
-
-Margaret and Lucy Naylor had retired for the night, but not as yet to
-rest. Relieved from hair-pins, they stood before their glasses in
-freedom and disarray, more charming far than when decked out to meet
-the public eye, which might not, alas! be privileged to behold them
-now.
-
-Yet doubtless there is a happiness in being handsome, for its own
-sake, even if one is alone. One may legitimately rejoice in beauty
-though it be one's own; and it were churlish to libel that as vanity
-which is common to all things beautiful. See how the roses spread
-their petals to the light, and how birds of starry plumage perch in
-solitary places in the sun, to preen their feathers and display their
-brilliant dyes!
-
-The girls were pretty seen at any time, but when busied in these
-secret mysteries they were vastly more so. The glossy abundance hung
-down like mantles over the pearly shoulders and far below their
-waists, and the supple white arms held up and played among the falling
-waves of hair, which flashed like skeins of pale and ruddy gold-thread
-in the flicker of the candles. The glittering veil half hid their
-smiling features, but ever and anon the eyes flashed out beneath the
-shadow, more brightly than their wont, answering to lips of red, and
-rows of small white teeth, and gurgling rounds of laughter.
-
-The doings of the evening were all gone over again, the successes won
-anew; and in relation, what had seemed but trifling incidents at the
-time, grew bigger, and under merry comment vastly entertaining. Lucy
-had most to say. She was the chatterbox, and had much to tell about
-the gentlemen she had danced with, and their sometimes rather vapid
-talk. Could those lordly wiseacres have heard the _résumé_ and
-description of their stiff-backed endeavours to converse and please,
-they would have been surprised, and some of them not over-gratified,
-at the shrewd commentaries of the pretty, timid, and not too clever
-little thing they had trifled with so condescendingly.
-
-Margaret had much less to say, but she was in equally good spirits. It
-was with a very old friend that she had mostly been passing the time,
-so there was nothing to tell, though Lucy looked a little incredulous
-when she said as much; but her evening had been none the less pleasant
-on that account, to judge from her ready appreciation of her sister's
-fun.
-
-There was a knock while the talk was at its briskest, but in the
-babblement and laughter it was not heard. The knock was repeated, and
-this time the speaker stopped short in the middle of a sentence, and
-both turned round and looked at each other.
-
-"It is mamma," whispered Lucy.
-
-Margaret's countenance fell; she even frowned a little. Something
-unpleasant was going to happen, she felt sure.
-
-"Let's blow out the lights and jump into bed," suggested Lucy.
-
-"No use," said Margaret. "Open the door and get it over as quickly as
-possible. I shan't say a word, and she will run herself out of breath
-the sooner."
-
-"Nonsense!" and Lucy blew out one of the candles as she spoke. "She
-will forget about it in the morning if we fall asleep now. I don't
-want to have the feeling of a well-spent day spoilt by a lecture."
-
-The knock was repeated more peremptorily than before. It was too late
-to pretend unconsciousness now. Margaret went sullenly to the door and
-admitted her mother.
-
-"What an uproar you two girls are making in here--din enough for a
-dozen--chattering like magpies, and laughing at this hour of the
-night, when decent people are in their beds! Nice complaints and
-remarks the people in adjoining rooms will make to-morrow!--though
-they may not venture to speak to _me_ about it," she added grandly, as
-if she dared any one to take that liberty. "But that makes it worse.
-We cannot explain or set them right when they tattle behind our backs,
-and the stories will grow bigger and worse, till no one knows what
-they may come to.... You thoughtless pair! Lucy there speaking at the
-very tip of her voice. It will be a wonder if the people through the
-partitions do not know every word she has been saying--something, most
-likely, which will do her no credit. Mrs Chickenpip, I may tell you,
-is your neighbour on that side, and she does not spare people who
-annoy her. For your own sakes you had better respect her slumbers. She
-passed when I was hammering at your door, and she looked many things
-at me which good manners prevent people from saying; but she will find
-an opportunity of expressing them to some one else, or I am mistaken."
-
-"Tiresome old cat," said Lucy. "No one will mind her. She is too grim
-and proper. Nobody heeds what childless old women say about young
-people."
-
-"Old women? She is younger than I am. Would you speak of your own
-mother----?"
-
-"Oh no, mammy dear! Nobody thinks of its own pretty mamma in that
-way;" and she threw her arms round her mother's neck.
-
-"Have done, Lucy! I am in no mood for fooling, I assure you. Let me
-alone, and be quiet. It was you, Margaret, that I wanted to talk to.
-We must come to an understanding at once. This kind of thing which has
-been going on down-stairs must come to an end. I have been
-inexpressibly shocked and pained. It is more than my poor health can
-stand. Would you bring my hair with sorrow to the grave?" ... "Grey
-hairs with sorrow to the grave," was the Scriptural quotation which
-had come into her mind; but even to make a rhetorical point, she felt
-that she could not afford to attribute greyness to her carefully
-tended braids. She put up her hand and stroked them tenderly, which
-disturbed the thread of her argument, and she came to a stop, with her
-eyes resting reproachfully on her elder daughter.
-
-Margaret was aware that she had better let the lecture run itself
-down. Interruptions, she knew by experience, acted like winding up a
-clock, and set it off again, tick-tack, on a refreshed career. She
-bore the reproachful gaze in silence as long as she was able, but at
-last it grew too much for her, and rather sullenly she answered--
-
-"What do you mean, mother?"
-
-"You know very well what I mean. Have I not told you many times that
-that childish nonsense with young Blount must be given up?"
-
-"Is it our engagement you mean?" Margaret answered, with heightened
-colour. She knew that she was unwise to speak, but her temper was
-rising. It always _would_ rise, she knew not how, when her mother
-spoke of "young Blount."
-
-"Your what?" her mother cried, indignantly. "I will not hear of such a
-thing. I have forbidden you to be engaged to him. You shan't be
-engaged to him; and now that you force me to it, I forbid you to speak
-to him. An abominable young man!--worming himself deceitfully into
-families where he is not wanted. Was there ever anything so
-ungentlemanlike as his sneaking down here after us, although he had
-been as good as forbidden the house at home? He had not the candour to
-come to me and say, 'Mrs Naylor, I am here;' but slyly waylays you in
-a crowded ball-room, to hold surreptitious interviews. I never heard
-of anything so atrocious in my life. I could not have believed it. But
-it rewards me for my imprudence in taking up a stranger, merely to
-oblige your uncle Joseph, and being kind to him--warming a viper in my
-bosom, that he might turn and sting me!"
-
-This was fine, and Mrs Naylor stopped for breath.
-
-"You have no right to say such things, mother," Margaret answered,
-hotly. "Walter never was ungentlemanlike. He could not be, if he were
-to try. And he is no sneak. He is as brave and honest as the day; and
-I have heard you say as much yourself, formerly, when he used to visit
-us. You often said he was the nicest young man of your acquaintance."
-
-"And this is the reward of my ill-judged hospitality--having him come
-to me with your uncle, when you were both children! I see my
-imprudence now; but at least my daughter might spare me," and Mrs
-Naylor put her handkerchief to her eyes. "That a mother's solicitude
-should be taunted thus, by the very child she is trying to shield from
-the effects of her injudicious good-nature! Oh, Margaret, you are
-cruel!"
-
-Margaret felt shocked with herself. To think that she should bring
-tears to her mother's eyes! How hard and obdurate she must surely be!
-She had never felt so wicked in all her life before. Yet how to mend
-it? She would gladly do anything to pacify and soothe her wounded
-mother--anything but give up Walter; and that was the only thing which
-would be of any avail. She forbore to say more in his defence,
-however--in fact she could not have trusted her voice to keep steady
-or say anything just then; and as she saw the handkerchief still at
-her mother's eyes, her own began to overflow. She was contrite,
-without attempting to particularise on what account, and very unhappy.
-
-Mrs Naylor saw that her demonstration had told, and made haste to
-improve the advantage. She put her handkerchief back in her pocket and
-cleared her voice.
-
-"It is for your own sake I am so solicitous, Margaret. It is you he is
-trying to marry. You can marry but once, remember. Think how momentous
-is this step you are so blindly eager to take. Your whole future life
-depends on it."
-
-"We are fond of one another, mother, and he is good and true. What
-more can a girl want?"
-
-"Much, my dear. You talk like an inexperienced simpleton. How
-differently you will look on things in ten years' time! People cannot
-live--perhaps for fifty years--like turtles in a nest, in one
-continued round of billing and cooing. They must eat and dress
-themselves every day; and to do that nicely takes a deal of money,
-more than your friend is likely ever to earn."
-
-"I do not want to be rich. The rich people we know are not so nice, I
-am sure. Few of them are gentlemen."
-
-"I know, my dear. I understand you perfectly. Love in a cottage, and
-that sort of thing. When I was a girl, the novels were full of it, and
-it was very pretty. The novels are much more sensible nowadays, and it
-is strange that the young people who read them should still be as
-foolish as ever."
-
-"I do not think life without love would be worth the having."
-
-"Of course not, my shepherdess! It would be charming to sit in the
-woods always, holding a crook tied with nice fresh blue satin ribbon,
-and a straw hat cocked on one side, a pet lamb at one's feet, and a
-swain beside one to whistle tunes upon a reed, like the Dresden-china
-figures; but when a shower came, and the ribbons got wet, it would be
-but a draggle-tailed diversion, believe me. Remember the old saying,
-'When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window.' You
-can't make love on an empty stomach. Housekeeping knocks a deal of the
-romance out of life."
-
-"Walter has money, mother. With mine added, we shall be quite well
-off."
-
-"I think, Margaret, if I had been pleading a gentleman's cause, I
-would not have put him in the invidious light of requiring a wife's
-fortune to enrich him. It sounds mercenary. Not that I wish to speak
-unkindly of your friend; but he lays himself open to the suspicion of
-fortune-hunting, by running after a girl with your prospects. Your
-uncle is not likely to marry, and you might look so very much higher,
-if you only had common-sense."
-
-"I don't know where I should look for 'higher.' You have always said
-that his people were an excellent family in England."
-
-"We are Canadians, my dear. Good connections in England will not help
-him much with us, unless they are bankers. He is a younger son, and
-his brother has children, so his prospect of ever coming to the family
-property is not worth counting. He has got all they can afford to give
-him, and is a fixture on this side the Atlantic for life."
-
-"He is better off than most young men. Yet see how quickly some of
-them get on, and rise to the top."
-
-"_He_ will never rise, my dear. He has not been trained for getting on
-in this country. He will not spend as little as our young men do, and
-he has not the first idea of how to make a fortune."
-
-"He would not be half as nice if he had."
-
-"My dear, you talk like a child. When people advance into middle life,
-mere lovemaking grows to be up-hill work. It would be grotesque, if it
-had not become too insipid for people to attempt keeping it up. The
-larger interests are needed to make middle life bearable. It is
-gratifying then to find that one has married a man of note--some one
-heard of everywhere, and spoken of by everybody. With your looks and
-accomplishments and prospects, there is no man you may not have the
-refusal of. How comfortable, when one grows elderly and uninteresting,
-to be wife of the chief-justice, or of a senator, and receive as much
-attention in old age as one has been accustomed to in youth! An
-ex-beauty poorly married is a disappointed and a discontented woman,
-let me tell you."
-
-"Walter could go into politics if he liked; and if he ever does, he
-must rise to the top, he is so clever and well informed."
-
-"Not he. He will never be more than he is now. He is too much of an
-Englishman, and too fixed in his notions, ever to catch the tone of
-his neighbours."
-
-"He is a gentleman. Why should he take the tone of people less
-cultured than himself?"
-
-"He won't. That's where the trouble is. And therefore his neighbours
-will never really like him. They will fancy he looks down on them.
-They will never send him to Parliament, mark my words, however hard he
-may try. If they elect him reeve of his township, or a school-trustee,
-it is the most they will ever do for him.
-
-"Playing country gentleman does not answer, my dear. It has been often
-tried. I have seen so many half-pay officers and others buy land, and
-start as country gentlemen, and it always ended the same way. In a few
-years their ready money was spent, and they could not move away. Their
-farms were worse cultivated than their neighbours', and less
-productive; and their children, rough and unkempt, grew up neither one
-thing nor another--neither gentle nor simple--with the pretensions of
-a class which did not care to accept them, and without the industry
-and thrift to keep them up in the one into which they were sinking.
-
-"Have nothing to do with the land in this country, my dear; or marry a
-greedy and hard-working clown at once. Your children, at least, may
-come to be somebody in that case, though you will lead a drudge's life
-yourself."
-
-"I am ready to risk it, mother, however it may turn out. A crust in
-the woods with the man of my choice, rather than all the splendour you
-can mention, without him."
-
-"You are infatuated! Reason is thrown away on you. I wonder at my own
-patience in attempting to argue with you so long. But at least you
-shall not ruin your life if I can help it. If you will not send away
-this pernicious young man, I must carry you away from him. He shall
-find that however his persecution may inconvenience us, it shall
-further his schemes not a jot.... You will pack up to-morrow, girls,
-first thing. Come down to breakfast in your travelling dresses. We
-leave by the first train tomorrow forenoon;" and so saying, she left
-the room.
-
-"Oh, Margaret!" sighed Lucy in despair; "and we had the prospect of
-such a good time before us."
-
-"What could I have said, Lucy, except what I did?"
-
-"I don't know; but it is awfully disgusting."
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XII.
-
-                              TO NAHANT?
-
-
-It was about three in the morning. The lights had been extinguished
-in the ball-room, and the house was still. The casements of
-sleeping-rooms were darkening one by one as their inmates composed
-themselves to rest. A footfall on the gallery outside mingled with the
-tick of the clock on the staircase, which, in the stillness of the
-hour, sent monotonous vibrations through the timbers of the wooden
-house.
-
-Backward and forward the walker paced, diffusing the thin smoke of his
-cigar upon the salt-smelling air. It was cool and even chilly as
-morning drew near. Already the sky had grown pale low down beyond the
-sea. The waters by contrast had grown more black and forbidding; and
-with the regular steady growl of the rollers breaking on the beach, it
-seemed like a monster watching at the portals of the day.
-
-Backward and forth paced Joseph Naylor, too wakeful to sleep, and
-without even a wish to turn in. There was nothing painful in his
-ruminations, nothing to agitate; and no point of difficulty had arisen
-on which it was necessary for him to decide. Looking at himself in
-that state of divided consciousness in which one half the mind notes
-and surveys the workings of the other, he appeared scarcely to think
-at all. There was little of sequence or progress in the images among
-which he drifted, and the faculties of judging, choosing, desiring,
-intending, were not in use. There was rather a feeling of contented
-fruition overhanging his spirit like a golden mist, in which he seemed
-to bathe and be at rest.
-
-Far back, before he had learned sorrow, he had known this sense of
-peace, a glimpse of Paradise from which he had been snatched away, and
-the gates closed after him with a clang. Looking seaward, the black
-expanse spread out, with low reverberating sound, seemed a symbol of
-his long-drawn years of desolation, a barrier between him and the
-faintly brightening east. To-night he seemed to overpass that gulf,
-and feel again the blessedness of a young bridegroom--without a wish,
-because he touched the goal of his desires, swimming in contentment,
-and breathing the scent of orange-flowers and garlands. He seemed to
-be inhaling it even now.
-
-There had been a time when to recall these feelings would have driven
-him mad--when he had set his teeth, and turned his mind away from the
-memory of what had grown to be an agony, and which dogged him night
-and day like the remorse of some great crime. As time wore on, his
-life had grown more tolerable, in grey and joyless wise, with the
-aftermath of sober peace which sedulous virtue can rear even on the
-stubble of youth's luxuriant crop cut down and borne away. Yet even
-then, to finger the old wounds was to make them bleed anew--to
-remember the past was to recall his sorrow.
-
-To-night, what change had come over him? He seemed living again in the
-happiness of the bygone time. He felt young as he had not felt in
-twenty years. He could dwell on the old joys and feel no sting; recall
-the image of his lost without a pang--so young and tender, with her
-soft brown eyes and clinging touch lingering still so kindly on his
-retentive sense. There was no feeling of loss to-night, no raging pang
-of impotent hungry jealousy.
-
-He seemed dwelling in the fragrance of her presence; and the image of
-his new friend, his deliverer, was with him too, so like and yet so
-different from the other. The sunny warmth in those full brown eyes
-had beamed on him with a reviving and invigorating glow, which had
-thawed and quickened his poor frost-bound nature like the coming of
-another spring. How different the two images were! And yet, when he
-strove to separate and compare them in his mind, how strangely they
-ran together, and blended like fluid shapes into something vaguely
-sweet and dear, which would not be resolved into either definite form!
-
-A hand was laid lightly on his shoulder, and he turned his head,
-preoccupied still with the images of his waking dream.
-
-"I have found you at last, and at leisure," said a voice at his elbow.
-"You have been so busy all the evening, and I could not turn in till I
-had had a word with you."
-
-"Walter! You? What is it?"
-
-"What is this about going to Boston to-morrow? Margaret is as much
-taken by surprise as I am."
-
-"Going to Boston? I know nothing of it. What do you mean?"
-
-"Mrs Naylor told Margaret in my hearing they were going to Boston
-to-morrow."
-
-"We came here intending to remain a month at least. Our rooms are
-only taken for a fortnight, to be sure, in case we should not like it;
-but if we do--and I thought we were getting on nicely--we were to
-stay. At least that was my idea. But--ah! I see--Walter, you scamp!
-This comes of your unexpected appearance. You should be ashamed
-of yourself--disturbing a quiet family in this fashion. What a
-dangerous character you must be, when the sight of you frightens a
-middle-aged lady so much that she is going to pack up and run away,
-before--before----Bless my soul! how many days have we been here? It
-seems a long time, but it is not a week, not four---- We have been
-here only two days!
-
-"Yes; now I think of it, my sister has been hovering round me a good
-deal this evening. I daresay she has been trying to get speech of me.
-And I was conceited enough to think it was unwarrantable curiosity on
-the part of Mrs Caleb, watching what I was about."
-
-"You _were_ a little different from your usual to-night, Mr Naylor. I
-never saw you mind young ladies much before. Tonight it has been
-impossible to get hold of you."
-
-"That may have been the young ladies' fault, my boy. It is not every
-one of them who knows how to be good company. Naturally, a man at my
-time of day is less susceptible to the pink and white in a
-schoolgirl's face than you young fellows are. There is a time for
-bread and butter, and a time for other things. Solomon says so."
-
-"I don't think any one should call Margaret a bread-and-butter miss,"
-Walter answered, hotly.
-
-"Margaret is a good girl, and smart--though perhaps I should not say
-so, who remember her a squealing baby--but she would not care to waste
-her evening in amusing an old uncle, when the fiddlers were around,
-and so many young fellows to mind her."
-
-"And what about Boston, then? Do you mean to go? Or will you allow Mrs
-Naylor to take her daughters there, and break up the very pleasant
-party here?"
-
-"I do not see that Mrs Caleb's going to Boston would break up the
-party here;" and there was a tone in Joseph's voice, as he said it,
-which betokened a smile, though there was not light enough to see it.
-"It is natural that she should want to get her girls away from a too
-fascinating detrimental.
-
-"You are a sad fellow, Walter--running about the world to frighten
-fond mothers, and compromise the prospects of young ladies."
-
-"I can afford to marry, Mr Naylor. You know it. You know all about my
-circumstances and my connections. You have admitted to me that I might
-fairly enough go in and win if I could."
-
-"I am not the girl's mother, my good fellow. If I recollect aright, I
-said 'Wait.' That is what I would say to you again, after the lapse of
-hardly three months. Your patience seems to me of the shortest. You
-must wait, my boy--wait."
-
-"Wait till another fellow comes forward and unsettles her mind! Stand
-aside, and let him step in and win her! Would you do that yourself?"
-
-"I don't know. You speak from the gentleman's point of view, you see.
-It is from the lady's side, and with a view to her interests, that I
-must consider things. Her mother's feeling is perfectly natural. It is
-from no objection to yourself that she wishes to stave you off.
-Margaret has seen nothing of the world. It is fair that she should
-know what she is giving up if she marries a backwoodsman."
-
-"She does not object to the backwoods."
-
-"She has seen too little of life in the front to realise what she
-would be giving up. You have influenced her fancy, and she sees with
-your eyes for the moment. By-and-by she might think differently, and
-if it were too late it would be bad for you both. You must really have
-patience, and give her time."
-
-"But----"
-
-"Oh yes; there is plenty to say on the other side, Walter. You and I
-might talk a long time, but I fear neither would convince the other.
-Meanwhile, it is time we were both in bed. The lights are going out
-all over the house. Good night."
-
-Joseph took his candle and went up-stairs. The light from a door ajar
-fell on him as he threaded the dim corridor, bordered with boots of
-sleeping guests.
-
-"Joseph!" in a vehement whisper reached his ears. He turned, and his
-sister-in-law, in dressing-gown and shawl, stood before him.
-
-"How late you are of retiring! I have watched and waited for your
-passing till I am completely knocked up. Ah! my poor back! and my head
-aches dreadfully."
-
-"Get to bed. Late hours are always hurtful."
-
-"I could not lie down till I had seen you. I _must_ speak to you. And
-you have lingered so long."
-
-"We cannot talk here--disturbing people, and being overheard. You are
-scarcely in trim for the parlour. Besides, the lights are out. It is
-very late, and I am awfully sleepy."
-
-"Come in here. Improper?--Dear me!" and Mrs Naylor smiled
-sarcastically. "Our age will save our characters, Joseph, I should
-think. However, I will leave the door open."
-
-"Well?" asked Joseph, following in reluctantly, "what is it--which
-will not keep till morning? Let's cut it as short as possible."
-
-"Do you know that young Blount is here?"
-
-"Yes."
-
-"What are we to do?"
-
-"I see no occasion to do anything."
-
-"He may have Margaret engaged and committed any half-hour they are
-alone together."
-
-"If she is willing, I do not see why he should not."
-
-"Joseph Naylor! Is that the interest you take in poor Caleb's
-fatherless daughter? And you call yourself her guardian!"
-
-"Well? What would you have me do?"
-
-"Remove us at once. Then she is not compromised by any exhibition of
-intimacy there may have been this evening. I have been thinking of
-Nahant. It is an extravagant place, I know; but we can stop and have a
-couple of days' shopping in Boston on the way. Will you arrange for
-our starting by the forenoon train?"
-
-"To-morrow morning! Do you forget that your rooms here are engaged for
-a fortnight?--could not have got them for a shorter time--and there
-are still eleven days to run?"
-
-"I know. We must pay for the fortnight, of course. Another obligation
-to add to the many we owe your favourite."
-
-"But you will find Nahant dull, I fear. It is not a place many
-Canadians go to, and you have no New England friends. Will it not be
-lonesome for you and the girls to look on at the gaieties, without
-even a man to stand beside you in the crowd?"
-
-His sister-in-law turned and looked at him questioningly. Joseph, as
-she knew, was not aggressively self-asserting, but this was
-self-effacement beyond any modesty she could have believed.
-
-"You will do very nicely, Joseph," she said, encouragingly. "You are
-presentable anywhere, and--well--almost distinguished-looking, let me
-tell you; and you give our party far more weight than if you were
-younger. And then you are so clever about making friends with the
-nicest people within reach. We shall do capitally."
-
-Joseph opened his eyes and smiled, to hear his sister-in-law sum him
-up to his face so patronisingly. "You are too appreciative of my small
-merits, Susan. Pray spare me. But I had no idea of joining in your
-escapade. Clam Beach is perfectly good enough for me. I shall not
-dream of leaving it before my fortnight is up; and quite likely, if I
-continue to like it, I shall stay on for three or four weeks longer."
-
-"Do you mean that you will let us roam away over the United
-States--your poor dead brother's helpless widow and orphans--without a
-protector? I could not have believed it, Joseph. But--ah! I can see it
-all!--designing girl--this evening----"
-
-Mrs Naylor grew disjointed and confused, and finally stuck fast in the
-middle of a sentence which she could not properly be said to have
-begun; having merely betrayed, in her irritation, a wish "to carry the
-war into Africa"--or at least, since Joseph was so unsympathetic in
-her concerns, to discuss his own in a similar spirit. But there came
-the look into his face of a man who will not be trifled with, and who
-chooses to introduce the subject himself, when his affairs are to be
-mentioned; and between surprise, and having nothing exactly to
-say--though in another mood there would have been an opening for
-banter and insinuation--the thread of her ideas gave way, and she
-stopped short.
-
-Joseph's brow cleared as quickly as it had darkened, so soon as Susan
-had checked herself; but he said nothing, and after waiting in silence
-for a minute and a half, he turned on his heel, saying--
-
-"That is all you have to tell me, I suppose? Good night."
-
-"Stop, Joseph! You have told me nothing. What am I to do? Do you
-really mean that you will not come with us?"
-
-"That is what I mean."
-
-"You propose to keep us here against our will, and to hand that poor
-misguided child Margaret over to such a fate? I would not have
-believed it of you, Joseph."
-
-"I have no power to keep you here against your will, Susan, any more
-than you have the right to drag me away against mine. If I can do
-anything short of that to pleasure you, name it. My cheque-book is
-freely at your service, if you insist on going to Nahant, where you
-will find your expenses ten times as heavy as here."
-
-"I don't want your cheque-book. Poor Caleb took care we should be
-provided for. And very fortunate it is, too,"--which was an ungracious
-and uncalled-for observation; but all things, as Joseph thought, are
-pardonable in an angry woman.
-
-"And what am I to do," she continued, "with this young man? He will
-drive me distracted. I know he will."
-
-"Accept what you cannot prevent, Susan; and save yourself the worry of
-struggling against the inevitable. Let them have their way. Do it
-soon, and make a favour of it; and you will be in a position to
-stipulate for long delay. When Walter is a year or two older, he will
-have had enough of the wilds, and be willing to settle down in a
-civilised neighbourhood."
-
-"But Margaret ought to do so much better. I cannot resign myself to
-the idea of her sinking into a farmer's wife. I have a right to expect
-position for her--the best the Province can afford. Why should she not
-live in Toronto and lead society?"--which, perhaps, you may deem a
-small ambition, my British reader; yet it is precisely what all
-mankind are born to feel. Ambition is the same everywhere, but its
-object varies with the latitude and longitude. There are actually
-people as eager to be first in Timbuctoo and Bokhara, as any one you
-may know to be of the best in London.
-
-"As Blount's wife," answered Joseph, "she will be all right socially;
-and between what she has from her father, and what she may look for
-from her uncle, she does not need to consider whether her husband is a
-rich man or not."
-
-"I intended her to be in the middle of everything. For what else did I
-take so much trouble with her education?"
-
-"She does not seem to mind about that herself."
-
-"And there were chances for her here, if Blount would have stayed
-away. There is that clever Mr Wilkie, and young Walter Petty, both
-evidently well inclined to her."
-
-"I think Margaret's preference shows good taste and good sense. Blount
-is a gentleman, and his people have a property in Wales. If you want
-connection, he is the best of the three."
-
-"He is a younger son. His prospects don't amount to much, or he would
-have stayed at home; while Mr Wilkie----"
-
-"A worthy person. A rising man, if you like----"
-
-"Mrs Petty would give her eyes to get him for Ann."
-
-"Very likely. But he is not to compare with Blount; though I do not
-blame him for that. There is a kind of person which must be born and
-bred, though it is not the kind which makes its way in the world the
-best. For myself, I sympathise with Margaret's taste."
-
-"I declare, I think that young fellow has turned your head! But he
-_shan't_ be your nephew, for all his scheming, if I can prevent it....
-If you will not take us to Nahant, I suppose we must stay here. We
-would have to invent so many excuses if we went straight back home;
-though it would be serving Margaret just right if we did. But she
-shall stay at my side and under my eye while we remain here; Mr Blount
-shall gain nothing by it. The worry and botheration will injure me, I
-know, and may even have the worst consequences; but it will be your
-fault, Joseph Naylor, and some day, when it is too late, you will
-regret it. I would not have believed that it was in you to be so
-unkind."
-
-"Good night," said Joseph, getting away at last; and before many
-minutes more, he too was one of the army of sleepers.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XIII.
-
-                           MAIDA SPRINGER.
-
-
-The succeeding week was a time of depression, waiting, watching, and
-general tantalisation for Margaret Naylor and Walter Blount.
-Margaret's mother was more cross and more watchful than Argus or
-duenna had ever been before. The only consolation--as Joseph, pitying
-the lad's despair, found with some remorse that he had let fall--was,
-that such preternatural vigilance could not last; or if it did, that
-Margaret would be goaded to desperation and rebel.
-
-Interchange of glances even was denied the hapless lovers. Mrs Naylor
-intercepted, so to speak, an [oe]illade in its flight across the
-breakfast-room on the first morning of the siege, and sternly insisted
-that her daughter should change places forthwith to the other side of
-the table, and turn her back to the enemy.
-
-To save appearances, while acting jailer on the girl, Mrs Naylor made
-a martyr of herself, and moved about under a load of superabundant
-clothing--wrapping herself in shawls and wearing a wisp of knitting
-upon her head on days when her brother-in-law was wishing himself a
-wild Indian, that he might dress in a coat of paint. Mrs Naylor was
-"poorly,"--she felt premonitions of ague, a threatening of neuralgia,
-and, of course, severe "headache"; at least so the ladies agreed, on
-comparing notes, after making tender inquiries--each anxious to make
-sure there was nothing infectious, so as to steal away quietly before
-the general panic and stampede which would ensue if there were.
-
-"Just a case of general all-overishness, my dears," said Mrs Carraway,
-"arising from change to this bracing air, after the sickly heats of
-Upper Canada. I had a touch of it myself, on coming first. There is so
-much salt and ozone down here."
-
-"I should say it was a case of hypochondria," observed Mrs Chickenpip,
-who, being serious and robust in her views, was given to cultivate
-truth at the expense of charity. "I am sure we do wrong in encouraging
-her to make-believe, by showing so much sympathy. If you had seen, as
-I did, the breakfast she made this morning, you would think less of
-her ailments."
-
-"That's not always a sign," said Mrs Wilkie. "Look at _me_ now. I eat
-hearty. I'm always best at meal-times; but an hour after, I'm just
-fairly done, and my heart thumpin' like a smiddie hammer."
-
-"Not at all to be wondered at," Mrs Chickenpip retorted, below her
-breath. "If people will over-eat, they must expect to be
-uncomfortable,"--a remark which passed unheard.
-
-"How do you feel to-day, Mrs Wilkie?" was more audible. It was Rose
-Hillyard who spoke.
-
-"Ah, my dear, it's you? I'm glad to see you. I'm only so-so, between
-the heat and the palpitations; but I think the homoeopathy is doing me
-good. I think the lady we are speakin' about should try some of it."
-
-"Have you been taking any more powders?" asked Rose, smiling at the
-recollection of the cloud of "poother" she had seen issue from the old
-lady's mouth.
-
-"Just wan each day. I haven't forgot how kind you were to me the first
-day. I have been better ever since."
-
-"You blew that one all away, I think."
-
-"It did me good all the same, my dear; and I won't forget your
-kindness givin' it to me. And if ever I can say a good word for you,
-I'll do it, ye may rely;" and the old thing actually winked, to Rose's
-no small indignation--on which Lettice Deane gave her a pinch in the
-arm, and ran away to hide her uproarious laughter.
-
-Mrs Wilkie having dispensed her morsel of patronage, drew herself up
-and coughed behind her finger-tips; then, thinking that perhaps she
-had shown too marked a preference among candidates, she turned to Mrs
-Petty and inquired for Miss Ann, observing that she thought her a nice
-girl.
-
-Mrs Naylor led Margaret a life which afforded her ample opportunity to
-repent her perverseness, had that been possible. From the time she
-left her room in the morning, she kept the girl at her side, to read
-to her when she sat, or support her with an arm when she took a walk.
-In the evening she kept her still at her elbow; and though she
-sometimes allowed her to dance, she had her back again at her side the
-moment the dance was ended. The other ladies were charmed and
-impressed by these signs of so devoted an attachment between mother
-and daughter, and both rose immensely in public esteem, which perhaps
-consoled them in their utter boredom with one another. In her heart,
-the mother would have liked to whip the intractable girl, while the
-girl, in hers, was sorely tempted to run away; but public opinion and
-the conventions kept both up to their pretty behaviour--and the
-artist's satisfaction in doing a thing really well, and being
-applauded for it, was assuredly an alleviation in the long and weary
-game of make-believe.
-
-Mrs Wilkie praised Margaret as a good biddable girl, and confided to
-every one who cared to listen, "that she would be quite pleased if
-Peter would take a fancy to her; though, to be sure, there was that
-Miss Hillyard, a most superior person,--and it was doubtful to which
-he would incline." Mrs Petty thought her the sweetest-tempered heiress
-she had ever seen, wished she could secure her for her boy Walter, and
-became the inseparable companion of mother and daughter.
-
-By the third day of Mrs Naylor's sickness, she found herself the
-recipient of so much attention, that she became quite reconciled to
-her _rôle_--liked it almost--and might, I suppose, be taken as of that
-curious class of people of whom it is recorded in newspapers that they
-"enjoy poor health." Mrs Petty fairly laid siege to the regard of
-mother and daughter, and old Mrs Wilkie sought the society of the two
-mothers, who paid her unlimited attention in return, each protesting
-to the other that it was quite a lark to quiz the simple soul, while
-both were devoutly hoping that she would accept their blandishments in
-good faith, and influence her son accordingly. Soon other ladies
-joined the coterie--Mrs Deane with Lettice and Rose, and others; and
-then bachelors began to hover on the confines of the circle--till the
-sick lady's chair became a centre for whatever was going on.
-
-Walter Blount growled at being of those outside, and was very
-down-hearted, though he struggled his best. He cultivated his favoured
-rival Walter Petty, waylaid Lucy, who was not under surveillance,
-several times a-day, and intrusted her with messages to her sister.
-There was Joseph, too, from whom he could extract sympathy at least;
-and then there was the sight of his charmer's back hair, always in
-view at the dinner-table, reminding him how near she was, "if still so
-far"--which was something, but not enough; and after a week, he
-removed his base of operations to Lippenstock, a few miles along the
-coast, where, being out of sight, he could mitigate the severity of
-Margaret's durance, though still within touch of whatever went on at
-Clam Beach.
-
-He might have had others, who would have been happy to distract his
-thoughts, but he could think only of the one, and was indifferent to
-other society; whence it arose that he spent a good deal of his time
-alone, and interested many a tender heart in his behalf.
-
-"Who can he be?" Fanny Payson asked Lettice Deane. "And what is the
-matter with him? Did you ever see so young a fellow, so handsome and
-so down in the mouth, at a watering-place before? _I_ never did. He
-should turn hermit, or join the Shakers. They live quite near. He is
-no sort of use here, and quite out of place. He minds nobody, and I am
-sure I have given him every chance."
-
-"He is not altogether a stranger. He has friends here. He knows the
-Naylors. I see him sometimes with Lucy, and he is often with the
-uncle, whom Rose Hillyard has chosen to inthral. I suspect he is only
-a retiring young man, and painfully shy. What would you say to our
-taking him in hand, and teaching him how nice he might become? He is a
-fine manly-looking fellow, and our hands are not very full just now.
-It would make us feel 'kind o' useful in our generation,' as my uncle
-Zebedee says, to draw him out. Suppose you and I form ourselves into a
-Geneva Red Cross Branch Society, to cure his bashfulness, and teach
-him how to flirt."
-
-"It can't be done, Lettice. I have tried, and I guess you'll allow I'm
-a qualified practitioner. The trouble I've taken! And all for nothing.
-I should feel downright mean about it, if I wasn't sure the man's a
-loon."
-
-"What brings him to Clam Beach, I wonder?"
-
-"That I can't imagine. But he's of no account here. He evidently
-believes his eyes were only given him to see with; as for _looking_,
-he has no more notion of it than a stone wall. I have given him the
-very nicest and most varied opportunities--you know he sits opposite
-me at table. I have tried every variety of assault, from pensive up to
-arch, and he seems absolutely impervious. I doubt even if he could
-distinguish me from the chair I sit on, and yet I have gone so far as
-actually to ask him to pass the butter. He just looks steadily past
-me, as if his attention was fixed on what went on at the table
-behind."
-
-Maida Springer likewise observed the young misanthrope, felt
-interested in him, and discussed him with Mrs Denwiddie. "He has a
-history, that young man," she would say; and she would sigh as she
-said it, as if to imply that there were others who had histories as
-well. "It's a heart history too, and not a happy one; and he has just
-come here, I do believe, to try if he can't learn to bear it. He is
-seeking to drown memory with sounds of mirth and fashionable
-dissipation; but he finds it a hollow mockery, just as others have
-done, and he wanders down upon the wave-beat shore, and listens to the
-ever-sounding sea, and it kind o' calms him, and he comes back feelin'
-better--just like the rest. Ah yes!--as I have done myself."
-
-"You, my dear, with a history? Ah yes! to be sure. You mentioned it
-one day. Your friend went away without proposin', I think you said?
-It may have been mean of him--I can't say; or it may have been a
-mistake of your own. Girls are so ready to fool themselves that way.
-It don't folly that the man was in fault. If a man only passes them
-the apple-sarse with a smile, there are women who will call it a
-particular attention."
-
-"I didn't mention anything of the kind," the other answered tartly,
-turning to go away; but no one of her friends whom she could join was
-in sight, so she changed her intention, and proceeded to bestow on her
-cross-grained companion "a bit of her mind."
-
-"You appear to think it a grand thing to have been able to get
-yourself married, Mrs Denwiddie, and you seem disposed to look down on
-every young woman who is still single; but you don't tell what _kind_
-of man you got, and you forget that if everybody was willing to take
-what offered, there would be no single folks left. We may have been
-too particular, we single women, but the married ones have no call to
-despise us for that."
-
-"No offence, my dear," said Mrs Denwiddie, who really could not afford
-to quarrel with her chief intimate. "I was just speaking in the
-gineral."
-
-"And so was I, ma'am; and don't you forget it. I'm going home on
-Friday, and as there's few you are likely to pick up with much when
-I'm gone, except the single ladies, I would strongly recommend you to
-respect their feelin's, and not brag too much about havin' been
-married. They could have been married too, if they'd have took what
-offered--like some others."
-
-"Hoity-toity, my dear! I said 'no offence.' But you're all that
-tetchy, you old--hm--but never mind. I'm sorry you're going. I for one
-will miss you. I did not think the schools at Montpelier took up so
-soon. I expected that you and me would have been leaving at the same
-time, in about three weeks."
-
-"I have arrangements to make at our ladies' college. They are adding a
-class of Metaphysics and Political Economy, and Miss Rolph, our
-principal, says I would get it if I wasn't so young."
-
-"And well you would teach economy too, my dear, to judge by the neat
-way your gloves and slippers is mended. And it's a thing girls have
-much need to learn, if only there was some one who knew it; but the
-mothers of town-bred girls are ez extravagant mostly ez themselves.
-But how old must a woman be before she is qualified to teach economy?
-Strikes me, if they don't know it when they're young, they'll never
-know it."
-
-"This is metaphysics and political economy. That means running the
-State, not household management. Miss Rolph's establishment is devoted
-to the higher culture. We leave the affairs of common life to
-elementary schools. Miss Rolph says a woman should be forty and a
-formed character before she ventures to instil these grand subjects
-into the American woman of the future. I won't be thirty till my next
-birthday."
-
-"You don't mean that, my dear? You'll be a married woman, I hope,
-before you're old enough to go lecterin' about physic, on them terms.
-And I don't hold with women-doctors, let me tell you. They hain't got
-strength in their arms to pull out a good-sized tooth; and as for
-intelleck, I can't abide a woman of intelleck. But you're different,
-my dear, and you're young yet--in a way; and you do yourself
-injestice, let me tell you. What makes you dress so severe? A veil
-would save your eyes as good as them blue glasses you wear out of
-doors, and be a sight more becomin'. You can't expect to fetch a young
-man with a look that comes filterin' to him through coloured glass.
-And I'd put on more style, if I was as young as you, my dear, and buy
-me a new _jupong_ out of Bosting. There's nothing like stylish
-clothes, my dear, when you're young; and you'll never be younger."
-
-Maida felt positively grateful and soothed at the old woman's prattle.
-It takes so very small a crumb of personal interest to cheer and warm
-the hearts of lonely ones. The schoolma'am was by herself in the
-world, earning her own living, and battling her solitary way in life.
-Those among whom she lived employed her at what she could do, paid
-her, and that was the end of it. They had their own concerns and
-interests. When Maida's work was done, they let her go her way,--a
-drop in the river, a unit in the crowd, into whose life they were not
-called on to intrude, and who would have shrunk from pushing herself
-into theirs. She could have kissed Mrs Denwiddie, had the situation
-been more favourable; as it was, she drew closer to her in their walk
-upon the sands, rubbing against her dumbly, as the animals do when
-they find a friend, and felt warmed in doing it.
-
-Mrs Denwiddie understood, and a motherly instinct awoke within her,
-which was new and pleasant--a fresh interest in the monotony of a life
-in which the bells for meals had been the only landmark.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XIV.
-
-                        SUNSET AND MOONSHINE.
-
-
-Friday arrived, the omnibus came round to the door, and Maida Springer
-bade Mrs Denwiddie farewell. Circumstances had made these two
-intimate, though they had little in common. Both were solitary, and
-neither had the talent of attracting strangers. They were a mutual
-resource, keeping each other in countenance, and enabling both to mix
-in the general company without the apologetic feeling which either
-would have experienced had she been alone. They had grown to have a
-kindness for each other; and it was with quite a warm embrace and a
-moistening of the eye that they parted, each feeling the world emptier
-for the absence of the other.
-
-The omnibus started in the afternoon, trundling leisurely along the
-quiet country roads, stopping here and there by the way to put down or
-take up baskets and an occasional passenger; and on reaching Narwhal
-Junction it remained there for some hours, till a train from the
-North, another from the South, and a third going West, should all have
-come in.
-
-Maida procured a paper at the bookstall, and sat down on the platform
-to await her train, which was the latest of the three. There was not
-much in the paper--there never is, when one tries to read it against
-time; but there were a few arrivals and departures by the other
-trains, to break the tedium; and as the dusty afternoon wore by, and
-the lengthening purple shadows stole out from their lurking-places in
-the woods and under the hill-tops, there was enough to interest any
-one who had eyes to see.
-
-The Junction stood on a middle level, near the edge of a wide extent
-of cultivated land which sloped down towards a quiet river flowing
-away behind; and beyond that were low swelling hills, covered with
-woods, shining like bronze where they caught the slanting light, and
-melting into waves of blue below the horizon. In front, toward the
-south-west, the land sloped up to meet the shadows of overhanging
-thickets, dipping down on the right where a brook in its rocky dell
-escaped from the mountain country farther back, filling the air with
-sound, and babbled onward to the river among the fields. Hills shaggy
-with bush and boulder concealed the streamlet's source; and behind, a
-heaven-piercing peak lifted its reddened profile to the light, while
-blue dim greyness veiled its storm-scarred bosom. A mile distant, on
-the right, the village of Narwhal, with its little tin steeple
-twinkling like a star, was seated where the brook and river met,
-weltering with its surrounding fields in a haze of gold and crimson,
-with purpled woods behind, and all the glorious pomp of sinking day
-above it and beyond--the saffron-coloured sky, the waiting flakes of
-cloud, flashing in scarlet fire to let the sun-god pass, and then to
-draw the curtain on his exit.
-
-The level crimson rays shot for a space along the glorified valley,
-kindling the distant reaches of the river into flame, and impurpling
-the long-drawn shadows with the hue of violets; and then the pageant
-vanished like a dream. Cool, low-toned greys stole out along the
-river; the rosy day-dream of the village paled into common wreaths of
-thin blue smoke; the starry twinkle of the steeple-vane went out in a
-moment, like an extinguished spark. The cirrhus clouds high up in the
-zenith, or far off in the cool east, still showed a rosy tint; but
-excepting these, the war of the giants--the ever-recurring tragedy of
-light and darkness--had played itself to an end. Already the shadows
-of the night were out among the hills, and stealing down in troops to
-overspread the land.
-
-Maida stood and watched the spectacle. She was abundantly read in the
-literature of the magazines. The Solar Myth had always impressed her,
-and now the pomp of sunset recalled the story of Herakles, enthralled
-in Nessus' shirt, leaping on the altar and vanishing in flame. "The
-end of a hero!" she whispered to herself, there being no one else to
-hear--though, if there had been, it would have made no difference.
-Being a free-born American, she felt no false shame about giving
-utterance to her thoughts, however high-stepping they might sound at
-times. If her auditor did not appreciate, it only showed his dulness.
-
-She had removed her spectacles some time before, when the daylight
-grew less glaring. Her hat was pushed back, and her hair rumpled out
-of its usual primness. The pinched, worn, and disappointed set of her
-features--the livery of hard-worked governesses--was lost for the
-moment in the sweet light reflected from the rosy clouds, and the
-natural intelligence always dwelling in her eyes was now warmed into
-enthusiasm over the drama of the elements. She looked pleasing, and
-even pretty, for the moment--her figure slight and girlish, rather
-than skinny, as it had appeared at times under the trying contrasts of
-the crowded hotel. In the elation of her feelings she stood erect with
-head well up, and altogether different from the neglected schoolma'am
-of other times. Wherever the divine gift of intelligence resides,
-there are possibilities of beauty; and the mantle of the flesh at
-times will fall into graceful lines, even though the bufferings of
-circumstance may toss and twist it awry in the general. We are lamps
-of clay through which the inner brightness shines more or less
-clearly; and it is or the flame's being trimmed, or burning low, that
-good looks worth the having mostly depend.
-
-There was a whistle up the track, and presently, with a tempestuous
-rush which made the station tremble, a train swept up to the platform
-and stopped. A big bell was jangled in front of the dining-room,
-and nasal voices yelled--"Narwhal Junction! Twenty minutes for
-ree-freshment!" The passengers alighted and hurried across the
-platform, and Maida bade adieu to her musings and hastened to get her
-luggage checked for her journey.
-
-A gentleman was coming from the distant end of the train. He too was
-hastening, but in the opposite direction. Both were intent on their
-own affairs, the platform was crowded, and ere they knew it, each was
-in the other's arms. Both recoiled, and stood to recover breath and
-apologise. Both looked. Both started in surprise.
-
-"Gilbert Roe!" It was the lady who was the first to speak.
-
-"Maida----?" responded the gentleman, and then he looked apologetic.
-He might be taking a liberty, he thought, and looked about to see if
-there was a husband to resent so familiar a use of his wife's name.
-"Are you travelling alone?" he asked, after a minute's silence, during
-which the lady's eyes had been so intently busy with him that she
-forgot to speak.
-
-"You look older," she said at last. "Of course you must, after ten
-years' absence; but you are only improved--broad-chested and
-prosperous-looking;" and she wrung his hand in an intensity of
-welcome. "Where are you travelling to? What a strange place to meet
-in! Were you coming to----" but she did not finish her sentence. It
-occurred to her that it was her friend's turn to say something now.
-
-"I am on my way to Clam Beach," he answered. "I shall put in a few
-days there, and then try some of the other places along the coast.
-Have been at several already. Not much account, any of them; but this
-is the season for being away. Nothing astir in Chicago at this time of
-year."
-
-"Clam Beach? I've come from there. You'll find it pleasant. The house
-is full; but of course they can put up a single gentleman."
-
-"You are there? Come, that's nice! I declare I'm in luck at last. My
-trip has been real lonesome, so far. I have been so long West that I
-have lost sight of my old friends, and can't scare up one, now I want
-'em."
-
-"You don't deserve to, if you serve them all as you did me. How many
-years is it since you wrote last, do you think? It's eight."
-
-"Eight years? Ah, well, but that is different," he answered, with a
-laugh. "Who is with you at Clam Beach?"
-
-"Who would be? The teachers at our college are mostly home with their
-friends. I'm an orphan, as you know, and I don't make very free with
-strangers; so I come to the shore, like other folks who have no
-friends to visit;" and she heaved a little sigh, but not a painful
-one. If life had been rather empty for her, that was forgotten now;
-"over," I daresay she would have said just then, if her feelings had
-fallen into words, for her eyes were on his face, her lips were
-parted, and her countenance was alight, more brightly than when the
-sunset clouds had lit it up a while ago. This was a rosier, warmer
-light, shining from within. It transfigured her for the moment,
-casting back the gathering years with their encrusting vapours, and
-disclosed her again as the enthusiastic maiden from whom the young man
-had parted ten years before, but purified and brightened by the
-struggles, and the victories, and the wisdom painfully acquired--for
-the moment, that is: there are no tabernacles or abiding-places on our
-mounts of transfiguration, and their glories are evanescent.
-
-"You mean that you are still unmarried? Strange!"
-
-"Strange that a woman should keep her troth, Gilbert? There came no
-word of your death. I only had patience--only waited, just as any
-right woman would have done."
-
-"Hm----" It was not the answer which Gilbert had anticipated, if
-indeed he anticipated any. It startled him, and made him look more
-carefully in her face. Illuminated by the momentary exaltation of her
-nerves, she really looked attractive then, and there was a glowing
-warmth in her eyes resting on his own which thrilled him, and held him
-in a spell not to be shaken off, though he tried. It turned back the
-pages of his memory and opened a far-back chapter where ardent
-passages were inscribed--a chapter broken off in the middle; and then
-a leaf had been turned, and new chapters with new interests and new
-ardours had written themselves in--the stirring interests and eager
-ardours of an intenser life--and the old chapter had remained
-unfinished, and even the part written had been forgot.
-
-Now, the old passage was again before him, and he felt a drawing back
-to the old-time idyl, and an impulse to carry it on and complete it.
-Yet there was a thinness in this proffered draught of love, which did
-not now as of old attract his sophisticated palate. It seemed like
-whey to the shepherd's son who has sojourned in cities and revelled in
-stronger drinks--wholesome, but not exhilarating. The bowl was at his
-lips, but he hesitated to drink. His glance waxed unsteady beneath the
-gaze of blissful trust which beamed on him. He coughed again to break
-the confusing silence, and would have spoken, but he could think of
-nothing to say.
-
-And then the damsel's look grew clouded, in sympathy with, or in
-consequence of, his confusion; and with a little gasping sob and a
-tighter clutch at his hand, which she still was holding, she spoke,
-half whispering--
-
-"And you? You--you are not married, Gilbert?" and her eyes rose
-shrinkingly to his face, with an eager frightened look, as if she
-dreaded to hear his answer.
-
-"N--no--that is--no--certainly not! What makes you suppose such
-things? I have no thought----Tush! you put me out asking ridiculous
-questions. I forget what I am saying;" and he laughed uneasily,
-looking most unnecessarily confused over so simple an avowal.
-
-His confusion was unnoticed, however. Maida looked up in his face once
-more, as trustingly as ever; or more so, for now there was the triumph
-of proud possession. Her ten years' waiting was accomplished; her love
-was come to claim her. The stony road she had been travelling so
-wearily and alone, was behind her now. It grew radiant in retrospect
-by the light of the joy she had now attained, even as the toils of
-battle seem glorious in the lustre of the victory which they have
-achieved. Her love was come to claim her! She stood up closer and
-looked into his face, with upturned lips, awaiting the seal of their
-reunion.
-
-It did not come. The omnibus was drawing up at the platform, and
-Gilbert, calling a porter, turned away to point out his luggage. Maida
-went in pursuit of her own, and to the surprise of the driver, had it
-restored to the place on the roof whence it had been lifted an hour or
-two before, and then followed Gilbert inside, to return to Clam Beach.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XV.
-
-                            IN AN OMNIBUS.
-
-
-The daylight was stealing swiftly yet imperceptibly away. There was no
-moon, and the occupants of the omnibus were speedily wrapped in gloom.
-Besides the two we know of, there were others sitting in silence, and
-in wait for anything to amuse them on the monotonous journey. The
-vehicle rolled easily along the sandy road, without noise or jar to
-drown the sound of conversation, and Maida dared not give voice to the
-many things with which her happy heart was overflowing, before the
-inquisitive strangers, while Gilbert was far from indisposed to hold
-his tongue.
-
-To participate with enthusiasm in a _réchauffé_ of feeling, after ten
-years, and in other scenes and circumstances, demands an effort. If
-the feeling has been one merely of friendship, such participation is
-no doubt possible--nay, the long interval lends an atmosphere of
-pensive charm to the revival, clothes it in roseate hues, and tempts
-one, in looking down the vista of the years, to see the bond as closer
-than it really was. But if the friendship was one "touched with
-emotion," as it mostly is when the parties are a young man and a maid,
-it is different. The aroma of such a tie is far too subtile and
-evanescent to survive much keeping. Cherish the memories ever so
-carefully, as Maida had done, it is only like the storing away of
-roseleaves. The perfume waxes even stronger, but it is not the same;
-it is musty and heavy, like spice or drugs--a mummy of the old sweet
-breath of flowers. Cherish not, as was Gilbert's case, and what is
-left? The roses have withered, the petals crumbled and blown away, and
-what remains but the memory of a remembrance?
-
-Had this meeting come ten years later, when the effervescence of the
-emotions, and the expectation of new sweetness still to be extracted
-from the dregs of youth, had subsided, then doubtless it would have
-been pleasant to recur to a tender friendship, and to trick it out in
-such shreds of sentiment as could be picked from out the lumber of the
-past. Self-love and self-pity would have delighted to dwell on such a
-memento of departed youth, when the time for new attachments had
-passed away. But at thirty a man is still young, except to his
-juniors. There may yet be loves and friendships to come, more precious
-than any which have gone before. He looks back upon his past as a mere
-introduction to his full-fledged present--the raw and callow time of
-his probation--and early kindnesses seem pale, watery, and insipid.
-
-Gilbert was pleased enough to meet an old friend; especially just
-then, when he was bound for a pleasure resort, where, as always, those
-who have friends are tempted to season their social enjoyments with as
-much exclusiveness as they can afford, and enhance the satisfaction of
-being within the ring, by keeping as many as possible outside. But
-this new-found friend claimed so much for their intimacy in the
-past--so much which was special and particular, and for which he
-really doubted in himself if there had been warrant. It was an affair
-of ten years ago. Since then he had led a busy life, overflowing with
-all the excitements; and he wondered now if there could have been
-ground for the meaning she appeared to attribute to it. There might
-have been once, or there nearly might have been--and if the intimacy
-had lasted longer, perhaps there _would_ have been; but they had now
-been ten years apart, and who could resurrect a sentiment buried under
-ten years of oblivion? There had been time for many another tenderness
-since then. And were not attachments like the herbage of the fields,
-of which each season produces its own luxuriant crop? Besides,
-since then a plant more vigorous than any had sprung up, one with
-deeper-reaching root and wider branches, which had usurped the space
-and choked all weaker growths. It was a plant whose fruit had been
-tart as well as sweet; but the complex flavour of it had made his
-palate critical, and anything more luscious would be mawkish now.
-Again, had she not been a little abrupt? Was it nice in her to speak
-so openly--to step so unhesitatingly across the chasm of a ten years'
-separation, into a past as to which he really had forgotten the
-particulars? He doubted if that past had been as she would represent
-it; and even if it had, was it maidenly in her to be the first to
-speak of it?
-
-Still, he was going amongst strangers. This old friend would be a
-resource, and would help to break the ice for him; and no doubt, with
-judgment, he would be able to lead her into seeing things as they
-were, instead of as she wished them to be. And after all, it was a
-kindly trait in her to have remembered him so long, poor girl! He
-hoped it had not interfered with her prospects, much, or made her
-measure others who were candidates for her favour by too high a
-standard. Yet it was well, perhaps, to have a high standard, "a noble
-ideal." That was the way it was expressed by the winter-evening
-lecturers, and the magazine writers; who, as far as he recollected,
-always spoke of it as "precious." And he spread himself a little wider
-in his dark corner of the omnibus, expanded his chest, and felt
-pleased with himself in the new character of "element in a woman's
-higher culture." Ah! what a fellow he was, to be sure! If the girls
-did see his perfections, poor things, it was not his fault. It showed
-only that they had eyes to see, and he could not wish them blind. It
-was impossible, of course, that he could be in love with them all; but
-it was consoling to think that, in being a "noble ideal," he was
-conferring a moral benefit on those whose attachment he could not
-return. And through his mind there ran the familiar lines--
-
-
-             "'Tis better to have loved and lost,
-              Than never to have loved at all."
-
-
-And he sighed contentedly, feeling very kindly towards poor Maida
-Springer.
-
-Maida sat in the opposite corner of the omnibus, tumultuously happy.
-She felt garrulous at first in her elation, but the presence of
-fellow-passengers--staid country folks, who did not speak, but looked
-inquisitively at her and her friend, as strangers in those parts, and
-then communicated with each other in interjectional observations about
-the crops--compelled her to silence; and she had so much to fill her
-thoughts, that soon she fell into a delightful reverie, and had no
-wish to converse.
-
-As the daylight grew more dim, she lost sight of her recovered
-Gilbert; but there he sat before her, all the same--his outline clear
-against the quiet sky seen through the open window, broad-shouldered,
-tall and strong, a very rock of manhood; and every thread and tendril
-of her heart seemed to go out and twine itself around him, as she sat
-nestled in spirit within his shadow, in a passion of trusting
-adoration.
-
-How fine of him to have kept true through all the years!--through
-vicissitudes and seductions such as she could not imagine or
-particularise, but which yet must have been most trying. And now they
-were re-united. And yet, how diffident and even shy he had seemed, at
-meeting her! and with so little to say. Depth of feeling!--to which
-language was too poor to give expression. It was beautiful. And what a
-joy for her, by-and-by, to lend his dumb soul language!--and to
-encourage his faltering emotions to body themselves in words.
-
-"Douglas! Douglas! tender and true!" were the words which kept hymning
-themselves through her brain in a continuous rapture. Ah, what a hero!
-and how goodly was his shadow! It seemed but yesterday that they had
-parted. Ten years of dreariness, the worries and petty scufflings,
-small aims and smaller disappointments, which had seemed so long and
-dull and wearing in their passage, were all forgot and put away, like
-the flatness of a rainy afternoon, when it is over. She was in her
-teens again, strolling in the fields with Gilbert on Sunday
-afternoons, or reading with him on winter nights in the parlour of his
-uncle's homestead, when the children, her charges, were gone to bed.
-
-The air from the fields blew in through the open windows, as the
-omnibus lumbered on, dewy and cool, and sweet with the scent of
-second-growth clover; and she thought of the humming of bees, and the
-sunshine and the peace of the long vacation, when Gilbert was home
-from college, and their talks about the world, and books, and college
-lore, which had been so inspiring, and had filled her with ambitions,
-and tempted her to break from rustic life, and work and struggle, till
-now she was a professor in the Female College of Montpelier. What poor
-dry husks it had all appeared to her but that very morning! And now it
-was past, clean vanished out of her life; and she felt like a moth
-when it casts the chrysalis and spreads its wings to sport upon the
-scented air. The wonder of it all! and the beauty! Now that they were
-past, she would not have had the times of dark probation shortened by
-a day.
-
-The omnibus jogged tranquilly on its way in the sweet summer night,
-diverging here and there to drop a passenger at his own gate, and then
-resuming its course, no one remonstrating at delay or seeking to
-quicken the pace. The casuals were all and severally deposited at
-last. A little longer, and the journey was completed; the dark bulk of
-the hotel, with its countless lights in ranges long-drawn-out and
-twinkling tier on tier, a garish illumination intruding on the
-stillness and mystery of night, loomed up before them, and the
-travellers drew rein before the entrance at Clam Beach.
-
-It was almost with regret that the two found themselves at their
-journey's end, so pleasant had it been; and yet they had not exchanged
-a word. Their musings, different as they were, had been alike
-pleasurably engrossing, and alike productive in each of kindness for
-the other. No two people could have been mutually better disposed than
-were Gilbert and Maida as he handed her out, and waving the porter
-aside, insisted on carrying in her rugs with his own hands.
-
-"Maidy Springer! you back!" was ejaculated, as Maida reached the
-hall-way landing; and out of the darkness of the outside gallery
-swooped Mrs Denwiddie in a whirlwind of flapping drapery, enveloping
-Maida in a cloud of kisses and black grenadine.
-
-"So glad to have you back again, my dear. It's been real lonesome this
-afternoon without you. But what has brought you? I thought you were
-gone to be made a doctoress of philosophy,--and here you are again;
-and not alone either! Is that the philosophy we study? No better than
-the rest, for all your learning. It's woman's subjick you incline to
-after all--a young man--when you can get him. Sly-boots! And me never
-to suspect it. It's not an hour since I was argying with that stuck-up
-old Mrs Wilkie, and insistin' that you was all intelleck; and here you
-are, back with a gentleman to disprove my words."
-
-Maida felt doubtful how she should reply, and but for the joy which
-filled her she would have resented the other's inquisitive freedom. It
-seemed to her at that moment, however, that nothing could ever vex her
-more, and a reproachful look was all she could call up, by way of
-self-assertion.
-
-"Well, yes, my dear," the widow answered to the look, "I'll own to it.
-I _am_ making free. But it comes of the interest I feel in you; though
-many's the spat you and me has had together. But who's the gentleman?
-A mighty fine man. Is it HIM? the one you kind of let on about, that
-was away making a fortune to marry you on? Sakes alive, now! Ain't
-that pretty! If this ain't true love, there's no sich thing. And so
-little as you said! And so despondent-like you used to seem! I reely
-thought the whole a flam, and you just makin' believe a bit, because
-the gentlemen here didn't much mind you. And now, perhaps, you'll be
-married the first, for all the airs some tries to put on." And again
-she pumped Maida's hands up and down by way of congratulation.
-
-"And now, my dear," the widow resumed, "you must make me acquainted
-with the gentleman himself. I'm fairly dyin' to know him. So true and
-so constant! I wonder if there's more like him where he comes from. I
-never saw the man myself would be so faithful. But maybe it's
-yourself, Maidy Springer, has some knack of bindin' them to you;
-though that's a notion never struck me before."
-
-Maida smiled and held up her chin, while her eyes modestly sought the
-ground. She mentioned that she and her friend were going to supper,
-and if Mrs Denwiddie cared to accompany her to the dining-room, she
-would introduce Mr Roe. That gentleman reappearing at the moment, the
-three went in together, and Mrs Denwiddie's sentimental tendencies had
-a treat in watching over the reunion and refreshment of two faithful
-lovers. Her eyes dwelt on the face of the gentleman with smiles of
-motherly solicitude, and she ministered to his wants whenever the
-waiter turned his back, passing him the sugar-basin, handing him jam
-and pickles, and pointing out the nicest kinds of cake, in a way as
-troublesome as it was well intended.
-
-Maida was in glory--too happy to eat or drink. Her credit among women
-was vindicated at last. Evidence of her prowess was there present; the
-victim, a man of six feet stature, acknowledging her silken fetters.
-No one would ever say "old maid" to her again, or think it. She was
-transferred from the forlorn to the triumphant division of her sex,
-and it was altogether "just too delightful." Her merit, even in her
-own eyes, took new proportions. How true she must have been, and
-constant! And she began to perceive what a very superior nature was
-hers, to have cherished this beloved image for ten long years. And
-yet, in her modesty, she had been as little aware of the tenacity of
-her affection as of the enduring influence of her conquering charms.
-To think that she could have loved and waited so long! As if, poor
-soul, there had since appeared in her life any man on whom to bestow
-the treasure of her love. She had not hoped, far less expected, this
-felicity. The memory of ten years back had been but the remembered
-gleam of sunshine in a clouded existence, to be recurred to when other
-women flaunted their successes before her eyes--a testimony that she,
-too, had had her sip of love. Her soul overflowed with gratitude to
-this champion who had vindicated her equality with other women to
-herself and them, with humble trustful devotion.
-
-The sensations were all so new as yet. By-and-by, doubtless, when
-ideas had had time to ferment, it would be different. Victorious
-beauty would as usual demand its dues, trifle with the captive's
-chains, and play at being imperious and exacting. For the present the
-game was all too new; she was too happy for common food, and pastured
-her eyes on the goodly proportions of her hero--his noble brow, his
-moustache, his nose, and all his manifold perfections. Timidly she
-pushed the buttered toast within his reach, and the anchovy paste, and
-watched the carefully divided mouthfuls of his meal as they were made
-away with.
-
-Maida's heart was too full for speech, Gilbert's jaws were employed in
-mastication; wherefore they sat in silence, and Mrs Denwiddie, facing
-them with attentive eyes, was forced to feed her curiosity with
-sympathetic fancies.
-
-"How much the poor dears must be thinking, when they speak so little!
-and how devoted Maida is, to be sure, pressing toast and anchovy upon
-her companion, and never touching a morsel herself! And what a very
-fine man the gentleman is, to be sure! And as for Maida herself, she
-really is not at all amiss--quite spry, in fact, and with a good
-colour, if she do be a little thin. But that will mend soon. There's
-nothing like a good heart to put flesh on the bones."
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XVI.
-
-                           LIPPENSTOCK BAY.
-
-
-The next morning early, ere yet the last night's arrivals were astir,
-there was bustle in the hotel. Omnibuses, carriages, buggies, and a
-few saddle-horses, waited before the door, and soon a loquacious
-company of pleasure-seekers, comprising three-fourths of all the
-guests, came down and were borne away.
-
-Joseph Naylor had the buggy which led, Rose Hillyard by his side, as
-nearly always happened now--though he had many competitors who strove
-hard to supplant him. His luck or good management was remarkable; for
-somehow, though the lady was conspicuously gracious and encouraging to
-the rest, it was nearly always to him that it fell to escort her. Lucy
-Naylor and Lettice Deane were provided each with a horse and a
-cavalier; Margaret, in her riding-habit, was following; Peter Wilkie
-sprang forward to hold her stirrup, but it felt so warm that she
-changed her mind and followed her mother into a carriage, which
-changeableness the latter was far from approving; but Mrs Petty was
-beside her, and young Walter on the box, so nothing could be said, and
-if Peter's mother muttered "whimsical monkey," and looked cross,
-nobody minded. In ten minutes every one had mounted or scrambled into
-a place, and the company started away.
-
-The air was still. The sea stretched like a mirror beneath the limpid
-sky, repeating in livelier tones its cerulean blueness and the pearly
-brightness of the clouds, save near the shore, where the reflections
-grew troubled in the swinging of the glassy swell which broke and
-crumbled in a fringe of glittering surf. There was no breeze, but the
-sun was low as yet, and the coolness of night still lingered in the
-air with a pleasant saltness and the scent of fresh sea-wrack cast up
-along the shore. It was a charming drive, that summer morning, along
-the even firmness of the beach, so smooth, and free from noise, jolt,
-or rattle. The fall of the horses' feet was scarcely audible, and the
-air was astir with the plashing of the breakers in faint monotonous
-resonance, a low and unobtrusive accompaniment to the blithesome
-voices of the merry-makers as they wended along.
-
-The motion was smooth, but the progress was not rapid. The sand was
-heavy beneath the wheels and the horses' feet, and offered a dead
-impediment to speed. But speed was not a thing to be greatly desired.
-The morning, with its brightness, its freshness, and its waxing
-warmth, was something to be lingered in, and breathed with long deep
-inspirations of enjoyment; and no one thought of haste or complained
-of delay, though it took an hour to do the five miles' distance which
-brought them to Lippenstock Bay and the wooden jetty, where a
-steamboat was waiting to take them on board. Out upon the water was a
-new and fresh sensation, and one which arrived just as the other was
-losing its charm. The sands, when they left them, were not as cool as
-they had been an hour before--the genial warmth was beginning to verge
-on heat; and the party crowded on board with enthusiasm, in haste to
-secure commodious corners and lounge at ease, inhaling new freshness
-as the boat put off from the shore with a screech like the cry of a
-sea-gull, and breasted the glassy waters on its voyage round the bay.
-
-Lippenstock Bay is an inlet of eight miles' width, running deep into
-the land, and guarded at its mouth by a double row of islands, which
-shelter it from the outer ocean, breaking the lines of westward-driven
-billows, and rendering it a sheltered roadstead in all weathers. It
-cuts into the gently swelling country which comes down upon the sea,
-with its sandy pasture-tracks, and scattered farmhouses nestling in
-sheltered spots among meadows and shady trees, so snug and thrifty,
-but, alas for the landscape! so aglare with whitewash. If ever the
-spirit of the picturesque shall invade those shores, her first
-exploit, I fear, will be to scatter something of neglect, if not
-decay, upon the scene. In that transparent atmosphere, with its sharp
-uncompromising lights and shadows, the human element of the present is
-aggressively manifest. Each dwelling, in its flagrant paint or
-whiteness, obtrudes itself upon the eye, and insists on being counted
-in, one more residence of a citizen of the Great Republic. The fields
-and roads, the fences and blocks of bush, are scrupulously
-rectangular, without one softening curve: illustrated in the varying
-greens and yellows of the different crops, the country looks as if it
-were covered with a vast patch bed-quilt.
-
-The hills of the rougher country, backed by the blue outline of
-distant mountains, come into view at the upper end of the bay, basking
-sweetly in the light, and clothed in pearly greys where their verdure
-falls in shadow. They relieve the scene from the sense of vulgar
-commonplace which the rawness of nearer objects might impose, and
-above is the immeasurable vault filled with transparent air suffused
-with brightness, including all, and reducing stretches of monotonous
-country within symmetrical limits. The hills behind send down a spur
-across the lower levels to the sea. This ends in a ridge which enters
-the head of the bay, and on it stands the pretty old town of
-Lippenstock.
-
-Lippenstock is one of the oldest settlements on the Atlantic coast;
-and being old, it is rich in the mellowness of tone so sadly wanting
-in other places. Having grown with the community, it harmonises like a
-natural production with surrounding nature, free from the harsh
-obtrusiveness of a brand-new construction, and might almost be a
-cutting from the Old World ingrafted on the still scarce-ripened New.
-Clustered on its tongue of land, it stretches out into the blue deep
-water, a lesser bay margined with yellow sand confining and compacting
-it on either hand; fringed on three sides with wharfs, whose tar-black
-timbers lend a solid definition to the base from which it rises, in
-blocks of russet brown, red brick, and grimy stone, with roofs and
-steeples rising tier on tier in jagged outline backward and upward,
-spreading as they recede, in every tone of blue and purple grey, among
-the tops of the embowering elms which line the quiet streets. A ship
-or two is moored along the quays; for the drowsy place has
-considerable trade, and fishing-boats, with half-reefed umber sails
-and their red-shirted crews, are sleeping on the water.
-
-The throbbing of the steamer's engine sounded far and wide across the
-tranquil calm, the gurgling waters parting at its bow and speeding
-backward in a trail of troubled undulations. The air seemed quickened
-into life by the motion, and fanned the voyagers gently as they
-reclined upon the deck, steeping themselves in sunshine, which, now
-they were on the water, seemed less ardent than it had been ashore.
-
-Mrs Naylor, being an invalid, had had her choice of places. Reclining
-near the bow, where the air was untainted by engine-room vapours, she
-sat in the shadow of her white umbrella in perfect comfort, Margaret
-beside her, with her book and fan and other paraphernalia at hand when
-wanted.
-
-At Margaret's elbow, leaning against the bulwarks, stood Walter Petty
-in watchful patience, waiting for something to say when opportunity
-should arise, though his mind felt too blank to originate an
-observation, while he watched and admired in a worshipful silence
-which ought to have gratified her if she had understood it; but she
-did not. She liked him as a young fellow always kind and nice, but he
-bored her, rather, with his superfluity of still life and lack of
-initiative; or, to put it plainly, she found him much too diffident
-and young.
-
-He was three years older than herself, it is true, and was looked on
-as a wonder of readiness and knowledge by his compeers among the
-budding lawyers of Toronto; but then he was in love, poor lad, in his
-first and earliest passion, which is like the measles, and deals more
-hardly with a man, when, having passed him by before, it falls on him
-out of season. He had studied hard, and his ambition had been so
-entirely in his profession that he had had no thought to waste upon
-young ladies; and often had he scoffed and pitied, to see the
-ridiculous figure his fellows cut in the ecstasies of their calf-love.
-He had listened to their idiotic raptures of hope and despair, and
-wondered how rational creatures could become such fools. Now, the fate
-had fallen on himself. It is decreed that man shall once in his life
-make an ass of himself in dealing with the other sex, however wise and
-prudent he may be in commerce with his own; and the man who never does
-so stumble must be a wiseacre, or worse, an imperfect organism, from
-whose construction the heart or the ideal impulses have been omitted.
-
-Walter's hot fits and cold were like an ague, and left him as limp and
-powerless as an ague would. The briskest and most talkative of his set
-at other times, he found his mind under this new influence dried up
-and sterile, without an idea fit to put in words, now when he was most
-anxious to be amusing and to shine. His being seemed turned into a
-pool of receptivity, absorbing the worshipped image, but unable to
-give back a reflection. He was happy where he stood, within range of
-so much sweet influence, but he was scarcely agreeable; he had nothing
-to say, and he still retained sufficient common-sense to feel a little
-foolish.
-
-Peter Wilkie, sitting beside him on a coil of rope, was under no such
-disadvantage. His feelings were in no wise overpowering, only
-sufficient to make him wish to be at his best. He had had both measles
-and calf-love in their appointed season, and in such easy form as his
-constitution allowed. He had been in love many times, according to his
-capacity--an easy-going and pleasant acceleration of the pulses,
-mental and bodily, without fever or foolishness of any kind. The thing
-ran its course, and went off again as judgment advised, leaving him
-none the worse, and ready to begin the pretty game again on proper
-occasion.
-
-Mr Peter considered Margaret a remarkably fine girl--handsome, clever,
-and with money--who would do him credit as a wife, if he should make
-up his mind to take her. He had very nearly done so. He would have
-done so, but that there was another, a competing beauty, as eligible,
-seemingly, in all respects, and still more attractive. Miss Hillyard
-was quite as handsome; and if Clam Beach knew less about her fortune,
-that was the natural consequence of her being from Chicago. Her dress
-and appointments betokened wealth; and he had gathered from the
-American boarders that the Deanes, with whom she travelled, were
-people of note, and very rich. Her complete self-possession showed
-both that she had lived in the world, and had held a good place in it;
-and, for herself, she was perhaps handsomer than the other. Their
-styles were so different that they could not be compared; but if
-anything, he preferred Miss Hillyard's. Being sandy-haired and
-pale-eyed himself, the brilliant brunette, with her rich colour,
-bright eyes, and abundant hair, had the attraction which lies in
-opposites; and then her conversation and manner were so much more
-formed and matured than were Margaret's. She was a woman, in fact,
-while the other was a girl, and, he fancied, would suit him better as
-a companion.
-
-Miss Hillyard, however, was at the other end of the boat with Mr
-Naylor, as she so often was now--"Why did she waste so much of her
-company on that old cod?" he wondered--in the centre of a knot of
-young people, whose frequent laughter showed that the conversation was
-general.
-
-Margaret was before him, and glancing up at her where she sat, he
-doubted if anything could be prettier than the picture she made, under
-the shadow of her broad-leafed hat, bound with a copious scarf. She
-had little colour; but the healthy pallor harmonised with the blueness
-of her violet eyes, and the brown hair escaping into sunshine behind
-her ear, and flashing like ruddy gold. The colour of her eyes repeated
-itself in the handkerchief knotted at her throat; and her Holland
-riding-habit, fitting without a crease, displayed to perfection the
-lithe young figure, with arms so free and supple. "C[oe]lebs in search
-of a wife" began to doubt if this damsel were not the better choice.
-He coughed to clear his voice, and proceeded to make conversation in
-his best manner.
-
-He talked about the scenery. The bay reminded him of the Bay of
-Salerno, and every other bay, seemingly, which he had ever seen in
-distant places--especially in the Mediterranean--which sounded
-picturesque and romantic to Margaret, who had never been out of Canada
-till now, and tended to impress her with his merit as an accomplished
-traveller and man of the world. He had maundered eastward as far as
-the Gulf of Corinth, and even alluded casually to the Golden Horn,
-with the intention of taking it next, waxing eloquent over the glories
-of Constantinople, and favouring her with recollections and anecdotes
-of Eastern life, when Petty, standing by disgusted at his exclusion
-from a conversation in which he could not gain standing-room, cried
-out--
-
-"See! they are actually launching a big sail-boat up the cove yonder.
-What can people want with a sail-boat in a calm like this?"
-
-Margaret started and turned round, regardless of the coast of Greece,
-Dardanelles, and Bosphorus, about which she had been expecting to
-hear.
-
-"Where are they launching a boat, Mr Petty? Pray show me;" and there
-came a flush to her cheek, and she looked at him so brightly with a
-grateful smile, that the young fellow's heart beat faster than before,
-and he was very happy.
-
-"Do you think they will make out to sail to-day? I wish there would
-spring up a little wind. Do you not think they will manage to get
-along, Mr Petty, with skilful steering?"
-
-"I fear, if they do not get under way, they will have little
-opportunity to steer. When a boat is lying at rest in the water, it
-does not make any difference how you turn the helm. But see! they are
-taking out the oars. They will kill themselves in this hot weather.
-Two men to go rowing a heavy boat like that!"
-
-"Ah, poor fellows! And how they tug and strain to get the great
-unwieldy thing in motion! They will kill themselves, toiling in the
-heat--get sunstroke perhaps. How I wish----" but here she stopped
-short. Perhaps she knew in her heart that she did not wish the thing
-she had been going to say, or perhaps she thought best to keep her own
-counsel. She clutched her hands, and wrung them a little, but not
-enough to be remarkable, and watched the boat.
-
-"What makes her take such interest in the boat?" said Peter within
-himself. "It sounded as if she wished they had not gone out. But who
-are they, that she should wish about them? Or perhaps she was wishing
-that she had not made them go. Ha! that must be it. How eagerly she
-turned to look when Petty spoke! And who could recognise any one at
-this distance? Aha! I smell a rat--a lover--a rival. Have a care,
-Master Peter, or you will miss your footing. Propose and be refused,
-and look like a fool! Take time, and make sure before you leap."
-
-Walter Petty had heard Margaret's exclamation likewise, but it
-affected him differently. Either he was too much interested in the
-young lady, or he was too little interested and hopeful for himself.
-He had always thought of himself as but a poor creature by the side of
-Margaret. All that he perceived was, that Margaret took an interest in
-the boat which he had pointed out, and seemed uneasy about its men
-working so hard. Why she should be uneasy he did not stop to inquire.
-It might be the holy pity of her nature, which sympathised with the
-toils and sufferings of all mankind in a way beyond his ken. It might
-be anything. He only saw that she was troubled and anxious about that
-boat and its occupants, and he hastened to mitigate her anxiety.
-
-"It will not be so very hard when they get the boat under way," he
-said. "Already it goes easier; and see how well they row! They are
-experienced hands. No; never fear. They will not hurt themselves. And
-see, out there upon the bay, those moving clouded places! 'Cats'-paws'
-the sailors call them. They are caused by a puff of air striking the
-water. When the boatmen get out there, their sail will help them, and
-I should not wonder but a breeze is springing up, which causes those
-cats'-paws. Never fear; the boat will do well enough."
-
-He had his reward in the grateful smile with which Margaret regarded
-him, in looking past his ear at the evolutions of the boat in
-question, and which made him feel more adult than he had felt in her
-presence since his lunacy began. The climax of his satisfaction came
-when she began to speak--
-
-"How much you know about sailing and the sea, Mr Petty! and how
-interesting it is, to be sure! Yes, really; I must watch that boat to
-see it work into the breezy water. But of course; there is breeze even
-here. See how my handkerchief flutters when I hold it out;" and it
-seemed to Peter Wilkie, looking on, that one of the boatmen thereupon
-drew out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead.
-
-"Hm," he muttered below his breath. "Look out, Peter Wilkie!"
-
-Walter Petty explained to Margaret that the breeze which stirred her
-handkerchief arose not from the motion of the air, but from their own
-motion through it.
-
-"You seem to know everything, Mr Petty, about boats and sailing;
-and I am so ignorant. Tell me all you know. It seems so mysterious
-that--that pressing the tiller, for instance, to one side should make
-the boat go to the other;" and Margaret turned round full front to
-Petty--it _may_ have been past his ear that she was looking--with her
-profile towards Wilkie, whose countenance fell a little as he asked
-himself--
-
-"Does she guess that I have been smelling out her little game?"
-
-The "smelling out" had seemed droll to him the moment before; but now,
-when this slight sign of displeasure--if it were a sign--might be
-taken as confirmation, it was not so amusing. And yet the girl seemed
-a finer girl than ever, now that he suspected a rival, and perhaps a
-favoured rival, in her regard. He was not going to be allowed to play
-sultan, it appeared, throwing his handkerchief as he pleased, without
-fear of refusal; wherefore he ceased to question the value of the
-prize, and began really to think that he desired it.
-
-What would Mrs Naylor, sitting complacently within touch of her
-daughter, and accepting the conversation of her friends, have said,
-had she known the suspicion which had crossed the mind of Peter?
-Margaret was safe at her elbow, and receiving the attentions of the
-two most eligible young men on board. She would not have believed that
-her girl, open as the day, truehearted and candid to a fault, could be
-signalling to a man--a man unrecognisable for the distance--out there
-in an open boat on Lippenstock Bay. A proceeding on her part so bold
-and so underhand was impossible. And yet, if it were true, whose fault
-was it but her own? Oppression, it has been said, will drive a wise
-man mad. And this was only a girl, pushed, by nagging and injudicious
-curbing, after a course of equally imprudent liberty, to take her own
-way. She had but herself to thank, whatever might happen.
-
-Mothers can remember their children as babies; they have tended and
-ruled them through the years of growth with undisputed sway, and
-maturity arrives so imperceptibly that it is natural they should not
-perceive when the term of their reign has come--that the sceptre has
-withered like a reed, and the children have grown to be women, with
-wills and rights and aspirations of their own.
-
-
-
-
-                            CHAPTER XVII.
-
-                         FESSENDEN'S ISLAND.
-
-
-The steamer throbbed and snorted on its voyage round the bay, like
-some big amphibian of palæozoic times, parting the glassy waters right
-and left, and leaving a long regurgitating trail of swelling waves and
-eddies in its wake. The sun, now overhead, shed down his beams with an
-unmitigated ardour, and the water cast back the glare with blistering
-intensity. There really had arisen a languid air-current from the
-shore, as Walter Petty had predicted; but the boat was now heading
-down the bay towards the open sea, and travelling with the breeze, so
-that on board it seemed to have fallen calm, and was hot and stifling
-to a degree.
-
-The chat among the voyagers flickered low, and then went out, like the
-flame of candles in an unwholesome well. Every one sought for shade,
-and gasped beneath an umbrella, or in some darkened corner of the
-saloon, collapsed and listless. But the steamer snorted on its way,
-regardless of their comfort, and gleeful, as it seemed, in the
-increasing heat; for now she belched forth smoke, and weltered in it,
-letting it curl and twist about her fore and aft, borne on the chasing
-breeze--as though the sportive monster were shaking out her mane, as
-is said to be the wont of the sea-serpent when he rises from the deep
-to fright lone mariners. She had grown fiendish in her mood, that
-misguided steamer, filling the air with foulness, and showering smuts
-on the white umbrellas, the fresh toilets, and even the dainty nose of
-beauty. It grew intolerable, and the passengers might have risen in
-mutiny and altered the vessel's course, but that the heat had left
-them limp and lacking energy. They only groaned and imprecated; while
-the steersman stood like a wooden image by the wheel, one turn of
-which would have blown away the mischief, looking at their misery with
-unwinking eyes, and laughing mayhap down deep within his wooden ribs.
-
-The mouth of the bay was reached in time, and the islands with their
-straits and narrows, and winding channels running in between; and
-beyond, the blue Atlantic. A new life breathed on them the moment they
-passed the cape which terminates the bay. Like pent-up invalids
-escaping from a sickroom, they held up their faces to the sky to drink
-great breaths of freshness. Out there it is always cool, however the
-sun may beat. They threaded the channels among the islands, and then
-sailed out into the far-extending blue, and were refreshed.
-
-Noon was long passed, although they had breakfasted early, before it
-occurred to any one to feel hungry; but at length the idea of luncheon
-presented itself to many minds about the same time, as something which
-would be agreeable. The steamer was put about, and they returned back
-among the islands. One of them, Fessenden's Island by name, lay most
-open to the ocean, and farther out than the others. On this they
-landed. It seemed intended by nature for their purpose, having a
-little cove with shelving bottom which admitted their vessel, and a
-seaward boundary of rocky ledges sinking perpendicularly in deep water
-on the inward side, so that they could moor themselves to the shore as
-comfortably as at a wharf, without the inconvenient intervention of
-the boats.
-
-The hotel servants quickly got their hampers landed, and soon the
-repast was spread in the slowly broadening shadow of neighbouring
-rocks, while the party encamped beneath their umbrellas on the scrubby
-sea-grass, or fetched themselves seats from the ship hard by. The
-clatter of knives and plates, the popping of corks, and the din of
-voices, startled the sea-fowl where they perched overhead; they
-screeched and fluttered angrily at the unwonted disturbance, and
-taking to the wing, they wheeled and circled in the air above,
-surveying the intruders, and eyeing the meats which fear alone
-prevented their pouncing down on and bearing away, and finally, with a
-parting scream, flew seaward in a long white trail and disappeared.
-
-The tide had turned. Two hours were allowed to spend on shore. After
-that, the steamer was to blow its whistle, and they must re-embark and
-get away, or the ship would be left stranded by the ebb, to await the
-following tide. The party having refreshed, broke up, and wandered
-apart as chance directed, to explore the island. Mrs Naylor found
-herself comfortable in her chair. Uneven walking over rocks presented
-no attractions. Digestion and fresh air, combined with snatches of
-light reading and chit-chat, seemed a more rational enjoyment. "But,
-Margaret, my dear, I will not interfere with your more energetic
-tastes," she said; "you can go, if you like, and scramble on the rocks
-like the rest. I shall do nicely with these ladies. Mr Wilkie, I am
-sure, will kindly see that you do not fall over a precipice."
-
-Mr Wilkie rose alertly, and Margaret followed. She had meant to go
-away more quietly, later on, under the care of Walter Petty, whom she
-noticed lingering within call. He was so devotedly kind and
-respectful, that the girl could not but have a kindness for him. He
-would have liked to go, she saw, and he would have answered better for
-the purpose she had in view; though it was not, as he might fondly
-hope, to purr soft nothings in sequestered nooks. However, fate and
-her mother had imposed the more self-satisfied and confident gallant,
-and she must submit; though she felt a qualm of self-reproach in
-meeting the other's glance, in which disappointment seemed blended
-with a shade of remonstrance. Had she not shown a preference for
-him in the boat over that long-tongued rival, whom he cordially
-detested?--turned away from his longwinded rigmarole about travel, to
-ask sensible information from himself? There was no understanding
-those girls, and no use trusting them. And yet this one was
-so--so--what was she not, in fact? But it was desolating, all the
-same. He could not bring himself to join any one else, though there
-were "fellows" as well as girls who would have been glad of his
-company. There was his pipe, however, that silent friend, so soothing
-and so unobtrusive in its consolations. He would have recourse to
-that; and scrambling out to the extremity of the ledge beyond the
-steamboat, he sat him down beside the sad sea wave and blew a
-melancholy cloud.
-
-Margaret and Wilkie scrambled along the shore, made difficult with
-rocks and heaped-up boulders. They clambered briskly enough until they
-had doubled a promontory which secluded them from observation, and
-then Mr Peter heaved a sigh of mingled relief and exhaustion.
-
-"What an abominable way we have come, Miss Naylor! I am fairly blown.
-Here is a smooth rock at last; let us sit and enjoy the view."
-
-"I am not tired at all, Mr Wilkie. Let us get on."
-
-"I do not think we can, Miss Margaret. The shore grows steeper. We
-should have to take to those rocks lower down, all wet and slimy. It
-is scarcely safe. Look at the view from here! Look at the expanse of
-sea! It might be the Mediterranean, so blue and sunny. And those banks
-of cloud along the horizon--are they not fine?"
-
-"Very fine, Mr Wilkie, but I want to see the island."
-
-"My dear young lady, islands are all the same, and one part of one of
-them is just like another part. We need not flounder farther than
-we have come already, to know this one by heart. It is ditto all
-over--rocks sticking out of the water to support a little earth and a
-few sea-birds."
-
-"But I have never been upon an island before, except those wooded ones
-on the St Lawrence, which do not at all answer to your description.
-They are nests floating on the water, and simply lovely. I want to see
-more of this one. Our St Lawrence islands are covered with trees. Are
-there none here?"
-
-"Too exposed here, you may be sure. A gooseberry-bush would be blown
-down in the winter gales, not to speak of a tree. Besides, we really
-cannot go farther along this detestable shore. The sharp stones will
-cut the boot-soles off your feet."
-
-"Then let us go inland. Why should we keep to the shore? The ground
-slopes up easily enough; let us go to the top and gain a bird's-eye
-view of the island. No, really, I could not think of sitting down. We
-shall have more than enough of that in the steamboat before we get
-home."
-
-And so the young man, finding he could not persuade, had perforce to
-let himself be persuaded, and follow when he would have led--or
-rather, sat down.
-
-The slope was not very steep, though it was longer than Peter would
-have expected a walk on so small an island could be; but at length
-they reached the rounded flatness of the summit, and looked around.
-The island spread out beneath on every side, and the sister islands
-were marshalled north and south like sentinels to guard the inner
-waters. Lippenstock Bay lay within them, a burnished glass throwing
-back the sunshine; and the country beyond looked higher, more varied
-and important than when seen from the water-level. An unmistakable
-breeze had now sprung up, and was carrying straggling wreaths of cloud
-before it, the vanguard of more solid masses which were creeping up
-the sky from the distant west. Eastward the ocean now had lost its
-sapphire blueness and grown dull and grey, while far out toward the
-horizon it lowered beneath the oncome of the rising clouds, great
-cumulus masses lifting themselves in heaven and advancing against the
-breeze. They caught the rays of the opposing sun upon their breasts,
-and flashed them back, and sprinkled them on the sea, turning its
-lively blue to a white sickly grey.
-
-"What splendid clouds!" cried Margaret. "But there will be a storm.
-When those clouds from the east meet the clouds in the west, we shall
-have thunder."
-
-"I remember a sky the day I crossed the St Gothard, going down into
-the plains of Italy. Very fine it was----"
-
-"Yes; I daresay it would be. The Old World must be a very superior
-place to this poor continent of ours. Even the sun and moon must shine
-better over there, by all accounts. The wonder is, how any of you
-travelled folks ever cared to come here at all. But say! there is
-quite a breeze coming down the bay; where can that sail-boat we were
-watching have gone? I cannot make out a sail anywhere. Is it the
-dazzle from the water that conceals it, do you think? Or can it be hid
-behind one of the islands, I wonder?"
-
-"I see something white flapping behind that promontory down there,
-where the channel narrows between this island and the next. There it
-falls! They have taken it down. The men must be landing."
-
-"Where? Ah! let us run down and see."
-
-Peter would have liked to bite his tongue. Found guilty of that
-offence unpardonable in trans-Atlantic eyes, of praising the Old World
-at the expense of the New, he had thought to make his peace by
-discovering for his companion the object for which her eyes were
-searching the prospect; and he had done it with a vengeance. Not only
-was the offence forgotten, but himself seemed likely to be forgotten
-or overlooked as well. To think that he could be _gauche_ enough to
-conduct his fair one into the arms of the very rival who had aroused
-his suspicion that morning! He had forgotten since then; things had
-gone so smoothly and pleasantly. What an awakening! "Duffer!" he
-muttered below his breath, and felt humbled indeed. But he made one
-poor struggle with destiny ere he yielded. He pulled out his watch,
-and asked his companion with a start if she had any idea what was the
-hour.
-
-"The tide is turning, you must remember," he added. "We shall hear the
-whistle within fifteen minutes, and the steamer cannot wait. The
-skipper says she will be grounded by the ebb if we are not off by
-four. And a storm is coming on. I declare I hear distant thunder
-already. How dim the light is getting, too! It will take all we can do
-to be back in time. We have only twenty minutes."
-
-"Your watch must be fast," and Margaret pulled out her own. "Ten
-minutes past three I make it, and I know mine is fast. See the groups
-scattered all over the island! No one has thought of turning yet.
-There is Judge Petty with his hammer pounding specimens out of yon
-cliff. Yonder is my sister with somebody picking flowers for her.
-Nobody thinks of gathering _me_ a bouquet, ever. There is a party down
-there in the hollow, and I can distinguish Lettice Deane's voice quite
-plainly; and far over are two people standing on the edge of a cliff
-showing like silhouettes against the open sea. Uncle Joseph is one of
-them. No one is thinking of turning back."
-
-"But, Miss Naylor, the storm will be on directly. Observe how dim it
-grows. You will get drenched with rain."
-
-"I don't think it will rain till evening."
-
-"Indeed it will. See how the clouds are coming up! Hear to the
-rumbling thunder!"
-
-"I am not afraid. But if you think otherwise, I should not like to
-spoil your pleasure with the prospect of a wetting. Good-bye. You can
-tell them to expect me shortly." And she skipped away.
-
-There was nothing for Peter but to follow, little as he could expect
-his presence to be welcome when they should come on that rival at the
-bottom of the hill. He hated the fellow, of course, and wished him
-"far enough," but he could not help feeling curious to see him. Yet he
-followed without alacrity. For the sake of argument, he had spoken of
-the light as growing dim; now he felt it to be so indeed. The warmth
-and brightness had gone out of the day for him, and it was become a
-common thing. Not that he would have said so. The poet's trick of
-drawing voices from inanimate nature to express or sympathise with
-his momentary emotions was none of his. He was matter-of-fact and
-common-sensical to a degree, if at the same time lucid-minded and
-intelligent: but still he was human like the rest of us; and for that
-matter so is the poet, "fed with the same food, hurt with the same
-weapons, subject to the same diseases." If he were not, what would his
-utterances be worth? His gift is utterance, but the thing he utters
-must be within the possibility of all to feel. And Peter felt, though
-the influence had stolen on him unawares. He had been in Margaret's
-company through successive hours, and she was a flower too fresh and
-sweet for any insect to have fluttered round so long without becoming
-intoxicated somewhat with the fragrance.
-
-At the bottom of the hill, behind an intervening rock, they came
-upon a sandy beach, the extremity of a bar which runs across to the
-nearest island, connecting the two at low water, and forming the only
-landing-place other than that of which the steamer had possession. The
-boatmen were securing their craft as the two came in view. One of them
-with a shout sprang forward and bounded up the steep to meet them. He
-seized both Margaret's hands and shook them rapturously; then,
-remembering that she had a companion, to be accepted as a necessary
-evil, he turned round to Peter, raised his hat, and ceremoniously
-wished him good-day.
-
-Peter returned the salute, and looked curiously in the other's face to
-divine what manner of man this favoured one might be, if haply he
-might yet be dealt with, outman[oe]uvred, or supplanted, and
-recognised with astonishment that it was "that" young Blount who had
-spent a few days at Clam Beach. His feelings expressed themselves in a
-low, scarce audible whistle; and circumstances, looks, tones, details
-from the week before, so trivial that he had not been conscious of
-remembering them, sprang suddenly into knowledge and arranged
-themselves; as when a thread is dropped into a chemical solution,
-crystals gather from the fluid, and shape themselves with mathematical
-precision round the nucleus. The circumstances strung themselves in an
-induction amounting to demonstration, that Margaret Naylor had
-bestowed her regards, and that he had come too late into the field.
-
-The young people were assiduously polite to Mr Peter. They did not
-wish that unkind rumours of their meeting should circulate in the
-hotel, and they would not request him to keep a secret for them--their
-feelings would not permit them to do that--so both endeavoured to
-conciliate his goodwill. They did what they could to include him in
-their conversation; but he was inattentive, answering at random or not
-at all. The sudden revelation had confused him like a blow, and his
-thoughts kept wandering back to the details on which his induction was
-based, trying them and endeavouring to shake their consistency,
-wondering that he had not read the truth before, and pitying himself
-in what now seemed his disappointment.
-
-His answers were made at random, but they did not observe it. They
-were feeding their eyes upon each other's faces, after a three days'
-separation, and they had no thought for anything but the delight of
-being together. How good it was! They babbled, scarcely knowing what
-they spoke of, and any observation which Peter chose to interject was
-perfectly good as conversation in their eyes, sitting there together
-on the shore, touching one another, looking shyly in each other's
-eyes, hearing each other's voices, and being happy. Peter lounged
-beside them on the ground, twisting his awkward limbs into uncouth
-knots, and feeling dull and flattened out, defeated and humbled,
-though nobody had done anything to him whatever.
-
-And time and tide went on their wonted course, but no one of the three
-took notice of their passing.
-
-
-
-
-                            CHAPTER XVIII.
-
-                              AN ADIEU.
-
-
-The cloud-masses in the east had risen over half the sky. They now
-presented only a rim of flashing white along the upper edge towards
-the sun. The concave vault within was dim and lowering, and was
-advancing visibly upon the darkened sea. Low sighing voices came
-across the water, with the continuous flickering of far-off lightning
-and the grumble of distant thunder. The sea was no longer asleep, as
-it had been an hour ago beneath the placid light. A rolling glassy
-swell, which momentarily grew heavier and higher, was coming in from
-the ocean. The steamer at its mooring no longer lay firm and still
-like part of the adjacent rocks. It rose and fell obedient to the
-undulations, and strained upon its cables. The tide was ebbing. Not
-many inches now interposed between the bottom and its keel; and as the
-swell grew higher, there was danger that ere long she would bump upon
-the rocks.
-
-The captain, watch in hand, grew restless and impatient. The
-passengers' time ashore was hardly yet run out, but every minute
-had grown precious, and he longed to be afloat. He tugged the
-whistle-chain, and startled the still air with loud discordant yells,
-then ran, gesticulating and shouting, to the poop, to warn those at
-hand that they must hurry on board, as there was no time to lose. The
-loungers rose and stretched themselves, unwilling to be disturbed; but
-there was something imperious in the short shrill screeches of the
-whistle, and they obeyed. The strollers heard and turned, and even ran
-when they came in sight and saw the excited skipper swinging his arms,
-and the men already preparing to cast loose from the shore.
-
-In a wonderfully short space the deck was alive with passengers and
-the shore deserted. The skipper cast a searching look along the higher
-grounds within sight. There was no sign of human presence remaining on
-the island. The whistle uttered a last long melancholy scream of
-parting, and was silent, the steamer lurched upon the swell, and they
-were out in deep water.
-
-The passengers separated into groups and rested, like the sediment of
-troubled water in a pool, watching the oncoming of the storm, as to
-which there could now be no mistake. Already the first eddies of the
-rising wind were coming from the east, and the sea was rising rapidly,
-making landsmen feel sedate in anticipation of that worst evil of the
-deep, the qualms of sickness.
-
-There was one, however, on whom the heavings had no effect. Her mind
-was disturbed; bodily discomfort was forgot, or only added to her
-anxiety. She got up from her seat and reeled across the deck to Mrs
-Naylor, who sat buried in pathetic silence, awaiting whatever might be
-in store.
-
-"Mrs Naylor, what ever has come of my Peter?" she said. "I cannot see
-him anywhere. He always comes to look after his old mother. Where is
-he now?"
-
-"I do not know, Mrs Wilkie. This motion is dreadful. Oh, how could I
-be so foolish as venture out to sea on this horrid little boat!"
-
-"But you _must_ know, Mrs Naylor; I saw that girl of yours taking him
-away, and I have not seen sight of him since. What has she done with
-him? Oh, those girls! they will be the death of me."
-
-"He certainly took Margaret for a walk, but I have not seen them
-since. No doubt they are in the cabin lying down. I wish I were there.
-I wish I were anywhere rather than here. This see-saw motion is
-dreadful."
-
-"What a woman! And she calls herself a mother! I wonder ye don't think
-shame, ma'am, sitting there at your ease, and never minding what comes
-of your own daughter. But she's foisted her on my poor Peter, and
-that's all she cares for. And she's not minding what I say wan bit.
-Oh, thae Canadian women!"
-
-Mrs Naylor was too poorly to rejoin. Engrossed in her own misery, she
-probably did not hear.
-
-"Here you! Steward, waiter, whatever ye are," cried Mrs Wilkie, "go
-down to the cabin. I would break my neck if I ventured through this
-feckless crowd. See if ye can find Mr Wilkie--a big handsome
-gentleman. Ye can't mistake him. Tell him his mother's up here, and
-wants him."
-
-The messenger went, and returned, and was sent over all the ship, in
-vain. The missing man was neither to be found nor heard of, and it was
-discovered that Margaret Naylor was missing likewise.
-
-"Oh, captain, captain! put back--put back! You've left Mr Wilkie
-behind."
-
-"Impossible, ma'am. We couldn't get in at the landing now. The weather
-is growing worse, and we must make what speed we can back into the
-bay. This is not a sea-going craft."
-
-"But you've left my boay on a desert island, and ye'll have murder or
-marrich on your soul. Ye _must_ go back; or I'll have the law of ye as
-soon as ever I get my fut on dry land."
-
-"We might never reach dry land at all, if we were to put back in the
-weather that is coming on. The gentleman is quite safe. The fishermen
-have a cabin, round the island at the other landing. He'll be all
-right, and comfortable."
-
-"Why will ye not go to the other landing, and see? to ease a mother's
-feelin's."
-
-"There's a sand-bar there. We could not get near the shore."
-
-"Ye might try. Ye could send your boat for them.... Yonder! I see a
-black thing moving.... He'll be dead or married before morning. Oh,
-captain!... Turn!... For pity's sake!"
-
-The captain turned and looked in the old woman's face, whose eyes,
-already full, were on the point of brimming over. The alternative she
-named seemed rather an anticlimax, and not so very harrowing. He would
-have liked, himself, to be offered such a choice, but fate had never
-so favoured him.
-
-"He'll do, ma'am. She ain't half bad, the craft he has in tow. She's
-right and tight. I saw them steering off together."
-
-"He'll be done for, ye scoffin' reprobate! Ye think it fine fun, I
-daresay; but it's no joke to a man in his poseetion. The girl's well
-enough, for anything I know. In fack, I thought her not amiss. But
-marryin's an expurriment ye can try but wance; and I want to make sure
-before I give my leave.... Do you no see yon black thing movin',
-captain? It's him! I'm sure of it. Turn!... like a lamb!" and she held
-out her hands.
-
-The lamb smiled within his beard; but the blandishment was unavailing.
-"There's nothing moving but the ship, ma'am; and she'll have to move
-faster, or worse will happen;" and so saying, he escaped to the
-engine-room to crack on more steam.
-
-Mrs Wilkie was in despair. She clasped her hands and staggered to the
-taffrail, to gaze her last and fondest on the retreating island. She
-clung to the flagstaff, with eyes streaming tears, and her short grey
-curls draggling in the wind. She even waved her parasol in sad adieu;
-but the wind, ere long, caught hold of that, and spread it out, and
-twitched it from her grasp, and sent it spinning through the air away
-to leeward. Anon she waved her handkerchief, when she could spare it
-from its duty at her eyes, clinging to her flagstaff, swaying and
-swinging, heaving and falling, with the motion of the vessel, till the
-pitiless ocean asserted its cruel rights, and she sank a sea-sick
-Niobe upon the deck.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XIX.
-
-                            STORM-STAYED.
-
-
-His niece's eyesight was not at fault when she thought that she
-recognised Joseph Naylor's figure silhouetted against the horizon. It
-was he indeed, and he was not alone. That was the sweetest walk, he
-told himself, which he had ever taken. It was the happiest day; and he
-looked back in his tranquil bliss, standing with eyes which rested
-dreamily upon the sea; and, forgetting to converse, he wondered if the
-unreasoning transports he had known in youth were to be compared to
-this.
-
-It seemed like the warm radiance of an unclouded afternoon succeeding
-a day of rain which has been ushered in by deceitful sun-bursts, sent,
-as it were, to deepen the succeeding gloom. The peace and trust, and
-the contented sense of basking, without a wish left unfulfilled, were
-inexpressibly sweet. The sense of doubleness, which had disturbed his
-earlier intercourse with his companion, had disappeared. His spiritual
-eyes had focussed themselves into agreement, and now the two images
-were blended into one. It was the first and only tenderness of his
-life, stifled though still smouldering beneath the years of widowhood,
-on which this stranger had chanced to let in air; and the spark divine
-had awoke among its ashes, and was again aflame.
-
-Words he had none just then. His being was strung too high for the
-vibrations to be made audible in common utterance. He was only
-receptive now, drinking in influence from her presence, but making no
-response. They had been together all the day. In the morning they had
-been gay at the cheerful starting. They had been conversational as the
-day waxed warmer, companionable when it threatened to grow oppressive,
-and they had felt like very old friends who understood each other
-thoroughly, when they set out to walk.
-
-The extreme tranquillity at which they had now arrived was a little
-more complete than Rose Hillyard altogether enjoyed. Fortunately she
-was sympathetic by nature, and understood a great deal more than was
-conveyed to her by words. She appreciated the silence--felt, indeed,
-that it was the highest compliment, or rather something immeasurably
-beyond compliment; but ere long she began to wish that it would not
-last much longer.
-
-The mind of Rose was not altogether so utterly at ease as it appeared,
-though she would not for the world that any one should have so
-suspected. She would have done violence to herself, even, sooner than
-acknowledge in her heart that she was not at peace; but still there
-was a fever in her blood, making her restless, and eager to be doing,
-and drown an inarticulate yearning for something she would not name.
-
-The silence drove her back upon herself, and gave voices opportunity
-to make themselves audible within--voices she had endeavoured to
-silence, and forbidden to be there. "If the man would only say
-something! If he would even flirt!" That was a pretty game which she
-believed she understood and could play with the best. But this was not
-flirtation: it was right down solemn earnest; and she was pleased in
-thinking that it was. A good man's happiness was in her hands; and
-more, she liked the man, and believed, I dare affirm--though we must
-not say "intended to accept" what has not yet been offered--that when
-he declared himself she would lend a friendly ear.
-
-And yet she had rather he would have flirted. The stir and interest of
-the game would have afforded the excitement for which she craved. It
-was but a game, and could be played without a second thought. The
-serious thing was different. So much depends on it, that people play
-it slower; and they play it with the heart, and not the head, which is
-the more nimble member. It was movement and excitement for which her
-fibres ached; though peace, if that had been attainable, had been far
-more precious.
-
-"How fond you must be of the sea!" she said at last. "We seem to have
-been standing here a long time."
-
-Joseph started, and turned. Her voice had broken in upon a reverie
-which could not be called a day-dream. It had been too passive for
-succession of ideas, and was rather a receptive bathing in the
-blissfulness of the situation. But yet no waking could have been
-sweeter than the sound of that voice which now addressed him. It was
-the same which he remembered long ago, whose echoes had thrilled him
-in his dreams, and made his wakings sorrowful to find it was not
-there. It was with a smile and a deep full breath of satisfaction that
-he turned to his companion.
-
-"Forgive me," he said. "It is so pleasant being here, that I forgot
-about passing time.... Yes, I am fond of the sea. I always was. I left
-home to go to sea when I was a boy--could not stay away from it. It is
-so big and so even, and it changes under one's very eye, you can't
-tell how. It feels as if it were alive--a being that could understand
-your thoughts without your telling them."
-
-"So it does. I know the feeling, although I never attempted to put it
-into words.... The sea is company--when one is alone; but now----?"
-and she looked up in his eyes with the flicker of a smile which was
-scarcely reproachful, yet not quite humorous.
-
-"Most true," he answered, smiling in reply. "The silent communion with
-Nature is not a sociable observance; and, as you say, we must have
-stood here a good while. Let's follow this footpath. It seems to run
-round the island on the inner side. The walking will be easier, and we
-shall get back sooner than by crossing the hill as we came."
-
-The path ran for a time along the edge of cliffs, which stood some
-forty or fifty feet above the sea, and sank sheer down into deep
-water, fretting the smooth green billows rolling by into a fringe of
-foam. Turning with the rounding of the land, the path struck down upon
-the leeward side of the island and ran along the shore.
-
-"Should we not hurry?" Rose Hillyard observed. "The tide must have
-sunk a long way since we left the steamer. See those rocks covered
-with wet sea-weed. They must have been under water this last tide, and
-now they are feet above it. The captain spoke about the tide, and his
-fear of stranding, and being forced to wait twelve hours for next high
-water. Must we not make haste?"
-
-"I do not see why we should disturb ourselves. There are three of our
-people yonder, sitting on a sandhill and at ease. Had we not better do
-likewise? They seem happy.... As for me, I have no watch, and no care
-for time. Let us be guided by _them_."
-
-"And my watch has stopped, or something. Well!... I hope those others
-are keeping track of the time.... Yes, it is nice here. The air is
-more still than it was on the cliffs, and yet not so hot. But is the
-light not growing dim? This is pleasanter than the glare of mid-day.
-Why can it not be always afternoon? Yet, has it not come on us rather
-suddenly?"
-
-They were sitting now, and their talk was dribbling along in an easy,
-drowsy way, such as might be expected from people who had been for so
-many hours in each other's company. It was after luncheon, after a
-walk, after a day whose heat and blazing brightness had only been made
-tolerable by fresh sea-air, in itself a form of stimulation. Their
-nerves, all day kept tense, were relaxing now, and a restful feeling,
-born of harmonious companionship, was extending from the mind into the
-physical system, and producing a tranquillity in which content was
-verging towards lethargy. In fact, they were a little tired, and more
-than a little sleepy. Head propped on hand, and that supported on the
-extended elbow, they reclined upon the bent which clothed a swelling
-sandhill. Conversation grew intermittent and monosyllabic, and then
-ceased--their eyelids growing momentarily heavier without their being
-aware.
-
-A shrill reverberation broke upon the air. It stopped, and began anew,
-and ended in a volley of shrill, short, barking shrieks. Joseph lifted
-his head and looked about. He had forgot about the steamboat, and the
-idea of its whistling a recall did not occur to him It was sea-fowl he
-thought of in that solitary place, and he wondered drowsily at the
-harshness of their cry, and their strength of lung. He threw a
-listless glance aloft, but not a wing was visible over all the sky;
-only the sun was veiled now in a cloud, and did not dazzle--which was
-comfortable, and made the restful feeling more complete.
-
-The next sensation he was conscious of was damp. Big drops of rain
-were lighting on his face, and wetting his limbs through the thin
-summer clothing. He started now. Yes, he must have slept. The sky was
-black, and the scene grown dim like twilight. Like twilight for an
-instant, and then a blinding flash made everything intensely visible,
-and the heavens seemed to crack above the trembling earth with loud
-reverberating thunder.
-
-He started and laid his hand on his companion's shoulder.
-
-"Rosa!"--How sweet the name felt on his lips, even in his hurry! It
-was his first time to use it. But had he the right?--"Miss Hillyard!
-Arouse! A storm is coming on. You will be drenched. Arouse!"
-
-Rose opened her eyes. She looked straight in his, and with a pleasant
-smile. It was an instant before she was fully conscious of the
-situation--so sweet an instant! Then she was herself, and sprang to
-her feet.
-
-"We must run! But where? How wrong of me to sleep!" It was Joseph who
-spoke. "Ha! down yonder on the beach I see a boat. We may find shelter
-for you near there."
-
-The lightning flashed incessantly. The air quivered with the
-resounding thunderclaps succeeding one another without interval or
-pause. The rain streamed down. The windows of heaven were opened, and
-the waters of the firmament descended in sheets, as if to overwhelm
-the earth.
-
-He took her hand, and they hurried along the sands towards the boat,
-as quickly as they could, by the gleam of the intermittent flashes,
-which blinded while they lasted, and yet made the intervals between
-seem dark as night by contrast.
-
-A halloo reached them as they stumbled on, and made them turn aside,
-where, in a sheltered corner, stood the fishermen's hut. They were
-inside in a moment, still dazed and panting from the buffeting storm,
-and streaming with rain, though the time they had been exposed to it
-was shorter than it has taken to relate. Grateful for the shelter,
-they recognised that it was Blount and Wilkie who had hailed them,
-while Margaret stood within, coaxing some dying embers into flame with
-the aid of a fan and some fresh fuel, preparatory to drying herself;
-for she too had been caught in the rain, though she had not been
-drenched as Rose was. The men, watching the storm from the open door,
-had seen the others hurrying by, and had hailed them to the shelter
-they would otherwise have missed.
-
-"You?" cried Walter Blount, in a tone which betrayed perhaps a shade
-of disappointment as well as the natural surprise. He had known of the
-expedition to Fessenden's Island, and had sailed thither in hopes of
-what would scarcely be an accidental meeting, and he had been
-fortunate beyond his expectation. When the whistle of the steamer had
-sounded, he had heard, but Margaret had taken no heed, and Wilkie in
-his discomfiture, had seemingly not observed. It would have been
-gratuitous on his part, he thought, to disturb the harmony and
-precipitate a parting, seeing that he had a boat of his own, in which
-they could return at any time. If Wilkie would have gone, it would
-have been better still, only that Margaret must have accompanied him;
-wherefore he exerted himself to brighten the talk, and keep their
-thoughts as far as possible from the subject of the steamer; and to
-his own surprise he succeeded, for he could not understand why "_that
-fellow Wilkie_" should feel engrossed.
-
-And perhaps the "fellow" was not, but only mortified and squelched at
-the unwonted neglect into which he, who had come to look on himself as
-an invincible lady-killer, had fallen. Anything seemed better to him
-than the shame of returning to the steamer alone. How would he feel
-when asked what he had done with his companion? And, foolishly, he had
-a misgiving that if he proposed to return, she would not accompany
-him. Her attention was now transferred entirely to the rival, and he
-found himself nowhere. But he would stick to her like a burr. One can
-sometimes spoil a game which one cannot join in. He was sure the rival
-wished him away; and that was reason enough for sticking fast and
-showing no sign. By-and-by, when the other was gone, the lady would be
-more amenable to his displeasure, and then would be his time to show
-it.
-
-As time wore on, the sky grew dark, and presently the storm was upon
-them. They retreated to the hut, and then Margaret remembered about
-the steamboat. Wilkie looked at his watch, and said they had outstayed
-their time; but the deluge of rain made it impossible now to set out
-on the return. Blount's man was despatched to warn the skipper, and
-they resigned themselves to await the subsidence of the storm. The
-last users of the hut had left a fire behind them, of which a coal or
-two still smouldered in the ashes; and Margaret, uneasy at the account
-she should have to render by-and-by, made busy in rekindling the
-blaze, rather than resign herself to forebodings of a maternal
-lecture.
-
-"You?" was Blount's exclamation, repeated a second time, when the
-newcomers entered the hut; and the tone of disappointment verged
-closely on disgust. Joseph Naylor was his friend, but at that moment
-he would have preferred almost any other intruder. He was his friend,
-but he was also Margaret's uncle, and therefore the most unwelcome man
-who could have appeared. Standing by the open door and listening to
-the thunder and the falling rain, after despatching his boatman to the
-steamer, he had been building himself a castle in the air. The
-steamboat would be gone when his messenger reached the landing. The
-man, while obeying, had assured him of that, as it was only at the
-height of the tide that she was able to approach the island. The
-steamboat being gone, Margaret must take passage back with him in his
-sail-boat. Landed at Lippenstock together, it would not be hard to
-give Wilkie the slip; and then, behind a lively trotter, they could
-start for parts unknown. It would be days before the family could
-overtake them. Ere then they would be man and wife, and the family
-would gladly make the best of what it could no longer prevent. He had
-never known Margaret so soft and sweetly amenable to influence as she
-had been these last two hours. Fortune seemed to have softened her
-mood on purpose to assist him. He felt sure he could persuade her; and
-here, at the very turning-point of his fate, appeared uncle Joseph,
-"_a god out of a machine_," to spoil all. It was unspeakably grievous.
-
-Wilkie cried "You!" at the same moment as Walter; but the tone was
-different. There was hope and relief in both his face and voice, in
-marked contrast with the other. Consolation, hope, indemnity for
-slights, all shone before his view in the appearance of Rose Hillyard.
-She was escorted, to be sure, but only by "old Naylor"--a man half as
-old again as himself, and not nearly so polished or agreeable. "The
-Hillyard" had often struck him as in many respects superior to
-Margaret Naylor. At the worst, to form one in a quintet could not but
-be pleasanter than he had found the part of supernumerary in a trio.
-He positively beamed upon the newcomers, and would willingly have
-heaped wood on the fire, and even assisted Rose to make herself
-comfortable; but she assured him that Margaret Naylor and herself
-could do everything, and he must rejoin the men in the porch without,
-or, like Peeping Tom of Coventry, he might find himself struck blind
-on the spot.
-
-
-
-
-                       END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
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